A.J. Lawrence:
All right, well, I’ve been working with Glen almost a year now. Introduced, as I’ve discussed, when I thought I had an acquisition and moving forward, only to have it kind of blow up at the last second. Other things have happened since, but still, that was kind of a fun experience we won’t go into here. But I started working with Glen because I really wanted to make sure I was getting back into entrepreneurial shape. You know, I have a lot of smaller things that I do. I work with a bunch of really great clients, but in running a larger business, I remember from my own experience, it was a lot of focus on, a lot of just understanding the moving parts. I mean, look, I’m oversimplifying. I was hoping we can do today one, we can learn a little bit about Glen’s background. Because Glen has this great background and he’s done some, some really cool things to the side of everything that I think are really kind of cool ways of pushing yourself. And I want to kind of get into that. But then I want to talk about and have him explain sort of the value of coaching, where he kind of brings value and how those of us in the audience who are thinking about coaching can go about one, understanding what you get out of it and what you don’t. I used to always complain that I wanted the cheat codes when I was much younger earlier. I just wanted cheat code, just tell me what I should do. And it doesn’t quite work that way. And kind of one of the reasons why I love working with Glen is he never tells me what to do. He gives me great ideas, but he never tells me to do. He just kind of says, so how are you going to do that? And I’m like, f^ck. But we’re going to get into that and how you should think about it and then what are the ways. And Glen, just as we were prepping here before, had a great example of trying on gloves. How do you try on different coaches, how do you work with it? And I want him to use that metaphor later again because it was kind of cool. Glen also has, besides one on one coaching, he has these CEO groups where a bunch of us get together once a month and we talk and he kind of herds us sort of like cats towards working together. And I’m always hearing these great stories of like, oh yeah, when Glen was on the team, when Glen was working with us and we did this, Glen took over this part. Oh yeah, Glen had done this and this. I’m like, wait, what has Glen done? Can you talk a little bit about your background?
Glen Hellman:
So I’m going to just start with this. I graduated from Maryland a long time ago. I’m going to give away some age, 1978. And when I graduated, I was part of my graduating class that made the top 70% possible. In other words, I wasn’t a great student. Matter of fact, I had a hard time finding my first job. And at one time I grew up in New Jersey, I went to University of Maryland, my parents said, Glen, you got two weeks to find a job or you’re coming home. That is a threat with a lot of teeth.
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Glen Hellman:
New Jersey is a great state to be from. It was not a state I wanted to be in. So with my feet to the fire, I interviewed at all these high tech companies and I was pushing hard. And IBM, who had a great training class, didn’t have the grades. Xerox, which at that time was a high tech company, had great training, didn’t have the grades. I kept hearing that, hearing that. At Maryland, I had the opportunity to use a word processor, one of the first word processors with a screen to do my resume. So I went down to their office. I said, I want to work here. They said, we don’t have training. We only hire experienced salespeople from Xerox, IBM, all the people that wouldn’t accept me. And under the threat of having to go back to New Jersey, I wouldn’t leave. I said, look, I will work here for free. You have salespeople. I will carry their bags and learn the business and help them and make them more effective. And long story short, they gave me a job.And I made my number the first year, and by the third year, I was managing a group of people 10 years or more my senior, 10 people in a commercial branch. So I had some success. And from sales, I moved into sales management. I moved into marketing management. I was an early employee at a company called Progress Software. We went public. I made a lot of money. I invested it in a startup. We failed miserably. I know exactly why we failed. I personally lost $100,000 on that. And I wound up helping another company raise money, reorganize, and I brought in some investors that were in Progress, some large ones like NEA. And within six years of raising money, we sold it for $92 million cash. And that was in 1991. So that’s, you know, $92 million could buy a nice car.Anyway, one of the investors came to me and said, Glen, we have a company just like Call Technologies, the one that we had sold. We’d like you to run it. It’s failing. I came in and I returned $6 million to the investors who had put 70 million in. Not a win, but better trajectory. We sold the company. They got some tail money from that. And I did a succession of five turnarounds and woke up one morning in a sweat. So that first one, we had over 300 employees and I had to get them down to 80 in 90 days. By the way, the first day, if you remember those heady days of the dot bomb era, we had 300 people the day I started. We had 299 on day two. The only easy cut I had was I got rid of the masseuse because we had a masseuse on staff.
A.J. Lawrence:
Just kind of one little color in that period because I was in that period and I kind of went through a succession of one failure after it was so funny. It was like they were still even giving out signing bonuses during the middle of this too, which was the hilarious thing. Was like, the only money I made was signing bonuses for like eight months as everything went down the drain. But there was a great website. It was called not failing startup, but like-
Glen Hellman:
F^ckedcompany.com
A.J. Lawrence:
F company, yes. F^cked company.
Glen Hellman:
Can I say that on here?
A.J. Lawrence:
Every day they would have. And everyone would log in to check if their company was on it.
Glen Hellman:
The Puds. The Puds ran it. The moderator’s name.
A.J. Lawrence:
Yeah, his name was Pud.
Glen Hellman:
Pud.
A.J. Lawrence:
Pud. Oh, my God. And I remember one day waking up, checking and being like, holy sh*t, that’s my company. They fired everyone last night. I don’t have a message. What the hell happened? And then finding out I was being paid to help close the company, I was like, yay.
Glen Hellman:
So one morning, after shutting down a company and waking up in a sweat, I said, you know, this turnaround thing sounds sexy, it sounds fun, and it paid decent. But I was in hospice care and I was watching things die. And that’s not why I went into startups. The reason I was in startup was to grow things. So I went to a company called Vistage. I got my training as a coach in running groups, and I went into what I consider wellness care. So coaching is wellness care. It’s, let’s make sure these people don’t make the same bonehead mistakes. I didn’t want people to have to go into the turnaround mode. And that’s how I got here.
A.J. Lawrence:
And I assume that was like 2003, 2004?
Glen Hellman:
I actually started coaching in 2007 after the last turnaround. Yeah.
A.J. Lawrence:
Oh, so you went through a few more turnarounds around that? Yeah, and that was a great time because it really was like, you know, as I joke, from 2002 to about 2000 late four was the wilderness. I built database for artists. You know, I door to door salesperson, whatever. It was like you couldn’t get hired to save your life. It was like, okay, how do I eat today? But by 2005, things started moving again. In 2006, like when I started mid-2006, there was energy. 2008 was a bad time, except we did well in that period. But yeah, that was a great time to transition because it was like you’d seen the death, you helped doing that.All right, so we’ve talked about this personally, and I don’t want to kind of throw Vistage under the bus, but I’ve always felt it was a little too programmed when I tried it and it was very much like, you’re going to do this. And I’m like, I’ve never been able to color inside a box. I don’t know how to do this.
Glen Hellman:
For me, there was a lot of overhead, a lot of overhead that wasn’t appreciated. There were paid speakers, there was a lot of events and things. Look, if you want to go see an event, there’s 100 events a year in this town. Sign up to see events. The value was the group and the coaching and yet you were paying for a lot more. For me, it just wasn’t a good business model that worked. So actually what happened was as a Vistage coach, I was pretty much an indentured service servant. You went through a very excruciating vetting process to get in background checks, video interviews, interviews with people that you worked with before. And when I finally get in, then you go to training and you get training and they give you this for free. But you have to travel there. You go through training and half the people in training wash out. And then they say, okay, you’ve got six months to get a group. And one, only one quarter of the people actually get a group going. You really run through a gauntlet to get started there. But once you’re there, they provide you some leads, they take a large portion of your earnings and they make it so that you have to run in their lifestyle. Which means you have to have three groups of 16 pretty much to make good money at Vistage. And first of all, I think 16 is a bad number. I like 12 in a group. Second of all, I don’t want to run three groups. And so one of my clients offered me a job as a CRO temporarily to get things started. I did that for a year. I was out from underneath my non-compete and I hung up my shingle and so that was 2013 and business is good.
A.J. Lawrence:
It’s funny because in the group you have your. Well, you have an actual entrepreneur Emeritus, but you also have the original. I guess you’re on the second group, or is it the third group?
Glen Hellman:
It’s my third. Yeah, but one of them has been in all three who just left, who just graduated.
A.J. Lawrence:
Yep. Adam, who’s been here on the show, Adam Sandman. Adam was the one who introduced us. That was funny because in talking about like this is what I’m looking for. I need someone who’s tough. Oh, I know someone. Didn’t you used to? Okay, and this is just one thing, because I don’t see it anymore.
Glen Hellman:
I’ve had to retire from being Mr. Cranky.
A.J. Lawrence:
Was it cranky or grumpy coach?
Glen Hellman:
Mr. Cranky. So to get clients, my original marketing thing was, you know, nobody likes a car accident but everybody likes to look at one. So as marketing, I decided I’ll be a car accident and I’ll be Mr. Cranky. So this was Mr. Cranky’s business card. A can of whoop ass. And I developed this persona, I had a blog running. And the interesting thing about the blog was I would rail against bonehead CEOs, fraudulent CEOs, things that I’d uncover. And it became so popular that I was getting a lot of leads, almost like F company. So I would write about it. And in fact, one day the FBI called me and said, Glen, we’d like to meet with you. I said, about what? They said, well, you know, let’s just meet. I said, is this about me? They said, no, it’s about somebody else who you know. So we met at a coffee shop, at Pete’s to be specific, two agents, a woman and a man. And they explained to me that one of the people I was writing about, they were investigating and they wondered where I was getting all this good information I was writing about. And we agreed that I would share sources as long as those sources agreed to talk to them. That guy is now serving the third year of an eight year prison sentence. And I received reward from the FBI. There’s one other guy doing 12 years that I wrote about and there’s another one who- so one of the things I learned is the FBI didn’t like to work on cases that involve things less than, not the Financial Crimes Unit, they like things that were $10 million and up. This was a $3 million scam so they forwarded it over to the IRS. And I actually worked with IRS Criminal Division on that one.
A.J. Lawrence:
Why didn’t you start a hedge fund? I mean, they’re literally.
Glen Hellman:
As a turnaround guy, I didn’t like what I had to do. And while I appreciate the value of VCs and hedge funds, I don’t want to throw them under the bus. But it’s not for me. It’s not the kind of work that you have to work for something that makes you feel good and that inspires you.
A.J. Lawrence:
I kind of want to put this in and I want to say this in a way, you know, for the audience. The Mr. Cranky is really a cool concept, and that’s I guess how I was introduced to you by. But I don’t see you as cranky. You are no nonsense. Sometimes I realize I have to pay attention to my own self because I do sell my own self sometimes nonsense as a CEO. You know, trying to rebuild things. So that’s really, really helpful for me to keep me in thing.But you really are actually pretty compassionate and this is one of the things that has surprised me in working. You offered to kind of work with my wife, help people outside, you know. It’s like you’re not kind of, yes, as you were talking about, you did the turnarounds which you know a lot of times is cut off a leg to save an arm or whatever. Save the patient but you really do a lot more. So let’s kind of talk about the coaching and sort of what entrepreneurs should think about because I see some coaches, especially the ones that are all social media structured that’s like oh I have this plan and you’re going to do these five things. You’re going to do this. And I kind of say that’s kind of just the I’m going to burn and churn you or I’m going to sell you something.
Glen Hellman:
Let me just step back a little bit. So the reason there’s no more Mr. Cranky is one, it was a toxic environment. I became more toxic and angry. So I didn’t retire it consciously as much as when I became faculty at University of Maryland where I teach a program about how to do customer discovery to PhDs in 11 different universities. It’s funded by NSF. I had to retire Mr. Cranky. It was not compatible with that role. So I do that with, you know, half of my time is spent as faculty so that’s where he went. And it’s actually wound up being very good for me emotionally and health wise.So let’s talk about a couple things on coaching. The thing that you talk about is, and I believe this when I was doing startup plans business plans. A startup business plan, the chances of you once you hit the market and hit the street actually executing three steps past a 20 step plan are nil. The value of a plan is to display is to announce your goal where do I want to get to and it’s also to display to investors, team that you have the quality of thought and the ability to execute. But you’re never going to go down that path.With coaching, giving you a plan, I believe in my concept is first things first, second things never. Always concentrate on where am I going? That’s important. But then what’s the next thing I do to get me to that? Because as I cross that fork in the road, new forks, forks I could not have anticipated will show up. So I don’t worry about the three ifs past a maybe. I worry about what’s the first if, and then we’ll tackle the next if. So that’s sort of one of my philosophies.And so when I work with client, I want to know how they feel their business is going. And I don’t want that to be an abstraction. I want us to quantify it. That’s why I always say-
A.J. Lawrence:
No decimal points.
Glen Hellman:
Yes, no decimal points. You know, on a scale of one to five, if we started a relationship, the first thing I ask is on a scale of one to five, you had a vision. Like, we’re at the end of the year right now. You had a vision of where your business would be. Now it’s near the end of the year, how did you perform versus your vision at this time last year on a scale of 1 to 5?And if I just asked you how did you perform and you said “okay”, there’s not much places to go to there. That’s a abstraction. If I ask you, how did you do on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being excellent, and you say three, I have a lot of places to go. You sure it’s a 3? Why not a 2? Why is it not a 2? And we can talk about those issues. What would it have to be to be a 4? So we’ll concentrate on undoing the 2. And how do I get to 4? What’s the next step?Now another thing you said, I’m not going to give you a plan. I can tell you what I would do, and it might work if you were me. People execute better on plans they develop themselves. My job is to ask the questions to get them to develop a plan, for them to do the pattern recognition and then for me to help them vet that plan. Is it going to work? What are the risks? So that’s the first thing. And by the way, a plan is simple. A plan is not a 20-page document. It’s a verb, a noun and a date. I will do this by this date. And so we develop a plan next time we meet. What will you get done to move past this issue?
A.J. Lawrence:
I’ve talked about this on the show and Glen and I talk a lot about this, is creating the consistency, that check in, the double check in of both. Since I am local to Glen, I’m also in his CEO group which is in sort of the DMV, the D.C. metro region.
Glen Hellman:
DC, Maryland, Virginia. DMV
A.J. Lawrence:
Wow, really? Okay, well, yeah, all right. The DMV area, which helps because it’s two check in points kind of with slightly different, you know, the peer and the one-on-one to kind of balance it out. But that consistency, we’ve talked with other entrepreneurs on the show where creating that type of check in and that realignment against mission and sort of pulling together is so strong. But I know from my own experience it’s so easy if you’re in the middle of something to get caught in putting out fires or just dealing with stuff, or B, if you’re in my thing of trying to start something new and you’ve already done it is the bright shiny object syndrome.
Glen Hellman:
So 70% of CEOs, this is not a scientific verified number, I’ve pulled it out of a part of my anatomy. When they were in school, when they were in university, 70% of them studied one or two days before the exam. If there were no exams, they would never pick up a book. A good coach is your exam. It’s you’ve made a commitment, I’m going to hold you accountable to it and you’re going to feel, well, I don’t have any real sword of Damocles over your head. You are going to meet that equipment or feel bad, embarrassed or guilty. You’re going to prove to me that my time and your time was worthwhile.And so you may do it the day before we meet, but there’s a good chance you’re going to do it. I mean, CEOs hold their people accountable. One of the things on the back of the can of whoop ass says, you can open up a can of whoop ass on your folks, but who opens one up on you? That’s my job, is to hold you accountable like you hold your people accountable. The other part of a good coach’s job is that you said empathy. If I don’t provide a safe place, a place where I’m not judgmental when you fail.I don’t say, you fail. I say, what could we have done? If I’m not judgmental, if I give you a safe place, and if you know that everything we discuss doesn’t go anywhere, then we’re going to have the kind of radical transparency required to actually develop a good plan. And that radical transparency is very difficult to have within your company, your friends, your family. This is a game where if you win, I win. There’s no losers. I’ve got no other dog in this fight. My only goal is you. Whereas if I’m your CFO and I’m worried about my marketing guy, there is some competition. When I give you advice as somebody on your team, usually at the cost of somebody else on your team, it’s for their goal, not yours.
A.J. Lawrence:
Yeah, it’s the sustainability of your ability to remain an entrepreneur is sort of what your promotion is. You know, it’s that idea that, and I say this sometimes, yes, there are ways, you know, succeeding, but survival as an entrepreneur is are you able to continue doing enough of whatever you need to move to the next month? And like we have two people and I’m not going to say names or even two specifics, but we have two people who are in these amazing, you know, with their VC backed companies right now in the peer group who are threading that needle and it is amazing how much they are threading the needle to keep moving.
Glen Hellman:
We have two people who are somewhere between going out of business and having a billion dollar. So it’s interesting. It is interesting. Let’s talk about the thing you said before that is how do you try on a coach? And I’ll tell you also that how do coaches try on clients. I’m going to start with that.So there are three kinds of CEOs that you can work with. The first one is the CEO who knows who’s buried in the tomb of the unknown soldier. Now there are some people, granted, who know that. So I believe that Steve Jobs knew who was buried there. So if he came to me and said that although Steve Jobs had a coach, so he did know he needed coaching, there are those people and in my Harry Potter sorting hat, those people don’t get into the house of Hellman.The next part doesn’t know who’s buried in Grant’s tomb. That’s a different sorting hat that goes somewhere else. The third category is the category I’m looking for. And that’s the person who wants to know why is President Grant, General Grant buried in Manhattan. The people who are curious, always learning, green and growing. That’s who you want as a coaching client. So that’s the client side. And then I believe that. So I will never take on a client unless we both have had a one to one because I am a fantastic coach, for some people. So that’s the glove analogy. You know, a glove is not bad because it doesn’t fit you, it just doesn’t fit you so find another glove. So I want the relationship to be, I believe that you will learn and I can succeed. I don’t want to fail, which means you must be green, growing, curious. And you have to believe that my style and our chemistry fits like a glove.
A.J. Lawrence:
And I think in kind of looking at how, what I found very interesting was I was looking at a very specific concept and we adapted it pretty quickly when the deal fell apart. But your ability to kind of say, all right, look, I could see you looking at these things. We had our one on one and we kind of, we structured out what the acquisition had gone through. We talked about the type of team structure-who was going to be involved, who I had to make sure it worked, who was also going to be someone who had to work but probably was going to have to disappear quickly. We walked through all that. And we also walked through what it would take both internally but then as coaching them, coaching another layer from you or someone else, as we kind of broke through to kind of help align them to a new mission, which was great because it kind of, oh, okay, that got all thrown into my 100 day plan. Just because 100 days sounds cooler than 90 day plan.But it was really nice because it was like, all right, I could see this working. I could see this. We talked about the different aspects. Things I was thinking about, realizing, okay, that’s just extra window dressing. Focus on the meat. And it was a nice structure in how we talked about. Now, pretty soon afterwards, right after, of course, I had joined the group when the deal fell apart. But we then pivoted towards creating something new, which has been interesting because I am not liking creating something new. That’s been frustrating because it’s like, oh, wait, I’ve forgotten. It’s sort of like having another kid when you’re really old and realizing, oh, they’re cute. But the lack of sleep, that sucks. And the constant attention you need to put here. I like it when I can kind of see them once a week.
Glen Hellman:
So you need a vision board, you know, you need to know, look how proud you are of your kids who are in St. Andrews and your daughter who’s growing. Look how proud you are and how satisfying it is. Although it is painful at the start, very painful.
A.J. Lawrence:
But, you know, coming back to that. So, okay, as someone’s out there thinking about a coach and you know, I really do like working with Glen as I said, but you have to make it kind of fit. I need this because, I jokingly within my team, have consistently said I will add an extra layer of complexity to something because it sounds cool versus just getting shite done.In working with people, sometimes I will try and create something that’s three steps ahead when really they only need one step. So it is this kind of constant for me. Pull back to reality, what’s going to move us? And then what I’ve been working, and this is in me personally, is, okay, how do I adapt my goals as I move forward? Because, okay, I started doing this one thing, blew up, started doing something else, executed on the plan, probably could have put more into it, but then quickly saw it wasn’t going to be the model I saw. So, okay, how do I pivot that? All right, pivot, pivot. And then how do I move? And now how do I adapt that as I’m seeing things happen without just constantly spinning around and feeling like. Because it is. This is also-and a lot of what Glen has told me in other aspects is how I talk with people around utilizing AI is this like, look, we’re in a very hyper change moment, but you still have to do the right things for the right reasons. It’s still the right foundation, moves you along. Not, oh, cool, oh cool, oh cool.
Glen Hellman:
Let me drag this back. Okay, so first of all, I’m going to say this. I’m a storyteller, and the reason I’m a storyteller is intentional. So abstractions don’t work well. Stories are less of an abstraction. Stories are this concrete thing that you can act on. So I’m going to give you a concept, but I will tell it in a story and it will make more sense. If you wanted to go from Washington to LA and you took your AAA map, remember they used to give you triptychs that showed you exactly how to go. It’s not going to work because the bridge in St. Louis over the Mississippi is out. What do you do then?So I believe that the journey for anybody starting and running a business is knowing I want to get to LA and understanding and creating a rubric of as I get to different situations, I look at the resources that I have and I take it a step at a time. So I don’t say this is the route. I’m more like a Waze GPS. And as things happen on the route, it adjusts. And it even adjusts to the fact I might wind up in San Diego because I haven’t gone far enough north to get to LA and stay. That’s okay. But what you need is a goal. What is my final destination? Do I want to sell my company? Do I want to hand it over to kids? Do I want my employees to buy it from me and give me dividends? What’s my goal with the company? And then that informs every fork in the road as I’m driving my way to LA.
A.J. Lawrence:
I like that metaphor. That was one of the first times I-that metaphor was used long, long time ago by one of my few really good ex bosses about strategy. It’s like, look, objectives are where you want to go, you want to get to LA, your strategy is your means of transportation from A to B. And as you said, it will change as conditions come. The tactics are your turn by turn, which change almost every step of the way because that is. But it’s like as long as you know where you want to go, you can always figure out the means of transportation to get there and then deal with the steps as they happen. So, yeah, that’s pretty cool.
Glen Hellman:
Yeah. Mike Tyson, one of the best business strategists in the world. You know what it is? Everybody’s got a plan until they’re punched in the face.
A.J. Lawrence:
Yep, and then believe me. And then it’s like, what the F?
Glen Hellman:
And as soon as you hit the market, you’re punched in the face. So what’s the plan?
A.J. Lawrence:
Yep. And that is a lot of fun. Working through that as someone thinks about the value of a coaching, like I was looking at things where as I was working on, executed on some product market fit efforts, outreach and stuff like that, and things were working. But the two factors I was seeing was that lovely math equation of if you touch X amount of people digitally and they open and close this amount and they do this and they open and they engage with you this amount stuff, and you get to that lovely xx, you know, 1/5, 1/5. You get this many customers. Well, everything was much smaller than I was seeing. And worse was the clients had bigger problems than I expected, but more fear. And that was just choosing my niche. That was on me. But it was that kind of like, okay, so now that I’m seeing this world, be harder, be longer and be smaller?
Glen Hellman:
The time between new normals is contracting. So what was true yesterday is not true today in terms of numbers. And other things and techniques, it’s constantly changing as market dynamics change. So one of the things I teach when I’m teaching customer discovery and product market fit, you’re never done with product market fit. You know a company who was done with product market fit is Blockbuster. You know who was never done with product market fit. Are they shipping CDs anymore? No, they’re a streaming service. Are they just a streaming service? No, they’re a production company. So you always have to adjust with the change. You have to keep in touch with the market. What’s changing? Because your current customer market fit is the current new norm, not the new norm next year.
A.J. Lawrence:
Very much so. All right, so in looking at this, let’s kind of talk. We’ve talked about the value, we talked about the way of thinking about it. One of the things that I think could be. Be helpful even as myself as look, we’re approaching this will come out beginning of the year. So as everyone hopefully has their 2025 plans out. But still in looking at this, there’s been a lot of value in my first year in helping me adapt to my entrepreneurial situation. Both the planning, the readaption, the moving forward and now restructuring strategies to kind of put myself in the best position to move forward. What do you see as sort of that ongoing because we’ve talked about again and again bringing everything back to what needs to get done. But one thing I realized in my last company when I forced myself one, working with a good coach, but then two, weekly updates and weekly scoring and weekly alignment, which is yes, and I know it sounds dopey if you don’t do it. If you are doing it, you’re like, why wouldn’t you do it? If you’re not doing it, they really do help. What do you see as more of the long term value of building that sort of relationship with a coach to help guide?
Glen Hellman:
So first of all, I think that coaching is a mix of asking questions but really understanding the person that you’re dealing with on the other end. And when I say that, it’s really when you’re hiring, and this is the same about having a coach, there are four factors to consider. One factor is do they have the cognitive ability to do what they want to do? Very important. The second one is are they experienced at doing what they want to do, which is not quite as important if they have good cognitive ability and the rest of the things they want to do are aligned. The third thing is their traits. So everybody has these traits. We’re wired and if we think we’re going to change them, we’re not. So are you organized? Are you disciplined? Are you an idea person? Do you need someone to help you with ideas?So everybody when you’re coaching has different needs. Some people need systems or processes to hold themselves accountable, to make sure they stay focused. Other people need systems to keep them creative. I mean, some people don’t come up with a new shiny object and you know the new shiny object is important. Otherwise you become Blockbuster. So it’s understanding how people are wired that won’t change and then developing systems around them support-support systems-to support the weaknesses in their ability to perform what they want to perform based on their traits. So traits are one of the most important things. I can teach a 5 foot 4 person how to hit free throws. I can’t teach them how to dunk. That’s a trait. Hitting a free throw is a combat, is a skill that can be learned. Dunking is a traitor.Favorite story I was going to take you on aside, but one of my favorite stories, the old Johnny Carson Show. Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, two famous actors for all you kids out there who were the stars of their time, are on the show. And Burt Reynolds tells the story. When they were both young actors, they had both tried out for a part. They were waiting for the casting director to come out and give them information. Casting director comes out and says to Burt Reynolds, you didn’t get the part. Reynolds says, why not? He says, you can’t act. He says to Clint Eastwood, you didn’t get the part. Clint Eastwood says, why not? He says, your Adam’s apple’s too big. Burt Reynolds starts laughing and Eastwood says, what are you laughing about? He says, I can learn to act. It’s a trait.
A.J. Lawrence:
I could so see that. But yeah, I mean, it is true. It is you know what we do.
Glen Hellman:
The last thing, the fourth thing is cultural. Do you have a cultural match? So for instance, A.J. you do not have the cultural match to start an accounting company. I’m sorry, it won’t work. Don’t do it. It’s not in your DNA. It’s not part of your culture. Marketing, you were born for that, right? So is there a cultural fit? And those are the four things important for what does a person want to do with their lives and their business? Who do you hire and how do you select the coach?
A.J. Lawrence:
I like that very much. Well, hey, let’s talk about where they can learn more about what you’re doing so they can read a bit more, get a good flavor for you. Where should they go?
Glen Hellman:
So if you want to learn about Mr. Cranky, you can go to the Washingtonian magazine because they did a scathing piece on me there. And then they did a scathing piece on me versus how I was butting up against this company, Trustify. And then one month later, that Trustify guy was in court, and eight months later, he was in jail.
A.J. Lawrence:
Let’s finish this. But there’s a reason I’m trying to ask where people can learn about what you’re doing now. Because there’s something else you do.
Glen Hellman:
Yeah. So cxoelevate.com or you can go to Amazon.com and say, Glen Hellman books. So part of my storytelling is I have a whole series of books. One of them started called Write to Die, which is based on the original Mr. Cranky. And the character from Write to Die then has actually a new book will be out in two weeks. That’ll be the fourth in that series. And 60% done with the fifth book in that series. There are two books before that, one on leadership and another one called Cyphers & Sighs. Do we have time to tell you a little Cyphers & Sighs story?
A.J. Lawrence:
Sure, let’s go with that. Because I do want to bring out how you kind of bring this out in through this process.
Glen Hellman:
Well, first of all, storytelling is very important. It’s how I coach. It’s one of the parts of how I coach, make a point. It’s how I teach. So telling stories is very important versus giving bulleted lists. It sticks with you more. About 25 years ago, I was in Chicago. I had a sales team of eight people. We were at Ditka’s bar on Rush Street. Young, single guy sees a very attractive woman at the bar and goes up to hit on her. And all of these salespeople, men and women, were sitting, watching, and she shoots him down right away. And he comes back and we were teasing him. And I was married and never really good in a bar. I just don’t have the pickup scene. So I’m married, but he challenges me. He says, what do you think you could do better? And so the whole group sort of egged me on. And I walked up to the woman and I said, buy me a drink? And she said, buy you a drink? You should buy me a drink. And I said, I don’t want to do that to you. I’m making this up as I go. I don’t want to do that to you. And she says, what do you mean? I said, well, look, I’m going to buy you a drink. We’re going to talk. I’m funny, I’m interesting, we’ll have a nice time. I’ll buy you another drink and another. And pretty soon you’re going to be drunk, you’re going to feel like you owe me, and I’m going to ask you to my room. Now, I don’t want to put you in that position where you feel like you owe me. She said, okay, I’ll buy you a drink. I said, I don’t want your drink. She said, why not? I said, well, you’ll buy me a drink. And she grabbed my tie because we wore ties back then. And she pulled me closer. We were nose to nose. And she said, I think I like you. And a saleswoman, who I’m very good friends with still, came up to me, put her arm around me, kissed me on the cheek and said, hon, we only have the babysitter till 10.
A.J. Lawrence:
Saved you.
Glen Hellman:
So I told this story to a group of guys and they said, you need to turn that into a book.
A.J. Lawrence:
That is the beginning of-
Glen Hellman:
Cyphers & Sighs, where the woman turns out to be a Russian. This is kind of a spoiler alert. She’s a Russian honeypot trying to get something from the sale. That’s how it started.
A.J. Lawrence:
Honey, honey pot. It’s a lot of fun. These books are fun. So we will put it out. But really, for me, what I found, you had decided you also did some stand up comedy. So just kind of talking. I don’t want us to go on because I did take it off. But this idea that creativity, storytelling, as you said, storytelling is part of the process because it’s how we learn and how you’re able to help entrepreneurs better understand their own story. You work and create your own stories to help on this process. Plus, they’re fun. They’re good fun. I read one at the beach. Exactly, perfect. Reading was like, this was my beach reading. It is a good read. So look, everyone out there, if you can’t tell, I enjoy working with Glen. I’m getting a lot of value. It’s only, I would say one out of every three times that I feel like I’ve completely not been prepared, which for me is pretty good. But I am trying to get better here. So I am trying to commit, create the commitment to this.
Glen Hellman:
I don’t want to go to your head, but you’re more prepared than most.
A.J. Lawrence:
That’s sad because yeah, there’s so much. And this is the great thing in working at Glen, because he really is no nonsense. He pushes you, but he understands and empathizes with your life, gets the thing. And yeah, I talked about his empathy, but the amount of contacts as I’ve experimented and dove into different pieces that people have put me in contacts with. He even gave me the plans to the whoop ass can because I was going to do something that would have worked perfectly with it. I still kept it in my, you know, my idea folder for it. But it has been a great experience. Is it going to be perfect for you listening? You need to kind of read some of his stuff and talk to him. But if you’re in this point where you’ve had a couple of, I kind of feel like if you’ve been through a couple of rodeos, you’ve been tossed off the horse a couple times but you’ve also done well a couple of times on the horse, that’s not too good, not too bad. I think you’re a great coach. And talking with other people in the groups and other entrepreneurs who’ve worked with you, it is that kind of like Glen helps us be better.
Glen Hellman:
If you fall off the horse, my job is to dust you off and say, try it again. If you’re riding on the horse and you’re just really lucky that you haven’t falled off, my job’s to push you off that horse.
A.J. Lawrence:
Or get you on a, you know, it’s like, you know what? You’re on the baby. Let’s move you up to the monster bombs. One guy just recently sold his thing and he was talking about doing some small things, and he was like, okay, he made good money. He’s come back now with this rocket ship of a next step, and it’s like, that’s cool to see. All right, I’m rambling, guys. Check out CxO Elevate. Go check out his LinkedIn profile. Read the book. If you want a good beach, read a good thriller and some good sales pickup lines throughout. As I said, I enjoy working with Glen. I think you have to make it short, but you will get value out of even having a conversation with him.
Glen Hellman:
And yeah, the first conversation is free as long as your intent is to decide whether you want to have a coaching relationship. And you know, one of us will. We both get to decide if we deserve a meaningful relationship.
A.J. Lawrence:
All right, everyone. I will put all this in the show notes. I’ll put links to his books. I will put links to his booking calendar, to his site, show notes, the socials, the email when this all goes out. Think about your coaching needs. And look, a coach is really helpful no matter who, what, when or where. But there are so many Charltons out there. Please be careful when you work with a coach. Glen, thank you so much for coming on today. I really, really appreciate this.
Glen Hellman:
Hey, I enjoyed finally being interviewed by you instead of the other way around.
A.J. Lawrence:
I know. Getting grilled of like, why is it a three? Why three? I’ve had that question. All right, everyone. Talk with everyone soon. Bye.