Host Dr. Nazif sits down with Kurt Uhlir — CMO of EZ Home Search and a leader known as "the king of scaling companies." Across 11 industries and 60+ funding rounds and exits (including an $880M IPO and an $8.1B exit), Kurt has built a reputation as the person VCs call when revenue stalls or spending spirals.
The topic: how leaders cut waste and build revenue in the AI era.
Kurt breaks down the real difference between authoritative and servant leadership, why outdated growth playbooks quietly drain companies, and where AI genuinely helps versus where it silently burns money and damages your brand. Practical, hype-free advice for anyone who leads a team or manages a budget.
What Listeners Will Learn:
- The clear difference between authoritative leadership and servant leadership — and why servant leadership uncovers problems three to eight times faster
- Why so many companies are still using growth playbooks built for an outdated market
- How outdated leadership habits quietly waste money, time, and team energy
- Where AI genuinely adds value in marketing and SEO — and where it silently creates "unbounded risk" for your brand
- Why you should never trust AI output without human checkpoints, even when YouTube says a task takes 15 minutes
- The three time horizons every revenue-building company tracks — and why you shouldn't mix them in the same conversation
- Why 79% of B2B buyers default to a top-three brand, and what that means for your sales and marketing spend
- How to move teams from scattered effort to focused action by segmenting time and protecting long-term work
- The three biggest myths about servant leadership — including the misconception that it's "soft" or slow
- Why servant leadership teams hold themselves more accountable than authoritative ones
- How serving your team leads to faster, better decisions — cutting strategy-correction time from 24 months down to six
Be sure to check the webpage of Kurt at the Active Action Podcast Website to learn more about his work, and ways to connect with him.
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00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 Everyone, welcome back to another episode of
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 the Active Action Podcast. It's me, your host,
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 Dr. Naziv, back again with another amazing guest.
00:00:56 --> 00:01:02 Today we have with us Kart Ewer. And Kart is
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 the... Chief Marketing Officer of Easy Home Search,
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 known globally also as the king of scaling companies.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:13 The topic of today's podcast is how leaders cut
00:01:13 --> 00:01:17 waste and build revenue in the AI era. So we
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 are using artificial intelligence in our life
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 more or less and that is being integrated day
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 after day. So without further ado, let's get
00:01:26 --> 00:01:29 into the today's topic and fun discussion with
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 our esteemed guest. So, Kurt, how are you doing
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 this morning, my man? I'm doing great. Thank
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 you for having me. Would you like to let our
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 audiences know a little bit about yourself, apart
00:01:39 --> 00:01:44 from what I say? Sure. I mean, as an adult, I've
00:01:44 --> 00:01:46 now been successful in 11 industries. I've been
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 part of more than 60 funding rounds and exits.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 And so that's where I've been an executive, a
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 leader at this company. More if you count people
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 that I've advised and been on boards for. But
00:01:55 --> 00:01:56 those are companies that have, some cases we
00:01:56 --> 00:02:00 had an $880 million IPO, an $8 .1 billion exit.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 I've been part of another hyper growth company.
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 I'm the person that the venture capital groups
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 and the private equity teams will come to when
00:02:07 --> 00:02:11 either revenue is stalled or they're spending
00:02:11 --> 00:02:12 too much money, but they're not seeing revenue
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 go the way they want. Or it's, you know, figuratively
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 a ship on fire. regardless of the industry, usually
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 business to business. And they're like, we need
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 somebody to help fix this, usually from the marketing
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 and sales side. And so they're going to bring
00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 me in for that. With that said, at this point,
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 I've done more than 250 paid keynotes on servant
00:02:30 --> 00:02:31 leadership around the world and probably more
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 than a thousand total paid speaking gigs. So
00:02:33 --> 00:02:37 I think part of the reason is because I've been
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 successful in so many different industries and
00:02:39 --> 00:02:41 what I've seen works well with people is actually
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 what works really well with AI and the changing
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 skills that we need for people that are using
00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 that. Thank you so much, Kurt, for that wonderful
00:02:47 --> 00:02:50 introduction and letting our audiences know about
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 a little bit about yourself. You used a term
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 that I like a lot that is servant leadership.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 And a lot of our listeners might not be familiar
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 with this term. Would you kindly explain to them
00:03:01 --> 00:03:05 what servant leadership is? Yeah, I... We'll
00:03:05 --> 00:03:06 make it really simple for people too, because
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 I think people overcomplicate leadership. For
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 me, there's just two types of leadership. There's
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 the authoritative leadership, which we're typically
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 used to, which is do what I say, how I say in
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 the timeframe, or you're fired. Now that may
00:03:19 --> 00:03:20 not feel quite so bad if it comes from a nice
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 boss, but at the end of the day, you're hiring
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 people and we've all worked for somebody where
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 they say, these are the specific things I want
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 you to do. The servant leader takes a different
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 approach. I still, there's a job I'm hiring you
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 into a role, but as a servant leader, I acknowledge
00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 two things. One, the first thing is I'm hiring
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 you to do stuff that I don't want to do myself.
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 And I'm also acknowledging that I'm actually
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 not wanting those things. What I'm wanting is
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 the business outcomes out of those. At which
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 point then the servant leader acknowledges, because
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 I want business outcomes out of this, my job
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 comes from not telling you just to do better.
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 My job, I get my business outcomes by acknowledging
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 that I need to help serve you to reach those
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 business outcomes. Some cases that could be tough
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 love. Some cases it could be, say in the case
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 of sales, you're not doing things the exact way
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 that I would do it. Let me show you how to do
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 that shoulder to shoulder and I coach you through
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 doing it so that eventually I do not have to
00:04:12 --> 00:04:15 teach you anymore and you can take this and run.
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 And so that certain leader says, my job is to
00:04:17 --> 00:04:19 serve you to get the outcomes that I want. Thanks
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 so much for explaining that. And dear audiences,
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 I hope you got a little. bit of an idea what
00:04:23 --> 00:04:27 servant leadership is and how that even differs
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 from authoritative leadership more of a time
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 we are we have seen from our past experiences
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 that authoritative leadership has been dominant
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 in companies which are which are kind of going
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 from top to bottom approach but servant leadership
00:04:41 --> 00:04:45 is also a very popular concept and that is like
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 more collaborative working with within the team
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 and within the team members something we often
00:04:50 --> 00:04:54 see in agile project management as well. So,
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 Kurt, can you let our audiences know why many
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 companies are still using growth playbooks built
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 for a different market? And what are actually
00:05:03 --> 00:05:07 the growth playbooks from your idea? Growth playbook,
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 especially let's think about private equity groups.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:10 They tend to buy up a lot of companies, whether
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 they're general contractors or they're large
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 software companies. So they've bought maybe 50
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 to 100 companies in the past. And there's a specific
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 way, literally, it used to be a... a book they
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 would have for sports, run these plays. These
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 are the type of ads you run. This is the amount
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 of money you should be spending for a ratio of
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 new ads to sales. And some of those things still
00:05:30 --> 00:05:34 make sense, but they're often built for an outdated
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 error in a lot of ways. They were built that
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 way because a lot of times the funding groups,
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 they think that they're right and they're very
00:05:42 --> 00:05:46 wise. I love most of the VCs and PE groups that
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 I've worked with. But they also like you have
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 that CEO, that authoritative leader who tends
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 to be really good at their job. But he or she,
00:05:54 --> 00:05:58 they think that they're micromanaging because
00:05:58 --> 00:06:00 they're making all these decisions. And what
00:06:00 --> 00:06:01 they don't realize, to your point about servant
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 leadership, that those old playbooks, they're
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 trying to push down decisions from the top, thinking
00:06:06 --> 00:06:07 that they see everything that needs to be made.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 When in the fact, especially as companies grow,
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 when you get over 50 people, 500, 5000 people,
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 I'm in the upper two levels of the. The leadership
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 see such a small fraction of the decisions that
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 are made every single day that affect the customers.
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 And so the authoritative leader thinks they're
00:06:23 --> 00:06:24 seeing all these things and making decisions,
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 but they don't realize that it takes the servant
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 leader to allow the organization to bring issues
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 to you before you would have otherwise seen it,
00:06:32 --> 00:06:33 to let you know about things before the data
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 makes it so evident so you could make more wise
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 decisions. And so they come in from this outside
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 approach because they are wise people that have
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 had great success, but they don't realize that
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 they're lacking. the data that this other type
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 of leadership and these playbooks would give
00:06:48 --> 00:06:53 them. Okay. Thanks for explaining that. And so
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 we are talking about different kinds of leadership
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 today, and we have known about authoritative
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 leadership and servant leadership and growth
00:07:01 --> 00:07:05 playbook. How do you think the outdated leadership
00:07:05 --> 00:07:09 and the marketing habits quietly waste money,
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 time, and team energy and ultimately drains down
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 the team? The outdated leadership, especially
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 that authoritative leadership, it takes significantly
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 longer. In my research, it takes between three
00:07:20 --> 00:07:24 and five times longer to uncover issues or better
00:07:24 --> 00:07:26 strategies that you could be implementing where
00:07:26 --> 00:07:28 a servant leadership would show that to you in
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 one third of the time, one eighth of the time
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 at times. And so that's one of the ways it causes
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 it. The other issue we start to see is with AI
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 right now, things are changing so quickly. And
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 the good thing is many of our people in leadership,
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 they're reading all the articles about what's
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 possible. The problem is they're also reading
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 a lot of the articles about what's possible.
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 And so they're believing things. And so, so much
00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 of the data, when you actually look at AI implementation,
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 the value is not there. You look at one of the
00:07:55 --> 00:07:59 largest now subsidiaries of Anthropic and OpenAI
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 or something is not actually like their core
00:08:02 --> 00:08:05 AI. It's a group of what they call forward engineers.
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 that they send in Palantir has done to say, we'll
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 come set up demos, we'll come set things. So
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 they're basically building an outsourced team
00:08:13 --> 00:08:17 of engineers to implement Anthropic because the
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 main industries are not seeing that. And so from
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 that outdated leadership style, they're just
00:08:22 --> 00:08:24 going to hear from their friends, hey, you could
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 replace marketing or you could replace part of
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 your outbound sales team or your engineering
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 team with AI or do it for a tenth of the cost.
00:08:31 --> 00:08:33 And so they start forcing that in an organization.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:35 The servant leadership is going to come in and
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 be like, no, let's make, let's make tests and
00:08:38 --> 00:08:39 see how this works. And I want to hear input
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 from you all. And I believe we could do this
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 maybe 10 times faster, but I spent two days this
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 week slowing down to try to build some automation
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 within cloud cowork, which is going to be great.
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 But if you listen to a typical YouTube video,
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 they'll say, well, that could be done in 15 minutes.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 No, I I'm an inventor on 20 plus and patents
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 that. Meta and Facebook and Apple and all these
00:09:00 --> 00:09:02 others have licensed. And it took me two days
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 to get something. Now it's really complicated.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:08 But your old outdated leadership style isn't
00:09:08 --> 00:09:09 going to believe that. They're just going to
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 say, tomorrow it's unicorns and rainbows. Like,
00:09:12 --> 00:09:15 let's just do that. And so you need this servant
00:09:15 --> 00:09:19 leadership style or just being open to that.
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 Because otherwise, it's not just that you might
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 be very costly and that maybe you get rid of
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 some really great people on your team, but you
00:09:25 --> 00:09:29 waste time for your company. And so if you waste
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 time where maybe you should have gone slower
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 or more measured in building out some new marketing
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 habits, or you, in case I say marketing, people
00:09:36 --> 00:09:40 used to write a lot of fluffy, bad search engine
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 optimization content, which AI does now. It didn't
00:09:43 --> 00:09:44 work well when people wrote it and you went to
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 Fiverr for those people. It doesn't work now
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 when AI writes it. And so you waste money in
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 either one of those, as opposed to changing,
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 say, the news search everywhere optimization
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 with how content gets written in a different
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 way now, which can help. all parts of the growth
00:09:58 --> 00:10:03 funnel. What would be your suggestion? Because
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 we are talking about when AC optimization was
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 being done by people versus now AC optimization
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 is being done by AI. But even when it's done
00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 by AI, there might be errors or not. So what
00:10:15 --> 00:10:19 would be your suggestion on how to actually optimize
00:10:19 --> 00:10:23 the use of AI for their best serving purpose?
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 Great question. So first of all, anything that
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 any of the models tell you that this is great
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 SEO, just when you ask generally what should
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 change, is not great SEO. The mathematically
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 large language models, their entire thing, now
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 they're very smart for a lot of things, but is
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 guessing at what the next word is going to be.
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 So if you think in terms of strategy, it's the,
00:10:43 --> 00:10:45 when you ask for an SEO strategy, they're going
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 to give you the average of the bell curve for
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 what that could be. So the top human performers
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 will always outperform that. Even then you bring
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 in one of the top performers. You bring in me,
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 my friend Corey, who leads a huge team out of
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 Turkey. We use AI every day, but we also are
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 very keenly aware, even bringing in our frameworks
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 and the wisdom that we have. We've looked through
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 like vendor plus Google patents and all of that.
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 We have these frameworks. But I also have realized
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 from all my testing not to trust the AI. So I
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 may have 27 different steps that the AI works
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 through, and maybe there's five checkpoints in
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 that that I actually, as a human, meaning you're
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 somebody on my team, needs to go and check things.
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 As an example, I have built an automation to
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 create, not SEO -wide, but I've created an automation
00:11:29 --> 00:11:34 that creates incredible AI -only podcasts from
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 content that we have. It doesn't just work through
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 automatically because there's a deep research
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 process that takes place. And then I need to
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 have a sanitization check. Humans need to check
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 that. We need to have a transcript outline before
00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 we can write things. Just whether somebody reads
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 it or not, before you would have had two to three
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 researchers doing the work we would have done,
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 plus editors cutting things up. But at no point.
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 Well, I trust any of it because I've done 16
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 episodes of that. And in every single one of
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 them, it has failed in different points and sometimes
00:12:04 --> 00:12:08 multiple times. But I can also get an episode
00:12:08 --> 00:12:12 out in somewhere between 15 and 17 minutes now.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 So it's never as good as Fireside Chat you and
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 I are having. But compared to most podcasts that
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 are out there, the research is better. The results
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 are better. You have no idea their AI with how
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 we're creating the voices for it. I would sell
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 it for things. Do not say these competitor names.
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 And let's just say one out of 15 times, it will
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 mention the competitor names and maybe mention
00:12:35 --> 00:12:39 them favorably. Like that would happen in writing
00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 as well. And so if you don't have a human involved
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 at some point, your search engine optimization
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 is one going to be average and two is going to
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 take your brand in a direction that you do not
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 want it, which for a big company is an unbound
00:12:50 --> 00:12:54 risk. So true. Thanks so much for explaining
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 that, Kat. I really, really appreciate those
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 words of wisdom. And I'm sure our listeners would
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01 also benefit from understanding that how can
00:13:01 --> 00:13:05 they use the optimization of AI in their work,
00:13:05 --> 00:13:09 especially in coding and SEO. You talked a while
00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 ago, you talked about wasted energy. So that
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 actually stood out to me. From your experience,
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 what do you think? What separates companies that
00:13:17 --> 00:13:21 create revenue momentum versus those who always
00:13:21 --> 00:13:25 stay busy in their work but are not making any
00:13:25 --> 00:13:29 real progress? So what is the separation? It's
00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 a distinction in how do they think about things
00:13:31 --> 00:13:35 temporally. So companies that do not grow as
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 much as they could or start to lose revenue momentum,
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 a lot of private equity companies are in this,
00:13:41 --> 00:13:45 but not all, is that they will only look at one
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 timeframe for how they're investing marketing
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 dollars or sales effort. And so what I say by
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 that is it's usually a two to 12 month timeframe
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 and all their effort is based on how we spend
00:13:55 --> 00:13:58 a dollar and within two to 12 months, do we get
00:13:58 --> 00:14:00 - How many dollars do we get back? There's nothing
00:14:00 --> 00:14:01 wrong with that being the bulk of your thing,
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 but the companies that build revenue momentum,
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 in my experience and how I implement my framework,
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 is that they have three different time horizons
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 that they look at. And they make sure that when
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 they're having conversations about spending money,
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 that they're tracking different things for each,
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 but they don't bounce between them in the same
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 conversation. So they'll still have a two to
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 12 -month window. They'll have either a 12 to
00:14:23 --> 00:14:27 24 -month or a 12 to 36 -month window. So I spend
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 a dollar and imagine that you get zero. zero
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 dollars back for 24 months. Now, you can track
00:14:32 --> 00:14:33 leading indicators to know if you're on the right
00:14:33 --> 00:14:35 track, but you're not going to get a dollar of
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 revenue back. And then there's either a 24 -month
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 plus or a 36 -month plus, depending on where
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 they cut off that middle time frame. And when
00:14:42 --> 00:14:46 they do that, now... They still have the conversation
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 about ads and other things, but they're able
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 to have not a discussion necessarily about brand
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 building, which is a marketing term, but about
00:14:53 --> 00:14:54 how do you build trust with the part of the market
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 that never would have said yes to you, that you
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 would have wasted sales dollars on, and they
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 still would have chose a less risky option because
00:15:01 --> 00:15:05 like. 79 % of companies on the B2B side will
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 always choose one of the top three brands in
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 an industry over anybody else. And so you don't,
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 what you don't realize is you might get 10 people
00:15:12 --> 00:15:14 to sign up on your website for your SaaS company
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 and seven of them will go through the process.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 And of those seven, they never would have said
00:15:19 --> 00:15:20 yes to you, even though you've wasted all the
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 sales time and marketing effort and brought them
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 to events, maybe things, because they're still
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 just going to choose one of the largest companies
00:15:26 --> 00:15:30 in the industry. Nobody wants to be the person
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 that brought in the bad decision. And so we'll
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 say DRMs. Nobody gets fired from ringing in Salesforce
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 or Pipedrive. Are they great solutions? No. There
00:15:38 --> 00:15:39 are much better solutions that are out there.
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 But it's a least risky not get fired decision.
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 Thanks so much, Scott, for explaining that. Let
00:15:45 --> 00:15:47 us talk a little bit about leadership now because
00:15:47 --> 00:15:51 leadership is very important. aspect for our
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 professional development and also if you are
00:15:53 --> 00:15:57 working or if you wish to maintain a team. So
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 oftentimes we have seen the leadership becomes
00:16:00 --> 00:16:03 ineffective when their effort is all over the
00:16:03 --> 00:16:07 place. It's scattered. It's not focused. So how
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 leaders can move from scattered efforts to focused
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 action across their teams? A couple of things.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 So one of the doing this different time horizons
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 are very helpful because we while instinctively
00:16:17 --> 00:16:21 we know. that we should be putting in efforts,
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 whether it's on engineering or marketing, on
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 things that aren't going to pay off today. What
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 happens, part of scattering happens is we start
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 today when things are okay, or we have a little
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 bit of extra margin, we plan some things out.
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 But then because we have not separated out the
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37 time horizons, we have not said 15 % of our engineering
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 effort needs to be spent in that second timeframe
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 I gave you, or 15 % of our marketing budget.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 What happens when you start to lose margin in
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 the team, things get busy as they always do.
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 And people, they snapshot from left to right
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 while they decided they needed to do that middle
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 time frame thing. They go, well, we don't have
00:16:56 --> 00:16:58 time for that right now. But even though that
00:16:58 --> 00:17:00 was the best decision, they planned on it, but
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 now they're feeling emotional because maybe they
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 lost a client or it's Friday and we're at the
00:17:05 --> 00:17:06 end of the month and we haven't hit some numbers.
00:17:06 --> 00:17:08 And so then they start to snap back and it starts
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 to feel very scattered, not just to the leadership
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 team, but to the board when they're reporting
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 back and especially to the people that are actually
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 implementing the work. That's part of it. And
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 another big part of it is things are changing
00:17:20 --> 00:17:24 so much, especially with AI right now. Most leaders
00:17:24 --> 00:17:26 and most individuals have not figured out how
00:17:26 --> 00:17:29 do they... segment, getting stuff done with the
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 new things we're implementing versus how do I
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 keep trying things? They help lead, co -lead
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 a group of like 100 senior executives around
00:17:36 --> 00:17:37 the United States, so like in market companies.
00:17:38 --> 00:17:40 And almost all of them feel they're spending
00:17:40 --> 00:17:42 so much more time doing personal learning development
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 today, YouTube videos, what is cloud capable
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 of than they ever did. And then a lot of them
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 are struggling with, okay, but how do I maintain
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 implementing what works, trying the new things,
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 which we know works versus doing some test things.
00:17:55 --> 00:17:57 And I'm like, exactly that. Segment your time
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 out, go train your team to lead on the skills
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 that you have so that you're not scatterbraining.
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 You're not making these efforts scattered across
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 the team. And you take one junior person in you
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 and you go mad scientist the next thing that
00:18:11 --> 00:18:13 could completely change how they're doing work.
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 But you let you and somebody else try this mad
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 scientist implementing things until it works.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 Then go change the workflows as opposed to just
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 continually changing them back and forth every
00:18:23 --> 00:18:28 day. spend a dedicated amount of time understanding
00:18:28 --> 00:18:32 like for example your team is doing a hundred
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 kinds of thing together they're working on their
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 personal development they're working for your
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 projects so you have to think of a way to integrate
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 that the things that they're learning from their
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 personal development projects they can actually
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 integrate those into your work so to have all
00:18:47 --> 00:18:49 these conversations you need specific dedicated
00:18:49 --> 00:18:53 time and how cartman segments of thinking so
00:18:53 --> 00:18:56 thanks so much card for mentioning that back
00:18:56 --> 00:18:58 to the servant leadership there are many myths
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 about servant leadership across the company so
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 what do you think some of the myths servant leadership
00:19:03 --> 00:19:07 contains that keeps companies from growing stronger
00:19:07 --> 00:19:10 and faster Yeah, great question. I think three
00:19:10 --> 00:19:13 stand out to me. One is that servant leadership,
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15 that the most important trait that you have to
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 have as a servant leader is empathy. To me, that's
00:19:17 --> 00:19:19 saying the most important tool for building a
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 house is a hammer. Well, no, it's one of them.
00:19:22 --> 00:19:25 Empathy can be toxic as well, in many cases as
00:19:25 --> 00:19:29 well. Another one is to your point that they're
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 not being directive. And so that makes it slow
00:19:31 --> 00:19:34 when actually I find that servant leadership
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 teams. hold themselves to accountability much
00:19:37 --> 00:19:39 more than an authoritative leadership ever does
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 because for two reasons. One is the authoritative
00:19:41 --> 00:19:44 leader is telling about the tasks that want done.
00:19:44 --> 00:19:45 The servant leader is talking about the outcomes
00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 that I want out of it. And because of that, you're
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 holding yourself accountable. I actually don't
00:19:50 --> 00:19:51 think I can hold you accountable. I think that
00:19:51 --> 00:19:55 I can get you to do what I say. But that's different
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 than getting a commitment. That first myth about
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00 empathy. Empathy matters. I want you to realize
00:20:00 --> 00:20:03 I care about you as a person. I care about you
00:20:03 --> 00:20:06 and I know you have a life outside of work. But
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 because servant leader kind of does that. It
00:20:08 --> 00:20:09 says, hey, look, if you have a kid that gets
00:20:09 --> 00:20:11 really sick, if you get it thrust into elder
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 care, that's going to drastically reduce your
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 efficiency in a couple of days. If I have an
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 environment where you bring that to me, well,
00:20:20 --> 00:20:21 then we can get you back up to speed as quickly
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 as possible as well. And in that case, when I
00:20:24 --> 00:20:27 say I need these outcomes, you're looking for
00:20:27 --> 00:20:29 new ways to help me reach those outcomes. And
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 so you're holding yourself accountable. I'm pointing
00:20:31 --> 00:20:35 out this is what I expect. And I'm having difficult
00:20:35 --> 00:20:37 discussions because I'm now your coach. Some
00:20:37 --> 00:20:39 cases, there's the drill sergeant in the gym.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 And some cases, there's the coach that walks
00:20:42 --> 00:20:43 in and gives you a hug and says, I'm so glad
00:20:43 --> 00:20:46 you're here. You could be either type of those
00:20:46 --> 00:20:47 leaders and maybe you switch between them. But
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 in both cases, they're trying to make you better.
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 And so the servant leadership does that innately.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:55 But people don't realize that because they think
00:20:55 --> 00:20:56 as that authoritative leader. If I tell you get
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 this done by Thursday, well, that's the way it's
00:20:59 --> 00:21:00 going to be. That's like telling somebody to
00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 get healthy by just go eat better or work out
00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 in the gym more. That's different than changing
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 how they see themselves, making them more capable.
00:21:07 --> 00:21:10 Thanks so much for explaining that. From your
00:21:10 --> 00:21:12 experience, Scott, how do you think serving your
00:21:12 --> 00:21:16 team can lead to better outcomes, better decisions,
00:21:16 --> 00:21:19 and fast execution serving your team well? How
00:21:19 --> 00:21:23 can that lead to these aspects? They know what
00:21:23 --> 00:21:26 to expect. It's a lot easier to show up and perform
00:21:26 --> 00:21:29 well when there's a foundation of what's truly
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32 expected in the organization. And that is shown
00:21:32 --> 00:21:34 not just in the words on the website, but in
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 the actions of people. And I say that so when...
00:21:37 --> 00:21:39 Everybody knows what the outcomes expected. That's
00:21:39 --> 00:21:40 different than the tasks, because what often
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 happens is people get assigned tasks by an authoritative
00:21:42 --> 00:21:46 leader. And then you don't know that those tasks
00:21:46 --> 00:21:47 are not reaching the outcomes that you're wanting.
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 And then you get a bad performance review. You
00:21:49 --> 00:21:52 get talked down to because they're not getting
00:21:52 --> 00:21:53 the outcome, but they never discuss outcomes
00:21:53 --> 00:21:56 with you or they barely discussed it. And so
00:21:56 --> 00:21:58 from that serving perspective, I'm making sure
00:21:58 --> 00:22:01 you understand the outcomes. I'm also doing things
00:22:01 --> 00:22:04 where the culture that's on the website, where
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 so many companies have. Usually you can't actually
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 identify it or it's warm and fuzzy feeling. My
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 culture things are going to be written on the
00:22:11 --> 00:22:12 website and things you would see in people's
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 actions. I want you to have strong opinions,
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 but hold them loosely. I've been very successful.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:19 I might also be wrong next time, but that's one
00:22:19 --> 00:22:20 of the core things I want. I want people that
00:22:20 --> 00:22:23 thrive in healthy conflict, which I do not always
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 do well. Well, the servant leader realizes if
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 I want other people to do this. I have to not
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 just tell them that this is what I want. I have
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 to show them specifically, this is the hard part
00:22:33 --> 00:22:36 for authoritative leaders. I have to show them
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 when I fail. Because serving means not just saying,
00:22:39 --> 00:22:42 hey, I'm the superhero that wins a gold medal
00:22:42 --> 00:22:45 all the time. It means this is what I'm expecting
00:22:45 --> 00:22:48 of myself. And Susie brought it into me that
00:22:48 --> 00:22:50 said, I didn't handle that last conversation
00:22:50 --> 00:22:52 well. And I asked her if it was okay for me to
00:22:52 --> 00:22:53 share that. And here's how I didn't handle it
00:22:53 --> 00:22:56 well. And when you do that and you start to serve
00:22:56 --> 00:22:58 your people, trying to coach them to be better,
00:22:58 --> 00:23:01 you will be amazed at how much more they will
00:23:01 --> 00:23:03 open up, not just about maybe where they haven't
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 got it better and they need some coaching, but
00:23:05 --> 00:23:07 then that will create an environment too, where
00:23:07 --> 00:23:09 you're pointing out from a serving perspective,
00:23:09 --> 00:23:11 the outcomes we want. And I'm telling you that
00:23:11 --> 00:23:12 the outcomes I want, and I'm telling you also
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 where. the decisions that I or the leadership
00:23:15 --> 00:23:17 team has made maybe wasn't the right decision
00:23:17 --> 00:23:19 when we look back at how the data's played out.
00:23:20 --> 00:23:21 Well, then people will come to us and say, I
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23 don't have the data yet, but I think we're going
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25 down the same path in a different part of the
00:23:25 --> 00:23:27 business. And so it's not that they're right
00:23:27 --> 00:23:31 about, is the company going in a bad place? It's
00:23:31 --> 00:23:34 that you as a leader are not in a place to make
00:23:34 --> 00:23:36 better decisions without having that information,
00:23:36 --> 00:23:38 which sometimes comes from a feel or sometimes
00:23:38 --> 00:23:41 it comes from data. Usually I'll have somebody
00:23:41 --> 00:23:42 on my team and a customer success team come to
00:23:42 --> 00:23:46 me and go, I think customers are starting to
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 be unhappy about this, but I can't articulate
00:23:48 --> 00:23:52 it. And I will ask five or 25 follow -up questions
00:23:52 --> 00:23:54 and we will start to uncover something that we
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56 need to start tracking some data differently
00:23:56 --> 00:23:59 than we were. And what my environment does from
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 a decision -making perspective, I find that now
00:24:01 --> 00:24:05 I'm able to... Instead of waiting 24 months on
00:24:05 --> 00:24:08 average, as we've looked back at this at my companies
00:24:08 --> 00:24:10 and others, 24 months to correct a bad decision.
00:24:11 --> 00:24:13 And I say a bad decision because nobody intends
00:24:13 --> 00:24:15 to make a bad decision, but we've all made them.
00:24:15 --> 00:24:18 And so 24 months later, on average, before you
00:24:18 --> 00:24:20 uncover these major strategy decisions, my teams
00:24:20 --> 00:24:23 uncover them in six months. So imagine if every
00:24:23 --> 00:24:27 time. you would have otherwise waited 24 months
00:24:27 --> 00:24:30 before you could correct a mistake in the strategy.
00:24:30 --> 00:24:32 You could figure out 18 months earlier and how
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 much that compounds over time. So that's what
00:24:34 --> 00:24:37 making better decisions does. When people bring
00:24:37 --> 00:24:39 up things that maybe they actually know this
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 is a big issue or maybe they don't have that
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 yet. And so my job as being wise, having been
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47 in a lot of successful and not successful companies,
00:24:47 --> 00:24:50 is I can make good decisions, but I need the
00:24:50 --> 00:24:52 data to do it. I wanted to ask you, Kurt, how
00:24:52 --> 00:24:55 can... the listeners connect with you or what
00:24:55 --> 00:24:57 you're currently working on that our listeners
00:24:57 --> 00:24:59 can benefit from if you can give an overview
00:24:59 --> 00:25:02 of that. Yeah, my personal website at Kurt Uhler,
00:25:02 --> 00:25:05 K -U -R -T -U -H -L -I -R .com would be my main
00:25:05 --> 00:25:08 site. It'll send you out anywhere else if you
00:25:08 --> 00:25:09 want to connect with me. But I write a lot about
00:25:09 --> 00:25:11 this. I talk about case studies, success stories
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 of people. I work full -time for a holding company
00:25:13 --> 00:25:16 called Easy Home Church of the United States.
00:25:16 --> 00:25:18 We have several subsidiaries as well, but we're
00:25:18 --> 00:25:20 a massive real estate portal in the United States
00:25:20 --> 00:25:22 and growing into Canada soon. So I'm doing that,
00:25:23 --> 00:25:26 but on the side, I'm helping build this community
00:25:26 --> 00:25:28 of senior executives in the United States, purpose
00:25:28 --> 00:25:30 -driven senior leaders. companies like of 10
00:25:30 --> 00:25:33 million to 500 million, because it's lonely at
00:25:33 --> 00:25:35 the top and things are changing so much right
00:25:35 --> 00:25:37 now. We're trying to figure out together, how
00:25:37 --> 00:25:40 do I share with you when your job, hey, here's
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 what I'm working on. Before I go present it to
00:25:42 --> 00:25:44 my board, can I run this past you and other purpose
00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 -driven leaders and vice versa? And do that in
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 a way that's both private, but also doesn't exist
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 anywhere that's out there. Dear listeners, I
00:25:53 --> 00:25:56 would be putting Kurt's link and information
00:25:56 --> 00:26:00 in our podcast and videos bios. Thank you so
00:26:00 --> 00:26:03 much, Kurt, for joining today's podcast. Thank
00:26:03 --> 00:26:06 you for having me. And for conveying your words
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09 of wisdom with our listeners. So I am sure they
00:26:09 --> 00:26:11 benefited from them a lot. And dear listeners,
00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 again, I also encourage you to check out Kurt's
00:26:14 --> 00:26:17 website and connect with him to see how you can
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 benefit from his services. Again, thank you,
00:26:20 --> 00:26:22 dear listeners, for joining today's episode.
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 It's me, Dr. Nazif, signing out. We'll see you
00:26:24 --> 00:26:28 again in another episode on another day. Take
00:26:28 --> 00:26:43 care until then. Take action in your own life.
00:26:44 --> 00:26:46 Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an
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00:26:58 --> 00:27:00 Take care, stay active and take action.