Get in touch with Matt by emailing him at m7gutermuth@gmail.com.
Owning a business is a challenge. Knowing how to keep innovating in your business is an even bigger one. Join restaurant owner, motivational speaker, and innovation expert Sara Frasca each week as she guides fellow business owners in taking the next step to level up their business. This week, Sara chats with Matt Gutermuth about creating a culture of authenticity in his business. If you've ever pondered hiring a business coach but want a sample first, come along for the adventure!
Send us a message to join the show for free business guidance: https://pointnortheast.com/contact-us/
Sara Frasca is the founder and owner of Trasca & Co Eatery in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, an experienced and engaging motivational speaker, and the CEO of global business coaching firm Point NorthEast.
Transcript:
You're listening to level up your business, the podcast where we talk to hardworking business owners and leaders and help them solve real issues in real time. I'm your host, Sarah Frasca restaurant owner, keynote speaker and business coach. I've spent my career not only in corporate America but also as an entrepreneur, carrying on my family's legacy through my restaurant, now a business coach and consultant. I'm helping other businesses to use creative problem solving and innovative thinking to drive lasting change. Stay tuned to hear some inspiring guidance that will help you to level up your business. And today, I am joined with my teammate Laura Rader and we are going to chat with a very special person to me, Matt Good or Muth. Hello, Matt, welcome. Thank you, Sara. Thanks for having me today. I'm excited to be here. And nice to see you, Laura. Say, Matt, thanks for being here. So funny enough, Matt and I, I'll start maybe with my background with Matt, we got to know each other in two places in our community kind of here in Ponte Vedra Beach. And the first was that we were both a part of the Jacksonville University, Davis College of Business board, kind of the board of advisors and we got to sit on the board and help the students help the faculty help the school. So that was an honor and really got to know Matt then. But it turned out he lives in my neighborhood, basically, and goes to my restaurant. So you're a Tresca. Yeah, thank you for the support back is the best. Oh, I know. Everyone listening knows that is the best. So thank you, again, for supporting the restaurant. I mean, you and I get together every so often, because I feel like we have this mind meld when we come together. And we just like it like froth with ideas. And oh my gosh, we should do this. And we should do that. And anyway, I always enjoyed chatting with you. So thanks for being on the show. As you know, Laura, and I come from General Mills, and your background, which you'll share with folks in just a minute is kind of a tangent. And it's kind of funny, but how they say like the six degrees. I mean, I bet we're like two degrees of separation. All three of us, you know, the same people, we grew up in the same world. So yes, why don't we start there, Matt, tell us about your career and how you got to where you are today. Happy to. So I grew up in the food and beverage business. So when I say grew up, I literally was born into it. My father was with Nabisco for 42 years. My dad was my hero, my best friend. So outside of becoming a professional baseball player, there was nothing else I was going to do except follow on my dad's footsteps, which, unfortunately, I couldn't become a professional baseball player. So I went to work for PepsiCo. As I graduated from college, again to follow in my dad's footsteps. And I started out in this industry, about as bottom of the barrel as you can start out, I started out driving Pepsi trucks, in a blue polyester Pepsi uniform, with patches all over it. And I spent my first nine, nine and a half years with Pepsi, and worked my way up through a whole host of different selling and operational and marketing positions. At the end of that 910 year stretch, my father had begun his retirement process within Nabisco. And he had hired a bunch of my college buddies, to go to work for Nabisco, who were all still there. And they, for all intents and purposes, said, Maddie, you got to come back home, come to Nabisco, your dad's retiring it's time. And I thought about it long and hard because I loved Pepsi. But the one thing that Bisco was really good at that Pepsi was a little behind was category management. And they were widely regarded in the industry as the best of the best. And I felt that was a missing piece to my skill set. So I made the decision to go back home, went to work for Nabisco and spent in immediately moved to San Antonio, Texas, to take on a market unit for Nabisco. And I spent about five and a half years with the Nabisco company. And during that period of time, it was in San Antonio, Texas, and I was out in Pleasanton, California, calling on Safeway stores at Kraft had purchased Nabisco kind of during that, that stretch of time. And I'll be very honest, I did not love Kraft as much as I love Nabisco and PepsiCo, very bureaucratic, very slow, very non innovative. So I was thinking about what do I want to do next? Here I am in California and loved calling on Safeway. And I got a phone call from Steve Byrd, who was Safeways CEO at the time. And Steve asked me to do. So Steve, and I go to dinner, and I had no idea what the heck he wants to talk about. But he comes straight through the front door and says, Matt, we'd like you to consider becoming a retailer. Have you ever thought about it? My first reaction was no, my father would kill me if I ever went to the other side of the table. And he asked me to think about it, which I did. And ultimately, through a whole host of these are the pros. These are the cons of making this change. I decided to go to work for Safeway, and go to that other side of the desk. I ran beverage snacks, alcohol and tobacco, a bunch of categories that I was perfectly familiar with, given my PepsiCo and, and my disco background, and I became a merchant. And I did that for about two and a half years. And then a gentleman who's been incredibly successful in this industry, came to Safeway, a gentleman by the name of Brian Cornell, who happens to be the CEO of target today. Brian, I, Brian and I both had PepsiCo backgrounds, we developed a relationship. And Brian plucked me out of merchandising and asked if I would go run this little thing that they had just bought out of bankruptcy, called safeway.com. It was a very early stage pioneer in the E commerce food delivery space. And it was in rough shape. And Brian said, you're not getting any new capital. And you need to figure this out in six months, because we're going to shut it down if there's not a business there. So in December of oh, five 2005, I became CEO of safeway.com. And had I told Brian, I said, Brian, you're asking me to run a tech company. I can barely use email. I am not a tech guy. And he said, don't worry. He said, You'll figure it out. It's like running a DSD company. It's all good. So I dropped into safeway.com. Within two years, we had doubled the size of our revenue organically. And we have become operating income profitable about a year ahead of our our pro formas. So the Safeway organization was thrilled. They bought out the other investors which included Tesco, a big retailer over and over in Europe. And I led the company through that m&a At the end of that, I bet in California for eight years, my Safeway experience, I loved it, you know had the opportunity to go back into a merchandising role there. But it was time for me to get a little closer to home. My parents are getting a little older children are getting a little older. And that's when I moved to Jacksonville for the first time Sarah and I I was the lead merchant for Winn Dixie stores, right after Winn Dixie had come out of bankruptcy. And there was a handful of us that were brought into to see if we can help turn Winn Dixie around. Which I'm glad to say that we did. Winn Dixie in 2012 was purchased by private equity group. It was a wonderful exit for our shareholders. And quite frankly, it allowed Winn Dixie to turn into southeastern grocers, which is today part of the all B Corporation so probably one of my most enjoyable pieces of my career, because when we inherited Winn Dixie, there were 50,000 employees, and it was a zero sum game we were either going to succeed or those 50,000 employees were going to have to look for a new job. When we merged with bylo to form southeastern grocers, we had over 65,000 employees. So we didn't have to shut down a bunch of stores which was absolutely phenomenal. On upon that exit, I then went to the other side of food, which I knew nothing about. But the food service side of food. And I went to work for Cisco. And I ran a chunk of their corporate merchandising activity. And loved working for Cisco was in Houston, Texas for a little over four years. And unfortunately, that's when we had a little bit of a family tragedy that struck, I lost my dad, who I mentioned was by Eero rather suddenly, and my wife lost her dad, rather suddenly, within about a 90 day stretch of time. So it was a life event that made me rethink, you know, hey, I got to be closer to home, I gotta get back to Florida. But what do I what do I want to do? And I had been collecting board seats. You know, kind of earlier in my when Dixie and my Cisco days. And that's when I pivoted and said, How can I take all of this experience, and really help these innovative companies in the food and beverage place in the food, food and beverage space succeed. So I took a leap of faith, I went out on my own. And I got, I got more actively involved with these small, emerging innovative companies in the food and beverage space. And over time, I got involved with more and more companies that enabled me to get involved with capital companies. One in particular, I'm sure you've heard of is Goldman Sachs. And because of the success that these handful of companies have been able to deliver, I am now a Goldman Sachs turnaround CEO. So I, I engage with various Goldman Sachs companies, either as an independent director or sometimes as a CEO. And I help get their portfolio of companies kind of on the right track again. And I've also got relationships with a handful of other capital partners now. But I would say the second half of my career has been all about helping really smart, emerging innovative companies figure out how to how to succeed in this crazy industry of food and Bev, it's really great. So that's a long story. But it's because I mean, I know Laura is probably chomping at the bit because the amount of overlap with all three of our careers is just so fun and exciting. So Laura, I'm, you've come a long way from Blue polyester. Right? I think I still have one of them in my closet just for for old times sake. Sure. Sure. What a question that I have, or just kind of shed some light on it, as you look to, you know, going from big corporate down to, hey, I'm a one person show to now it seems like you're kind of going back. How have you mentally really prepared for that? Because I think sometimes we see in our business, that can be a challenge one way or the other. So I just would love to hear from you. And kind of I don't think we've got mastered either. So any tips and tricks? Welcome, Matt. I tell you, Laura, that is that is a phenomenal question, because I don't I don't know that there's an easy answer to it. Because you're absolutely right. I was used to being in this corporate bubble. You know, everything from the check showed up every other week. And you just picked your benefits package once a year. And you take so many things for granted when you're in this corporate world, that all of a sudden are gone. When you pivot out onto your own your own and obviously there were were some things I knew going in. But quite frankly, there was a whole bunch that I didn't. And I think at the end of the day, what helped me was just the self belief and the courage to jump in. Not even knowing how deep the pool is, but having faith in my experiential background in corporate America. Got that I was just going to figure it out. And trust me, there were days where I questioned myself, you know, what have you done, especially at that stage in my life where I was a little longer in my career. But as I sit back and look back today, about four and a half years post making this pivot, I am so very glad that I did. My career today, what I do today is very different. But it is so incredibly rewarding. And I would just, if I could give anybody one or two pieces of advice that are thinking about doing it is one, believe in yourself, you are a heck of a lot smarter, and you're a heck of a lot better than you give yourself credit for. I think we're all our biggest self critics, and to just go into it with a spirit of learning. It is a great time. And I'm a big believer that you should never ever, ever start learning. You know, the old saying, of when you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. I am a huge believer that in that. And I think if you go into it with that attitude to where you're going to be open, you're going to be willing to put yourself out there and network and listen and meet people that you might have otherwise not met. It is unbelievable. How much your community will give back to you. If you invest a little bit in it. That's great. I mean, Matt, I, you know, I think there's something to be said to for your willingness to kind of take that leap to have the humility. I mean, you just are one of the most, you know, loving, compassionate, humble people that I've ever met. I mean, your your background is so amazing yet, you know, I just feel like you have this internal, like, what the heck, I'm willing to roll up my sleeves and try stuff. And just, I mean, so I do feel like there's this beauty in your character that allows you to step in and say like, Well, I mean, why not? Let's give it a shot. And I think that's why you've been so successful, you know, and my honest impression of what I think you've done. Well, I'm, I'm humbled by you saying that, thank you. And that is directly attributable to my parents. Thankfully, my mom's still alive. In fact, I'm headed down to go see her here later this afternoon. But I'll I will always remember, a car ride with my dad. And I'll remember it like it was yesterday, because it was one of those seminal moments in somebody's life. And I was a young kid, I don't know how young I was. But, you know, I was old enough to remember it. But I was young enough to not really understand what my dad did. And my dad had just taken on the role of head of sales for Nabisco. And it was back in the barbarians at the gate days when KKR had come in ROSS Johnson who my dad now worked for. And so it was pretty crazy. And I was in that car with my dad. And I said, Dad, I said, I don't understand how you do a job that's this big. You have all these customers and all these products, and you have, you know, 1000s of people that you have to motivate and you have shareholders and now you have KKR and like, how do you manage all of this? And he kind of smiled. And he just looked at me and he's and he said he said, Matt, he said I actually have the easiest job in the company. And I was like, no, like, What are you talking about? I said, he said, Yeah, he said, all I have to do is take care of and inspire and bring in the right character people to our organization. And if I do that one simple thing. They all take care of my customers who remain incredibly happy. And when happy customers are when customers are happy, they buy more. And when they buy more, guess what all of those other people, the shareholders in KKR and everybody else, they're happy. So I just never lose sight of what is the The single most important thing that I do, and that is I put people first. And as long as that foundation is strong, everything else takes care of itself. And I will never forget that conversation. Because you know, you go to business school or you go to college, and everybody wants to tell you how hard business is. And you got to know the numbers and the finance and the structures and the marketplace. And there's 1000 Things they tell you, you know, you need to be really good at you need to be expertise that, and my dad just broke it down to where it's no, what you need to be really expertise at is people. And if you can do that exceptionally well, everything else takes care of itself. And I've tried to live by that conversation in my career, I haven't always succeeded, but I've tried. And, you know, having that belief that if you can get the people, right, structure drives, behavior, behavior drives results, then your business, whatever business it is, is going to be incredibly successful. It's great. I mean, I was just thinking about how you greeted me with, you know, your comment about the restaurant and Zach's the best. Like, it doesn't matter what type of a business you have, if people have the care have the compassion, they have the willingness to come in an authentic manner. And, I mean, again, I said it earlier, roll up their sleeves, like there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And if people just lean in, we can do a lot of fun things. So And Matt, what I took away too, is like, Be human, with people, like, you know, we spend so much of our time at work. And it's okay to love your work family, too. I mean, you know, like, I'm Rich and lovable, you know. But I think that that's an important message that sometimes sometimes in the world of technology, and not seeing people and all that it kind of gets a little harder to kind of have a connection, you have to be authentic. And this is where I see a lot of leaders and a lot of companies, they get lost, right? You know, with all due respect to my HR professional friends out there, HR can be a little bit cold, you know, it can be a little bit about rules and regulations and compliance and governance. And I'm not saying you know that that is that you know that that is bad. It's just how you come across with doing all of the right things in a more authentic human way, is really at the end of the day, what it's all about HR can be really, really simple. If just every single day, you're guided by just do the right thing. And we were faced early on. When I was CEO of AI control, we were faced with a serious conundrum, where we had a team of individuals that was working for a third party that we had a long relationship with. And they were over in Ukraine. And there was a handful of individuals in Ukraine, working for us through a third party, when the UK Ukraine, Russian conflict broke out. And at the time I control was in wasn't in the best shape. And we were still burning cash, we weren't profitable, we were a long way away from being quote unquote, turned around. And we had to make a decision. Because these folks were fleeing with their families for their lives. And they weren't going to you know, internet was down, they were going to be offline for an unknown period of time. And given that they went through a third party, the business manual would have told you, it's really simple. Just go find another third party, you know, so that you can continue to get the work done, that these people were doing for you. We threw the business manual out, because what we did is we continue to pay those people their full salary. And basically said, when you and your families are safe, and you're ready to distract yourself with a little work, let us know. And we went to that third party and we said look, we're making this commitment to your folks. RX vacation now have you is that you take some of the fees that we pay you, and you send them to these people that are working for us, which they actually did. So, and guess what, that resonated with the entire company, not just the Ukrainian people. But it read, it resonated with everybody in our organization that, you know, wow, that is a pretty cool stance that our company decided to make. And at the end of the day, in terms of dollars and cents, it costs us very, very little, to do the right thing. But sometimes, at the end of the day, the way you, if you will create a culture of authenticity, is to throw the HR manual out to throw the business manual out, and to just in your gut, in your soul, just go do the right thing. And it'll pay itself back in spades. That's what I've found over the course of my career. You might say, that's such an amazing story. My question was going to be so fast forward, and unfortunately, they're still in the conflict. You know, are those individual settled? Are they back working on your business? Because I bet they're working twice as hard for you Now, thankfully, every single one of them survived. And as far as we know, their families survived their direct families. And the answer is, yes, we still work with that third party, and we still work with, with most, if not all, of those, those individuals. And You betcha. I mean, these folks, you know, I heard stories of these folks would literally be in shelters, and they'd be working, you know, in in the middle of the night, you know, to, you know, to to help us out and to do what they did for us. So, yeah, I mean, no business manual, no business school would be would necessarily teach Hey, that's the, that's the right thing to do from a business standpoint. But, you know, sometimes you come to those crossroads, and you start to do the right thing. You know, it's interesting, you bring up that story, I haven't thought about this in a long time. But a similar situation happened to me when I was at General Mills, and I was working, you know, for for a certain manager who recognized I mean, I was in crisis, my mom had been diagnosed with brain cancer. And my dad and I were her main, I would say, nurses or care providers, I mean, we were taking her down to the Mayo Clinic, and many in Rochester from like, the Minneapolis St. Paul area. Anyway, my point is, this was before remote based work, and they allowed me to take her to her, you know, chemo and radiation and work from down in Rochester and things like that. And, you know, again, I mean, I'm sure General Mills, corporate probably would have said, well, we got to have, you know, good productivity. But, I mean, I came back with this kind of loyalty and feeling of you supported me when I needed the most. And now I will give my whole heart times three. Right. And so I do think that there are some really amazing ways of supporting people that may not get, they might not make the paper, but you know, it's it's a, it's a it's the right thing to do. For the humans that are on your team are Yeah, that's really a neat story. Yeah. Goosebumps head to toe. And if you do it with authenticity, it's like, it shouldn't make the paper, right. Yeah. It, it should Unfortunately, most of the bad stuff is the only stuff that ever makes the paper. Right. So no, Sara, you're you're absolutely right. If if you can come across, you know, employee engagement is a huge topic, right? And there's all sorts of statistics out there that, you know, upwards of over 50% of the workforce is completely disengaged from the work that they do, right. And you My goodness, if you can find a way to cut that in half. And imagine the amount of productivity if you can cut that in half. And here's the deal, and what I found is it's never the big things, you know, it's never throwing more money at people or you know, those sorts of things or the, you know, the forced fun that some companies do, right? It's always real awkward. And it's awkward because it's not authentic, right is if you can just create human connections, authentic human connections, you know, with the folks on your team, then they're going to run through a wall for you. And in my view, the role of the CEO is not to be the smartest person in finance in the smartest person in sales and the smartest person in operations, because I'm far from all that. But the CEOs role at the end of the day, is to keep the company energized about the strategic path, the journey that we're on, and to encourage them along the way. And to make sure that the individuals across the company are all collaborating, and they're positive, and they understand what the expectations are, and they're energized to deliver those expectations. At the end of the day, that's the heart and soul of the role of the CEO. I'll be the first to admit, you know, I was by far not the smartest guy in the room in any of my functions. But I had really, really good people, in all of those functions that were the smartest people in the room. And alls I needed to do, again, going back to that car ride, is I just needed to inspire and empower them and let them go do what they're brilliant at doing. And everything else was going to take care of itself. That's awesome. I was with a client yesterday that ironically, is the CEO of his, I would say medium to larger sized law firm. And he's the CEO, but he says that it stands for Chief encouragement officer. And I really, I thought that was cute, you know, you could use excitement or whatever. But it's that empowerment. It's that, you know, getting people fired up towards the cause, telling them they're doing a great job, you know, and so I love that. So speaking of, you know, Laura is one of my favorite bosses that I've ever had at General Mills. And so I sort of, you know, I think everything you said, you know, in terms of getting a team rallied the people that worked for for Laura at General Mills would run through a brick wall for her then, and they would today. Yeah, totally. I mean, there's people around the country, and hopefully, they're listening. And they can chime in with their comments, because deserves a lot of love. But I mean, she did that through authenticity, and you know, and also the customers, I think, kind of new to Laura, to be fair, I think, you know, calling on all these customers from Walmart to HEB to everybody in between. And it was really fun. But I think they all knew Laura meant business, but she sure had your back. But man, like you said, I had a great team. I had the luxury of we were always seem to be the smartest. But we all were able to work together. And we were by far the smartest. So the power, you know, the exponential power that we all had. So it was great. Tim was a magic. You know, they say in your career magical times. It's kind of it was a magical. Yeah. So there are, there are many engagements that have done seven turnarounds or accelerations in my career and knock on wood. I'm seven for seven. So knock on wood. But one of the things that I do notice often when I when I drop into certain situations is is the CEO and our glass leader or a top path leader. And what I mean by that is we've all seen an hourglass, and there's a bunch of sand on the top and it has to flow through this really tight opening and then eventually it gets to the bottom. Is the CEO that tight spot in the middle. does everything have to run through that CEO? Does every decision have to run through that CEO or does the CEO create a culture where everybody is disempowered and thinks it all has to run through that CEO? In many cases, that is kind of the situation And that I drop into, and especially in founder led organizations, founders are really, really great at starting something. And then there comes a point in time in their journey, where they have to stop acting like a founder, and start acting like a leader. And there's a massive difference. And I've seen so many instances where the founder, not intentionally, not maliciously, but they become that, you know, the middle of the hourglass. And what that does, ultimately, at the end of the day, is it stops innovation, it stifles growth, and they their company that, you know, may have been on a rocket ship, not so very long ago, all of a sudden begins to stall. And it's very difficult, in many cases, for founders to find their way out of that conundrum. And a big part of what I hope to accomplish in my second half career is to help CEOs who are in that stuck in that I'm in the middle of the hourglass, I just joined a health care board out of Denver, Colorado, was so incredibly impressed with the CEO and founder, because he knew he was stuck. And he didn't know how to get out. So we got connected. And I now part of his organization, that is actively helping him get unstuck in this company, I think is going to be a rocket ship. And I just I love working with CEOs, and founders who have that self awareness, to know when to go ask for help. Just seen too many, that kind of hang on to that belief that they're the smartest person in the room, I started this, this is my baby, and you know, it's gonna live and die with me. And unfortunately, all too often That attitude leads to, it's more likely going to die with you than live with you. So, anyhow, how much of that because we see that all the time with our clients. I mean, I would say, we primarily work with founders, or, you know, owners that maybe took over shortly after the founder, but that are acting as those hourglass kind of leaders. And so how much of it do you find is actually I, it's the psychological component, they have trust issues, or they have fear that stifling them? I mean, this seems like you're coming in as a counselor in a lot of senses to the CEO and saying, like, it's okay, I'm gonna strap your hands down. Yeah, you anything, you're, you're along for the ride, you brought the right people, let them go. Yeah, let them go. I honestly think that certainly there are instances, you know, where their own self doubt, you know, or being, you know, fearful of letting go, Hey, I've got in many cases, man, this is my entire life, right? I've got my entire livelihood in this thing. I can't entrust it to somebody else. But I also see a lot of, they just don't know what to do. The beauty of our experiences, kind of coming up through corporate America is guess what we were taught how to lead in very specific and incremental ways. We were taught what it's like, you know, to have teams and to have to be accountable to a number and to have to care for people. In many cases, these founders did not have that same experience. They weren't taught that. And now all of a sudden, they're thrown in, you know, let's say they catch a tiger by the tail, and their business, all of a sudden hockey sticks. You know, literally, in some cases overnight, they could now have this 100 Plus person company with $10 million of revenue, and they've got outside capital that they have to take care of. I mean, these types of things can spin up and happen really, really fast. And in in many cases, they just don't have the inherent skill sets. Because they've never been taught how to actually be A leader in that type of situation? Yeah, that's a good point. Because what you made me think of is, you know, back to corporate America days that, you know, we all three have been a part of, if there's a question and it's like, gosh, I have no idea, I'm gonna go ask the HR person or the finance person. So you get this kind of training of like, I don't have to know everything, because there's a department for that, and I'm gonna go talk to the expert. And so when you have a founder, and they have built it from the ground up, they may have been enough at the point in time when they started, the business has scaled, they now need an expert to come in. And yeah, I think that's a really interesting kind of moment of reflection for me on just, you know, we learned to ask for help, because we were never expected exactly what everything exactly like, there, I remember the story, you told me about a law firm that you were working with. And, you know, one of the partners like a phenomenal lawyer, like unbelievable lawyer, you know, was now trying to venture into some of the administrative functions of their law firm, because they had gotten to the size where they needed to do that. And this individual was struggling mightily, because, you know, didn't necessarily know how to go build out these other administrative one. And I think this individual was another one of those unique individuals that recognize this early enough on that they were able to ask for help. And his firm benefited greatly from him asking for help. Yeah. And I think what kind of comes into play to that we see is, again, if you're a founder, you've clearly been somewhat successful, you still have a business, or you just kind of, you know, you've been able to fake it maybe a little bit on the HR and a few other areas. And heaven forbid, you say, you don't know what you're doing. And you ask for help. And like, How can I possibly bring typically someone in maybe that might be younger, that might have the expertise in the area? So we kind of end up coaching people on like, it's okay that you don't know everything? No, we're all human. We can't possibly know everything, and nor are you good at everything. I mean, frankly, right. I'm not a good doctor. No. That's not what I'm trained to do. So I think it's a good insight from the standpoint of, you know, this growth, what it means to grow your business and the role that you play as a CEO. And I think you're, you know, I love a founder versus leader. Am I safe? Am I safe? And doctor that? That's okay. Big difference. Yeah. So what types of businesses are you working with right now, Matt? I mean, what if if someone's listening in they're like, oh, my gosh, I could really use a turnover expert. What kinds of businesses not turnover turnaround? Sorry. I said the wrong way, definitely don't want it to turn over. Or I was thinking maybe we could talk about like Pop Tart turnovers, you know, like, it's like a, an actual bakery turnover. Um, apologies. I meant turnaround, and what types of businesses here is, what I've learned over the years is, I grew up as I mentioned in food and beverage, and I certainly know enough to be dangerous in in that vertical. But what I've also learned having done a number of turnarounds and accelerations, all different shapes and sizes, all different types of turnarounds and accelerations, supplier technology distribution, you know, retail, what I found is that the fundamentals, there's eight areas, generally speaking, that out are not operating optimally. That is creating the business to sputter. And those eight areas when I get involved with a business, that is where I start to poke around, because generally speaking, you can find the problem in those eight areas. As matter of fact, I would almost guarantee it. That somewhere in those eight buckets, you're missing something. And so therefore, Sara to get to the answer to your question, I am With today, I'm engaged with a supply chain freight company that ships products all over the globe. And mentioned, I recently joined a health care company. I've been in SAS technology, I've been in the payments space, I am currently engaged with a, a branded company that's launching a new brand. I'm involved with Sarah, you. And I've talked a lot about tended bar, which is a disruptor in the arena, and hotel space. And so at the end of the day, given my experience and my if you will platform, I'm almost more energized to go jump into something that I know very little about. And apply, you know, kind of my playbook of these eight things. And I can guarantee you that the marketplace may be different, the vernacular may be a little different, the widget may be different, but the fundamentals of those eight things are going to be exactly the same. So I'm involved, I have gone away outside my comfort zone, and gotten outside of, of food and beverage. So in short order, I am not afraid to step in to almost anything. The eighth, that's the title of your book. Actually, you know what, it's funny, you mentioned that because one of these days, I'm gonna get around to writing one. The title of my book is it's all about the athletes. Oh, it's all about the athletes. Okay. And then we'll go into the eight things that you know, all invariably, you have to have the right people to go pull off and execute, but it's all about the athletes. What was your position in baseball? I was a pitcher. Okay, kind of thought that might be the case. Laura's husband was also a pitcher. There you go. We love pitchers. Yes. My son is a pitcher as well, or was a pitcher left in your writing? In in the world of baseball? The pitcher kind of is a very unique position, right? Because they're the only ones on the team who have a win loss record. Yep. Right. Everybody else on the team is kind of strapped with a win loss record of the team. But a pitcher has their own win loss record. So if you're going to be a pitcher, you have to have thick skin. Because you know, front and center is going to be you know, your win loss record and how that you know, positively or negatively impacts the team. You're in the middle of the field. And you're elevated. So, rise, yeah, all eyes are on the pitcher. So again, if you're going to be a pitcher, you have to be okay with the good and the bad that comes with being in the middle of the field and being elevated on a pedestal. Because it ain't always pretty, I've given up more than my fair share of home runs in my life. And that's a miserable feeling when you're standing there alone, watching the guy who just took yard run around the bases. And the third thing is everything begins with you. Nothing happens nobody moves until you move. So it you know, kind of those unique characteristics of being a pitcher you know, are quite frankly, I've found you know, wonderful life lessons that you can take to being a leader. You got to be okay with the scorecard is the scorecard the scorecard never lies, you win or you lose? It doesn't matter if you felt you threw a good game. The umpire was a little off. What are your guys didn't score enough? Doesn't matter. The scorecard is this or the scoreboard is the scoreboard you either win or lose. And you have to have the mindset to where you're okay with both of those. And to just keep working to just keep grinding to just keep learning. You know, try to get a little bit better every day. And so it's interesting, Laura, that you're married to a pitcher but it's I'd be curious, you know if that kind of describes his mindset a little bit because it certainly was something that I was taught playing that position. Well, first of all, I'd say you left your writing. I'm a righty, right. Okay. Right here. This is why I'm talking to you today. If I was our son, our stats opening day, right, opening day right there today, the only thing I would add about you pictures is you spent a lot of time in your head console. Sometimes, as you're leading, you sometimes have to say, hey, wait, I'm the extrovert. First baseman, you kind of got to tell me a couple of things. So 1,000%, that's good. I was in percent. I am incredibly superstitious. I wore a t shirt. Every time I pitched it was the same T shirt, in high school and all through college. By the time I was a senior in college, it had been washed so much you could see through it. And it was an all county basketball camp. Grey t shirt that I got when I was in high school. And I think I just thrown it on one day. And it was a day where I threw a no hitter, perfect game or something in high school. And from that day forward, that T shirt was underneath my uniform no matter what. Wow, where did you? Where'd you pitch, Matt? I went to the University of Richmond in Virginia. Spider. So I'm a mighty spider. Huh? Yeah. Our son looked at it. So great. Okay, so I have Pepsi polyester. I have an hourglass, and I have a great t shirt. That's right. These are some good visuals, visuals. And I do have an hourglass, my, my home. That's a good reminder, I might be buying a couple hour glasses to remind a couple of our client founders to stop being pinned. Maybe we can invent one. It's an hourglass, and then it's kind of like the Rubik's cube, and then it becomes a top hat. Absolutely. Like you think if you put sand in an hourglass and sand in a bucket, you turn them both over at the same time. You know, which moves faster? Right. I love that. Okay. Well, how will people get in touch with you if they are interested in either a pastry turnover? No, just getting more turnaround or just picking your brain? How should they reach out if they need you? Personal Email is fantastic. All right. All right. There it is. There it is. Thank you. Matt, truly, thank you for allowing us to chat with you about your journey. I mean, you've done so many incredible things in your life. And thanks for just being a really good human. Well, thank you both. for having me, Laura. It was a pleasure to meet you. Hopefully one of these days. We can do it over Appennino Treska. With a beer. Yes, yes. With a beer. Yes. Now that there's the you know, the little tap room right next to it. So anyhow, y'all have a wonderful Easter. Did you see Trevor Lawrence came by this week. I saw the picture on your social. Yep. Yeah. Came right over to that tap room and had I think you had a pinion or two. So that's awesome. All right. Great. Thank you both have. Y'all have a wonderful Easter. You guys. Thank you again. You bet. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of level up your business with me, Sarah Frasca. If you have a problem in your business that's keeping you up at night. Please join us in a future episode so we can help get you unstuck. Just clicking the link in the show notes and send us a message. Please remember, stay innovative friends.