Episode 58 - Building by the Power of 9

Apr 21

Episode #58 | Aaron Eggert | Building by the Power of 9

On this insightful episode of The Curious Builder, Aaron Eggert from Coalition9 shares his expertise on the transformative power of genuine relationship building and the significance of community building in business. We talk through Aaron's journey of creating a unique, 'refer-only' community, the importance of vulnerability in forming authentic connections, and the exciting plans to expand the reach of Coalition9 while preserving its core values. Tune in to learn about the holistic approach to personal and professional growth that goes beyond the conventional, and discover how to create a memorable brand experience within your own business!

Listen to the full episode:

About Aaron Eggert

This Minnesota professional has a history of turning small business into big business and connecting the brains of the Twin Cities community. With roles in several businesses as both an advisor and investor, co-founding a non-profit called Minneapolis HOPE, and proof of his incredible ability to grow an organization – it isn’t hard to believe that he has a knack for initiating and maintaining great relationships and great business. Aaron made his first major break-through at an office products distributor when he broke the first three years sales record that had been in place longer than he had been alive. Then, at age 29 he became Vice President of Sales leading the company into more profit and took a mediocre office furnishings division from bland to booming in 2 short years. That’s when he was noticed and recruited to join iSpace Environments as a Partner, which at the time was a medium sized office furnishings business. In 5 years, Aaron and his team led the company to 270% growth through brand awareness, strategic planning, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. He believes that his success is about being genuine in his desire to understand his client’s business with the passion to connect and to be a resource to others.

The beginning of this journey began in the summer of 2017. Aaron had just turned forty years old and found himself in a bit of a predicament. As a partner in a successful office furnishings and technology firm that had grown exponentially over the past few years, he should have been on top of the world. However, it was quite the contrary. It's not like he was going through a mid-life crisis or anything, he was just missing something. So, Aaron took some time off to reflect and get to the root of what was causing this void. During his reflection it became abundantly clear how fortunate he was. He has lived a life filled with success and fantastic experiences, his wife is a complete rock star independent business owner, and they own a hobby farm with seven chickens. What's not to love about that? Then it hit him. Aaron found himself asking "What am I doing to create purpose and solidify my legacy?"

After a couple years of consulting as a Revenue Strategist, the idea of Coalition9 was born. The C9 community was created around one simple premise. Bring good people together, regardless of their progress in the leadership journey, with a focus on Character First. We strive to create a community where a diversity of experiences in business and life is celebrated with a vision of Changing Business Nine Leaders at a Time.

Doing business with other Members should make life just a bit easier. Surrounding yourself with top leaders will push you to be your best. Focusing on the things that really matter - your impact on the business community and those you lead - will change you for the better. Lastly, we believe it’s highly important to make this financially accessible, yet exclusive, based on Character. We’re working hard to bring good people together to ignite a leadership revolution.

Aaron’s role as Chief Vision Officer is to ensure that we are driving the experience and community forward for the maximum positive impact on the lives of our Members. The role of the Members and facilitators is to guide this community and be a constant voice for growth, evolution, and relationship building. All Members will have access to and play a part in the well-being of the community, and their voices will be heard on how to continue providing an unmatched experience. Without the Members and their voices, we have nothing.

As someone who thrives on connection, Aaron takes great pride in building a relationship with every single Member. Together, we are building something really special at Coalition9.

Resources

Mark D. Williams
Today on the podcast, we had Aaron Eggert on from coalition nine and it was an awesome podcast as I thought it would be just because Aaron is a great colorful personality, lots to share extremely energetic. And I think you're gonna really find out what it's like to connect with people. I think the thing that comes across the most clearly about Aaron is just his passion and his drive to connect other people and to create something beyond a transaction. This is not a networking group. These are peer groups, relationship buildings, it's about how do you how do you make sure that the character is represented in the people that are coming? And so I think you're gonna find this to be a great lesson and I hope you enjoy it. And now to Thickers builder podcast. Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm joined with Aaron Eggert from coalition nine. Thanks for coming on,
Unknown Speaker 0:47
man. Thanks for having me on. Man. This
Mark D. Williams 0:49
is awesome. So it's been a long time coming. We met probably about a year ago. 810 months ago.
Unknown Speaker 0:55
Yeah, I think it was actually a little more than a year was it? Yeah.
Mark D. Williams 0:58
Because Nancy Flom is a C Niner as we call them a coalition nine year networking group, which we're about to talk about. And I don't know if I told you the whole story. So I went down there, they were trying to get our business for a carpet and flooring. And I must have been pretty wound up that day as opposed to normal for those that know me. They're like rolling their eyes. And she's like, you know who you remind me of? You're so much like comics, if you have more hair than him is aired Eggert.
Unknown Speaker 1:24
I'll take that. And
Mark D. Williams 1:26
I was like, I was like, oh, man, this poor guy must be really wild. And so anyway, I guess I got a brother from another mother. And we do we do. So that was the intro. So tell us a little bit about your business. For those that aren't familiar with you. And obviously, there's a lot of builders that probably wouldn't be familiar with you. But give us a little bit of your backstory about what coalition nine is, and then we'll kind of dive into some of your history. Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:49
so I started this just over five years ago, and a lot of it was driven around being a previous business owner and the experiences of of the loneliness that I that I had, and I was in peer groups, but I can never find my people. And I have a thing with with the good old boys club, I guess. And a lot of that is the good old boys club that I just never identify that, you know, as that. So I kind of wanted to be a disrupter to the good old boy counterculture, right. Yeah, and and so community first was something that I wanted to build, I also wanted to make sure and build something that was more diverse, obviously. So yeah, I set out on that journey and hired a brand strategist to help me, you know, figure out what that looks and feels like, and invest in technology heavily. And so one of the things I wanted to do is make sure that we had an unrivaled member experience, but yet the least amount of overhead as possible. So I never wanted membership dues to be the barrier to entry, I wanted character to be the barrier to entry. So good people need to know good people is is something I say so. So we I think the pure the model of peer group is powerful, right, you're in a group, you understand the concept of it, no one really speaks the same language other than humanity and business. And so there's, we sit really nice at where business and life meet. And so we want to create a space that's very safe, driven by vulnerability, transparency, authenticity, our groups meet for a half a day a month. So the time commitment is modest. But for someone like yourself, or like myself, it's a time commitment. The financial aspect isn't the barrier to entry sometimes for people it is the time and so you're busy running your business, you're having a family, all those other things, so you got to have margin in your life for it. But we've been confident in the fact that once people do make the commitment to be a part of it to attend, that they have that positive impact. And then and then I always wanted the community aspect, you can't just do that with a group of nine people in a facilitator meeting once a month, I also wanted to make events a big part of that. So we put on 20 events per year for the community to be able to come together and, and build relationships and hopefully do business together and meet each other where they're at and provide impact for each other.
Mark D. Williams 4:11
We've got a very succinct story in all of that. What and I want to spend a lot of time talking about the power of networking. And some of my questions are really going to be about that obviously, the majority of our listeners are in the building trades and communities and there's a number of you know, either local associations or you know, things like the builder 20 groups or some other initiatives that even we're going to be a part of that we'll talk about before we get to that what's a little what led to this, you know, this desire to bring all these people together. I was looking at your call it your past lives. I mean, as far as I can tell you about five different you, you you worked at s&t office for a couple of years. You've got Eyespace the back 40 You're certainly you're currently on two boards. You have the power of nine podcast currently as well as this coalition nine I mean, You've got a long repertoire here, maybe just give us a quick overview of what, you know, shaped you into the person that you were and then we'll talk about, you know, when you started coalition nine here four or five years ago, yeah, so I'll because I don't think someone just on day one, ya know, in their 20s, like, I'm going to start this incredible networking. I feel like you need a backstory to sort of get to realize what the value is. It's
Speaker 1 5:22
been a journey, right? So I grew up in a middle class family, right. Forest Lake area, went to college for a handful of months dropped out, wasn't my jam, like most successful entrepreneurs? Well, I see I've heard that I think others have made made their way I just chose not to do it. Right. And so I, I worked in the printing industry for a little bit, and my dad was in the printing industry. So there's some correlations, there wasn't my jam. So I got into sales. It takes gotta had to channel this energy the right way. I had a really great mentor. He was an extreme guy. He worked at three and for 35 years doing everything under the sun for sales. So he kind of helped me work my my energy into a positive way to be able to do business development, be a hunter, those types of things. I did really well in sales, got elevated into management. So I was really, I was with s&t for probably, I don't know, almost like eight years, actually, in the grand scheme of things. A lot of different roles, though, eventually became a vice president. I'll never forget, like the general manager that ran that company. He was an X McGladrey guy, so big CPA firm, strategy firm. He, he sat me down was like, Alright, we got to do your onboarding for being the VP here. thing we should start with is the p&l. Well, I'm 29 years old, no formal education, school of hard knocks been in sales and management never had exposure to that. Never really got my dirty little mitts into the finance side of things. I don't even know what the hell p&l meant. I was alright, so your classic sales? Yes, yes. Okay. And so he's like, Oh, God, here we go. Gotta get through, and I gotta get my hands dirty with this guy. So all that being said, like I had a really good mentorship base there. It's just the company. I felt like I outgrew it a little bit. They were going one direction I was going to another. So I met up with a guy. He was became my business partner, Joel Peterson, we I became a partner at that, that company Eyespace again, commercial interiors. So I kind of thought I was gonna hitch my wagon on that industry for the rest of my life. So we, it was a small company at the time, we came together and put our heads together, we grew that company exponentially. 270% In five years, we were hitting some significant revenue numbers, and everything was great. Then then it was my problem. And I, I turned 40 I felt like I had a little bit of a midlife crisis. I, what was I going to do for the rest of my life? Right? So my wife and I don't have kids, I kind of was having a little bit of like a legacy conflict in my head, like, what am I? What am I going to do to kind of solidify my legacy moving forward? Am I going to spend the rest of my career in commercial interiors? How is that gonna have a positive impact on my legacy? And so I had had a hard conversation with my partner and say, I just don't think this is for me anymore. I feel like this business. One is outgrowing me. I'm a little bit of a grinder. I like being scrappy. I like being a gunslinger, like, I'm high risk tolerance, you get a business that size, you got to have a little bit more stability systems and processes, the next thing that you really need to invest in, that's not me. So I made a conscious decision did a one year transition I transitioned out of there. You said Back 40 Back 40 was something that I created was a consulting company. I'm not a good consultant. The name
Mark D. Williams 8:49
is very curious to me. Where did the name back 40 come from? Like the back nine and golf like what's back? 40 Yeah, so that 40 of your life, like you turned 40 In the back left side of your life, so
Speaker 1 8:58
kind of two in the in farm culture back. 40 is like uncultivated, undeveloped land. And so and that's just a common term, that term that that is used in farm country. i We live on a hobby farm in western Prairie, Minnesota. So there are some great, great correlations to that and kind of homage to the community that I live in, and then the back 40 My life, and we're both on the back 40 Probably many of your listeners are too so it's a good spot to be. It's just for me, I felt like my midlife crisis. And I say that with air quotes that it came a little early. So I, I felt like that back 40 was was really something that I was going to spend time into. I love the name. I'm not gonna lie, like I love that name. It's catchy. It's very catchy. I felt like I was doing I was going in the right direction. And then I had the coalition nine idea. And that the whole branding process of that and how we really wanted to make sure that and create that exclusivity. De and accessibility. And as I was going through
Mark D. Williams 10:03
and balanced, by the way, sorry, right, because it's like, to your point, you wanted the counterculture of the good old boys club. So you didn't want to create a new good, good old boys club, you wanted to be inclusive. But again, you wanted to be special and feel like this is something significant, something special, but yet accessible. With How important was that? You mentioned, you hired a brand strategist? Two questions here. One is, having just gone through a brand strategy the last couple of years and kind of realizing like, wow, I'd never spent that much time thinking about it turns out it was on the back. 4041 is when I decided I needed a brand strategy. So there's something there, walk us through how you valued a brand, what brought that to your awareness, and then then we'll go into how that sort of unfolded into the creation of, you know, the coalition nine,
Speaker 1 10:50
I think in that exploration process, that that internal exploration process, I was going through a lot of things I wanted, I wanted the brand emulate my style. So I'm unapologetically authentic, I have a huge problem with authority. We, I want a passionate, energetic community. And so you take all of those things and mix them up. That was really what informed Kate who was my brand strategist to help us through that process. And so we were creating personas of like, what's the ideal member profile, all of that stuff, but at the end of the day, like, to me, the easiest way to explain brand is how does it make someone feel, and so whether that be the second that they hit your your website, the social media, digital strategy that they see on, on, on their social channels, or whatever, the meeting me and being being the leader of this, this community, I want it all to be synergistic, and, and symbiotic. But yet, I want it to feel like wow, this is this is something special, like, I'm, I'm proud to be a part of this community, but not everybody can be a part of it. And it's never because of money. My
Mark D. Williams 12:03
two things, when you were talking about the word field, two things come to mind. One is housing related. For years, you know, you just try to do good work with good people. And as you elevate, you know, in my particular industry as a custom home builder, you know, you would just want to do good work. And you can do, you know, architecturally nothing super crazy, but still build a really solid home. And then hopefully, as you get later in your career, if you're really interested in architecture, you can do a good home and good architecture, they can blend. But at the end of the day, the thing that's the most important to me is a lot of times clients are unaware of some of the higher end things that you're doing, because they're just not in the industry. So they just don't know what they don't know what they don't know. But my favorite compliment is when they would come through the home as they look around, and they'd be there for you know, half hour or whatever to home to, or they can they leave away. And then they would say, I can't tell you how your house is different. But I love how your home feels. And it took me a long time to realize how important that was. And I quickly realized that it was a huge compliment. Because a home, you know, the, you know, there's all these bumper stickers or you know, in cafes across probably, you know, Midwest in the western states, right? It's, you know, homeless, where the heart is, and all these types of things. But it really relates to how somebody feels and you're creating that, you know, in a group setting instead of an actual physical house, you're creating a structure of people that they feel safe. And the feeling is something connectivity. Is that accurate? Yeah,
Speaker 1 13:27
I would say connectivity is that this is central to what we are. But I also I think, vulnerability has never been celebrated in the past. And I think, I think previous generations, that's something that you just kind of hold a little closer to the vest. And I and the thing I wanted to create was a place where I mean, there's things that you have in your business, any business owner has that they just don't want to bring home. And there's there's the business baggage and stuff like that. And then there's sometimes there's things that are going on at home that affect the business, but you don't want to bring that and just kind of air your laundry at at the office or in the workplace. And so you kind of have to have a tribe of people that are you can just get real with and we so as part of our process and how we train our facilitators and the types of facilitators that we bring, I mean, your facilitator summers, a perfect example of that. She's amazing, right? Like, that's, that is going to be a an extension of the brand. And I'm I'm hypersensitive, borderline unhealthy, obsessed with what that looks and feels like and the right people that we have associated to this. And then there was a point where we had we flipped a switch, maybe a year before you joined where we became referral only. And so that is allowing us to make sure that we've always got that captive audience of people that really want to be there and friends are introducing their friends. It eliminates our ability to have to go out and do outbound all of the stuff, it just the brand has started to just kind of build, I think we're on the precipice of of where we want to go. But for me, it's organic, I don't want it to be something that we're just flipping switches all the time, I want to make sure that we're growing organically, that is going to feel good for the members, that they still always feel like there's something special. You're you're
Mark D. Williams 15:20
chasing experience, not money. And only and so what's happening is your key thing that you said earlier on is that character is the barrier to entry, not money. I like the fact that there is some obviously money involved because this isn't for free, right, and you have to make a living. But I also like the idea that you're right. When I pay, I choose to pay my Quarterly, you pay monthly, yearly however you like. And but I like it that to me, I look at it, every time I see the bill, I'm like, this is a great value. And I remember just recently somebody said that if someone was questioning your pricing, your story is too short. And I liked that too. And I liked that as you get it, it was very quick. You know, Nancy being the one that recommended me, you know, you sat down with me, we chatted, but walk us a little bit through the process. So you have these character referrals in some ways, it's already going through the lens of a passionate C niner, as they're referred to walk us through how that works. So let's say I meet someone, I'm like, Hey, they'd be great, maybe not in our group, but just they need to be part of this, because I've gotten a lot of value out of it. You know, you sit down with them and kind of what is that evaluation process? Like? Is it mostly instinct? Or is there actually like, you've done this now for a while? How do you vet these people? Do you vet every single member,
Speaker 1 16:30
you know, I think if I'm being like, we're at a point now where I think 80% of the work is done when you've made that introduction, okay, so that makes my job really easy, then it just comes down to making sure that we're we're protecting the community as a whole. But we're providing an outstanding experience for that individual, and the group that that individual gets placed into. So then that comes to a little bit of the heavy lifting on my part to just kind of understand, at the end of the day, the thing that matters the most more than the size of their business, what business they're in their fancy title, or anything like that. It's all about personality and chemistry. And so getting a feeling for some of that I, I being an old sales guy, I love watching body language, I love inflection of voice, the choice of words, all of those things, I I'm just a very active listener, I'm not very good at answering asking closed ended questions. So things that continually keep the conversation going, then I can get a feel of like the type of energy that they're going to be around the type of drive that this individual has. And that helps shape the perspective of where I think that that best fit would be for that person I generally take about. So that's typically I can do that at about, frankly, I got a really good gun on it about a half an hour, I usually like to spend about an hour like we you and I spent an hour together and half of it was just bullshit. And so like I just enjoyed the time together. So that's normally how it goes, then I digest it for about 48 hours. And then I'll look at our groups, see if we have any group openings that are the right fit, maybe we have a group that's opening in the future, that would be a good fit. And sometimes I just say, you know, based on what you got going on, and the fit that I think that you need, I just don't have anything for you. And so you might have to wait a few months until we get another I think
Mark D. Williams 18:17
that was me. I think I waited a few months. I can't remember I think there was an A minus a new group for which they agreed. Yep. It was interesting, because one of the things I was going to ask you is I think we have, we had two members, Marco strim was in a former group and he's in our group. Now, I'm actually really impressed you think sometimes, like if you want to run the right group, and I don't remember, I don't know, the reasons actually should have asked him but like, whether it's culture fit someone's personality, it's just, you know, like, you know, Your vibe attracts your tribe, as they say. And so like we've actually, did you catch out what our new name is? We're called the squirrel squad.
Unknown Speaker 18:47
Oh, I didn't see that. That's great. I
Mark D. Williams 18:49
mean, it's totally awesome. We are totally as we are. So squirrel, poor summers, the calmest one by far. And I'm a big personality, and there's a few others will mark as well. We have. So we interviewed this new mark the account? Yeah, he's amazing. Yes. And he goes, I'm pretty because now there's three marks in the group. Yeah. And he goes, Well, he started it was yesterday's meeting was the first one. And he said, you know, hoping to join in a couple months, and I just want to interview guys and kind of see how it's going because I'm kind of introverted. I looked over at Mark Ostrom, like, you'll fit right in with the other marks. And but he you could tell he was just cracking. I mean, I guarantee it was different within whatever group he had interviewed before. And so I think he's gonna be a great fit. I got I got the sense that he'd be interested. So I can't see you. But where I was going with this is I like the idea that just because it wasn't a fit, Mark didn't bail Ostrom, like he went to a new group. And so I think that speaks really to the power of, well, your presence and kind of guiding handedness because sometimes people you could see people joining a group and like this isn't my people. I'm out completely. Yeah, the idea that they could be redirected. This speaks to like the larger faith and what they're doing and what you're doing. I think that actually speaks in some way. There's even more volume than hitting it out of the park on the first round. And
Speaker 1 20:03
we normally hit it out of the park, I would imagine we do. I will say like, if somebody comes back to me after a couple of sessions, and they give me some feedback of like, here's why I'm thinking I need a different group, I typically will challenge them back and say, Have you thought about this? Or did you give this a choice? And a lot of is really around? Are they really getting vulnerable? And are they really showing who they are. And in a lot of cases, they haven't shed that armor yet. And that doesn't happen fast for everybody. I'm a quick to trust type person, I have a feeling you're probably the same way. But if somebody breaks that trust, good luck getting it back. Some other people are just really slow to trust. And so what I find is a lot of cases, just from a psychology standpoint, some of the people that may come back to me and be like, I'm kind of still wondering if this is the right fit for me. I'll challenge them back a little bit. And then many of those people after a few sessions, they're like, Alright, you're right. I get it.
Mark D. Williams 20:56
I think you, you accurately summarize it, obviously, very well. I've noticed it in will maybe later, we'll switch a little bit because you have a podcast, I want to talk about that a little bit. But just to make it relatable. I've noticed now I've been doing podcasts for about a year and a half, I've noticed that the podcasts that are the most interesting to listen to are and also the ones the most interesting for me to have both within my people that interview, but also the ones that I listen to, are the ones that are the most authentic, the most vulnerable, because you learn something sometimes when you have someone that's quote, media trained, you don't get anything out of them. Yeah, I mean, it's just not. There's I don't maybe there's nothing wrong with it. I guess someone was saying that, I guess I won't say her name. She's a very famous celebrity, she in their media trained, and it was great, it can feel that you can feel it wasn't, it just wasn't the same. And I found that in business, at least for what I'm trying to do. Even with this podcast, serious builders, like, I just want to take down the walls. And just really like, you know, business is really hard. It's hard. It can be really fun, it can be really enjoyable. And you want to surround yourself with really great people and do really neat things. And this vibe attracting your tribe is the whole point. Because life is too short, we're on the back 40 Let's enjoy the people that we're with both from our clients, within our own teams, and then the other people we collaborate with, and I think that you know, what you're doing, what I really appreciate about what you're doing is that they're across industries. And so I guess one of my questions is how, how many of these people have been in networking groups previously, and how many of them are in more than one networking group? To your knowledge, first,
Speaker 1 22:31
I'll say I have a I have a thing with the word networking. I like a better word. So for me relationship building, okay, right. Or I just like peer group, like, I think networking groups get a little little bit of a stigma, because it feels transactional. So people are gonna think of, of the requirements that you have to be a part of this group, like you got to bring X amount of leads, or you got to do some like that. Networking, I think in its sense, like, if you're just looking at from a technology standpoint, it's a point to point connection, and it seems super transactional. So I've wanted to do everything I can I get that networking has a place, I just feel like we're we lie. It's deeper than that. So we're going for depth not with we're networking is like I did 10 networking meetings this week. It's like did was so
Mark D. Williams 23:17
funny. I've never been able to articulate what you're talking about. But I feel exactly what you're telling me. And
Speaker 1 23:21
I think a lot of people like Tony or listeners, I think probably do, because if they were to reflect back on their week, and they had a really heavy networking week, how many of those actually turned into something that made you feel good about the time you spent there. So I think it's how you use the time in doing that. So I wanted to create a space where people are really able to, to build relationships, but then also, you have a group of people, you have eight other people in your group that conspire for you, and with you. And I think there's power like that's, that is very tribal. That is, that's very powerful. I think many of the people that business is hard, and business is super lonely. And so even if you can get things out of listening to pot, that's a big part of why people listen to podcasts like this, because the stories are relatable. And kind of going back to your point like the people that are media trained their their media train like they they are no arms, no your nose, all the stuff that I think clearly don't swear as much as I do, which I'm pulling way back as best as I can for you, Mark. And so, but I'm, I'm again, I want to make sure in this. It's an extension of my brand. And it's an extension of coalition nines brand. Just like and I'm not for everybody. We're not going to be for everybody. I get that there's 11,529 registered businesses with two or more employees in the seven county metro area. We just went a little bit of that, and but we weren't the right ones. And that's where it all comes back to that referral partner and partners.
Mark D. Williams 24:49
That's amazing. I love that how what do you think what is the average lifespan for a C Niner? And what like what kind of background research did you do or what formed you, as you created this looking around, where do you in other peer groups? were you and what did they not fulfill that caused you to start your own? Because I was I'm asking this question because we'll talk about in a minute about me starting one, but like, there's either something that you're not being fulfilled that makes you do it or B, you liked the idea so much that you can't stop. You want to do it also on your own as well. So what made you do it?
Speaker 1 25:26
I got a super easy answer for the for the lifespan thing. I don't know yet. We've been around for five years, and all the groups that like many like we have attrition, right, but last year, our attrition was was single digits, percentage, and
Mark D. Williams 25:39
you have about you have over 200 We have 230 gymnasts, incredible and
Speaker 1 25:42
so for us to keep people is big becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And I want to make sure that we are obsessed with the member experience, our theme this year, every theme that we've had the four years prior has been growth related growth of the community, some you know, some kind of theme that kind of gets the team rallied this year is unrivaled member experience. It has nothing to do with growth. It's all about making sure that we keep our members and we keep them happy. My experiences and other peer communities peer groups was very, I think the thing I really wanted to make sure that we created that was different than anything else is predictability. You're busy, right? I'm busy. It's half the time our members are coming in hot, and they're there. If your meetings at eight, nine o'clock, you think yours is at 9am. You didn't think about it much until about a 45. Like probably when you're walking up going like the rose
Mark D. Williams 26:35
by Thor and some of us are better at off the cuff right? I imagine you are right, and as I am. And for those that don't know, I mean, I've only been a signer for about nine months. And what I that's actually what I appreciate about it because I have so much I mean, I'm very organized in terms of like, I have to follow a building plan, obviously do I build the custom homes for my real job. But for you know, this other side of things. I like the free flowing state I get the most creativity and energy out of not having something scripted for me. And so it's interesting those that really isn't it funny how balances are like people that are really organized sort of need to be challenged to be more colorful and more open. And those that are really open and colorful, we sort of need organization around us to help aren't you need it to be together. Like I really appreciate summer because you breedings the origami, she's the facilitator for our group, as you know, but the audience doesn't. And having different personalities within the group is no different than a family. It just representing the different colors of the rainbow makes it more colorful and makes it more useful as a as a unit. And I lost my way on the original question of where we're going with this. But
Speaker 1 27:36
so I think the biggest thing is is the in that predictability is that you like I said, Everybody's really busy and what they have going on, but it's a kind of a kind of, it's like bowling with rails on right, the bumpers. And so at the end of the day, summers summers, the bumpers, but everyone's rolling the ball at a different speed at a different curve, all that other stuff. We just went knocked out some pins. Yeah, and when I got an iPhone 10 Every single time but we want to make sure it knocked out as many pins as possible. So though our facilitation process, and the Rosebud Thorn and the spotlight and education and accountability, all the things that go into your experience are the rails, we want to keep that pliable, we've got a couple of non negotiables in there with the accountability and the rosebuds Doran but we wanted to make sure that you use your time so that you continually have a great experience, you have a voice and what your experience is going to be. But But again, we we put rails on it.
Mark D. Williams 28:32
And I think one of the things that you've done very wisely and you've been fanatical about the current experience is in the customer pure experience is, you know, I think I had you know, most of mostly on this podcast, we have the owners of their companies. And I'm thinking about, let's say my, just let's call it let's say you building a home, you have a window wrap, your representative really represents that company, for the most of the people, whoever your rep is, your salesperson is who the company is. And so it's the sooner management understands that their client experience that their brand awareness that they're they with for all practical purposes, the client salesperson is the owner of the company, and that's why there's such opportunity when a salesperson leaves, right, unless you have a direct relationship to the general manager or the owner of the company, where I'm going with this is like summer, for instance, represents C nine and like the other facilitators that I don't know either and so making sure that they are connecting with their people reflects on you more than probably any other thing and so making sure that they're sort of your superstar rockstars which they are just again only reaffirms. And I think if I'm relating to this building, you know, you're if you're a builder that has a project manager, they for all pet if they're let's say you know, you're a bigger scale company with owner maybe isn't isn't as involved. That project manager for all practical purposes, is the owner of you know, whatever company it is and if
Speaker 1 29:59
you You're self perform. And let's say you're a builder that you sub everything out. I bet the high performing builders have a really, really tight group of subs that they work with. Because those subs are representing the brand they show up on site. So if the owner comes walking through, it's like, Hey, what the hell is this guy? And why does he smell like cigarette smoke? Why is he smoking in my new house that isn't even built yet, that kind of stuff that feels very different for someone that then then someone that walks into a house and people are dressed nice, it almost feels like a white glove experience. So you take that, and you correlate it to what I do with with our community, our team, we invest into training, we do team summits quarterly, some of them are educational, some of them are just relationship building, we do best practice sharing all that stuff. But at the end of the day, the biggest thing is, is that they've got it in their heart. And they're good representatives of the community, they bring skill sets to the table, and they use our tools to make the experience second to none. What
Mark D. Williams 31:00
is, you know, you already kind of mentioned how it's evolving year to year, what do you think is next? I think I asked you this question a month or two ago when we were chatting about potentially franchising, and I mean, to me, it's so successful, I'd like to compare and contrast a little bit to other peer groups out there. And I think, I think I already know the answer to my question is transactional, I get hit up all the time for, you know, the Let's have coffee things, and it's fine. And like, you know, you see on LinkedIn open to networking, and I'm not dissing that at all. But it's so hard to create some space. And so I think I think that to me, personally, the reason I'm a part of this, because like if I'm going to do it, right, the barrier entry is time. Yep, not money, totally. And so it's like, I like the idea that I've committed to this. And now that time is reserved on my calendar. And you know, I think about it maybe the day beforehand, I'm like, Oh, I gotta meet tomorrow. I made this commitment. I'm not canceling I'm going. And so it's like, I think, owners, when we have things on our calendar, we tend to follow through on them, or at least for myself, where it's hard to just be like, randomly, hey, let's do this. Let's do that. Can you speak a little bit to why that's been successful for C nine? And what as you look out in the space, whether it's in Minneapolis or abroad in the country, what do you think other peer groups or the the networking groups are not doing? Or basically like, what is the field look like?
Speaker 1 32:16
It's saturated. I mean, there's, it seems like everybody and their brother that's kind of getting into it, right. And there's some that have been around for a while locally, Allied executives is a good local group. Vistage is national based private equity backed to me, I really don't want to grow this outside the Midwest. So I did a bunch of visioning work and some strategic exercises last year. And I came to terms with the fact that I just I want to keep this Twin Cities centric, but also maybe have some arm so like Hub and Spoke type. And so I like I like secondary markets. I like Sioux Falls, I like Fargo. I like the Moines I like Green Bay Appleton. I like Madison, stuff like that. I don't want to touch Chicago, I don't want to touch where some of these other places to go. Could we do it yet? Does that align with the life I want to live? No, I'm good. Like I love I love walking, I was at a, I was at the lobby right over here your coffee shop two days ago. And I ran into one of our members. And I know who that person is, I haven't seen that person in nine months, my brain works in a weird way to where I see somebody and know their name. And so I love having that. So in that visioning work, and in that strategic work, I came to fact that I want to get us to 450. So we have 232, or something like that. Now, by 2030, I want to have formed 50 members, that equates to about 50 groups or so to me that feels really good to where I still feel like I can have a good handle on what we have going on here. We've built the whole business on technology. So to me, that's it's super scalable for us to do it from an infrastructure standpoint, that's easy. But I want to make sure that if you're going somewhere, not everybody in there, brother is a senator. And again, it just goes down to that exclusivity and making sure that we've got a really captive group of human beings that are positively contributing to our community, to CNN community, that has another positive effect on the greater business ecosystem, and also has a positive effect on society. And so if we can keep moving in that right direction and writing this momentum, I'm good.
Mark D. Williams 34:17
How I think that's a beautiful thing of just kind of like, as you look to expand it, you pull it back, because it aligns with your core values, which is why even started the coalition nine in the first place. What is it? The level of involvement and what do you see in maybe it's the 8020 rule, like if I was to rate people into three categories within the Seananners obviously, they're all passionate, they're all you know, successful, most likely in their spaces to begin with, because they're investing in their education. They're investing in themselves by being a part of this is a big part of it, but how many of them are crossed laterally, constantly seeking out other sea Niners, if you will, how many of them are pretty much content to stay within their group. Oops, and kind of stay involved. And maybe if people ask them outside, they'll certainly meet. And then what percentage of the people are, you know, man, I'm doing everything I can to stay committed to my nine, I really want to be there for them. I just don't have the space in my life right now, unless I'm pulled out by one or two other members to really go out. And I'm speaking a little bit to spark events, you have these 20 events? That's a lot of events.
Speaker 1 35:25
Kind of a big question. But yeah, so we manage our events. So events are the way the best way for people to meet and see each other and things like that. So the 20, we kind of broke those into two different segments. So we do eight spark events. Those are bigger events, they're more highly attended 100 150 people, educational topics. Sometimes it's just just flat out relationship building. Like last week, we do thing and Forgotten Star where it was a bags tournament and happy hour type stuff. So that's kind of fun. And then we've done things that we did a we did a panel discussion on AI technology and how it applies to your business. We're doing an event on in May and business operating systems like EOS and Pinnacle and scaling up. So we're doing things like that, that will bring the large group of people together, and then we do a monthly wellness series. On the second Tuesday of every month, I partnered with Alchemy 365, the owner of that Mike Jones. So he leads that and work tackling topics that are for entrepreneurs and leaders to be able to tap into well holistic wellness type of topics. And we're doing things that people aren't, frankly, we're trying to do things that people are too chickenshit to talk about. And so we are so we're doing things on Iron VEDA, which is the Indian practice of wellness, we did a sauna, cold plunge event over at sisu. Here the other day, which was fantastic. Next month is meditation for high performers, we're bringing in a sleep doctor from the University of Minnesota, nutrition, like all of those things, but it's all wellness focused, but it's for high performers. So that to me is where to answer your question of like the three buckets, I would say the majority of people and I, let's call it 70% of the members, that's how they're going to use that extra extra relationship building time outside of their group, then you've probably got 10% of the people that are just like, I can barely keep my head above water. They don't go to hardly any events, they it's really pushed to get there to their group, they probably are a couple times a year making a sacrifice, to skip the group because of some fire that happened in their business. So they're still kind of working in the business and stuff like that. And then you've got this 20% of people that are they're super intense in their group, they love to go to all the events, they're just like it is all C nine all the time. What I love that number to go up. Yeah, I also you look at that 20% of people, I bet you I can name those 20% of people. And those are also the people that do an amazing job of inviting their friends to introduce them to me to explore this. So that is kind of the 8020 rule a little bit. And I am a huge believer in that that theory.
Mark D. Williams 37:58
Speaking of numbers, tell us a little bit, let's go down the rabbit hole of nine. And you can take this as far as you want. I've heard you talk a little bit about it. But I just think it's really powerful. Maybe I'll just give my brief intro on it. And then and then I'll give you the space. But I mean, I know that nine is a squad member number for the military. And so I think in general principles, the group is big enough so that it can get some you know, energy, no matter who's in the group energy wise, it's big enough that you're gonna get enough people to make it move. It's small enough that everyone can have a voice. That's really my thought process of nine. I know you got way more
Speaker 1 38:37
to go forever, right. So like I've read. I'm a fan of Nikola Tesla. Nikola Tesla was obsessive 369 I'm obsessed with 369. So the power of threes is there's magic in all of that numerology, the number nine is hope and prosperity. So that helped inform some of that. If I'm being super, super, super transparent on this, it was there's two things I fell in love with the word coalition. Coalition means a faction of people from different backgrounds coming together for a common cause. And I was like, Oh, that's good. Like that is what we are. And so when we were doing the, the naming exercise and stuff like that, that I fell in love with that word, and we were doing all of these different things with the word coalition and, and I didn't really I was doing the research on the number nine I came to, I came to to the understanding that I wanted the groups to be somewhere in that nine to 11 range, I just didn't know what that looked and felt like and so I was doing their work on that and and I fell in love with with nine but i Those two are mutually exclusive. So just like a lot of other ideas. I don't know if you subscribe to this mindset, but my wife and I, we sat down and we cracked open a bottle of red wine and we started going to work and we were throwing all these different things together. We opened up our second bottle of wine, and like
Mark D. Williams 39:59
wine right I've got nine, let's go there.
Speaker 1 40:01
And so, you know, we had a good, good buzz going and stuff like that. And my wife, I'll give her our percent credit on it. She was the one that just said, What about coalition nine, like, and I will say like, the name hit me, like, it felt really good. I needed to sleep on it for 24 hours. But a big part of the reason was it just sounds cool. It sounds way better than coalition eight or coalition 10. So I just, I landed on that, and I fell in love with it. Yeah.
Mark D. Williams 40:27
And then all the metrics, it's kind of like Manifest Destiny, right, you find out the reason, then you sort of justify the backfill? Yeah. Because I mean, you could look at a number of different things like seven, you know, if you're a Christian, you know, seven is sort of the heavenly number, there's a lot of correlations with seven and different things. But regardless of its seven to 11, it's nine is the perfect number, according to Aaron, and but it's funny. So you and I sat down, so maybe I'll, so I launched the careers builder collective, a week ago, that we're recording this, I think, by the time this comes out, it will be about a month later, but you and I sat down and I kind of picked her brain, like I didn't want to replicate exactly what it is. It's but I have gotten so much value out of work being Aussie Niner. And those are cross industry, you know, we have, you know, all I mean, I love the fact that there's only one other person, even within the space of our group, you know, within the construction field, which actually, we're going to work together on some projects coming up, which is sort of fun. But I wanted to create one for builders, specifically, because I part of this has been my journey over the last couple of years. And I've talked a lot about it on this podcast, and this podcast wouldn't exist without the contractor coalition. There's your coalition showing up. And so this education thing I've just, I've been so slow to the table on networking, it's not until I got to the back 40 that I realized that, you know, someone said recently that if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far go together. And I think now that I understand that to a better degree, like, I'm not a loner anyway, I mean, I am in the terms of I'm a bit of counterculture. And I want to do things in the sense that I want to do things differently than the status quo. That being said, Nothing gives me more fulfillment than doing it with a lot of people that think like that. And so I have found so much value have kind of found my people. And they're the people that want to share, they want to be authentic, they want, they want to talk about their failures, because that's how we all learn from each other. I had another builder that told me how they failed. And it allowed me to escape a very difficult situation that I would have entered had I not heard his story. And that's what I want this podcast to be. And that's what I want this networking group to be. And so I've patterned some of the ideas, I've actually haven't told you all of it, I think essentially the link. But really what it is, is I what I wanted to do was to have a form like yours, not quite the Rosebud Thorn, but I wanted it to have a structure because again, if you just invite people to show up, I didn't want it to be I didn't realize that what I was doing, but I didn't want networking. I wanted, I wanted to learning I wanted energy, I want to build a part of it was structuring the price. So I think it's $1,200 to it for for events. So I'm gonna do it quarterly. To me, I just didn't have the space to do it monthly. And it's a big pole. Because I have a couple other ways
Speaker 1 43:00
we talked about Yeah, I thought that was I thought that was really smart. I think that that there's not enough people like you that are doing this in their, in their specific industries, right. I've been approached by people that are in a service industry of like, hey, I want to I want to do this, what do you think I'm, like, go for it. Like, I think every business owner and we'll talk we'll talk about about your members and your listeners is that they should have four things that they that they are invested in from a time standpoint and resource standpoint, they should have something like a coalition nine that's industry agnostic, that there pressure testing ideas, you know, there might be a CPA in the group, there might be a an attorney in the group, there might be a banker in the group, but you might have a manufacturing whatever, something like that to where it's you're, you're getting outside voices, I do think there's a ton of power in what you've built and making sure that you're speaking the same language or best practice sharing your pressure testing ideas with a group of people that you trust, there's a safe space that you can talk about that knowing you may brush up against some other people but at the end of the day, like there's enough business to go around so let's just, you know, kind of an all ships rise mindset, a coach so I think a one on one coach is really really powerful, you're not going to be able to get into the depths of things in a half day session, you might build relationships one off with somebody in your in your groups that you're in that you can get some depth to it, but when you put a little bit of skin in the game with a coach, there's some power in that, and then some type of operating system. So whether it be a an EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System pinnacle, scaling up something like that, that is going to create dashboards and share vision and get you laser focused. You're you're diving in on that on that aspect of what needs to be done for your industry. And I just think it's you got a great audience of people that are that are that are getting it and the momentum will happen.
Mark D. Williams 44:51
That's interesting you say that I mean that was that was really important to me. I had you know we have four set topics are on our website. You can check it out at the curious builder podcast. dot com under events, the in the collective I like double alliteration if I can get it so curious collective, you know, those kinds of things. It just I don't know why. But anyway, the point was is, you know, the groups of nine, so I borrowed that from you, we did a beta test, and I think there was 30 people that showed up. And anytime you get that many people showing up, you're like, Okay, there's a ton of energy. Yep, 30 people on three weeks notice right after the holidays, I was blown away. And so I'm like, Okay, I want to build a community. I was also really pleasantly surprised. Because I do know a lot of people having been in the business business for 20 years now. Most of them were people I did not know as well, which I took as like I was really excited. And I'm, I think you don't have to be the master of something to also be a teacher. I just want to create a safe space, but a space where people can just test ideas kind of just be open about what they're doing. Well, I'm continuing to evolve what I believe and what I know as well, right. And I think you get, you know, I've talked about before, but you kind of get into this. Not impostor syndrome. What's what's the word? Well, basically, you don't think like you have enough to share. So you don't share anything. We all have a lot to share. And none of us are really, I think the most inquisitive, curious, intelligent people are constantly reinventing themselves. Yeah, you know, I know a guy who's 75 years old, and he's the most interesting person I've ever met in my life. He'd be an expert on anything he talks about, and he's constantly still learning.
Speaker 1 46:20
Well, it's it's this name, your podcast is curiosity. Like I think some of the the best entrepreneurs, the best business owners are just curious. And the people that I know, the the closed mindset, that people bring that, that if you've ever heard the term, if you're the smartest person in the room, find in your room is a bunch of shit. Like then, then like, you're not opening your mind enough. You're not taking people you're not diving in, you're not asking questions, everyone's got a story, everyone's got a journey, you're gonna be able to learn something if your 74 year old, like that guy's got to figure it out, because he spent his whole life and curiosity mode. And he continues to pull things from different generations from different industries, things like
Mark D. Williams 46:59
that. I just sat down with him, I actually built them a home as well. He has a 400 person mental health business. And he's just an incredible person. He said, if you're thinking about retirement all the time, because people he said I have two favorite are my two least favorite words are the are the N word. And the R word. I'm not gonna say the N word on air. I think we all know what that one is. But the R word is retired. And his comment was he goes, if you are constantly thinking about retirement, perhaps you chose the wrong profession. And for him, he's just he's super passionate. He doesn't ever see him stop. Because he goes, I love what I do. Yeah. And I just think that speaks to passion. I think if I was to just I have three young kids, and I was talking to someone recently about, like, what would you encourage your kids to do. And I'm very thankful that I have parents that were like this as well. So I can model it a little bit, I just want my kids, whatever they're passionate about. That's what I want to support. Because if you're passionate about it, like you'll find your way.
Speaker 1 47:55
And I think passion as you get older, in your back 40. And in his case, for I think passion turns into purpose. And it's the people that don't, that don't align their the rest of their life or their post career life or whatever that is to a purpose. Like some of the most vibrant people that I've ever met, that are in their 70s 80s and 90s, are still doing stuff, like they're just got there enough of their dirty little mitts into something that just keeps them vital. And it allows them to think about something new allows them to be around other vibrant thinkers to, to just tap into that, that all of that stuff. But once you if you retire, and and, you know, I saw this firsthand with with my father, and and you know, it got to a point to where he just wanted to retire. And all you want to do is just sit up the cabin and do nothing. And I just feel like that. That is it's just not my identity. And I've just I just see people deteriorate, mentally and physically. So whatever it is, it could be, it could be like coaching baseball, it could be giving back to the Boys and Girls Club. It could be sitting on a board, it doesn't matter. But I think there's got to be some,
Mark D. Williams 49:10
well, I think I'd heard recently in something I was listening to there's three phases of a life or career, whatever you want to call it, and it was the learn, earn and return. And that really resonated with me. And it's funny because I think I skipped the earning phase. I gotta go back and do the learning phase, because I seem to have missed that part. But I think what some of these network, these relationship building groups that I'm trying to be a part of with the coalition and just in general, the podcast is I want I'm learning as much from you when you're talking, but I love I love getting a space where you empower people to either learn from what we're sharing from each other, or from the group as hold and I used to coach cross country high school running for 10 years before I had kids and I started had to choose either, you know, 40 Random kids or For my own kids, I couldn't do it all and have a business. But my point is, I think if I wasn't a builder, I would have been an educator. And I didn't I just love. I love teaching. And again, I don't feel like I have that much to teach. But I think I'm just a really like seeing the eyes, especially of children. And like when they're when they when they grasp a concept. And when they and it's there's something very empowering about that fulfilling for me. And I'm still exploring my way trying to figure out what that is. And I feel like for this curious collective, nothing would make me happier than for these builders to come together these four times a year. And then for that group to sort of really set in, and I'm toying around with do I do, I kept the limit on the number. Because right now, the way it's set up, we're still just kind of testing the waters. And you know, if we get 20 to 30, great if we get 15, I'm fine with that, too. You know, we also I'm bouncing sponsors, and some responsibilities there, too, right? And but at the end of the day, I want those people to be super passionate about what they're doing. I don't want them to nothing would make me happier than for them to court to do things and work with each other outside of that. Yeah. And like for it to kind of take on its own life. Yeah. And so we'll just kind of see, well, we'll, we'll see how it evolves.
Speaker 1 51:05
And I think the the thing that you'll experience that I experienced and I understood really early was, it's not about me, doesn't matter what I want, doesn't matter if I want them to stay with me for a long time, or if they want to peel off after a year or whatever. It's what our members want. And so for me, surveying, surveying, surveying, like always getting feedback, always getting feedback. But then, taking action on that feedback was in our early stages, like we had a beta test group, before we even launched, we had a soft launch that added more members, and then those people were giving us feedback, and then there, and then that's how we're evolving our process and all that other stuff. Like, for me, it was it was always iterating, always iterating, always iterating, we look very different now than we did five years ago. And that's by design. And in one year from today, your experience is going to be a little bit different. And in five years from today, everybody's experienced is gonna be very different than it was in 2024.
Mark D. Williams 52:02
There was you have to, we'll have to talk about this maybe offline, we have to institute some sort of competition within the groups, because imagine what that would be interesting. Who knows what that would even look like? Anyway, back to reality, I guess, for me is you had mentioned you invested a ton of you know, in technology, you know, what does that mean? Exactly? I mean, you're showing up in person, obviously, I love your app, I mean it for those that are not seeing it or that are listening to this, I mean, the moment it you know, the clock hits new and you walk out, you get a text message. And it's, you know, it's two questions. It's rate the, your session on a scale from one to 10, or one to five, one to five, and then is there any comments you have? And that's it, that's an duck, I would suspect that 90% of people just read it. And then don't comment. How often do you get actual comments out of it? Not enough? Yeah, I would agree. I mean,
Speaker 1 52:50
in the groups that I get zero feedback on, give me the heebie jeebies, like I'm like, Okay. I like no feedback is not good.
Mark D. Williams 52:57
Right? I'll tell you, I will be better at giving feedback on that. Because part of it is I'm just like, you know, you just spent the typical entrepreneur like, I looked down, I have 20 missed phone calls, and whatever. I'm like, Cool. My back into work mode. I think the timing of it still breaks. It's still fresh. Yeah. We're the reason I bring it up is I've tried in that beta test, and this is a class you go let your love hot, dumb idea. This was I had like, I tried to incentivize people, I think, Kim, if I give him $100, or what I know, what I did is I had a videographer and a photographer there. And I said, if I'm going to give you all the digital assets from it, so you can post and do whatever you want, you know, I mean, I paid that person, let's say 500 bucks for the two hours that are there, or whatever it was. And, and I think five people responded, which is that five out of 30 isn't terrible, I guess. But I had like 15 questions, because I wanted, because I was using them. I guess it was free? For one thing. Yeah, I really want to know, like, what time of day, you know, what kind of cost? I mean, I was really using them as my, yeah, the beta test wanted more information. So they knew how to form it around them, but they weren't giving it. So my new idea is, we're actually making a template ID cards with, they're going to two of them, once they get to keep the one they have to hand No, they can't leave the room. And rather than is I'm not going to build technology this quick. It's just going to be a hard stock with my logo and whatnot on it five questions, you have to write down five things you learned, and then give it to me. And then as they leave the room, they have to hand it to one of the one of my marketing team members. Yeah, otherwise, we'll see. Let's see if we get a restraining order if we have to hold them in the room and you can't leave right anyway, we'll see if that works better. We'll see if that works better in the moment then trying to email them after because that usually doesn't work. Five
Unknown Speaker 54:33
might be too many. Really? Yeah. Or threes
Mark D. Williams 54:35
power. All right, 333.
Speaker 1 54:37
If you get three, you get three things from from every single person that's solid gold brother, like I would I would love three times 30 That's a lot. That's a lot. And you're gonna get a lot of repeats and that's just going to reinforce the things that you need to double down on. You're gonna get you're gonna get a lot of repeats and the things you need to change, and then you get one offs that are just like okay, that's a one off thing. I'll just shove that in my back pocket and we'll see what happens. But the feedback loop is really important. And for me to want to automate that, again, that predictability of Okay, so after my session is done, and we're even working on that to to where maybe we need to send that that text a little bit earlier, so we need to instead, you know, if your group is peeling off at noon, maybe we need to send love in Florida,
Mark D. Williams 55:19
or maybe, yeah, maybe send it 1145. And the facilitator says, Before you leave, yes, everyone, because we already do with the initiatives, right when we leave, and that would maybe that would work.
Speaker 1 55:29
So that's what we're talking about all that right, we're doing that in real time. So for us, those are just tweaks because we've built the technology stack so deep, so that we just really want to my biggest thing was just automation. And the more automation you can have, the less bodies that you have touching things, the less overhead that you create, you know, having to run a healthy, like community that is an unrivaled member experience. To me, that was always the thing is how can we leverage technology so that we don't feel like we're nickel and diming? Our members?
Mark D. Williams 56:00
How many? I think I know the answer this, but how many employees do you actually have in coalition nine?
Speaker 1 56:05
W two or 1099 1099 23? W 201?
Mark D. Williams 56:11
B? Yeah. Okay. That's what I that's what I thought. And that's by design. Yep. So
Speaker 1 56:14
there was two things that I wanted to do when I when I launched my next business, whatever that was, was zero w two employees besides me, and a recurring revenue model. And so something that was going to create a predictable experience predictable budgeting, I you know, you go back to my my 29 year old self when I was sitting around trying to figure out what the hell a p&l was. When I'm very financially adept. I've spent the time and the you know, in the last 20 years really getting getting into that side of things. Well, how can we make sure that this is something that people don't feel nickel and dime, we've created a space where organizations want to be a part of it. So partners like versie can United Healthcare and stuff like that their community supporters of our they financially support us? How can we then funnel all those dollars back into the community to make sure that we're creating a second to none experience, we're putting on awesome events, and then kind of going to what you asked a little bit earlier, and I'll kind of double down on that a little bit is always wanted to have a philanthropic arm of this. So our big thing for 2024 is that we are and I don't think I've talked about this on even my podcast or any podcast. So whenever this comes out, you're gonna it's I think it's gonna fall in time. So we're launching it in April is the C nine gives Foundation. And so it is our it is a 501 C three, it is I am going to be taking and funneling a percentage of our membership revenue into the foundation every single year. And then we have we have a five person board, we're able to then take the financial resources of not only coalition nine, but any member that wants to donate to this, or corporate organizations that want to donate to this, and then be able to take all of the time, talent and treasure that we have in our community and do things for the greater community. And so that might be you have a small business owner that is having a hard time making ends meet. Maybe we have a CPA in the in the community that wants to will say I'll file your tax returns I'll do a pro bono through the scene and gives foundation. So allows us to we've so many Kriza
Mark D. Williams 58:15
you use all the skills in the way of give me there's obviously there's three things there's your your talent, yep, there's money. Yep. And then there's time. Yep. You know, and, I mean, the CNN could do all three of them, one of them, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 58:28
Yeah. And I think that there's going to be there's a lot of people that I meet that they just don't have an organization that they feel like they really align with. Like myself, I've never really felt like I like a lot of organizations will ask for money, I just don't, I don't have anything that I connect with them on. So to me, this was a great it's a little selfish to is like, Okay, this is a great way for me to not only through the business, be able to funnel dollars for a greater good, but personally, I can do it as well.
Mark D. Williams 58:54
But this goes back to your back 40 legacy principle. I mean, this goes back to your core reason you started coalition nine, which is to have something that really fulfilled you and passionately drove you on the back. 40 This is just another one of the things and doing incredible good within the community on a number of levels I look at you know, we've had Mark ostermalm Before he has the joy collaboratives and it's so incredible what he does, and I listen to his podcast, if you haven't listened to it, it's very inspiring, but we he and I are actually going to collaborate and do I'm gonna do a live event with him with curious builder today, and we're gonna do with all the proceeds are gonna go to the joy collaborative Foundation, and we're still trying to figure all that out. But I think when you can make it tangible, you know, locally sometimes, I mean, I had recently heads actually Two episodes ago, I had spent Gustafson on from stone wood, he has one called the one for one project. And for every home that they build, they build one home in Guatemala. And, you know, these, I think, sometimes at least for myself, not having any sort of corporate background or anything like that. It's like, you know, it's hard to know sometimes how to give because you don't, you don't you're not exposed to it. You're sometimes as an entrepreneur you have been. And so it's like, you know, you see stuff in the paper and you like, Man, how do I give and when you know people in, like faith first, hey, so when there's some sort of real connection point, both locally and Minnesota, there's plenty of you. I'm not saying anything against, you know, giving abroad or there's a great need for that. And I applaud everyone that does that. But there are plenty of needs, even within our state for a variety of reasons. One is entrepreneurial, like you're talking about, but you know, like Mark, for instance, he's helping there's 66,000 disabled children in Minnesota that need help. And I'm like, oh, man, I got, you know, just I have three kids, you don't even have to have kids to feel just kind of like this. In your heart. Yep. And in, you know, I raised my hands like Mark, I sort of want to quit my job and just go for it. And he's like, I gladly hire you. Or you just gotta give your time. Like, I can't do that either. Anyway, I just think I feel like we're in kind of this cool golden age of businesses being you mentioned, this board being more vulnerable. being more open and authentic with the struggles of life mental health, I love your wellness deal, I'm gonna have to go check that out. And I'm probably in the last 10% of yours, united. And the fact that I'm so overwhelmed with all the things that I do have going on, it's hard for me to, you know, again, with the kids my age they are I always feel a bit of a hypocrite, like I do host a couple events a year that are in the evenings. But I rarely get out and any evening thing, just because that's really the time that I'm prioritizing with my family at this point in life. And I'm fine doing that. But it doesn't make the yes side of me, it feels like I want to do these other things. And
Speaker 1 1:01:25
I get that like, even so I don't have kids, my wife and I chose not to have kids. But I protect that evening time with my wife. She's an entrepreneur, too. We're two ships passing in the night during the week. So we've really only got a couple hours
Mark D. Williams 1:01:36
to connect. And that's your downtime, your all the other space up here too.
Speaker 1 1:01:40
But you think of all of our members like so if we do an afternoon event and our evening events, we'll do it from like 330 to six. So the people like yourself, they're like, I gotta get home by 430, right? Just because I got I got family stuff that I want to participate in stuff like that. So you can come for a little bit, do your thing and hit the road. And some people, they'll stay the whole time. But we want to create that space, we really try and stay within that eight to five
Mark D. Williams 1:02:01
times that we're that and it's funny you say that because that really granted my the cures, but a collective is more work related. And I mines in the morning, like like the coalition. Right? It's the minus 830 to 11. Yeah, you know, on Fridays, four times a year. Yeah, you know, so it's like people can kind of work that into their schedule. And it seems like, I guess maybe a last question here, as we kind of will do a little personal questions here at the end. But one of the questions I had for you is, as you've already mentioned, there's I feel like there are so many groups out there from builder 20s, to rotary clubs, to IPOs, to all these things, I don't even I mean, every industry has 10 different, quote, networking groups, and I like the relationship ones much better. Do you think that that has exploded post COVID? And more so or has it always been there? I'm just not aware of it. My thinking along those lines that, you know, for two years, there was a sort of shut in. And now there's this I feel like people are really excited to go back to events and really excited to get out in the public space or my misreading the market with no, I
Speaker 1 1:03:03
think you're right, I think you're right on, I think it's a mix of a whole bunch of things. Like I really will say like, I don't think we would have had our explosive growth that we did in 2020 21, and 2022, which is really our like, wow, like a rocket ship years without COVID social isolation had such an effect on people, we launched in 2019, we thrived in 2020, because we had a great technology stack, we created a great, immersive experience from an arm's length from a technology standpoint, we were really fast to come out of COVID So we took some chances based on the people that we had involved. So all of that kind of matters, I just think, dude, we can do a whole podcast on on the effects, psychological effects of COVID I think that that people have had the psychological can need for connection and, and COVID just through fire on it, or through gas on that fire. Like it was just it just took off. So yeah, I have seen things pop up. You know, there's more. There's more women's groups, there's more people of color groups, there's more groups. And I love that so we've got a we've like you doing your thing specifically for builders like that is that is very niche that is right on, there should be more niche related groups. I say that also too, because we are a non niche related group like
Mark D. Williams 1:04:27
we're you already have one that's industry agnostic. And I think industry specifically I like to I
Speaker 1 1:04:31
tell people all the time, you should be in two groups, you should be in one where you're with people that you're all speaking the same language, whatever that is, whatever that you whatever that community looks like, that could be a community of faith, like maybe you need to double down on your community of faith. All of those things kind of kind of coexist with each other multiple communities that should cross pollinate.
Mark D. Williams 1:04:51
I think just the ideas, right? I mean, you get and how many times do you hear someone that's, you know, right now I'm really fascinated by the client experience and I was talking to someone And this morning, actually, and they're one of their good friends is a world renowned chef and I am putting on this event. We haven't announced it yet. I guess I'm sort of teasing him. And it'll be in the 14th of November. And I want to celebrate people that make things with their hands. And I'm thinking about specifically for things like onto the home. But then it got me thinking, a chef makes things my hands Yeah, a chef is very involved, probably more so than anyone in the building community is very obsessed with client experience. You think about the restaurants, from the way it feels to the lighting to, you know, the way the food is served, though, obviously, the way it tastes the menu like so I actually think it'd be kind of fun to throw this curveball in. Yeah. And so I'm going to ask the celebrity chef, if they want to sit on this panel and talk about client experience. I just think it'd be fascinating. And if they say no, I'll find something they'll say yes. Well,
Speaker 1 1:05:48
there's a lot. There's a lot to learn doing what you're doing with with your, with your builders group, with from the hospitality industry, like the hospitality industry is like if you don't crush it, every single time, you're done. Right, you're done.
Mark D. Williams 1:06:04
So I have a question for you. So I, in you know, I was talking to a designer yesterday who interviewed this designer, and she had some front house staff that went to another designer, and she just kind of rolled her eyes. And she's like, you know, the designers, you know, it takes a year to really get them up to speed. And then they may go to a different design firm, but you look around town. You know, there's a lot of very talented designers. And it's very normal that the design, you know, talent will kind of travel from within the designers and with builders, it's project managers, you'll see project managers kind of go through different builders, right? It's kind of just like, I don't know what you want to call it. This merry go round. And, man, I totally lost my train of thought on that. Going around around Oh, you know, how do you break that cycle? Hospitality. So my sister in law is a dynamite. She's been in the food industry for 10 years, she actually went to school to be a potter. She's an expert. I did you know, sometimes people surprise you. She's not what I would think of as a salesperson. She's the number one salesperson in our company for last three years. And so it's somehow it's her perfection streak her OCD streak, but it's her it's her hospitality, years of working in the food industry that has really led her client, I'm guarantee that's why there's a part of me, she doesn't know anything about construction. But there's a part of me that wants to bring her in, and have her be a project manager because the clients experience she would dominate it. And I only bring that up, I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do it. Because a it's family. And to you know, it's it is it's a different way of looking at it. So I'd love your thought on this. And then I guess I'll temper this with a story that I've told a couple of times about a plumber down in Florida. And I heard that he couldn't find project managers or plumbers to they had they had like one star ratings. And he's like, I can't do this anymore. So he went to all the high end restaurants and he hired all the maitre D's trained them how to be plumbers, and he just blew it out of the water. Anyway, with that kind of informative mind, what do you think? How specific Do you think you would have to know knowledge? I know this is maybe a controversial idea. But the idea is, if I'm focusing really on client experience, couldn't you teach them the skills? Or my undervaluing the skills and the knowledge you do need to know because you can't you can't build a home without knowing what you're doing? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1 1:08:10
that's then that's on you to make that investment into that individual. But if you take and kind of throw in a little pot here, passion, attitude, effort, desire, and mix it all up, like you can really train a lot of the things that need to be done. And those experience trains a lot. So I mean, I even look at you go back to the sales side of things like like, you know, she crushes it, and sales for three years now. And salesperson, I know organizations that have built structure to where if they're going to meet with a client, you bring the sales rep, but you bring someone that is not a sales rep. And you bring the VP of ops, you bring the CFO, you bring somebody with you that can speak a little bit of the same language, but they're not they don't feel imposing as being a salesperson or whatever. There's magic in that, like that is it all comes down to just people buying from people or people wanting to cater to people or people feeling one way or another hospitality industry? The good hospitality related organizations crush it, they do such a good job. Interesting.
Mark D. Williams 1:09:09
Well, we are definitely over time on respect your time, maybe one favorite book, or what do you do to self educate? I'm guessing you're a podcast guy, but I know you probably are randomly getting input from all your actually the people in your C nine groups. How are you learning? How are you educating yourself? So
Speaker 1 1:09:29
you know, talking to guys like you talking to other people, I'm a better communicator than I am. You know, I, I dropped out of college. So it's clear that I'm not the best at educating myself, but I also I'm not a good reader, but I'm a good absorber of information. So podcasts I listen to a book a week. So I'm trying to I try and do 52 big books a year. Some of them are business phone. I don't like business books. I don't like like more human behavior books.
Mark D. Williams 1:09:58
So like memoirs biography These are what is sometimes, sometimes, like,
Speaker 1 1:10:02
I'll just shoot you straight. Like I just got done with a great. So last month was I, the end of last month I finished up hidden potential by Adam Grant. Great book. I'm going to give myself a couple of weeks here to get through the first read listening to after 10 years, the first Harry Potter book. So there's things in that that make my brain one it makes me feel really good, right? It kind of brings me back but then two is that it's just it's mindless. And but I'm still kind of listening to something I come up with ideas in that space. So I think giving yourself a little bit of grace to where I think people feel like oh, God, I got it. I gotta I gotta I gotta keep up with everybody else. It's reading so much and other stuff bullshit. Like I think you just do you. Yep.
Mark D. Williams 1:10:43
I agree. It's funny. You say that? Because I'll bounce between usually between Mondays through Wednesdays, I'll do my all my podcasts. Yeah. And then Thursdays or Sunday, it'll be podcasts or sorry. Audible book tapes. Yeah. And so I usually will go through, you know, like a sci fi or fantasy novel. Again, a little bit more mindless, more creativity. It's kind of just different. It's out there. Yeah, you know, magic swords and dragons and whatever. You know, Harry Potter. Plus, now my kids are little so it's gonna be fun to reread those real shortly. But then also, I've been really into memoirs and biographies. Yeah, I don't know why I really became injuries and my wife and I watch a ton of documentaries. This is a really just, I mean, it's the learning thing. Yeah, totally. Yeah, lifelong learning. Well, for those that want to find you, the best way is to reach out to would be coalition
Speaker 1 1:11:27
nine.com. All of our stuff is on there, events, everything like that. LinkedIn, Aaron Eggert. I'm not that great at the other socials nowadays, but definitely not Facebook. So LinkedIn, internet coalition. nine.com is my email. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 1:11:42
perfect. We'll have everything in the show notes. Appreciate it. And thanks again for coming on. I appreciate it.

This episode is sponsored by:

business podcastcustom home builderremodelingMinnesota home builder

Mark Williams

Episode 58 - Building by the Power of 9

Episode #58 | Aaron Eggert | Building by the Power of 9

Listen to the full episode:

About Aaron Eggert

Resources

This episode is sponsored by:

Connect

Find Something

Episode 58 - Building by the Power of 9

Episode #58 | Aaron Eggert | Building by the Power of 9

Listen to the full episode:

About Aaron Eggert

Resources

Transcript

This episode is sponsored by:

Episode 59 - Balancing Act: Family, Health, and Building Success with Caleb MacDonald

Episode 57 - Renae Keller on Tailoring Spaces: The Personal Touch in Professional Design

Connect

Find Something