What's your vision? Barry LaBov. Podcast Session 2.

What's your vision? Barry LaBov. Podcast Session 2.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  What is the story behind your why? We'd love to hear that.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  The story behind what's so important to me, which is, by the way, it's finding the uniqueness, the magic in people or in brands. The story for me is that I felt growing up that I was not going to amount to much. I wasn't going to be good enough. I never could perform, in my opinion, as well as others. And I looked at myself very critically.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  As I went through a, you know, a young life into my teens and into my early twenties, I had a few successes. And one success was I was named Entrepreneur of the Year for my state, the state of Indiana. And I honestly, going to the award ceremony to learn whether I won it or not.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  So I didn't know. I, I took my, my friends and my family, my employees there. And I honestly felt there was no way I was going to win this. I just didn't think I was of that quality. But to learn that, my gosh, out of, you know, many, many other really good companies out there and good leaders, that I was chosen as Entrepreneur of the Year gave me confidence and it fueled my passion to look at uniqueness or differentiation and to honor it. To not look at it as, okay, it's inferior or it's not as good as someone else. It's the opposite. It's like, no, wait a minute. I do it a certain way, others do it differently, but.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  The way I do what I do, the way that I go after looking at the magic in people and trying to really amplify that has value. So that's the story behind it. It's, it's, it's not a one moment story. It was a build of confidence inside me for a number of years.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would love to hear more about that, but in the sense of if and if an example where you, the magic that you saw and what you did with that magic, I think that would be amazing because there's so many times I as an owner struggle with seeing the way businesses do their stuff. And I am like, I can show you this, but then you really want me to go there, but that's not the path to go there. And is there's a lot that happens dealing with entrepreneurs and leaders. So if you have an example, I think will be amazing.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  A great example is I was speaking with one of the family owners of a wonderful business and they create what's known as a manhole cover or a man lid for tank trailers that go down the highway. Now you may say, oh, that sounds really boring, but it's a very important product because that lid through the tank trailer is actually a safety device because a lot of times there are flammable liquids or powders inside that tank. And if somebody opens up that lid, there could be an explosion. So this company had created a man lid that had a safety latch.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  So I was talking to the family owner who was an engineer and he was really downplaying it. He said, you know, it's, it's a latch and you know, we devised it and you know, if there's too much pressure, it won't let you open the, you know, the man lid and it's not that big of a deal. And I said, okay. I said, do you charge more money for this? And he goes, no, we don't. And I said, okay. Do you have competitors that have this device, this special latch? And he goes, no, no, no, we're the only people. I said, did it cost you money? And he said, oh, it cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce this, to create it, to engineer it.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  I said, my gosh, well, what do you call this? And he was silent and he looked at me and he said, we just call it latch. And I said, here's something that saves lives. You don't even charge more money for it. You don't tell people about it. And you don't even have a name for it. And I said, have you celebrated this with your employees? And he said, what do you mean? I said, here you are, you're spending all this money. Using the brilliance of your company. And you should be celebrating it with your people and saying, hey, by the way, this is the kind of company you work for. And many of you played a big role in this.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Let's look at this as a triumph. Let's look at this as something that's a badge of honor, something we're proud of. That's an example, Harry, of the things we do on a daily basis that sometimes we even denigrate. And I, you know, my why is I want to find those things and I want people to understand that they're part of something bigger than themselves.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing with us. That was amazing.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  My next question for you, Barry, is twofold. The first part is, why do you think in experience that leaders hide from funding their vision? And the second part to it is, how can those leaders then lean into funding that vision?

• 5:53Speaker 01

  When you're talking about funding their vision, are you talking about them look?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Get support, talking about Harry? Yes.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  Oh, sorry. You cut off for a second. I couldn't hear you.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, you shut off too. I was asking, I'm asking a question regarding funding. Are you talking about financial funding?

• 6:20Speaker 00

  It could be both. A lot of people have answered it as literally financial funding. And a lot of people have answered it as using

• 6:30Speaker 00

  the lighter version of funding, like, I mean, your resources, your energy, your time, everything you put into it and funding that vision. You can answer it whichever way you will prefer.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Well, if a leader is truly in any way, shape or form hiding or downplaying what their vision is about, whether they're trying to look for increased money, let's say, or resources, or some sort of funding or belief, I think that it also implies to me that they don't have confidence in what they're all about. And to me, as a leader, we either are all in, or we ought to get out. You know, we can't toe the line. And if we avoid rallying

• 7:21Speaker 01

  our troops, or rallying our supporters behind what we're doing, then my question back to the leader is, then why are you doing this? If you don't believe, why do you think anyone else will?

• 7:38Speaker 00

  That's true. Then how do you think then leaders lean into funding that vision?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  The smartest things I can see leaders do, and have seen them do, whether it's looking for money, whether it's looking for resources, whether it's looking for some sort of partnership, is to share the vision, share the importance and the uniqueness of the vision, not just the end result of return on investment from a financial standpoint. I personally believe that return on investment and projections can be manipulated. They are highly overrated because you can have wonderful projections, and in reality, have

• 8:28Speaker 01

  almost nothing of value. And I have yet to see somebody who wants me to support their vision and see, as I look at their

• 8:40Speaker 01

  They're, I would say they're pro forma, which is basically going to predict what their future is. The extraordinary success is amazing on paper or on a spreadsheet. But the truth is, we're all human beings. And what we need to do is lean into the human aspect of, as a leader, your belief, because you have to be the face of what people are going to fund, of what people will march behind. And if you show conviction and belief, and by the way, a pretty smart plan, you're going to get support.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. I think a lot of people miss out on the fact, things that you just mentioned. It's very valuable what you shared today. For our audience, I would say, re-listen to that if you didn't hear it, so you can understand what exactly he meant. It was awesome. My next question for you, Barry, is, I think you don't get it enough, just kidding. What tips would you have for entrepreneurs or leaders?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  I've been asked that many times, because I am an entrepreneur. I did start up with nothing. I am definitely a bootstrapper. I've never had a loan. I never got funding financially. I believe the most important thing an entrepreneur can do is to make sure he or she is producing a product or service, whatever their company or business is about, that they are proud of. And I have a real strong message to those who say, let's scale up, let's do 10x, 100x,

• 10:35Speaker 01

  let's grow. I am opposed to blind growth at the expense of integrity or quality. There are too many entrepreneurs out there that are deluding themselves with the idea that we can go grow, and we can make so much money and just sit back every day and wait for the checks to come in.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  I offer one serious bit of advice for all entrepreneurs and that is if you're gonna do anything, grow slower than you would like and be at a higher quality of product and performance.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Thank you for sharing that. I cannot emphasize enough what you just said. So I am in a digital marketing space and business growth space as well. And a lot of times you see these bro marketers out there and they're trying to sell you some product and they do it in a bigger scale. They mass produce, they mass text, they mass email campaigns and this throws so much money in marketing and they get people. There's a lot of people who fall for that and then they realize, oh my gosh, like the marketing will work if my things have this, this, this and that.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  And then the marketers won't care about that because they just want their first client, then next client, the sixth one, then next client, the sixth one. And that happens a lot and I bet there is a lot of other industries out there the same way where people have grown much faster, much

• 12:12Speaker 00

  very easy, but realizing that it's to the detriment where their company did not grow with it. Just their revenue grew and then it just blew back in their face because then they went to an imminent failure.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  I agree. I think you can become intoxicated with growth, with riches, and you don't think straight. So my learning has been if you're gonna do anything, make sure the one or two or three clients you have are really taken care of great. As opposed to having fifteen or fifteen thousand that you don't know and you think that they are satisfied, don't assume it. Make sure that each one is listened to and that you care about them.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  What would you say in your advice is how do we avoid that? How do we avoid falling into that pit? Or even see that pit coming?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  I think one thing that I try to avoid is I don't want to be a wishful thinker. I don't want to say, "We're going to do this, this, and that, and we're going to grow to this, and we're going to have this, this, this, and that profit, and everybody here is going to get such and such." I don't want to create an unrealistic dream that will fuel bad behavior. I don't want to do it. I want to present a positive dream that is realistic. Meaning, here's our goal. We want to achieve these things. If we do, there are a lot of great things that happen, but you know what? It's not about us.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  It's not about how much money is put in our bank account. It's about the performance we give our clients and the way we work with each other. So, we're part of this team. We're not going to look for a get-rich-quick exit on this. So, everybody buckle in. Let's do the right things. And you have my 100% commitment as your leader that I will be here for you. I'm not looking for perfection.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  I will be here to make sure you have the support needed to do the best work of your life. And if we can all do that, to some level, we will all experience success.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.