October 15, 2025 • 62 mins
Are you leading with a vision and strategy?
In this episode, Ken Lucci sits down with Steve Firestone, founder of Firestone Strategies Group. They discuss essential strategies for small transportation businesses, focusing on financial acumen and strategic planning. Steve shares his extensive career experience in corporate America and the security industry, providing valuable insights into common pitfalls that entrepreneurs face. The discussion revolves around core values, organizational alignment, and the concept of working *on* the business rather than in it.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome
00:25 Introduction
01:36 Background
04:38 Business Owners Who Still Work
16:04 When It Stops Being A Family Business
19:36 The Strategic Plan Or Organizational Alignment
29:48 What's Behind Transportation Operator's Flat Returns
37:37 Stretch Goals
43:38 The Problem With Customer Attrition
46:19 Proactivity
Visit Firestone Strategies: https://firestonestrategies.com/
Contact Steve Firestone: steve@firestonestrategies.com
At Driving Transactions, Ken Lucci and his team offer financial analysis, KPI reviews, for specific purposes like improving profitability, enhancing the value of the enterprise business planning and buying and selling companies. So if you have any of those needs, please give us a call or check us out at www.drivingtransactions.com.
Pax Training is your all in one solution designed to elevate your team's skills, boost passenger satisfaction, and keep your business ahead of the curve. Learn more at www.paxtraining.com/gtp
Connect with Kenneth Lucci, Principle Analyst at Driving Transactions:
https://www.drivingtransactions.com/
Connect with James Blain, President at PAX Training:
https://paxtraining.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ken Lucci (00:25):
Well, good afternoon podcast audience.
Welcome to another excitingepisode of the Ground
Transportation Podcast.
My name is Ken Lucci FromDriving Transactions, we are a
financial analysis, businessvaluation and m and a advisory
service and the transportationsector.
unfortunately do not have myesteemed partner, James Blaine
(00:48):
from P'S training on today.
He's no doubt out training aslew of new chauffeur and
professional coach motorman.
Um, so James, wherever you are,Godspeed, my brother.
Sorry you're not with me, but Ido have someone who has been a
friend to me, a friend of minesince the eighties, which is
(01:10):
dating both of us.
A gentleman named SteveFirestone of who, uh, definitely
honored to call him my friend.
We've worked together many timesand he is the founder of
Firestone Strategies Group.
Steve, welcome.
Steve Firestone (01:26):
Thank you, Ken.
Good to be with you.
Virtually wish we could be faceto face for this next hour or
so, but uh, I'm delighted to behere.
Ken Lucci (01:36):
Thank you, Steve.
give us your bio.
Listen, I know, I know your bio,but I want you to give us a
highlight of your bio and yourexperience so people understand
where you're coming from.
Steve Firestone (01:45):
Sure.
So roughly half my career hasbeen spent in what most people
would call corporate America,and that time was, in a couple
different industries.
Started my career in the bankingindustry, although I never would
claim to be a banker.
(02:06):
Uh, but the first dozen or soyears of my career was in, in
banking.
Um, and then I left, I left thebanking industry and through a.
Circuitous number of eventsended up in the security
industry, Ken, where you and Imet each other, and spent over,
over a couple decades with acouple stops in between, spent
(02:27):
call it, 20 years in thesecurity industry, either as
president or CEO as, or, or oneof the executive leadership team
of a number of, um, securitycompanies and by security
companies.
I'm talking about burglar andfire alarm and video and access
control companies, bothcommercially and ally.
(02:49):
Um, and during, during thattime, I was involved in, in one
way or another, and over 200acquisitions of companies.
Ken, you and I spent, uh, uh,some really delightful years
doing 38 acquisitions ofcompanies in 18 months.
Ken Lucci (03:05):
Yes.
Yes, we did.
Steve Firestone (03:06):
so, so we certainly know what rapid growth
is through acquisition and the,the challenges therein, my most
recent stay in the securityindustry is I was president of a
company headquartered inPennsylvania and had 30 ish
offices around the country.
And we were recognized as thefastest growing security
(03:26):
integrator in the industry.
Uh, so a bunch of years in thesecurity industry, but also on
the, the corporate side.
I ran, uh, sales and marketingat Office Depot for a number of
years.
Um, had roughly$9 billion ofrevenue responsibility and about
8,000 people, um, in myorganization.
(03:47):
So I, I've, I've been in kind ofthat corporate world the other
half of my career, though.
Has been spent as a consultantor running a consulting company,
for some global brands likeAmerican Express and Nokia and
T-Mobile and some, some bigcompanies that everybody would
(04:07):
recognize the name, but alsoeverything down to small
technology startups and everyplace in between.
Um, and those consulting yearswere largely in kinda strategy,
organizational alignment, growthplans, you know, maximize
opportunities in a market acrossa whole bunch of different
(04:30):
industries.
So I've worn a bunch ofdifferent hats and a different
size companies, uh, andcompanies all across America.
Ken Lucci (04:38):
That's a great summary and you know the reason
why I asked you and, and you andI stay in touch.
So you, so we've talked a lotabout the chauffeur space
together.
You attended thechauffeur-driven NLA retreat in
Savannah.
Uh, so the state of thefinancial, state of the
industry.
speech that I gave.
(04:58):
So I, I asked you here todaybecause I wanted to tee
something up.
this, I think we will both agreethis is getting close to the
ends of our careers.
Um, we're both consulting.
one of the things I've noticedas, as kind of doing deep dive
consulting with thetransportation space is a truism
(05:18):
that I see with all smallbusiness.
We never expected to have thefinancial data on 280 companies,
so we see common threads onthose metrics, profitability,
sometimes lack of profitability,et cetera.
But the other commonality wesee, which I'm really intrigued
with, spend a lot of timedealing with, and I know you do,
(05:43):
is the small business owner,founder.
I would put small business inthe category below 50 million.
certainly we deal with, owneroperators that go from a million
all the way up to 150 million.
But this, this issue that I seeis with the, with the, the one
to$50 million company.
(06:04):
Some people think 50 million asa small business.
Yeah.
Kind of is the commonality I seeis what I call, and I hate the
phrase, we both hate the phrase,the owner or founder working in
the business and not on thebusiness.
So the number one problem I seeis the lack of financial acumen,
the lack of financial managementof metrics.
(06:26):
But the right up there is thefounder, owner working in the
business and not on it.
So let's tee up what that means.
You know, to me it's akin tobeing a, a football player on
the team.
On the field versus at bestbeing the coach that is
(06:47):
directing the team or where youshould be if you're running a
company, is up in the owner'sbox.
And I hate to say up, but in theowner's box, directing the
entire operation and planningthe future of the organization.
So what I mean by that, and Igive an example, is, you know,$4
(07:09):
million operator that I dealwith every Tuesday.
He sits down and he does hisentire accounting for the week.
And when I talk to him, I say,back up a step.
You, you're acting as thebookkeeper?
Yes.
Okay.
How many hours a week do youspend Between eight and 12.
Okay.
So what you're saying to me is afunction that you could easily
(07:30):
job out for$20 an hour,$25 anhour, to someone who's QuickBook
certified.
You are doing that in primesales time.
Now I know one of the reasonswhy you've been stuck at$4
million for five to seven yearsbecause you are performing what
is ideal, no question, acritical function, but it's a
(07:53):
function that's easily taught orgiven to someone else because
it's, you know, it's, it's fi,it's financial bookkeeping, it's
QuickBooks.
I see the same thing whereowners have to be, I'll watch
them at meetings at the show forDriven show, and they're
literally dispatching.
They've got their laptop openand dispatching.
So to me, the fundamentalproblem I see with small
(08:15):
business, and the reason why inmy estimation, and it's a
statistic, 80% of smallbusinesses never sell to
unrelated third parties.
That's a, biz buy, sellstatistic.
And it's a statistic of the SBA80% never sell because they
never leave the realm of alifestyle business in where the
(08:36):
owner is an integral part andcontrols the, the business to a
company that functions on itsown, largely functions on its
own.
So I wanted you to speak about.
Why you see that phenomenon?
Why do you see small businesspeople never being able to work
on the business, the strategy ofthe business?
(08:59):
where ultimately is the businessgoing to go?
What is ultimate success of thebusiness?
Because every day they're justblocking and tackling.
They can't figure out how to winthe World Series mixing sports
metaphors because they'reliterally fielding on the team.
Steve Firestone (09:14):
Well, that's a, that's a mouthful.
And I, I think you're, you'respot on.
And, and as I described my workhistory, I never really counted
the number of differentindustries that I've, done work
in or consulted in or, or ledorganizations in.
But it's, it's a lot.
(09:36):
and it's, it's interestingbecause every time I start a
relationship, either as theleader of an organization, as an
employee, or as a consultant.
I almost always hear before westart working together, Steve,
you need to understand ourcompany's unique and our
(09:57):
industry is unique
Ken Lucci (09:59):
Hear the same thing.
Steve Firestone (10:00):
and the sooner you understand that, the better
our relationship is gonna be.
And my answer to that usuallyis, well, that's curious because
I've been working for, call it45 years and I'm finding quite
the opposite to be the case andthat there are more similarities
than there are differences andthe challenges that that
(10:24):
companies have regardless ofgeography, regardless of of
industry.
There are, there are someuniquenesses based on size, but
the challenges are essentiallythe same fundamental challenges.
And we can come back to that,but I, I wanted to do that as
kind of a preface to respond toyour, the points that you were
(10:45):
making and, and that is, you askwhy does that ha why is it so
hard to get out of that?
And, why do owner operators,CEOs, presidents get stuck?
Well, first of all, they getstuck because in most cases,
those guys built the business ontheir own backs with their own
(11:10):
energy.
They must, they're, they muscletheir way.
And I mean that in the mostcomplimentary way.
They muscled their way
Ken Lucci (11:18):
We both done it.
Yep.
Steve Firestone (11:20):
They, they, they, they just, they didn't
take no for an answer and theywoke up one day and they went,
oh, dang, I got 40 employees, orI got a hundred employees, but I
don't wanna give up what got methere because, oh my gosh.
What if somebody doesn't do itas well as I do?
Ken Lucci (11:39):
Yep.
And that's, you know, I, andthat, that is, that is, you
know, uh, let's just face it.
The entrepreneur is a very, he'sa, he or she is a very unique
person to be able to take allthis risk.
And, you know, the Frank Sinatrasong, I did It My Way, comes to
my Mind.
But I, I think the fundamentalflaw and the reason why
(12:03):
businesses fail in many ways isthey reach that ceiling where
the owner can't do it all andthey don't know how to let go.
So, go ahead, I, sorry.
Sorry to interrupt.
Steve Firestone (12:13):
you're absolutely right.
And, and I, I've been veryfortunate as you know, Ken,
that, that, I guess because I'vebeen working a long time, I've
gotten some, uh, I've received alifetime achievement award from
the security industry, whichmeans, I guess I'm an old guy.
but through.
My involvement in that industryand others, I've had the good
(12:33):
fortune of being able to do somekeynote speeches at some, big
industry events.
And one of my keynote topics iscalled Leading Change for any
size Business.
And basically what that is, it'sa, it's a, it's an analysis, a
self-reflection on where is mycompany at the natural lifecycle
(12:53):
stage of the business, and basedon where I am as a company, what
should I do based on where I amto avoid the down slide or the
stagnation of the business?
Because it's a hundred percentreliant on me making every
decision, every company gets tothat lifecycle stage at one time
(13:14):
or another.
Those that are successful, a,recognize that they're there or
they're approaching it and theytake the necessary steps.
To mitigate that risk by makingsure that, to use that cliche,
we both hate, uh, that theybegin to work, on the business,
not in the business, which isthe hardest thing for an owner
(13:35):
operator to do.
So in, in some cases becausethey get stuck there because
it's a comfort level.
In other cases, they get stuckthere because they don't trust
their team.
In other cases, they don't evenknow what it means to work on
their business rather than, thanin the business.
And if I were to break thosethree categories into what
(13:56):
percentages are in each, thegreat majority are the owner
operator, CEO, founder.
They don't even know what itmeans to work on the business,
not in the business.
Ken Lucci (14:07):
Correct.
they assume that hard work andthe number of hours and tenacity
is going to, it carried me thisfar.
It's going to carry me into thefuture and forward.
And the problem with that isEvery industry's being
disrupted.
Change is inevitable.
And the worst thing you could dois be insular and do things the
(14:28):
exact same way.
You know, the other, the otherthing that, that I think that
they, they also, mostentrepreneurs are from the
bootstrap up.
I mean, I, I, I'm blessed to dobusiness with some of the
biggest network operators in thecountry, if not the world.
And, you know, one guy comes tomind, he always tells me he
started the business from his,parents' basement.
(14:51):
And now he's a, he, one of thebiggest networks in the country,
but at the end of the day, theydon't have.
the playbook on strategy.
They don't have the playbook onstrategically kind of how to get
themselves out of their own way.
You know, I used to make, I usedto make a joke and you've met
(15:11):
some of the people that workedfor me that, you know, my
ultimate goal was to make myselfthe least important person in
the business.
Um, didn't achieve that withambassador.
My cell phone was filled with2,700, you know, contacts of
people that called me from thehead of the Yankees, you know,
on down.
But in most cases, I was able tomake myself the least important
(15:31):
person.
I can tell you, you didn't wantme dispatching, you didn't want
me billing, right?
I had people to do all that.
I was still leading on the salesside, but when my father died, I
left for 15 days and the, andthe company didn't miss a beat.
I was very proud of that.
very proud of the people thatled the business while I was
away and.
(15:52):
I I think I'd ask every, everyowner operator, or every
operator that's out therelistening is what would happen
to your business if you had toleave for 15 days?
Because ultimately, you know, myfamily was much more important.
Steve Firestone (16:04):
Can, can, Can, I add one?
can I add one?
thing, one thing to that, thatpoint.
the other thing that I havefound as I've entered an
organization, again, either asan executive running the
organization or as a consultant,there, there's a, there's a
natural size in terms of numberof employees that might even be
(16:27):
more important than the dollaramount.
There's a natural size where,where if the owner or the
operator doesn't successfullyhave a strategy, a real
strategy, for organizationalalignment and some of those
things that we can talk aboutlater.
If you don't have a realstrategy, They will think that
(16:51):
the business is healthier, bothfinancially and from a culture
perspective in terms ofsatisfaction of their workforce.
They'll think it's better thanwhat their employees think it
is.
Ken Lucci (17:04):
always.
Steve Firestone (17:05):
it.
It's, it's the healthy, it's thehealthy CEO, founder, owner,
operator.
It's the healthy one who hasenough self-reflection to say,
you know what, I've now got 75employees, or I've got a hundred
employees.
And we used to always say we'rea family business.
And, you know, all thosewonderful things that go along
(17:28):
with quote a family businesswhen you're that size and maybe
the number's not even 75, maybethe number's 50, depending on
the uniqueness of of thecompany, uh, it is critically
important that they have thekind of financial data.
To make decisions like you guysprovide to your clients and they
(17:49):
have a real organizationalalignment, strategic plan with
measurable, quantifiable datapoints on the operation of the
business.
'cause ladies and gentlemen,when you're that size, it's not
a family business anymore.
Ken Lucci (18:05):
No.
And, and if you ever want tocreate enterprise value, and,
and this is something that I,it's funny, I'm, I'm bringing on
an a an another m and a guy atsome point because he, he's in
every other industry.
I'm not.
And he makes the point that I'mtrying to make here is that if
you don't transfer translate, ifyou don't transfer your
(18:26):
knowledge as a founder to a teamof people that can run your
company, you're not creating anyenterprise value.
It suffers and dies when yousuffer and die.
And that statistic of eightoutta 10 businesses never get
sold.
I'm here to tell you I don'tcare how big you are in the
(18:46):
transportation space, I have$50million companies that cannot
run without the owners directinvolvement every single day.
And oh, and, and I'm on zoomswith'em, and they have to sign
checks and they, and they haveto, they're constantly being
interrupted, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera.
If, if you don't go from alifestyle business to a company,
(19:07):
you are not creating value.
And I don't believe you can getto a company without a strategic
plan.
You can't.
You cannot become a company thatruns on its own without a
strategic plan.
Your vision as a founder got youwhere you are, but it is no
guarantee that it is going tocarry you forward.
In fact, in some cases, thevision becomes a myopic view of
(19:33):
inside four walls.
But let's not get esoteric.
So, so gimme an idea what youthink the basic strategic plan
means, because a lot of peopleare probably saying, what are
they talking about?
Steve Firestone (19:45):
Yeah, it's the, the term strategic plan is not
quite as bad as work, on thebusiness, not in it, but it, it
may be one of the, what I thinkare the most, I dunno if this,
this is the wrong grammar, mostleast understood, um, wor words
that, that
Ken Lucci (20:03):
Is that like when George Bush has least
underestimated?
Steve Firestone (20:07):
That's it.
That's, that's it.
Uh, um, that, that's out therein the business world.
And so I'll start with whatstrategic plan isn't strategic
plan or mission or the whateverwords you wanna throw out.
There is not, a plaque or aposter on a wall that you spend
(20:30):
a couple days or a couple weeksor a couple months working on,
where you can't really measureis it working or isn't it
working?
Um, your workforce has no ideawhat it means if they even know
the one exists.
So it's, not that,
Ken Lucci (20:46):
It is not platitudes and.
Steve Firestone (20:48):
it's not So in my view, I actually use the word
organizational alignment asmuch, or at least.
With the word strategic plan,and here's what that is.
To me, it's an organization and,and this is, I, I've used what
(21:11):
I'm about to describe, I've usedpersonally in multiple stops in
my career.
I regularly use it, um, as partof my consulting practice.
Again, from companies that haveranging from, 40 employees, or
actually less than that, all theway up to Office Depot, which
(21:35):
was, you know, as I said in myorganization, there were about
8,000 employees and there were30,000 employees or 40,000
employees worldwide.
So, and every, every place inbetween.
so organizational alignmentmeans, let's figure out.
Why we do what we do.
And, and the way I phrase thatis, what are our core values as
(22:00):
an organization?
Now, my definition of corevalues is, and when I say core
values, I'm not talking aboutwe, one of the, we wanna be the
biggest, baddest transportationcompany in Charleston, South
Carolina, which happens to bewhere I live.
That's, that's not what I'mtalking about.
Ken Lucci (22:19):
I agree.
I agree.
It's not, it's not, it's not, inthe hotel industry saying, I
want to have the most hotelrooms that have put the most
heads in beds.
It's what Ritz Carlton referredto as We are ladies and
gentlemen, serving ladies andgentlemen.
It's the entire system behindthat.
It's the roadmap.
It, when you say organizationalalignment, I instantly think of
(22:41):
everybody rowing in the same
Steve Firestone (22:43):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ken Lucci (22:44):
Okay.
Steve Firestone (22:45):
this, this.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Ken Lucci (22:47):
And to me, unless everybody is on the same
wavelength and following thesame plan, it's very difficult
to do.
And I think that the bestexample is the Ritz Carlton
system that they put in place.
Okay?
And we are ladies and gentlementhat serve ladies and gentlemen
underneath that every associate,they were not team members.
(23:11):
They know, they were not staff,they were associate, had the
ability to satisfy the clientand spend up to$2,000 doing it
without approval.
Okay.
Fundamental, fascinatingbusiness case that most of the
people thought it was crazywhen, Jorge did that when he was
the owner.
And I think Marriott's wateredit down a little bit, but that's
(23:31):
my opinion.
But that to me was the essenceof the strategic plan.
The why.
We don't serve everyone.
We're not trying to serveeveryone.
We know where we fit in thespace.
It's the same in the chauffeurtransportation industry.
But I think if you, if you sayto somebody, why do we exist?
(23:51):
Many will yield towards thelogistic, well, we exist to get
people there from point A topoint B.
Okay, well, you know, That's notwhat FedEx does either.
I mean, FedEx gets packages frompoint A to point B, but their
entire strategy is theirstrategic plan.
Strategic vision is when itabsolutely has to be there.
(24:12):
We know we're 10 times, higherpriced, but we we're gonna get
it there.
You're gonna know where it isevery step of the way.
So to me, that's, it's you, youhit the nail on the head that it
is, it starts with the Y.
Steve Firestone (24:25):
And those, those are two classic business
examples, um, where, certainlyFedEx created a space.
I mean, they, there, there if, Imean lots of people watching
this probably don't evenremember pre FedEx.
I mean pre FedEx, it was likewatching TV when there were
(24:46):
three channels.
There were, you didn't havechoices as to how you got your
packages where you needed to getit.
So they, they, Fred Smithcreated a category.
He created a space that wasbased on when it absolutely,
positively has to be thereovernight.
Now that, that's kind of, that'skind of the foundation of, of
(25:06):
their why.
And you're right about ladiesand gentlemen, serving ladies
and gentlemen.
And Ritz has had that for goodgrief, probably 50 years
Ken Lucci (25:14):
exactly.
And let's, let's, let me justdraw a parallel between those
two business cases and thechauffeur space.
In the hotel space, there areclean, comfortable rooms
everywhere you want to go up anddown every highway, starting
with Motel six and Ritz Carltonsaid, no, no, we're not
competing in that space.
Okay.
And FedEx competes with agovernment agency that gets
(25:35):
money thrown at it.
Okay?
when Fred Smith came up with theFedEx business case, his, his
business school professorlaughed his ass off and said,
you're gonna fail miserably.
You're competing with thegovernment.
Well, in the chauffeur space, weare, obsessed with talking about
the TNCs and Uber and we to apoint where we do not realize.
(25:57):
how blessed we are to sit in thetop of the service delivery
chain as far as transportation.
The ultimate service that youcan have in transportation is to
have a chauffeur experience.
But we miss that as an industry,and I think it, it is, it is it
is part of this entirediscussion.
The businesses, the businessowners are obsessed with getting
(26:19):
the car from point A to point B,obsessed with their dispatchers,
et cetera, et cetera.
So they never have a time togrow.
And some of the industry fathersare the same way.
They never have really a timeto, to look at the strategy of
where the business is going,where their business is going.
Steve Firestone (26:36):
I am, I'm sure the, the people that are
watching and listening to ustalk, they can tell that we've
spent a lot of time togetherbecause you say something, I
think of what I wanna say, and Isay something and you think
about what you wanna say.
And this, this, this happens tobe a topic that we're both very
passionate about.
Which is, how do we make thoseorganizations that we have a
(26:57):
relationship with, how do wemake them achieve something that
they never thought they couldpossibly achieve?
'cause in many cases, thelimitations on someone achieving
their maximum potential is.
They don't believe they can getthere, and they certainly, in
most cases don't know how to getthere.
So back to this organizationalalignment, in my view, it starts
(27:18):
with, with the core values.
And the second step is, anenterprise wide transparency.
When I say enterprise wide, I'mtalking about enterprise wide
transparency on theestablishment of, I'll call it
corporate level, or senior levelcorporate level.
(27:41):
stretch goals that are setagreed upon, measured.
Quantified.
So there's nobody who says, oh,I think we're doing great in
quote, customer satisfaction,but somebody else in the
organization goes, you arecrazy.
We stink at customersatisfaction.
(28:02):
If you set stretch goals thatare measurable and the operative
word is stretch,'cause I knowwhere you're gonna go next, the
operative word is stretch and wecan talk about what that means
in a second and, and it ispublished and shared with the
workforce and everybodyunderstands how are we
measuring, how are we doing bothat a corporate level, ultimately
(28:27):
then at a department or businessunit level that establishes
those same stretch goals thatare relevant to their specific
part of the business, eventuallyall the way down to an
individual contributor level.
The most successful clients I'vehad or companies that I've run.
Individual performanceappraisals and individual goals
(28:52):
are tied directly to departmentlevel, tied to corporate level
stretch goals that all supportone or more of the core values
of the organization.
But to most companies, that'slike handing Since the Eagles
won last night, and I'm anEagles fan, I'm gonna thump my
chest a little bit.
(29:12):
That's like handing the thePhiladelphia Eagles Super Bowl
playbook to a middle schoolfootball team.
You can hand the playbook to themiddle school football team and
they'll go, well this is reallycool stuff.
We have no idea how to do this.
'cause no one's ever shown ushow to do it.
You guys do that with drivingtransactions.
(29:35):
On the finance side, mostcompanies.
Regardless of size, have neverreally effectively done what I
just described, and that's whythey don't do it'cause they
don't know how to do it.
Ken Lucci (29:48):
No, it's you, you are absolutely right.
And, and listen, it doesn't haveto be a 500 page opus either,
but let me bring, let me bringit down to the transportation
operator space that I deal with.
Most of the companies this yearare, I shouldn't say most, many
companies are flat.
I've got some customers of minethat are, maybe 35% of my
(30:08):
customers are 10 to 15 pointsabove where they were last year.
But many companies are flatbecause many companies are
reactive.
Okay?
They're reactive.
They're also stuck in a grooveof how they did things.
Okay, so let's just talk aboutone specific stretch goal.
Let's, talk about the stretchgoal.
Of making sure that every singleprospect and customer that we
(30:33):
come in contact with knows andis exposed to everything we do.
Okay?
Now I said my own, my operatorsay to me, well, Ken, it's on my
website.
I say, you know, and you, youcan imagine it's in somewhat of
a blunt style.
Do you really think your clientsare sitting on your website for
25 minutes figuring out thespecific use cases they can use
(30:56):
you on?
So they're not, so let's justtalk about the stretch goal for
one second.
If our goal was to make surethat we are increasing the total
revenue spend of each client,this is what it would look like.
Every single time the phonerings, whether it's private or
corporate, whether it's aprospect or customer, you try to
(31:16):
turn that one airport transferbecause that's the basis of our
business.
That's the milk and bread.
You try to turn that one airporttransfer into a minimum.
Book the round trip and I'm,it's going, you're gonna have a
benefit if you book the roundtrip.
Ideally, at that point, you wantto turn two transactions into
four.
Now, I'm not saying onetransaction transfer is a
failure, It is not advancing thestretch goal.
(31:41):
The stretch goal you talkedabout, if this was
organizationally, was my stretchgoal.
Moving the needle on the stretchgoal is turning one into two,
two into four.
Movement of the stretch.
Goal as an organization is tomake sure that that prospect who
just became a client and bookedat least two trips now is on a
(32:02):
system that it exposes them toeverything else we do.
So let's just talk about thatfor one second.
As a corporate stretch goal,it's a corporate client.
Cole and I have createdsomething on the sales strategy
side that speaks to exactly whatyou're talking about.
It's like these two things cametogether magically.
When you look at a corporateclient, in my estimation, you're
(32:25):
not advancing your stretch goalif all of they're doing with
you, this corporate client isairport transfers.
Okay.
And if you are just dealing withthe executive assistant, you are
not advancing the other usecases like employee engagement
outings.
Okay.
That's the venue of the humanresources department that
doesn't book airports.
(32:47):
Okay.
The training department that maybring in clients to do training
that needs transportation.
the, uh, public companies, thecoordinator, the board of
directors coordinator.
There's one in every singlepublic company.
She doesn't order airport.
But I'll tell you what she doesdo every single year, she puts
on the most important meeting inthe company.
Okay.
Do you think they needtransportation for their board
(33:08):
meetings?
Yes.
So the point being, if you issuethe stretch goal.
As an organization, one of ourstretch goals is to make sure
that we are increasing therevenue per client by exposing
them to every specific use casethat we offer.
Okay.
The CEO's anniversary, right?
Executive assistance week.
(33:30):
Right.
All of the different things.
That's a perfect example of astretch goal, and, and to me
it's the essence of proactivityversus reactivity.
It's the essence of, of movingyour company forward versus just
literally being a sailboat withthe, with the, sail flapping in
the breeze.
Am I right?
Steve Firestone (33:51):
Uh, perfect example.
And I would just put anexclamation point behind and
highlight and circle the wordsmeasurable because in that
example you just gave, um,there's probably a couple
stretch goals that could comeout of that.
(34:11):
And, and one of them could be,again, I'm making the metric up
that for every, making it up forevery four, relationships that
we have, we want at least 1.5 ofthem to have multiple purchases
from us beyond what the originalpurchase was.
(34:34):
You can, measure that.
Ken Lucci (34:37):
You can measure that and listen.
You can measure that entirely.
You know, my, when my dad was inthe grocery business and he had
a counter on the front door, andI said to him, why do you have a
counter on the front door?
And he wanted a count everycustomer that came through the
door.
And he, he literally wouldmeasure the departments.
Okay.
He would measure thedepartments.
So at the end of the day, thestretch goal.
(34:59):
Moves revenue, it advances thewhy we are here.
but to your point, it's gotta bemeasurable.
If it's not measurable, it ispation.
Steve Firestone (35:09):
If it's not measurable, it's merely an
opinion and the owner operator'sopinion is gonna be very
different than the people.
That are working for, it's, it'sjust going, if they're
measurable and you'retransparent with your workforce
on how you're doing, theneverybody can agree that we
either hit it or we didn't hitit.
(35:31):
And if we didn't hit it, whatwas standing in the way of
hitting us.
And then you can, you candevelop, in my world, what are
called accelerators a fancy wordfor tactics on what, okay, what
do we need to do nowlogistically?
What do we need to do now to hitthat stretch goal that supports
our core values?
Ken Lucci (35:51):
hundred percent.
You know, it, it's, it's dealingwith entrepreneurs as, as we
have, I mean, you've dealt a lotmore in corporate than I have.
I'm dealing with a little bit ofcorporate right now with pretty,
pretty large customer on the buyside.
But at the end of the day, theentrepreneur has a secret weapon
that the big business doesn'thave, and the entrepreneur's
(36:12):
secret weapon is the ability tobe nimble.
But the other piece of that istheir own omnipotence.
I, you know, I, I, I talked to,I talked to, a 20 group, the,
the peer groups, and I talked toa group and they flew me out to
San Diego and I was reallyapprehensive about this,
speaking to this group becausethey're all profitable besides
thinking they could doeverything on their own,
(36:33):
including plan their exit, whichthey can't.
I said, you know what you got,it's easier for me to talk to
companies that are notprofitable.
Because they know that I havethe answers and there's a good
chance they'll listen to me.
But profitable businesses aremore difficult because, here's
what we're fighting.
We're fighting the fact that youthink that tomorrow is gonna be
the same as today and yesterday,and you're fighting the
(36:56):
entrepreneurial biggestweaknesses.
Omniscient thinking They thinkbecause they are the master of
their own domain, that theyalways have to be.
Right.
And I, and I see it, that's thebiggest achilles heel of the
entrepreneur.
is to be so focused in yourbusiness.
You know, the analogy I use isyou look inside one box every
single day.
I've looked inside 280 boxes.
(37:19):
and same with you.
We've been just exposed to, toso much more.
At the end of the day, thestretch goal issue, how many
stretch goals should I have?
Talk about my strategic plan.
Is this a five-year plan?
Does it have to be a five to
Steve Firestone (37:36):
No Absolutely not.
As a matter of fact, myrecommendation to companies
regardless of size, regardlessof industry when I work with
them, is.
since we start with core values,your core values should be three
or four, probably no more thanfive, depending on the
(37:56):
complexity of the business.
And then, there's could be aboat load of stretch goals
underneath each one of thosecore values.
And by boatload shoot, therecould be 20, 30 of those, but
there could be seven or eight.
Ken Lucci (38:13):
and, and I'm a big believer to start with that less
is more.
And, and when, when we work withpeople on the finance side.
Which is, you know, which hasbeen challenging to get
entrepreneurs to focus on theirfinancials.
You know, the big oh oh myaccount.
I have an accountant for that.
Good for you.
Your accountant's only job is totell you what you owe in taxes
(38:33):
and how you did.
Retrospectively, they have noidea.
If you are not profitable,they're not gonna be able to
tell you what metrics are off.
That's where we come in, that'swhere our financial reporting
comes in.
But when we get them focused onthe key metrics, to me it leads
perfectly to, okay, now what'sour strategy?
What's our strategy to growthis?
(38:54):
What's our strategy to move thisforward?
Because while all of yourmetrics are looking fantastic,
how are we going to make surethat we take the business to the
next step?
So I would for the typicalperson getting into this,
wouldn't you say less is morefive to seven stretch goals?
I.
Steve Firestone (39:12):
Uh, this is gonna be a yes and no answer.
It's, it's a, it's a yes thatless is more, but.
I would never restrict anorganization to a number because
as they look at, I, I'll giveyou, I'll give you a, and you
know this one, Ken.
The, the last company that I wasoperating as president was a
(39:34):
security company.
And our core values were to makethat organization a compelling
place to work, shop, and invest.
As simple as simple can be.
We wanted that company to be acompelling place to work, shop,
and invest.
(39:54):
and, you know, the company, Iwill testify that 300, because
that company had roughly 300employees, 300 employees could
recite that our core values werea compelling place to workshop
and invest
Ken Lucci (40:07):
I remember the metrics behind each one of them.
The measurement of that.
The measurement of each one.
Steve Firestone (40:14):
And it, and, and there were stretch goals
identified like underneathcompelling place to work.
One of the stretch goals was, wewant to have 30% of our new
hires to be a direct referralfrom an existing employee.
(40:34):
You can measure that.
You either hit it or you don'thit it.
Now why was that established asone of the stretch goals
underneath a compelling place towork?
Well, it was set as a stretchgoal because if your existing
workforce is doing references toget new employees into the
(40:54):
organization, that means it mustbe a compelling place to work.
So that's an example of howstretch goals fit within core
values.
So I would hate to say you canonly have five, you can only
have seven.
You don't want 50.
Ken Lucci (41:11):
No, but you're the core, the, the listen to, to
your point, the stretch goalalso should, should, can address
a problem.
And, and we sent out a surveyrecently and one of the biggest
issues that, we were surprisedabout, the number one problem
was fleet insurance, which wewon't get into, but the, the
second biggest problem is I'mstuck working in the business
(41:33):
and not on the business.
But the third was, wasattracting and retaining
chauffeur.
Now as.
a stretch goal, to take thatback to the transportation
space, you can absolutelymeasure.
You should.
One company I, I do businesswith has, monthly lunches for
their chauffeurs, and the CEOhimself gets out there and
(41:56):
serves the food.
And then he, he goes around, hiswhole executive team is involved
and, you know, and initially Isaid, yeah, okay, this is good.
Until I went and saw it, thatwas an amazing thing to witness.
And he gives him a talk on howthe company's doing, and then
he, says, you know, we reallyneed a few more chauffeurs.
(42:19):
They do a referral bonus.
But also, you know, he said tome flat out, these people
really, they don't really focuson the money.
They focus on the fact that theytell people, you know.
The, the vehicle gets clean foryou.
You know, this is the technologywe have and the CEO has a lunch
for us every single month wherehe wants to hear what's going
(42:41):
wrong.
this guy in particular heard somuch about a construction
problem that was going on in amain thoroughfare.
He actually went to the townshipDOT, and said, look, you guys
are killing us.
okay?
Because, and, and it's true.
When they were picking up theirvehicles, it was just
bottlenecking them anyway.
So the stress root goals can fixa problem, and the stretch goals
(43:05):
can also be for the CEO who saysto himself, I'm gonna make, as a
goal, I'm going to hire somebodyto close trips the way I would,
you know, and do the bookkeepingthe way I would, and I'm gonna
put.
Seven to 10 hours a week moretowards business development.
I mean, that to me is a Cstretch goal.
Steve Firestone (43:23):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll giveyou another one that just
occurred to me.
That's I'm, I'm sure is an issuein, in your industry.
in every industry that I've everdone work in, there is a
customer attrition problem.
Ken Lucci (43:37):
Yes.
Steve Firestone (43:38):
Nobody ever says, I have my arms wrapped
around attrition.
I don't ever need to payattention to it.
I, everybody, nobody ever leavesme.
Well, we know that's not thecase.
So, if, one of the stretch goalsis to reduce attrition, whatever
the right word is there, repeat,purchase, whatever the word is.
(43:58):
In the transportation industry,if one of the, one of the
stretch goals is to reducecustomer attrition by X percent
and you are transparent, uh, Ikeep using that word.
As the leader, you'retransparent with your
organization.
That is one of our stretchgoals.
Think about how everydepartment, if you will, within
(44:18):
that company, can have an impacton attrition of existing
customer relationships.
Every department can have animpact on that.
Ken Lucci (44:28):
true story that speaks directly to that.
We have a program on the, on thesales analytics and sales data
side that we just started, wherewe do what we call the past
present future report, and wepull it out of the reservation
system.
It's not a report that theybuild, it's a data set.
We pull all of the data foreverything, pull it everything,
and call works as magic.
(44:49):
So one of the things we do is wewent over with a specific
client.
we go over the top 25 clientsand we got down to, I think it
was number 11, and we're like,this one's down 38% over.
Last year and the year before.
So when they drilled down, andfirst of all, they didn't know
it.
Okay.
Which is another issue.
(45:10):
but second of all, when theydrilled down, what they found
was one of the executiveassistants that was the primary
booker for the sales exec team,she had a problem with a bill.
there was an internal person atthis company, and this was like
a$10 million operation who justwasn't responding to emails and
wasn't fixing the bill.
So that booker went to, uh,option number two.
(45:34):
Okay.
So it can be as simple as that.
When you talk about attrition.
we are all one trip away from aclient looking in another
direction.
but in this case, and I, and I,and I, said to the owners,
what's up with that?
And they said, well, yeah, thisperson's been a problem.
I said, okay, well, no offense.
Straighten out a billingproblem, my Jack Russell can do
(45:56):
that.
this cannot be a reason why oneof our top 25 clients, one of
the bookers went away.
And on top of that, why are wefinding out about it now?
Okay, so from a, from acommunication perspective, the
stretch goal can be, I'm goingto, as a C-level, I'm gonna
communicate with my top ahundred clients three times a
(46:16):
year, four times a year, twice a
Steve Firestone (46:18):
yes,
Ken Lucci (46:19):
It's so So, at the end of the day, to me, strategic
plan is all about proactivity.
it's all about purposefullymoving the business forward.
Um, my indu, our industry, thetransportation industry has a
love affair with Facebook postsand.
(46:39):
One the posts yesterday was, youknow, we're losing the airport
market.
We're losing the airportbusiness, we're losing the
airport transfers.
Well, airport travel growth isgrowing like a hockey stick.
Okay?
And corporate travel is way backup like nine 11% of where it
was.
The answer is, yeah, we areoverpricing because we are not
(47:01):
efficient, but we are also, tome, we're not communicating the
value that we have, and we'renot five x-ing our airport
offerings to everybody in themarket.
that's in the, the bucket, orthe same people that use us.
So a stretch goal might be mytop 10 clients.
(47:22):
Three of them are intelecommunications, two of'em
are attorneys.
I am going to reach out and I'mgoing to present to the top 20.
Attorneys in the market, and I'mgonna build that use case.
So to me, strategic planning is,all about proactivity.
And unfortunately, you know, alot of industries get stuck in
(47:45):
that groove.
You know, I, I remember when my,my dad was in the independent
supermarket business and my dadliterally did the ad.
back in the day they used tohave a planner, newspaper
planner, and my brother workedin that business since he was 17
years old, or actually since hegot outta school.
So we all worked there duringour high school years.
And my father still did the ad.
(48:06):
The only way he taught mybrother to do the ad is my
father had a stroke at 69 andcouldn't write with his right
hand anymore.
So the one stretch goal forevery owner operator out there
is teach a team member.
If you don't have a team,assemble a team that can do the
critical functions so that ifsomething happens to you.
(48:26):
The business still runs.
More importantly, asimportantly, teach them how to
dispatch, teach them how to takereservations, teach them how to
price motor coach so that youcan go out and do the stuff that
the owners are supposed to do.
The working on the business.
Right.
Working on the business is adifferent level.
(48:47):
of moving the business forward.
Um, w in your mind, based on,you know, again, we're talking
to a small business op, uh, uh,small business, a lot of
entrepreneurs, what do you thinka 3 takeaways are that you would
say, everybody who's hearingthis is seeing this should be
doing to start the process?
Steve Firestone (49:09):
First, it's begin to think about what your
version of compelling place toworkshop and invest is.
And if you wanna steal Yeah, ifyou want, if you wanna steal,
steal that.
call Ken and he'll Ken will callme and I'll decide if I wanna
give you permission to stealcompelling place to workshop
Ken Lucci (49:26):
Hey, look, I, I, I stole the, we are ladies and
gentlemen, serving ladies andgentlemen at Ambassador
Limousine, which we were, webecame the biggest in the market
and to the chagrin of a fewoperators who still don't talk
to me, but we grew from zero toa million the first year, a
million to 5 million over fiveyears, and we were in the
service of others with pleasureand professionalism.
(49:48):
That was, the why.
That was who we were.
we are in the service of otherswith pleasure and
professionalism, and we builtevery system in the company
around that.
Go ahead.
Start with the why.
Steve Firestone (50:03):
Start, start with, start with that.
The second is in order to beginto really effectively establish
beyond core values, establishwhat are, what are the stretch
goals and, and I forgot tomention this a little while ago,
(50:23):
my definition of stretch ispossibility, not probability.
So a goal would haveprobability, a stretch goal is a
possibility.
That's the difference betweenstretch goal and goal.
So, so I wanna, I wanted tothrow that in.
So the second is after you beginto really do some quiet moments,
(50:47):
soul searching on what should mycore values be, is do an
assessment of what are theuncomfortable, and comfortable
realities of my business basedon where I am today?
what are the realities of mybusiness based on where I am
(51:09):
today?
And it's things like, FedExnever could have had when it
absolutely, positively has to bethere overnight.
If they didn't have at the time,the best.
Data management and trackinghardware and software ever
created in industry.
'cause it needed to have thatinfrastructure to deliver on the
(51:32):
Absolutely.
Positively has to be.
So as they're developing all ofthis, they went, I'm sure they
sat in some room somewhere inMemphis and went, you know what,
one of the realities of ourbusinesses we started this is we
don't have the infrastructure tobe able to really deliver on
what we say our promise is.
So part of the second part ofthe process is what are the
(51:54):
realities of your, of yourbusiness?
And one another likely realityfor some people watching this is
I don't have a staff that canactually run the business
without me being on the field.
Well, that's an uncomfortablereality.
That would make me very nervous.
Ken Lucci (52:14):
oh.
It literally will stop you fromcreating an enterprise value.
The good news about our industryis one of the silver linings of
the pandemic was the growth ofthe outsourcing of major
functions of our industry, whichis reservations and dispatching.
Now, it doesn't happen in, in avacuum.
You know, you have to instill inthose people the why you exist,
(52:37):
and you have to make sure thatyou are supervising them as
employees.
But the other beautiful piecesif you don't have a staff, you
can recruit from anywhere in thecountry Now.
So If that's your biggest excusenot to achieve a stretch goal,
then you're not overcoming the,easiest obstacles that are out
there.
Steve Firestone (52:56):
Yep.
And since you asked me forthree, I'll give you the third.
The, the third would be to beginto think about, okay, if, if
this is kind of the framework ofmy loosely, loosely defined it,
and, and people shouldn't gethung up on, oh, I need to have
the right words perfectly puttogether for my core values.
(53:17):
That's a, that's an iterativeprocess.
Just begin to think about kindof what, what are the elements
of my why?
To use your, your example.
So core values, what are therealities of the business?
And the third is, okay, now howare we gonna measure, how are we
doing?
You do that for your clients onthe financial side.
(53:40):
Your clients need to do that.
On the organizational alignmentside also, world class
organizations do thateffectively.
Ken Lucci (53:49):
Uh, agreed.
And, and, and we, we are for theretained clients that we have,
we are, we're, we're adding tothe financial reporting and KPI,
which to me is the foundation.
To me, it is the totalfoundation.
Somebody comes to me and says, Iwant to create stretch goals,
and I want to do this.
I wanna get into the motor codespace.
One of my stretch goals is to,buy a$180,000 jet sprinter
(54:13):
because I wanna attract the top.
Whatever the stretch goal is,you can't do it unless you know
where you are at right now,financially.
Okay.
Okay.
Because, and, and that's where,you know, I said to somebody
today who laughed at me atsomething I said, I said, well,
I throw in a little sparklebecause to kind of blunt the
(54:34):
medicine that I have to deliver.
But at the end of the day, you,you've gotta listen to the
medicine.
You have to hear me when I sayyour cost of goods is way too
much, too high.
Because if one of your stretchgoals, and I, and I think part
of it is.
As a CEO, we should have stretchgoals.
Our personally, ourselves aswell.
One of the stretch goals may beI wanna be the best public
(54:56):
speaker, I wanna be the bestleader I can be.
And I recognize that perhaps Idon't communicate well and maybe
that's why I can't keep teammembers, but you should have a
stretch goal as a, as, as aleader as well.
But from a financial, from, tome, the financial metric or the
financial foundation has to bethere and then you can move
(55:16):
mountains.
I, I refuse to believe, and it'sfrustrating to me sometime
because again, you and I see,you know, when you work in the
security industry and consultfor many companies, you see the
commonalities in that space.
We see the commonalities in thetransportation space.
Every single growth metric isout there and we are
(55:39):
self-defeating ourselves.
by sitting there being reactive.
We are very self-defeating, andI think that if we're sitting
there waiting for our technologyto be as good as Ubers, it's not
gonna happen.
But I'll tell you what we cando, We could deliver much better
value.
We can be the best version ofchauffeur Transportation for the
(56:03):
top 5% of the market, who iswhose price is number three or
four on their list.
What's most important to the,client is customer service,
maximum safety, absolutereliability, kind of the Federal
Express and Ritz Carlton comestogether.
I think it can, it, it, it candefinitely happen.
(56:23):
those three things don't have tobe daunting.
to me, a strategic plan startswith what do I want accomplish
this year and how am I gonna doit?
How am I gonna be, how can Imake the business better?
The entire reason I brought youon is because the two things of
the, the, the, the, the numberone problem we see is the lack
(56:45):
of financial management and thelack of profit and the lack of
financial acumen.
But the second issue we see isthis working in the business,
oh, I'm exhausted.
I had to stay up and I had todispatch, and I had to do, uh,
okay, you're keeping thebusiness running, but you're
(57:05):
literally a squirrel on a cage.
The purpose of today's podcastis to get you to think like the
game has gotta go on withoutyou, you at best have to get
yourself in the coach'sposition, but ultimately you
have to get yourself in thatowner's box.
the owner is 100% focused onwinning, but they're also
(57:27):
focused on all of theorganizational goals of what is
this team gonna look like?
Five years from now andstrategic planning gets you
there.
Any last words before we releasethe audience?
Steve Firestone (57:40):
Yeah, I have I, and I always, I always say this
to people, and this is a hardone for some founders, owner
operators, CEOs.
My view, the more transparentyou are with your organization.
Reporting.
How are we doing?
(58:02):
The more you're gonna havesuccess, if you hold all the
cards close to your vest, thepeople that are working for you
are always going to wonder,well, how are we doing?
What do I need to worry about?
What don't I know about?
I, encourage every leader ofevery organization, and you know
(58:22):
this, Ken,'cause we workedtogether multiple times.
I want the organization to knowhow are we doing and how are we
measuring success?
So transparency to me is really,really important.
Ken Lucci (58:35):
So for the you single car operators out there, or you
one to five car operators thatare out there, what you're gonna
say, what is this for me?
You know what a stretch goal isfor you.
I'm not.
I wanna see you succeed.
I want you to create anenterprise value.
I wanna make, see you make sixfigures.
Make much more than you could ifyou went to work for somebody
else.
Stretch goal might be get out ofthe driver's seat for eight out
(58:58):
of 10 trips, or get out of thedriver's seat for 10 out of 10
trips, okay?
Because no one sells yourbusiness and no one presents
your business like you.
Everybody wants access to theowner, especially on local
businesses.
So, and this translates to guysthat are in$20 million
(59:19):
businesses.
I've got a guy who's a$10million business who's doing the
bookkeeping.
And I said, what are you doing?
Well, I found some mistakes thatthe old bookkeeper made.
Great.
We need to train the new one todo that.
Because your business isstagnant, your business isn't
growing.
You need to get out there andyou need to proactively put
together a plan.
So Steve, I want to thank you.
(59:41):
Uh, where can people find you?
Steve Firestone (59:44):
Uh, my website is Firestone Strategies.
My email issteve@firestonestrategies.com.
Ken Lucci (59:54):
Appreciate it.
We will definitely have you, uh,on as a guest in the future, and
we've got some stuff coming uptogether.
I thank you for, uh, uh, joiningthe Ground Transportation
Podcast.
for those of you listening, wewill be back here next week.
Uh, if anybody sees my partnerin crime, James Blaine, please
tell him I miss him dearly.
(01:00:15):
And, uh, we try to, to hold upthe standard of the podcast
without you, everybody go outthere and have a great week.
Thanks and have a great day.
Steve Firestone (01:00:24):
Take care, Ken.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
(01:00:45):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.
Well, good afternoon podcast audience.
Welcome to another excitingepisode of the Ground
Transportation Podcast.
My name is Ken Lucci FromDriving Transactions, we are a
financial analysis, businessvaluation and m and a advisory
service and the transportationsector.
unfortunately do not have myesteemed partner, James Blaine
(00:48):
from P'S training on today.
He's no doubt out training aslew of new chauffeur and
professional coach motorman.
Um, so James, wherever you are,Godspeed, my brother.
Sorry you're not with me, but Ido have someone who has been a
friend to me, a friend of minesince the eighties, which is
(01:10):
dating both of us.
A gentleman named SteveFirestone of who, uh, definitely
honored to call him my friend.
We've worked together many timesand he is the founder of
Firestone Strategies Group.
Steve, welcome.
Steve Firestone (01:26):
Thank you, Ken.
Good to be with you.
Virtually wish we could be faceto face for this next hour or
so, but uh, I'm delighted to behere.
Ken Lucci (01:36):
Thank you, Steve.
give us your bio.
Listen, I know, I know your bio,but I want you to give us a
highlight of your bio and yourexperience so people understand
where you're coming from.
Steve Firestone (01:45):
Sure.
So roughly half my career hasbeen spent in what most people
would call corporate America,and that time was, in a couple
different industries.
Started my career in the bankingindustry, although I never would
claim to be a banker.
(02:06):
Uh, but the first dozen or soyears of my career was in, in
banking.
Um, and then I left, I left thebanking industry and through a.
Circuitous number of eventsended up in the security
industry, Ken, where you and Imet each other, and spent over,
over a couple decades with acouple stops in between, spent
(02:27):
call it, 20 years in thesecurity industry, either as
president or CEO as, or, or oneof the executive leadership team
of a number of, um, securitycompanies and by security
companies.
I'm talking about burglar andfire alarm and video and access
control companies, bothcommercially and ally.
(02:49):
Um, and during, during thattime, I was involved in, in one
way or another, and over 200acquisitions of companies.
Ken, you and I spent, uh, uh,some really delightful years
doing 38 acquisitions ofcompanies in 18 months.
Ken Lucci (03:05):
Yes.
Yes, we did.
Steve Firestone (03:06):
so, so we certainly know what rapid growth
is through acquisition and the,the challenges therein, my most
recent stay in the securityindustry is I was president of a
company headquartered inPennsylvania and had 30 ish
offices around the country.
And we were recognized as thefastest growing security
(03:26):
integrator in the industry.
Uh, so a bunch of years in thesecurity industry, but also on
the, the corporate side.
I ran, uh, sales and marketingat Office Depot for a number of
years.
Um, had roughly$9 billion ofrevenue responsibility and about
8,000 people, um, in myorganization.
(03:47):
So I, I've, I've been in kind ofthat corporate world the other
half of my career, though.
Has been spent as a consultantor running a consulting company,
for some global brands likeAmerican Express and Nokia and
T-Mobile and some, some bigcompanies that everybody would
(04:07):
recognize the name, but alsoeverything down to small
technology startups and everyplace in between.
Um, and those consulting yearswere largely in kinda strategy,
organizational alignment, growthplans, you know, maximize
opportunities in a market acrossa whole bunch of different
(04:30):
industries.
So I've worn a bunch ofdifferent hats and a different
size companies, uh, andcompanies all across America.
Ken Lucci (04:38):
That's a great summary and you know the reason
why I asked you and, and you andI stay in touch.
So you, so we've talked a lotabout the chauffeur space
together.
You attended thechauffeur-driven NLA retreat in
Savannah.
Uh, so the state of thefinancial, state of the
industry.
speech that I gave.
(04:58):
So I, I asked you here todaybecause I wanted to tee
something up.
this, I think we will both agreethis is getting close to the
ends of our careers.
Um, we're both consulting.
one of the things I've noticedas, as kind of doing deep dive
consulting with thetransportation space is a truism
(05:18):
that I see with all smallbusiness.
We never expected to have thefinancial data on 280 companies,
so we see common threads onthose metrics, profitability,
sometimes lack of profitability,et cetera.
But the other commonality wesee, which I'm really intrigued
with, spend a lot of timedealing with, and I know you do,
(05:43):
is the small business owner,founder.
I would put small business inthe category below 50 million.
certainly we deal with, owneroperators that go from a million
all the way up to 150 million.
But this, this issue that I seeis with the, with the, the one
to$50 million company.
(06:04):
Some people think 50 million asa small business.
Yeah.
Kind of is the commonality I seeis what I call, and I hate the
phrase, we both hate the phrase,the owner or founder working in
the business and not on thebusiness.
So the number one problem I seeis the lack of financial acumen,
the lack of financial managementof metrics.
(06:26):
But the right up there is thefounder, owner working in the
business and not on it.
So let's tee up what that means.
You know, to me it's akin tobeing a, a football player on
the team.
On the field versus at bestbeing the coach that is
(06:47):
directing the team or where youshould be if you're running a
company, is up in the owner'sbox.
And I hate to say up, but in theowner's box, directing the
entire operation and planningthe future of the organization.
So what I mean by that, and Igive an example, is, you know,$4
(07:09):
million operator that I dealwith every Tuesday.
He sits down and he does hisentire accounting for the week.
And when I talk to him, I say,back up a step.
You, you're acting as thebookkeeper?
Yes.
Okay.
How many hours a week do youspend Between eight and 12.
Okay.
So what you're saying to me is afunction that you could easily
(07:30):
job out for$20 an hour,$25 anhour, to someone who's QuickBook
certified.
You are doing that in primesales time.
Now I know one of the reasonswhy you've been stuck at$4
million for five to seven yearsbecause you are performing what
is ideal, no question, acritical function, but it's a
(07:53):
function that's easily taught orgiven to someone else because
it's, you know, it's, it's fi,it's financial bookkeeping, it's
QuickBooks.
I see the same thing whereowners have to be, I'll watch
them at meetings at the show forDriven show, and they're
literally dispatching.
They've got their laptop openand dispatching.
So to me, the fundamentalproblem I see with small
(08:15):
business, and the reason why inmy estimation, and it's a
statistic, 80% of smallbusinesses never sell to
unrelated third parties.
That's a, biz buy, sellstatistic.
And it's a statistic of the SBA80% never sell because they
never leave the realm of alifestyle business in where the
(08:36):
owner is an integral part andcontrols the, the business to a
company that functions on itsown, largely functions on its
own.
So I wanted you to speak about.
Why you see that phenomenon?
Why do you see small businesspeople never being able to work
on the business, the strategy ofthe business?
(08:59):
where ultimately is the businessgoing to go?
What is ultimate success of thebusiness?
Because every day they're justblocking and tackling.
They can't figure out how to winthe World Series mixing sports
metaphors because they'reliterally fielding on the team.
Steve Firestone (09:14):
Well, that's a, that's a mouthful.
And I, I think you're, you'respot on.
And, and as I described my workhistory, I never really counted
the number of differentindustries that I've, done work
in or consulted in or, or ledorganizations in.
But it's, it's a lot.
(09:36):
and it's, it's interestingbecause every time I start a
relationship, either as theleader of an organization, as an
employee, or as a consultant.
I almost always hear before westart working together, Steve,
you need to understand ourcompany's unique and our
(09:57):
industry is unique
Ken Lucci (09:59):
Hear the same thing.
Steve Firestone (10:00):
and the sooner you understand that, the better
our relationship is gonna be.
And my answer to that usuallyis, well, that's curious because
I've been working for, call it45 years and I'm finding quite
the opposite to be the case andthat there are more similarities
than there are differences andthe challenges that that
(10:24):
companies have regardless ofgeography, regardless of of
industry.
There are, there are someuniquenesses based on size, but
the challenges are essentiallythe same fundamental challenges.
And we can come back to that,but I, I wanted to do that as
kind of a preface to respond toyour, the points that you were
(10:45):
making and, and that is, you askwhy does that ha why is it so
hard to get out of that?
And, why do owner operators,CEOs, presidents get stuck?
Well, first of all, they getstuck because in most cases,
those guys built the business ontheir own backs with their own
(11:10):
energy.
They must, they're, they muscletheir way.
And I mean that in the mostcomplimentary way.
They muscled their way
Ken Lucci (11:18):
We both done it.
Yep.
Steve Firestone (11:20):
They, they, they, they just, they didn't
take no for an answer and theywoke up one day and they went,
oh, dang, I got 40 employees, orI got a hundred employees, but I
don't wanna give up what got methere because, oh my gosh.
What if somebody doesn't do itas well as I do?
Ken Lucci (11:39):
Yep.
And that's, you know, I, andthat, that is, that is, you
know, uh, let's just face it.
The entrepreneur is a very, he'sa, he or she is a very unique
person to be able to take allthis risk.
And, you know, the Frank Sinatrasong, I did It My Way, comes to
my Mind.
But I, I think the fundamentalflaw and the reason why
(12:03):
businesses fail in many ways isthey reach that ceiling where
the owner can't do it all andthey don't know how to let go.
So, go ahead, I, sorry.
Sorry to interrupt.
Steve Firestone (12:13):
you're absolutely right.
And, and I, I've been veryfortunate as you know, Ken,
that, that, I guess because I'vebeen working a long time, I've
gotten some, uh, I've received alifetime achievement award from
the security industry, whichmeans, I guess I'm an old guy.
but through.
My involvement in that industryand others, I've had the good
(12:33):
fortune of being able to do somekeynote speeches at some, big
industry events.
And one of my keynote topics iscalled Leading Change for any
size Business.
And basically what that is, it'sa, it's a, it's an analysis, a
self-reflection on where is mycompany at the natural lifecycle
(12:53):
stage of the business, and basedon where I am as a company, what
should I do based on where I amto avoid the down slide or the
stagnation of the business?
Because it's a hundred percentreliant on me making every
decision, every company gets tothat lifecycle stage at one time
(13:14):
or another.
Those that are successful, a,recognize that they're there or
they're approaching it and theytake the necessary steps.
To mitigate that risk by makingsure that, to use that cliche,
we both hate, uh, that theybegin to work, on the business,
not in the business, which isthe hardest thing for an owner
(13:35):
operator to do.
So in, in some cases becausethey get stuck there because
it's a comfort level.
In other cases, they get stuckthere because they don't trust
their team.
In other cases, they don't evenknow what it means to work on
their business rather than, thanin the business.
And if I were to break thosethree categories into what
(13:56):
percentages are in each, thegreat majority are the owner
operator, CEO, founder.
They don't even know what itmeans to work on the business,
not in the business.
Ken Lucci (14:07):
Correct.
they assume that hard work andthe number of hours and tenacity
is going to, it carried me thisfar.
It's going to carry me into thefuture and forward.
And the problem with that isEvery industry's being
disrupted.
Change is inevitable.
And the worst thing you could dois be insular and do things the
(14:28):
exact same way.
You know, the other, the otherthing that, that I think that
they, they also, mostentrepreneurs are from the
bootstrap up.
I mean, I, I, I'm blessed to dobusiness with some of the
biggest network operators in thecountry, if not the world.
And, you know, one guy comes tomind, he always tells me he
started the business from his,parents' basement.
(14:51):
And now he's a, he, one of thebiggest networks in the country,
but at the end of the day, theydon't have.
the playbook on strategy.
They don't have the playbook onstrategically kind of how to get
themselves out of their own way.
You know, I used to make, I usedto make a joke and you've met
(15:11):
some of the people that workedfor me that, you know, my
ultimate goal was to make myselfthe least important person in
the business.
Um, didn't achieve that withambassador.
My cell phone was filled with2,700, you know, contacts of
people that called me from thehead of the Yankees, you know,
on down.
But in most cases, I was able tomake myself the least important
(15:31):
person.
I can tell you, you didn't wantme dispatching, you didn't want
me billing, right?
I had people to do all that.
I was still leading on the salesside, but when my father died, I
left for 15 days and the, andthe company didn't miss a beat.
I was very proud of that.
very proud of the people thatled the business while I was
away and.
(15:52):
I I think I'd ask every, everyowner operator, or every
operator that's out therelistening is what would happen
to your business if you had toleave for 15 days?
Because ultimately, you know, myfamily was much more important.
Steve Firestone (16:04):
Can, can, Can, I add one?
can I add one?
thing, one thing to that, thatpoint.
the other thing that I havefound as I've entered an
organization, again, either asan executive running the
organization or as a consultant,there, there's a, there's a
natural size in terms of numberof employees that might even be
(16:27):
more important than the dollaramount.
There's a natural size where,where if the owner or the
operator doesn't successfullyhave a strategy, a real
strategy, for organizationalalignment and some of those
things that we can talk aboutlater.
If you don't have a realstrategy, They will think that
(16:51):
the business is healthier, bothfinancially and from a culture
perspective in terms ofsatisfaction of their workforce.
They'll think it's better thanwhat their employees think it
is.
Ken Lucci (17:04):
always.
Steve Firestone (17:05):
it.
It's, it's the healthy, it's thehealthy CEO, founder, owner,
operator.
It's the healthy one who hasenough self-reflection to say,
you know what, I've now got 75employees, or I've got a hundred
employees.
And we used to always say we'rea family business.
And, you know, all thosewonderful things that go along
(17:28):
with quote a family businesswhen you're that size and maybe
the number's not even 75, maybethe number's 50, depending on
the uniqueness of of thecompany, uh, it is critically
important that they have thekind of financial data.
To make decisions like you guysprovide to your clients and they
(17:49):
have a real organizationalalignment, strategic plan with
measurable, quantifiable datapoints on the operation of the
business.
'cause ladies and gentlemen,when you're that size, it's not
a family business anymore.
Ken Lucci (18:05):
No.
And, and if you ever want tocreate enterprise value, and,
and this is something that I,it's funny, I'm, I'm bringing on
an a an another m and a guy atsome point because he, he's in
every other industry.
I'm not.
And he makes the point that I'mtrying to make here is that if
you don't transfer translate, ifyou don't transfer your
(18:26):
knowledge as a founder to a teamof people that can run your
company, you're not creating anyenterprise value.
It suffers and dies when yousuffer and die.
And that statistic of eightoutta 10 businesses never get
sold.
I'm here to tell you I don'tcare how big you are in the
(18:46):
transportation space, I have$50million companies that cannot
run without the owners directinvolvement every single day.
And oh, and, and I'm on zoomswith'em, and they have to sign
checks and they, and they haveto, they're constantly being
interrupted, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera.
If, if you don't go from alifestyle business to a company,
(19:07):
you are not creating value.
And I don't believe you can getto a company without a strategic
plan.
You can't.
You cannot become a company thatruns on its own without a
strategic plan.
Your vision as a founder got youwhere you are, but it is no
guarantee that it is going tocarry you forward.
In fact, in some cases, thevision becomes a myopic view of
(19:33):
inside four walls.
But let's not get esoteric.
So, so gimme an idea what youthink the basic strategic plan
means, because a lot of peopleare probably saying, what are
they talking about?
Steve Firestone (19:45):
Yeah, it's the, the term strategic plan is not
quite as bad as work, on thebusiness, not in it, but it, it
may be one of the, what I thinkare the most, I dunno if this,
this is the wrong grammar, mostleast understood, um, wor words
that, that
Ken Lucci (20:03):
Is that like when George Bush has least
underestimated?
Steve Firestone (20:07):
That's it.
That's, that's it.
Uh, um, that, that's out therein the business world.
And so I'll start with whatstrategic plan isn't strategic
plan or mission or the whateverwords you wanna throw out.
There is not, a plaque or aposter on a wall that you spend
(20:30):
a couple days or a couple weeksor a couple months working on,
where you can't really measureis it working or isn't it
working?
Um, your workforce has no ideawhat it means if they even know
the one exists.
So it's, not that,
Ken Lucci (20:46):
It is not platitudes and.
Steve Firestone (20:48):
it's not So in my view, I actually use the word
organizational alignment asmuch, or at least.
With the word strategic plan,and here's what that is.
To me, it's an organization and,and this is, I, I've used what
(21:11):
I'm about to describe, I've usedpersonally in multiple stops in
my career.
I regularly use it, um, as partof my consulting practice.
Again, from companies that haveranging from, 40 employees, or
actually less than that, all theway up to Office Depot, which
(21:35):
was, you know, as I said in myorganization, there were about
8,000 employees and there were30,000 employees or 40,000
employees worldwide.
So, and every, every place inbetween.
so organizational alignmentmeans, let's figure out.
Why we do what we do.
And, and the way I phrase thatis, what are our core values as
(22:00):
an organization?
Now, my definition of corevalues is, and when I say core
values, I'm not talking aboutwe, one of the, we wanna be the
biggest, baddest transportationcompany in Charleston, South
Carolina, which happens to bewhere I live.
That's, that's not what I'mtalking about.
Ken Lucci (22:19):
I agree.
I agree.
It's not, it's not, it's not, inthe hotel industry saying, I
want to have the most hotelrooms that have put the most
heads in beds.
It's what Ritz Carlton referredto as We are ladies and
gentlemen, serving ladies andgentlemen.
It's the entire system behindthat.
It's the roadmap.
It, when you say organizationalalignment, I instantly think of
(22:41):
everybody rowing in the same
Steve Firestone (22:43):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ken Lucci (22:44):
Okay.
Steve Firestone (22:45):
this, this.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Ken Lucci (22:47):
And to me, unless everybody is on the same
wavelength and following thesame plan, it's very difficult
to do.
And I think that the bestexample is the Ritz Carlton
system that they put in place.
Okay?
And we are ladies and gentlementhat serve ladies and gentlemen
underneath that every associate,they were not team members.
(23:11):
They know, they were not staff,they were associate, had the
ability to satisfy the clientand spend up to$2,000 doing it
without approval.
Okay.
Fundamental, fascinatingbusiness case that most of the
people thought it was crazywhen, Jorge did that when he was
the owner.
And I think Marriott's wateredit down a little bit, but that's
(23:31):
my opinion.
But that to me was the essenceof the strategic plan.
The why.
We don't serve everyone.
We're not trying to serveeveryone.
We know where we fit in thespace.
It's the same in the chauffeurtransportation industry.
But I think if you, if you sayto somebody, why do we exist?
(23:51):
Many will yield towards thelogistic, well, we exist to get
people there from point A topoint B.
Okay, well, you know, That's notwhat FedEx does either.
I mean, FedEx gets packages frompoint A to point B, but their
entire strategy is theirstrategic plan.
Strategic vision is when itabsolutely has to be there.
(24:12):
We know we're 10 times, higherpriced, but we we're gonna get
it there.
You're gonna know where it isevery step of the way.
So to me, that's, it's you, youhit the nail on the head that it
is, it starts with the Y.
Steve Firestone (24:25):
And those, those are two classic business
examples, um, where, certainlyFedEx created a space.
I mean, they, there, there if, Imean lots of people watching
this probably don't evenremember pre FedEx.
I mean pre FedEx, it was likewatching TV when there were
(24:46):
three channels.
There were, you didn't havechoices as to how you got your
packages where you needed to getit.
So they, they, Fred Smithcreated a category.
He created a space that wasbased on when it absolutely,
positively has to be thereovernight.
Now that, that's kind of, that'skind of the foundation of, of
(25:06):
their why.
And you're right about ladiesand gentlemen, serving ladies
and gentlemen.
And Ritz has had that for goodgrief, probably 50 years
Ken Lucci (25:14):
exactly.
And let's, let's, let me justdraw a parallel between those
two business cases and thechauffeur space.
In the hotel space, there areclean, comfortable rooms
everywhere you want to go up anddown every highway, starting
with Motel six and Ritz Carltonsaid, no, no, we're not
competing in that space.
Okay.
And FedEx competes with agovernment agency that gets
(25:35):
money thrown at it.
Okay?
when Fred Smith came up with theFedEx business case, his, his
business school professorlaughed his ass off and said,
you're gonna fail miserably.
You're competing with thegovernment.
Well, in the chauffeur space, weare, obsessed with talking about
the TNCs and Uber and we to apoint where we do not realize.
(25:57):
how blessed we are to sit in thetop of the service delivery
chain as far as transportation.
The ultimate service that youcan have in transportation is to
have a chauffeur experience.
But we miss that as an industry,and I think it, it is, it is it
is part of this entirediscussion.
The businesses, the businessowners are obsessed with getting
(26:19):
the car from point A to point B,obsessed with their dispatchers,
et cetera, et cetera.
So they never have a time togrow.
And some of the industry fathersare the same way.
They never have really a timeto, to look at the strategy of
where the business is going,where their business is going.
Steve Firestone (26:36):
I am, I'm sure the, the people that are
watching and listening to ustalk, they can tell that we've
spent a lot of time togetherbecause you say something, I
think of what I wanna say, and Isay something and you think
about what you wanna say.
And this, this, this happens tobe a topic that we're both very
passionate about.
Which is, how do we make thoseorganizations that we have a
(26:57):
relationship with, how do wemake them achieve something that
they never thought they couldpossibly achieve?
'cause in many cases, thelimitations on someone achieving
their maximum potential is.
They don't believe they can getthere, and they certainly, in
most cases don't know how to getthere.
So back to this organizationalalignment, in my view, it starts
(27:18):
with, with the core values.
And the second step is, anenterprise wide transparency.
When I say enterprise wide, I'mtalking about enterprise wide
transparency on theestablishment of, I'll call it
corporate level, or senior levelcorporate level.
(27:41):
stretch goals that are setagreed upon, measured.
Quantified.
So there's nobody who says, oh,I think we're doing great in
quote, customer satisfaction,but somebody else in the
organization goes, you arecrazy.
We stink at customersatisfaction.
(28:02):
If you set stretch goals thatare measurable and the operative
word is stretch,'cause I knowwhere you're gonna go next, the
operative word is stretch and wecan talk about what that means
in a second and, and it ispublished and shared with the
workforce and everybodyunderstands how are we
measuring, how are we doing bothat a corporate level, ultimately
(28:27):
then at a department or businessunit level that establishes
those same stretch goals thatare relevant to their specific
part of the business, eventuallyall the way down to an
individual contributor level.
The most successful clients I'vehad or companies that I've run.
Individual performanceappraisals and individual goals
(28:52):
are tied directly to departmentlevel, tied to corporate level
stretch goals that all supportone or more of the core values
of the organization.
But to most companies, that'slike handing Since the Eagles
won last night, and I'm anEagles fan, I'm gonna thump my
chest a little bit.
(29:12):
That's like handing the thePhiladelphia Eagles Super Bowl
playbook to a middle schoolfootball team.
You can hand the playbook to themiddle school football team and
they'll go, well this is reallycool stuff.
We have no idea how to do this.
'cause no one's ever shown ushow to do it.
You guys do that with drivingtransactions.
(29:35):
On the finance side, mostcompanies.
Regardless of size, have neverreally effectively done what I
just described, and that's whythey don't do it'cause they
don't know how to do it.
Ken Lucci (29:48):
No, it's you, you are absolutely right.
And, and listen, it doesn't haveto be a 500 page opus either,
but let me bring, let me bringit down to the transportation
operator space that I deal with.
Most of the companies this yearare, I shouldn't say most, many
companies are flat.
I've got some customers of minethat are, maybe 35% of my
(30:08):
customers are 10 to 15 pointsabove where they were last year.
But many companies are flatbecause many companies are
reactive.
Okay?
They're reactive.
They're also stuck in a grooveof how they did things.
Okay, so let's just talk aboutone specific stretch goal.
Let's, talk about the stretchgoal.
Of making sure that every singleprospect and customer that we
(30:33):
come in contact with knows andis exposed to everything we do.
Okay?
Now I said my own, my operatorsay to me, well, Ken, it's on my
website.
I say, you know, and you, youcan imagine it's in somewhat of
a blunt style.
Do you really think your clientsare sitting on your website for
25 minutes figuring out thespecific use cases they can use
(30:56):
you on?
So they're not, so let's justtalk about the stretch goal for
one second.
If our goal was to make surethat we are increasing the total
revenue spend of each client,this is what it would look like.
Every single time the phonerings, whether it's private or
corporate, whether it's aprospect or customer, you try to
(31:16):
turn that one airport transferbecause that's the basis of our
business.
That's the milk and bread.
You try to turn that one airporttransfer into a minimum.
Book the round trip and I'm,it's going, you're gonna have a
benefit if you book the roundtrip.
Ideally, at that point, you wantto turn two transactions into
four.
Now, I'm not saying onetransaction transfer is a
failure, It is not advancing thestretch goal.
(31:41):
The stretch goal you talkedabout, if this was
organizationally, was my stretchgoal.
Moving the needle on the stretchgoal is turning one into two,
two into four.
Movement of the stretch.
Goal as an organization is tomake sure that that prospect who
just became a client and bookedat least two trips now is on a
(32:02):
system that it exposes them toeverything else we do.
So let's just talk about thatfor one second.
As a corporate stretch goal,it's a corporate client.
Cole and I have createdsomething on the sales strategy
side that speaks to exactly whatyou're talking about.
It's like these two things cametogether magically.
When you look at a corporateclient, in my estimation, you're
(32:25):
not advancing your stretch goalif all of they're doing with
you, this corporate client isairport transfers.
Okay.
And if you are just dealing withthe executive assistant, you are
not advancing the other usecases like employee engagement
outings.
Okay.
That's the venue of the humanresources department that
doesn't book airports.
(32:47):
Okay.
The training department that maybring in clients to do training
that needs transportation.
the, uh, public companies, thecoordinator, the board of
directors coordinator.
There's one in every singlepublic company.
She doesn't order airport.
But I'll tell you what she doesdo every single year, she puts
on the most important meeting inthe company.
Okay.
Do you think they needtransportation for their board
(33:08):
meetings?
Yes.
So the point being, if you issuethe stretch goal.
As an organization, one of ourstretch goals is to make sure
that we are increasing therevenue per client by exposing
them to every specific use casethat we offer.
Okay.
The CEO's anniversary, right?
Executive assistance week.
(33:30):
Right.
All of the different things.
That's a perfect example of astretch goal, and, and to me
it's the essence of proactivityversus reactivity.
It's the essence of, of movingyour company forward versus just
literally being a sailboat withthe, with the, sail flapping in
the breeze.
Am I right?
Steve Firestone (33:51):
Uh, perfect example.
And I would just put anexclamation point behind and
highlight and circle the wordsmeasurable because in that
example you just gave, um,there's probably a couple
stretch goals that could comeout of that.
(34:11):
And, and one of them could be,again, I'm making the metric up
that for every, making it up forevery four, relationships that
we have, we want at least 1.5 ofthem to have multiple purchases
from us beyond what the originalpurchase was.
(34:34):
You can, measure that.
Ken Lucci (34:37):
You can measure that and listen.
You can measure that entirely.
You know, my, when my dad was inthe grocery business and he had
a counter on the front door, andI said to him, why do you have a
counter on the front door?
And he wanted a count everycustomer that came through the
door.
And he, he literally wouldmeasure the departments.
Okay.
He would measure thedepartments.
So at the end of the day, thestretch goal.
(34:59):
Moves revenue, it advances thewhy we are here.
but to your point, it's gotta bemeasurable.
If it's not measurable, it ispation.
Steve Firestone (35:09):
If it's not measurable, it's merely an
opinion and the owner operator'sopinion is gonna be very
different than the people.
That are working for, it's, it'sjust going, if they're
measurable and you'retransparent with your workforce
on how you're doing, theneverybody can agree that we
either hit it or we didn't hitit.
(35:31):
And if we didn't hit it, whatwas standing in the way of
hitting us.
And then you can, you candevelop, in my world, what are
called accelerators a fancy wordfor tactics on what, okay, what
do we need to do nowlogistically?
What do we need to do now to hitthat stretch goal that supports
our core values?
Ken Lucci (35:51):
hundred percent.
You know, it, it's, it's dealingwith entrepreneurs as, as we
have, I mean, you've dealt a lotmore in corporate than I have.
I'm dealing with a little bit ofcorporate right now with pretty,
pretty large customer on the buyside.
But at the end of the day, theentrepreneur has a secret weapon
that the big business doesn'thave, and the entrepreneur's
(36:12):
secret weapon is the ability tobe nimble.
But the other piece of that istheir own omnipotence.
I, you know, I, I, I talked to,I talked to, a 20 group, the,
the peer groups, and I talked toa group and they flew me out to
San Diego and I was reallyapprehensive about this,
speaking to this group becausethey're all profitable besides
thinking they could doeverything on their own,
(36:33):
including plan their exit, whichthey can't.
I said, you know what you got,it's easier for me to talk to
companies that are notprofitable.
Because they know that I havethe answers and there's a good
chance they'll listen to me.
But profitable businesses aremore difficult because, here's
what we're fighting.
We're fighting the fact that youthink that tomorrow is gonna be
the same as today and yesterday,and you're fighting the
(36:56):
entrepreneurial biggestweaknesses.
Omniscient thinking They thinkbecause they are the master of
their own domain, that theyalways have to be.
Right.
And I, and I see it, that's thebiggest achilles heel of the
entrepreneur.
is to be so focused in yourbusiness.
You know, the analogy I use isyou look inside one box every
single day.
I've looked inside 280 boxes.
(37:19):
and same with you.
We've been just exposed to, toso much more.
At the end of the day, thestretch goal issue, how many
stretch goals should I have?
Talk about my strategic plan.
Is this a five-year plan?
Does it have to be a five to
Steve Firestone (37:36):
No Absolutely not.
As a matter of fact, myrecommendation to companies
regardless of size, regardlessof industry when I work with
them, is.
since we start with core values,your core values should be three
or four, probably no more thanfive, depending on the
(37:56):
complexity of the business.
And then, there's could be aboat load of stretch goals
underneath each one of thosecore values.
And by boatload shoot, therecould be 20, 30 of those, but
there could be seven or eight.
Ken Lucci (38:13):
and, and I'm a big believer to start with that less
is more.
And, and when, when we work withpeople on the finance side.
Which is, you know, which hasbeen challenging to get
entrepreneurs to focus on theirfinancials.
You know, the big oh oh myaccount.
I have an accountant for that.
Good for you.
Your accountant's only job is totell you what you owe in taxes
(38:33):
and how you did.
Retrospectively, they have noidea.
If you are not profitable,they're not gonna be able to
tell you what metrics are off.
That's where we come in, that'swhere our financial reporting
comes in.
But when we get them focused onthe key metrics, to me it leads
perfectly to, okay, now what'sour strategy?
What's our strategy to growthis?
(38:54):
What's our strategy to move thisforward?
Because while all of yourmetrics are looking fantastic,
how are we going to make surethat we take the business to the
next step?
So I would for the typicalperson getting into this,
wouldn't you say less is morefive to seven stretch goals?
I.
Steve Firestone (39:12):
Uh, this is gonna be a yes and no answer.
It's, it's a, it's a yes thatless is more, but.
I would never restrict anorganization to a number because
as they look at, I, I'll giveyou, I'll give you a, and you
know this one, Ken.
The, the last company that I wasoperating as president was a
(39:34):
security company.
And our core values were to makethat organization a compelling
place to work, shop, and invest.
As simple as simple can be.
We wanted that company to be acompelling place to work, shop,
and invest.
(39:54):
and, you know, the company, Iwill testify that 300, because
that company had roughly 300employees, 300 employees could
recite that our core values werea compelling place to workshop
and invest
Ken Lucci (40:07):
I remember the metrics behind each one of them.
The measurement of that.
The measurement of each one.
Steve Firestone (40:14):
And it, and, and there were stretch goals
identified like underneathcompelling place to work.
One of the stretch goals was, wewant to have 30% of our new
hires to be a direct referralfrom an existing employee.
(40:34):
You can measure that.
You either hit it or you don'thit it.
Now why was that established asone of the stretch goals
underneath a compelling place towork?
Well, it was set as a stretchgoal because if your existing
workforce is doing references toget new employees into the
(40:54):
organization, that means it mustbe a compelling place to work.
So that's an example of howstretch goals fit within core
values.
So I would hate to say you canonly have five, you can only
have seven.
You don't want 50.
Ken Lucci (41:11):
No, but you're the core, the, the listen to, to
your point, the stretch goalalso should, should, can address
a problem.
And, and we sent out a surveyrecently and one of the biggest
issues that, we were surprisedabout, the number one problem
was fleet insurance, which wewon't get into, but the, the
second biggest problem is I'mstuck working in the business
(41:33):
and not on the business.
But the third was, wasattracting and retaining
chauffeur.
Now as.
a stretch goal, to take thatback to the transportation
space, you can absolutelymeasure.
You should.
One company I, I do businesswith has, monthly lunches for
their chauffeurs, and the CEOhimself gets out there and
(41:56):
serves the food.
And then he, he goes around, hiswhole executive team is involved
and, you know, and initially Isaid, yeah, okay, this is good.
Until I went and saw it, thatwas an amazing thing to witness.
And he gives him a talk on howthe company's doing, and then
he, says, you know, we reallyneed a few more chauffeurs.
(42:19):
They do a referral bonus.
But also, you know, he said tome flat out, these people
really, they don't really focuson the money.
They focus on the fact that theytell people, you know.
The, the vehicle gets clean foryou.
You know, this is the technologywe have and the CEO has a lunch
for us every single month wherehe wants to hear what's going
(42:41):
wrong.
this guy in particular heard somuch about a construction
problem that was going on in amain thoroughfare.
He actually went to the townshipDOT, and said, look, you guys
are killing us.
okay?
Because, and, and it's true.
When they were picking up theirvehicles, it was just
bottlenecking them anyway.
So the stress root goals can fixa problem, and the stretch goals
(43:05):
can also be for the CEO who saysto himself, I'm gonna make, as a
goal, I'm going to hire somebodyto close trips the way I would,
you know, and do the bookkeepingthe way I would, and I'm gonna
put.
Seven to 10 hours a week moretowards business development.
I mean, that to me is a Cstretch goal.
Steve Firestone (43:23):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll giveyou another one that just
occurred to me.
That's I'm, I'm sure is an issuein, in your industry.
in every industry that I've everdone work in, there is a
customer attrition problem.
Ken Lucci (43:37):
Yes.
Steve Firestone (43:38):
Nobody ever says, I have my arms wrapped
around attrition.
I don't ever need to payattention to it.
I, everybody, nobody ever leavesme.
Well, we know that's not thecase.
So, if, one of the stretch goalsis to reduce attrition, whatever
the right word is there, repeat,purchase, whatever the word is.
(43:58):
In the transportation industry,if one of the, one of the
stretch goals is to reducecustomer attrition by X percent
and you are transparent, uh, Ikeep using that word.
As the leader, you'retransparent with your
organization.
That is one of our stretchgoals.
Think about how everydepartment, if you will, within
(44:18):
that company, can have an impacton attrition of existing
customer relationships.
Every department can have animpact on that.
Ken Lucci (44:28):
true story that speaks directly to that.
We have a program on the, on thesales analytics and sales data
side that we just started, wherewe do what we call the past
present future report, and wepull it out of the reservation
system.
It's not a report that theybuild, it's a data set.
We pull all of the data foreverything, pull it everything,
and call works as magic.
(44:49):
So one of the things we do is wewent over with a specific
client.
we go over the top 25 clientsand we got down to, I think it
was number 11, and we're like,this one's down 38% over.
Last year and the year before.
So when they drilled down, andfirst of all, they didn't know
it.
Okay.
Which is another issue.
(45:10):
but second of all, when theydrilled down, what they found
was one of the executiveassistants that was the primary
booker for the sales exec team,she had a problem with a bill.
there was an internal person atthis company, and this was like
a$10 million operation who justwasn't responding to emails and
wasn't fixing the bill.
So that booker went to, uh,option number two.
(45:34):
Okay.
So it can be as simple as that.
When you talk about attrition.
we are all one trip away from aclient looking in another
direction.
but in this case, and I, and I,and I, said to the owners,
what's up with that?
And they said, well, yeah, thisperson's been a problem.
I said, okay, well, no offense.
Straighten out a billingproblem, my Jack Russell can do
(45:56):
that.
this cannot be a reason why oneof our top 25 clients, one of
the bookers went away.
And on top of that, why are wefinding out about it now?
Okay, so from a, from acommunication perspective, the
stretch goal can be, I'm goingto, as a C-level, I'm gonna
communicate with my top ahundred clients three times a
(46:16):
year, four times a year, twice a
Steve Firestone (46:18):
yes,
Ken Lucci (46:19):
It's so So, at the end of the day, to me, strategic
plan is all about proactivity.
it's all about purposefullymoving the business forward.
Um, my indu, our industry, thetransportation industry has a
love affair with Facebook postsand.
(46:39):
One the posts yesterday was, youknow, we're losing the airport
market.
We're losing the airportbusiness, we're losing the
airport transfers.
Well, airport travel growth isgrowing like a hockey stick.
Okay?
And corporate travel is way backup like nine 11% of where it
was.
The answer is, yeah, we areoverpricing because we are not
(47:01):
efficient, but we are also, tome, we're not communicating the
value that we have, and we'renot five x-ing our airport
offerings to everybody in themarket.
that's in the, the bucket, orthe same people that use us.
So a stretch goal might be mytop 10 clients.
(47:22):
Three of them are intelecommunications, two of'em
are attorneys.
I am going to reach out and I'mgoing to present to the top 20.
Attorneys in the market, and I'mgonna build that use case.
So to me, strategic planning is,all about proactivity.
And unfortunately, you know, alot of industries get stuck in
(47:45):
that groove.
You know, I, I remember when my,my dad was in the independent
supermarket business and my dadliterally did the ad.
back in the day they used tohave a planner, newspaper
planner, and my brother workedin that business since he was 17
years old, or actually since hegot outta school.
So we all worked there duringour high school years.
And my father still did the ad.
(48:06):
The only way he taught mybrother to do the ad is my
father had a stroke at 69 andcouldn't write with his right
hand anymore.
So the one stretch goal forevery owner operator out there
is teach a team member.
If you don't have a team,assemble a team that can do the
critical functions so that ifsomething happens to you.
(48:26):
The business still runs.
More importantly, asimportantly, teach them how to
dispatch, teach them how to takereservations, teach them how to
price motor coach so that youcan go out and do the stuff that
the owners are supposed to do.
The working on the business.
Right.
Working on the business is adifferent level.
(48:47):
of moving the business forward.
Um, w in your mind, based on,you know, again, we're talking
to a small business op, uh, uh,small business, a lot of
entrepreneurs, what do you thinka 3 takeaways are that you would
say, everybody who's hearingthis is seeing this should be
doing to start the process?
Steve Firestone (49:09):
First, it's begin to think about what your
version of compelling place toworkshop and invest is.
And if you wanna steal Yeah, ifyou want, if you wanna steal,
steal that.
call Ken and he'll Ken will callme and I'll decide if I wanna
give you permission to stealcompelling place to workshop
Ken Lucci (49:26):
Hey, look, I, I, I stole the, we are ladies and
gentlemen, serving ladies andgentlemen at Ambassador
Limousine, which we were, webecame the biggest in the market
and to the chagrin of a fewoperators who still don't talk
to me, but we grew from zero toa million the first year, a
million to 5 million over fiveyears, and we were in the
service of others with pleasureand professionalism.
(49:48):
That was, the why.
That was who we were.
we are in the service of otherswith pleasure and
professionalism, and we builtevery system in the company
around that.
Go ahead.
Start with the why.
Steve Firestone (50:03):
Start, start with, start with that.
The second is in order to beginto really effectively establish
beyond core values, establishwhat are, what are the stretch
goals and, and I forgot tomention this a little while ago,
(50:23):
my definition of stretch ispossibility, not probability.
So a goal would haveprobability, a stretch goal is a
possibility.
That's the difference betweenstretch goal and goal.
So, so I wanna, I wanted tothrow that in.
So the second is after you beginto really do some quiet moments,
(50:47):
soul searching on what should mycore values be, is do an
assessment of what are theuncomfortable, and comfortable
realities of my business basedon where I am today?
what are the realities of mybusiness based on where I am
(51:09):
today?
And it's things like, FedExnever could have had when it
absolutely, positively has to bethere overnight.
If they didn't have at the time,the best.
Data management and trackinghardware and software ever
created in industry.
'cause it needed to have thatinfrastructure to deliver on the
(51:32):
Absolutely.
Positively has to be.
So as they're developing all ofthis, they went, I'm sure they
sat in some room somewhere inMemphis and went, you know what,
one of the realities of ourbusinesses we started this is we
don't have the infrastructure tobe able to really deliver on
what we say our promise is.
So part of the second part ofthe process is what are the
(51:54):
realities of your, of yourbusiness?
And one another likely realityfor some people watching this is
I don't have a staff that canactually run the business
without me being on the field.
Well, that's an uncomfortablereality.
That would make me very nervous.
Ken Lucci (52:14):
oh.
It literally will stop you fromcreating an enterprise value.
The good news about our industryis one of the silver linings of
the pandemic was the growth ofthe outsourcing of major
functions of our industry, whichis reservations and dispatching.
Now, it doesn't happen in, in avacuum.
You know, you have to instill inthose people the why you exist,
(52:37):
and you have to make sure thatyou are supervising them as
employees.
But the other beautiful piecesif you don't have a staff, you
can recruit from anywhere in thecountry Now.
So If that's your biggest excusenot to achieve a stretch goal,
then you're not overcoming the,easiest obstacles that are out
there.
Steve Firestone (52:56):
Yep.
And since you asked me forthree, I'll give you the third.
The, the third would be to beginto think about, okay, if, if
this is kind of the framework ofmy loosely, loosely defined it,
and, and people shouldn't gethung up on, oh, I need to have
the right words perfectly puttogether for my core values.
(53:17):
That's a, that's an iterativeprocess.
Just begin to think about kindof what, what are the elements
of my why?
To use your, your example.
So core values, what are therealities of the business?
And the third is, okay, now howare we gonna measure, how are we
doing?
You do that for your clients onthe financial side.
(53:40):
Your clients need to do that.
On the organizational alignmentside also, world class
organizations do thateffectively.
Ken Lucci (53:49):
Uh, agreed.
And, and, and we, we are for theretained clients that we have,
we are, we're, we're adding tothe financial reporting and KPI,
which to me is the foundation.
To me, it is the totalfoundation.
Somebody comes to me and says, Iwant to create stretch goals,
and I want to do this.
I wanna get into the motor codespace.
One of my stretch goals is to,buy a$180,000 jet sprinter
(54:13):
because I wanna attract the top.
Whatever the stretch goal is,you can't do it unless you know
where you are at right now,financially.
Okay.
Okay.
Because, and, and that's where,you know, I said to somebody
today who laughed at me atsomething I said, I said, well,
I throw in a little sparklebecause to kind of blunt the
(54:34):
medicine that I have to deliver.
But at the end of the day, you,you've gotta listen to the
medicine.
You have to hear me when I sayyour cost of goods is way too
much, too high.
Because if one of your stretchgoals, and I, and I think part
of it is.
As a CEO, we should have stretchgoals.
Our personally, ourselves aswell.
One of the stretch goals may beI wanna be the best public
(54:56):
speaker, I wanna be the bestleader I can be.
And I recognize that perhaps Idon't communicate well and maybe
that's why I can't keep teammembers, but you should have a
stretch goal as a, as, as aleader as well.
But from a financial, from, tome, the financial metric or the
financial foundation has to bethere and then you can move
(55:16):
mountains.
I, I refuse to believe, and it'sfrustrating to me sometime
because again, you and I see,you know, when you work in the
security industry and consultfor many companies, you see the
commonalities in that space.
We see the commonalities in thetransportation space.
Every single growth metric isout there and we are
(55:39):
self-defeating ourselves.
by sitting there being reactive.
We are very self-defeating, andI think that if we're sitting
there waiting for our technologyto be as good as Ubers, it's not
gonna happen.
But I'll tell you what we cando, We could deliver much better
value.
We can be the best version ofchauffeur Transportation for the
(56:03):
top 5% of the market, who iswhose price is number three or
four on their list.
What's most important to the,client is customer service,
maximum safety, absolutereliability, kind of the Federal
Express and Ritz Carlton comestogether.
I think it can, it, it, it candefinitely happen.
(56:23):
those three things don't have tobe daunting.
to me, a strategic plan startswith what do I want accomplish
this year and how am I gonna doit?
How am I gonna be, how can Imake the business better?
The entire reason I brought youon is because the two things of
the, the, the, the, the numberone problem we see is the lack
(56:45):
of financial management and thelack of profit and the lack of
financial acumen.
But the second issue we see isthis working in the business,
oh, I'm exhausted.
I had to stay up and I had todispatch, and I had to do, uh,
okay, you're keeping thebusiness running, but you're
(57:05):
literally a squirrel on a cage.
The purpose of today's podcastis to get you to think like the
game has gotta go on withoutyou, you at best have to get
yourself in the coach'sposition, but ultimately you
have to get yourself in thatowner's box.
the owner is 100% focused onwinning, but they're also
(57:27):
focused on all of theorganizational goals of what is
this team gonna look like?
Five years from now andstrategic planning gets you
there.
Any last words before we releasethe audience?
Steve Firestone (57:40):
Yeah, I have I, and I always, I always say this
to people, and this is a hardone for some founders, owner
operators, CEOs.
My view, the more transparentyou are with your organization.
Reporting.
How are we doing?
(58:02):
The more you're gonna havesuccess, if you hold all the
cards close to your vest, thepeople that are working for you
are always going to wonder,well, how are we doing?
What do I need to worry about?
What don't I know about?
I, encourage every leader ofevery organization, and you know
(58:22):
this, Ken,'cause we workedtogether multiple times.
I want the organization to knowhow are we doing and how are we
measuring success?
So transparency to me is really,really important.
Ken Lucci (58:35):
So for the you single car operators out there, or you
one to five car operators thatare out there, what you're gonna
say, what is this for me?
You know what a stretch goal isfor you.
I'm not.
I wanna see you succeed.
I want you to create anenterprise value.
I wanna make, see you make sixfigures.
Make much more than you could ifyou went to work for somebody
else.
Stretch goal might be get out ofthe driver's seat for eight out
(58:58):
of 10 trips, or get out of thedriver's seat for 10 out of 10
trips, okay?
Because no one sells yourbusiness and no one presents
your business like you.
Everybody wants access to theowner, especially on local
businesses.
So, and this translates to guysthat are in$20 million
(59:19):
businesses.
I've got a guy who's a$10million business who's doing the
bookkeeping.
And I said, what are you doing?
Well, I found some mistakes thatthe old bookkeeper made.
Great.
We need to train the new one todo that.
Because your business isstagnant, your business isn't
growing.
You need to get out there andyou need to proactively put
together a plan.
So Steve, I want to thank you.
(59:41):
Uh, where can people find you?
Steve Firestone (59:44):
Uh, my website is Firestone Strategies.
My email issteve@firestonestrategies.com.
Ken Lucci (59:54):
Appreciate it.
We will definitely have you, uh,on as a guest in the future, and
we've got some stuff coming uptogether.
I thank you for, uh, uh, joiningthe Ground Transportation
Podcast.
for those of you listening, wewill be back here next week.
Uh, if anybody sees my partnerin crime, James Blaine, please
tell him I miss him dearly.
(01:00:15):
And, uh, we try to, to hold upthe standard of the podcast
without you, everybody go outthere and have a great week.
Thanks and have a great day.
Steve Firestone (01:00:24):
Take care, Ken.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
(01:00:45):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.
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