Your Ego Is NOT Your AMIGO

Hey everybody, this is Pete Worrell from Bigelow, and I'd like to welcome you to this episode of the Positive Enterprise Value Podcast. In this podcast we interview seasoned, successful, high-performing Entrepreneur Owner-Managers (EOMs), people who own and lead significant enterprises in a variety of domains and niches across the country. Have you ever noticed that some private enterprises successfully transitioned through evolutions and revolutions in leadership, management and even ownership? Some ending up with a terrific new majority owner, the EOM moving gracefully into the next interesting and rewarding chapter in their lives, surrounded by friends with their positive legacy intact, and their independence powered or fueled by the fortune they just realized. While others’ outcomes look more like a train wreck. Is it luck or is it more than luck? We think it's more than luck. In this episode I have the fun of interviewing Michael Kiolbassa. Michael and I have known each other for almost 10 years. He is the CEO of Kiolbassa Provision Company (link: https://kiolbassa.com/) in San Antonio, TX where they're celebrating their 75th year in business. It was Michael's grandfather and then his father, who shepherded the business, which was largely a fresh meat slaughtering house until Michael came along. And now, of course, it is widely known as one of the highest quality sausage and provision companies in the country. Michael talks us through when he joined the business. Some of the challenges he had both in the business and with his family (Michael’s father and uncle had owned the business until then, so Michale had both his own immediate family as well as cousins in the business.) He shares some of his hopes and dreams to become a national business and some of the adversity he encountered along the way. Michael is extremely articulate and candid and vulnerable about some of the challenges, failures and learnings; I know you will love this episode because I surely did. Without further ado, join me in listening to Michael Kiolbassa.