April 22, 2025 • 25 mins
Ready to hear how real entrepreneurs build their dream businesses? You’ll love this episode of the Beyond Fulfillment Podcast, where we chat with Blaine Little, founder of Momentum Seminars. Blaine’s an expert in leadership, real-world training, and helping small business owners grow their teams and their profits, all from his own ups and downs in business.
In this honest talk, Blaine shares how he went from serving in the Army, to selling insurance, to training realtors and finally running his own seminars for managers and business owners. He lays it all out: the rough starts, bad bosses, hard lessons, and what finally worked. If you want advice you can actually use, stories you’ll relate to, and some good laughs about those early business mistakes, you’re in the right place.
Timestamps:
03:34 – How he found his groove as a trainer
07:47 – Tough parts of launching a business
13:37 – Biggest mistakes new managers make
16:17 – The truth about “fairness” at work
18:34 – Pivoting during the pandemic
21:02 – What’s coming up next for Blaine
22:55 – Where to reach Blaine
If you got something helpful out of this one, hit subscribe to catch more real stories from folks who’ve made it work!
Connect with Blaine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blainelittle/
#EntrepreneurStory #SmallBusinessAdvice #StartupRealTalk #BeyondFulfillmentPodcast #micromanaging #entrepreneur #leadership
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In today's episode, we welcomeBlaine Little, founder of Momentum
Seminars, to discuss hisjourney from military service to
successful entrepreneur,corporate trainer and author.
Blaine shares how his path wasshaped by a series of lessons learned
from challenging environmentsand mentors, which eventually led
(00:21):
him to a career in real estateand then into training and coaching.
He reflects on his earlystruggles with unhelpful leadership,
which inspired his commitmentto helping others avoid those same
pitfalls by providingmeaningful training and support.
Blaine details his transitionfrom working with large seminar companies
(00:42):
to establishing his own business.
He highlights his niche inworking with small and medium sized
businesses, helping themaddress common managerial challenges.
Blaine also emphasizes theimportance of investing in people,
diagnosing organizationalneeds before prescribing solutions,
and the dangers ofmicromanagement, which he refers
(01:05):
to as training for failure.
As always, if you found valuefrom this content, please like and
subscribe.
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of the Beyond Fulfillment
Podcast.
I'm your host, Dave Goulis,and this week my guest is the founder
of Momentum Seminars, trainingand coaching, Blaine Little.
(01:28):
Welcome, Blaine.
Dave, thank you so much forhaving me.
I really appreciate being onthe show.
Yeah, we appreciate you takingthe time.
So, Blaine, you've.
You've been an entrepreneurfor quite a while.
Can you give us your.
Your backstory and how you got started?
Wow.
You know, it's just.
(01:48):
Where I am now is just aculmination of a series of different
lessons I had learned by.
By somewhat being in the wrongplaces throughout my life and just
kind of found the right nichefor me, which is public speaking
as a corporate trainer and an author.
But I started out when I lefthigh school and went into the army
(02:09):
because I really didn't knowwhat I wanted to do.
But after the army, I had aseries of bad sergeants, so I knew
that I wanted to do somethingmaybe in business management.
And so I went to MiddleTennessee State University, got the
degree there, and I starteddoing some stuff in sales.
But then I got into personalfinance, which was insurance, annuities,
(02:31):
mutual funds, investments, andI did enjoy that.
But my father got an earlyretirement and he started doing real
estate.
And he said, hey, Blaine, Ithink you might like this.
And it's something to where Iwasn't in the office all the day,
all day, but I wasn't out ofthe office all day.
It was a nice variety of scenery.
(02:51):
And so I've actually had myreal estate license for about 25
years.
And unfortunately I had a.
My first boss was just horrible.
You would go in to ask aquestion and they would say just
kind of belittle you for notknowing the answer.
Well, 25 years later and now Ihave my broker's license, I realized
(03:12):
that individual never knewwhat the answers were.
And so rather than just say,hey, I don't know what the solution
is, but I can help you solvethe problem like a good leader would.
I just, I just found somegreat mentors and started learning
some things and I startedtraining other realtors and I still
do.
(03:32):
And people said hey, you'rereally pretty good at that.
Why don't you do more thanjust real estate?
And so I have and 2017 alone,I was about 100 all day seminars,
workshops on bettercommunication skills, leadership
team building and, and it'ssomething that I really enjoyed.
I was with another service atthat time and there's some things
(03:57):
like with any employee youagree with, you don't agree with.
And so I just kind of decidedto go out on my own.
And so that's what I've done.
And now I work with small tomedium sized businesses and help
them grow their production byinvesting in their people.
(04:20):
Freight shippers.
Are you tired of dealing withunreliable freight brokers?
Tired of delays, misseddelivery appointments and no one
to talk to?
Tired of unpleasant surprises,reclass re ways and the invoice always
being higher than the quote?
Well, you can enjoy a betterfreight experience with SPI logistics.
(04:41):
I joined SPI as a freightagent to deliver that better freight
experience to our three PL customers.
SPI has 30,000 vetted andapproved carriers, all modes of transportation.
So we can tailor the equipmentto the shipment and the fully trained
and experienced operationsteam who is always available to help.
And you'll get the samequality customer service that you've
(05:02):
come to expect when you dealwith me.
If you've got freight to move,go to freightbydave.com that's Freight
by Dave.
All right, so quite, quite aninteresting journey you've had up
until now.
So you, you started theentrepreneurial stuff I guess with
doing, doing the, you know,real estate.
(05:26):
Right.
In terms of being a realtor.
And then you started trainingother like other realtors and then
that, that led to peopleasking you to train other other types
of positions.
Yeah, yeah.
And, and the thing for me wasI think I knew early on, especially
after the army, I mean I'mproud of my service.
(05:46):
I was honorably discharged andeverything but for me I just, I just
knew that that was, you know,not the road I wanted to go.
I really wanted to just be myown boss and There's a lot of freedom
that comes with being your own boss.
But then some days, your, Yourown boss can be a real jerk and just
(06:09):
not, not, you know.
You know, some days are rough.
Some days are rough, andthat's just kind of the way it is.
But you take the good with thebad and you just keep moving forward.
All right, so that.
With the seminars.
So you got like, how, how didthat develop when you, you got, I
guess, recruited to be withthe seminar company?
(06:31):
Is that what it was?
Yeah, yeah.
I was with them for about twoand a half, three years.
And.
And it's a good company.
It's called Skill Path.
A lot of people have heard ofthem, and they also own another company
as well, so you would be undereither of those flagships.
But after a few years ofteaching that information, some people
(06:54):
started asking me certainquote, well, what about this, what
about that?
And so I just kind of startedgiving my own experience or expertise.
And after a while, I startedputting together my own.
My own curriculum.
And so I would write all these.
I would just write, Writethings down, any ideas that I had
that could have been morebeneficial to the workshop that I
(07:15):
was conducting.
And that was the thing thatgave me the flexibility.
They said you have to teachall of these, you know, 21 or however
many topics, aspects, but youcan add on to it.
And so sometimes I would beadding a lot.
Maybe about a third of theworkshop would be stuff that was
beneficial for the attendees.
(07:35):
But I just, I just startedcreating my own.
My own curriculum.
Okay.
And then, so you, you getasked questions, you're creating
the curriculum, you realizethat you have a lot more to share
than kind of the box you're inwith, you know, with the corporate
company.
And then what, like, what,what made you finally decide to go
(07:55):
out on your own?
Like I say, great company.
And there's, there's abouthalf a dozen of those types of companies,
but they all seem to runpretty much on the same model.
Fred Pryor is another one thatwas kind of, kind of the original
one.
And everybody else is copying them.
(08:16):
They don't pay.
Well, they do pay your, Yourexpenses, all your travel.
And so I would go out on theroad and I would be.
They would fly me into an areaand then I would rent a car, and
for the whole week I would bein four or five different cities
day after day, and then they'dfly me back home.
(08:36):
But you really did not makethat much money at it.
And so I just, I just thought,you know, look, I Enjoy.
I enjoy travel and I enjoy training.
I love to see those littlelight bulbs come on.
But I just thought I could doa better job with my, some of my
(08:56):
own material and, and, andjust kind of focus instead of just
inviting the public.
And I have done some publicworkshops but really my niche now
is try to, for corporate clients.
And so I've got, I've got someclients who will bring me back each
year to do a couple of hoursof managerial training for their
(09:21):
management.
And that's really, really veryimportant because about three or
four years ago Forbes wrote anarticle and they had actually linked
up with career builders to dothe study and they found that I think
it's about 80, it's over 80%.
I want to say it's 82% of allfirst time managers have received
(09:45):
not just a little bit ofmanagement training.
None, zero, nothing at all.
And so I have something fordifferent tiers of management.
I have done billion dollarcorporations and, and help facilitate
their strategic planning forthe year.
But then I've also done whereif this is your first time as a manager,
(10:07):
here we go.
And I wrote a book that isessentially the, the eight Managerial
challenges.
And there's eight things inthere that I talk about that seem
to be constant, repetitivemistakes that managers make and how
to overcome those and breakthat cycle.
(10:28):
Okay, all right.
So you found a niche therewithin training, training managers
specifically.
Even wrote a book.
Let me just ask you, so whenyou made the decision to go out on
your own like what was it,what was it like getting started
in terms of, did things takeoff like you expected?
No, no, I, I think I reallydid not calculate and I had done
(10:58):
things in sales but didn'treally calculate the amount of time
and effort that would be putinto business development.
And it's just the sales callsand I'm fine with rejection.
But you know, you have tounderstand as an entrepreneur, if
you're, if you're a one trickpony and you, and, and that's what
(11:19):
I am, I may ring on some moretrainers eventually.
But everything that I do is,is from me.
And you just really have to goout and kind of hit the bricks and
so to speak, call people andcall on corporations and you know,
if they're.
(11:39):
What I found is that my sweetspot is a company that will have
between 12 and 200 employees.
Because if you get to acompany that has three or 400 employees,
they probably have their,their in house trainer.
And even if that trainer isdoing more of the technical side
(11:59):
of things, they may say, well,we'll just task this person to do
some of the professdevelopment like managerial training.
And that may not necessarilybe their, their skill set, but it's,
it's hard to get in when theyhave a, someone's name on a door
and it says trainer.
So a lot of the smallercompanies are really just kind of
(12:21):
struggling to get their peopleon board with what makes for good
leadership.
Okay.
And so you, you encounteredsome early resistance.
Like how, how did you overcome that?
Well, I have a pretty goodsupport system of other trainers,
(12:42):
other corporate facilitators,and you would think that we would
all be sort of at odds withone another, but most professional
speakers are actually prettygiving of their experience and their
wisdom.
And so I have some very goodpeople that I would call on and just
(13:02):
kind of ask, you know, what doyou think of this marketing idea?
Or you know, what do I need todo in terms of, you know, just getting
in front of more, more peopleand one bit of, and, and that's where
you have to have enough ofyour own experience to understand
when you are getting reallygood information.
(13:25):
And most of the time I, I do,but then when something is just not
going to fit for your, yourcorporate culture for what you do.
And I've had several peoplewho are great public speakers, you
know, they're making 30,$40,000 a speech.
(13:47):
One speech will tell me that,you know, well, you need to pick
your lane.
I can't tell you how manytimes I've heard that, a thousand
times you got to pick your lane.
And basically you develop onespeech, maybe two, that's kind of
a derivative of the first one,and you just stick with that and
you just present that over andover and over again and no doubt
(14:10):
they make a lot of money at it.
But I don't know, Dave, maybeI have ADHD or something.
I can't, I can't just do theone thing for the rest of my life.
So what's different is that Ireally am a, a school, if you will,
and I can teach all of those,those things as it comes to professional
development, like bettercommunication skills.
(14:31):
I don't teach accounting,bookkeeping, you know, how to clean
machinery or anything like that.
But, but yeah, yeah, andthat's just, that's just, that's
it.
You know, if you can find anumber of good people and, and there's
a guy, Terry, really goodfriend of mine, who was really instrumental
and helping me out and justkind of shedding light on a lot of
(14:54):
things and pointing me in theright direction.
So you just, you just takethat from, you got to build your
support group so you have togo out and you have to meet some
of these people.
And, and I've actually heardthat Dave, from a lot of people in
various industries that the socalled competitors are actually very,
(15:15):
very helpful and gettingothers started.
Okay, interesting.
All right, so you're dealingwith this niche of small businesses
like you said, 12 to 200employees typically.
And you're focusing onmanagerial and leadership training
and those types of skills.
When you're working with thesecompanies, what do you find are some
(15:38):
of the biggest challenges thatthey're having?
Well, the nice thing about themanagerial, if they want me to, if
they want to bring me in forfirst time managers sort of workshop
or new to management.
Workshop is that's, that'spretty much the case.
And I can just outline and gothrough the information there.
(15:59):
But sometimes I'll talk to anowner or someone in the C suite and
you know, they'll say that,well, you know, here's a challenge
and I try to, I try todiagnose before I, before I prescribe
to find out what is it thatthey want to see accomplished at
the end of the workshop,what's their result that they are
(16:21):
looking for rather than justwhat I think they need.
But sometimes that might comeat odds they'll be describing something.
And, and I'm thinking, okay,well so you know, do you need some
leadership training formanagement or for even the C suite
maybe?
And like, no, they're just notdoing what it is that we want them
(16:43):
to do.
Well, okay, you know,communication is the foundation of
good leadership.
And so sometimes it might bethat the people are, you know, they're
a good group of people.
But maybe leadership is, is,is the people who need to hear, hear
the message.
(17:04):
And so you gotta kind of bedelicate about that and still provide
what it is that they bring youin for.
But then you know, you have tokind of tell them, you know, look,
you know, yeah, you're, you'rekind of micromanaging everyone.
And I call micromanagementtraining for failure.
Because when you micromanagepeople then what you're telling them
(17:29):
is that their work doesn'tmatter and that you were going to
come around the next day andchange up everything anyway.
So they just shrug and say,well, why should I even try?
And so I, I've, I've had thatconversation, you know, like, you
know, I think your level ofguidance, they always call it guidance
(17:51):
is a little overbearing and ifyou just give them some free rein,
let them.
But what if they make a mistake?
And I always assure them theywill make mistakes, but let them
make the $10 mistakes versusthe $10,000 mistakes and just let
them sort of grow into theposition that you hired them for
in the first place.
(18:12):
Yeah, I love that.
Micromanaging is training for failure.
That's.
I haven't heard it put thatway, but that.
That makes perfect sense.
Well, it's in my book.
All right.
And so speaking of your book,you've written three books, is that
right?
I have.
The first one was ManagerialMisunderstandings, Missteps, and
(18:33):
Miscommunications.
I think I named it there justto trip up podcast hosts so they
can't repeat it.
So I'm actually going to berebranding that hopefully next month
as the eight Managerial Challenges.
And that's the first one thatI wrote, and then the second one
that came out a little over ayear ago is the Individual Team,
(18:57):
How Fairness Wrecked the Workplace.
And, I mean, it's.
It pretty much goes to that.
It's not a political book, butin today's culture, Dave, you really
kind of have to hit some of the.
The.
The nonsense that's just going on.
And so I've had owners andleaders and managers say, you know,
(19:20):
Blaine, I know my people loveme because I'm.
I'm fair with them.
I treat them all the same.
You're making your people madand resent you because people are
not the same.
And if they're on your directteam, you really have to get to know
them and their personality,and that's just a.
A really big part of it.
(19:41):
But this.
This issue of sameness is a farce.
It doesn't work.
People resent that, and you'llget the most out of them by pushing
them towards their excellence,their personal best.
Okay.
All right.
And, you know, you launchedyour professional speaking career.
(20:03):
I think you said you went onyour own 2017.
Is.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah, I was actuallydoing training.
I've been.
I've been doing training forabout 20 years, but, yeah, to go
with momentum seminars,training and coaching.
Yeah, about.
About 2017.
2018.
Okay.
And then as.
As we progressed a few years in.
(20:24):
One of the things, the eventsthat was very tough on the live event
in the speaking space was.
Was the pandemic.
So what was that process like,you know, navigating the change in
the world when no one reallyknew what was going on at first?
Yeah, a few things.
I learned a lot, which is great.
I'm still here.
(20:45):
You know, I was, I was, I hadbeen writing my first book, the eight
managerial change challengesfor about two and a half, three years
when Covet hit in 2021.
And so a lot of people willask me, hey, how do you, what does
it take to write a book?
And I tell them three yearsplus a pandemic.
(21:07):
Because I had nothing else todo, all my gigs canceled, we weren't
having conferences anymore.
And so I had no excuse to notfinish that book and I did.
And one of those chapters wascalled the Individual Team.
It's exactly what I was justtalking about a few, few minutes
(21:28):
ago is this issue of sameness,treating everyone the same and how
that's, that's actually disruptive.
That brought about the secondbook that I wrote.
And.
But yeah, I tell everyonethree and a half, about three years
in a, in a pandemic.
But I also had to get verygood at webinars because people still
(21:51):
needed some training and therewere still conferences and they just
online and they wanted akeynote speaker to do about a 45
minute motivational speech.
I hate being called amotivational speaker because I just,
you know, we may.
It's hard to say that I'mgoing to motivate someone to do something,
(22:11):
but yet I'm not in their life.
So it, but anyway, just as aprofessional speaker, I had to get
really good at webinars.
And it's a different craftwriting, public speaking, webinars,
coaching, one on one.
Those are all different crafts.
The information is the same,but they have to be delivered in
(22:33):
different ways.
And so I, I think I reallyjust learned a lot.
And in fact I, you know, youremind me.
I, I really haven't beenpursuing a lot of webinars.
They're still around.
People love to get back inperson again.
But yes, there are somewebinars still around and I need
to, I need to contact andfollow up on more of those.
(22:54):
Okay, all right.
And then with everythingyou've, you've overcome and grown
your business over the, thesepast seven, eight years.
So what is, what does it looklike for you in, in 2025?
What does your business look like?
2025?
I am, I'm not a revolutionary.
I believe that if you want todevelop your business or to develop
(23:18):
you, don't wait till January 1st.
That's just, that's ridiculous.
Don't wait to make a NewYear's revolution just, or a resolution,
just wherever you are, just begin.
But I did start back in lateNovember for about a year, about
12 months.
I wanted to do a number ofthese sort of wonderful podcasts
(23:41):
and radio shows and TV andjust have about 75 different media
outlets.
Also gonna just kind of holdmy feet to the fire a little bit
more with being consciousabout my calling.
I'm in business developmentbecause I'm the type of person to
(24:04):
where I'll make a bunch ofcalls and I'll prospect and then
I'll get, you know, three orfour things lined up, and I focus
on those things and want togive really great customer service.
And I drop the sales calling,the prospecting, and then I gotta
start all over again.
So those are a couple ofthings that I'm going to do.
(24:25):
But, you know, rather thansaying I want to make X amount of
money, it really is kind of.
It's the tasks that you dothat bring you to the goal.
That's what's important.
And so just with those coupleof things, getting my name out and
making good qualityprospecting calls, that's gonna.
(24:46):
That's gonna really make thedifference in 2025.
All right, and.
And Blaine, if people want toget in touch with you and learn more
about your training or.
Or any of the work you do, what.
What's the best way people canreach out to you?
Best thing to do is just asyou can see my.
Whoops.
See my.
My URL up there.
Momentum seminars dot com.
(25:06):
You can find out me.
You can purchase any of mybooks there.
I have three books.
I've got another one oninterpersonal communications, which
should be out in February,early March at the latest.
And that's the best way tocontact me.
All my contact information is there.
All right, and we'll link allthat in the show notes for everyone.
(25:27):
All right, well, Blaine, thankyou so much for taking the time to
be here and sharing all thiswisdom with.
From your journey with our audience.
We greatly appreciate it.
Thank you, Dave.
I appreciate you having me.
All right, and that's all thetime we have for now.
We will see you next.
In today's episode, we welcomeBlaine Little, founder of Momentum
Seminars, to discuss hisjourney from military service to
successful entrepreneur,corporate trainer and author.
Blaine shares how his path wasshaped by a series of lessons learned
from challenging environmentsand mentors, which eventually led
(00:21):
him to a career in real estateand then into training and coaching.
He reflects on his earlystruggles with unhelpful leadership,
which inspired his commitmentto helping others avoid those same
pitfalls by providingmeaningful training and support.
Blaine details his transitionfrom working with large seminar companies
(00:42):
to establishing his own business.
He highlights his niche inworking with small and medium sized
businesses, helping themaddress common managerial challenges.
Blaine also emphasizes theimportance of investing in people,
diagnosing organizationalneeds before prescribing solutions,
and the dangers ofmicromanagement, which he refers
(01:05):
to as training for failure.
As always, if you found valuefrom this content, please like and
subscribe.
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of the Beyond Fulfillment
Podcast.
I'm your host, Dave Goulis,and this week my guest is the founder
of Momentum Seminars, trainingand coaching, Blaine Little.
(01:28):
Welcome, Blaine.
Dave, thank you so much forhaving me.
I really appreciate being onthe show.
Yeah, we appreciate you takingthe time.
So, Blaine, you've.
You've been an entrepreneurfor quite a while.
Can you give us your.
Your backstory and how you got started?
Wow.
You know, it's just.
(01:48):
Where I am now is just aculmination of a series of different
lessons I had learned by.
By somewhat being in the wrongplaces throughout my life and just
kind of found the right nichefor me, which is public speaking
as a corporate trainer and an author.
But I started out when I lefthigh school and went into the army
(02:09):
because I really didn't knowwhat I wanted to do.
But after the army, I had aseries of bad sergeants, so I knew
that I wanted to do somethingmaybe in business management.
And so I went to MiddleTennessee State University, got the
degree there, and I starteddoing some stuff in sales.
But then I got into personalfinance, which was insurance, annuities,
(02:31):
mutual funds, investments, andI did enjoy that.
But my father got an earlyretirement and he started doing real
estate.
And he said, hey, Blaine, Ithink you might like this.
And it's something to where Iwasn't in the office all the day,
all day, but I wasn't out ofthe office all day.
It was a nice variety of scenery.
(02:51):
And so I've actually had myreal estate license for about 25
years.
And unfortunately I had a.
My first boss was just horrible.
You would go in to ask aquestion and they would say just
kind of belittle you for notknowing the answer.
Well, 25 years later and now Ihave my broker's license, I realized
(03:12):
that individual never knewwhat the answers were.
And so rather than just say,hey, I don't know what the solution
is, but I can help you solvethe problem like a good leader would.
I just, I just found somegreat mentors and started learning
some things and I startedtraining other realtors and I still
do.
(03:32):
And people said hey, you'rereally pretty good at that.
Why don't you do more thanjust real estate?
And so I have and 2017 alone,I was about 100 all day seminars,
workshops on bettercommunication skills, leadership
team building and, and it'ssomething that I really enjoyed.
I was with another service atthat time and there's some things
(03:57):
like with any employee youagree with, you don't agree with.
And so I just kind of decidedto go out on my own.
And so that's what I've done.
And now I work with small tomedium sized businesses and help
them grow their production byinvesting in their people.
(04:20):
Freight shippers.
Are you tired of dealing withunreliable freight brokers?
Tired of delays, misseddelivery appointments and no one
to talk to?
Tired of unpleasant surprises,reclass re ways and the invoice always
being higher than the quote?
Well, you can enjoy a betterfreight experience with SPI logistics.
(04:41):
I joined SPI as a freightagent to deliver that better freight
experience to our three PL customers.
SPI has 30,000 vetted andapproved carriers, all modes of transportation.
So we can tailor the equipmentto the shipment and the fully trained
and experienced operationsteam who is always available to help.
And you'll get the samequality customer service that you've
(05:02):
come to expect when you dealwith me.
If you've got freight to move,go to freightbydave.com that's Freight
by Dave.
All right, so quite, quite aninteresting journey you've had up
until now.
So you, you started theentrepreneurial stuff I guess with
doing, doing the, you know,real estate.
(05:26):
Right.
In terms of being a realtor.
And then you started trainingother like other realtors and then
that, that led to peopleasking you to train other other types
of positions.
Yeah, yeah.
And, and the thing for me wasI think I knew early on, especially
after the army, I mean I'mproud of my service.
(05:46):
I was honorably discharged andeverything but for me I just, I just
knew that that was, you know,not the road I wanted to go.
I really wanted to just be myown boss and There's a lot of freedom
that comes with being your own boss.
But then some days, your, Yourown boss can be a real jerk and just
(06:09):
not, not, you know.
You know, some days are rough.
Some days are rough, andthat's just kind of the way it is.
But you take the good with thebad and you just keep moving forward.
All right, so that.
With the seminars.
So you got like, how, how didthat develop when you, you got, I
guess, recruited to be withthe seminar company?
(06:31):
Is that what it was?
Yeah, yeah.
I was with them for about twoand a half, three years.
And.
And it's a good company.
It's called Skill Path.
A lot of people have heard ofthem, and they also own another company
as well, so you would be undereither of those flagships.
But after a few years ofteaching that information, some people
(06:54):
started asking me certainquote, well, what about this, what
about that?
And so I just kind of startedgiving my own experience or expertise.
And after a while, I startedputting together my own.
My own curriculum.
And so I would write all these.
I would just write, Writethings down, any ideas that I had
that could have been morebeneficial to the workshop that I
(07:15):
was conducting.
And that was the thing thatgave me the flexibility.
They said you have to teachall of these, you know, 21 or however
many topics, aspects, but youcan add on to it.
And so sometimes I would beadding a lot.
Maybe about a third of theworkshop would be stuff that was
beneficial for the attendees.
(07:35):
But I just, I just startedcreating my own.
My own curriculum.
Okay.
And then, so you, you getasked questions, you're creating
the curriculum, you realizethat you have a lot more to share
than kind of the box you're inwith, you know, with the corporate
company.
And then what, like, what,what made you finally decide to go
(07:55):
out on your own?
Like I say, great company.
And there's, there's abouthalf a dozen of those types of companies,
but they all seem to runpretty much on the same model.
Fred Pryor is another one thatwas kind of, kind of the original
one.
And everybody else is copying them.
(08:16):
They don't pay.
Well, they do pay your, Yourexpenses, all your travel.
And so I would go out on theroad and I would be.
They would fly me into an areaand then I would rent a car, and
for the whole week I would bein four or five different cities
day after day, and then they'dfly me back home.
(08:36):
But you really did not makethat much money at it.
And so I just, I just thought,you know, look, I Enjoy.
I enjoy travel and I enjoy training.
I love to see those littlelight bulbs come on.
But I just thought I could doa better job with my, some of my
(08:56):
own material and, and, andjust kind of focus instead of just
inviting the public.
And I have done some publicworkshops but really my niche now
is try to, for corporate clients.
And so I've got, I've got someclients who will bring me back each
year to do a couple of hoursof managerial training for their
(09:21):
management.
And that's really, really veryimportant because about three or
four years ago Forbes wrote anarticle and they had actually linked
up with career builders to dothe study and they found that I think
it's about 80, it's over 80%.
I want to say it's 82% of allfirst time managers have received
(09:45):
not just a little bit ofmanagement training.
None, zero, nothing at all.
And so I have something fordifferent tiers of management.
I have done billion dollarcorporations and, and help facilitate
their strategic planning forthe year.
But then I've also done whereif this is your first time as a manager,
(10:07):
here we go.
And I wrote a book that isessentially the, the eight Managerial
challenges.
And there's eight things inthere that I talk about that seem
to be constant, repetitivemistakes that managers make and how
to overcome those and breakthat cycle.
(10:28):
Okay, all right.
So you found a niche therewithin training, training managers
specifically.
Even wrote a book.
Let me just ask you, so whenyou made the decision to go out on
your own like what was it,what was it like getting started
in terms of, did things takeoff like you expected?
No, no, I, I think I reallydid not calculate and I had done
(10:58):
things in sales but didn'treally calculate the amount of time
and effort that would be putinto business development.
And it's just the sales callsand I'm fine with rejection.
But you know, you have tounderstand as an entrepreneur, if
you're, if you're a one trickpony and you, and, and that's what
(11:19):
I am, I may ring on some moretrainers eventually.
But everything that I do is,is from me.
And you just really have to goout and kind of hit the bricks and
so to speak, call people andcall on corporations and you know,
if they're.
(11:39):
What I found is that my sweetspot is a company that will have
between 12 and 200 employees.
Because if you get to acompany that has three or 400 employees,
they probably have their,their in house trainer.
And even if that trainer isdoing more of the technical side
(11:59):
of things, they may say, well,we'll just task this person to do
some of the professdevelopment like managerial training.
And that may not necessarilybe their, their skill set, but it's,
it's hard to get in when theyhave a, someone's name on a door
and it says trainer.
So a lot of the smallercompanies are really just kind of
(12:21):
struggling to get their peopleon board with what makes for good
leadership.
Okay.
And so you, you encounteredsome early resistance.
Like how, how did you overcome that?
Well, I have a pretty goodsupport system of other trainers,
(12:42):
other corporate facilitators,and you would think that we would
all be sort of at odds withone another, but most professional
speakers are actually prettygiving of their experience and their
wisdom.
And so I have some very goodpeople that I would call on and just
(13:02):
kind of ask, you know, what doyou think of this marketing idea?
Or you know, what do I need todo in terms of, you know, just getting
in front of more, more peopleand one bit of, and, and that's where
you have to have enough ofyour own experience to understand
when you are getting reallygood information.
(13:25):
And most of the time I, I do,but then when something is just not
going to fit for your, yourcorporate culture for what you do.
And I've had several peoplewho are great public speakers, you
know, they're making 30,$40,000 a speech.
(13:47):
One speech will tell me that,you know, well, you need to pick
your lane.
I can't tell you how manytimes I've heard that, a thousand
times you got to pick your lane.
And basically you develop onespeech, maybe two, that's kind of
a derivative of the first one,and you just stick with that and
you just present that over andover and over again and no doubt
(14:10):
they make a lot of money at it.
But I don't know, Dave, maybeI have ADHD or something.
I can't, I can't just do theone thing for the rest of my life.
So what's different is that Ireally am a, a school, if you will,
and I can teach all of those,those things as it comes to professional
development, like bettercommunication skills.
(14:31):
I don't teach accounting,bookkeeping, you know, how to clean
machinery or anything like that.
But, but yeah, yeah, andthat's just, that's just, that's
it.
You know, if you can find anumber of good people and, and there's
a guy, Terry, really goodfriend of mine, who was really instrumental
and helping me out and justkind of shedding light on a lot of
(14:54):
things and pointing me in theright direction.
So you just, you just takethat from, you got to build your
support group so you have togo out and you have to meet some
of these people.
And, and I've actually heardthat Dave, from a lot of people in
various industries that the socalled competitors are actually very,
(15:15):
very helpful and gettingothers started.
Okay, interesting.
All right, so you're dealingwith this niche of small businesses
like you said, 12 to 200employees typically.
And you're focusing onmanagerial and leadership training
and those types of skills.
When you're working with thesecompanies, what do you find are some
(15:38):
of the biggest challenges thatthey're having?
Well, the nice thing about themanagerial, if they want me to, if
they want to bring me in forfirst time managers sort of workshop
or new to management.
Workshop is that's, that'spretty much the case.
And I can just outline and gothrough the information there.
(15:59):
But sometimes I'll talk to anowner or someone in the C suite and
you know, they'll say that,well, you know, here's a challenge
and I try to, I try todiagnose before I, before I prescribe
to find out what is it thatthey want to see accomplished at
the end of the workshop,what's their result that they are
(16:21):
looking for rather than justwhat I think they need.
But sometimes that might comeat odds they'll be describing something.
And, and I'm thinking, okay,well so you know, do you need some
leadership training formanagement or for even the C suite
maybe?
And like, no, they're just notdoing what it is that we want them
(16:43):
to do.
Well, okay, you know,communication is the foundation of
good leadership.
And so sometimes it might bethat the people are, you know, they're
a good group of people.
But maybe leadership is, is,is the people who need to hear, hear
the message.
(17:04):
And so you gotta kind of bedelicate about that and still provide
what it is that they bring youin for.
But then you know, you have tokind of tell them, you know, look,
you know, yeah, you're, you'rekind of micromanaging everyone.
And I call micromanagementtraining for failure.
Because when you micromanagepeople then what you're telling them
(17:29):
is that their work doesn'tmatter and that you were going to
come around the next day andchange up everything anyway.
So they just shrug and say,well, why should I even try?
And so I, I've, I've had thatconversation, you know, like, you
know, I think your level ofguidance, they always call it guidance
(17:51):
is a little overbearing and ifyou just give them some free rein,
let them.
But what if they make a mistake?
And I always assure them theywill make mistakes, but let them
make the $10 mistakes versusthe $10,000 mistakes and just let
them sort of grow into theposition that you hired them for
in the first place.
(18:12):
Yeah, I love that.
Micromanaging is training for failure.
That's.
I haven't heard it put thatway, but that.
That makes perfect sense.
Well, it's in my book.
All right.
And so speaking of your book,you've written three books, is that
right?
I have.
The first one was ManagerialMisunderstandings, Missteps, and
(18:33):
Miscommunications.
I think I named it there justto trip up podcast hosts so they
can't repeat it.
So I'm actually going to berebranding that hopefully next month
as the eight Managerial Challenges.
And that's the first one thatI wrote, and then the second one
that came out a little over ayear ago is the Individual Team,
(18:57):
How Fairness Wrecked the Workplace.
And, I mean, it's.
It pretty much goes to that.
It's not a political book, butin today's culture, Dave, you really
kind of have to hit some of the.
The.
The nonsense that's just going on.
And so I've had owners andleaders and managers say, you know,
(19:20):
Blaine, I know my people loveme because I'm.
I'm fair with them.
I treat them all the same.
You're making your people madand resent you because people are
not the same.
And if they're on your directteam, you really have to get to know
them and their personality,and that's just a.
A really big part of it.
(19:41):
But this.
This issue of sameness is a farce.
It doesn't work.
People resent that, and you'llget the most out of them by pushing
them towards their excellence,their personal best.
Okay.
All right.
And, you know, you launchedyour professional speaking career.
(20:03):
I think you said you went onyour own 2017.
Is.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah, I was actuallydoing training.
I've been.
I've been doing training forabout 20 years, but, yeah, to go
with momentum seminars,training and coaching.
Yeah, about.
About 2017.
2018.
Okay.
And then as.
As we progressed a few years in.
(20:24):
One of the things, the eventsthat was very tough on the live event
in the speaking space was.
Was the pandemic.
So what was that process like,you know, navigating the change in
the world when no one reallyknew what was going on at first?
Yeah, a few things.
I learned a lot, which is great.
I'm still here.
(20:45):
You know, I was, I was, I hadbeen writing my first book, the eight
managerial change challengesfor about two and a half, three years
when Covet hit in 2021.
And so a lot of people willask me, hey, how do you, what does
it take to write a book?
And I tell them three yearsplus a pandemic.
(21:07):
Because I had nothing else todo, all my gigs canceled, we weren't
having conferences anymore.
And so I had no excuse to notfinish that book and I did.
And one of those chapters wascalled the Individual Team.
It's exactly what I was justtalking about a few, few minutes
(21:28):
ago is this issue of sameness,treating everyone the same and how
that's, that's actually disruptive.
That brought about the secondbook that I wrote.
And.
But yeah, I tell everyonethree and a half, about three years
in a, in a pandemic.
But I also had to get verygood at webinars because people still
(21:51):
needed some training and therewere still conferences and they just
online and they wanted akeynote speaker to do about a 45
minute motivational speech.
I hate being called amotivational speaker because I just,
you know, we may.
It's hard to say that I'mgoing to motivate someone to do something,
(22:11):
but yet I'm not in their life.
So it, but anyway, just as aprofessional speaker, I had to get
really good at webinars.
And it's a different craftwriting, public speaking, webinars,
coaching, one on one.
Those are all different crafts.
The information is the same,but they have to be delivered in
(22:33):
different ways.
And so I, I think I reallyjust learned a lot.
And in fact I, you know, youremind me.
I, I really haven't beenpursuing a lot of webinars.
They're still around.
People love to get back inperson again.
But yes, there are somewebinars still around and I need
to, I need to contact andfollow up on more of those.
(22:54):
Okay, all right.
And then with everythingyou've, you've overcome and grown
your business over the, thesepast seven, eight years.
So what is, what does it looklike for you in, in 2025?
What does your business look like?
2025?
I am, I'm not a revolutionary.
I believe that if you want todevelop your business or to develop
(23:18):
you, don't wait till January 1st.
That's just, that's ridiculous.
Don't wait to make a NewYear's revolution just, or a resolution,
just wherever you are, just begin.
But I did start back in lateNovember for about a year, about
12 months.
I wanted to do a number ofthese sort of wonderful podcasts
(23:41):
and radio shows and TV andjust have about 75 different media
outlets.
Also gonna just kind of holdmy feet to the fire a little bit
more with being consciousabout my calling.
I'm in business developmentbecause I'm the type of person to
(24:04):
where I'll make a bunch ofcalls and I'll prospect and then
I'll get, you know, three orfour things lined up, and I focus
on those things and want togive really great customer service.
And I drop the sales calling,the prospecting, and then I gotta
start all over again.
So those are a couple ofthings that I'm going to do.
(24:25):
But, you know, rather thansaying I want to make X amount of
money, it really is kind of.
It's the tasks that you dothat bring you to the goal.
That's what's important.
And so just with those coupleof things, getting my name out and
making good qualityprospecting calls, that's gonna.
(24:46):
That's gonna really make thedifference in 2025.
All right, and.
And Blaine, if people want toget in touch with you and learn more
about your training or.
Or any of the work you do, what.
What's the best way people canreach out to you?
Best thing to do is just asyou can see my.
Whoops.
See my.
My URL up there.
Momentum seminars dot com.
(25:06):
You can find out me.
You can purchase any of mybooks there.
I have three books.
I've got another one oninterpersonal communications, which
should be out in February,early March at the latest.
And that's the best way tocontact me.
All my contact information is there.
All right, and we'll link allthat in the show notes for everyone.
(25:27):
All right, well, Blaine, thankyou so much for taking the time to
be here and sharing all thiswisdom with.
From your journey with our audience.
We greatly appreciate it.
Thank you, Dave.
I appreciate you having me.
All right, and that's all thetime we have for now.
We will see you next.
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