March 12, 2024 • 24 mins
When the precision of military leadership meets the fluidity of corporate management, magic happens. That's precisely what Tom Geyer, the brain behind No Label Leadership, brings to the table in a thought-provoking conversation that spans the breadth of his colorful career. From the disciplined ranks of the Army and Air Force to the innovation-driven floors of Amazon and Chewy, Tom's tale is a masterclass in adaptability and the art of people-centric leadership. Throughout our dialogue, we unravel how navigating crises shapes unwavering leaders and why prioritizing your team's well-being can spearhead transformational change in any organization.
Strap in as we venture beyond the boundaries of traditional business approaches and into the digital age, where AI and SaaS are no longer buzzwords but essential tools in our entrepreneurial toolkit. Tapping into the power of technology, Tom and I dissect the role of AI in refining communication and the strategic use of apps to keep tasks in check. But it isn't all algorithms and interfaces; we underline the human element by examining how partnerships and mentorships can be the fertile ground for business growth. As we wrap up, insights flow on leveraging local business resources and networking channels to fortify your business presence. Tom Geyer's wisdom is a beacon for those steering through the complex world of entrepreneurship, and this deep-dive is your compass.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey folks, welcome back to the growing Lean podcast
sponsored by Lean DiscoveryGroup.
This is your host, dylan Burke,also known as Dij.
I'm happy to be here today withTom Geyer, founder of no Label
Leadership.
Welcome, tom.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thanks, Dij pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's a pleasure to have you on the show, so can you
get us started and give us alittle bit about your background
, your history and how you endedup doing what you do?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Absolutely so.
When I graduated high school at18, I joined the military.
Did not know what I wanted tobe when I grew up, spent four
years in the army and decidedthat wasn't quite for me.
It's been about six months as acivilian after that.
Didn't enjoy that either, so Iwent back in the military, did
about a year of National Guard.
Wasn't quite enough.
(00:53):
And then I did 20 years in theAir Force.
My first 13 was the Air ForceIntelligence Analyst and my last
seven was as a first Sergeant,and that's really where the
leadership thing grew.
I had a lot of leadership as anintelligence analyst I haven't
become an NCO, anon-commissioned officer and as
a Sergeant I was in charge of alot of folks and managing
(01:14):
programs, but also leadingpeople Ended up not enjoying the
intelligence side as much asthe people side and had an
opportunity to volunteer to be afirst Sergeant, which is all
about taking care of people.
So anything you can imaginesomebody goes through in life
financial struggles, mentalstrife, mental health struggles,
you name it.
I probably have seen it and Ireally enjoyed helping people
(01:37):
get through those struggles andcome out stronger on the other
side, and so that led me toretire from the Air Force after
24 years, went to Amazon for ayear and then Chewie for about
two years, and then to start anold-level leadership and really
dive into helping others becomeleaders, both of themselves and
of their teams.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's amazing.
Well, firstly, thanks for yourservice.
That's a long time to be in theArmy, and when did you found
no-level leadership?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So it's kind of an interesting story, I suppose.
But the short version is when Ileft Amazon, I really didn't
have a backup at the time anddecided to go ahead and
establish a business.
I jumped into John Maxwellleadership and got on to that
team, got immediately certifiedas a disc trainer and then a
consultant and I really formallyestablished my business the 3rd
(02:33):
of November of 2022.
So it was sort of born out ofslash COVID, slash not having
another job when I left Amazon.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Okay, awesome, and could you run us through your
overall business strategy?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, I think about this often.
I'm like, well, do I have astrategy?
Because a strategy is alwaysabout how you get to a spot, and
I'm not a businessman by nature.
I never saw myself as much ofan entrepreneur, so the more I
think about this, the more it'sreally just I want to help
(03:12):
people and teams be the bestthat they can, and how I do that
is through assessments,coaching, training, conversation
and observation so just reallybeing in the moment with people.
I know that's not much of astrategy in most cases, but
that's kind of my strategy.
I'm intentional about beingwith the people and not probably
(03:35):
intentional enough about mybusiness.
I suppose is one way to look atit, which is not very helpful.
I realize it's a strategy, butI'm still pretty new in trying
to figure that part out.
I do know that I've got a lotof tools out there that I'm not
leveraging yet, so I've beenresearching a lot of different
things, from AI to apps to otherservices that can help me out.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Okay, amazing.
Well, look, if it works, itworks If you get results.
It doesn't matter if you have astrategy or not.
I like to live by that, Thankyou.
So you say it.
This was born out of thepandemic and all that.
Can you tell me a little bitmore about that and how that
(04:20):
impacted what you do, Because itwas obviously a crazy time for
everyone.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yes, it was so.
You saw, during the pandemic alot of people kind of we had the
great resignation, but a lot ofpeople also became kind of
listless, resigned to theirhomes.
They had to now lead smallgroups as their family, or they
found other jobs.
You know, they had to leave onethat totally shut down to go to
another one that was going toremain open, and warehousing was
(04:46):
one of them.
Amazon was a big one, rightState, open.
They just changed their rulesand leadership there just had a
hard time, like, how do we leadto crisis?
And so when I left the militarybecause I only spent, oh gosh,
nine, maybe about nine months ofthe pandemic in the military
and we handled it, I think,pretty well in the military we
(05:09):
were used to crisis and leadingthrough something like that, but
the civilians weren't.
So when I got to Amazon, it wasa little bit of chaos and I
just really wanted to help folksdo better.
So I started to dive even moreinto leadership.
I had always been an avidreader about it.
It's been a passion of mine formore than a decade where, like,
that's my hobby.
So when I'm done with work, Iwould go home and read about
(05:30):
leadership and listen topodcasts about it, and it really
just was born of that andunderstanding that people needed
more help with it.
There was a leadership deficit,especially in crisis.
How do we improve that?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Okay, a hundred percent.
And yeah, I remember there wasa huge controversy with Amazon
and forcing the employees to goback.
What was your position atAmazon?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I started out as a well, not started out, I was an
operations manager.
Same thing I do it chewy and itwas a operations manager is
about three or four levelsremoved from the floor level
employee, depending on kind ofhow you count it, Cause we got
some some lateral, parallelpositions as well.
But you've got operationsmanager, area managers, Then you
(06:18):
have your process leads andyour your floor personnel.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Okay, great, and what was there?
A bit of leadership in thatrole.
Is that something that was partof your?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah.
So, the operations manager isresponsible and in particular I
was.
I was handling all of thepicking, so grabbing all of the
items, getting them into totesand sending them down the line
to get packaged and shipped out.
So the picking department,along with quality assurance,
(06:48):
was, was my folks and as anoperations manager I had to plan
the shift and lead us tosuccess based off of that plan.
So I had to make sure that youknow if there were crises or
things that came up, I led theteam through that.
I had to educate my team onbetter leadership.
When we had something shut downwhether it was the whole, you
(07:10):
know the electricity went out orwe just had a couple of pieces
of machinery go down, you know Ihad to work with maintenance to
get that fixed, all those kindsof things.
So it was just that leadershipagainst still kind of in crisis,
not even just the pandemic, butthose small crises.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, 100%, and I can imagine there was a crazy time
at Amazon because it there was ahuge surge in e-commerce and
online shopping bred from thepandemic, so it must have been a
while time to be there.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
It was and you know it was.
It was a bit compounded by thepersonal nature of the pandemic
because people were bringingthemselves to work.
They really were they.
They weren't really leavinganything at the door.
You know, I have thesestruggles, these concerns from
what's going on outside.
They brought it into work andthey, they needed somebody to
talk to, they needed a way towork that out and you know
(08:01):
Amazon and other workplacesreally, I think, did try to
figure out how do we do that?
I know, I know I did and myteam wanted to help our folks
out.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So, yeah, 100%, and I want to go back to no label
leadership.
What has been the biggestchallenge that you've faced in?
Mostly launching and runningand growing with business
challenges, man.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
You know I was my biggest obstacle.
If I'm really honest about it,my biggest challenge with no
label leadership has just been.
So I mentioned I do discassessments right and on the
disc assessment as a behavioralindicator, I'm a high I and my
biggest fear as a high I, as aninfluencer, is fear of rejection
(08:47):
, and I've always been that waytoo.
I think that my, my levels onthe disc have probably changed
through the years, although Iwouldn't know because I didn't
take it as a child, but I'vealways been really fearful of
that not that everybody isn't,but it's kind of been like it
paralyzes me sometimes, and sojumping into a business, even as
an adult, even as a militaryretiree, was scary.
(09:10):
I really had to push throughthat and say you know what?
There's never going to be thebest time for this.
There's never.
I'm never going to be fullyready.
I just need to do it.
I, as long as I'm working on it,I'm getting the training, I'm
learning things, I'm connectingwith people, and as long as I
keep it centered on other people, I find that that really helps
(09:31):
when I'm working my leadershipon a team on Amazon or chewy, or
for a team that I am helping asa client who's my client, it's
it really.
If it stays about them, it'sleadership.
I'm really doing something thatis bigger than myself.
But if I start to make it aboutmyself, that rejection starts
(09:51):
to set in and it starts to feelvery different.
So I just try to keep itfocused on them and push through
my fear of possible rejection.
So that was my my biggest one, Ithink.
Aside from that, I just had to.
I had to overcome my lack ofknowledge of business and
marketing, both how to run abusiness and how to market
(10:12):
myself, which I'm still learning.
I'm not I'm not a very goodself salesman in most cases, so
I'm still working on that one.
So those are probably I wouldsay those are the biggest ones.
I've definitely stepped in it afew times with clients too.
So learning humility might havebeen the fourth one, I guess,
which is an important onebecause that builds credibility
with clients.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
And who is your typical client?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Oh, typical, I would say typical.
Right now I'm really focused ontrying to capture the attention
of local small government, sotownships, boroughs, as well as
nonprofits, where I'm not somuch working them as a client,
it's just volunteer time.
I recently connected withBethany house in Cumberland
County here in Pennsylvania.
They do help young ladies whoare about to age out of the
(11:00):
foster care system or who arehomeless.
I've got a couple of otherssimilar to that that help out
boys and girls, just reallytrying to find those that are
most in need, those that justdon't have a whole lot of help.
Small government doesn'tusually have a whole lot of help
because they don't have a bigbudget.
(11:21):
And then you know folks in thefoster care system, those kids,
they they've just been left outto dry in many cases and they
don't.
They don't have a lot ofresources.
So just trying to figure outhow to help them.
And then another one I've beenreally working on getting into,
which is hard because I don'thave all of the the required
federal numbers yet.
But I want to work with veteransor those who are about to leave
(11:43):
the service.
So I'd love to connect with theDOD and help veterans that they
transition out because theyhave a transition assistance
program.
Great information.
It's a really wonderful program.
There's some assistance there,but there's not a lot of warm
hands.
They only have one part of itthat hands off a veteran to the
job centers, america's jobcenters, and it still just
(12:04):
doesn't seem like enough.
They need someone else and it'syou know, it's a team sport.
This life that we have, weshould play it together.
So I really want to get inthere and help somebody 100%.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
That's amazing.
I love your passion for helpingpeople.
It's it's becoming more andmore rare these days and it's
very admirable.
I love that.
And how do you measure thesuccess of what you do in terms
of, firstly, your businessmetrics and the people that
you're helping?
How do you measure, like, howwell you've done with him?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
I love this question and I actually have to reference
back.
You had Dr Burl Randolph Jr onseveral episodes ago A great
episode and I really loved whathe said and it's what I've been
saying all along.
Is my clients all I asked themwhat does success look like to
you when we get to the end ofthis, or even at the middle of
it?
What does success look like toyou?
(13:02):
Write those things down.
Okay, we're at the middle orthe end.
Did we hit the mark?
If you say we were successful,I am successful, then I have hit
the mark.
So it's all really measured on.
Did the client feel like weachieved what they set out to
achieve?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Okay, amazing, yeah for sure.
And where do you see yourindustry heading in the next
couple of years?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
What I see right now it appears like leadership in
general is heading towards afocus on children in the grade
school, high school.
There's not a lot of curriculumthat teaches children
values-based leadership, so weare seeing a lot of that.
John Maxwell and his Maxwellleadership team has ILEAD, which
is a curriculum for leadershipthat's working its way into the
(13:55):
school systems.
Officially, I believe, itstarted out of South Carolina
and it's starting to make itsway into some other states.
There's other countries thatare already running it as part
of their national schoolprograms.
So that's one area, and I thinkthat there's more and more talk
about servant leadership, whilewe see a deficit right now in
that there's a lot more talkabout it.
You hear a lot from Simon Sinekand some of these other big
(14:20):
leadership thought leaders thatreally talk about focus on the
team, the group, the tribe takecare of these people because
it's so important, because whenyou go down they're gonna help
you and I just I really see theheart of humanity starting to
want to go that direction.
It might not necessarily bethere yet, but I do think it's
(14:42):
gonna get there.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Okay, amazing, yeah for sure.
And are you making use of allthe technology that's at your
disposal in your business interms of AI and all these, like
SaaS products that are availableto help you be more efficient
and operate smoothly?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
All of them?
No, I'm sure I'm not.
I do use.
I use chat GPT here and there.
Mostly I'll come up withsomething.
I'll write something for asocial post or I'll write a
document, even a contract, for aclient, and I'll run it through
chat GPT, like keep the tonethe same, because a lot of times
(15:28):
I'll stray off my tone orsomething, and it'll help me get
that right or it might catchsomething I missed.
I might say you know, evaluatethis for X, y, whatever, and you
know it'll give me somethoughts on what I might have
missed for something there.
And I've used it for a fewother things as well, but that's
kind of been the the crux.
For the most part I love my iPad.
I absolutely dive intonotability on my iPad all the
(15:52):
time.
It's where all my notes arekept.
Most recently there's an appout there called structured that
I absolutely love.
Having come from the military,I like structure in my day and I
have found that doing my ownbusiness and not being not going
to the warehouse anymore, Ivery much find my day is get
(16:13):
away from me, and Structured hashelped me build my day out
better than a calendar and itreally just outlines my day, I
could set my timeline and I'mhitting all my marks, so I just
feel much more productive withthat now.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Okay, yeah, that's awesome.
I also use chat gpt a lot.
I'm not really for contentgeneration, because I find it
sometimes it's a bit generic andobvious, but for spell check,
grammar checks, for compilinglists, eating plans, exercise
plans, everything like that.
(16:46):
Yeah, it's actuallyunbelievable what you can do
with that.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
You know, where I found it really helpful was when
I was writing something and Ihave a tendency to write out of.
I Like to use big wordssometimes and I'm working on
bringing that down, so I'llwrite something and I'll say,
okay, write that, for you know,a high school graduate, because
I want to pitch something tohigh school students that are
graduating, and It'll help mebring that language down to
(17:13):
something that just makes moresense.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Take those yeah hundred other words out exactly
if I see a post about likeCrypto or something that and I
don't understand the words thatthey're using I put it in and
I'm like Please explain this tome as if I was a 12 year old and
it's actually amazing.
It's so cool.
Do you have any partnerships orcollaborations within the
(17:39):
business, or is it just yousolely running the business?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So I do run my business as a sole
proprietorship but, like I said,life is a team sport, so I
don't go out of the loan either,aside from Bethany house.
So I've partnered ship just forthe like, you know, volunteer
and stuff.
But I learned things from allclients, even those guys at
Bethany house.
In particular, my bestpartnership right now is Steve
(18:08):
gobel from the global group.
He's out of Lancaster PA, samebusiness.
He was part of the originalfounding team of the Maxwell
leadership team back when it wasthe John Maxwell leadership
team and I Connected with himthrough LinkedIn actually, which
is another one of my favoriteplatforms.
I absolutely love LinkedInconnected with him and I just
(18:31):
he's been a great mentor, agreat friend, you know, guided
me through some things.
We partnered on running theleadership game.
He hooked me up with that withone of my clients, ran the
leadership game and, you know,just to help give me some
pointers and some perspective,and you know those partnerships
are super invaluable.
I have some others in the workstoo, but that's been the most
(18:53):
impactful by far.
So, while I run it myself, it'sit's a team sport.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Okay, amazing, amazing.
And If we were to sit downagain in 12 months time and
Everything's gone right for yourbusiness, everything that could
go right has.
What does your business looklike and what has changed?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
And I think in 12 months it's not unrealistic and
my goal is really to be prettyclose to my goal has been
750,000 a year, maybe even amillion, but 750 because I'm not
looking to be making the bigbucks.
(19:34):
For me it's about helping thepeople and living comfortably.
I got to provide for my wife,right?
I've been married for 25 yearsso I want to take care of the
woman that supported me for thatall that time, and so I would
say somewhere betweenthree-quarter and a million
dollars a year in the business,but mostly that we would have
clients who have looked back andsaid you know, our small
(19:56):
business, our small governmentsector, has done really well
because Thomas come in and beenable to help us see through the
pain points, see through themissed communications, the
working in silos, helped usbuild language around what we
were missing, those kinds ofthings.
That means more to me even thanthe money.
(20:18):
To be really straightforwardwith you, I want people to be
helped.
I want no label leadership tothat business.
Maybe I expand to an LLC.
That's a possibility.
Grab a partner, I wouldn't mindthat and I would definitely
like the name to be out there.
From a dream perspective, I getan opportunity to be like on
(20:44):
the John Maxwell podcast orSimon Sinek or something like
that, because I just reviewthose guys.
I think they've been justfantastic.
Pat Lanchoni would be anotherone.
I'd love to be on a podcastwith those guys too.
This is fantastic.
I mean, I would have neverguessed this opportunity to come
up either.
So, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
That's awesome, and what do you have to do to get to
your financial goal?
You don't have to give too muchaway, but what do you need to
do in terms of customeracquisition, et cetera, to get
to $750 to a million?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
It's more about the consistency of closing with
clients.
I have a lot of conversations,I go to events and talk to a lot
of people.
I've given myself the firstquarter of next year to really
lock down dare I say perfect myability to close with clients.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Okay, 100%.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
And that will do it.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Are your clients?
Are most of them retained?
Is it like an ongoing thing ordo you contract for a couple of
months at a time?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah.
So it's mostly more likecontract for a few months at a
time kind of thing.
Or hey, here's the contract,we're going to do X, Y and Z and
we'll work the timeline as wego.
So it's not necessarily likewe'll do three months or six
months, it's we'll do thesethings and we'll get it done in
your time.
(22:19):
I don't like to rush my clients.
If they feel things are movingtoo fast, we're going to slow it
down.
And if it's moving super slowand they're like we got to pick
it up, then we'll pick it up.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Okay, that's awesome.
I love it.
And what advice would you liketo give to other business owners
looking to succeed?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
That's a big question for such a young company.
Go for it, you know, go all inas far as you can.
If you're all in is $100, thengo in $100.
If you've got $500,000, then goin $500,000.
Like I said earlier, there'snever the best time.
Someday is not a day of theweek, so you can't keep putting
(23:04):
it off.
You're never really going to beready and you're never really
good the first time.
So go for it.
Don't worry about the fears.
It will take care of itself.
Most of our fears are justprojections in our mind.
They're not real.
So go for it.
Just don't go at it alone.
Buying mentors there's so manyresources from things like small
(23:26):
business associations.
Chambers of commerce arefantastic.
They're so underrated.
My Carlisle Chamber of Commercehas been phenomenal and I'm a
fairly new member and then justreaching out to other
entrepreneurs and other businesspersons to say what have you
done?
What worked?
It does help if you're notafraid to say I don't really
(23:48):
know the rules and I don't care.
So I kind of just do what Ithink I need to do, even if it's
not the normal way a businesswould go about doing that.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Amazing.
I love that.
Thank you so much, and Tom,thanks for your time today.
We have come to the end of theshow.
What is the best way for peopleto reach out to Tom Gaia if
you've got any offers for themor if they're looking to follow
your journey?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
So all of my basic information and an ability to
contact me is found on mywebsite.
No label leadership, all oneword nolabeledeadershipcom.
That's the easiest way to findme, but I am on social media the
big ones with Facebook andInstagram at no label leadership
.
And then I can be found onformerly known as Twitter, now X
as no label leader, and yeah,those are the best ways to reach
(24:39):
me.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Tom.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Thanks Dij, thanks Dij.
Hey folks, welcome back to the growing Lean podcast
sponsored by Lean DiscoveryGroup.
This is your host, dylan Burke,also known as Dij.
I'm happy to be here today withTom Geyer, founder of no Label
Leadership.
Welcome, tom.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thanks, Dij pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's a pleasure to have you on the show, so can you
get us started and give us alittle bit about your background
, your history and how you endedup doing what you do?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Absolutely so.
When I graduated high school at18, I joined the military.
Did not know what I wanted tobe when I grew up, spent four
years in the army and decidedthat wasn't quite for me.
It's been about six months as acivilian after that.
Didn't enjoy that either, so Iwent back in the military, did
about a year of National Guard.
Wasn't quite enough.
(00:53):
And then I did 20 years in theAir Force.
My first 13 was the Air ForceIntelligence Analyst and my last
seven was as a first Sergeant,and that's really where the
leadership thing grew.
I had a lot of leadership as anintelligence analyst I haven't
become an NCO, anon-commissioned officer and as
a Sergeant I was in charge of alot of folks and managing
(01:14):
programs, but also leadingpeople Ended up not enjoying the
intelligence side as much asthe people side and had an
opportunity to volunteer to be afirst Sergeant, which is all
about taking care of people.
So anything you can imaginesomebody goes through in life
financial struggles, mentalstrife, mental health struggles,
you name it.
I probably have seen it and Ireally enjoyed helping people
(01:37):
get through those struggles andcome out stronger on the other
side, and so that led me toretire from the Air Force after
24 years, went to Amazon for ayear and then Chewie for about
two years, and then to start anold-level leadership and really
dive into helping others becomeleaders, both of themselves and
of their teams.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's amazing.
Well, firstly, thanks for yourservice.
That's a long time to be in theArmy, and when did you found
no-level leadership?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So it's kind of an interesting story, I suppose.
But the short version is when Ileft Amazon, I really didn't
have a backup at the time anddecided to go ahead and
establish a business.
I jumped into John Maxwellleadership and got on to that
team, got immediately certifiedas a disc trainer and then a
consultant and I really formallyestablished my business the 3rd
(02:33):
of November of 2022.
So it was sort of born out ofslash COVID, slash not having
another job when I left Amazon.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Okay, awesome, and could you run us through your
overall business strategy?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, I think about this often.
I'm like, well, do I have astrategy?
Because a strategy is alwaysabout how you get to a spot, and
I'm not a businessman by nature.
I never saw myself as much ofan entrepreneur, so the more I
think about this, the more it'sreally just I want to help
(03:12):
people and teams be the bestthat they can, and how I do that
is through assessments,coaching, training, conversation
and observation so just reallybeing in the moment with people.
I know that's not much of astrategy in most cases, but
that's kind of my strategy.
I'm intentional about beingwith the people and not probably
(03:35):
intentional enough about mybusiness.
I suppose is one way to look atit, which is not very helpful.
I realize it's a strategy, butI'm still pretty new in trying
to figure that part out.
I do know that I've got a lotof tools out there that I'm not
leveraging yet, so I've beenresearching a lot of different
things, from AI to apps to otherservices that can help me out.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Okay, amazing.
Well, look, if it works, itworks If you get results.
It doesn't matter if you have astrategy or not.
I like to live by that, Thankyou.
So you say it.
This was born out of thepandemic and all that.
Can you tell me a little bitmore about that and how that
(04:20):
impacted what you do, Because itwas obviously a crazy time for
everyone.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yes, it was so.
You saw, during the pandemic alot of people kind of we had the
great resignation, but a lot ofpeople also became kind of
listless, resigned to theirhomes.
They had to now lead smallgroups as their family, or they
found other jobs.
You know, they had to leave onethat totally shut down to go to
another one that was going toremain open, and warehousing was
(04:46):
one of them.
Amazon was a big one, rightState, open.
They just changed their rulesand leadership there just had a
hard time, like, how do we leadto crisis?
And so when I left the militarybecause I only spent, oh gosh,
nine, maybe about nine months ofthe pandemic in the military
and we handled it, I think,pretty well in the military we
(05:09):
were used to crisis and leadingthrough something like that, but
the civilians weren't.
So when I got to Amazon, it wasa little bit of chaos and I
just really wanted to help folksdo better.
So I started to dive even moreinto leadership.
I had always been an avidreader about it.
It's been a passion of mine formore than a decade where, like,
that's my hobby.
So when I'm done with work, Iwould go home and read about
(05:30):
leadership and listen topodcasts about it, and it really
just was born of that andunderstanding that people needed
more help with it.
There was a leadership deficit,especially in crisis.
How do we improve that?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Okay, a hundred percent.
And yeah, I remember there wasa huge controversy with Amazon
and forcing the employees to goback.
What was your position atAmazon?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I started out as a well, not started out, I was an
operations manager.
Same thing I do it chewy and itwas a operations manager is
about three or four levelsremoved from the floor level
employee, depending on kind ofhow you count it, Cause we got
some some lateral, parallelpositions as well.
But you've got operationsmanager, area managers, Then you
(06:18):
have your process leads andyour your floor personnel.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Okay, great, and what was there?
A bit of leadership in thatrole.
Is that something that was partof your?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah.
So, the operations manager isresponsible and in particular I
was.
I was handling all of thepicking, so grabbing all of the
items, getting them into totesand sending them down the line
to get packaged and shipped out.
So the picking department,along with quality assurance,
(06:48):
was, was my folks and as anoperations manager I had to plan
the shift and lead us tosuccess based off of that plan.
So I had to make sure that youknow if there were crises or
things that came up, I led theteam through that.
I had to educate my team onbetter leadership.
When we had something shut downwhether it was the whole, you
(07:10):
know the electricity went out orwe just had a couple of pieces
of machinery go down, you know Ihad to work with maintenance to
get that fixed, all those kindsof things.
So it was just that leadershipagainst still kind of in crisis,
not even just the pandemic, butthose small crises.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, 100%, and I can imagine there was a crazy time
at Amazon because it there was ahuge surge in e-commerce and
online shopping bred from thepandemic, so it must have been a
while time to be there.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
It was and you know it was.
It was a bit compounded by thepersonal nature of the pandemic
because people were bringingthemselves to work.
They really were they.
They weren't really leavinganything at the door.
You know, I have thesestruggles, these concerns from
what's going on outside.
They brought it into work andthey, they needed somebody to
talk to, they needed a way towork that out and you know
(08:01):
Amazon and other workplacesreally, I think, did try to
figure out how do we do that?
I know, I know I did and myteam wanted to help our folks
out.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So, yeah, 100%, and I want to go back to no label
leadership.
What has been the biggestchallenge that you've faced in?
Mostly launching and runningand growing with business
challenges, man.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
You know I was my biggest obstacle.
If I'm really honest about it,my biggest challenge with no
label leadership has just been.
So I mentioned I do discassessments right and on the
disc assessment as a behavioralindicator, I'm a high I and my
biggest fear as a high I, as aninfluencer, is fear of rejection
(08:47):
, and I've always been that waytoo.
I think that my, my levels onthe disc have probably changed
through the years, although Iwouldn't know because I didn't
take it as a child, but I'vealways been really fearful of
that not that everybody isn't,but it's kind of been like it
paralyzes me sometimes, and sojumping into a business, even as
an adult, even as a militaryretiree, was scary.
(09:10):
I really had to push throughthat and say you know what?
There's never going to be thebest time for this.
There's never.
I'm never going to be fullyready.
I just need to do it.
I, as long as I'm working on it,I'm getting the training, I'm
learning things, I'm connectingwith people, and as long as I
keep it centered on other people, I find that that really helps
(09:31):
when I'm working my leadershipon a team on Amazon or chewy, or
for a team that I am helping asa client who's my client, it's
it really.
If it stays about them, it'sleadership.
I'm really doing something thatis bigger than myself.
But if I start to make it aboutmyself, that rejection starts
(09:51):
to set in and it starts to feelvery different.
So I just try to keep itfocused on them and push through
my fear of possible rejection.
So that was my my biggest one, Ithink.
Aside from that, I just had to.
I had to overcome my lack ofknowledge of business and
marketing, both how to run abusiness and how to market
(10:12):
myself, which I'm still learning.
I'm not I'm not a very goodself salesman in most cases, so
I'm still working on that one.
So those are probably I wouldsay those are the biggest ones.
I've definitely stepped in it afew times with clients too.
So learning humility might havebeen the fourth one, I guess,
which is an important onebecause that builds credibility
with clients.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
And who is your typical client?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Oh, typical, I would say typical.
Right now I'm really focused ontrying to capture the attention
of local small government, sotownships, boroughs, as well as
nonprofits, where I'm not somuch working them as a client,
it's just volunteer time.
I recently connected withBethany house in Cumberland
County here in Pennsylvania.
They do help young ladies whoare about to age out of the
(11:00):
foster care system or who arehomeless.
I've got a couple of otherssimilar to that that help out
boys and girls, just reallytrying to find those that are
most in need, those that justdon't have a whole lot of help.
Small government doesn'tusually have a whole lot of help
because they don't have a bigbudget.
(11:21):
And then you know folks in thefoster care system, those kids,
they they've just been left outto dry in many cases and they
don't.
They don't have a lot ofresources.
So just trying to figure outhow to help them.
And then another one I've beenreally working on getting into,
which is hard because I don'thave all of the the required
federal numbers yet.
But I want to work with veteransor those who are about to leave
(11:43):
the service.
So I'd love to connect with theDOD and help veterans that they
transition out because theyhave a transition assistance
program.
Great information.
It's a really wonderful program.
There's some assistance there,but there's not a lot of warm
hands.
They only have one part of itthat hands off a veteran to the
job centers, america's jobcenters, and it still just
(12:04):
doesn't seem like enough.
They need someone else and it'syou know, it's a team sport.
This life that we have, weshould play it together.
So I really want to get inthere and help somebody 100%.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
That's amazing.
I love your passion for helpingpeople.
It's it's becoming more andmore rare these days and it's
very admirable.
I love that.
And how do you measure thesuccess of what you do in terms
of, firstly, your businessmetrics and the people that
you're helping?
How do you measure, like, howwell you've done with him?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
I love this question and I actually have to reference
back.
You had Dr Burl Randolph Jr onseveral episodes ago A great
episode and I really loved whathe said and it's what I've been
saying all along.
Is my clients all I asked themwhat does success look like to
you when we get to the end ofthis, or even at the middle of
it?
What does success look like toyou?
(13:02):
Write those things down.
Okay, we're at the middle orthe end.
Did we hit the mark?
If you say we were successful,I am successful, then I have hit
the mark.
So it's all really measured on.
Did the client feel like weachieved what they set out to
achieve?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Okay, amazing, yeah for sure.
And where do you see yourindustry heading in the next
couple of years?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
What I see right now it appears like leadership in
general is heading towards afocus on children in the grade
school, high school.
There's not a lot of curriculumthat teaches children
values-based leadership, so weare seeing a lot of that.
John Maxwell and his Maxwellleadership team has ILEAD, which
is a curriculum for leadershipthat's working its way into the
(13:55):
school systems.
Officially, I believe, itstarted out of South Carolina
and it's starting to make itsway into some other states.
There's other countries thatare already running it as part
of their national schoolprograms.
So that's one area, and I thinkthat there's more and more talk
about servant leadership, whilewe see a deficit right now in
that there's a lot more talkabout it.
You hear a lot from Simon Sinekand some of these other big
(14:20):
leadership thought leaders thatreally talk about focus on the
team, the group, the tribe takecare of these people because
it's so important, because whenyou go down they're gonna help
you and I just I really see theheart of humanity starting to
want to go that direction.
It might not necessarily bethere yet, but I do think it's
(14:42):
gonna get there.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Okay, amazing, yeah for sure.
And are you making use of allthe technology that's at your
disposal in your business interms of AI and all these, like
SaaS products that are availableto help you be more efficient
and operate smoothly?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
All of them?
No, I'm sure I'm not.
I do use.
I use chat GPT here and there.
Mostly I'll come up withsomething.
I'll write something for asocial post or I'll write a
document, even a contract, for aclient, and I'll run it through
chat GPT, like keep the tonethe same, because a lot of times
(15:28):
I'll stray off my tone orsomething, and it'll help me get
that right or it might catchsomething I missed.
I might say you know, evaluatethis for X, y, whatever, and you
know it'll give me somethoughts on what I might have
missed for something there.
And I've used it for a fewother things as well, but that's
kind of been the the crux.
For the most part I love my iPad.
I absolutely dive intonotability on my iPad all the
(15:52):
time.
It's where all my notes arekept.
Most recently there's an appout there called structured that
I absolutely love.
Having come from the military,I like structure in my day and I
have found that doing my ownbusiness and not being not going
to the warehouse anymore, Ivery much find my day is get
(16:13):
away from me, and Structured hashelped me build my day out
better than a calendar and itreally just outlines my day, I
could set my timeline and I'mhitting all my marks, so I just
feel much more productive withthat now.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Okay, yeah, that's awesome.
I also use chat gpt a lot.
I'm not really for contentgeneration, because I find it
sometimes it's a bit generic andobvious, but for spell check,
grammar checks, for compilinglists, eating plans, exercise
plans, everything like that.
(16:46):
Yeah, it's actuallyunbelievable what you can do
with that.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
You know, where I found it really helpful was when
I was writing something and Ihave a tendency to write out of.
I Like to use big wordssometimes and I'm working on
bringing that down, so I'llwrite something and I'll say,
okay, write that, for you know,a high school graduate, because
I want to pitch something tohigh school students that are
graduating, and It'll help mebring that language down to
(17:13):
something that just makes moresense.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Take those yeah hundred other words out exactly
if I see a post about likeCrypto or something that and I
don't understand the words thatthey're using I put it in and
I'm like Please explain this tome as if I was a 12 year old and
it's actually amazing.
It's so cool.
Do you have any partnerships orcollaborations within the
(17:39):
business, or is it just yousolely running the business?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So I do run my business as a sole
proprietorship but, like I said,life is a team sport, so I
don't go out of the loan either,aside from Bethany house.
So I've partnered ship just forthe like, you know, volunteer
and stuff.
But I learned things from allclients, even those guys at
Bethany house.
In particular, my bestpartnership right now is Steve
(18:08):
gobel from the global group.
He's out of Lancaster PA, samebusiness.
He was part of the originalfounding team of the Maxwell
leadership team back when it wasthe John Maxwell leadership
team and I Connected with himthrough LinkedIn actually, which
is another one of my favoriteplatforms.
I absolutely love LinkedInconnected with him and I just
(18:31):
he's been a great mentor, agreat friend, you know, guided
me through some things.
We partnered on running theleadership game.
He hooked me up with that withone of my clients, ran the
leadership game and, you know,just to help give me some
pointers and some perspective,and you know those partnerships
are super invaluable.
I have some others in the workstoo, but that's been the most
(18:53):
impactful by far.
So, while I run it myself, it'sit's a team sport.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Okay, amazing, amazing.
And If we were to sit downagain in 12 months time and
Everything's gone right for yourbusiness, everything that could
go right has.
What does your business looklike and what has changed?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
And I think in 12 months it's not unrealistic and
my goal is really to be prettyclose to my goal has been
750,000 a year, maybe even amillion, but 750 because I'm not
looking to be making the bigbucks.
(19:34):
For me it's about helping thepeople and living comfortably.
I got to provide for my wife,right?
I've been married for 25 yearsso I want to take care of the
woman that supported me for thatall that time, and so I would
say somewhere betweenthree-quarter and a million
dollars a year in the business,but mostly that we would have
clients who have looked back andsaid you know, our small
(19:56):
business, our small governmentsector, has done really well
because Thomas come in and beenable to help us see through the
pain points, see through themissed communications, the
working in silos, helped usbuild language around what we
were missing, those kinds ofthings.
That means more to me even thanthe money.
(20:18):
To be really straightforwardwith you, I want people to be
helped.
I want no label leadership tothat business.
Maybe I expand to an LLC.
That's a possibility.
Grab a partner, I wouldn't mindthat and I would definitely
like the name to be out there.
From a dream perspective, I getan opportunity to be like on
(20:44):
the John Maxwell podcast orSimon Sinek or something like
that, because I just reviewthose guys.
I think they've been justfantastic.
Pat Lanchoni would be anotherone.
I'd love to be on a podcastwith those guys too.
This is fantastic.
I mean, I would have neverguessed this opportunity to come
up either.
So, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
That's awesome, and what do you have to do to get to
your financial goal?
You don't have to give too muchaway, but what do you need to
do in terms of customeracquisition, et cetera, to get
to $750 to a million?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
It's more about the consistency of closing with
clients.
I have a lot of conversations,I go to events and talk to a lot
of people.
I've given myself the firstquarter of next year to really
lock down dare I say perfect myability to close with clients.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Okay, 100%.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
And that will do it.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Are your clients?
Are most of them retained?
Is it like an ongoing thing ordo you contract for a couple of
months at a time?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah.
So it's mostly more likecontract for a few months at a
time kind of thing.
Or hey, here's the contract,we're going to do X, Y and Z and
we'll work the timeline as wego.
So it's not necessarily likewe'll do three months or six
months, it's we'll do thesethings and we'll get it done in
your time.
(22:19):
I don't like to rush my clients.
If they feel things are movingtoo fast, we're going to slow it
down.
And if it's moving super slowand they're like we got to pick
it up, then we'll pick it up.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Okay, that's awesome.
I love it.
And what advice would you liketo give to other business owners
looking to succeed?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
That's a big question for such a young company.
Go for it, you know, go all inas far as you can.
If you're all in is $100, thengo in $100.
If you've got $500,000, then goin $500,000.
Like I said earlier, there'snever the best time.
Someday is not a day of theweek, so you can't keep putting
(23:04):
it off.
You're never really going to beready and you're never really
good the first time.
So go for it.
Don't worry about the fears.
It will take care of itself.
Most of our fears are justprojections in our mind.
They're not real.
So go for it.
Just don't go at it alone.
Buying mentors there's so manyresources from things like small
(23:26):
business associations.
Chambers of commerce arefantastic.
They're so underrated.
My Carlisle Chamber of Commercehas been phenomenal and I'm a
fairly new member and then justreaching out to other
entrepreneurs and other businesspersons to say what have you
done?
What worked?
It does help if you're notafraid to say I don't really
(23:48):
know the rules and I don't care.
So I kind of just do what Ithink I need to do, even if it's
not the normal way a businesswould go about doing that.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Amazing.
I love that.
Thank you so much, and Tom,thanks for your time today.
We have come to the end of theshow.
What is the best way for peopleto reach out to Tom Gaia if
you've got any offers for themor if they're looking to follow
your journey?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
So all of my basic information and an ability to
contact me is found on mywebsite.
No label leadership, all oneword nolabeledeadershipcom.
That's the easiest way to findme, but I am on social media the
big ones with Facebook andInstagram at no label leadership
.
And then I can be found onformerly known as Twitter, now X
as no label leader, and yeah,those are the best ways to reach
(24:39):
me.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Tom.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Thanks Dij, thanks Dij.
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