November 20, 2025 • 31 mins
Vince Covino joins us to share his insights on scaling businesses effectively while maintaining a heart-centered approach to leadership. He emphasizes that moving from small scale to big scale often requires developing the leaders around you and creating an environment where they can thrive. Vince discusses the importance of attracting top talent and the significant role that compensation packages play in this process. He also highlights the value of listening to your team and being open to growth, both personally and professionally. Tune in as we explore how to navigate the challenges of leadership and create a culture of collaboration and success.
Vince Covino, a prominent figure in business scaling, shares invaluable insights on leadership and growth in this engaging discussion. He emphasizes that the transition from small to large-scale operations often hinges on the leader's capacity to grow alongside their team. Covino explains that many leaders encounter self-imposed ceilings, limiting their ability to scale effectively. To break through these barriers, he stresses the importance of attracting and developing talented leaders who can drive substantial revenue growth. By creating attractive compensation packages and fostering an environment of shared vision, leaders can recruit high-caliber individuals capable of contributing millions to the business's bottom line.
Throughout the conversation, Covino reveals his own experiences with scaling businesses, including the challenges he faced in retaining top talent. He candidly discusses his evolution as a leader, admitting past tendencies toward micromanagement and the necessity of embracing feedback from team members. This journey led him to understand that great leaders are also great followers, open to learning from others. As he recounts his growth from low to high eight-figure revenue, he highlights the critical role of mentorship and the profound impact of listening to his employees, which ultimately transformed his company's culture and retention rates.
The episode culminates in a powerful message about the significance of self-awareness and the willingness to adapt as a leader. Covino's journey illustrates that while business mastery is essential, inner mastery is equally vital for sustained success. His insights serve as a roadmap for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing that the path to scaling a business is often a long-term commitment, requiring strategic investments and a willingness to evolve as both a leader and an individual.
Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their leadership styles and consider how they can implement Covino's principles to foster growth and success in their own ventures.
Takeaways:
- Vince Covino emphasizes that a leader's growth is often self-imposed, limited by their capacity to manage teams effectively.
- Attracting top-tier leaders requires understanding how to create attractive compensation packages that align with company vision.
- Listening to employee insights can drastically improve retention rates and cultural dynamics within a company.
- Vince shares the importance of recognizing when to step back as a leader to allow more qualified individuals to take the reins.
- Investing in leadership development, both inner and outer, is crucial to scaling a business successfully over time.
- Growth capital can shorten the timeline for business success significantly, allowing for accelerated impact and expansion.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Warrior Sage
- Amazon
- Sequest
- SeaWorld
- Sea Life...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:41):
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to the podcast. I am Jaclyn
Strominger, I am your host.And today as you know on this podcast
we love to hear from amazingleaders and their insights and get
really key details as the waythat we can actually change, grow
and become unstoppable in ourlives and in our business. And I
(01:01):
want to introduce you today toVince Covino. And let me tell you
a little bit about Vince. Hehas scaled businesses, he has built
amazing, actually amazingbusinesses and he leads by example
where business mastery meetsheart centered transformational leadership.
He is an he. As an eightfigure scaling expert and visionary
(01:24):
CEO of Warrior Sage, Vincombines the hard won lessons of
entrepreneurial success withdeep inner introspective work and
self mastery. His uniqueapproach equips entrepreneurs to
scale their companieseffectively while connecting authentically
with their teams, families andcommunities. So Vince, welcome to
the podcast. And even in your,even in your, your, in your bio about
(01:48):
you, where, where the, thescaling and bringing all of you know,
bringing a company to fruitionobviously comes out. So welcome to
the show.
Thank you so much, Jacqueline.
So Vince, you've had a greatsuccess. And so one of the things
(02:08):
that I think a lot of leadersquestion is how do we go from that
small scale to big scale? Andso how have you done that?
Well, so I'll define smallscale to big scale. There are certain
ceilings that a leader hitsand in each case the growth is self
(02:30):
imposed. So leaders grow totheir own capacity. If their own
capacity allows them space tobe able to manage a team of five,
what can that team of five doand how effectively can they do it?
If someone is incredibly goodwith AI integration in 2025, then
that could potentially be atremendous scale. Very often the
(02:54):
next level, let's say that togo from seven figures to eight figures,
it requires developing theleaders around you, which means I've
got to understand how toattract them. Why would a great leader,
that's his whole life beenmaking 2, 300 grand a year? Incentives
of 100 to 300 grand a year,that level of leader, they're paid
(03:16):
that much because that's whatthe market drives. People are paid
what they're worth in themarket. If you're making 80 grand
a year right now, that's whatyou're worth according to the economy,
right? The economy works. Andso if I want to get someone that
is truly capable of adding 3,5, $7 million in revenue to my company,
and let's say that 40% of thatfalls to the bottom line, a really
(03:38):
profitable company, then it'sgoing to bring in $2 million in additional
EBITDA into my company. Well,I'm gonna have to pay, if I'm really
efficient, 3, 400 grand forthat person. A leader is not able
to mentor that person and leadthat person to a higher level is
(04:00):
not going to attract them. Sothat means they'll never be on your
team.
Right.
Understanding how to create acompensation package, how to create
an environment where they seethe vision of the owner, they say,
oh, I see, this is my path toseven figures here or to eight figures
if you're, you know, Fortune5000. Because you're not going to
(04:22):
get a great C suite person atthat level unless, unless there's
something that makes thembelieve they're going to be at eight
figures.
Right.
Exit or otherwise. So, sothat's a big piece, is that. And
very often it's 3, 4, 5 litersthat are just really powerful. So
when we went from a milliondollars a month in revenue to 3 million
a month, it was in that 18month period where I received enough
(04:45):
growth capital to be able tobring in those $34 million people
to two of them and thenanother three that were in the 150
to 200,000 range. At thatlevel, you can get the cream of the
crop, the 1 percenters. Thedifference between somebody making
80,000 a year that's doingyour marketing and someone that's
(05:05):
making 150 a year is thedifference between, you know, a 30
growth rate and 80 growth rateand say, so okay, what's the value
of that incremental hundredthousand dollars that I add to a
chief Marketing Officer'spackage or the difference of a, a
CFO, which CFOs are somisunderstood and misunderstood.
(05:26):
Underutilized.
Oh, I would totally, I totallyagree with that. They, yeah, the
financial part of it, knowingall those ins and outs and what they
can do and I mean there's somuch that, that a great CFO can bring
to the table. But somethingthat you just said I think is kind
of like quintessential and Ithink, you know, listeners, you know,
as you're growing yourbusiness and even as leadership,
(05:46):
there's a couple of thingsthat you have said. Number one is,
is being able to develop theleaders around you to growth and
attract those right leaders.And that's really important. You
know, a lot of times I thinkwe bring people in to a company and
listen, this is also what Ihave seen and what I experienced
(06:07):
when I was in corporate.You're bringing people in as leaders
and you think that they don't,that leaders don't need to be led,
but in actuality, there is.Everybody has some growth in them.
Right.
Jacqueline, this. Such animportant observation, is that the
(06:27):
best leaders are alsofollowers. And so I'm attracting
people that are great leaderswho are also followers. As. As a
CEO, I looked at my mentors.One was our chairman of our board,
which, by the way, a board ofdirectors helped me tremendously.
That was part of my growingfrom. From low eight figures to growing
(06:48):
from 10 million a year to 35million a year. I had two or three
other mentors that I believewere leaders in my life that I said,
I admire the way they lead,the way they love, the way that they're
able to seamlessly give upcontrol. That was something that
I really held on to. I was amicromanager and got to.
(07:09):
Have a good observation foryourself to realize that. Right,
right.
Yeah. And, And, and, and thatwas part of my mentorship, is being
led by someone that couldteach me and then my willingness
to lead others. I can tell youthis. In 2016, when I first brought
on my two C suite executives,you know, a quarter million a year
apiece with. And withincentives as well, I went through
(07:33):
maybe three executives overthe course of three years, which
is way too high. And Irealized, okay, I can. I can attract
him here. I can dangle acarrot. I can show them, hey, look,
this. Here's our path. This.This company is going to be worth
$400 million. And here's yourslice of it. I couldn't at that stage
retain them, didn't have thecapacity. So that's another part
(07:57):
of the formulas. One thing tobring them on, it's one thing to
sell them on the vision, whichI was really pretty good at. But
six months in or eight monthsin, I remember a COO who. I couldn't
believe I'd got someone atthis level. I thought, wow, this
is. This is just incredible.But he truly saw what was possible.
And. And because he was such aprofessional ninja with humans, he
said, vince, you're. You'rehard to work for, I want to tell
(08:21):
you. And it was my first timeI ever. You know, I heard a thousand
people tell me that before,but I had never let it land the level
of trust that I had in thisperson, the respect that I had for
his integrity. I thought, he'sprobably telling the truth. And then
I started to realize how toretain and why I was hard and why
(08:42):
I needed to be a little bit.You know, Steve Jobs went through
that process as well and hadthat shift. And very often it comes
with, with some of the grayhairs, but it.
A few extra wrinkles.
Comes with a little of that.But that's the. Those are big pieces
of it. And then of coursegetting alignment of those key depending
(09:03):
on the company, the Dynamics,those key 3, 4, 5 people, those key
alliances in the companyinternally and then obviously the,
you know, the key partnershipsexternally and developing those,
which is similar principles,attracting those, developing those,
retaining those relationships.And that's really it. You really
don't need too many. I foundthat in my financial planning business
I had two people that werepaid six figures and then another
(09:26):
dozen that were paid, youknow, 60 to 90. And with, with clients,
with, with building thatbusiness out, a couple of CPAs, couple
of attorneys that were justgreat referral centers, great partners
with, with other businessowners. And then I found the same
principle to be true in myother two businesses that were really
successful. And that was a bigkey really. It's a team approach.
(09:55):
Yeah, what you just said teamapproach. But you also said something
that I think that again Ireally want listeners to really hone
in on this, which is you arealso open and willing to learn and,
and make a shift because yousaw that there was an issue like
(10:15):
you saw that you could bringpeople in and you're like oh, I,
you know, if I keep doing thesame thing, that's obviously and,
and I'm not getting the sameresults. I actually have to do something
different.
You know, it's interesting. Westarted tracking retention and I,
and I was shocked because we,you know, we had about 550 people
(10:37):
employees. When Covid hit,when Covid hit, we, you know, the,
everything changed for usbecause we had to, we had to close.
We had to go from 150 grand aday in revenue to zero. And that
changed everything. But, butbefore that and of course after that,
as we went back up again, Iwas listening to a podcast and I,
and I realized how valuableretention of employees was and I
(10:57):
looked and I thought, oh mygoodness, here's our retention rate.
That sounds horrible. So Iwent and did. I had our HR director
who was amazing. She was withabout eight, nine years. She started
out as a reptile husbandryexpert at one of the locations and
just moved into hr. Just thinkfascinating experience. If we had
(11:18):
time to get into that, but hadher run the report per department
and I found out her husbandrydepartment had sky high turnover.
And that allowed me to saywhat is it about our husband or department
that's causing such highturnover. In many cases, they don't
like the practices, ourhusbandry practices, our enrichment.
(11:40):
And so we started to do exitinterviews of people who had put
in their two weeks notice orleave. And we'd learned so much about,
about how we run our companyfrom our employees. And before that
time, it was really, look,this is erring, but I'll say what,
what was silently goingthrough my head. I'm the smartest
guy in this room. I'll set thepolicy, I'll set how this goes. I'll
(12:00):
set the checklists. Andsomebody would say, well, if we did
this or we did this, I said,okay, yeah, okay, thank you for that.
Here's this, here's yourchecklist. And as I, as I began to
listen and study, I wouldlearn why this department or that
location had high turnover,higher than the industry average.
I thought, how can I be worsethan the industry average and possibly
(12:21):
be competitive? So thatallowed me to see how to shift cultural
changes. I had always readPeter Drucker's I love it. You know,
strategy eats or culture eatsstrategy for breakfast. But I really
didn't understand what itmeant and why it, why it was true
until I began to listen. Andwhen I listened, at your point, became
(12:44):
open and receptive to whatothers were saying, then that's when
we moved from well belowindustry average to way above, not
way above, but a decent 50,60% better than our industry average.
I thought, wow, betterretention, lower. Lower cost of hiring,
less, you know, fewermistakes, safer. All just so many
advantages. And that was abig, big shift, big improvement.
(13:08):
That's huge. And I absolutelylove that. And so basically, not
to put words in your mouth,but basically you went from thinking
that you were the smartestperson in the room to realizing you're
not the smartest person in theroom. And there's somebody else in
this room that's smarter thanme or they were all collectively.
Collectively, right.Collectively, there is that brilliance,
right? And to use thatbrilliance, and that's the key thing,
(13:31):
like as a leader, you have tounderstand, to use the brilliance
of your team, like, get there,get their take in on what's happening.
Because, you know, from theperson who's quote, unquote, the
lowest position all the wayup, I mean, that lowest position
is, Might have more of aninsight into what people are seeing
(13:51):
because they might see thecustomer in a different way than
you do.
Absolutely true.
Right.
Jeff Bezos, say this, but justlisten to your customer, listen to
your employees. They will tellyou how to succeed.
Right.
And you know, how had I beenable to like, like if current 50
year old Vince could go backand, and go into the mind of 35 year
(14:13):
old Vince, oh my goodness,what a difference.
Right? But that's why it's sogreat because you get to share this
wisdom with us now. And sohopefully There is a 35 year old
Vince listening and they'regoing to collect that wisdom, which
is so important. So somethingthat you also said that I think is
also really important to, toI, I want to talk about is that you,
(14:34):
you shared, in order for youto scale, I mean you had to obviously
go out and get, you weren'tbootstrapping this off of your credit
cards or a loan from the bank.You actually, you know, to bring
in those key C suite peoplethat, you know, leaders that were
going to help you, you know,to pay somebody, three, four, whatever,
(14:57):
$100,000 a year plus bonuses.That takes capital. I mean, unless
you obviously had it saved.
I mean it just takes capital.And an investment in yourself is
generally the best move youcan make. An investment in your leadership,
your development, both innerand outer mastery. I believe if you
(15:17):
have one or the other, you'regoing to fail. In other words, you
could have great businessmastery, which I believe that I had
and I believe that I failed inso many levels because I truly didn't
have that inner mastery. And Iunderstand that really clearly now.
A lot of mentorship and a lotof work on that. In terms of growth
capital, most businesses areon if they don't know it, but they're
(15:40):
on a 10 or 20 or 30 yeartimeline and they're not even thinking
that far advanced becausethey're thinking about next month
or maybe next year. But thereality is most businesses that are
successful take decades. Okay,so let's start with 95% of businesses
don't make it 10 years. Theones that do make it 10 years, they're
in it for 20, 30 years. Well,how do I shorten that 20 or 30 years
(16:00):
that I'm not saving andslaving for 20 years and turn that
into a five or a seven yeartimeline. That's when it dawned on
me, hey, I want to build 20locations that's going to take all
their five to $10 million apiece. That's going to take me 30
years if I wait till I get myrevenue ramped up. So.
(16:21):
I just, I'm laughing becauseit's so true, but because it's, you
know, you know, we don't, wedon't see and I, and I want to say
this. You know, so many timesin business that we don't see the
beginning, right? We don'tsee, you know, people, you know,
think about Amazon, forexample, right? Nobody saw the beginning
(16:43):
of him working on that, right?And there's that 10 years that it
took to get to here and net,you know, but then there was capital
anyway, so keep going. I waslike, capital.
His parents, a couple of hisfriends, and you know, they've obviously
done really well, but it.Without those very fundraisers, it's
(17:04):
very probable. And I haven'tdissected his well enough. But there
are plenty of deals out there,plenty of big public companies out
there that without the growthcapital, they would not exist. These
people wouldn't bebillionaires. They wouldn't employ
10,000 people and serve 10million customers. You know, Sequest,
my company and other companiesthat I had were not sequest branded.
(17:27):
They served 20 million gueststhat came to my locations. We estimate
that when someone comes, theysmile 80 to 150 times. Literally.
I created 2 billion smiles, 2billion right of these right here.
That would not have happenedif I had gotten the tracked capital.
(17:50):
And by the way, let's just saysame principle, retain the capital.
Because I can tell you that myearly investors that on day one,
put in a million here and 2million there, later, years later
put in 3 million here or 8million there. So, you know, we raised
a lot, a lot of eight figuresof dollars from real estate partners,
from investors, in a couple ofcases, from friends. And I would
(18:15):
have, would have never beenable, you know, in my peak growth
year of 2019, of course, whenCovid hit, everything changed. We,
you know, we shut everything.The year before, before COVID hit,
I built five locations, Iopened five in the year. In fact,
when Covid hit, I wasliterally a month and a half away
from opening Fort Lauderdale.A month and a half. I had water in
(18:37):
my exhibits, I had sharksready to go. I mean, we were so close.
It was, it was crazy. And thenthere was a big lawsuit between the
city of PETA, sued the city ofFort Lauderdale for letting me come
to Fort Lauderdale and thencovet hit at the same time. It was
just, it was just nuts. Ableto build five locations and employ
(19:01):
300 people at those locationsthat welcome 3, 4, 500,000 guests
per year without, in thatcase, about $28 million. I couldn't
have done it. So it's, it'snecessary. And, and, and I suppose
I could have done one everytwo years and, and made this a 20
year endeavor, but I don'thave the patience for that and I
(19:23):
want to make a big impact,right. In this case it was 2 billion
smiles and frankly $400million for me. My motives have shifted,
but that was the ideas isstill impact at some level. And,
and so yeah, growth capital issomething that in my early career
(19:44):
as a, with an investment firm,that's where I started. I built a
firm called Legacy wealth upto nine figures and then I sold that.
That now is approaching abillion dollars in assets under management
managed by probably 60 or 70advisors now. And they've really
taken it into it. The threebusinesses that I've had really successful
exits with, they've taken themto astonishing levels. And it's very
(20:07):
gratifying to look around andsay, wow, look at all the good that
this company is doing. And Ibirthed it. I brought it in through
its, you know, toddler yearsand juvenile years. And they've taken
it and they've done thingsthat frankly I wouldn't have done
in. And I say that in positiveways. I mean they've gotten more
sophisticated, more calculatedand the level of planning that they
(20:29):
do now. I was just on thephone with them yesterday helping
some, you know, a guy worth$130 million. It's, it's beautiful
to see that and.
Be a part of that, you know,and I think that's actually a really
interesting thing to be alsoto be able to be, to be able to understand
yourself as to almost likeknowing, you know what I've gone
(20:52):
here with this. I know that ifit's going to go here, I might need
to step out, sell it, what,whatever, so that I can have somebody
else bubble it up evenfurther. And so in that sense, like
if somebody has that companyor is in that position, what was
the t, what was the sign foryou that was like, this is the right
(21:17):
time for me to.
This is such an interestingquestion. I don't know if anyone's
ever asked me this, but I havequite an experience around this.
I have always thought tomyself, even after dilution, my wife
and I owned 70% of Sequest.And we, we always said that whoever
(21:39):
is most qualified for theshareholders, myself and five other
people who have invested a lotof money, whoever's most qualified
to be CEO should leave thiscompany. And when that day comes
that it's not Vince Covino,let Vince Covino get out of the way.
There's, there's hundreds andhundreds of employees. There's people
that depend. They of all thecompanies out There they've chosen,
(22:00):
they said, this is a companythat I'm going to trust to feed my
family. This is the companythat allows me to sing my music and
do something where I feel likeI'm making a contribution and I'm
being recognized for theimpact that I'm making right here.
And when somebody can do thatbetter than Vince Covino, his obligation
is to get out of the way. Twoand a half years ago that happened.
(22:22):
I, our CFO, I realized six or12 months and I realized this is
an executive at a level thatI've, I've not gotten to yet. And
I went to the board and I toldthem precisely that. I said, I think
he's better. I also think oneof the private equity companies that
backed out in the last hour.2017, we had a $40 million offer
(22:42):
for private equity deal. Itfell apart four days before closing.
And because he called andsaid, look, Vince, one of our multi
billion dollar investors justcalled, looked at the deal before
we fund it and said, and saidhis name is Brand. He said, look,
we are not going to ownSeaWorld, Sea Life, Sea Quest, see
(23:04):
nothing, get out of thatbusiness run. It's a dead end. The,
the moods are shifting, theworlds are shifting and, and these
guys are very hands on as wellwith animals. That's, that's not
going to go. He told me, hesaid, Vince, here are the things
you need to do to, to get tothe next level in your business.
And I, and I follow those. Oneof those was how I had set up my
(23:27):
board and even myself as aCEO. I took a vote. The board took
a vote after I told them thatand they came back and, and I again,
my suggestion was I thinkAaron will be a better CEO than me.
And they came back and, andthey said made the, made the vote.
Vince is still the CEO. And Ithought, I was very gratified at
(23:49):
this level because I thoughtthey believe in me. Here I am in
the midst of COVID It's, it'sa shit show. I mean it's for us to
try to feed 50,000 animals,you know, with, with no revenue coming
in and plenty of challenges.On the other hand, I thought, I'm
not sure I want to be doingthis anymore. Every day was a fight.
(24:11):
I felt like Chief Joseph, Iwill fight no more forever. So another
four months went by and I wentback to the board and I said, first
of all, I still think that ourCFO is a better CEO than me. Second
of all, my passion for this isdwindling. You know, when you're,
when you're paying attorneys800 bucks an hour to fight animal
rights activists and justconstant, you know, Good Morning
(24:33):
America, all just newsarticles. And you read the new news
articles like, okay, look,there's like 4% truth to that. You
know what I mean? And it's soout of, and you just, every day,
there's literally three, four,five articles every single day. And
so I stepped down. But, butthere's a, there's a great study
out of Harvard, the Founder'sDilemma, where the very skills that,
(24:54):
that birthed the company intoexistence took it to the level that
it hit, where it hits abarrier are, are not the skills that
are needed to take it to thenext level. And so very often it
behooves. And I've seenbrilliant people do this where they've
hired a CEO. And I remember2005, 2006, one of my friends did
that for his company, verysuccessful company. And I was, I
was closely affiliated withhim and, and I had a great valuable
(25:17):
lesson there that he broughtin a CEO that was better than him
at it for this big company.And it was a good move. In hindsight,
I was going to say, wow, wow,you know, he just had a quarter of
a billion dollar exit. Why putin the right leadership?
Right. You know, I could talkto you for hours about this because
I think it's, I think it's,it's, it's. I think it's so true
(25:39):
that again, like there's aseason, like when you, and even the,
you know, as when you foundsomething and you get it going at
some point, it is actuallybetter to take that step back and
have somebody else come in.Not because you don't believe in
(26:00):
it anymore as you shared, likethe passion for it changes. You want
to see it go and keep growing,but your day to day passion changes.
And Jacqueline, it could be,could be.
Passion, but it also could beskill set.
Right? Yeah. Skills, right?Yes. Yeah. I mean, and bringing somebody
(26:22):
else in and being able toacknowledge that and recognize that,
like kudos to you for likeseeing that because I think that's,
sometimes that's a lot harderto see and admit. Like I don't have
the skill set to do that andto admit that because so many of
us don't want to, like so manypeople don't want to. Right.
(26:44):
I'll give you a quick hack,Jacqueline, you'll like this. I can
tell you who, if you spend alot of time on AI, AI knows you.
And it will tell you what yourblind spots are if you ask it and
say, be brutally honest withme with all these problems, everything
you know about me, give me 20questions that explore my leadership
capabilities. Where am Istrong? Where am I weak? Give me
(27:06):
the questions. Then go in andanswer those 20, 30 questions. And
then say, now my AI's name isValen. Tell me everything. Tell me
what I don't see and don'tsugarcoat anything. I want the fucking
truth. And it laid it out andit was so spot on. I can't believe
(27:27):
it gave me chills. And Ithought, oh my gosh. That's why my
mentor told me I'm a 4 out of10 with leading the feminine. I see
it. I connect the dots. Here'swhy. In 2013, this female employee
told one of my advice, one ofmy board of advisors, Vince doesn't
know his head from his ass. Iknow why she said that, because I
(27:48):
don't. I get it right and I'lltell you when you're willing to receive
the truth. I call it the Lotussword, the penetrating truth. Recognizing
what's but people in your lifethat can do that with love in depth.
Like the CEO did for me at onepoint or another employee. So many
times I've had not so manytimes, but five or six people in
my life, which is a lot whocan speak truth to me. When I have
(28:14):
a blind spot, I've got them.I've got five or six up in my life
and they will drop truth bombsright on. And it's amazing every
time we go to a differentlevel in our relationship.
That's awesome. I love it. I'mgonna have to ask, I'm gonna have
to ask my favorite AI thatknows me the best because you know
you there is one that youalways do your whatever I'm gonna
(28:35):
have to ask in my blind spotsanyway. So Vince, how can people
get connected with you andlearn more about all the things that
you're doing? And I know preshow you share that you've got this
little retreat happeningplace. So how can people best connect
(28:56):
with you? Get more of your wisdom?
Warriorsage.com I've got themon TikTok as well and or Vincecabino.com.
Is is there one place that youhang out more.
If someone's looking forgrowth capital? Warriorsage.com okay,
(29:17):
someone's looking for just abit more about just the, the content
of my experience in my life.Probably TikTok.
That's awesome. Welllisteners, first and foremost, I'm
sure you've gotten some greatnuggets out of this episode. I know
that I have. And Vince is sucha wealth of knowledge and a great
(29:40):
expert on growing and scalinga business. So connect with him,
go to Warrior Sage, check himout on TikTok, connect with him on
all the socials, and please dome the favor of sharing this episode
with your friends andcolleagues because I think it is
vastly important informationto be shared. And also make sure
you hit subscribe. JacquelineScher, your host and thank you for
(30:03):
listening and thank you Vincefor being an amazing guest.
Thank you so much.
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to the podcast. I am Jaclyn
Strominger, I am your host.And today as you know on this podcast
we love to hear from amazingleaders and their insights and get
really key details as the waythat we can actually change, grow
and become unstoppable in ourlives and in our business. And I
(01:01):
want to introduce you today toVince Covino. And let me tell you
a little bit about Vince. Hehas scaled businesses, he has built
amazing, actually amazingbusinesses and he leads by example
where business mastery meetsheart centered transformational leadership.
He is an he. As an eightfigure scaling expert and visionary
(01:24):
CEO of Warrior Sage, Vincombines the hard won lessons of
entrepreneurial success withdeep inner introspective work and
self mastery. His uniqueapproach equips entrepreneurs to
scale their companieseffectively while connecting authentically
with their teams, families andcommunities. So Vince, welcome to
the podcast. And even in your,even in your, your, in your bio about
(01:48):
you, where, where the, thescaling and bringing all of you know,
bringing a company to fruitionobviously comes out. So welcome to
the show.
Thank you so much, Jacqueline.
So Vince, you've had a greatsuccess. And so one of the things
(02:08):
that I think a lot of leadersquestion is how do we go from that
small scale to big scale? Andso how have you done that?
Well, so I'll define smallscale to big scale. There are certain
ceilings that a leader hitsand in each case the growth is self
(02:30):
imposed. So leaders grow totheir own capacity. If their own
capacity allows them space tobe able to manage a team of five,
what can that team of five doand how effectively can they do it?
If someone is incredibly goodwith AI integration in 2025, then
that could potentially be atremendous scale. Very often the
(02:54):
next level, let's say that togo from seven figures to eight figures,
it requires developing theleaders around you, which means I've
got to understand how toattract them. Why would a great leader,
that's his whole life beenmaking 2, 300 grand a year? Incentives
of 100 to 300 grand a year,that level of leader, they're paid
(03:16):
that much because that's whatthe market drives. People are paid
what they're worth in themarket. If you're making 80 grand
a year right now, that's whatyou're worth according to the economy,
right? The economy works. Andso if I want to get someone that
is truly capable of adding 3,5, $7 million in revenue to my company,
and let's say that 40% of thatfalls to the bottom line, a really
(03:38):
profitable company, then it'sgoing to bring in $2 million in additional
EBITDA into my company. Well,I'm gonna have to pay, if I'm really
efficient, 3, 400 grand forthat person. A leader is not able
to mentor that person and leadthat person to a higher level is
(04:00):
not going to attract them. Sothat means they'll never be on your
team.
Right.
Understanding how to create acompensation package, how to create
an environment where they seethe vision of the owner, they say,
oh, I see, this is my path toseven figures here or to eight figures
if you're, you know, Fortune5000. Because you're not going to
(04:22):
get a great C suite person atthat level unless, unless there's
something that makes thembelieve they're going to be at eight
figures.
Right.
Exit or otherwise. So, sothat's a big piece, is that. And
very often it's 3, 4, 5 litersthat are just really powerful. So
when we went from a milliondollars a month in revenue to 3 million
a month, it was in that 18month period where I received enough
(04:45):
growth capital to be able tobring in those $34 million people
to two of them and thenanother three that were in the 150
to 200,000 range. At thatlevel, you can get the cream of the
crop, the 1 percenters. Thedifference between somebody making
80,000 a year that's doingyour marketing and someone that's
(05:05):
making 150 a year is thedifference between, you know, a 30
growth rate and 80 growth rateand say, so okay, what's the value
of that incremental hundredthousand dollars that I add to a
chief Marketing Officer'spackage or the difference of a, a
CFO, which CFOs are somisunderstood and misunderstood.
(05:26):
Underutilized.
Oh, I would totally, I totallyagree with that. They, yeah, the
financial part of it, knowingall those ins and outs and what they
can do and I mean there's somuch that, that a great CFO can bring
to the table. But somethingthat you just said I think is kind
of like quintessential and Ithink, you know, listeners, you know,
as you're growing yourbusiness and even as leadership,
(05:46):
there's a couple of thingsthat you have said. Number one is,
is being able to develop theleaders around you to growth and
attract those right leaders.And that's really important. You
know, a lot of times I thinkwe bring people in to a company and
listen, this is also what Ihave seen and what I experienced
(06:07):
when I was in corporate.You're bringing people in as leaders
and you think that they don't,that leaders don't need to be led,
but in actuality, there is.Everybody has some growth in them.
Right.
Jacqueline, this. Such animportant observation, is that the
(06:27):
best leaders are alsofollowers. And so I'm attracting
people that are great leaderswho are also followers. As. As a
CEO, I looked at my mentors.One was our chairman of our board,
which, by the way, a board ofdirectors helped me tremendously.
That was part of my growingfrom. From low eight figures to growing
(06:48):
from 10 million a year to 35million a year. I had two or three
other mentors that I believewere leaders in my life that I said,
I admire the way they lead,the way they love, the way that they're
able to seamlessly give upcontrol. That was something that
I really held on to. I was amicromanager and got to.
(07:09):
Have a good observation foryourself to realize that. Right,
right.
Yeah. And, And, and, and thatwas part of my mentorship, is being
led by someone that couldteach me and then my willingness
to lead others. I can tell youthis. In 2016, when I first brought
on my two C suite executives,you know, a quarter million a year
apiece with. And withincentives as well, I went through
(07:33):
maybe three executives overthe course of three years, which
is way too high. And Irealized, okay, I can. I can attract
him here. I can dangle acarrot. I can show them, hey, look,
this. Here's our path. This.This company is going to be worth
$400 million. And here's yourslice of it. I couldn't at that stage
retain them, didn't have thecapacity. So that's another part
(07:57):
of the formulas. One thing tobring them on, it's one thing to
sell them on the vision, whichI was really pretty good at. But
six months in or eight monthsin, I remember a COO who. I couldn't
believe I'd got someone atthis level. I thought, wow, this
is. This is just incredible.But he truly saw what was possible.
And. And because he was such aprofessional ninja with humans, he
said, vince, you're. You'rehard to work for, I want to tell
(08:21):
you. And it was my first timeI ever. You know, I heard a thousand
people tell me that before,but I had never let it land the level
of trust that I had in thisperson, the respect that I had for
his integrity. I thought, he'sprobably telling the truth. And then
I started to realize how toretain and why I was hard and why
(08:42):
I needed to be a little bit.You know, Steve Jobs went through
that process as well and hadthat shift. And very often it comes
with, with some of the grayhairs, but it.
A few extra wrinkles.
Comes with a little of that.But that's the. Those are big pieces
of it. And then of coursegetting alignment of those key depending
(09:03):
on the company, the Dynamics,those key 3, 4, 5 people, those key
alliances in the companyinternally and then obviously the,
you know, the key partnershipsexternally and developing those,
which is similar principles,attracting those, developing those,
retaining those relationships.And that's really it. You really
don't need too many. I foundthat in my financial planning business
I had two people that werepaid six figures and then another
(09:26):
dozen that were paid, youknow, 60 to 90. And with, with clients,
with, with building thatbusiness out, a couple of CPAs, couple
of attorneys that were justgreat referral centers, great partners
with, with other businessowners. And then I found the same
principle to be true in myother two businesses that were really
successful. And that was a bigkey really. It's a team approach.
(09:55):
Yeah, what you just said teamapproach. But you also said something
that I think that again Ireally want listeners to really hone
in on this, which is you arealso open and willing to learn and,
and make a shift because yousaw that there was an issue like
(10:15):
you saw that you could bringpeople in and you're like oh, I,
you know, if I keep doing thesame thing, that's obviously and,
and I'm not getting the sameresults. I actually have to do something
different.
You know, it's interesting. Westarted tracking retention and I,
and I was shocked because we,you know, we had about 550 people
(10:37):
employees. When Covid hit,when Covid hit, we, you know, the,
everything changed for usbecause we had to, we had to close.
We had to go from 150 grand aday in revenue to zero. And that
changed everything. But, butbefore that and of course after that,
as we went back up again, Iwas listening to a podcast and I,
and I realized how valuableretention of employees was and I
(10:57):
looked and I thought, oh mygoodness, here's our retention rate.
That sounds horrible. So Iwent and did. I had our HR director
who was amazing. She was withabout eight, nine years. She started
out as a reptile husbandryexpert at one of the locations and
just moved into hr. Just thinkfascinating experience. If we had
(11:18):
time to get into that, but hadher run the report per department
and I found out her husbandrydepartment had sky high turnover.
And that allowed me to saywhat is it about our husband or department
that's causing such highturnover. In many cases, they don't
like the practices, ourhusbandry practices, our enrichment.
(11:40):
And so we started to do exitinterviews of people who had put
in their two weeks notice orleave. And we'd learned so much about,
about how we run our companyfrom our employees. And before that
time, it was really, look,this is erring, but I'll say what,
what was silently goingthrough my head. I'm the smartest
guy in this room. I'll set thepolicy, I'll set how this goes. I'll
(12:00):
set the checklists. Andsomebody would say, well, if we did
this or we did this, I said,okay, yeah, okay, thank you for that.
Here's this, here's yourchecklist. And as I, as I began to
listen and study, I wouldlearn why this department or that
location had high turnover,higher than the industry average.
I thought, how can I be worsethan the industry average and possibly
(12:21):
be competitive? So thatallowed me to see how to shift cultural
changes. I had always readPeter Drucker's I love it. You know,
strategy eats or culture eatsstrategy for breakfast. But I really
didn't understand what itmeant and why it, why it was true
until I began to listen. Andwhen I listened, at your point, became
(12:44):
open and receptive to whatothers were saying, then that's when
we moved from well belowindustry average to way above, not
way above, but a decent 50,60% better than our industry average.
I thought, wow, betterretention, lower. Lower cost of hiring,
less, you know, fewermistakes, safer. All just so many
advantages. And that was abig, big shift, big improvement.
(13:08):
That's huge. And I absolutelylove that. And so basically, not
to put words in your mouth,but basically you went from thinking
that you were the smartestperson in the room to realizing you're
not the smartest person in theroom. And there's somebody else in
this room that's smarter thanme or they were all collectively.
Collectively, right.Collectively, there is that brilliance,
right? And to use thatbrilliance, and that's the key thing,
(13:31):
like as a leader, you have tounderstand, to use the brilliance
of your team, like, get there,get their take in on what's happening.
Because, you know, from theperson who's quote, unquote, the
lowest position all the wayup, I mean, that lowest position
is, Might have more of aninsight into what people are seeing
(13:51):
because they might see thecustomer in a different way than
you do.
Absolutely true.
Right.
Jeff Bezos, say this, but justlisten to your customer, listen to
your employees. They will tellyou how to succeed.
Right.
And you know, how had I beenable to like, like if current 50
year old Vince could go backand, and go into the mind of 35 year
(14:13):
old Vince, oh my goodness,what a difference.
Right? But that's why it's sogreat because you get to share this
wisdom with us now. And sohopefully There is a 35 year old
Vince listening and they'regoing to collect that wisdom, which
is so important. So somethingthat you also said that I think is
also really important to, toI, I want to talk about is that you,
(14:34):
you shared, in order for youto scale, I mean you had to obviously
go out and get, you weren'tbootstrapping this off of your credit
cards or a loan from the bank.You actually, you know, to bring
in those key C suite peoplethat, you know, leaders that were
going to help you, you know,to pay somebody, three, four, whatever,
(14:57):
$100,000 a year plus bonuses.That takes capital. I mean, unless
you obviously had it saved.
I mean it just takes capital.And an investment in yourself is
generally the best move youcan make. An investment in your leadership,
your development, both innerand outer mastery. I believe if you
(15:17):
have one or the other, you'regoing to fail. In other words, you
could have great businessmastery, which I believe that I had
and I believe that I failed inso many levels because I truly didn't
have that inner mastery. And Iunderstand that really clearly now.
A lot of mentorship and a lotof work on that. In terms of growth
capital, most businesses areon if they don't know it, but they're
(15:40):
on a 10 or 20 or 30 yeartimeline and they're not even thinking
that far advanced becausethey're thinking about next month
or maybe next year. But thereality is most businesses that are
successful take decades. Okay,so let's start with 95% of businesses
don't make it 10 years. Theones that do make it 10 years, they're
in it for 20, 30 years. Well,how do I shorten that 20 or 30 years
(16:00):
that I'm not saving andslaving for 20 years and turn that
into a five or a seven yeartimeline. That's when it dawned on
me, hey, I want to build 20locations that's going to take all
their five to $10 million apiece. That's going to take me 30
years if I wait till I get myrevenue ramped up. So.
(16:21):
I just, I'm laughing becauseit's so true, but because it's, you
know, you know, we don't, wedon't see and I, and I want to say
this. You know, so many timesin business that we don't see the
beginning, right? We don'tsee, you know, people, you know,
think about Amazon, forexample, right? Nobody saw the beginning
(16:43):
of him working on that, right?And there's that 10 years that it
took to get to here and net,you know, but then there was capital
anyway, so keep going. I waslike, capital.
His parents, a couple of hisfriends, and you know, they've obviously
done really well, but it.Without those very fundraisers, it's
(17:04):
very probable. And I haven'tdissected his well enough. But there
are plenty of deals out there,plenty of big public companies out
there that without the growthcapital, they would not exist. These
people wouldn't bebillionaires. They wouldn't employ
10,000 people and serve 10million customers. You know, Sequest,
my company and other companiesthat I had were not sequest branded.
(17:27):
They served 20 million gueststhat came to my locations. We estimate
that when someone comes, theysmile 80 to 150 times. Literally.
I created 2 billion smiles, 2billion right of these right here.
That would not have happenedif I had gotten the tracked capital.
(17:50):
And by the way, let's just saysame principle, retain the capital.
Because I can tell you that myearly investors that on day one,
put in a million here and 2million there, later, years later
put in 3 million here or 8million there. So, you know, we raised
a lot, a lot of eight figuresof dollars from real estate partners,
from investors, in a couple ofcases, from friends. And I would
(18:15):
have, would have never beenable, you know, in my peak growth
year of 2019, of course, whenCovid hit, everything changed. We,
you know, we shut everything.The year before, before COVID hit,
I built five locations, Iopened five in the year. In fact,
when Covid hit, I wasliterally a month and a half away
from opening Fort Lauderdale.A month and a half. I had water in
(18:37):
my exhibits, I had sharksready to go. I mean, we were so close.
It was, it was crazy. And thenthere was a big lawsuit between the
city of PETA, sued the city ofFort Lauderdale for letting me come
to Fort Lauderdale and thencovet hit at the same time. It was
just, it was just nuts. Ableto build five locations and employ
(19:01):
300 people at those locationsthat welcome 3, 4, 500,000 guests
per year without, in thatcase, about $28 million. I couldn't
have done it. So it's, it'snecessary. And, and, and I suppose
I could have done one everytwo years and, and made this a 20
year endeavor, but I don'thave the patience for that and I
(19:23):
want to make a big impact,right. In this case it was 2 billion
smiles and frankly $400million for me. My motives have shifted,
but that was the ideas isstill impact at some level. And,
and so yeah, growth capital issomething that in my early career
(19:44):
as a, with an investment firm,that's where I started. I built a
firm called Legacy wealth upto nine figures and then I sold that.
That now is approaching abillion dollars in assets under management
managed by probably 60 or 70advisors now. And they've really
taken it into it. The threebusinesses that I've had really successful
exits with, they've taken themto astonishing levels. And it's very
(20:07):
gratifying to look around andsay, wow, look at all the good that
this company is doing. And Ibirthed it. I brought it in through
its, you know, toddler yearsand juvenile years. And they've taken
it and they've done thingsthat frankly I wouldn't have done
in. And I say that in positiveways. I mean they've gotten more
sophisticated, more calculatedand the level of planning that they
(20:29):
do now. I was just on thephone with them yesterday helping
some, you know, a guy worth$130 million. It's, it's beautiful
to see that and.
Be a part of that, you know,and I think that's actually a really
interesting thing to be alsoto be able to be, to be able to understand
yourself as to almost likeknowing, you know what I've gone
(20:52):
here with this. I know that ifit's going to go here, I might need
to step out, sell it, what,whatever, so that I can have somebody
else bubble it up evenfurther. And so in that sense, like
if somebody has that companyor is in that position, what was
the t, what was the sign foryou that was like, this is the right
(21:17):
time for me to.
This is such an interestingquestion. I don't know if anyone's
ever asked me this, but I havequite an experience around this.
I have always thought tomyself, even after dilution, my wife
and I owned 70% of Sequest.And we, we always said that whoever
(21:39):
is most qualified for theshareholders, myself and five other
people who have invested a lotof money, whoever's most qualified
to be CEO should leave thiscompany. And when that day comes
that it's not Vince Covino,let Vince Covino get out of the way.
There's, there's hundreds andhundreds of employees. There's people
that depend. They of all thecompanies out There they've chosen,
(22:00):
they said, this is a companythat I'm going to trust to feed my
family. This is the companythat allows me to sing my music and
do something where I feel likeI'm making a contribution and I'm
being recognized for theimpact that I'm making right here.
And when somebody can do thatbetter than Vince Covino, his obligation
is to get out of the way. Twoand a half years ago that happened.
(22:22):
I, our CFO, I realized six or12 months and I realized this is
an executive at a level thatI've, I've not gotten to yet. And
I went to the board and I toldthem precisely that. I said, I think
he's better. I also think oneof the private equity companies that
backed out in the last hour.2017, we had a $40 million offer
(22:42):
for private equity deal. Itfell apart four days before closing.
And because he called andsaid, look, Vince, one of our multi
billion dollar investors justcalled, looked at the deal before
we fund it and said, and saidhis name is Brand. He said, look,
we are not going to ownSeaWorld, Sea Life, Sea Quest, see
(23:04):
nothing, get out of thatbusiness run. It's a dead end. The,
the moods are shifting, theworlds are shifting and, and these
guys are very hands on as wellwith animals. That's, that's not
going to go. He told me, hesaid, Vince, here are the things
you need to do to, to get tothe next level in your business.
And I, and I follow those. Oneof those was how I had set up my
(23:27):
board and even myself as aCEO. I took a vote. The board took
a vote after I told them thatand they came back and, and I again,
my suggestion was I thinkAaron will be a better CEO than me.
And they came back and, andthey said made the, made the vote.
Vince is still the CEO. And Ithought, I was very gratified at
(23:49):
this level because I thoughtthey believe in me. Here I am in
the midst of COVID It's, it'sa shit show. I mean it's for us to
try to feed 50,000 animals,you know, with, with no revenue coming
in and plenty of challenges.On the other hand, I thought, I'm
not sure I want to be doingthis anymore. Every day was a fight.
(24:11):
I felt like Chief Joseph, Iwill fight no more forever. So another
four months went by and I wentback to the board and I said, first
of all, I still think that ourCFO is a better CEO than me. Second
of all, my passion for this isdwindling. You know, when you're,
when you're paying attorneys800 bucks an hour to fight animal
rights activists and justconstant, you know, Good Morning
(24:33):
America, all just newsarticles. And you read the new news
articles like, okay, look,there's like 4% truth to that. You
know what I mean? And it's soout of, and you just, every day,
there's literally three, four,five articles every single day. And
so I stepped down. But, butthere's a, there's a great study
out of Harvard, the Founder'sDilemma, where the very skills that,
(24:54):
that birthed the company intoexistence took it to the level that
it hit, where it hits abarrier are, are not the skills that
are needed to take it to thenext level. And so very often it
behooves. And I've seenbrilliant people do this where they've
hired a CEO. And I remember2005, 2006, one of my friends did
that for his company, verysuccessful company. And I was, I
was closely affiliated withhim and, and I had a great valuable
(25:17):
lesson there that he broughtin a CEO that was better than him
at it for this big company.And it was a good move. In hindsight,
I was going to say, wow, wow,you know, he just had a quarter of
a billion dollar exit. Why putin the right leadership?
Right. You know, I could talkto you for hours about this because
I think it's, I think it's,it's, it's. I think it's so true
(25:39):
that again, like there's aseason, like when you, and even the,
you know, as when you foundsomething and you get it going at
some point, it is actuallybetter to take that step back and
have somebody else come in.Not because you don't believe in
(26:00):
it anymore as you shared, likethe passion for it changes. You want
to see it go and keep growing,but your day to day passion changes.
And Jacqueline, it could be,could be.
Passion, but it also could beskill set.
Right? Yeah. Skills, right?Yes. Yeah. I mean, and bringing somebody
(26:22):
else in and being able toacknowledge that and recognize that,
like kudos to you for likeseeing that because I think that's,
sometimes that's a lot harderto see and admit. Like I don't have
the skill set to do that andto admit that because so many of
us don't want to, like so manypeople don't want to. Right.
(26:44):
I'll give you a quick hack,Jacqueline, you'll like this. I can
tell you who, if you spend alot of time on AI, AI knows you.
And it will tell you what yourblind spots are if you ask it and
say, be brutally honest withme with all these problems, everything
you know about me, give me 20questions that explore my leadership
capabilities. Where am Istrong? Where am I weak? Give me
(27:06):
the questions. Then go in andanswer those 20, 30 questions. And
then say, now my AI's name isValen. Tell me everything. Tell me
what I don't see and don'tsugarcoat anything. I want the fucking
truth. And it laid it out andit was so spot on. I can't believe
(27:27):
it gave me chills. And Ithought, oh my gosh. That's why my
mentor told me I'm a 4 out of10 with leading the feminine. I see
it. I connect the dots. Here'swhy. In 2013, this female employee
told one of my advice, one ofmy board of advisors, Vince doesn't
know his head from his ass. Iknow why she said that, because I
(27:48):
don't. I get it right and I'lltell you when you're willing to receive
the truth. I call it the Lotussword, the penetrating truth. Recognizing
what's but people in your lifethat can do that with love in depth.
Like the CEO did for me at onepoint or another employee. So many
times I've had not so manytimes, but five or six people in
my life, which is a lot whocan speak truth to me. When I have
(28:14):
a blind spot, I've got them.I've got five or six up in my life
and they will drop truth bombsright on. And it's amazing every
time we go to a differentlevel in our relationship.
That's awesome. I love it. I'mgonna have to ask, I'm gonna have
to ask my favorite AI thatknows me the best because you know
you there is one that youalways do your whatever I'm gonna
(28:35):
have to ask in my blind spotsanyway. So Vince, how can people
get connected with you andlearn more about all the things that
you're doing? And I know preshow you share that you've got this
little retreat happeningplace. So how can people best connect
(28:56):
with you? Get more of your wisdom?
Warriorsage.com I've got themon TikTok as well and or Vincecabino.com.
Is is there one place that youhang out more.
If someone's looking forgrowth capital? Warriorsage.com okay,
(29:17):
someone's looking for just abit more about just the, the content
of my experience in my life.Probably TikTok.
That's awesome. Welllisteners, first and foremost, I'm
sure you've gotten some greatnuggets out of this episode. I know
that I have. And Vince is sucha wealth of knowledge and a great
(29:40):
expert on growing and scalinga business. So connect with him,
go to Warrior Sage, check himout on TikTok, connect with him on
all the socials, and please dome the favor of sharing this episode
with your friends andcolleagues because I think it is
vastly important informationto be shared. And also make sure
you hit subscribe. JacquelineScher, your host and thank you for
(30:03):
listening and thank you Vincefor being an amazing guest.
Thank you so much.
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