Aligning On Value

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1. 0:02
   Wes Mathews

   This is the unfiltered truth about entrepreneurship. Raw, no BS, no sugarcoating. Welcome to Entrepreneur Intel. I'm your host, Wes Mathews. Each episode, we'll learn from experienced founders and uncover the top 5% learnings that led to their success in all things personal, family and business. This show is sponsored by Stealth Consulting, delivering clear marketing strategies, ROI and no surprises. So I am super excited to be on the podcast today. I want to introduce today's guest. He has spent over 20 years helping B2B companies develop and produce products that drive results.

   He transformed business strategies and user needs into something of real and lasting value. He is the author of the book Alignment. CEO and Chief Product Officer Adam Merge. Welcome Jonathon Hensley.

2. 0:55
   Jonathon Hensley

   Thank you so much for having me, Wesley. I've been really looking forward to the discussion today.

3. 0:59
   Wes Mathews

   Oh, awesome. I've been so excited to talk to you. I first have to dive in and ask you the question. I asked all of my guests here at Entrepreneur Intel. So your company has about 11 headcount. You do about 2.5 million in annual revenue. You've been an entrepreneur for a couple of decades. What's the most important lesson that you've learned thus far on your journey?

4. 1:18
   Jonathon Hensley

   I think the most important lesson that I've ever learned is the importance of how you take your vision as a company and how you close the gap between how you execute in your organization. And to really do that, you have to understand how you build alignment, how you help every individual in the team understand how their work matters, their contribution makes a difference to the customers, the people that you serve, how you build teams to solve problems and bring their unique discipline and experience together, and how then you fit that within your vision and goals for the company and how you actually develop the resources and services and products that you offer.

   So it aligns with the market. It's such an intricate web of things that have to be considered. And that level of alignment so people understand the why behind what they're doing has been, I think, the number one or most profound lesson in entrepreneurship and leadership that I've ever learned.

5. 2:26
   Wes Mathews

   Well, I love that your answer aligns with the title of the book you authored, which we're going to get into in a little bit. But I want to go back, right, the early days for Jonathon Hensley. Like, did you always know you were going to be an entrepreneur? Or how did that come about?

6. 2:40
   Jonathon Hensley

   You know, I fell into it, honestly. You know, my love started at a very young age for technology. And so I was, you know, growing up in Silicon Valley, you know, and playing around with like, you know, building circuit boards and computers and, you know, being eight, nine years old, going over to Hewlett Packard's campus to be in software meetups with all these really smart, you know, grown ups that knew way more than I did. And, you know, for me, it was it was completely an area of passion and joy.

   And then as I got older, I found this really interesting intersection for me, which was here, I have this passion for technology. And now I really want to understand the psychology of it, like how does technology actually change and influence our lives. And so that led me to choose a career path that took me into the digital product space and working with CEOs and leadership teams, which eventually was the catalyst for starting to merge.

7. 3:51
   Wes Mathews

   Which is kind of crazy to think about in the sense of like, how much has technology changed since that idea you had then to now I mean, now I look at everybody has a cell phone, I mean, my kids school now has slots, like everybody has a phone that they have to put away, you have AI. But when you were starting down this journey, like what did what did the technology landscape look like? And how did you see that vision of how things were going to change?

8. 4:16
   Jonathon Hensley

   Yeah, I mean, when I got started, just, you know, for context, you know, I mean, this was pre internet. This was, you know, pre all of these, you know, amazing technologies that were capitalizing on today. And so, you know, it really was about at that time, the personal computer, what could you do with the personal computer? How could you extend that into the way that you live and work? And I found that absolutely fascinating. Fast forward a few years later, all of a sudden, you had the early emergence of the internet.

   And this was one really that the internet wasn't public yet. This is one like the internet was still being used in academia and institutions and they were using it to exchange and do research. So I was lucky enough to get early access on these terminal points for the early internet as a kid through university. And so, you know, I had this exposure of, you know, what might be possible. And then all of a sudden, you know, saw the dot com boom just take place. And those were completely transformative years for me that shaped my perspective on technology.

   And, you know, how, you know, when we think about it from a people perspective, right, because at the end, it is still all about people, these technologies are just tools, is how you know, we would have these incredible expectations of how technology would transform the world, our expectations would usually get missed. And then all of a sudden, the technology would, you know, have a take a quantum leap forward. And then we're all catching up to what's really possible. And I think AI right now is just a phenomenal example of that same exact cycle.

   AI has been talked about for decades, we're now seeing a massive inflection point and how it now transforming the way that we're thinking and working in technology and it's starting to percolate into every industry in the world.

9. 6:15
   Wes Mathews

   Since I got you here, you're a technology guy, I get to ask you, because you're going to have more knowledge probably. But where are we at in that cycle of AI? Like you mentioned like 10s or 20 years, we've been talking about it. So I'm, I consider myself like I'm pretty hip with technology. But there's a lot that goes on that I have no idea about the entrepreneurial world. I mean, I see chat LGBT, I can put in some inputs and get some outputs. But where are we at in this cycle?

   I mean, are we about like the first version of the iPhone? You know, or like I look at the old gateway computers that were like this thick, right? Where are we in that cycle? Because it's pretty interesting right now. It's scary what it can do.

10. 6:59
    Jonathon Hensley

    Yeah, I think candidly, my opinion, I think we're really, there's two parts of the cycle that we're in. One is that we are the actual capabilities of AI and what's starting to happen, we are very much in that early stage, think iPhone one, you know, that is very much the reality of where that technology is. It has, I think, the level of potential that we haven't seen since the Industrial Revolution, as far as what it can actually potentially do. Now, that being said, I think it's also important to understand where we are in the overall market cycle.

    And so the last 18 months, we've been in this huge hype cycle around what AI and what it's capable of. And inside of the tech industry, we're starting to exit the hype cycle. And it's really looking at now we're in a space of land and expand, we're trying it's it's a land grab right now in AI, too. And we're seeing consolidation, you saw a lot of with the excitement, huge investments from VCA, you see tons of companies now positioning themselves as AI companies, how much of that is really, you know, AI driven products and services, very, very small percentage.

    There's a lot of underlying technology that enables AI. And I think so, as that as we exit the hype cycle, in the tech space, you're going to see that other industries are now going, okay, we've heard about all these things that are happening. We want to be make sure that we're modernizing and staying, you know, competitive, what does that actually look like for us? So I think the kind of there was almost this pause that took place in the market where like everybody's like, here's AI, what do we do now?

    And it's like, okay, what AI can really do, and how it can be transformative is now coming down to some fundamentals in your organization, outside of services like ChatGPT, what are doing generative, you know, AI content, you know, great for a lot of reason, but it doesn't ever replace expertise. I think the great way to analogy that I've heard is think of like, those types of technology that's like having your personal research assistant, but your own experience, then the way that you connect and build relationships with people is fundamentally, you know, still needs to be layered on top of that.

    And so there's very much a symbiotic relationship with AI, where it's not going to take away a lot of the things that I think people talk about, it's more about how it allows us to do these things more efficiently and focus on that higher level of expertise and connection with people when it's applied well.

11. 9:54
    Wes Mathews

    Yeah, you bring up a good point, because I think that's, that's where I live. And I see, right? It's you have people that are fearful that it's going to replace and get rid of all these people. But then you have the other school of what you just explained about, it can kind of 10x my thinking for me, I feel like it's trading wheels for ideas. Like it's a good idea generator, I need to have the right inputs to get the outputs. But I find myself arguing with ChatGPT, or kind of getting frustrated, because it's just not quite there yet.

    The question I have, so you mentioned people and tools, you know, you mentioned early on, you know, as you're starting this pursuit, and as an entrepreneur, like you hung around Silicon Valley, and Hewlett Packard, what would you recommend for entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs today in existing businesses? There's so much information on AI out there, like, where do you even start, right? Because everybody now is like, how do I implement AI into my business? And I could save money on people or scale my business. But how do how do people prepare themselves?

12. 10:51
    Jonathon Hensley

    I think it fundamentally has to start with, what's the problem that you want to solve? Right? You know, AI is just that it's another tool, but the very powerful tool, but it only fits in certain use cases in inside of what we do. So I think that we have to understand what problems are we trying to solve as a business? And does AI have a role in helping us solve that problem in the most effective and scalable way possible? A lot of times I find that, you know, for, and this happens with small, you know, startups, and, you know, first time entrepreneurs and large scale organization to quite candidly, is that, you know, when we're focused on these things, we need to make sure we can answer some key questions, right?

    It's like, well, what is the underserved or unmet need of the people that we're trying to provide our product or services to? And what value do we need to provide them, right, in that context? And so, there's two types of value that are really important to have an understanding of. One is the psychological value, and one is the functional value of what you provide. So, you know, it's like, are you providing, you know, if you're providing financial services, what do your customers need from you? Trust, confidence, peace of mind?

    Like, what are you actually selling them in, you know, with the functional benefits of your financial expertise? You know, if you're Volvo, you're selling safety and they make cars, but they've been selling safety for decades. The functional value of their vehicles are changing all the time. And I say that because it opens up a really big conversation, but in a nutshell, it's really important to understand that because when you start to look at where AI applies in your business, AI, like any tool, can add and amplify the value you provide to your customers, or can you road it?

    And we need to be very strategic with how we apply AI to increase value. And so, you know, I see this in the digital product space all the time. You know, all of a sudden, there was in the, you know, peak of the hype cycle with like ChatGPT, people like start like, okay, we're going to insert this and our tool is now going to help you write your content. Okay, well, now, the main thing I'm using, like a messaging tool for, I've got this AI thing on the side that's overwriting.

    And now I can't even see the screen I'm supposed to be creating content with. Like, it's almost in the way of me being able to accomplish the task that I need. It doesn't understand the context in what I'm, you know, applying. So, this is where when these, when it's applied incorrectly, it actually is inhibiting the business in your operations. And so, I think it's really important to focus on that core first and then ask yourself the question, where does AI fit? How does it help us amplify the value we deliver?

    And how does it help us, you know, be more efficient and responsive to our customers so that we can, you know, serve you either better or we can serve more people effectively?

13. 14:12
    Wes Mathews

    That's a great response. I mean, you really cover everything there holistically. I mean, I hope anybody that's listening can take what you just said and incorporate that in their business because just to piggyback off your content statement, there's a lot of digital marketing companies, web companies that where people are like, hey, now chat GBT can just deploy all this content. Well, if you're paying attention out there, Google just rolled out a massive update, which basically says, yeah, if you do AI and input spammy content out there, we're going to penalize your website.

    It's actually going to do more harm than you thought your AI would do good. So, yeah, I love the advice. I love the feedback on your strategy because that's definitely a winning strategy. So talk a little bit about so that you have a become, you know, from an entrepreneurial perspective, your background, and you've got to go through your process, like, how did you come up with the concept or become CEO and chief product officer in your company emerge? But what started that idea?

14. 15:07
    Jonathon Hensley

    Yeah, so, you know, I started emerge at a very young age. I have a kind of an interesting entrepreneurial, you know, journey and that I grew up in a family with entrepreneurs. And so I didn't plan to start a business and in essence, but it was a very natural path for me to do that. And I got to, you know, I would challenge myself, you know, when I was in, you know, high school and college, like, you know, I'm uncomfortable on the phone, I'm going to go get a job at a Colson, you know, I'm gonna, I'm really, you know, I don't know how to do, you know, project management the way that I do.

    And yeah, there's a course at school, that's great. You know what, I went and got a job for running, you know, government software, transformation for the Y2K conversion for those that remember that, you know, there was all these things that I did was like, I have gaps that I'm aware of, I need to start filling those. And as I started filling those, I recognized there was a huge opportunity to actually bring this holistic thinking and expertise around technology, how people use it into the space. And so what I did is I decided to start Emerge.

    And Emerge has gone through probably five evolutions since, you know, its inception in 1998, where, you know, we've had to evolve as the markets evolved as the technology landscapes evolved as it, you've had an explosion and the internet and digital transformation and software as a service and all of these major inflection points have changed the landscape in the market. For me, though, we're still focused on our initial, the initial need, which is how do you not just build a thing, but how do you build things that people need and use?

    Because that's what drives the business economics of everything that you're doing. That's what drives success and what drives relationship. And I think, you know, understanding what value is and how we deliver it, you know, in, you know, business, whether you're working on digital product or not, is just a such a core thing. And on the surface, it can seem easy, but it's such a complex thing to do. And so it's really important to sometimes have guides that can help you work through that process and show you when it's done well, what that looks like.

    And that's, you know, really been the catalyst for, for Emerge.

15. 17:40
    Wes Mathews

    So to me, it sounds, you know, it could be many different things, but like, how do you typically start an engagement? Or like, what's a good opportunity for Emerge? Can you get a little bit more specific on? Is it just, hey, company has problem? Hey, you come in and consult strategize? Or like, what's a good opportunity look like for you guys?

16. 18:01
    Jonathon Hensley

    Yeah, there's usually two specific cases that are happening. One is, there's a company that's decided, we want to build a digital product or service, we've never done it before, we want to make sure we do it right. So they'll bring us in to help guide that entire process going through, you know, from helping, you know, take their idea and look at, well, how does that idea fit into the market? How do we develop an effective product strategy? You know, how do them we think about designing and then delivery and bringing that product to market, and all of the steps and pieces that go underneath that.

    The other side of that, which is really common is somebody has a product, they built it, they've been working on it, it's not working or getting the results that they want. And so we'll come in and we'll help assess what's going on. And we'll look at it holistically, not just at the product itself, but we'll look at the product culture. What does the team have? Do they have, for example, a really clear and strong product vision? Do they know what they're working toward? And do they have an effective strategy that can actually guide them towards the success that they're looking for?

    And then we'll look at all the nuances that are happening between how customers use the product, where they're getting stuck. And then we'll look at, you know, what needs to change. And that might be in the product itself, it might be in the processes, it might be looking at, you know, how leadership is, you know, structuring some of the things. So everybody's empowered to do their best and bring their best capabilities and expertise to the table. So there's a lot of pieces that fit under it, but it's really comes down to net new, we've got something we wanted to perform better.

    And that happens whether it's a small company or we're working with Fortune 100 brands.

17. 19:54
    Wes Mathews

    So going back to the intro, you authored a book called Alignment. That was your response to the big question of what you've learned over this, you know, duration of the time you've been an entrepreneur. So like how basically, it sounds like, you know, alignment was just so important in your business. Because what you're selling is, hey, you might be really good, really smart. But how do you engage others, right? You have 11 other individuals that have to think like you, be passionate like you to deliver like you.

    So how did you start to piece that company together? What it would it became more than Jonathon? Like how do you as an entrepreneur, like how did you take that first step to get alignment with like your first hire?

18. 20:40
    Jonathon Hensley

    Yeah, so I was really fortunate. My very first hire is also now my business partner. We started working together and then he, you know, became a full partner in Emerge. And in the beginning, I think like any startup, you're trying to figure out like where, where do I need somebody to fill my gaps? Where are my strengths? And where are my weaknesses? And then how do I compliment that? Julian, my business partner is an incredible he comes from with a technology background that's much deeper than mine.

    I'm more focused on the business strategy side and how we drive engagement these days. He's very much that leader on the technical and the operational side. And so it's very, very complimentary. But I think when you're building a team, you really have to like understand in what I learned early on is you have to understand what are you hiring for? And I think that there's a lot of examples of like, well, your first hire should be in this role or, Oh, I really don't like doing finance.

    So I'm just going to offload that. And there is something to be said for that. But I think more importantly, as you're building a team, you know, you're it, it's really essential that you understand, well, what is the outcome I need from this role? What does success look like? And do they share that understanding that passion to achieve that success, all the tactics, all the roles and responsibilities you have are to generate an outcome for the business. And you need to be really clear on that as an entrepreneur.

    And you need to then be able to hire for that and say, okay, this is the outcome that I need. Can I find the best person to help us produce that outcome? And I think that's, you know, fundamentally, when you start growing a team, that's important. We did, we think of the same thing in whether we're, you know, hiring at a merge, or as we become part of, you know, other organizations, where we're working on, you know, products that may have 50 or 100 people across the team.

    And we all need to know what we're there to do, and how we do it effectively. You know, through that, I've also made all the mistakes that, you know, somebody can make. So, you know, I say that now, I didn't have that, you know, that experience 25 years ago, that was something I, you know, made all the mistakes and, you know, hiring and building a team to figure out. But, you know, fundamentally, today, when I think about how you hire great people, it has to start with that clarity as an entrepreneur of what you need to be successful.

    So that when you're, you know, thinking about how you build your team, how you build collaboration, how you think about comp plans, all the things that come up in building a business, you need to understand that what you're working towards is that shared outcome.

19. 23:32
    Wes Mathews

    And it's so important as an entrepreneur to think about, because on one school of thought, you have a vision of your deliverable for your client, right? Like, that's kind of what leads a lot of people down this entrepreneurship path. But then what you just talked about is this whole other animal and a beast of, you know, alignment within an organization. Like, how did the book come about? Or like, what triggered, what triggered that for you in the business to put that book together on alignment? Yeah, so,

20. 24:04
    Jonathon Hensley

    gosh, it was such a long journey to write that book. And so one of the things that has really always frustrated me in my career is seeing so many great ideas and great companies deal with failure. And so about 15 years ago, I just became obsessed with understanding why do so many businesses and products and services fail? I mean, what's really happening behind that? And the most common, you know, thing in tech that's talked about now is, you know, lack of market fit. And that's certainly true.

    That's a big issue. But a lot of failure is, you know, comes from internal sabotage and just not knowing some of the things that we need to consider. And so I started researching this, I started interviewing a lot of people, and I was really inspired by Stephen M. R. Covey, who wrote The Speed of Trust, who I'd had an opportunity to spend some time with early in my career. And it was clear that there was something deeper here that needed to be understood and explored. And so I started researching the book, I started interviewing people all over the world.

    About failure. And as I started going through that process, this theme kept coming up with those who had beaten the odds, not just once or twice, but again and again through their careers. Those who had built really successful businesses, who had scaled, in many cases, multi-billion dollars in revenue, who had, you know, built lifestyle businesses, who ran product teams, who were working in every facet of an organization. And they had one shared tree, which is they were intuitively focused on building alignment. And so the book, when it started, was all about understanding failure.

    And I was going to write this whole deep dive into the root causes that can happen that cause businesses and products and services to fail. And it turned into this book around alignment, because that was the theme. And that was the story that needed to really be told that like, okay, we all experienced the pain of failure, but what are those that are succeeding doing differently? And so the book really focuses on that and then helps really unpack, you know, what does alignment look like? What are some of the key things we need to be thinking about as leaders?

    What are the, you know, fundamentals of strategy that are not discussed often, or there's a lot of confusing information out there when we think about building alignment, and how that drives team performance and effectiveness. And so that really became the, that was the path to getting to the book.

21. 27:05
    Wes Mathews

    Now, does your book go in specifics? I had a big question I have from that, which is which is great. How do you begin to do that as an entrepreneur, right? There's so many things out there. There's so much information. I have familiarity with EOS, which is, you know, for entrepreneurs, it's a framework for entrepreneurs that may not have gone down the path of traditional MBA, you know, business school. EOS was super important to my business because it gave me a framework. And when I realized that the tool in EOS was the VTO, the Vision Traction Organizer.

    So I use that for alignment, like helping push my passion on a piece of paper, which I think is really hard as an entrepreneur. But then once people saw that, they could see the mission, sort of the North Star for the business. Is that sort of like, what do you recommend for entrepreneurs? Again, I think there's a lot of people that they're passionate about, like their owner operators, they're passionate about an idea or service. They're not quite thinking about, oh, man, now I have five, 10, 20, 100 people that I have to create alignment with, right?

22. 28:14
    Jonathon Hensley

    Yeah, I think there's, I'm a huge fan of EOS. I've gone through that myself. And, but I think there's a lot of really great frameworks and ways to approach that that help as an entrepreneur, it kind of goes through the critical thinking of structuring, you know, all the thinking that needs to go into building alignment with in your team and organization. You know, one of the things that I find to be probably one of the most difficult points is when we think about within that right vision, well, what does a great vision look like?

    And there's an anatomy to it. And that's something that EOS and a lot of these other things don't talk about. We spend a lot of time in on the product side, because we have to align what we're building as products with an existing culture, a company that has a mission in, you know, values, like where did, what does that actually look like? And so, you know, a vision has to fill in the context. And it sometimes it's talked about, well, it has to be, you know, a statement, and it needs to be inspiring.

    And, you know, it's aspirational, it's like, it should do those things. But a really good vision also is measurable. It's also specific. And ideally, I think if you really think about, you know, if you've ever had challenge like motivating a team or what you're doing, you might be missing some of the fundamental elements of how to articulate that. And I'll give a very specific example that I run into all the time, which is often I'll see a vision and it has some sort of business metric on like total revenue, or it has a certain metric around maybe go both of customers.

    Well, what's really important for your team is to understand what in that vision, how are we serving people? Do that? And what do that what can they control and how do they contribute to that? If I say, you know, my goal is to help feed 100,000 families and move them out of, you know, poverty, I am giving a very clear picture of everything that we're focused on doing that's measurable. And that I now based on where I sit in the organization, I can understand how I contribute to fulfilling vision.

    If I instead say something like, well, our goal is to make $10 million next year and see 20% growth year over year. No one knows what to do with that vision. No one knows where to how that matters to them. It's so we remove the purpose envision when that happened. And we it becomes aspirational versus specific towards a clearly defined objective. And I think when we pick any framework, it's important to look at the examples that they provide and say, hey, is this really getting to something that is going to help me build that alignment that you're looking for and be a catalyst for the momentum and building the culture that we need to have in order to achieve the objective that we're setting for ourselves with an organization.

23. 31:35
    Wes Mathews

    Now your book does it give a general overview? Are you giving like step by step action items? Because I see in my brain, I'm like, 40% of companies probably have the purpose figured out. Like its purpose has definitely come up a lot more less five to 10 years. But the other 60% still has that 10 million, you know, very measurable type of purpose, like how can a company but where do you start? Right? If you're a visionary or entrepreneur, that's just, that was me at 2014.

    I'm like, yeah, I don't want integrity, honesty on the wall. Like we don't need to invest in posters, like come on. It was really hard for me to buy into this concept. Myself, I went through EOS and they're like, first of all, it's a two year journey. And I'm like two years, can't we get this done in like two weeks? This is crazy. But until I actually went through the process and spent the time on the VTO, I started to see stuff to take root within my own organization and there's clarity and we all had goals and rocks and a common purpose.

    And why everybody and I'm like, holy cow, like why didn't I do this sooner? Like how as an entrepreneurial company, where do you begin?

24. 32:44
    Jonathon Hensley

    Well, I think there are a couple of actually very specific things. I think one is when you have to understand, like when you establish that vision and you're starting to build a strategy for your organization, you have to understand the fundamentals of strategy, right? And this is a very difficult thing. There's a lot of information, it's really confusing, and a lot of things are labeled as strategy that aren't. Planning is not strategy. Oftentimes, we don't have enough information to effectively plan, right? We need to be able to articulate why we're going to do this thing, what it is, and then the planning is how we're going to achieve it.

    But if we don't have the why and the what, it's very difficult, and we have to make sure we have enough information. And so when we look at the foundational elements of strategy, through the course of my career and even writing the book, I probably went through 150 interviews with leaders working just on strategy and reading as much materials I could get hands on. And there's some fundamentals that have to be in place. You have to have a really good vision. You have to understand what is the problem we're solving for our customer?

    And then what is the value that we're bringing to that customer? What value do they need to get to either try your product and switch from the current options that they have? Or how are you going to offer something new that can be introduced into that space? And then you have to be really clear on then out of the audience, your possible audiences, right? Again, fundamentals of business here, this is probably not surprising to a lot of people, but focus, relentless focus. Out of that, if you really understand the value provided, what part of your market would get the most value and benefit from what you're offering?

    If you're an entrepreneur getting started, that's absolutely where you got to focus. You can't be all things to all people. And so you really have to get super tight. Well, who gets the most benefit? Is it the small business? Is it the single person? Is it the family with three kids? What does that look like very, very specifically? And then how are you going to make that connection? And when you think about that, then you have to really understand, well, what actions do you need to take and to solve that problem?

    And how can you measure forward progress? So you have something to guide you along the way. And you're not just waiting three or four years or until you run out of money to figure out if it was right. You have to have a way to do that. So you can be iterative and adaptive and really recognize that. Once you have that foundation established, I think the next piece that entrepreneurs that's mission critical that also gets skipped a lot is you need to start going spending more time with your customers.

    And I think this is one of the most important things that an entrepreneur can do. And I see this in really big companies and how they build this into their culture as well. It's important. You got to spend time. Meet customers where they're at. Understand. When they're working with your firm, what is their ultimate goal? Are they coming in from a point of, in healthcare, we deal a lot with our clients that are their clients, their patients, they're in distress. You've got to meet them where they're at.

    If you come in with just complete optimism, you're not really hearing or seeing them where they're at. You've got to be pragmatic. You need to be empathetic. Based on your business, what does that look like? It can be very simple things. This is not complicated, but you have to make sure you understand customers. What's influencing their decisions? If it's a B2B company, they're having to build consensus, get validation on the solution. They're happy to make usually a group decision on what they're going to purchase and what they're not.

    That's not one decision maker. That's how do you support the organization and make the decision. Really getting into that with your strategy so that your plans are feasible is really, I think, important. It's hard work. It's really hard work. Our customers, our markets are never on our schedule. It's always a frustrating thing that I hear, especially early stage founders. It's like, I need to get this done. I'm like, I get it, but we don't control the people's time. We've got to figure out how to get that time.

25. 37:44
    Wes Mathews

    I'm curious around that because everything you're saying, I'm like, wow, John's like this wicked smart guy. For you to be able to sit down with any type of company in distress or whatever challenges they face, but how do you and your firm emerge get swings at the bat? What you're talking about, there's so much value, but it's very complicated where I could see an entrepreneur being like, wow, I'm so overwhelmed. I'll get to that when I can or I want to avoid all that to play because it's hard work.

    How do you guys engage? How do you guys find your opportunities? Where do those come up for you guys? I'm just curious. Yeah.

26. 38:26
    Jonathon Hensley

    It's really shifted for us, just sharing with anybody listening to this. We used to be in a market where being in digital product, you would have all these companies just find you and it's very different. Now it's very traditional in the sense that what we offer in order to make that connection is if you're an early stage company and you are a founder that's struggling with like, I need to get this right. What are the steps? How do I go through that? What we'll do is we'll come in and we partner with the founder and we say, look, let's talk about your idea.

    We're going to help you flush it out. We're going to help you explore where's the opportunity space? How do you optimize your business model for that? Then we can start tackling the product. In some cases, what will happen is myself and the team will come in as a fractional leadership into the organization. This is where I'm CEO of Emerge, but I'm also this a chief product officer. I will come in and I'll be like, I'm going to help you get through this process. We just get in there, we roll up our sleeves and it's hands-on and we're helping you making sure that all the gaps are getting filled.

    That might start just why, okay, well, what is that vision? Is it an effective one? Is the way that we're framing this going to enable the rest of the organization yes or no? Great. Let's fix it. Sometimes I can do that in 20 minutes with a founder. They have all the pieces. They've just never known how to put them together and it's very quick. In other cases, we've made a lot of assumption and we've gone to build first and that's very common. We get an engineer and we start building things.

    It's a little bit of the field of dreams, build it and they will come. It doesn't work like that. We need to step back and go, okay, well, what value are we creating and is what being built actually deliver on that value? You can't sell a Volvo without safety. You can't sell a Toyota without reliability. These are fundamentals and how you craft your offering, how you market yourself and go to market and how you create your service and product offering are very much contingent on understanding that value because how you deliver that, how you produce those things are all going to be influenced by understanding that relationship with the customer.

    We'll really deep dive into that when we're working with folks and helping them flush that out.

27. 41:12
    Wes Mathews

    That's really cool. I think a big misconception around entrepreneurship is it can be super lonely as a visionary or an entrepreneur and you need good teams and third-party people, smart people to give you non-biased feedback. I've had situations in my experience where, yeah, if you're an entrepreneur and you have a team of people, you still have to understand that you're employing the team of people. So when you're getting feedback, they're like, yes, this is great. There's also that fear of they don't want to say the wrong thing.

    So I think it's super important to have the right consultants or resources where you can hit them straight between the eyes and say, hey, we have your best interest, but you got to think about X, Y, and Z. So a couple things I picked up on from you right away. You offered a lot of information, a lot of great nuggets, but relentless focus, I think it's huge. I think that there's a lot of noise out there with COVID just being out. I mean, there's a million things that can get people distracted.

    And then just spending more times with customers. I remember watching, oh, what's the show on TV, Undercover Boss, right? We're just even the simplest businesses, the CEOs walking in, they're like, who told you to do that? And they're like, well, it's in our manual and we've been doing this for 15 years. Really great feedback. So I want to thank you, John, for providing all your insight. But where can people find you? Like, you're a wealth of knowledge, super impactful to businesses. Can people get your book and then how can people access you and reach out to if they want?

28. 42:35
    Jonathon Hensley

    Yeah, absolutely. So the book's available on Amazon and also Apple. And then if they'd like to get in touch, definitely, you can find me on LinkedIn and send me a connection request and say hello and would love to make that connection and have that conversation.

29. 42:55
    Wes Mathews

    Cool, man. Well, hey, John, I really appreciate the time you offered a lot of value. I wish you nothing but success and thanks again for your time.

30. 43:02
    Jonathon Hensley

    Thanks so much for having me, Wesley. This was great. Thanks, man. See you later.

31. 43:06
    Wes Mathews

    This has been another episode of Entrepreneur Intel. Thank you for joining us. For show notes, for other episodes, please visit us at entrepreneurintel.com. Until next time.