Jonathan Keyser, Entrepreneur, Founder, The Keyser Institute
Jonathan Keyser is the founder and thought leader behind Keyser, the largest occupier services commercial real estate brokerage firm in Arizona. Through sheer determination and focus on selfless service, Jonathan is disrupting the commercial real estate (CRE) industry, and beyond. An Inc. 5000 company, Keyser has rapidly become one of the fastest growing firms of its kind in the country, serving companies and their real estate needs globally. Award winning and nationally recognized, Keyser is an active member of the Forbes Real Estate Council, voted Top 10 Best Places to Work multiple years running, and is a proud Host Company for Conscious Capitalism.
AUTOMATED EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:01] You're listening to Scaling Up Services where we speak with entrepreneurs authors business experts and thought leaders to give you the knowledge and insights you need to scale your service based business faster and easier. And now here is your host Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt.
[00:00:22] Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier. Checkout Thrive Roundtable thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community created by Inc award winning CEO and certified scaling up business coach Bruce Eckfeldt. Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For more details about the program, visit eckfeldt.com/thrive . That’s E C K F E L D T. com / thrive.
[00:00:57] Welcome everyone. This is Scaling Up Services. I'm Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host. And our guest today is Jonathan Keyser. He is founder of Keyser, which is a real estate company. He's also an author. He's founder of The Keyser Institute, which helps businesses adopt a service, selfless service approach to doing business. I'm excited to speak with him. Great stuff. Anyone in the service business or a running service? Businesses, you know, some key insights for how you can think differently about how you set up your culture, how you set up your customer service approach with that. Jonathan, welcome to the program. Thanks for inviting me. So what do we talk about? Background. You're doing a lot of work. You've got the book. You've got a lot of content out there. How did it all start? You were you were in real estate originally. What was the story? How did this come about? Tell us where it began.
[00:01:42] Sure. So I had an interesting upbringing, unlike most of your audience. I was actually raised overseas as a Christian missionary kid. And so from a very early age, all my parents did was try to help people. So everywhere I went, they were they were serving and giving. And we were in Papua New Guinea. And when I came back from Papua New Guinea, I had this realization that I was poor. And that was the first time that I'd really sense that, because overseas everyone was kind of at the same level. And so I decided at that younger early age of eleven that I was I did not like being poor and I wanted to be rich. I said, I want all this stuff the other kids have. So I got into commercial real estate because a buddy of mine said I could make a lot of money and I didn't really have much direction other than I wanted to make a lot of money. And as I got into commercial real estate brokerage, I realized really quickly, wow, this is a ruthless, cutthroat take no prisoners industry. Right. And I didn't really know that going in. I just want I just wanted to make money. So but as I got in, I realised that all the people around me that were super successful were doing business this way. And so I became ruthless because that's why I thought it took.
[00:02:46] And that's that's what I thought was the path to the prize. But I was miserable. I was mis aligned with my core values and I hated who I was becoming, but I felt trapped because I didn't know any other way to do it. And then 15 years ago, I go to this industry conference and this guy gets up and he starts talking about something that I'd never heard of before, starts talking about succeeding by helping others succeed. And I'm sitting there in the back of the room and it sounds like my parents are speaking and I'm I'm watching him and I'm thinking, this guy's so full of shit. Like, there's no way this is really true. And I go to MRF towards and I go, hey, is this really true? Is this really work? And he said, yeah. I said, well, how does it work? And he likened it to hunting versus farming. And he said most people in a service industry I know most of the listeners are in service industries of some kind. You know, most people in service industries get up every morning and they go hunt, right. And they go, go, go, go do what hunting is and they skin it, eat it. Next, you know, he goes, Rob describing is more like farming, like developing relationships, nurturing them over time and over time, they yield fruit.
[00:03:50] And so, like for me, I have a I'm based in Arizona. And even though I do work globally with companies, but I have a citrus tree in my backyard telemetry, and when I was little, the thing was I thought I was dead half the year and I was pounding these little Home Depot steaks into the ground to give them nutrients. And I was protecting it at a net around it and watering it literally didn't yield fruit for years. But today, now that it's grown big and strong, you know, I have I can't give the lemons away fast enough. It's almost it's almost a nuisance. Yeah, that was kind of what he likened it to. And I said, well, this is really true. Huckabee, no one else is doing it. He said, because it takes too long. And I said, what does that mean? He said, well, to go from your current ruthless state of mind and actually develop a selfish way of doing business, it'll take you about five years. And I was like, five years. Yeah. Okay. Now I get why nobody else is doing it. But he goes. But at the end of that, after five years, you'll have created such a level of relationships in whatever market, community industry you're in.
[00:04:46] Referrals will just come your way without you having to ask for him. And I was moved and inspired and I said, wow, I didn't even know that this was possible. And it really resonated with me to a deep level because of how I was raised. And so I came back to Arizona fifteen years ago, taught my business plan up, and I just got involved in the community and started helping everybody. That would they would listen to me. And I just kept asking everybody the same question, how can I help you? What do you need? How can I help you? And I was helping people find jobs. I was helping people's kids get internships. I was connecting people. I was up and be Vine doctors. I was doing business development for other people. And over time, over five years, just like he predicted. One, I did go broke in the process and everybody thought I was crazy. I went from National Rookie of the Year to, you know, laughing stock in my company. But after five years, just like you predicted, I started having success. And then it just took off. And all the people that I had helped. Not all of them, but a lot of the people that I'd helped started helped me back. And that gave me more to help other people with.
[00:05:40] And it just turned into this amazing collaboration within the community. And in 2012, I had an epiphany. Bruce, when I said I realized in a moment that what I was up to was bigger than me and that it had the opportunity actually change not only the commercial real estate industry, but business as a whole, the service business of being very me, me, me centric.
[00:05:59] That if you focused on others, it actually you got your cake and eat it too. So I left my old firm because I was having trouble scaling a selfless culture within a non selfless organization. And today we've built the largest firm of our kind in Arizona doing, you know, help representing companies globally with their real estate needs. And we're one of the 5000 fastest growing companies looking to expand nationally and put offices in all bigger markets. And it's all driven by this philosophy of success through service. So that's why I love your podcast, by the way, because all these tips on how leaders can scale, you know, to me, the most fundamental business principle of all time, the greatest business principle of all time to me is selfless service, because I believe that the more you give, the more you receive and that you cannot give the universe. So when wherever community that that your listeners are in, if their focus is, how can I best serve those in front of me? I think that is the most long term sustainable way to succeed.
[00:06:57] Yeah, it's not. I think you're talking about more. I mean, I certainly run across a lot of kind of advice or know philosophy is that, you know, you need to be kind of customer centric or you need to be, you know, put the customer first or customer driven and in your strategies.
[00:07:11] But my sense is you're you're you're talking about this at a couple of orders of magnitude like deeper. Yeah. You know, and the other thing I would say and I think you you brought up this point of that it's not if you're going to scale a business critically service based businesses, you know, it's more than just a strategy.
[00:07:27] It's more than just a process. It is it is really a mindset like you need to change your mindset if you're going to go from, you know, a couple of million in revenue to a couple hundred million in revenue. And that journey requires more than just tack, you know, tactical changes. Like you really need to change your fundamental how you perceive things, how you approach things. So talk to us about this transformation or the the change you need to make as a leader to really adopt this mindset or this this approach. What what is really involved?
[00:07:52] That's a great question because so one of the reasons I wrote my book, you don't have to be ruthless to win, is because where I believe there's a huge gap between kind of the awareness kind like you were just describing and actually implementing it. Right. It's that the hardest part about selfless service is you actually have to become selfless. Right. So it's what we teach through the book, through the Kaiser Institute and all of the Kaiser brokers, we teach selfless reinvention from the inside out.
[00:08:18] What does that mean? We called it three step process. Number one, like Gandhi says, you got to be the change you want to see in the world. So first, it's focusing on as a leader. How do you reinvent yourself as a selfless leader? Now, a couple of things. Number one, you have to really want this. This can't be force. This can't be mandated. Right. This has to be a personal reinvention of your own choosing. So that's the first really big hurdle, is there's a lot of people listening who may cut him on the surface, think that they might want to do this, but you actually have to be willing to go all in and do this. That's that's point number one. But number two is in doing so, you have to actually live the things that you want, the people in your organization to live. I think that's where the hardest part about real true good leadership is accountability. And so I think a lot of a lot of the hurdles for people in embracing this methodology is they want others to do it. But they don't actually want to have to be the ones accountable to do it. So as a leader, if you really want to reinvent yourself as a leader and your organization as a leader that starts with you, a fish rots from the head.
[00:09:18] Right. And so it starts at the top. So reinvention from the inside out as a business leader or owner. Right. And then creating a company culture around it. That's the next level. Level to create the company culture and selfless service. And again, in the book, I tried to say why? Why are more people not living this way? Why is it such a anomaly in today's world when we already know how to do it? We do it in our lives. And I believe it's because nobody knows how. There's no clear roadmap out there. It's just conceptual. It's just, you know, it's just talking head ish. And so so in the book and through the Kaiser Institute. Right, we teach everything that we've learned over the years because I'm not a talking head. I'm in the trenches. I'm an arguably one of the most ruthless, cutthroat industries in the world, kicking butt and taking names. But by doing it by loving and serving other people. And so, you know, I'm here to show you that this is indeed possible. And it's not just some psychology.
[00:10:12] It's not just some cute thing. This is real. And I believe that those companies and those leaders that do not embrace that will quickly become the dinosaurs of tomorrow. Because 70 percent of millennials coming up, brand new study, 70 percent are millennials coming up require selfless leadership for any organization they're going to go to work for. So if you want to peeled a seven out of 10 of your future workforce and that's what, you know, scaling a business is all about. You better be prepared to be a selfless leader and you better be prepared to hire selfless leaders. And then the third level of reinvention is how you deal with your clients, your partners, your stakeholders. Right. The community at large. A lot of people think, hey, you can just do this within your own organization and then outside your organization, you can be ruthless. And in our mindset as no, no. You have to be it throughout. You have to be it even with the people that are normally in a position where you'd want to aggressively, you know, treat them under the old model, you want them as your partners going forward because everybody collectively makes the good better.
[00:11:11] So how do I know if I'm if I'm thinking about this myself or if I'm thinking about this with a client or someone I'm working with? How do I know if if they have the capacity, the aptitude, the mindset, the core values to really take on this approach?
[00:11:25] I mean, what are some of the indicators or the tools that you look for when working with folks in terms of who's going to adopt this easily, who's going to struggle with it and who maybe can't do it at all?
[00:11:35] Bruce, you ask good questions. So here's all I can speak for is what my experiences. I'm not an organizational development expert, although I feel like I've kind of got a p_h_d_ in it since since launching this company. But here's what we do. We make our messaging like, look, I'm a commercial real estate broker, right? I have a commercial real estate firm that represents tenants and occupiers of space all around the world. We kick ass and take names. We save tons of money for our clients and we actually provide them with a relationship that they've never had before where their commercial real estate broker. Right. This idea of you can trust your commercial real estate broker. He's really or she's really on your side. They're really in it for you. And my top three favorite people. The role of my commercial real estate broker is laughable. So here I am in a ruthless, hard nosed industry as a commercial real estate broker. But I'm not talking about commercial real estate. I'm talking about selfless service. And so to me, why I do that is, number one, because it's authentic for me. But number two is I'm looking for people that that message resonates with. So my book doesn't say how to negotiate a better commercial real estate lease, although I could certainly have written that book. Right. My book says you want to be ruthless to win. I'm looking for five thousand commercial rules. How do I scale? Right. Sort of scaling up services bogged down. I'm scaling up.
[00:12:51] I looking to put my message so clearly out in the world through the book, then hit number one on Wall Street Journal and TV interviews and amazing podcasts like yours to attract to bring awareness to what I'm doing and attract those people. So the first step is if you're trying to sound like all your competition, you're not going to be able to attract the people because you're not different enough. You're messaging isn't distinct enough. So for us, that's all for messaging. Number two, one of the benefits of having a book and I'm not suggesting everybody needs to go write a book, but some sort of document that lays out what the vivid vision for the organization is. My buddy Cameron Harold talked about writing a program, too. Yeah. So I love Cameron. So if you don't have a clear, vivid vision for people, then they don't know what they're able to live into. And so for me, having either that eight page document is a vivid vision or a book or something in between or anything like that. When you expose people to it, it becomes a self screening process. You write that they go, hmm, well, you know what? This is probably not for me. You guys say the word love a little bit too much for me. That's a perfect self screening now. And then we have tools and we have technology and we use predictive index and we have value assessments. And we had the whole team interview everyone, you know.
[00:14:05] So we're real careful about it. At the end of the day, there are going to be people that snake through that are not aligned. We've got to get rid of those fast. But the more that we can put our message out to the world, the more you attract the kind of people. I can't tell you how many times we just hired this amazing capital markets guy who is world class and he moved to Arizona, quit his job, moved to Arizona and only interviewed with us because he heard about my book, read it and said, this is the company I want to work for. So you can kind of see by people's actions and how they talk about it. Yet last comment on that is we ask everybody, what's your why? Kaiser, you know, if you ask anybody in my office, what's your why? Kaiser, why are you with Kaiser? What? What, why? Why do you believe in this firm? Yeah. I mean, it brings me to tears when I read these things like I finally, for the first time in my 30 year career, found a place where I feel safe, where people aren't stealing my leads and stabbing me in the back where we actually collaborate. We actually help each other. Right. And so if somebody is why, guys, you're like why you understand Kaiser is kind of like, well, you know, you guys are up and coming firm and you're really successful. You can kind of screen in that way as well.
[00:15:07] Another. So a couple of things. One, I like the whole kind of taking a counter countercultural approach to it is that, B, being the being the kind of radical company inside the market, you know. Huge amounts of entities and we're working, we're always talking strategically where I was talking about how do you stand out? How do you be different? How do you create a totally defensible space? And you're doing that perfectly inside this market, which is known for ruthlessness, actually kind of taking a love approach to. It is a great way to actually create a differentiation strategy.
[00:15:37] But also, I like the fact that you're dealing in a market, which I think there's several different industries have this challenge around, which is the your customer or the people that you do business with only need you once every seven years or 10 years or so.
[00:15:52] And so you don't have this. Well. I've got a customer. I do business with them and I can keep them around. I you know, every couple of months they're going to call me. They're gonna need another one. You know, I can build an ongoing relationship. Like once you play somebody, like it's gonna be another cycle, another seven years for them to then need a new place. So you have to figure out some other way of keeping in touch with them. And if you start sending them content, like you start writing a blog and you sending a newsletter every month or talking about, you know, all the ins and outs of commercial real estate, well, they don't care and they're not going to care for another seven years. So you're basing the relationship, basing the ongoing relationship on something other than the service is a really great strategy. I've seen a couple of companies trying to do this, but I I see just from a engagement strategy, I see why this can be so effective. Tell me a little bit more about how like what are some of the challenges that have come up for you as implemented? Because I can see I can see strategically the idea, but I can see tactically it's going to be really hard. Yeah. What else comes up if you start to take this approach?
[00:16:49] It is you got you gotta be willing to be different. But let me just come in on your prior comment, I think is a really good one.
[00:16:54] You know, I think the most important thing for people to hear is that this really has to be authentic, because if you don't really care about people, if you're not really interested in taking the time to understand what people really need, like one of the things that I try to do with every meeting I have is I try to identify three ways that I can help that person that have nothing to do with my business. Right. I feel like there's a power of three. And within that power of three people are not used to that.
[00:17:22] They're not used to people going out of their way to help them if there's not something in it for them. So I think the biggest differentiator is you have to be able and willing to do that over and over and over and over and over again, not asking for anything in return. Which leads to the second point, which is this is the long game. This isn't an instant gratification, instant quid pro quo kind of thing. In fact, that's kind of creepy if you really think about it, Bruce. This idea that people do where they act like they're giving you something. I see it in networking events all the time. They act like they're giving you a referral, but they're really just testing you to see if you're going to give them something back. And the one they were offering you probably wasn't that good anyways. They want to see if they're able to trigger your mechanism to give them one. And that's all they're thinking about. So when you think about long sales cycle and long in-between times, you know, for us, I think that's actually the lazy approach that most brokers take. I think it's a shame, you know, there's all kinds of ways that we can be serving our clients in the middle. Let me give you one example. Clients that are in lease space. They get operating expense reconciliations from their landlords every year usually comes in the first quarter or the beginning of the second quarter. That tells them how much the operating expenses have gone up or down over the last year.
[00:18:29] And the tenants have no way of knowing how to audit these things or look at these things. And so for our clients every year we say, hey, it's about that time when you get it, send it to us and we'll review it for you. And we come back and say, hey, we think you're getting gouged here. They're saying toilet paper went up 400 percent. Probably not. Let's look into this. Right. And so it's it's things like that where where we're always looking for ways to add value to them as well as we like to understand from them what what is it that they're looking for in their business. Right. So how do we help their business itself, not just help them find space, which is what are our businesses? So we're helping them get connected into the local business community. We're helping them when they look at new initiatives, how how can we help them get help with those initiatives through through relationships that we may have or connections where we may be able to make. So I think this this idea of these are relationships. These are people I care about. These are people that I send text to. Now, here's the fundamental question. I think this is the biggest hurdle for most people. OK. So conceptually, Jonathan, it makes sense. I help people that builds trust. They want to hire me and they're loyal. Got it. OK. But like, everybody needs help and there's unlimited needs.
[00:19:33] It's just going to ask this question. Do you know is the most obvious next question? It's like, well, how do I actually do this? John, that makes no sense.
[00:19:41] So here's here's why. I would say there's a really, really good book out there by Adam Grant called Given Take. And in it, he describes people in three categories, givers, matches and takers. And what he describes is that givers are at both the least successful and the most successful end of the spectrum. And he solves for why and is why is those bleeding hearts that can never say no. Those are the ones that go broke, the ones that are strategic and only serve where there's opportunity for significant impact. Those are the ones that have huge opportunities to scale. So what does all that mean? Well, in summary, in my opinion, if you come to every interaction you're going to have with someone. Right. Think big. Who are those people that you'd love to have as clients? And rather than. Trying to figure out a time to go in and sell to them. You figure out how you can selflessly serve them. I have another good friend, John Rule. Have you had John ruling on this? No, I have not. All you have to have John. He's. He's a star. But he wrote a book, Gift Dollar G. And what he describes is how by paying it forward through gifts, he creates relationships with high powered people that he's never met, never known.
[00:20:41] But the power of giving. And so you combine giving and service and and all these things where you say, OK, who are the people that if they loved me, if they thought I was awesome, would be able to help my business in return? And then you go selflessly serve and help those people asking for nothing in return. That one thing alone will enable you to make significant breakthroughs in any business you're in. I don't and I don't care if it's geographic. You know, I don't care if your community is around. You know, hey, I'm in Atlanta, so I'm going to be the Atlanta business community or if it's hey, I'm in health care. And so I'm in that I go to the national health care conferences or whatever it is. Right. If you have that mindset of who are those people in the community that if I served them, could either refer me a lot of business or could be huge clients and then just focus your efforts on serving them as a service organization. That's what I think is the secret sauce.
[00:21:31] Give us some examples of what we can actually do. So I go through the process. I make the decision internally to embrace this approach. Live this approach. I look at the people who I think could really help me. Long term, you know, from a business point of view, professional point of view, I've got some names of these people. How do you start this? Because some of these folks are gonna be you know, I may not have an immediate relationship with or I may not have a minute knew much about them. How do I actually become of service to them?
[00:21:57] Like, what are some of the things I can do to start figuring out some of these strategies and tactics?
[00:22:00] You've got a habit. I give your audience a challenge. I'll give you I'll give him a three part challenge. Here we go. So for those of you who are sitting here gone, this guy is so full of crap. This is a bunch of nonsense. OK, fine. You just want to be a toe in the water kind of person. No problem. Let me give you that toe in the water approach to becoming selfless. Number one, low level, low bar of entry. Anybody can do this if you can do this. You're probably not even really trying to win. The water is one act of selfless service a day to anyone that's not a family member. So that means anybody in your world, only once a day, you try to figure out a way that you can help them in a way that doesn't give you a benefit. That's like if you can't do that again, that's pretty easy.
[00:22:43] This is more than like hold the door for somebody.
[00:22:46] This is anything nice that you would not normally do not normally do. Building up that muscle that. Exactly. It's like it's like repetitive after after a week, you're like, dude, I've done like seven nice things in your life and you've thought of yourself as the worst person in the history of the universe. And I like but I've done seven things. Then a week later, you're like, but I've done 14 things, right.
[00:23:05] This is the Grinch. The Grinch. His heart is starting to get a little.
[00:23:08] Exactly. The middle of the road. This is this is for those who are like you not. Okay. This guy's not completely full of crap, but I'm not fully all in yet. OK. So one act of selfless service, a day to someone that is in a superior position to you, that could be your boss. You know, for me, that could be my wife.
[00:23:28] I don't want to have to do this, too.
[00:23:29] Yeah. It could be the president of an organization. Right. It could be whatever in your world. It could be. It could be a someone who has influential in your world.
[00:23:39] But, you know, it's not somebody you'd normally touch. Whatever it is. But someone that that that is in some level superior position one day. And then you really want to play to win. If you're like Jonathan is the coolest thing I've ever heard. I don't know how to do this more. Well, first of all, obviously, go get my book. You got be ruthless to winx. I packed all the secrets in it. But if you really want to take one thing away, this will be life changing. But this will also be hard. So just like everything else. The best benefit comes from the hardest things. So drum roll playing to win one act of selfless service a day to someone who you can't stand. Oh, can't stand you. I'm telling you. Yeah, I bet. Swallow a lot of pride doing this.
[00:24:19] Is it me? Is it bad that I can think of three people very quick?
[00:24:22] Yeah. Trust me, this is like the crazy part about this is this is magic because this is some of my best relationships today used to be my biggest enemies. So my my most lucrative clients I used to not like and they used to not like me. And I've lots of examples. But let me just let me just give you one quick example on the personal side, which is when I had my epiphany sort of part, what I write about right about in my book is not only was I transitioning to a new way of doing business, but I realized halfway through it that five year period that part of was taken me so long. And the reason why he had said it would take that long is because I didn't understand the kind of structural heart change that it was going to take for me to do this. And so once I had that epiphany and I realized, okay, I was gonna fall in love with service. One of the first things that I did was I look around and say, where have I left, you know, trails of dead bodies in my wake. And one place that was very easy to find. I mean, I had lots of people in business that I just called up and said, hey, I'm sorry for being a dick. I treated poorly. And I shouldn't have done that. I just want you to know I see the world differently now and I just want to. I want to apologize. And then I'd like literally look for ways to help them send them business. I made connections for former enemies with friends of mine that ended up getting they'd get married, too, like it was cool. But the hardest one was my ex-wife had a best friend and her and I never saw eye to eye.
[00:25:44] And she was she was just not somebody that I would ever want to spend a lot of time with. And I picked up the phone and I called her and I just said, hey. And it was this one. This one was the hardest, one of hardest phone call, I remember. And I said, hey, I'm just sorry that I that my existence on this planet caused you pain and I want to start a new relationship. And then I started looking for ways to help help her. And I mean, it was extraordinary. And I went from having a bunch of people in the community working against me. Because the problem with enemies are you think they're single, they're not. Those people have a massive wake. And the more successful they are, the worst that wake gets. And so if you have a bunch of people out there trying to undermine everything you're doing, talking trash about you, that makes it very hard to succeed. If that if that group grows and that group tends to grow unless you nip it in the bud. So being of service, figuring out ways you can help those, you not apologize, that's that's next level there. That that that can be like the expert, you know, level. But but at least figure out ways to help them. And I think you'll be extraordinarily surprised at how much that moves the needle. And so the ultimate ultimate is that's my three part challenge. But the ultimate like lifestyle is everywhere you go, try to find three ways that you can help every person you interact with.
[00:26:54] Now, you're not always going to have enough time. You know, you're not always going to be. But if your mindset is always, how can I help the person in front of me, you're gonna be amazed at how much opportunity you create for yourself in the world.
[00:27:03] Yeah, well, and the other thing I think about that last challenge in terms of, you know, finding someone who you can't stand or who can't stand you, you know, not to get to on this. But I think, yes, there's the there's the impact that they have on you, on your network and the community. But also, I think there's there's a certain part of you that that is still holding that feeling that shows up probably everywhere in your life. And if you can get through that process and actually release that, even if they don't respond, even if they still can't stand you, even after you go through that, the fact that you've changed your kind of heart, you talked about restructuring your art just by doing that work.
[00:27:35] I think probably allows you to show it very differently and everything else you do because you're a deep dude, because that's that is exactly right. You know? And so a little go rabbit trail on you for one second. So one of the things that, you know, growing up, a missionary kid, my mom always wanted me to be in the family business.
[00:27:50] She always anticipated that me with my big personality would get into the family business and be a pastor, missionary or something like that. I never wanted anything to do with X. I wanted to make money. What's so interesting about my journey is that I've come full circle, right, because now I'm a different kind of missionary. Right.
[00:28:06] I'm someone who's bringing the values to the business community, but not through some sort of religious lens, not through some you should or else, but through an idea of this actually practically works. All right. I truly believe that that selfless service is the greatest business principle of all time. And if I can do it in arguably the most cutthroat, ruthless industry in the world or one of them commercial real estate brokerage. And I can create a firm that loves people, serves people that people keep flocking to that clients love. If that's possible in an industry like ours, it's possible anywhere. So this message in my book, you got to be ruthless to win is not to commercial real estate brokers, although I do want to save 5000 commercial real estate brokers globally. This message is to business leaders to say, look, if I can do it, and I used to be that ruthless dude myself, you can do it, too. Here's how. And here's how it affects your bottom line positively. So if your very first question the was, John, that would be your advice on how to scale up. To me, the best way to scale an organization is to become a servant leader. Build an organization that's built around selflessness and values and doing the right thing and then interact with your community that way. And if you do that, you do that consistently. I think your success is guaranteed, but it's the long game, not the short. And it requires you really doing this yourself, not just thinking it's a cute idea, you know, a powerful message.
[00:29:31] And I think probably sorely needed this world today, unfortunately. I would love it if it wasn't. But yeah, I think we you know, we get so wrapped up in kind of the financial success and the numbers and, you know, winning at that level. I think we forget that, you know, ultimately it's all about impact. You know, we're going to have in the world, you know, improving society, improving culture. And I think that I think your message is really important. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you. And thank you for doing the work. If people want to find out more about you, about the institute, about the book, what's the best way to get that information share you so you can go to ruthless Baucom, ruthless BookCon or you can get it on Amazon.
[00:30:09] Here's a bunch of free resources available on ruthless bbc.com. You can also get. We call it for the for the Kaiser Institute.
[00:30:16] We have a free reinvention road. And so if you go to ruthlessbook.com/ or go to KeyserInstitute.com, you can get a copy of the free reinvention roadmap. And then one thing that I would also offer, you know, again, for for most users out there, commercial real estate is the second or third largest expense for most companies. It's the least flexible, right? You can lay off people, but you can't lay off a lease. And over half of corporate bankruptcies involve breaking some kind of lease. So leases matter. And most leases are poorly negotiated because the firms that negotiate them are heavily conflicted because they're primarily representing landlords and developers. So for anybody would like a free lease review, our firm is always happy to provide one and tell you the two or three ways you can start saving money immediately on your lease. Usually there's hidden opportunities. So we're also for your audience. Happy to help them as well in that way.
[00:31:05] There you go. Right. Right back to the surface mode. Right here to serve. Or I will put Elford all the links. You're also self in the show notes so people can click through. Donna, it's been a pleasure. Obviously important for our audience, but I personally had fun. It was fun to talk to you. I think you've got some great messages that I certainly resonate with and it's always going to be like minded people in the world. So thanks for taking the time. Thanks, Bruce. Thanks for having me.
[00:31:29] You've been listening to Scaling up Services with Business Coach, Bruce Eckfeldt. To find a full list of podcast episodes, download the tools and worksheets and access other great content, visit the website at scalingupservices.com and don’t forget to sign up for the free newsletter at scalingupservices.com/newsletter.