Jay: 0:00

it's also surprisingly simple to think that and, and amazing Why? Why do you think they don't? I don't, I don't know. It's, it's just logic. Treat people, treat your customers well and they'll stay. That's what we did

Codie: 0:39

Welcome to the Mind Hack podcast, where we explore the and mindset to help you live a happier and more fulfilled life. I'm your host Cody McLain, and today we're talking He's the founder and former CEO of blinds.com, a company sell to Home Depot in 2014 when it was selling a hundred million considered by many to be one of the world's largest online Jay is here with me today to discuss his journey as outlined The four principles for profit and prosperity, which explores his His approach is not only about building a profitable business, ethical leadership that resonates deeply with anyone looking Jay's career includes his early roles as a CPA, vice entrepreneur in both brick and mortar and digital landscapes. A believer in rewiring, not retiring. He is now an entrepreneur in residence at Rice University, an Entrepreneurship Center, and the author of Lead from the Core, Philosophy, evolve, experiment, express, and Enjoy. Today we'll delve into Jay's journey, his His perspective on building a culture that drives success. Jay, welcome to the show.

Jay: 2:23

Thanks, Cody. That was great. Great to be here.

Codie: 2:27

and so Jay, you built blinds.com, which behind me, I'm I have, so I have blinds throughout my house and you might not find I mean, they're Hunter Douglas Shades. so I know that they were a competitor of yours, and I know from your garage, and it became one of the world's largest What do you believe was the fundamental mindset shift

Jay: 3:01

the mindset shift. Well, I had a store. So I knew how to sell blinds. I didn't necessarily know how to scale a business. So I think the mind, shift was about figuring out how to scale something and not just be a sole proprietorship. So I, I hired seven people, didn't know what I was doing, and how to get the right people, have them motivated with the proper get 'em the right resources they needed, and really rely on other That was probably the shift that made the biggest difference. But I, must correct you on one thing. We are by far the number one online retailer of blinds in the world.

Codie: 3:49

in your book you mentioned that you weren't at some point,

Jay: 3:56

Oh, well, at the beginning, uh, we were the And we said we were the world's,, largest um, the number one online Because we were the only online retailer of blinds in the world. Uh, we did a lot of things at the beginning to make it seem We put ads from various large companies like Federal Express, Those were banner ads that make it look like people Even though those links went nowhere.

Codie: 4:31

I find as, as a fellow entrepreneur, especially You always have to puff up your chest and appear a little Like I had an outsourcing company that eventually I scaled and we our first client knew that they were our first client of course

Jay: 4:51

Well, we, we did all sorts of things. We, like, we had, , testimonials. We made up the testimonials and had, people just We then decided, you know, that's probably not a good thing to And we had Abraham Lincoln as a testimonial, Paul Bunion, John F. Kennedy, and we had a, a real professional impersonator, It was fun. We were really just trying to make buying blinds and shades a I don't know if you or your viewers. Know that, uh, national Public Radio show about these two guys And that's what we wanted to do is just make it look like we and we knew what we were talking about, but not taking ourselves or

Codie: 5:49

Can you take me back to 1993, and I know that you mortar store and then eventually you transitioned to, having an Did you always have this desire to be an entrepreneur? What led you to even starting this brick and mortar

Jay: 6:09

Yes. I, I definitely always wanted to be an entrepreneur. In high school, junior high school, I had a T-shirt, custom t-shirt Gary and I would, uh, design and sell all the teams their, shirts. And, um, so we always did that. And when I went into college, I said, I, I don't like accounting, finance and financial statements would be advantageous. So really all the successful business people said, you better So I got an accounting degree, really hated everything about it. Became a CPA, worked for KPMG for a couple years and then left. And the reason I went into business, even though I'd was fired from my business at Meineke Discount Mufflers. The company was sold the next day I was out of there, so my wife first started to, uh, run this drapery shop and I I learned all about it from her and some others. And we opened up a second store. That was in 1987 when that started. By six years later, I'd heard about something called the internet, don't know what that is, but I've always been, uh, one who likes So I just tried it not to sell things, because at that time, That was unheard of. I had no vision as to what the internet was going to be It was really just a marketing experiment to So I got involved with that, and then Amazon launched and sell stuff online, so I'm gonna try to sell blinds. And of course, everybody told me that's the stupidest heard of the manufacturers like Hunter Douglas and the others. You'd mentioned Hunter Douglas before said, no, That's ridiculous. We're not even gonna sell to you. So all the manufacturers refused to sell to us at the beginning I mean, who is going to buy something online when, Two, they can't even see the product. They can't touch the product. They have to measure themselves and even install it themselves. I mean, who's gonna do that? Well, we, we tested it. We tried selling just some white and off white blinds in People started doing it and they kept coming back, and Hard to believe.

Codie: 8:54

it is, and especially as you say, you know, you, you ask blinds and then have to install it themselves and have, and they And I assume that there was probably a period in which you was, especially if the issue was that the measurement from So I'm wondering how did you handle that? What were the, the biggest barriers that you saw in terms Because you had, you had created a new platform for people to biggest issue, their biggest, barrier is of course, is it

Jay: 9:30

Well, it was not too much of a problem because we a problem, and we gave really good advice on how to do it. Very clear. Good videos. I remember the first videos we did was me measuring and The videographer was the voiceover. These were like ten second videos. they're pretty stupid. I still have some of them. I think I've got some on my own website. They're hilarious to think that people would actually And it all, it took was a few people because it I still kept my drapery shop, and this was a side hustle and wasn't until eight years later in 2001 that I decided to sell the So I was taking orders out of my car in between appointments, to people's homes to sell the blinds and help them in their In between going to homes, I would take these calls, they would call It's the name of the, shop, and they'd say all of our customer Then call me in my car. I'd pull off the side of the road. I used my big cell phone, had my order pad, price charts, And for several years, that's how I answered the phone. It was just me returning calls from my car pulling off the freeway. I remember the first time it was right in front of at the time it was the summit where the Houston Rockets side, and eventually decided probably a good idea if I hired 75% of the people in the company are customer service the engineers and marketing people that support them.

Codie: 11:30

and of course you had to do the customer support I, I deeply resonate with that. I would, I would answer my own calls for so many years. And, uh, it doesn't matter where I was, I'd be answering the call. And sometimes you're dealing with a customer who's screaming at Um,

Jay: 11:48

I was used to that already. In fact, they were screaming at me right to my face when I had to go to their house. So I was standing with the customer. That's harder than being on the phone and the phone, you can You don't have to really listen. I mean, you could do things like that, not that I did, but it's much That's actually easier to settle something face to face than And you can show empathy, you can show Your sympathy for their So once you had that type of experience, then doing it over before you could do it potentially with, with the empathy they felt So had you had to learn ways to show that by asking better the real issue was and listening much more carefully on the phone. we taught everybody those techniques that we learned And that, that's why we became number one, is because the They were paid based on whether they sold the right solution people who were helping people when they had an issue. If they solved the issue properly, they were receiving So the whole thing was based on quantity and quality. And by having the quality components in how people are the right incentive to do the right thing for customers. So customers always believed, not always, but most of the

Codie: 13:38

that is, that reminds me of, of so often that have refund policies, that have ways of solving issues. And often I would certainly experience is the agent would you know, it's, it's over the 30 day money back guarantee. But then I would come in and look at the issue and see this client and he deserves all of his money back. And often the agents were not incentivized to actually And because they're just trying to, to do their job, which is to often So is this part of, the kaizen idea of continuous improvement, customer service agents to solve these issues as well as even just to get their business and then it backfires on you when

Jay: 14:37

I love that question. I, I hardly ever get that question, and it's a good one. We, provided incentives for that. I mean, we paid people. If they provided the wrong solution, they got dinged. So they had a, they had financial skin in the game when they did So how would we know that? We had a whole team of quality assurance people who would know what the right solution was, and whether they worked So they knew that, and we didn't listen to every call, but there And people, the, uh, customer service people and the design were gonna be listened to and it, it could impact their pay. So when you're impacting pay and you have a culture that later, but we really cared about our people before we actually We knew that if we treated our, our associates, right, they would So once you're in an environment. The idea is to think about how to make everybody Then it's naturally going to happen. Plus, with that little financial kicker involved

Codie: 16:02

So how did you arrive at that mindset? Because often when you're building a business, you You want to minimize your operational overhead. You want to maximize your, revenue coming in. And it, it is so incredibly difficult to have a mindset I know that you mentioned in your book that you had several Harvey that lost their homes and you, you provided money so that these things, they cost you more money upfront, but in the But it's so hard for a lot of entrepreneurs and operators so where did that come from? and can you share some examples?

Jay: 16:42

Well, you can also say that one of the things you're trying if you want to do that, you have to get a very high incidence of The most profitable way you can grow is through You have people that already trust you. They're going to buy at a higher rate the second time because They showed that you cared about them when you sold it to them. If there was an issue and you took care of it, you're gonna more loyal to you because they don't expect you to take care of So I think if you're just looking at it from a number numbers reason that most, , e-commerce companies fail is their customer They can never figure out how to increase their business that way. We always viewed the customer experience as the number one way people right and then treating the customer right would increase that. It would also decrease hiring cost. It would decrease training costs. Because we could actually invest in people, because A lot of companies will not invest in their employees because they short term, or they know they're just gonna be there for a little If you've got, I've got people there. I say, I've got people I've haven't been in the business in for four I still feel like I'm, it's still my business. Even though it was sold to Home Depot in 2014, 10 Uh, I don't have the keys anymore, but I still feel But that, that's what you do. You just make sure that you treat people well, you invest and customers are going to be more profitable to you, You are not gonna necessarily grow as fast. It depends on the buying cycle too, because if people buy blinds You're gonna grow faster here. The average turnaround was seven years. So you had a little while before people were gonna be coming back, or just do one room and they'd come back and do another room, or So you had some opportunities to grow even with people who in, in But, that's what we did. We knew that growth would come best if we had the And to continue to evolve on that. Every time we saw some friction, every time we saw a bottleneck, The mission was to make buying blinds surprisingly easy. People don't expect it to be easy. They don't know the process for buying blinds. Our goal was to make it as easy as possible. So once they've bought it, they go, wow. That was amazing. And that's what if you didn't have that was called the GCC Experience, blinds.com's corporate name was Global Custom Commerce. I won't go into that now, but the GCC experience So you not only sold something, you not only sold the right And even if they didn't buy when they were just looking these guys, that was good enough on your first call because So that was really, it. It's, it's also surprisingly simple to think that and, and amazing Why? Why do you think they don't? I don't, I don't know. It's, it's just logic. Treat people, treat your customers well and they'll stay. That's what we did

Codie: 20:46

suppose we're in an era where there certainly are dependent or dependent more on new clients and they don't really care But I guess it really just, just depends on the business model, The one that's gonna have the least amount of controversy, on your reputation and enable you to have the kind of growth And that's, the right way to, not only treat your customers And it sounds so simple. It sounds so simple, but yet it can be incredibly difficult when a, have a client that, they, maybe I needed to refund them $10,000 was like the right thing to do, but then maybe I only had $15,000 And so it's having to make these decisions that can And so is that something that, that you, you learned over time following, of knowing what the right thing is and then having,

Jay: 22:00

I don't think I could ever say that. I always knew that. that would be giving myself way too much credit. And I'm not saying that to be self-effacing. I really don't think I was like that. in fact, I was probably just the opposite as a CPA. I was thinking the way to build a business was to cut amount you can on anything so that you would make more money. Instead, I've actually discovered over just experience that being make the most money now within whatever makes sense in the But generosity doesn't even have to necessarily be about some businesses say, well, you can make this, but we're gonna If you sell too much, we're not gonna give you any more. why would you do that? Why not make everybody in the company tremendously Why stop them? That's a form of generosity, but I was talking about not It's about time. It's about, attention. Giving them the resources that they need, giving them proper proper vision, being available when they have questions, giving That's a form of generosity, not stifling, open, That's generosity. There's so many things. If you can think, what is the most I can do for my make sense in the long-term, best interest of the company. Switch it around like that, and I promise you, you'll make more

Codie: 23:53

there's Adam Grant's book called Give and Take, which tend to get more in reciprocity, in return, rather than those who And it, it shows that, that's really what is one of the

Jay: 24:14

I love reading books like that, after I'd already kind of book and try to figure out what resonated, what didn't, and I And then somebody, a PhD or somebody from one of your who really has done research on it and not just experienced it. You know, empirical research and says, well, here's And I'm thinking, well, I don't know what the reason was. I just know it did work and I'm gonna keep doing it. And that, that's, that's what a lot of people don't realize as well. Just try something. Just try something small. see what it does. If it didn't quite work, just tweak it a little bit. Maybe we'll start working and then just keep doing it. And if it doesn't work, just stop. Simple stuff is how you build a big business. Just one customer at a time, one employee at a time, But ul ultimately, when you then start developing teams the things that you've, uh, mentioned or enacted, it starts It's this autonomous excellence, this autonomous growth that your eyes without your needing to be part of it at all. I remember one of the greatest times when I was, At that time there were maybe three floors, I think And I was walking by and I looked in this room and saw I didn't know any of the people in that room. I didn't even recognize them, which is maybe a flaw, but I knew they were having a good time because they were smiling, they type of Pareto chart where they were looking at a prioritization And I just kind of watched it and I, I still, I'm getting talking about it, thinking when I was watching it at the time. I can still perfectly envision it right now, vividly. it is such a great feeling to see people doing things That was probably the biggest lesson I have is get outta the way not about empowering people to do stuff, it's about not disempowering

Codie: 26:37

And, it's Stephen Covey has, a notion that business goes And it can also be very difficult to, to trust people that you hire. And I know you touched on this in the book, that sometimes you position of power, they might abuse that and they might end up So how did you foster this culture of trust and, how did you do that?

Jay: 27:05

Well, I didn't do it at the beginning, and what I, realized So you start giving people small things and you don't You ask them questions, how did you think about doing this? And just follow up with them and say, what was your thinking? Why did you choose that alternative and or why didn't you choose that? Or, I see you pulled in Dixie for that job. Why did you think Dixie would be a good candidate? When you do that, and you really are super interested in You learn where their faults are, where their strengths are, delegate and know what you need to train them to do so that you And you give them opportunities by saying, what am I doing What can I delegate to you that looks interesting to you? And when you ask that question to your people, they will a lot of stuff off your plate because they think it's fun. They think it's good. And that's, how you do it. You just start small. listen to what they're doing so you understand how they think, not And then you start learning who you can trust with And at some point you then just give them very big things. And then there's of course, ways to check in on any project, which And so I would sit in on meetings, maybe the first two or three on get a week report or then a month report, or then a bimonthly report. But you, you, you make sure people are, and, and of course the culture being just imbued in everybody means you know that they're gonna They're gonna want to improve, they're gonna want to improve And if it's not working, you can trust that they're gonna be seeing set on just doing something because that's what we all decided to do. It's not working. Stop doing that and people would automatically do it You can trust people. When you have the right culture, you've got the right guidelines, You're looking at smaller tasks that have to be done that day or those types of things and you sit in on meetings and just listen how You don't say anything. You just observe. Definitely don't say anything. Just listen. You can trust people. When you see how they're running a meeting, you see how they're to, getting ideas, to fostering and encouraging discussion Not having some dogmatic statement that they say, and then everybody And that's what they do. You want to get debate because you know, they're They're the closest to the customer. They're gonna be able to figure out things that you would never know. So you have to listen. how do you not listen to other people? And you don't want people just to check things off a list. if I tell somebody to pick up that quarter on the floor and to pick up the dollar, not the, just pick, you know, change

Codie: 30:32

and culture comes from the top, right? It comes from the founder. The leaders who create the example for others to follow. And I tend to see that if you're a leader and you're setting foibles and your personality and perspective, they tend to ripple And I'm just wondering if there's any things that, that come to mind go on to have a positive impact on, uh, either the, trust, uh, the

Jay: 31:11

culture is not what you tell people you're doing, but So if I want people to improve and I'm not reading books and Not doing 360, um, surveys. They're saying, well, you say you want to improve, but I don't see And I did all those things. And sometimes I would just sit outside my office on a chair Well, he's reading. And then I would tell people about the book that I was reading. So they knew I was wanting to learn. It wasn't even a question. And, I was afraid I was gonna get kicked outta my own company. most CEOs don't scale they're good at the, at an initial certain level and they don't know what to do after that. I was afraid that was gonna happen to me. So I worked my butt off learning to find all the things that I And then once I realized I will never be good at say I.T. Or a certain aspect of marketing, I realized, okay, I think I need do this 'cause I will never be as good as this company needs. So that enabled us to all get better and, and a rising tide, person didn't get better, get in in at the same rate, if not to a different position or be moved out of the company because And that's what you do. You, you, I would get better. We would put, we had a big whiteboard, that everybody Things that they were working on to improve. And it wasn't just about what was happening in the company, Uh, I wanna be a better husband. I want to be a better driver. I wanna learn how to fly a plane. I wanna quit smoking. All that stuff would go on the whiteboard. People would see it. It would reinforce the idea that here at That's what we do. That's the essence of who we are. I view this more of as, as a direct marketing company. A direct marketing companies always are tinkering and tweaking they can figure out how to be more efficient with customers and So that's what we would always do. And it was fun. And uh, most of the experiments we tried didn't work. What did we do? We set up this big test tube that showed all the experiments that The ones that did work, we had another test tube These were like a foot and a half in diameter, and marbles in that test tube, And they were marked experiments that worked. Experiments that didn't work. The ones that didn't work full test tube. The other ones, hardly any. So we wanted to reinforce, we are going to make mistakes, We'll all figure it

Codie: 34:22

So you created a system to try experiments within the company.

Jay: 34:27

Yes. We had a whole process for how to rate, how to submit experiments, And we had whole, that was, that was one of the keys is people, and then how to then report out on what worked and everybody knew what was working, what was not working, letting made the original suggestion, who may not have had anything And You go back to them and say, Hey, you came up with an We finally did it and it's working and it's now increasing We did that with customers too. When customers gave us suggestions, we would get back We tried it and it worked. Thank you. You've made the customer experience better for everybody We would also, when one of the ways we would survey people after Multiple choice, you know, one to 10, and all that we just said made the experience better for you, for our product or service? That was it. It was open-ended. We did that from day one and we had people, I All they did was answer those letters and we provide detailed. Specific answers to any customer. We wouldn't just say, uh, your, input is very important We would say that idea and why we, we, we were late. You're right. We never should have done that. That was, we figuring out a way to disclose that better so that be late or whatever it is, and give them very specific answers. And they would love that. It was also a way to provide a, a fail safe for when At least when they got that letter, 30 days after their,'cause it, it went to me. Although I had the three people respond with my name on behalf of I needed to respond, they would give it to me, but that was rare. All those things were just. Allowing people to speak up and, and respond in a way

Codie: 36:59

when you're a leader and a large organization, one of It's the communication up the ladder from, a person who's they have a manager, and then you have a department head. And so all of those issues, the main issues, you're relying issues if it's above their ability to, improve or change. And establishing this communication link with the customers and And I know even the, in, in Kaizen philosophy, and the you know, they talk about the, the Toyota, production line. And how they would try to incentivize employees to And none of the employees wanted to push the button to stop the were afraid they were gonna get in trouble with their managers. And so what were the, the primary philosophies or, or thoughts How did you try to solve this communication so that you necessary escalated to you e either from, from the customer or

Jay: 38:09

Well, it wasn't necessarily needed that they They needed to escalate it to somebody who would take action To me, that's a bottleneck, so I never wanted to make I would never be able to handle it. Uh, so I'll give, I'll give you an example. This seems very minor, but we had all hands meetings every week, Some that we switched it, lengthened it to two to two 30, and There was a new employee, I think she had been there about a week, I would just say things and get input from people. We would let people know about what's coming up so they would So they feel, uh, fearful of their job. Fearful of What, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? You never want people to feel like that. But, we would tell people at the beginning in training, in the first Expressing yourself and having fun, enjoying yourself. And this, one, uh, woman in say Jay said, Jay, um, you just said thing where she was questioning what I was saying in front Now that's exceptional. Most people would not do that. She did. So what did I do? I didn't answer her question right away. I first said, we all need to stand up and give her, applause and live one of our four core values of expressing yourself. And that's what they did. And that tells people you can debate the CEO in front And if you can do that, then you can certainly So that's just a small little example of, of what you do. You just listen. When people have things they wanna tell you, hear it, and respond in If you're not, tell them, well, we're not gonna do that because we don't have the resources to do it, or we're doing something to that maybe in Q4 or whatever, and maybe we won't, but at least In that, what I was saying earlier, we did have a whole way of

Codie: 40:59

And one of the hardest things I see as a leader is trying it's okay to bring up issues or concerns or problems that they up even if they feel like that their own manager is not doing

Jay: 41:16

Well, that's a, trickier one for sure. but when, when there was a, a new employee that was coming in I would do is we'd go through this meeting and I realized that, I haven't heard anything from Cody this whole meeting. So after the meeting, I'd say, Hey, Cody, you come over here anything and just say, you know, I didn't hear any input from you. You never said anything, and I know you're smart and I hired you this, this, this, and you've got a unique perspective about this, Why should you be there if you're not gonna speak up? So I really am asking you, I know you're new, but please, I need to Five minutes and then they'd, speak up. So you just have to be real with it and let people know. If they're not exhibiting the behaviors you want, you need You can't wait. You don't wait till the end of the year and they're You don't even care about that kind of stuff. You just wanna let people know this is what the expectation is. You didn't do it. This is what you need to do. Very matter of

Codie: 42:33

criticize them in front of others.

Jay: 42:35

So I'm sure I could come up with all sorts of other If, in our senior leadership team meetings where it could be behavior that I'm exhibiting by listening to people. We say, okay, so we're gonna talk about this event, What does everybody think? I would make sure that I would not say anything until everybody say something and then influence them as to how they were thinking.'cause it's too easy to hear what your boss is I don't want people to do that. I want people to do what they think would be the best solution. I may come up with another idea and ultimately it's my call, come up with better ideas than I would, and I want to hear 'em and they wouldn't think of something that I wouldn't have done had I So stuff like that.

Codie: 43:31

So know when it comes to executive positions, it's expectation of the value that you're going to derive from And I know one of the, the biggest issues I've seen is of them will have really great ideas, but a lot of them, They're just there from nine to five to do their job. And it seems maybe one out of every 10 hires might be the job and actually wants to contribute and make a positive Those people are the ones that you have to find and you have to, How did you either find these types of, of go-getter people and them so that you can create this, culture of, continuous improvement.

Jay: 44:24

We expected everybody to be a go-getter. I would say our percentages were just the inverse. Maybe nine out of 10 were go-getters and one wasn't, probably ostracized from the company in a matter of weeks. Because you can tell the people who are open to change. You can tell the people who are either arrogant or obstinate or And those are the people that will absolutely do You need people who are not only open to change, but relish change. And we would interview for that trade. We would ask people, about continuous improvement or evolving. Tell me, uh, Cody, something you've done or that you're doing And it can't be about business. It has to be just something in your personal life. If they couldn't answer that question, they were not hired. They had to show, they had to demonstrate that they are the kind Those are the people we hired. We wanted people who were willing to experiment. In the interview, a behavioral question might be something of a time in your life when you just did something spontaneously And, I remember one person said, well, uh, right outta went to Vietnam with just a backpack and we each had $50 We had no idea how we're gonna make money. And we weren't even sure where we were gonna go, but we knew Great answer. That's the kind of person we wanted. Person who is taking pilot lessons, trying to do new love that relished it, loves ambiguity, doesn't just accept it. Those are the people we hired. We looked for that. So I guess my, thought for anyone listening now is what are the Just because those were the four things that matter to me, I think it actually should, but maybe they don't. And whatever those are, interview to make sure that you are getting That they have those traits, those characteristics, They have to have it imbued into them right from the start. And once you have people that have the kinds of things, personality, the people you keep, those are the people who are most likely going It could be that it's just the opposite. You don't want people to experiment. You want people who, who are just compliance people for a a, a nuclear, Reactor and you don't want them experimenting You want them to follow the book. Exactly. And if they have a question, they come to you. And then maybe you put your, your sciences on that, but you So there you're gonna be hiring for people who are very good at Absolutely. Precisely. So figure out what it is that makes sense. What resonates, what's important to you. And hire people that have those personality traits

Codie: 47:55

Right, and having that sense of curiosity is not just for the people around you, but as well as yourself. In your book, you mentioned several books that, that And as I happen to have already read many of those books, and of a Team, that's like this narratives of, of this pretend remember reading that book when I was having issues with my executive We had, we had different ideas about what we should do. I had an advisor that would advise, but I remember reading this book Like, let's, let's kind of read it together. And then that started to help. and it's also difficult because sometimes you get people Something themselves so that they can, become a better person to the conversation instead of just being somebody who digs so I loved having situations where an issue would come up, and back to the company, contribute something meaningful, and we would so I think it's brilliant that you're able to have that, and And, when you're going through, through all these transitions, you, to now leading this relatively huge company with making what was it that enabled you to learn the importance of was it just trial and error? Um, was it, reading when an issue came up and you would, Did you have, mentors or advisors that you seek and brought

Jay: 49:41

Well, you, you can't just say it was one. All those things obviously had had influence. but the core value, you actually, I think the gist of it was about I didn't read about core values or culture or happiness Uh, it was unfortunately couple of years after I started the business, at that time I maybe had 10 employees, 15 maybe. I can't remember exactly. But I had to figure out for myself what makes me tick. And I became very introspective and naturally I would, being a things that people would, uh, could do to understand themselves vision that you might want for your life, your destiny, how much How much control do you have over your own happiness? And I just read everything I could possibly read about that And the first two were not even close. And I thought they were. And people would say, that's not you. What are you talking about? That may be something you want to be, but you're not. So I thought, okay, I need to be,. Really better at understanding who I am and would talk to be afraid of speaking up and realized that speaking And evolving was one of the things that experimenting was. And I always liked being a little irreverent and having fun and I mean, taking everything we did very seriously, but didn't work, uh, it's okay, we'll, we'll figure it out. So to have fun, enjoy the ride. that's what it came to. one of the core values, there was a fifth that was to, uh, Well, that's good. But it was so good that it became actually the, the whole company, the purpose to help people become better than what everybody knew. Everybody knew that my job as a leader was to help them get better. To help them be able to help somebody else get better. And when you have an organization where everybody everybody else get better, that is a pretty beautiful thing. That's pretty amazing. And when the people from Home Depot came in and Lowe's was in Douglas, and people would come in and look at the company, You, how, how are you? Why is everybody so happy? A lot of people who would come in as new employees would see and they were interviewing and they thought it was like a play. They thought we were just acting and that certainly the company And then I can't even think how many people there were I thought, this is just what you do when you're trying to hire people, that's how you keep people, that's how you get the

Codie: 53:04

I know at the beginning of the conversation you mentioned the ideal is that we want people to be the best version of themselves. Even if that means that they leave our company and take learned working with us and they start their own company. And I believe you were talking about somebody that came

Jay: 53:25

Well, there were scores of people who did that. I mean, I could mention them all by name. I won't, but there's lot of people who ended up starting their own One of them started a company a few years ago, it's now just a raised 600 million and has about a 1.3 or $1.4 billion, valuation.

Codie: 53:50

hmmm.

Jay: 53:50

He started off in my accounting department as an and worked his way up to being, C-F-O, C-O-O and then worked And I remember you do one-to-ones where you're every The one-to-one is where you just listen to what They, they set the agenda and you help them grow. That's the purpose. It's really more for development than for to looking at You have other meetings for that one-to-ones about people say, you know, what I want to do is not work here in five years. I wanna have my own company. And some people would say, what? This person doesn't wanna stay. I'm gonna fire them. They don't wanna be here. No. What you do is you say, well, if you really want to get there. You're gonna have a greater time doing that, staying here because That one person that we were talking about, he had a, um, let's trait where he wasn't really relying on other people and And I, I asked him once, do you really care about your people And he looked at me and he went, huh. And right after that, his is his, uh, effect in the I mean, he'd already be been CFO, so he had already grown make sure that people knew that he really cared about them and And from that moment on, he just really grew, eventually And started, and there's many, many others who would tell me that In fact, they'd say, I'm leaving next year. I'd say, okay, let's see what we can do.'cause you need to work on this, this, and this. And in the meantime, they would work harder because they knew they to leave and they usually end up staying two or three or four years. I remember one guy who was in our QA department, in, in I.T, He was there 15 years because he was growing all the time. those are the things that, those are the successful When your people grow, when your people perform beyond their That's when you could look back and say, man, I made a difference. I didn't just have this company and made money, which is great. I mean, I'm not gonna minimize that. That was super great. I loved it. But really the visceral things, the success that you get It's really not the same, but it's like when you see your They're now living the life they want, and you can sit back I did my job as a parent. He doesn't need me. He'll talk to me and he's having a great life. That's what you want with your employees as well. It's not exactly the same. I know that, but it's, it's directionally the same.

Codie: 57:11

Did you have any fears in terms of, so typically your best executive, people, as they grow their self-confidence to question, obviously as you just said, what's a better, And they might leave you in a situation in which you then Some of them are so fearful to even say, depending on the afraid to tell you that they're leaving and you might just and often you have people who are, pivotal to the so really, I guess really just all comes back to cultures is uh, a higher paying opportunity somewhere else, that perhaps they. Wanna stick around because the culture, the people, they but that seems to be a really difficult thing to balance since a better opportunity, one that you might not be able to offer.

Jay: 58:06

we were always competing with Exxon in Houston, We could never pay what they were paying. So it, we always had to provide more than just financial. Now, you can't ridiculously underpay people, but if they and they, it would ultimately have a greater opportunity And they were becoming better people, not just having They felt like they were making a difference in the company and That people were using what they were building. that's a lot. Having autonomy and having a real purpose is something that it's, and now I'm not saying that we didn't lose people over If somebody's got a double persons salary or 50% If you can get it, do it. You may hate the job, but if like that and realize they hated it, and they'd come back and I was fine. We'll take you back. no hard feelings. You were good. if I were you, I would've taken that, opportunity too. You didn't like it. You are welcome to come back. We never worried about that. And I'm not saying that people didn't not give us I remember somebody. Who came in in the morning and they went to lunch and That was it. They were there a half a day. was like, how do people do that? Can't you just say, you know, this is not for me, I'm leaving. No, they just ghosted us. it happens.

Codie: 59:53

and on the flip side of that, you, obviously or department heads that were not meeting your expectations. And so how did you measure that? As well as, uh, in some cases, at, least for me, I would, I would it would be hard to let them go, even if I felt like in my gut that, and I know, I know what you have to do is you have to You have to be willing to question them. Uh, so, so how did you. A know, or have the conscious awareness to, Maybe their personality's off, but maybe they're meeting the metrics. So I assume you set KPIs. How did you decide, to let somebody go if you felt

Jay: 1:00:36

Well, that's a, that's a complex, uh, it's an easy question. It's a complex answer. I'll try to make it as short as possible. And this just the things that I would think of The first is, was it my fault did I hire the wrong person? Did I not provide the right resources? Did I not provide the right direction? Did I not have put them on the right team? Is the system broken? And it's not them, would anybody in that situation have have failed? So the first thing you have to decide is what role did And is it, a systematic problem, a systemic problem? Or is it that person just not following the process? Once you realize it's still the person, then you realize, well, Just not being able to do that job. So maybe they're not really good at managing projects, maybe Maybe they're better of a visionary job or something more abstract. So if they're living and the core values, then you try to People moved around in the company all the time and a lot I know I'm in accounting, but I wanna be in project management. I wanna be in marketing. People move in completely into different departments And we wouldn't necessarily say yes, but We would So knowing that people had the opportunity to move If they didn't live the core values, that's a whole other story. If they're not doing well, they don't have the right core they're gone. That's it. They're gone. And even if their performance is good, if they're not living that's in sales, heard her yell at a customer, and then we talked She was gone. and she was a great salesperson, but we couldn't keep her would see that that behavior was being, um, accepted. And it can't be, not when you're trying to continue to So it really depends on what's the issue. Was it your fault? Was it their fault? And then are they living the core value? So you go through this decision tree on how you make a decision maybe just putting them in a different seat on the bus is There's a person, we had people from Home Depot, I don't know, people at Home Depot would come to work for us with 500 people And one of the people who I remember, I'm not gonna mention who I reported to there said, so you're gonna hire him? Really? and then he turned out to be brilliant. And I remember a few years later, he goes, you saw something I said, no, we just put him in the right role and he flourished. He was not in the right role with you. And we understood what he could do and put 'em there. He's still there and he's doing amazing. He's one of the best employees we've ever had, and at Home

Codie: 1:04:08

that's the Jim Rohn quote, right? That you have to, first challenge is getting the right people on

Jay: 1:04:15

Yep.

Codie: 1:04:16

and so earlier you mentioned that, you had started your business And I can only imagine that while you're at the beginning that, I mean, that that's an incredibly deep pain that how did that affect you, with the business? let me just share before you answer, is that where I come And in fact, I wrote a book called Some Foster Care to Millionaire, And I remember the night that my mom died, I watched a movie and then I started answering customer support tickets. And it was maybe 10 years after that, uh, once I realized my, I become a workaholic as a form of, of self therapy. and I don't know if that's, healthy or not, but it got and so I guess in some ways I'm asking you, how did that became successful, but, but how did it affect you mentally?

Jay: 1:05:23

I ask myself that question a lot and I get asked that I know I wasn't myself. I don't think anybody is themselves. When they're under that kind of stress. my mother died when she was 46 and my wife was, was 47 So I was, uh, kind of had shock to my system that the most So I was kinda used to low expectations and I think what it did is it just reinforced for me the Let's just do it. Let's not think about it. Let's just start. We'll figure it out. And that probably was the greatest lesson for me, whether I was a Probably, probably, maybe if you ask some of the people How I was at that time, they could give you a better answer. My kids certainly could give you a, a good answer on that. They weren't particularly pleased either in my behavior at that time, and they, my kids are in a, a great place and it's fantastic to see Being able to give back, doing podcasts, writing book, helping investing in a lot of, uh, I mean scores of, of, of startup. Not that I'm looking for, a lot of investments. I've got a lot already. it's just a really gratifying place to be, to be able to And that's what I think you'll get out of the lead from the core. Just that whole trajectory of going from working out, of selling out I, after selling the company in 2014, I stayed with Home Depot and I didn't have to stay. I just enjoyed it and I was able to, well, evolve, experiment, had at, blinds.com and being part of Home Depot made it And it, it's happened and once when I saw that was happening, Okay, I've done it. There's a good successor for me. I know what my next gig is gonna be. Helping people being, getting on boards, time to go and, and Still now, if I go back in there or I look on LinkedIn or see these And what's amazing is that even being part of Home Depot who has got their, their values wheel that was started by, uh, Bernie, Marcus And I remember Home Depot said, well, you're These eight values are what you will have now. And I said, no, they won't. We will respect those. But we have four core values that have made us how we are, We will respect Home Depots and believe it's great. But that's not a core value is what causes you If your core values to experiment, that means you experiment. something about trusting, I don't even know what they are. sure. Shareholder value. Well, that's not really a core value for us. Our core value is not about develop, uh, delivering It was about being a great company for great people And ultimately we would get great shareholder value, It wasn't what motivated us. It wasn't like we got up in the morning and said, That's, I mean, they were public companies, so you have to do But that wasn't us. That was never us. So what we did is we took their eight core values and the circle, and then put our four core values in the middle. And I handed it back to the HR department and said, values, but at the core, the nucleus of your eight. are our four in the middle. So we gave them a hybrid version of everything. that way we would not disrespect, I mean, home Depot's an amazing They're operational efficiency. Were about customer intimacy, and that's just a different approach. Ultimately, we both have outstanding financial results, is another thing we were able to do, is to keep those core Normally the life gets sucked out of you when you sell your That didn't happen.

Codie: 1:10:49

and the majority of acquisitions end up failing mishmash between the cultures that the executives don't really since they're mostly focused on the numbers, and whether so I think that, that, that's great. I think that's a lesson for any, uh, aspiring founder. Uh. To make sure that, the core values that you embody into the can stay with the company even after an acquisition, which I

Jay: 1:11:19

But I will say you better make your numbers. can talk about core values all the time, but it's table stakes. You have to make your numbers. all this, this, uh, enlightened leadership discussion It makes sense, but if it doesn't translate into financial You're gonna have to change. So, but we were hitting our numbers, we were So why change it?

Codie: 1:11:49

you ended up selling it to Home Depot. Did you ever have any kind of identity crisis as I, as I know, you exit and then you realize that, you know, you basically how did you deal with that emotionally, when you,

Jay: 1:12:09

If they give you enough money, it doesn't really, all Uh, it, it actually is part of the, the truth. But I had, I had a board of directors, I had investors, about 11 or 12 years into it, I took some institutional money. So I had institutional investors. So I was already used to reporting up and dealing with different So I'll just leave it at that. Different types of people. And once you've got that experience of dealing with. Outside investors, institutional investors, boards of And that was great experience for me because once I became part that I had learned over many years were applicable there. One was hit your numbers, but understand what they, they that you're listening to their objectives so that you can provide you are attending to your own business and living your own vision So if they wanted to change my compensation program, which So I was able to speak up, but because, we were new, I. Uh, I also, one, one thing I will say, there's a whole When Pixar sold to Disney, Ed Catmull, the CEO, then I'm think he is, came up with a sort of rules of engagement. Like, okay, we'll sell to you, but we're gonna stay We're gonna keep our compensation the way it is. We're gonna have our same titles. So we did all that, and I came up with that same type of on, yes, we will allow you to continue being a certain way. Now it was not binding, it was just directional, but it was signed by so at least when I, every time I got a new boss, I could And I go, what? Okay. And, we were able to keep our autonomy for the first They didn't even put their own CFO in the C ffo. My CFO was reporting to me, not to them. The HR department reported to me, not to the HR department at, They said, you know, it's probably better corporate governance if your And that, that worked out fine. It was a little confusing for them to have two bosses, but it was fine

Codie: 1:15:01

and so as you say, focus on the numbers because but what supports the numbers and the people is the culture. And without the culture, you won't have the numbers I know that we're out of time, so I, I want to encourage If you're building a business or you're in the process of fantastic read, and there's so many important points that we But I really love how you, you distilled so many concepts so with that said, Thank you Jay, for the contributions that you're making as the book, and the people that you've positively affected.

Jay: 1:15:46

Cody. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it. Hey guys, this is Cody again. I hope you enjoyed that episode of MindHack, and if you're interested stuff straight to your inbox, then you might consider signing It often contains links. To new episodes, blog posts, and other interesting finds I found on It pretty much focuses around productivity and efficiency. So if that's your thing, then be sure to visit my That's MCLAIN.com to sign up. Also. So if there were any interesting websites, companies, books, blog you can find it all and more by visiting the official website for And as always, if you have any feedback. Good or bad, I want to hear it. Send me a tweet, email, or what have you on either of my websites, to give you the maximum value in the shortest amount of time. That's all for now, guys. Thanks again for listening and I'll catch you guys again soon.