Mike Hutzel is the Co-founder and CEO of EagleONE Group, a technology-enabled company specializing in customer experience, lead generation, digital marketing, and the PSP marketplace. Under his leadership, EagleONE is renowned for its comprehensive business development solutions, utilizing top-tier technology and expert knowledge to boost client customer experiences and market expansion. With a background in English and literature, Mike transitioned from academia to entrepreneurship, leveraging a unique combination of relationship-building, consulting, and operational skills. He is also the Co-founder of The Templar Group LLC, actively involved in men’s ministries, and renowned for his expertise as a premier gummy bear connoisseur.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [2:23] Mike Hutzel talks about growing up in a military family
- [3:11] How frequent moves shaped Mike’s resilience
- [5:06] Early entrepreneurial ventures from childhood
- [6:08] Lessons from a drill sergeant father
- [9:16] Transitioning from literature to business consulting
- [10:46] Consulting approach that built a business
- [17:30] Founding of EagleONE and its evolution
- [25:09] Employment strategies focusing on military families
- [33:30] Launch and potential of the ‘Frintz’ division
In this episode…
With the breakneck speed of today’s business environment, companies struggle to integrate traditional business strategies with rapidly evolving technological innovations. Balancing these can be challenging, particularly in sectors like customer experience and digital marketing, where the pressure to remain competitive and innovative is intense. How can businesses harmonize these elements to avoid missed opportunities and achieve sustainable growth?
Mike Hutzel shares actionable strategies to effectively blend traditional business wisdom with cutting-edge technology. From his extensive experience, Mike emphasizes the importance of understanding diverse market demands and utilizing technology to enhance customer engagement and market reach. He highlights how personal experiences and backgrounds can significantly influence and strengthen leadership and decision-making in business.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Mike Hutzel, CEO of EagleONE Group, about leveraging technology and AI to innovate and lead in business. They also delve into the importance of adaptability, strategic relationship building, and innovative thinking for business growth and examine the potential of Frintz, a new marketplace merging photography and advertising.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
Special Mention(s):
- Bill Testa on LinkedIn
- Anthony Vidergauz on LinkedIn
- Dave Cook on LinkedIn
- Kathryn Blackwell on LinkedIn
- Rick Grossmann on LinkedIn
Quotable Moments:
- “Life taught me to find opportunity where it knocks, just like painting curbs taught me the value of earning.”
- “From classroom teaching to customer experience, it’s all service-driven at the core.”
- “Technology empowers our people to be better, smarter, and faster.”
- “People still buy from people, and that’s at the heart of Eagle One Group.”
Action Steps:
- Embrace a service-driven approach in business, focusing on value and quality over commodity offerings.
- Cultivate adaptability and a global perspective by seeking varied experiences and engaging with diverse cultures.
- Leverage your interests and past experiences to diversify your professional skills.
- Employ a strategic hiring process that aligns with company values and the expectations of your clients.
- Stay informed about technological advancements and adopt innovative platforms that respect consumer privacy while delivering valuable insights.
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Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.
The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.
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Episode Transcript
John Corcoran 0:00
Today we’re talking about how to use technology and AI to improve your lead generation and your customer experience. My guest today is Mike Hutzel. I’ll tell you more about him in a second. So stay tuned.
Chad Franzen 0:12
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders and thought leaders and ask them how they built the relationships to get where they are today. Now, let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran 0:29
Alright, welcome everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of the show. And if you’ve listened before, which hopefully you have, you know, every week I talk to smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies. We’ve had Netflix Kinkos YPO, EO Activision Blizzard lending tree GrubHub Redfin, lots of great episodes. We had gusto recently, go check out the archives, and you can listen to those episodes. Of course, this episode was brought to you by Rise25. We’re helped B2B businesses to get clients referrals and strategic partnerships. With a few podcasts and content marketing, go to Rise25.com You can learn all about our new podcast copilot platform, or you can email us at support at Rise25.com.
All right, Mike, first shout out to Anthony Peter Gauss, my friend and neighbor lives close by to me and connected us even though we’re on opposite ends of the country. And Anthony is a former CEO and owner of California closets had him on the podcast a while back, it’s a great story about how he made that really a household name and a great brand. But Mike, you are the CEO of EagleONE Group, a technology enabled company specializing in a number of different service lines, we’ll get into all of them, including customer experience, lead generation digital marketing, it’s got a new platform we’re gonna be talking about as well.
And he has a varied background including interest in and studying English and literature like I did at the beginning of my career, and also a contributor to the franchise Bible. So he’s been active in the franchise space, and we’ll talk about that as well. And also fun fact he is the premier gummy bear connoisseur one premier I mean, I don’t know if you can really say that you are the premier gummy bear connoisseur. The man must really love gummy bears if he puts that on his formal bio. But Mike, you moved even more than I did as a kid. I feel like I moved a lot when I was a kid. I believe you were a military brat who lived in 12 Different states when you’re growing up.
Mike Hutzel 2:23
Yeah, it was kind of cool, John, I mean, it’s all we knew. So it was normal for us to pick up and move it most of most of our time in the States was down south so Florida, South Carolina, Georgia for a while Tennessee. But it was a lot of fun to pick up and move. Even though it seems a little daunting. What it taught me even Well, I think I mentioned to you too, we lived across the pond over in Germany for three and a half years. It showed me that the world was a really small place that everybody was not like me, and that I had to be thick in my own skin comfortable with who I was. Because, you know, we had to make friends quickly. We had to part ways quickly. And it taught me a lot about just being just being part of the world as it is not living in some kind of living in some kind of ball.
John Corcoran 3:11
Yeah, yeah, I felt like moving around as a kid did the same for me and I didn’t move as much as you did. But every time I moved, it seemed like it was cross country a lot of times. And it’s funny, because when I got to college, and there were people that were homesick I was like What do you mean homesick? You know, I mean, aren’t you used to this, you know, meeting new people, it just came natural to me.
Mike Hutzel 3:30
Yeah. Well, and you know, what’s fun, too, is each place kind of has its own culture. Dad was in the Army and for the most part we were on army posts or army bases. But in Germany back in the 80s there was no Army post or base so we were actually stationed on an Air Force base. And so that was its own learning culture all by itself because airmen and this is kind of a running thing in the military branches as it is but airmen are typically treated well, because they’re flying planes and things like that. So mom and dad had access to things in Germany that we would have never had access to on an army base.
So not only did we get in touch with our quote unquote culture, I mean Hutzel is German at the end of the day, but we got the and that’s where by the way that that love for gummy bears. We actually lived off base in a little town called Karl and at the center of town was a candy shop, among other things, a bar and a barber shop but we always used to go in with Deutsche Marks. Back then it was Deutsche Marks not euros and and just a few dollars marks and you could have a pile full of wonderful gummies. And so it has been a lifelong, lifelong passion ever since.
John Corcoran 4:40
Yeah, like my father was an Air Force brat and grew up on and around military bases. And so I feel like it’s shaped my childhood a bit, in part because we moved because of his job and in part because I just heard about it all the time. You know what the experience was like? And you actually ended up mowing lawns, spray painting numbers on curves to make money. Do you recall what that was? Like? Were you just? Were you driven to make money? Because you didn’t have a lot? Or what? What drove that?
Mike Hutzel 5:06
Yeah, well, that’s exactly it. So, you know, a lot of people will say, Well, growing up, I was lower middle class, I mean, I just come out and say, John, we were poor growing up, I mean, I was the oldest of five boys on a military salary. And if you’ve ever been anywhere near a base of any kind, regardless of branch, you know, the surrounding area of the base is pretty low economic, and you’ll see tattoo parlors and strip clubs, and all the fun stuff that comes along with that lifestyle. So you know, because there wasn’t a lot to go around. And because we lived paycheck to paycheck, quite literally, with that salary. We were hustling any way we could to make money legitimately that had dad smiling on us versus, you know, some of our peers back then where there’s some shady stuff going on, it was better just to go out and earn it. And then the way you had pocket change to do what you want to do with your friends.
John Corcoran 5:58
And you say dad is smiling at you. Was he encouraging that? Or do you just mean that he was approving that you weren’t, you know, out there, like spray painting buildings or something like that?
Mike Hutzel 6:08
Well, I I think what I mean is he did a lot of things during his time in the army, during the 101st airborne Vietnam era. So that came with its own set of consequences. But for the first long stretch, he was a drill sergeant. So he was kind of an army guy. And so that’s how we live. That’s how we grew up. And so we wanted to keep that happy with what and having proud of us, too, we knew he was serving our country. Mom was, you know, we had to kind of grow up in our own skin a little bit because mom was managing five kids. And so if we were caught doing something that we wanted to be productive, we wanted to make sure that we were contributing to the cause.
So it was from a very early age, he was much more not about himself, and about the cause, right, the whole family a lot of times, and there were times where we chipped in, when we had a pocket change, or whatever, that it was necessary to do that. That’s just what you did back in the 70s, early 80s, I guess. But that’s all we knew. But it was nice to have a little bit of control of your own income. And we knew the more we did, the more we learned.
John Corcoran 7:07
Yeah. You know, You mentioned the Vietnam War. One of the transformational experiences for me was a class that I took in college with a mentor of sorts. Walter Capps, who was a professor at my college, and then later was elected to Congress. And he taught this class that was about the impact of the Vietnam War, and the impact that it had on the entire generation, and even the generation after it. So our generation My father also served in the Air Force in the Vietnam era. I don’t know if you’ve thought about that. And the impact that that had for you, with your father being a Vietnam veteran, the obviously the horrors that many of them went through, and how that kind of impacted you and your generation and your siblings.
Mike Hutzel 7:56
Yeah, I mean, obviously, it impacted the parenting aspect. I mean, I don’t know what impact it had on your dad. I mean, we learned a lot of hard lessons, a lot of growing up quick kind of lessons during that phase. But I’ll tell you, John, to be honest, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t trade that, right, I really think I can, I can attest to saying that. A lot of that sort of gritty, tough upbringing, attributed to my ability to later be an entrepreneur. Because you just didn’t take no for an answer. You just kept going until you got to where you wanted it to be or whatever. And then I still feel like that. I mean, we’ve certainly accomplished quite a bit in our history here at Eagle One, and with France and all this fun stuff we’ve got going on, but I’m still striving. I’m still searching, I’m still trying to get to the next level. And I can tell you that comes from how I was raised.
John Corcoran 8:51
Yeah. Now you actually studied English during undergrad and you actually went and got your master’s degree in English as well. He taught business writing, business presentation, essay writing and resume writing. Talk a little bit about how that led to what you do today. Is that that led you to, you know, advising businesses from that background? Or do you see that as more of a detour?
Mike Hutzel 9:16
No, certainly not a detour, I think was a fundamental block. I mean, I, you know, it’s kind of a joke, right? I went from renaissance man to businessman, what feels like overnight. But you know, the time in the classroom that it was, you know, teaching just in general, is a service, right? It’s a service based business. And so there’s no accident that I’m in a service based organization and that’s what we do, we serve people. It also helped me in a lot of ways. I mean, imagine it’s one thing to get I do quite a bit of speaking in different industries because of the franchise stuff and a few others. But at the end of the day, when you’re standing in front of a classroom full of people who may or may not want to be there and you’ve got to sell them On your concept, because that’s the curriculum, that was a ton of life skills plus the long one.
So I would argue that we’re a very relationship oriented organization, because I’m a very relationship oriented person. And that teaching time, I think, for me was a really, really key element to everything else I’ve been doing. And it made me really comfortable in front of groups or whatever, to be able to express ideas, organize them, and help people at the end of the day, not just get up and speak and have everybody kind of tune out, but really speak in a way that’s going to have people taken away from, you know, something valuable when you’re done when you’re done talking.