Robert Clinkenbeard 12:00
Yeah, you have to be so late to it. But I think where you get probably the best results I’ve seen, is actually bring your leadership team along some of those events, especially if you’re new as a really good speaker, or maybe it’s a challenge area. But if you bring your leadership team along to the event, and actually they can listen to it, and then you meet afterwards and decide as a team here, this is something I think would be really good for a company. And then you do a roll up plan. But yeah, if you’re coming back every single week for something that is not going well, right, right.
John Corcoran 12:32
This Ironman mindset, you’ve made that your mantra here, when did you start to get into Ironman’s and then let’s get into what you mean by that. The mindset is,
Robert Clinkenbeard 12:43
so even taken a slightly step back, I mean, probably back in 2007, I was, you know, been playing rugby, but up until that point, and Barley was beginning to break down a little bit. All these hits were the years so I started then to run, just to keep the fitness scoring. And then eventually I met this group locally in Scottsdale, where we’re going as a triathlon group. And, you know, they persuaded me to do this small sprint triathlon. And, yeah, I’m a terrible swimmer, I could literally swim one month to the pool, and I was dying at the end. So, you know, I through perseverance and determination, that’s what I’m all about. I eventually got sought to increase my distance Olympic Half Ironman, and eventually did my first Ironman race in 2001. In 2009. In Arizona. Yeah, I never thought that was possible. I really, you know, was definitely freaked out by the water swimming with 2500 other swimmers. So
John Corcoran 13:44
what was it was in the ocean was in a lake, like music champion lake can be like,
Robert Clinkenbeard 13:48
okay, but it’s like swimming in a washing machine. You’re getting punch again. goes flying off. Points. Oh, wow. So, yeah, I think after doing a scammer, who is after my third or fourth race, and I’ve always had the goal of writing a book, my dad’s written a bunch of them and is on my bucket list. And I thought, well, how can I explain the story of, you know, preparing for an Ironman race during the trading plan, having that vision of crossing the finish line, and transfer that into my business? And we all know us, we all know skilling up with talks about what’s that roadmap look like? Where are you going in 10 15 years? What are some of the things you need to be doing between now and then? So I talk about the parallels between my training for an Ironman race versus that roadmap in business? So yeah, that sort of know, you know, hung my hat on as Ironman mindset because, again, going through the Ironman training, we all come up against challenges we get injured, we get mechanical issues in the bike, we get dehydrated, we struggled through that not putting in enough calories in the body. But it’s the same with business every single day where we’re having some type of challenge that we have to overcome, whether it be employee issues, whether it be lack of cash, whether it be client complaints, and you know, unless you have that mindset on, you know, what’s keeping you going what’s, what’s that motivating factor, and where you’re going, whether it be around family, whether it be a nice exits, you have to have something just to help you push through those day to day challenges.
John Corcoran 15:37
Is that thing? What is that thing? Is we anything for anyone? Or is it? Is it a curfews yelling at you, or one of
Robert Clinkenbeard 15:45
those coaches are definitely motivating you? But you know, what I do with my clients is I a lot of them have never really thought about what the exit looks like, what does that bucket list look like? Or where were people going in 1015 years? So by asking those crates of questions, and keep asking them, why allows them to Again, pay that picture of where they’re going. So yeah, I find that really successful.
John Corcoran 16:10
And so let’s talk about the sale of your business. How did that come about? Where you burn out and decided that you wanted to? Wanted to be done with it? Or was it just take chips off the table? Or how did that come about?
Robert Clinkenbeard 16:25
Yeah, I think it was interesting. I mentioned the survey, I went to the EMP, Birthing of giants program, Emirati. And I was listening to actually be fair and Harnish, it was talking and again, talking about life’s too short we going and that light bulb moment came on because I was definitely unhappy. In my, my business, I was starting to have some partnership challenges. Him and I were on different pages would go along for many years. But it just, I was going home every single night compared to my wife and kids. And that’s not fear in them. So literally within
John Corcoran 17:06
will, you know, to I’m sure others listening to this might think, well, you build a business to 20,000,003 50 employees, five offices, it seems like you’ve you’ve moved the United States, you have a family, it seems like you’ve achieved the American dream in many ways. So, you know, what do you say to those who are thinking like, geez, what, what could possibly missing from that? And secondly, that must have been crazy on the psyche to think like, look at all these things I’ve gotten, and yet I’m still not happy.
Robert Clinkenbeard 17:40
Yeah, but guess gets back to that point I made earlier about moving to the States where I felt as though I had to keep leveling up. And I just felt was I was in the inner comfort zone. And I think that’s part of the reason why I got into my Ironman racing was because I just the business was running well. And I had all these branch managers, everybody was performing. Everybody had their KPIs. But it just I felt that was enough. And I started to say, hey, let’s expand to had opportunities in Florida. We had opportunities in California, let’s expand the scope become a national companies ticket 250 100 million my partner had? No, he was enjoying his country club membership. He loved that lifestyle. And I just, it became apparent that the two of us were definitely going in different directions. So yeah, I think it was just my desire to keep on learning and keep on pushing myself, I’d gone through different challenges coming to the States going through the waters. And so it didn’t scare me to push myself outside my comfort zone. So yeah, I turned around to him literally within two or three weeks of that EMP program and I said, Hey, I’m done. The array that we can buy each other out. Or we could hold things together enough and go towards an exit. And that’s what we decided to do. I think, by chance, literally within a few days, our business broker called us in a random call. And we started talking to him and within three months, we had our book ready to go to market. And by the by May of 2016. Yeah, we sold the business after probably entertaining 15 16 offers.
John Corcoran 19:39
Wow. So you got a lot of offers, but that also tells me that something wasn’t right with those other offers. So how did you decide who to sell to?
Robert Clinkenbeard 19:51
You know, a lot of it was the structure of the deal. You know, how much cash up front what type of obligations Ultimately, yeah, putting the money aside was just so say, pretty important, right? We wanted we wanted the rest of our employees to be able to grow. You know, we’ve built such a great relationship. I mean, there’s there’s days where, yes, you were consumed by some of the daily stuff that went on. But, you know, we were really good tour employees. We would have company events all the time, we had carnies shadows, we would have Halloween parties. And one particular time, we actually rented a carnival, and brought it into the carnival, for Carnival. Wow. So all of our employees were brought their families and so those five 600 people there.
John Corcoran 20:41
So that was important to you as preserve
Robert Clinkenbeard 20:44
culture, looking after employees. So who is the best company that we can partner up with? They would take those employees to live their dreams, right new ocean, it is
John Corcoran 20:58
an after you? Did you have an idea what you were going to do after you sold the business? Or did you figure out what you’re going to do after it
Robert Clinkenbeard 21:05
was sold? I didn’t have a clear picture when I left. In fact, when I did eventually leave properly after a couple of years after selling it. I mean, I definitely struggled for a good six to nine months. And I ended up hiring a life coach just to again, paint my picture, where do they want to go? So working with that life coach? So I realized that what can I do to give back to the business community? What can I do to level up other people’s lives or help them make less mistakes, and I did that I had a bunch of mistakes, grow my company. So that’s why I moved into doing coaching. So and I do coaching with CEOs and companies across the US and Canada. And I love doing it. Because, again, I see all the challenges that coach companies are going through right now with employees. Create as
John Corcoran 22:02
we, as we record this in November 2000 to 2021. I imagine that’s a big one, labor pool, hiring, retaining all that kind of stuff.
Robert Clinkenbeard 22:12
Yeah, and all the material shortages and material. So it’s pretty brutal. Are there?
John Corcoran 22:18
Yeah, yeah. What are you excited about now?
Robert Clinkenbeard 22:24
Excited to continue helping people could say to the boat, I’m going to get an opportunities to help business owners go to some type of an exit strategy. And a lot of them immediately think that that’s like a true sale. Bam, see, well, here’s to the auctions. And one of the ones that’s really becoming attracted people is that, how can we get the business running really smoothly. So you can go off and enjoy what you’re passionate about, whether it be your family, or the business adventures, I let somebody else run the business. And you just, you know, always enjoy the money that spins off from that. So really excited to look at that avenue a little bit more, to see, owners come to me, and they just beat up, they look exhausted to the big stress, because what’s going on right now, and be able to help them and give them a solution. I mean, that that really excites me right now.
John Corcoran 23:20
Right? Right. And it’s got to be interesting perspective, having come to the United States with hardly anything, started over from scratch, start a business in a country that you hadn’t lived in before, didn’t know the culture and a landscape that was completely different from lush, Scotland. And then, you know, done Ironmans and things like that. I mean, part of me feels like I imagined, you know, that your conversations with clients that gotta be like, Come on, pick yourself off of the mat. How can you be so upset about? So you lost a key employee? Okay, come on. It’s not that bad.
Robert Clinkenbeard 23:55
Yeah. Because I have that had that happen to me, I could share that experience and talk them off the ledge, and say, hey, you know, I give them examples of what I’ve done everything not to, not to boast or anything, but just say, hey, you know, if we figure out this roadmap together, I’m going to help coach you there. I’m very clear all the pitfalls and request mistakes. And yeah, once I build that trust with them, and the increased confidence, then it works tremendous.
John Corcoran 24:27
I want to wrap things up, but before I do, I want to ask my gratitude question. So I’m a big fan of gratitude. And if you look around your peers and contemporaries, however you want to define that and you know, it could be from your landscaping days, it could be from EO forum mates. It could be from the EOS and scaling up work that you do now. Who do you respect? Who do you admire? That’s doing good work. I know you’re close with David Anderson. You know, I imagine Verne and Gino and people like that have had a big influence on your work but who would who would you Yeah, I want to point out
Robert Clinkenbeard 25:02
is that there’s a lot of people out there, but I would say Dave Anderson had a big influence on me. But I think Verne Harnish, in terms of his inspiration, has messaging. You know, I always remember that presentation of the EMP program, obviously, probably he’s one of the biggest influences on me throughout my career and even just that, him being part of your and your tribe. I mean, they’ve given me so much. And it just feel that gratitude and I really just want to get back to that community.
John Corcoran 25:39
Yeah, that’s great. Robert has been great. Where can people go to learn more about you check you out? Check out your books, podcasts, all that kind of stuff?
Robert Clinkenbeard 25:47
Yeah, there’s certainly LinkedIn. Robert Clinkenbeard on LinkedIn. There’s my website, theradixgroupllc.com. I’m really big on Facebook, social media, Instagram. But yeah, by podcast as well, The Commercial Landscaper Podcast, but I bring on tremendous guests not just in the green industry, but from all over the world and just business leaders that can share their stories and inspire others.
John Corcoran 26:14
Excellent. All right, Robert. Thanks so much.
Outro 26:16
Thank you for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast with John Corcoran. Find out more at smartbusinessrevolution.com. And while you’re there, sign up for our email list and join the revolution. And be listening for the next episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast.