April 2, 2025

1075: PLANNING for RISK and ALL the entrepreneurial obstacles w/ Mike Gross

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EPISODE STACK: https://stacklist.app/c/podcast/stack/Z79S6AIKnMdupWOBPlw2 

Ever wondered how a post-retirement plan can turn into a thriving business? Meet Mike Gross, an inspiring entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in quality, safety, and environmental management systems. From aspiring medical professional to executive vice president in the automotive industry, Mike shares the fascinating twists and turns of his career journey, ultimately leading to the launch of his consultancy in 2019. His story offers a compelling blueprint for navigating career shifts and seizing new opportunities in the business world.

Tune in as we uncover the secrets to strategic planning and risk management with Mike's expert insights. Discover how ISO standards play a pivotal role in guiding businesses through potential risks, and the importance of having contingency plans ready. We delve into the human side of business, discussing how teamwork and technology like AI note-takers can drive accountability and productivity. With a focus on adaptability, our conversation highlights the importance of balancing success with challenges to ensure a strategy that's both practical and effective.

Get ready to be inspired by Mike's entrepreneurial journey, filled with risks, growth, and continuous learning. He candidly shares the meticulous planning involved in setting up his business, from creating an LLC to leveraging local resources like the Chamber of Commerce. With teaching opportunities as a backup, Mike emphasizes the power of networking and adaptability in entrepreneurship. 

ABOUT MIKE

Mike Gross is the owner and principal consultant of Michael J. Gross, LLC, established in 2019, specializing in quality, safety, and environmental management systems implementation and training. With over 35 years of experience, he brings comprehensive leadership expertise while maintaining approachability with employees at all organizational levels.

Previously, Mike served as Executive Vice President at Daicel Safety Systems America, managing integrated systems, supplier development, manufacturing planning, and regulatory compliance. His career began at ALCOA Warrick Operations as a Metallurgist, followed by various technical roles at Commonwealth Aluminum and Hydro Aluminum.

A graduate of Missouri University of Science and Technology in metallurgical engineering, Mike is a member of the Academy for Mines and Metallurgy. He holds multiple certifications, including PECB lead implementer and auditor for ISO standards, and ASQ quality auditor and engineer credentials. He formerly served as a Part Time Instructor at Western Kentucky University and resides in Owensboro with his wife Karen.

Chapters

00:00 - Journey of an ISO Specialist

14:15 - Strategic Planning and Risk Management

19:49 - Navigating Entrepreneurial Risks and Growth

33:29 - Acknowledging Guests on Entrepreneur Podcast

Transcript

WEBVTT

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and I am so excited about today's episode because this is a perfect example.

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I always tell people that I never plan on stopping when it comes to work, and today's entrepreneur is someone who has been eyeing his own entrepreneurial journey for a long time.

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He always planned it as just kind of a fun post-retirement thing, but instead it has turned into a full-fledged business where he gets to help people with his many years of expertise that he picked up along his professional journey.

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So let me tell you all about today's guest.

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His name is Mike Gross.

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He's the owner and principal consultant for his own organization, which specializes in support, implementation and training for quality, safety and environmental management systems, which he started in 2019.

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Mike has over 35 years of experience and brings a broad leadership perspective to business operations.

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Yes, I feel like that's a word that we throw around so much in the world of entrepreneurship and business.

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We're going to talk about what operations actually means, but he also understands the importance of regular interaction with the employees performing the operational processes and is approachable with employees at all levels of an organization.

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Now I'm going to let him get into his professional background, but he's been the executive vice president for a large manufacturer of automotive airbag inflators and components, overseeing integrated management systems, supplier development and purchasing, manufacturing, overseeing integrated management systems, supplier development and purchasing, manufacturing planning, shipping, receiving quality assurance so many different aspects and I think it's so cool that he's packaged all of that expertise and knowledge into an awesome business that allows him to help other companies as well, far beyond just the career that he enjoyed.

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So we're all gonna learn a lot, not only from Mike's expertise today, but also from his journey.

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So I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Mike Gross.

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All right, mike, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.

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First things first, welcome to the show.

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Thank you very much for having me, brian, and thank you to the listeners for tuning in Heck, yes.

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Well, mike, we are always excited about amazing entrepreneurs doing fun things, and your journey is interesting to me.

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I love the fact that you shared with me before recording here today, about the post-retirement plans, but I want you to take us beyond the bio.

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Who's Mike?

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How'd you start doing all these cool things?

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Well, let me let me back up.

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You know I work in an unusual niche type of operation, so I deal with ISO management systems.

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I'm not going to go too deep into those requirements in this recording, but I deal with safety, quality and environmental management systems, not only, as you mentioned, the consulting, the implementation and the training.

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Now I thought a lot prior to our interview about how I arrived here, so let me just describe a little bit of that journey.

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I reached a decision to go into engineering late in high school.

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I originally was going to medical school, so that was one big turning point right off the bat.

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Both my parents had advanced degrees at the time and they were also very involved with academia, and so I had a large exposure while I was growing up to academia and I thought perhaps something along the teaching lines were at some point would would make a lot of sense.

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When I was in college I had an opportunity to work in manufacturing environments and I found that I really enjoyed the interaction with dealing with people in the processes and and so started thinking a little bit more about where I wanted to go and how far I wanted to go in college, because, again, I was thinking graduate degrees, but I kind of settled on not going into academia and focusing so much on research.

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I I really like the interaction of operations and when I was in school I was able to be exposed to things like statistical control applications within the manufacturing environment and learned about the emerging quality management systems.

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Iso 9001 in particular had just started.

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Around that particular time, when I was in graduate school, my advisor gave me a lot of leeway to continue studying some of these things that I was learning in these work experiences and that also gave me my own first taste in teaching as a graduate teaching assistant.

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So that bug even became bigger.

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When I left the university I started my career and I continued to further study on these topics and eventually I was going through a series of promotions and I was still ultimately tasked and focused primarily on the quality management systems aspect and implementing those within my company.

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In the late 2000s, the economy, and then I was working primarily in the aluminum industry.

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The economy was very hard on the aluminum industry and so they decided to do a reorganization at that point.

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So I had a very brief opportunity about a year to work with another local aluminum company and they were looking for somebody to just be a hands-on consultant to help them get ready for an ISO 9001 certification, and thoroughly enjoyed that as well.

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And I distinctly remember having several conversations with their HSE manager about some of the newer at the time newer standards that were coming out around environmental, which is a ISO 14001, and another safety management system standard which was OSAS 18001, which is now ISO 45001, and the conversations went along the lines of boy you know, it seems like that all of these systems operate kind of the same way and have the same general principles.

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It would be nice if we could combine all of these into one management system because when you're talking about an environment like a manufacturing environment in particular, it's very hard to separate for the task amongst quality, safety and environmental they all have an impact.

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Amongst quality, safety and environmental, they all have an impact.

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I didn't stay through their certification because I had another opportunity pop up in the meantime.

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But I was proud that I was able to train one of their full-time employees to kind of carry them across their finish line.

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But I did help them get a long way down that path.

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I gave some serious thought at that point to starting the consulting gig, but at that point.

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I had a very young family and that made me a little bit concerned.

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I don't know that my wife would have gone along with it at that point and I also didn't feel like at that point that I had enough experience it was maybe just a hair under 10 years at that point to be able to be taken with a certain degree of credibility.

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But I did.

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I was very clear at that time with my wife that, yes, once the kids are raised and out of the house, I definitely want to go back into consulting.

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I did then at that point receive an opportunity to join this organization with the automotive airbag inflators.

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It was a Greenfield project and I also learned later on that they intended to start companies with regard to some of the components for the airbag inflators as well.

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I went in as the quality manager, but I was part of the original management team and I shared my ideas and what I had learned in my consulting with regard to developing a fully automated excuse me, fully integrated management system dealing with safety, quality and environment.

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And, as it turned out, the customers for that company did have requirements for the automotive quality management systems, which include ISO 9001 and also the environmental management system, iso 14001.

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And we intentionally started off very slowly.

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It was not a situation where we tried to implement everything at one time.

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We started with ISO 9001, and we had that implemented within six months of start of production, then moved immediately into ISO 14001, came back and implemented what was then at that time called TS16949, which is an automotive standard that also incorporates ISO 9001, and finally added on the OSAS 18001.

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And, as I mentioned, we started with some additional components facilities.

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One was in the manufactured propellant, so you're dealing with explosives there.

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So the systems that we had set up at the assembly plant became very important when we were implementing them also at the other facilities the propellant manufacturing and the metal component manufacturing.

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So that was something that was beneficial.

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Beneficial, uh, very beneficial in hindsight.

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Uh, fast forward.

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I had an opportunity and you mentioned this earlier that I was leading several different functions in the organization, became executive vice president.

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But the important thing that I learned as executive vice president because I was a lot less hands-on day-to-day, but I recognized, through the few years of development of these management systems, the complexity and perhaps had overdone it a little bit.

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So I really came to appreciate the fact that these systems need to be developed methodically and you don't want to create a system that's so complex that you have to have a lot of extra work that goes into them in order to keep them up.

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The other thing that was nice about this time and this is just by luck but the organization that puts forth these standards, iso, followed along with the same idea I had years ago that they were starting to harmonize the standards.

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So where in the past I had to take the 9001, the 14001, the 18001, and kind of had to piecemeal the requirements and figure out how we could integrate them, iso recognized that by harmonizing their structure, starting around 2015 2015 so that every one of these management system standards that are developed are following a similar structure.

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So it makes it very easy and they recognize the value of what I just described, where you have one management system but it applies to various aspects of your business.

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And I also began to appreciate with working with various vendors that these systems and particularly with the latest revision of these systems, they really apply primarily.

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Well.

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Right now they're primarily done by manufacturers.

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That's historically where it's been the heaviest certifications, but there are other service organizations that have begun implementing these standards as well and I really began to appreciate how these standards can be applied, not only for manufacturing, but also for some of these other services.

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This really applies to any company.

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I also was able, during that work, to make contact with Western Kentucky University, so I had a very good relationship with them and that would lead me to other opportunities in the future.

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And you know, years down the road, price pressures, et cetera the organization made a decision at that point to reorganize the site and and so at that point I I looked at that as my opportunity, even though it was a little bit ahead of my original target.

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My youngest daughter had just graduated, fortunately, but I was planning on on waiting about another year to make a smoother transition didn't happen that way, and it was very fortunate, as I'll explain.

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But I was a little bit flat footed and getting getting myself ready, so I had I had a lot of preparation work to do before I could fully launch, and the reason I say it was fortunate because this was an early 2019.

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And we all know what happened in 2020.

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So if I were stuck to my original plan, I would run smack dab into the COVID pandemic.

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And I also do want to mention and I feel very strongly about this that you know I've been, I've been blessed with through all these experiences.

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I've been blessed with great people working around me and you know I don't like to take all the credit.

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I like to give the credit to the people that work with.

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But the people I work with, work for, they've really supported me along on this journey during that lead up and also in my current career, because many of my clients, many of my best clients, are my former employees and they're also leaders in their own organizations now in their own right, and that, in many ways, is much more rewarding to me than having a successful consulting business.

00:12:53.447 --> 00:12:56.618
Yeah, Mike, I really appreciate that overview.

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It's so clear to me the standards of excellence that you've held for yourself.

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And you hit right there at the end of that overview about the importance of the people that you surround yourself with.

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Because what I really hear in your journey, Mike this stands out to me so much, even ahead of our conversation together today is when you're talking about these standards.

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Obviously, these are set standards on an international basis, but what I think about is I'm a big fan of words and the way that we use them, and I'm like we all have standards in our lives, in our businesses, in our relationships.

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Standards are the things that set that barometer.

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Here's the standards in which we want to live our life, here's the barometer for success, here's the criteria and the requirements for us to reach those levels.

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And so when you talk about these ISO standards, for example, that's a matter of life or death.

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You need to be very disciplined and methodical when it comes to airbag inflators, for example.

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But even beyond that zooming way out, Mike, I want to tap into that operational and that executive mind of yours about how do we meet standards in life.

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What does that mean to you?

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Because knowing the requirements is one thing, Understanding how to plan for those is another thing, but the execution, of course, is what matters.

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So I'd love to hear how you bring all of these things together in order to meet the standards whatever those standards are in life and business.

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Good foundational work and good planning, and when I say good planning, you're never going to have that perfect plan okay.

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And when I say good planning, you're never going to have that perfect plan, ok.

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But you need to take the time to really think before you establish, make a plan and make corrections along the way.

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That really is a simple answer, and that plan will incorporate, of course, these standards that you expect to meet.

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With that said, though you already called it out, no plan goes off flawlessly.

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There's no perfect plan.

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What does planning look like?

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Because I think back, mike, you and I have a little bit of a different educational background.

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Yours is very technical.

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In your field, I went to business school and, mike, I always.

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I just shake my head at the fact that I think of how many professors told us we need to have a 10-year business plan, to your point about 2020,.

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Whatever plan we all had in our lives and in our businesses immediately went out the window.

00:15:09.745 --> 00:15:13.206
So when you talk about strategic planning, what does that look like?

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Do you plan for the things that are going to go wrong?

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Do you plan for all the details?

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I'd love to hear how you navigate those plans.

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Do?

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you plan for all the details.

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I'd love to hear how you navigate those plans.

00:15:23.735 --> 00:15:29.048
Well, it's interesting that you bring that point up, because that is part of the requirements of these ISO standards that I'm talking about.

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So it does require the organizations to consider what's called risk and opportunities.

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Okay, so what are the risks that could happen to your business?

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What are the opportunities that you can take advantage of?

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And so naturally, my mind does think a lot along those lines is you know what are these things that I could be doing differently?

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And that's how I've really traded these last six years and taken advantage of several different opportunities that came this way years and taking advantage of several different opportunities that came this way.

00:16:02.597 --> 00:16:15.188
As far as the risks, you're not going to be able to avoid all risks Okay, that's not possible but you can certainly prioritize and come up with certain controls, contingencies, whatever that looks like.

00:16:15.188 --> 00:16:31.697
And so when you're talking about the planning, that is a big part of it is to really understand, you know, the things that likely could go wrong and have a backup plan just in case that doesn't come to fruition.

00:16:32.558 --> 00:16:35.044
Yeah, we're going to go deeper here Before we go there.

00:16:35.044 --> 00:16:39.946
I'm excited to ask you the follow-up line of questioning with regards to risks and things that could go wrong.

00:16:39.946 --> 00:16:55.840
We're going to come back to that in a second, but first I want to follow that workflow through to execution because, of course, when we're actually executing the plan that we've put in place, so many things happen, and in the case of your professional career, Mike, you know better than most that humans are an essential ingredient in all of this.

00:16:55.840 --> 00:17:02.210
There's so many moving parts when it comes to human resources, teamwork, getting things done, productivity, all of that.

00:17:02.210 --> 00:17:03.836
What does that look like?

00:17:03.836 --> 00:17:08.895
To maintain the progress on that trajectory that you'd set through the planning process Is it?

00:17:08.895 --> 00:17:11.124
Are you a big believer in weekly check ins?

00:17:11.124 --> 00:17:17.648
I'd love to hear more about your management style as far as how do you make sure people are performing at their optimal selves?

00:17:17.648 --> 00:17:23.417
Give us some insights there performing at their optimal selves.

00:17:23.438 --> 00:17:23.979
Give us some insights there.

00:17:23.979 --> 00:17:40.834
A lot of that is making sure that, in my experience and I'm going to be very simple with the response, but I can't tell you the number of meetings that I have attended with clients that they have meetings and they don't keep any kind of meeting agenda or any kind of meeting record, because I think it's very important in order to track that progress.

00:17:40.834 --> 00:17:48.439
Of course, you have the overreaching plan, okay, and the overreaching plan is going to be the tests that are involved, the who, what, when.

00:17:48.439 --> 00:18:06.221
Uh is responsible to take care of that and keeping a, a log of some some sort of those actions, and starting off every meeting with a question of this is what we said we were going to get done by this last meeting.

00:18:06.221 --> 00:18:09.520
Where are we in getting that done?

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And if we're not, why not?

00:18:11.940 --> 00:18:22.207
And then concluding every meeting after all the discussion is finished and having that list again of what do we expect to have done by the next time.

00:18:23.174 --> 00:18:38.603
Again, the big context for all that, though, is that you have an overreaching plan, but to measure the progress, you have to really take it in baby steps and make sure you keep things moving along when you talk about, even you know multi-month, multi-year plans.

00:18:38.603 --> 00:18:44.601
You always have to keep that in the back of your mind, but it's very, very important on a weekly basis.

00:18:44.601 --> 00:18:54.695
I think at least is to start and end that meeting with the action list, and I'm just amazed at how many people just don't do that fundamental step.

00:18:55.178 --> 00:18:56.160
Yeah, for sure, mike.

00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:58.185
I would actually argue it's easier than ever before.

00:18:58.185 --> 00:18:59.636
There's so many incredible tools.

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I will not take a Zoom meeting these days without having my AI note taker there so that it transcribes the entire meeting and I can stay on top of the action items.

00:19:08.385 --> 00:19:15.423
Because what I'm really hearing from you a big part of your answer underlying all of these topics we're talking about is accountability.

00:19:15.423 --> 00:19:26.945
It's one thing to say a thing, but it's important to, as a leader, actually hold those around us accountable, but also, especially, to hold ourselves accountable, and I think that shines through in all the concepts that you introduced us here to today.

00:19:27.326 --> 00:19:47.461
I do want to go back, though I kind of tease that I want to go into this line of questioning regarding planning for risks, because it's so clear to me, mike, in all the ways that you talk, that it's just ingrained in the way that you think You're always looking for what should go right, what do I hope to go right, but, importantly, a really practical approach to what could go wrong, what are all these contingency plans that we could have in place?

00:19:47.501 --> 00:19:49.656
So, mike, I'm totally going to put you on the spot.

00:19:49.656 --> 00:19:59.984
You came to the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast as a fellow entrepreneur, you shared the fact that when your kids were young, for example, you weren't quite ready to take that entrepreneurial leap.

00:19:59.984 --> 00:20:07.759
So I'm sure that when it did, come to launching your business in 2019, you had assessed all the risks in so many different ways.

00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:22.179
Talk to us about where your head was at with regards to your own entrepreneurial journey, the risks, the planning that you went in, and then, of course, I can't wait to hear about how it's compared the reality has compared to all that risk planning that you probably set forth.

00:20:23.355 --> 00:20:30.382
Okay, so I'll just start with the 2019 and where my head was at at that point.

00:20:30.382 --> 00:20:33.375
So, like I said, I was caught a little bit flat footed, okay.

00:20:33.375 --> 00:20:39.916
So I rolled with it and the first decision I made was I wasn't gonna make any decisions, okay.

00:20:39.916 --> 00:20:42.224
I took some time off to decompress.

00:20:42.224 --> 00:20:46.866
I actually went to spring training that year and I really didn't do anything much until then.

00:20:46.866 --> 00:20:48.901
I wanted to have a very clear head.

00:20:48.901 --> 00:20:54.226
When I was sitting down, I had a general sense, but now I started putting pencil to paper.

00:20:54.226 --> 00:21:05.403
I reached out to a lot of trusted contacts to get some feedback on my own thoughts, and I also, of course, you know, use that as an opportunity to do some initial networking.

00:21:05.403 --> 00:21:14.505
But I made a list of things that I needed to take care of, you know, and obviously the biggest risk that I saw was that I wasn't going to be able to attract clients.

00:21:14.505 --> 00:21:19.721
Okay, but that that has worked out very well in the end.

00:21:21.144 --> 00:21:23.769
So how to go about attracting those clients?

00:21:23.769 --> 00:21:30.105
Okay, well, number one is to make sure that I regain some of my credentials.

00:21:30.105 --> 00:21:40.363
So, being in an executive position, I didn't have a lot of those credentials, so I knew immediately that I had to go back to work and do some studying okay and classes and do some studying okay and classes.

00:21:40.363 --> 00:21:52.101
So I enrolled in those courses and I knew that eventually any potential clients would be wanting some evidence of my credentials in addition to my work background.

00:21:52.101 --> 00:21:58.579
And I had to do a lot of the basic things for setting up business.

00:21:58.579 --> 00:22:04.241
And then, if a it follows an LLC, I looked at that as a risk.

00:22:04.241 --> 00:22:15.848
I wanted to keep everything separate from my personal finances, so I filed as an LLC and did all the federal registration along with that.

00:22:17.335 --> 00:22:25.835
Then I recognized the next thing I needed to do and this sounds very serial, but it was very parallel developing branding in a website.

00:22:25.835 --> 00:22:47.905
And I got a whole bunch of advice about branding, particularly at that time, even though now I focus more on the management systems, when I was first starting out I was considering several other potential avenues of generating revenue for myself, but in the end it's been primarily the management systems, has been the bulk of it.

00:22:47.905 --> 00:22:50.575
So I took the opportunity.

00:22:50.575 --> 00:23:05.919
I made a very simple decision to keep the branding easy to understand, associated with myself, understand associated with the with myself.

00:23:05.919 --> 00:23:10.196
And I also took a lot of time several days to write the website myself, because I wanted to make sure that I didn't want to just hand it over to a website developer.

00:23:10.196 --> 00:23:36.449
I wanted to make sure that it was me speaking to the audience that my personality came through, and then also some other things that I I I reached out to our local small business development center a great resource to help get me started and also to help me find clients, and they really helped me understand the potential, just in my immediate area, of what my work could bring.

00:23:37.955 --> 00:23:39.740
I also joined the local chamber of commerce.

00:23:39.740 --> 00:23:40.782
Okay, so here's a.

00:23:40.782 --> 00:23:50.558
You know, not only making contacts, but another source of personal risk is that you have, when you're on your own, you have things that you have to take care of, like, you know, health insurance.

00:23:50.558 --> 00:23:59.003
So, through, the Chamber of Commerce is not only making those contacts, but they also have the ability to pool and reduce those expenses for its members.

00:23:59.003 --> 00:24:13.761
And then, you know, once I completed my courses and I registered with an organization called Exemplar Global, which is a body that certifies people for these types of management systems.

00:24:13.821 --> 00:24:24.336
So now I had my first credential and then finally, just to have somebody to bounce, I reached out to my personal counselor, and he has his own business.

00:24:24.336 --> 00:24:35.319
And so I told him that, hey, look, I want you to be my, my business business coach I guess is the best term for it but I want you to.

00:24:35.319 --> 00:24:42.198
You know, look at what you know, ask questions, look at what I'm doing and challenge me on the activities, and I'll be.

00:24:42.198 --> 00:24:47.356
I'll be quite honest, I think I've challenged him just as much as he's challenged me.

00:24:47.356 --> 00:24:50.207
So those are the kind of things that I did.

00:24:50.207 --> 00:25:00.527
Then, finally, the risk is okay what happens if I don't have enough enough clients to be able to occupy all of my time?

00:25:00.527 --> 00:25:02.229
So I mentioned that.

00:25:02.229 --> 00:25:08.066
I made contacts with Western Kentucky University so I really wanted to teach at some point.

00:25:08.066 --> 00:25:12.387
So I reached out to them and let them know that I would be available to teach some courses.

00:25:12.387 --> 00:25:19.236
So maybe not my primary consulting, but again, it gives me an opportunity to earn some income and do something that I really enjoy.

00:25:19.977 --> 00:25:24.205
Yeah gosh, mike, I so appreciate your transparency.

00:25:24.205 --> 00:25:29.365
I so appreciate the way that you think and the way that you've identified and navigated through all of those risks.

00:25:29.365 --> 00:25:44.723
This is the real stuff, honestly, in an entrepreneurial journey, there are so many questions and so many unknowns, and it's really cool seeing how methodical and intentional your mind is in the fact that you laid all of these risks out and you said all right, let's start finding solutions to these risks.

00:25:44.723 --> 00:25:46.457
I think that go ahead.

00:25:46.518 --> 00:25:49.445
I'll be honest with you Six years later, I'm still figuring things out.

00:25:49.445 --> 00:25:49.506
So.

00:25:49.506 --> 00:25:58.278
So, for example, when I saw the risk of my tax man taking too much money okay, organized as an S-corp.

00:25:58.278 --> 00:26:01.516
I had no idea what an S Corp was before I got started on this journey.

00:26:01.516 --> 00:26:04.103
So now I reorganized last year as an S Corp.

00:26:04.103 --> 00:26:11.807
So it's just little things like that Always keep your ears peeled and talk to people and get advice all the way through the journey.

00:26:11.807 --> 00:26:13.377
That's just my approach.

00:26:13.838 --> 00:26:22.295
Yes, honestly, it's such good advice and, importantly, I think that that's such a key thing that you called out there, which is we're always going to be facing problems.

00:26:22.454 --> 00:26:39.368
I love the fact that, even though you rattled off so many different risks and problems that you identified, you quickly point out hey, and they're still ongoing and they always will be there, and I think that that's part of that entrepreneurial mindset is just accepting the fact that these things not only will come up, but they will continue to come up.

00:26:39.368 --> 00:26:44.287
It's just part of the ever presentpresent process of being an entrepreneur, and it's part of life as well.

00:26:44.287 --> 00:26:58.019
So I always like to extrapolate there, mike, I want to ask you I feel like it's such a different role for you, while also leveraging the expertise that you had accrued over the entirety of your career what's that different vantage point been like as a consultant?

00:26:58.019 --> 00:27:04.369
Because now you're not just working inside of the companies that you worked for for so long, but you're working with all these different types of companies.

00:27:04.369 --> 00:27:06.140
What's the fun part about that for you?

00:27:06.140 --> 00:27:07.944
What's the different vantage point that it's given you?

00:27:08.694 --> 00:27:23.106
Oh, yeah, I love it Because one of the one of the things you know, not only my own prior experience, but I'm also able to bring, I'll say, maybe cross-fertilized.

00:27:23.106 --> 00:27:30.248
So the thing that I like to do with my clients is I don't like to run in and say this is the way it's got to be done.

00:27:30.248 --> 00:27:34.185
Okay, I like to be a coach, a teacher, whatever.

00:27:34.185 --> 00:27:39.099
I'll walk them through the minimum requirements and then I let things flow.

00:27:39.099 --> 00:28:02.954
Naturally, I may present them with some templates of ways they can organize their thoughts, but at the end I want them to keep it in the context of their organization, something that's similar, so that we don't have drastic change that's perceived Okay, really, I've heard this quote on your podcast before evolution, not revolution.

00:28:02.954 --> 00:28:12.500
This should be incremental change, not not, not something that is drastic, more of a nip and tuck type of approach.

00:28:13.321 --> 00:28:27.653
And by doing that, then I'm able to see how different clients and different environments, different products, different services how they come to solutions to meeting these requirements, and it's very fascinating.

00:28:27.653 --> 00:28:48.878
So I learned as much from them and gained deeper insights from the way that they approach things compared to how I would have gone about doing it, and I think that that is huge, because then I can share those thoughts with other clients without giving too many details, but just some things that I've observed.

00:28:48.878 --> 00:28:56.820
And that's just a powerful use of a consultant, because they're able to see across companies not just within the company.

00:28:56.820 --> 00:29:06.654
Within the company you kind of get in that zone where you're in just one company culture, but I'm in 20, 30 company cultures a year.

00:29:06.654 --> 00:29:08.140
Okay, so you see a lot.

00:29:09.009 --> 00:29:10.031
Yeah, I love that, mike.

00:29:10.031 --> 00:29:25.671
That's why, honestly, my favorite quote within this regard is that you can't read the label from inside the jar, and so that's why I've always personally felt that external perspectives are the most valuable, because I'm so close to all the things that I do that I can't even see something that would be so obvious.

00:29:25.671 --> 00:29:35.186
I actually I invite outside counsel from my entrepreneurial friends, from my family, from people who aren't even entrepreneurs, because sometimes they see something and they go Brian, why aren't you just doing this?

00:29:35.186 --> 00:29:38.634
And it's so obvious in hindsight, but you're right Having that vantage point.

00:29:38.634 --> 00:29:45.020
Gosh, even hearing you throw those numbers out there 20 to 30 companies that you get to cross pollinate from.

00:29:45.130 --> 00:29:56.720
Just think about what that means with regards to the environment, as bees get to go from one flower to the next cross pollinating, making all of them blossom, and I think that that's such an important role that you get to play.

00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:21.240
So, mike, today has been a ton of fun, because not only have we gone into your subject matter expertise, but I feel like you've really portrayed for us how all of those experiences have shaped the way that you think as one of us, as a fellow entrepreneur, and that's why, at the end of these episodes, I always like to ask this super broad question, and that is what is your best piece of advice, knowing that we're being listened to by entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs at all different stages of their own growth journeys?

00:30:21.240 --> 00:30:26.474
As a fellow entrepreneur, what's that one piece of advice that you'd wanna leave them with here today?

00:30:28.019 --> 00:30:38.393
Definitely and I think I've already said this but make sure that you reach out to others and get that advice.

00:30:38.393 --> 00:30:45.744
That has probably been the most beneficial part of my journey.

00:30:45.744 --> 00:30:48.876
I mentioned going to the Small Business Development Center.

00:30:48.876 --> 00:30:50.461
Okay, so that resource is there.

00:30:50.461 --> 00:31:21.980
Reaching out to colleagues, whether they were previous workmates or people you've met otherwise Professional societies, you know staying involved with those, again, you can get a lot of really really good advice, almost to the point of mentorship, by really talking with these people and sharing with them some of the challenges that you are facing, and that's the way I've navigated this whole thing.

00:31:21.980 --> 00:31:35.155
I've just been reaching out and asking dumb questions and there's no such thing as a dumb question but I'm always asking others for input, even today, I love that, Mike, honestly, because so much of it is.

00:31:35.395 --> 00:31:44.782
Ego is a powerful force in humans and putting that to the side you've said it, you're right multiple times through our conversation today is just going out there and asking for that advice.

00:31:44.883 --> 00:31:50.537
Honestly, everything's at our fingertips today, whether it's information, mentorship, advice, outside counsel, all of it.

00:31:50.537 --> 00:31:59.473
That's why I also love that quote of the greatest resource is resourcefulness, and it's so important for us to take advantage of all of those.

00:31:59.473 --> 00:32:01.660
So, Mike, you've been a wealth of knowledge here today.

00:32:01.660 --> 00:32:12.420
I so admire not only what you do, but I admire why you do it and how you do it, in the way that you think with such transparency, and the way that you can articulate and break down these really complex topics.

00:32:12.420 --> 00:32:17.041
We're talking about risk planning, execution, operations all of these things here today.

00:32:17.041 --> 00:32:29.641
So for listeners who do want to go deeper into your work and see your website that you've shared with us, you handcrafted all of these words on your website and I think it shines through because it shows, it illustrates in words the way that you think.

00:32:29.641 --> 00:32:31.344
So drop those links on us.

00:32:31.344 --> 00:32:32.796
Where should listeners go from here?

00:32:33.851 --> 00:32:41.503
So my website is mj-gross not the underbar, but the dash gross g-r-o-s-s dot com.

00:32:41.503 --> 00:32:54.890
And my LinkedIn profile is linkedincom slash n slash mj-gross dot com.

00:32:54.890 --> 00:32:56.673
Slash n slash, mj dash gross.

00:32:56.673 --> 00:33:03.464
And my company LinkedIn profile is linkedincom slash company slash Michael dash j dash gross, g r o s s dash LLC.

00:33:04.770 --> 00:33:06.836
Yes, and, listeners, you already know the drill.

00:33:06.836 --> 00:33:13.711
We're making it as easy as possible for you to find all of those links down below in the show notes, no matter where it is that you're tuning into today's episode.

00:33:13.711 --> 00:33:20.334
You can click right on through to Mike's business website it's mj-grosscom as well as his LinkedIn links.

00:33:20.334 --> 00:33:22.461
You'll find them down below so you can click right on through.

00:33:22.461 --> 00:33:27.973
Otherwise, Mike, on behalf of myself and all the listeners worldwide, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

00:33:28.914 --> 00:33:29.516
Thank you, Brian.

00:33:29.516 --> 00:33:31.217
I've really enjoyed the conversation today.

00:33:31.217 --> 00:33:32.979
I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

00:33:33.538 --> 00:33:39.124
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:33:39.124 --> 00:33:43.086
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:33:43.086 --> 00:33:54.430
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:33:54.430 --> 00:34:01.077
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:34:01.190 --> 00:34:03.137
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00:34:03.137 --> 00:34:04.736
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00:34:04.736 --> 00:34:08.130
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00:34:08.130 --> 00:34:19.193
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:34:19.193 --> 00:34:27.690
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:34:27.690 --> 00:34:29.032
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00:34:29.032 --> 00:34:33.661
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00:34:33.661 --> 00:34:35.065
Initiate a live chat.

00:34:35.065 --> 00:34:44.467
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.