How managers can boost sales with a leaner team

Glenn: You know, the idea is, you know, test, analyse, success, make larger, failure, why, and move on.
Jimmy: Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of the Ways of Working podcast, your weekly dose of practical tips for leaders who are trying to gain that high-performance edge without burning themselves or their teams out. Now, before you put down your phone or click away from this window, make sure you hit follow or subscribe on your preferred platform of choice to make sure you don't miss any future episodes of the Ways of Working podcast with our incredible experts and guests.
Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of the Ways of Working podcast. I am joined this week by the fabulous Glenn Gardone. Glenn has been in the world of consumer packaging and food services for over 30 years, I believe, and has worked with organisations such as Del Monte, Kellogg, PepsiCo, and a variety of smaller industries, five successful exits from various organisations, um an absolute wealth of experience. Glenn, welcome to the show.
Glenn: Jimmy, thank you for having me. It's greatly appreciated and I'm excited to get a chance to catch and chat with you, and hopefully give a little bit of knowledge to those listening and they'll find it that it can help them in their journey.
Jimmy: Absolutely. And Glenn, you know, you're now, well, I don't want to steal your thunder. Tell us what you're doing now, and tell us how you got to this point. Because what you're doing now is a little bit different to where you've come from.
Glenn: Yeah. You know, so now, I actually run RED Chocolate. So, I actually brought it here to the United States about 4 years ago, about 5 months before a global pandemic shut the world down. Uh so, perfect time to launch a brand new product to the American consumer. Um and you know, this is this is a little more personal to me, you know. I've I've sold the widgets. I've been in finance. I've I've done a lot of widget selling throughout my career and widget marketing and those kind of things, we just try to put lipstick on a pig for lack of a better phrase. And this, for me, is it's a lot more personal at this point of my career. And it's at this point, it's like one of my kids, I guess the best way to put it. So, there's a definitely a a a legacy piece of this. There's a there's a very very personal piece to this role in this organisation and what we're trying to accomplish here.
Jimmy: And let's dig into that personal, because one of the things that we talk about in our organisation is the power of personal purpose linking to role purpose, this linking to team and organisational purpose. You're a purpose-driven individual now. Your entire organisation and the business that you're promoting is purpose-driven. Tell us about what is that personal connection for you.
Glenn: So, I'm actually a type 2 diabetic. I knew about RED prior to me bringing it here to the States. So, I had I've I've travelled all over the world. I've been you know, in my career, all different parts of the world working with different groups. And I actually found RED at Heathrow Airport, WHSmith. And I'm always on a hunt. Look, I'm an unapologetic chocoholic. I'll be the first one to admit it. It's probably why I'm a type 2 diabetic, one of the reasons. Um and so, I'm always, you know, looking at packaging, looking at it, turning it over, ingredient reader, so on and so forth. And I saw this product and I went, "Ah, okay." You know, because the problem is when you look at a no-sugar-added chocolate or sugar-free chocolate, a lot of times, you'd rather eat the package it came in, because that'll probably taste better than the product itself. So, it's kind of a bummer. You know, from personal, because you go out, and you see people and they're ordering this and ordering that, you can't. You know, it's just, you know, if I did, I'd end up in a hospital, needless to say. So, you know, it really limits, you know, your your enjoyment. And I like enjoyment. I'm not going to lie to you. I I, you know, it's fun for me. And so, I actually picked up a bar and I was sitting down waiting for my flight back to the States and I took a bite of it and I went, "Uh, this is really really good. This is weird." And so, I took a couple more bites and, you know, and I was eating. I went, "This This stuff is is excellent." So, I actually went back to WHSmith. They had nine bars. I bought all nine bars, put them in my briefcase, and I came home. And my wife was like, "What's this?" I'm like, "Oh, I found it on the road, you know, blah, blah." I was telling her about it, and she tried. She went, "Are you sure this is this is no sugar added?" She goes, "I can't even tell the difference." I'm like, "I know, it's really good." So, you know, that was probably 2 or 3 years before. And every time I would travel, because they were in about 17 countries throughout Europe, so I'd always look for them. And you know, it wasn't like I knew the company. I just I knew the brand. I liked the brand. I liked what they were doing. I liked everything about it, and so I was I was a fan of it. So, I'm in an organisation and we sell that organisation. You know, we have our exit. We get our checks, blah, blah, blah. And I'm sitting at home. You know, I was doing 200,000 mi on an aeroplane, and I was exhausted. And I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Out of the blue, I get a phone call from the ownership group uh from RED. And says, "Hey, you know, we're looking to come to the US. Your name's popped up a bunch of times." Like you said, you know, I've been in this business over 30 years. So, you know, I started when I was seven, cuz I'm only 37 years old. No, I'm kidding. Um and uh so, you know, they asked, "Would you meet with us?" I'm like, "Sure." In my head, I'm like, "I want to see who these people are." You know, it's like it wasn't even about bringing them to the States. And so, we met in New York and it was a 4-hour meeting. The first 3 1/2 hours, I sat there, explained to them why they didn't want to come to the United States. Because you know, everybody in Europe sees dollar signs in their eyes. I mean, the American consumer, there's there's nothing like it throughout the world. We are We love consumption and we consume. And we we pay for those products that we enjoy. And when I say enjoy, I'm not talking about just from a, you know, taste, but I'm talking about from a visual, from a what I call a value perspective, which we could talk about in a second here. And so, after about 3 1/2 hours, they said to me, "So, are you done?" And I laughed. I said, "Yeah, I'm done." And the person who became a very close friend of mine at that point said, "So, when do you want to join us?" And I said, "You know what? This could be a lot of fun." Cuz I said, "Because this is something that I can do and I can enjoy." Because here's the thing of it. I'm in my office right now, and within 10 ft of me, there's probably 25 different chocolate bars. You know, it's funny. I uh you know, let's grab one here. I was actually talking to somebody and this product we actually launched last year, which is our Blonde. We did 122 versions of it before we came up with this. So, I get to try the different products. So, you know, I get to have a little fun. You know, I've gotten a chance to put the entire team in place that we have here. So, everybody is hand-picked. Everybody is passionate about what they do. It's not a bunch of Glenns running around, cuz you'd want to, you know, you'd want to kill yourself if that was the case. Uh one Glenn in this world is plenty. Uh and so, you know, we've just been able to build this this amazing team and uh for me, like I said, it's personal because when I talk to people, you know, I get to tell them about RED. And and and it's a prideful moment, because it satisfied me from a personal nature. You know, if I never sold a bar of it, yeah, it would it would stink, don't get me wrong. But it's personal. You know what I mean? So, for me, it was excellent. And I figured, "Well, if I like it, there's got to be others out there that like it, too." And you know, now we do millions of bars every month, so it's a whole bunch of us that love it. So, you know, getting a chance to to talk to people and, you know, being in food, you know, if you think about uh you know, all the different roles you have. You know, you go out yourself and you you buy a shirt. That's a personal choice, the shirt. Well, what you put in your body is even more personal. So, you know, when when I talk about, you know, being part of the RED family, we're part of that journey in people's lives. You know, that we're we're we're are at that point where, you know, we are so close with them that they don't talk about things like this. Like how often do you sit in a party and go, "Oh, guess what I had for lunch today? I had blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." But you know, throughout your lunchtime, you think yourself, "What do I want? Why do I want it? How am I going to enjoy it?" And we get to be part of that journey. So, from just many different areas, it's just it it's personal in nature. And it's this has been an amazing journey. And I and I'm more energised here than I have been probably in the last 10 years, where it was a lot of autopilot. I knew what I had to do. We got it done. We sold it. We moved on.
Jimmy: I really feel the passion coming through. We'll we'll talk more about the team and and and the passion that you've created in the team in a little bit. But I want I wanted to clarify again for our listeners that you've essentially joined a business that sells sugar-free chocolate. It's kind of like taking all the fun out of chocolate in some people's minds. And I've got a dad who's a diabetic, so I also have you know, desperately searched around for the option, but it's for a minority audit. Well, it could be perceived to be a minority audience. But what you're saying is you can have all the fantastic fun and benefit of chocolate without the sugar, right? You With all with all the bad stuff taken out. Tell us a little bit more about how how have you gone on that journey to be part of RED to essentially sell something that's the non-sexy version of the thing that people like to have?
Glenn: You know, cuz if you think about this category, I mean, you know, you think about the two or three behemoths that are in the, you know, candy aisle, so to speak. And you know, they're representing over 80% of the total business. So, this is definitely uh not for the faint of heart, as we like to say. So, it is definitely uh you know, a continuous struggle to get your message out to consumers, cuz they're being inundated. You know, what for me, everything we do here in the US I hate to say it, but it is my personal opinion. But I kind of take my opinion based on also my experience being in the industry and talking to consumers every single day. And so, when we bring out something, whether it be the Blonde, whether it be our new vegan, you know, it's it's not about just pushing out that next item. If I'm going to do it, I want to do it right. So, you know, we I I don't use stevia, for instance. Okay? And the reason I don't use stevia is I don't like stevia. It's just a personal thing. I don't like the taste it leaves. And and and when you start to use it in different variations, I I don't think it's a good fit. You know, European chocolate is like a fine red wine. That's how I try to explain to people. You know, the cocoa is the body, just like you'd use the grapes. And then you know, you have the hints of oak and so on and so forth based on the red wine. Well, it's the same thing with European chocolate. You know, we've got a dark chocolate, orange, and almond. You know, when you eat it, you feel the base, but then you've got the hints of orange, the zest. You've got the little bites. It's not a nut cluster. We don't make nut clusters. And so, the idea is that, you know, you you visually enjoy it, you tastebuds-wise you enjoy it, and then mentally you can enjoy it because of the fact again, we are pleasure without the guilt. And that's, you know, that's been our differentiator, cuz you're absolutely right. You know, you think about uh non-sexy, and you know, we make something that nobody ever saw as sexy sexy. You know, I like to think of RED as a badge. You know, there's a a big candy company out there that starts with the letter H, and a lot of people eat it and they'll stick it in their drawer because they don't want to show people they're eating it. Well, I want people to take their RED and I want to put it on the top of the desk, cuz I want them to be proud and know that this is a chocolate that was made for them, designed for them, and thought of the entire process for them. And that's really been the difference. And I think the American consumer, I mean, we've gone from 18 countries, we're in close to 30 countries now, and you know, we continue to grow and grow and grow. And I And it's not because we're trying to not be true to ourselves. We're not trying to come up with that, you know, flavour of the month kind of thing. You know, we don't want to just jump on a bandwagon. It's what we do is we do it, we do it for our reasons, but we know they're the right reasons. And since they're the right reasons, people are going to go, "Yeah, okay. I get it. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, I get what you're trying to do." And they give us the opportunity, cuz that's all we ask for, is give us the opportunity. Now, I will tell you, you know, data, I'm a data maniac. I Wherever I can find data from, cuz I love data. And we found that 80% of the people that try RED love RED. You know what? That still means 20% will take it and go, "Yeah, thanks. But, no, I'm going to go back to my other sugared chocolate." Person like me, I can't. But there are people out there that do. And we understand, cuz we're not going to be for everybody. We're definitely not. But, you know, we'll we'll satisfy 80% of the people out there.
Jimmy: Yeah. No, I think that's very interesting. And let's go a little bit deeper on this. And there'll be listeners most of our listeners are are senior leaders in organisations, there'll be listeners who maybe have a non-sexy product, and it could be a widget, it could be a gadget, it could be a machine, it could be something that is the not-so-well-known brand version of a product that has maybe a large competitor. Can you talk us through some of the things at the almost at a practical level, some of the things you did that made sugar-free chocolate something that 80% of people are willing to try and like? What sort of journey did you go on to change people's minds that maybe sugar-free chocolate was a good thing?
Glenn: Now, that's an excellent question. So, the first thing we did was we started out what we call our value proposition. And when you think value, again, I can line up 10 people and I'll get seven different variations of value. Somebody could be, "Oh, it's all about price." Okay, it's about price. But then you get others that say, "Does it meet my needs personally? Does it taste good? Do I like the packaging? Can I get it with ease?" I mean, those are value propositions. So, when you take those different pieces and we try to meet the value propositions that we felt were best for us. Now, you know, when it comes to the product itself, we wanted it to taste amazing. So, that was our focus. I mean, we spent 3 years in the kitchen before we even launched RED, because we knew we could get there, but we want to get there and be able to stay there and have a reason for being, because even though like you said, not sexy, but the fact is when people buy us, it'll become their own sexy. Because look, we're chocolate, man. You know what I mean? We We make amazing chocolate, but the fact is we're chocolate. You know, so we want people when they pick us up, because it's not transactional to us. I never want to do a transaction, whether I'm working with my retail partners, whether I'm working with consumers. I want it to be that relationship, and that's why we use the term RED family. Because we want people to be to allow us to be part of their family. And so, we started with the value proposition. We agreed that this was right on what we want to be. And like as we continue to mature or grow up, as I like to say, our values haven't changed. They haven't. You know, the one thing that's always asked to me is, you know, how has the consumer changed? The consumer really hasn't changed. The message delivery on how to get to the consumer, that's changed drastically. And it changed even more during COVID, you know, when we call a uh a shopping experience. So, if you're if you're if you own a retail store or several stores, you think about the consumer, their consumer shopping starts before they even show up in the store. And it's because they want to know what you're about. What does your storefront look like? And then when you go in, you know, what is your store? How is it situated? Well, it's the same thing when you look at consumer packaged goods. You know, you think about one aisle down, you know, down a store, there's 10,000 SKUs. How are you going to get the consumer to know about you just based on that if they're walking in? Before, we used to do a lot more moseying, as I like to call it, down the aisle pre-COVID, where right now, we're more you know, focused and determined to get through the store as quick as possible. And you know, you've got a lot of people that are doing kerbside pickup and all the different things. And so, what we had to do is we had to adapt. And we had to make sure that we were bringing the message, you know, to the consumer when they wanted to see it. We also had to ensure that we were in a position to be able to deliver not only the product, but the final results. Because again, talk about non-sexy, you think about our e-commerce business. You know, we want people You know, it's all about being seamless. We want people to be able to shop with ease, be able to enjoy the experience, and then when the product comes, to be happy about it. And go, "Okay, these people care. You know, I opened up and it wasn't just thrown in a box and blah, blah, blah." You know, when I opened it, it looked like, you know, we were packing something for one of our family members. And so, it's the it's really the the basics and that's what I think a lot of people that they forget about. They forget that, "Okay, I just I got to go get that person. I got to go get," and they're constantly focused on getting that next person. Satisfy the people you've got, because those are probably your biggest opportunities to grow your business. Because, you know, we we we've all been with friends and somebody said, "Oh, what's that?" "Oh, that's so and so, man. I just got it. It's awesome." You look at it and go, "You know what? I should try one of those," as opposed to seeing it on, you know, one of your social media channels 37 times and, you know, doing the thumb thing. You know what I mean? So, it's it's important. So again, talk about boring, talk about non-sexy, it's satisfying the individuals. So, I want to make sure every time, you know, we've got a, you know, every time you buy one of our products, one of these comes in. And the idea is, you know, just we want to hear about what we're doing. You scan with your uh with your phone, ask a couple of questions, but what it does is it allows us to make sure that we've satisfied your needs, we hear how you found out about us, all those different things. Again, very basic, but things you have to do to ensure that you can grow. So, that's how you try to take something that's probably not as sexy as other things, but make it sexy to yourself without a ton of money.
Jimmy: There's some key points around running a business there that I think are really worth highlighting. Number one is is really focusing on the customers that you do have, and turning them into advocates for your brand, your product, your service, whatever it might be, versus is it constantly trying to convert the masses. Actually, if you've got some, they can advocate for you. That's far more powerful than what you're doing yourself. Clearly, there's a heavy emphasis on passion, and pushing the the message versus the product. What's the message? What's the experience we're trying to create for you? I really like that piece. And and the third one, I think, that you really carry through there is around making it a worthwhile experience, no matter what, how sexy or unsexy your product or service is. If you can help that other person have a great experience whilst they're working with you or experiencing your product, then then they're going to have potentially more traction and maybe even become that advocate for you in the future. That's some great great points there, Glenn.
Hey, there. Jimmy here. Hope you're well. I just wanted to drop into this podcast and let you know that my new book, Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance: The Leaders Playbook for Building a High Performance Culture, is going to be released very soon. And if you haven't already, head over to my website and grab yourself the first chapter of the book, absolutely free. The address you want to go to is beatburnout.jimmyburroughes.com/book and you can download that first free chapter to get you interested and excited about the topic of purpose. And the reason we're giving it away for free is because we think that purpose is the single most important factor for beating burnout, and we want to get it into as many hands as possible. So, head over to beatburnout.jimmyburroughes.com/book, grab Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance: The Leaders Playbook for Building a High Performance Culture, and enjoy reading.
How did you build a team of people around you that are able to support this mission, that because you're clearly on a mission, right? You're a man on a mission. So, where where do you find people like that? How do you How do you build a team with the same level of passion as you have?
Glenn: So, I I have a couple of personal rules. Like if I meet somebody, look, I can teach you how to read a P&L. I can teach you how to do a computer. I can teach those basics. I can't teach passion. I cannot teach passion. So, I need people that are passionate. And you know, don't get me wrong. Jimmy, I'm not one of those people that, you know, at 18 years old, found their goal in life and, you know, have been charging through life doing it. I wasn't until my 40s till I figured out what I truly wanted to do. You know, but it's not like I sat around and wasted my time, cuz I knew doing the things I was doing, you know, it was going into my, you know, mental, you know, safe here, knowing I would need those at some point. And so, you know, when when building the team, it's really a a personal thing for me, because I want to get to know people. Look, I don't expect it, and I think if you talk to anybody here, I never expect anybody to work as many hours as I do. I I just don't expect it. Do I have it? Yeah, I do. And I get very angry with them. I'm like, "Go home! Don't stay here." You know what I mean? "Go have some fun. You know, don't be like me. You don't have to be." But, you know, I I think when I knew that I had an amazing team. So, the global pandemic hit. Again, we were 5 months, you know, just launched. So, we were literally at the early stages. And uh we had some customers and we were shipping products, and I get a call from my global supply chain person and she said, "Hey." Now, everybody was home. You know, we were shut down. When If you remember back then, nobody knew what was going on. There were a million stories. And my supply chain manager said, "Hey, look, we're going to go in the office." I said, "Well, what are you talking about?" She goes, "Glenn, we got to ship." You know, "I've talked to the team. They're willing to do it." I was like, "Look, if you're going in, I'm going in, too, because I got to make sure everything's done safely. We got to do more than what we think we need to do, because I'm not taking any chances, man." Cuz again, we're a chocolate company. You know, it's not like I'm sitting here saving lives. I'm making it somewhat more enjoyable, but I ain't saving a life. Uh and so, you know, we came in and, you know, we were very methodical in what we did, and we were probably running at maybe 20% just because of the amount of space and distance and everything. We're probably here 3 or 4 days and I get a call from my head of marketing and she said uh, "Hey, Glenn, I heard you're in the office." I'm like, "Yeah, but you know." And I told her the story, she's like, "We're coming in." I said, "Who's we?" She goes, "My entire team." I was like, "What are you talking about?" She said, "Look, I talked with the group. We all need to be together right now. This is when we need to make show that we believe in this or we don't believe in it." And within 2 weeks, we had everybody. Now again, if you think back the way it was, and I sat around here and, you know, I uh it it gives me goosebumps to this day because I was I was so touched and so appreciative of what everybody did, because it was well above and beyond what the expectations were. But they did it for love. They did it for respect and kindness. You know, I talk to a lot of, you know, uh leaders, and they we always the the subject of culture comes up. "What's your culture like? What's" And everybody thinks, you know, you read these articles and blah, blah. Very simple way to know what your culture is like: If you can get as many folks as you can within your team, if you've got a lot, if you got a few, if you got four, get a pizza or something that's shareable, as I like to say. Put it in the room. If everybody runs into the room, grabs it, and then runs off, you don't have a culture. What you've got is you've got a bunch of workers. But if you got somewhere people are sitting down and you can hear, and again, I'm I'm one of those that circle the room, because I like to hear what's going on in the room, and I hear people talking about what they did for the weekend, or talking about business, and they truly enjoy each other's company, that's something, I don't care what book you have, you can't force people to like each other. You know, you shouldn't want to. And I've been in those situations where they try to, and it's an absolute failure.
Jimmy: That really lines up with with the work that we do where we say that you need to connect people. It's not about connecting positions or responsibilities or tasks. It's about human-to-human connection. And your culture is defined by the level of trust and connection that exists in the team. What are some of the and I think you're echoing that, what are some of the small steps that you believe are maybe the the the force multipliers or the culture catalysts that you've put in place with RED that means that people are coming in out of passion? Because they care. Because they want to be connected with everybody else at that time. What Could you give us a couple of examples?
Glenn: Yeah, I'll I'll give you the most important one for me. Uh your opinion matters. Okay? And what I mean by that is if you're within this organisation, I want to hear your opinion. Now, that being said, and I tell people all the time, understand that, you know, my role is to understand everything that's going on within RED. And while you give me your opinion, I may be able to take 100% of it, I may not be able to take any of it. Doesn't mean I didn't listen to you and I appreciate the input. But the fact is, I've got to keep and continue the business moving forward. And there have been times where, you know, somebody's come up with an idea and we all looked at each other like, "Hey, that's a great idea." "Let's do it," you know? And it just in within 48 hours, it was instituted and we were rocking and rolling. And there's been others where people have said, "Hey, we'd like to do this," and it's like, "Well, I want you to think about this, this, and this." They're like, "Oh, yeah." I'm like, "But again, nobody's upset." It's like, you know, again, if you're here, you deserve a seat at the table. And your opinion matters. So, I think that's probably one of the biggest things that I try to bring to an organisation is that I want to hear from you, because I'm not the smartest guy at the table and I never want to be. I like to surround myself with smart people. I love it! And because the fact is as the CEO, when I have people come through my door and say, "I've got an issue," well, it already went through the smart person, so it's going to be a difficult issue. You know? So, you always want to surround yourself. I've never worried about in my career having people smarter than me, whether report to me or work with me. I I've just never worried about it, because, hey, I want everybody to shine.
Jimmy: Can we go a little bit deeper on that as well, Glenn? Um Sure. Because this is this is one of the key challenges that a lot of leaders have, is that they feel like, "Well, I'm the leader. I have to be the smartest person. I have to be the one who has the answers. I have to be the one who solves all the problems, because I'm the leader. It's up to me." How have you let go of that mindset? How What what was the the thing for you that allowed you to say, "Well, actually, I want to have smarter people than me around"?
Glenn: You know, a long time ago. I've I've had the opportunity to have different mentors in my career. And I was with a very large organisation. Employee 10,604, whatever my employee number was. And uh you know, I was pretty successful and I'd been promoted several times. And you know, I was a go-getter and, you know, wanted to push through and I wanted to take everybody with me. And, you know, it's just like, you know, "Follow me! Charge!" kind of thing. And uh he sat me down one day and he said, "Glenn, how long has this company been around before you showed up?" And I said, "Oh, it's been around 100 years." He said, "That's right. And when you leave, no matter what it is, leaving on your own, retired, whatever, how long do you think this company is going to be around after you leave?" I said, "Huh, probably another 100 years." He said, "That's right. So, understand what your role and position is within this organisation." You know, the the not that I had to conform, but you have to understand. See, I was never a person that understood titles. I don't care what your title is. Let's have a conversation. If we connect, awesome. If we don't, okay, you know, everybody doesn't like each other. But I don't care if you're, you know, uh, you know, a warehouse worker or you're the CEO of, you know, the top three retail companies in the world. Let's just have an honest conversation and see how it goes. And I forget, people a lot of people don't think that way, that that hierarchy means something. And so, you know, I would go I would walk into a room and, all of a sudden, people would get nervous because I was there and I wasn't used to that. So, it was more of a maturity, but really it being pointed out and then just me thinking about it, how I can affect positively and negatively. And so, really that was that aha moment for me. And that's where I decided, "You know what? I'm not the smartest guy in the world. I'm a smart guy, you know, I've been successful, but I'm not the smartest guy in the room." And even if I thought I was, which I never do, you still got to surround yourself with smarter people. You got to go search for smarter people, cuz I'm not the smartest on the planet. That I know for a fact. So, therefore, there are smarter people than me. And you know, again, I I'll pick on my supply chain manager. Uh She's brilliant. You know, she's brilliant in her own ways, and I see what she does. And you know, and it's the she's trained, she's focused, she's passionate about that piece, and I could never do her role. You know, I could half-heartedly do it, I guess, if you want to call it that, or, you know, cuz I just don't have that expertise and experience. And so, why would I want to step in her Not having the answer, you know what? Hey, man, I'm human. Global pandemic, I've been doing this for, like I said, three decades. Never been involved in a global pandemic in my life, believe it or not.
Jimmy: No, me neither.
Glenn: Never been in a spot where, you know, we're going to shut down the entire world. Surprise, surprise, I didn't have the answers for it. You know, so when it comes to the day-to-day stuff, there are times where I don't have the answer and that's where I say, "Okay, so what do you think? What's going on?" And you know, we have that conversation, and we put enough, you know, kindling in and we can turn this into a beautiful flaming fire with the care needed, as opposed to just running through with your hair caught on fire screaming.
Jimmy: I really resonate with your perspective on that idea of not needing to be the smartest person in the room, and actually repositioning yourself as the leader who is there to access everybody else's talents and magic, and your job is to almost, uh we call it the icebreaker leader. It's the one who breaks the ice so the ships can sail through faster. Uh and also the icebreaker at the start of a conference, which get gets everybody warmed up and starts the networking and talking to each other. We think a leader plays that role. But it's I love that idea for you, that saying, "Well, actually, my job is not to be the smartest person or to have all the answers. It's to access the people who are the smart people and do have all the answers and that makes you and them look great." I'm really resonating with that, so thank you for sharing.
Glenn: You're welcome. Yeah.
Jimmy: I want to get back to those culture catalysts. And, in our in our earlier conversation, you mentioned the idea in when you're building a culture of planting the seeds that feed the team. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Glenn: Well, you know, the goal always is to so, for me, personally for me, my goal throughout my career has been to be able to go to bed on a Sunday night, happy to wake up on Monday morning, because I'm going to work. You know, it may not sound like a lot, but it's huge, you know what I mean? And so, you know, from a culture standpoint, I I try to put myself in the position of everybody within an organisation. So, you know, you're talking about icebreaker. So, I call myself an administrative assistant, because that's what my role is. My role is to assist everybody, to make sure they have the proper tools, to make sure they have the proper training, to make sure they have the, you know, the proper uh KPIs and the the desire and need to be successful within our organisation and within themselves. You know, we have an an intern programme we do here and we have quite a few interns that come through, and getting the opportunity to to work with them and, you know, because they're at the beginning stages of their career and seeing them get the opportunity to, you know, because we've had finance people in here, for instance, and so seeing those finance people move on to working within the organisation that that was their goal, it's again, it's it's part of being able to be that positive influence. And I think, you know, if as the CEO, whatever you do compounds exponentially as as you move within the organisation. And so, you know, when you talk about knowing the answers, if you don't know the answer and you think you should, there's panic that sets in. And that panic resonates deeper and stronger as you go throughout the organisation. Because people are thinking, "Well, if he knows everything and he's nervous, what is it I don't know and how much should I be freaked out?" And so, you know, I think what we try and do here, again, from a from a culture standpoint is, you know, we want it to be a spot where you can you can fear bringing up something that may not be right, you can fear making that mistake, cuz again, we don't have all the answers. You know, the idea is, you know, test, analyse, success, make larger, failure, why, and move on. You know, cuz you can test and fail, but you don't throw it all away. It could be that your test was a failure. And so, you know, everybody knows that they can walk into my office and go, "Hey, you you remember that X?" "Yeah, we tried it. We were expecting X plus 5%. It bombed." "Okay." And I My question is always, "Why did it bomb?" And it'll be, you know, "Well, we were promised this, but it was this." "Okay, let's move on." Or, "You know what? The brand messaging that we did it didn't resonate. We We know now that we should have done this." "Okay. Let's test again." And I think if you get the people want to be part of something bigger, and they want to be part of something successful. I've never met a person that said, "I don't want to be involved and I want it to fail." Well, if you do have employees like that, you know what you need to do, needless to say. So, I think as long as you can foster that that that passion, you can tell people, again, them having that passion, and you being able to put a little bit of a flame underneath it, it allows people to grow. And the more you can allow people to grow, the more they're going to want to succeed. And don't get me wrong. You know, we haven't had a lot of people leave the organisation, but those that have had, you know, I've wished them only the best, because I knew they were doing it to better their career. Like, you know, they're running a business here that was worth 5 million, now they got the opportunity to run a business that's 30 million. You know, and it's was their progression within their career. I fault nobody for that. I think it's fabulous. And we're here and we're a fan and we'll cheer you on as you go through. And it's not fake then. You know, cuz I've been in those roles where, you know, I was with a big company and I got an opportunity to go somewhere else and the people I thought would be like, "Attaboy!" You know, they were sticking daggers in me. And the people I thought didn't even care like, "Ah, good for you, man! Excellent! Remember me!" You know, one of those things. So, I I and you saw a lot of uh a lot of fakeness. And I think that, you know, we're not fake. You know, we say what we believe and we do what we believe.
Jimmy: Um strong alignment and you know, the idea of almost creating the employee experience like you created your customer experience, which is should be a great experience, right?
Glenn: Yeah.
Jimmy: Some beautiful overlaps again with the stuff that we talk around, the idea of making an abundant environment where people feel safe, not people in fight or flight or freeze all the time, but they feel safe to try some stuff, to make some mistakes, to know that we're going to learn from those mistakes. So, even if it's a perceived fail, actually, it's not a fail, it's one step closer to success, because we have to learn something to get us to success. I think there's some really really beautiful lessons in there, Glenn. Um and it sounds like you know, you've brought that that 30-plus years of experience in a variety of industries and concentrated it into guilt-free chocolate, which I'm personally very excited about. Glenn, if people want to find out more about RED, talk to you more, get in touch, what's the best way for them to to connect?
Glenn: You know, and I tell everybody, if you go to red-chocolate.com, you're going to learn all about the history of RED. Uh we've got everything, you know, all about us. But you also have there's an About Us and I'm there with a little bit of my information and all of my contact information. And if somebody writes to me, I reply back to them. We have a chat. If I can help, I help. If I can't, maybe I know somebody that can. Because you know, the way I see it, you know, we've all been on one knee having to take a a moment, and you know, what I try and tell people is, look, there may not be, you know, folks like myself who have gone through it, we may not be there in person, but in but in spirit, our hand is on your shoulder saying, "It's okay. But get up." I call it punching through the mud, man. And we've all had to do that. We have to punch through the mud. And so, you know, take the knee, but stand up and do what you need to do to be successful. And as long as you believe in it, and you're passionate about it, you know, you will succeed. It may not be the way you expected it, but you will succeed. So, go there. I also tell people to go to the website at red-chocolate.com because, again, being chocolate, you know, what we've done is we've actually we work with chefs throughout the world, and we have a chef series. And so, I think this month is uh how to build a mole sauce using our chocolate. And so, the idea being, again, you could do different things with it. Enjoy it, have a bite or use it for cooking, use it in dessert, use it in, you know, sweet potato bomb, whatever. But uh the idea of being that, you know, have a little fun with it. Cuz after all, that's what life's about, man: pleasure with no guilt, as much as you can possibly get to do it.
Jimmy: I love it. Um Glenn, your passion, your energy, your culture, and certainly your product, really grateful for all of your time today. Thank you so much for joining us and uh speak to you soon.
Glenn: Sounds great. Thank you again. Thank you for having me on.
Jimmy: That's it for this week's episode of the Ways of Working podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation here, why not head over to jimmyburroughes.com/book and grab chapter one of our amazing upcoming book, Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance. It's the leader's playbook for building a high-performance culture. So, if you're looking for practical tips and to understand why people in your team or yourself are burning out and what to do about it so you can all keep working and perform better, this is the place for you. Go to jimmyburroughes.com/book and grab that first chapter. We'll also keep you posted when the full book is released very soon. Also, if you enjoyed this episode of the Ways of Working podcast, don't forget to follow or subscribe on your preferred podcast platform of choice and we'll make sure that you get all of the upcoming episodes as they come out every single week. Take care. Speak soon.