Two Questions to Grow your Business with Jeff Henderson, Part 1–From the Vault Transcript

Listen to the Podcast.

Andy Stanley (00:02):

Well, hey everybody. Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a conversation as you know, designed to help leaders go further, faster. I'm Andy and I'll be your host this month because today my friend Jeff Henderson is joining me in the studio to talk about something every leader is interested in. And that is growth, organizational growth, selling more of what you sell, whether it's goods or services. So Jeff, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast.

Jeff Henderson (00:27):

Andy, good to be here. Good to see you.

Andy Stanley (00:28):

Yeah, it's good to see you too. We don't see each other enough. Before Jeff dropped into Church World, I'll let him tell you a little bit more about that in a minute. He spent a number of years in the marketplace with organizations you've heard of, Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta Braves, and Callaway Gardens. So Jeff has had success in both the profit and nonprofit context. And a few years ago, he was encouraged from several directions to write about his experience and he's done that. And he has a brand new book entitled Know What You For: A Growth Strategy for Work and an Even Better Strategy for Life. And even got John Maxwell to write your foreword, which is a big deal.

Jeff Henderson (01:03):

Well, I tried to get the publisher to put his name in bigger font size and mine and smaller, but that didn't

Andy Stanley (01:09):

But hey, an endorsement's one thing, a foreword.That's pretty cool. So anyway, Jeff, you have experience in both the business world and the nonprofit world. And while both of us know there's a lot we can learn from the business world, one of the points that you make in your book is that there's a lot that business leaders could learn from nonprofit leaders. Talk just a little bit about that.

Jeff Henderson (01:26):

Absolutely. Well, you and I are preacher's kids, so we have huge respect and value for business leaders and really have learned from them.

Andy Stanley (01:33):

Yep.

Jeff Henderson (01:34):

But it's interesting to me as you look at the business world and the church world. In the business world, it's the for- profit world, and then we're the nonprofit world.

Andy Stanley (01:40):

Supposedly, yes. And oftentimes very nonprofit.

Jeff Henderson (01:43):

That's right. So it's as if you have profit over here, and then I guess we could use the word purpose for nonprofit.

(01:50):

And for years, profit and purpose have seemed mutually exclusive. You can't have them both. But what I'm discovering, and I think this is what thriving organizations are discovering, is that purpose and profit fuel one another. So the more purpose you have, the more profit you have, and the more profit you have, the more purpose that you can have. And so I know that sounded like something a pastor would say. What we're discovering, and we'll talk about this in just a second, is that research is proving this out. The younger the demographic goes, the more the younger demographic is saying, "Hey, what are you doing as a business world and as a business leader to help the world improve?"

Andy Stanley (02:22):

Yeah. What are you doing beyond your business?

Jeff Henderson (02:24):

Absolutely.

Andy Stanley (02:24):

Which is a question you and I, it never crossed our mind in our 20s or 30s,

Jeff Henderson (02:28):

Right? Oh, no, no,

Andy Stanley (02:29):

No, no. Never. I never thought about it. And it is so much on the forefront in our culture. Yeah.

Jeff Henderson (02:33):

Which actually is very encouraging to me that I see kids that your kids' age and my kids' age, they really want to help the world become a better place. And they're looking for businesses and organizations to do that. So when you have a compelling purpose, it really helps your business. But the interesting thing is not just a customer. Gallup's discovering now for staff members and team members that while the paycheck's important, they want to know is their purpose waiting on me at the office when I get there. So this whole idea of purpose, I think is really important. And that's the world you and I live in as nonprofit leaders.

Andy Stanley (03:06):

Yeah. So we should be leading the way. Right. And actually, that's why I'm excited about talking about your book because in so many ways you have in our organization led the way. And as you've coached business leaders and as you're more and more even having the opportunities to talk to business leaders, this is a very easy thing to talk about because of where we are in culture and because of what we've both learned in nonprofit world. So before we jump into the details of the book, just a little bit more on this. So when you say there's a lot business leaders can learn from nonprofit leaders, give us a little bit more on that.

Jeff Henderson (03:35):Absolutely. Well, when you think about it, let's go back to purpose. When you compete on price, eventually your margins get small, but when you compete on purpose more than on price, your profit grows. And I'll give you-

Andy Stanley (03:45):

Wait, wait that's amazing. Say that again.

Jeff Henderson (03:47):

When you compete on price, eventually your margins get small-

Andy Stanley (03:50):

Or disappear.

Jeff Henderson (03:51):

... or disappear because you're competing against what your competitors are pricing. But when you compete on purpose more than price, you can actually charge more. And then when you charge more, your profit grows.

Andy Stanley (04:01):

That's amazing. And that's so true. In fact, as you're saying that, I'm thinking of retailers and resellers who even say that right up front, right? Yeah. That you can find this somewhere else less expensive, but once you're committed to the purpose behind ... And not a specific item, but a similar item, we are willing to pay a little bit more if we love the company. Yeah.

Jeff Henderson (04:20):

And when you've connected, what you're doing at that point, Andy, is you're connecting to the heart of the customer and the heart of the customer is the battleground. And if you win their heart, you win. And you can have the greatest competitor in the world, but if you win the heart of your customer, you win them. And that's called brand loyalty. And that's what every organization's trying to get to, brand loyalty. And so that's what purpose comes down to. That's why I think business leaders can learn from nonprofit leaders. But I'll give you an example, and I love this example, but a friend of mine, hugely successful in business world. We went to college together. He's already sold his business, so he's retired now. So we're having lunch and I'm telling him about the book and he kind of pushed back and said, wait, I mean, with all due respect, what can we as business leaders learn from nonprofit leaders?

(05:07):

And so I said, "Well, let me ask you this. How many of your employees do you pay?" And he kind of laughed and said, "Well, what do you mean? I mean all of them." I said, "Exactly." For me, hundreds of people show up on a Sunday and we pay them in t-shirts, coffee and donuts. They don't get any money. And if they don't show up, our mission, our organization will completely implode.

(05:29):

And those are our volunteers. And while I understand there's a difference between volunteers and employees, we've got to give them a compelling purpose to show up. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay people. I'm just saying if you can combine a paycheck with a purpose that's compelling, then what happens is, is people don't hit the snooze button. They get up and they know where they're going, purpose awaits them. So for our organization as nonprofit leaders, we've got to create a compelling purpose so that people don't hit the snooze button on their off day

(05:59):

Yeah...

(06:00):

On a Sunday. And so that's very challenging for us. So part of the point I make in the book is if business leaders could take their really good product and combine it with a really compelling purpose and win the heart of the customer, wow, that's a game changer.

Andy Stanley (06:15):

Yeah, that's a win-win-win. Okay. So how does a for- profit organization find a purpose? Because there are exceptions to this, but for the most part, businesses are built around an idea that has to do with a good or a service, not a purpose.

Jeff Henderson (06:29):

Right.

Andy Stanley (06:30):

So we're already up and running. We've already got a board of directors. We're already manufacturing something. And now I'm going to come along and add purpose to it, but it's got to be genuine. This can't be a gimmick. So how does an existing company find or I guess discover purpose?

Jeff Henderson (06:46):

Great question. And I would want to make sure that all of our business leaders understand when we're talking about purpose, we're not saying that we don't want you to grow. Growth is a byproduct.

Andy Stanley (06:55):

Yeah, that's what this whole conversation's about.

Jeff Henderson (06:56):

Absolutely. It's about growth. And because healthy things grow, unhealthy things die. And every organization, business or nonprofit, in some form or fashion, needs to be growing. Now, how we define growth can be different for any organization, but I believe we need more thriving growing organizations, both with Business World and nonprofit. But what I've discovered is that when we can leverage the greatest form of advertising that connects to purpose, then we create vision carriers. We're going to talk about two questions that can help you do that. But as a former marketing guy, what I've discovered in this world that we're in now is a business, and we'll talk more about this in a second, but a business is no longer what it tells customers it is. A business is what customers tell other customers it is. That's where the game is.

Andy Stanley (07:41):

And that's a big change.

Jeff Henderson (07:42):

And that's now more than ever the most important thing in terms of positive word of mouth advertising. So if you create a compelling purpose and get other customers to talk about it, they will fuel your growth. And when customers fuel your growth, that's the most healthy form of growth that there is.

Andy Stanley (07:59):

Yeah. When's the last time you've purchased something without reading a review on it?

Jeff Henderson (08:02):

Absolutely.

Andy Stanley (08:02):

I can't remember. And again, that's a much larger shift than I think, especially people and our generation even think about.

Jeff Henderson (08:09):

Right. Because that company can tell me all day long how much better they are than their competitors and how great they are. But there's a little bit of a lack of credibility there because obviously you're biased, but when you have a list of online reviews, that wins the day.

Andy Stanley (08:22):

Yeah. If you have two and a half stars, we just keep moving.

Jeff Henderson (08:25):

That's right!

Andy Stanley (08:25):

I don't care what you say, right? Okay. So Jeff, when I read the advanced reader copy of your book, in the book, you talked about these two questions and you just hinted at the fact that we're going there. So let's just talk about these two questions because again, this is going to give us some handles.

Jeff Henderson (08:40):

So let me take a little bit of a step back to do this. And we've probably all taken a marketing survey that asks us, "Hey, how did you hear about our business? How did you hear about our organization?"

(08:48):

And they list several options. It'll be television, billboard, social media, print, and then there's this final box called other. And we all know which box gets checked the most. It's the other box. And this other box drives marketing people like me crazy because we know what that is. It's what we just talked about, positive word of mouth advertising. But the other box seems so mysterious that we don't know how to figure it out. So what we do is we just focus on the things that we can control. So for example, my first day in advertising 101, the professor stands up and says, "Hey, we all know that positive word of mouth advertising is the most powerful form of advertising. We don't know how to figure that out. So we're going to spend the rest of the semester on paid advertising." And even then, I kind of wanted to raise my hand and go, "It's difficult."

Andy Stanley (09:31):

Can I get my money back?

Jeff Henderson (09:32):

That's right. I should have asked that, but I don't think the other box has to be so mysterious. And so that's what these two questions do is they help you unlock the other box. And so if it's okay, let me just dive into question number one. Question number one is, what do you want to be known for? What do you want to be known for? And while that sounds like a very simple question, I think it is a simple question, it's not an easy one to get an answer to. In fact, we'll talk about this in just a little bit, but I encourage Andy leaders to do a vision inventory and just walk around the office or do it virtually and say, "Hey, what do you think we want to be known for? " And if there's confusion in the office space about that, there will be confusion in the marketplace about that.

(10:16):

So let me give you two real quick examples. One that shows, I think, how powerful the answer to this can be. And the second one can show you how we can kind of drift a little bit off of not understanding the power of this question. So what do you want to be known for? Zappos, the online retailer, they went from zero sales to a billion dollars in sales in 10 years. They were recently bought by Amazon like we all will be one day.

Andy Stanley (10:40):

If we haven't been already.

Jeff Henderson (10:41):

That's right. That's right. That's heading in our future. So Zappos would answer this question, Andy. They would say, "We want to be known for delivering happiness." That's what they want to be known for in terms of their service. And you would think, "No, no, no, you deliver shoes."

(10:54):

Their CEO, Tony Shea, has been quoted as saying, "I don't even really like shoes. What I like are people and I want to deliver happiness to them, and shoes are a platform to do that. " So their whole strategy and their whole vision is built around these two words, deliver happiness. Now, let's take another organization that I have huge respect for, but let me show you how you can kind of drift off of this. You and I read a book by Al Reese called Focus a few years ago. Al's a marketing legend. He was brought in to help Burger King improve their chicken sandwich sales. And so the first part of the meeting, Al raises his hand and says, "Can we go outside?" So they all go outside because he's Al Reese and what are we doing here? So he points to the sign that says Burger King and he says, "On the count of three, I want you to say the name of the company out loud." So they, one, two, three, Burger King, he goes, "Great.

(11:46):

So here's my question. Why are you selling chicken sandwiches?" And I think that may have been the last day that Al worked on the Burger King account. But here's my point. You can't be known for everything. You do need to be known for something. What is that? What do you want to be known for? And that question leads to a clarifying and compelling purpose.

Andy Stanley (12:07):

Okay. So the first question is all about clarifying a compelling purpose or answering the question, what do we want to be known for? And then the second question is the question we're a little bit afraid to ask sometimes as leaders. It's that Jim Collins thing of picking up the rock and looking at all this stuff underneath that we really don't want to know about. So the second question is-

Jeff Henderson (12:28):

What are you known for?

Andy Stanley (12:30):

Yeah.

Jeff Henderson (12:31):

In fact, the first one's...

Andy Stanley (12:32):

What's my actual reputation?

Jeff Henderson (12:33):

That's right. The first one's fun. We get to go in a retreat to a nice place and dream, but then ultimately you come to customers or people that are donaing to your nonprofit. And then this is their question. This is the one they get to respond to. And to your point, Andy, it's a challenging question because it reveals a gap. And here's the power of these two questions. When what you want to be known for is what you are known for, when that compelling, your unique niche in the marketplace, that's what customers are experiencing, then you create a sales force for free. You harness the other box that we just talked about. You harness positive words of mouth advertising because what people are saying is, Zappos, I have experienced the fact that you delivered happiness to me. I'm going to tell my friends about you.

Andy Stanley (13:21):

Yeah.

Jeff Henderson (13:21):

If there's a gap and there's a gap in any organization.

Andy Stanley (13:24):

Well, I was going to say for most of us, there's some sort of gap.

Jeff Henderson (13:26):

Absolutely. Yeah. There is no perfect organization. That's why I think one of the main goals of any organizational team should try to be to shrink the gap between these two questions because there is a gap and we shouldn't be scared of that. We're imperfect people, but we get to go to work every day trying to shrink the gap between those two questions.

Andy Stanley (13:48):

And Jeff, I know a good deal of the book is committed to my next question, but I'll ask it anyway. And how do we do that? What's the short answer to how do we close that gap?

Jeff Henderson (13:57):

I think you've got to be a four-minded organization and you have to be for four groups of people. You have to be for the customer. Obviously, you have to be for the team. You have to be for the community. You got to have a bigger purpose than just staying in business. If your goal is to stay in business in today's world, you won't. It's just that simple. If that's your ultimate goal just to stay in business, you won't. But there's a fourth group or person that you have to be for, and this might sound counterintuitive, but it's really you. And we'll talk about this, but really the best gift that you can give your organization is an inspired, ready to work, ready to go, fired up, you. And we talk about that in the book. But when an organization is for these four groups of people, then these four groups of people return the favor and they're for the organization.

(14:47):

While this might seem intuitive, the reality for many organizations is that their spotlight isn't on the four groups here. The spotlight of the organization is on the organization and how these four can ultimately serve the organization.

Andy Stanley (15:00):

Wait, wait, let's say it again. That's amazing. So you're saying the spotlight's always on something and we tend to run our organizations or staff or VisionCast or whatever as if the spotlight should be on the organization. And if we don't figure out how to be not only for the organization, but for these other three groups, then-

Jeff Henderson (15:20):

Well, you're competing really at that point in terms of price. You're competing not on your purpose, but when these really four groups of people really realize that the organization's for me, then you begin to win their heart. And it's easy to lose sight of this, but when I see a lot of marketing and advertising, the spotlight is clearly on ther business.

Andy Stanley (15:41):

Yeah, it's on the organization.

Jeff Henderson (15:42):

Yeah. And we got to get these four groups of people to come over here and support this. It's much like if you looked at it from a football field, many times in a lot of marketing and advertising, the organization's on the field and they want customers in the stands cheering them on. I'm talking about flipping that. I'm talking about putting the customer on the field and the organization in the stands and the organization is cheering the customer on because as our friend Donald Miller has told us, the customer's the hero. It's not the organization. The business is not the hero, it's the customer. It's why I say in the book, if a business was a person, many businesses would be considered narcissist because it's look how great we are as you know how better we are than our competitors and we're so wonderful. Look at us.

(16:24):

And it seems so easy. But when I talk to organizations about this, they begin to think, oh wow, it's so easy to put the spotlight on us. And I think that's how we were taught to do things in the business world.I feel like, especially as you get younger and younger in demographics, millennials and younger demographics are saying, "What are you doing for us? And how are you making our world a better place?" Because it's not about you.

Andy Stanley (16:46):

And how are we making the group that I represent better?

Jeff Henderson (16:48):

Absolutely.

Andy Stanley (16:49):

Not even just the individual.

Jeff Henderson (16:50):

Absolutely.

Andy Stanley (16:51):

In next month's podcast, Jeff and I are going to continue this conversation. But in the meantime, Jeff, give us a little bit of homework. I know some folks are going to rush out and buy the book. I hope they do. But for those of us who are going to sit on this dilemma of the gap between what we're actually known for, what we would love to be known for, and then just trying to figure out what do we want to be known for? What can we do in the next few weeks before we finish this conversation?

Jeff Henderson (17:14):

Yeah, I do want to challenge everyone to do a little homework before next month's podcast. And I want to give you two homework assignments. You can choose both or you can choose just one. But if you do this homework assignment, I think you'll be better prepared for next month's conversation because you're going to have some handles in terms of the gap between these two questions. So the first one might be a little bit easier because it's more conversational in nature, but I think one of the best steps that you can get to gain clarity is simply walk around and ask these two questions, "Hey, what do you think our organization wants to be known for? " And then just listen. And then after that conversation response, then say, "Well, what do you think we are known for? " And the goal of these conversations, as you well know, Andy, isn't to pushback, is it to defend?

(17:56):

It's not even really to say anything. It's just to go, "Huh, that's an interesting conversational data point." And what you're looking for is consistent gaps. You may have someone that says something about the gap and it might actually be inaccurate, but if there's a consistent theme and you're hearing the same thing, then that's when the red light on the dashboard should be blinking. Now, that's one conversational from a conversational standpoint. For those that would want hard data, another homework example is you can just download on the show notes, the free research document. Basically, I created a research document that organizations could take and to try to figure out where the gap is. Ask customers, ask the team, because what we've discovered is you might be clear about what you want to be known for with the customer, but the team may not be experiencing it.

(18:45):And in next month's podcast, we're going to talk about why that is a very dangerous place to live. So in terms of homework, you can take the conversational approach, you can take the research approach. I would encourage you to do both because when you do that, you'll be ready and armed with some helpful information as we have next month's conversation about how we shrink the gap.

Andy Stanley (19:05):

Well, Jeff, thanks so much for being here today. Looking forward to continuing this conversation next month. But before we say goodbye, Jeff, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you or bring you in to talk to their organization, what's the best way to contact you?

Jeff Henderson (19:17):

Thanks, Andy. They can just go to my website, jeffhenderson.com and just email me there. We'd love to help in any way.

Andy Stanley (19:23):

Yeah, Jeff's doing more and more conversations with business leaders in our community, and it's fantastic content, as you can already tell. Anyway, in addition to all of that, if you'll visit andystanley.com, andystanley.com, you can download the Leadership Podcast application guide that goes with today's content, and you can find the document that Jeff was talking about on that same site. As always, thanks for listening, and we will meet you right back here next time for another episode of the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast.