The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
Welcome to The Third Growth Option, where we're not just talking about growth—we're making it our mission.
At TGO, we understand that success isn't a fixed destination; it's an ongoing journey with twists, turns, and unexpected detours that take us to new places. Those moments are our Third Growth Options, where we throw away binary choices to create our own path.
Hosted by Benno Duenkelsbuehler, O.G #GrowthNerd, we're on a mission to redefine success inside and outside of business, one episode at a time. From humble beginnings to Fortune 500 companies, our stories are not just about business—it's about the relentless pursuit of greatness in every aspect of life.
With each episode, we don’t just want to share insights—we want to empower business owners across all frontiers to carve their own path to success, their way.
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The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
Tech Talk and Entrepreneurship with Eric Dean
Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ?
In this episode, we explore the crucial role of continuous innovation in business. Eric offers insights on balancing technology with human interaction to enhance customer experiences and highlights the importance of viewing sales channels from the customer's perspective. We also discuss generational differences in technology adoption and how leaders can leverage tech-savvy talent to bridge these gaps. Additionally, we cover the strategic use of AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft's Co-Pilot, emphasizing the need for clear communication, strong partnerships, and a visionary approach to leadership in today's rapidly evolving business environment. Don't miss these valuable insights for thriving in the modern business world.
Always growing.
Benno Duenkelsbuehler
CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN
Hey, welcome to the Third Growth Officer Podcast, where we talk about all things growth, yes, even and especially those hard parts where you shed some skin and pick yourself up by the bootstraps. Hey, I'm Benno Dunkelspüler, growth sherpa and OG hashtag growth nerd. We're on a mission to redefine success inside and outside the business, one TGO episode at a time.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Eric Dean. I'm the founder of WearAware and I'm coming to you today from Colonial Beach, virginia.
Speaker 1:All right, eric, so nice to have you here. I'm Benno host. Welcome to the Growth Option Podcast. I'm coming to you from Mexico City today. Eric, you and I have known each other certainly crossed paths with each other for a few decades now.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I am excited to have you on this podcast because I think you bring a very valuable perspective to the home industry B2B wholesale distribution industry. Home industry B2B wholesale distribution industry. Your career I sort of look at it in sort of three major steps. The first, in your late 20s, early 30s. You were really a practitioner in the trenches in wholesale distribution, playing the game, as it were. And then, 24 years ago, in 2000, you started WearAware, a digital agency. That has grown a lot. You've been at the forefront of building a lot of digital solutions.
Speaker 1:And then I think it was starting in 2019, you had an almost three-year detour with Juniper, a big sort of big, hairy project funded by Blackstone Private Equity, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest trillion-dollar assets under management company, which ended up with bruises and lessons, to which I just say congratulations because it was a moonshot, and I always say the biggest crime is not dreaming big enough, so you cannot be accused of that crime. Thanks, thanks of that crime, thanks, thanks. But if I may just ask, you know, sort of start with that big ugly frog. You took on a huge challenge with Juniper and in the public eye to build a full suite of B2B digital sales and marketing solutions. Most valuable lessons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know it's, everything you do is a journey.
Speaker 2:And you know, if you, if you, can't look back and take something away from it, then it probably wasn't worth going there in the first place. I take a lot back away from my my trip with, with Juniper and thus with International Market Centers or Antmoor. You know it was an opportunity to impact an industry that I had grown up in and had loved for a couple of decades. You know, starting as a product practitioner in the industry and moving on to a technology and service provider. You know, a product practitioner in the industry and moving on to a technology and service provider. It was a chance to work with a company and people. You know IMC and more talks about building an exceptional company of enduring value and I can tell you that the people that are within that company believe that and they're really trying to do that.
Speaker 2:And Juniper was a big piece. You know, understanding that at the core mission of connecting buyers and sellers, that the journey was changing. It wasn't just the face to face at market visits that there was the rest of the year and with the onset and acceleration of digital, there was the opportunity to add value there. You know when we had the opportunity to come on board and to be part of the leadership team, sort of driving that and sort of connecting buyers and sellers digitally and helping to influence the markets as well as create a standalone digital experience in marketplace. You know, it was just a great opportunity to do it. There was some fierce competition, fierce, exceptionally well-funded competition out there, and we were kind of coming at it a few years behind the schedule, so we had some things against us, but we also had some things in
Speaker 2:our favor. It gave me the opportunity to look at things from the other side. Having been a provider of services for 20 years, I got to be the buyer of services, so that made me better on my original job and my current job. It gave us the chance to really explore the customers on how they're evolving and what their needs are, to go forth on, to keep up with the times and to deliver a better industry. So it was a chance to do all those things and I felt like it. Um, you know, no regrets. Um, certainly some things we would have done differently, um, but in terms of doing it, it was just a. You know, it's a great opportunity to go and be part of something that truly is. You know, it was very ambitious, um, but it was worth it.
Speaker 1:But it was worth it. So I think you are an entrepreneur first. I think being an entrepreneur is sort of your vocation, and the digital piece just happens to be the craft that you've been practicing for the last two and a half decades. As an entrepreneur, our job is to find clients and help clients, but as your craft, like I said, happens to, be the digital journey. What? Why do you think what?
Speaker 2:made you an entrepreneur. Why do you love being an entrepreneur? You know it's a great question and I can't remember what the stats are and how many true entrepreneurs are out there. There aren't a lot. You know, and you've got to really want it and I think you're kind of born with that curiosity. I think you're born with a certain risk tolerance. I think you're born with the ability to absorb the ups and downs, which are certainly sharper on the entrepreneur journey. You know, and I have people who say I'm going to be, I'm going to start my own company, because I don't want to have to answer to anybody. I'm like well, you're in the wrong business, this is not going to end. Well, because you answered everybody well you're in the wrong business.
Speaker 2:This is not going to end well, because you answered everybody, that's right. But you know, the things that you do get with it are the chance to create, the chance to build something, the chance to really pour yourself into it. You know it's a better fit for some people than I think working at sort of the more traditional career path and it was a better. You know, I was an intern in grad school. I worked in corporate finance in a big fortune 500 company and said this is, this is not for me. You know I need to go back. So I started an entrepreneurial business. It failed. Started another entrepreneurial business it also failed. Um, so, third time the charm, we uh, you know the co-founder we started like a good idea to try one more time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's like you know, if at first you don't succeed. But I think that's also if you talk to the entrepreneurs out there. They all have that.
Speaker 2:You know, they have Well you know that's how you learn, that's how you keep going. You know you learn from your failures. We just talked about that and you know, I guess you know. If you said what's the basis for your success, I'd say, oh, I've been failing for a long time. I've been failing for three decades. So maybe that's maybe there's a couple of lessons we picked up along the way.
Speaker 1:I think there's a Churchill quote about going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm, which certainly. Churchill went through several decades of losing election after election, after election, before he became a prime minister. That is sort of held up as saving. You know the Western world Right?
Speaker 2:Well, I think so, and yeah, I mean just you know, you know so much of it is. You keep showing up and you pay attention to, you know, to what you did the first time when it didn't go right and you make a change and hopefully you get better at it.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that's not just the overall starting of business or running a business, it's the running a business is that you know these are as you know, these are continuous journeys. You know it's like it's in all companies, I think face this, there's some level of entrepreneurialism and creativity that they have to constantly be creating a better experience for the customers and they're probably constantly failing at doing that every day. So what do you? What do you take from it? What do you learn? What changes do you make?
Speaker 1:And how do you implement it. So let's talk a little bit about this. Your craft right the digital solutions, sales and marketing digital solutions in the B2B space that you have built where we're around in the last 24 years. And you made an interesting comment a month ago or so when we spoke about digitization and digital influence and having to get the mix right between technology and people right, yeah, it's not talk about that yeah, you know it's.
Speaker 2:It's the kind of thing where I don't think banks fit into neatly into buckets. You know beto and and sort of the consumer product goods industry that you and I know. You know we talk about sales channels, you know is that you're getting sales through your sales reps. You're getting your sales at a reps, you're getting your sales at a trade show, you're getting your sales online. You're getting your sales through a third party marketplace and I, for a long time, I fundamentally believe that that's not the right way to look at it is that I think it's better to step back and look at it from the customer. And you know the research and experience shows that the customers they touch you in all those channels. And experience shows that the customers they touch you in all those channels so the ones you know, whether they're ordering directly from you through a digital means or the digital technology is influencing that interaction, that interaction between a customer, a buyer and a seller. You know you're going to get both of that.
Speaker 2:So what you want to do is make sure that you're optimizing that journey, and so you're looking at it. You know, where can the technology make those interactions with the customer better, whether it's in a pure technology, online at 11 PM at night, or it's face-to-face with 10,000 sales reps around the country that have give them the tools, information so they can have a more productive meeting, or it's a chance to have a better event. You know convention, trade show and you know the technology, you know, should make the people better. You know, likewise, the people should make the technology better. And if you subscribe to that journey and sort of that never-ending journey of, you know, failure, tweak, try it again, fail, tweak, try it again, continually get better, then you have to believe that. But the key is starting from the customer perspective, because if you try to break it into convenient silos or convenient buckets, I think you're going to be missing a big piece of it.
Speaker 1:And people are. You know, certainly. I mean I can oversimplify and just say you know there are technology-friendly people and technology-fearful people. Certainly there's a generational. You know Gen Z and millennials are more technology friendly and open than Gen X or boomers. How do you see bringing people into technology? How do you see the process of reducing the fear around technology?
Speaker 2:I think, if you, if you focus on the outcomes, you know what are people, what are you trying to achieve? You know my old boss used to always say what are we trying to solve? For it's one of the things that always stuck with me. You know, if you've that and the technology is just a means to doing it, and you know, part of the job of us as technologists is also to make sure that that interface, that user interface, that digital experience, that customer experience, is simplified. You know it's the job of the technologist to make the technology accessible. It's not the job of the customer to figure out.
Speaker 2:Now, at some level you have to have a certain desire to change and you can't ignore the fact, like anybody who you know. The internet, you know, is not a fad. I think we all learned that 25 years ago or 20 years ago. You know artificial intelligence is here to stay. So these things, you know you can't. You know you can't stop the tides, but you know to understand.
Speaker 2:I think if I were fearful, I would, you know.
Speaker 2:I think it's really important one to pick good partners or good advisors, whether that's internal, on your staff or its external partners, to make it very clear to them.
Speaker 2:Here's what I want to do If you're the leader of one of those companies. Here's what we're trying to achieve, here's what we're trying to solve for this is the experience I want our customer to have. I want them to have this journey as they go through their process of buying, experiencing, using our products or our services. And then the you know, particularly if you hire good people, they can make it accessible their job. And you know, if I were a like I am, you know, an aging Gen Xer, you know, maybe I go out and find that Gen Y or you know Gen Z or who is great at this stuff, and then it's just important to people want to do a good job and it's one of the things that, you know, I've always felt was super critical is just to make sure that they understand what the goals are in very simple terms, and then their job is to help create the user experience, the interface, so that it is accessible to people and it's not scary.
Speaker 1:And you know you mentioned AI I. You know there isn't a linkedin social media post or a conversation that uh, uh vistage, or I think you're in ypo right, are you?
Speaker 2:uh, I'm not. I was in vistage for for a number of years. Okay, yeah, so I'm familiar with that so.
Speaker 1:So there isn't a conversation in those circles that doesn't? You know where the, where the two letters AI don't come up, and I view those conversations oftentimes remind me of conversations you know you and I had 30 years ago or in the 80s and 90s, about computers. Well, that's just going to be computerized, and computers were like this big, amorphous thing that we were trying to understand when we were going to college, and it just ended up becoming sort of the Excel sheet is the old legal pad and the computer is. I mean, today, computers are the one of the tools we use. I see ai as one of the tools that is, we're already using. Whether we know it or not, it's embedded in. So much.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. Um, and before you said it, I was going to say it's a tool, they're all tools and you know, the good news is is that there are very talented tool makers out there, whether it's Microsoft or Google or Apple that are embedding these in. So you're not going to have to be an expert in AI because you're going to be. You're going to have access to these tools. You're going to have access to these tools and if what we just talked about, if these people do a good job of making these tools accessible and understandable, then they're going to be accessible and you will be able to use them. It'll just put more emphasis on what I talked about earlier is what are you trying to do with it? Where do you want to get to? And then, how do you use the tool?
Speaker 2:You know and in my world, coding, you know, three, four years ago, pretty hard to find developers during the beginning of the pandemic.
Speaker 2:It was very, very difficult, very expensive. Well, there's some things that are changing now is that some of the you know AI is making. You know, in some ways, the new coding language is English, you know, or Spanish, or wherever you happen to be sitting, coding language is English you know, or Spanish, or wherever you happen to be sitting. It's the ability to frame the problem and be able to iterate to find your solution. You don't have to understand advanced calculus to do it. You won't have to understand you know 16 different coding languages to do it, because the AI will help you. You will still have to have a rigorous ability to think logically, to understand your solution of what you're trying to get to and to help the AI iterate to get there. It's just going to be a tool that makes it's what I said earlier. It's going to be a tool that makes the people better, and then the people in turn are going to train the AI and it will get better term are going to train the AI and it will get better.
Speaker 1:In my day job when I'm not podcasting the other 90 or 110% of my time I guess we do evaluations for clients, growth evaluations and road mapping strategy. I asked chat, gpt or co-pilot on Microsoft hey, write me a growth evaluation for a specific client. And I had just finished writing the growth evaluation for the specific client and co-pilot sort of bullet pointed a lot of the things that I had put into the growth evaluation. I'm like, okay, that's pretty smart. And then I asked so how are you going to do that?
Speaker 1:And it sort of gave answers that are not really executionable or that are not enough for executing unassumptionable meaning or that are not enough for executing because it doesn't bridge the gap between the word and the person that will actually do it. Right, it doesn't. Uh, you know, it sort of gives, you know it doesn't build enough context for creativity and innovation to actually execute it. But, all right, so you're back in the saddle as chairman of where, where the company you founded co-founded, or founded co-founded back in the day did it with a, with a, with a partner.
Speaker 1:Yep, what are you most excited about? What are you most excited about, uh? What are you most excited about? For wear, aware, uh, moving forward I think it's.
Speaker 2:It's a great time to be in the business we're in. You know, um, yeah, before ai was the buzzword, digital transformation, probably. One was certainly top five, and we're in the digital transformation business of helping companies use the technology, use these tools in order to get better, um, and to solve problems. And so what I like about it is you know whether it's my, particularly my experience with Juniper you get a different perspective at 30,000 feet than you do at 30 feet or three feet when you're, you know, hacking through the grass of the day-to-day business. So it helps me with a perspective that I'm blessed to have a really talented management team at WearAware. So it helps me with a perspective that I'm blessed to have a really talented management team at Wear Aware, so I don't necessarily have to be in the day to day. So it gives me the opportunity to sort of look from above and make sure you know.
Speaker 2:Things that I worry about are culture, innovation, are we focusing on the right things? Capital allocation, those types of things, other opportunities that are out there, the ability to I like to tell stories. I've been accused of management by metaphor, so you get to come in and tell a good story, but it's, you know, to make sure that everybody gets it. What are we trying to do? Can we boil it down into something simple so that everybody understands? You know one of the. I love being an entrepreneur, benno, but the best job I ever had was in the military.
Speaker 2:I was a platoon leader, age 22. And the military does some there's just some great training.
Speaker 1:I was only in for four years.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that I always understood are that they train and they just beat into you Is that when you're creating orders, when you're receiving orders from above in business, it would be receiving orders, you know, instructions or needs or requirements from the customer, yes, and then you're, you're, you're sending it down to your subordinates in the military and it would be to your employees and your team members, and that is. They had a concept called commander's intent, which is before. You gave the specifics hey, I want you to go three kilometers to the west and climb this hill and occupy it. You say that what the general wants to do, the commander, his intent, is to, you know, capture this general geography. So it's a very, very high level. This is what we're trying to do and that went all the way through down so that everybody, including the lowest ranking soldier, knew what the plan was.
Speaker 2:So one they truly. You know every decision. You know we all make thousands of decisions a day and our employees are making thousands of little decisions. Well, if they know at the base what is most important and what the commander wants, what is most important for our customer, you know what we are trying to achieve as a company at, we're Aware they will all make better decisions. You know, can we solve for that? So you know I'm excited about not having to be in the absolute day-to-day but be able to focus on things like that. Is that, how can we get the messaging down? How can we institutionalize that into our processes, into the services that we go? Because I think we can give much better service and performance and deliver better results for our customers if we do that. So that's something I learned 30 years ago in the Army that still is absolutely as applicable today in a completely different field.
Speaker 1:Is there a time that you can point to sort of an aha moment where you became aware of you know what I love. You know mano a mano warfare of. You know like in in the early days of you know what I love. You know mano a mano warfare you know like in the early days of. You know, in your 20s and 30s, you know you're at, as you said, flying at a higher altitude, and was there a point where that you can remember sort of flipping a switch or was it a dimmer switch of going from three feet Loving three foot mano a mano versus 30,000 foot?
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's a switch and I think you still need to have the ability to get down into the details sometimes. You know one of the things that's really important, and I think it's really important, you know, in our company, for our leaders and I think any company is to model is you can't be so high in the clouds that you're not willing to get down and put in the work, because that's the other part of the entrepreneurial journey is I've yet to see anybody do it without intense work and it's work around the clock. And you know, for us as leaders, to model that to our younger people who are looking to us as examples, you know, and also just to make sure that the customers say, hey, ok, you know the executives of the company are also very invested in our success and they're paying attention. So you know, I think you still need to be able to get down. You know the. I don't know if it's flipping. I would say it's more like a dimmer.
Speaker 2:I think it's you know, you gain more credibility with yourself, you get more confident in your ability to provide that higher level guidance with experience with failure. That higher level guidance with experience with failure, you know just sort of the product of three decades of you know being down there at three feet to be able to do it. I also tell you, though, is that one thing that never goes away and you know you and I have been in sales at times If you don't get a charge and a thrill of closing a deal, making the sale, delivering a fabulous result, you need to find a different job. You need to find a different job. There's nothing that replaces that feeling. That charge that goes through you Is that wow, that feeling that that's that charge that goes through you, whether you're a sales guy closing the job, if you're a delivery guy, getting your customer to say this is the best thing I've ever seen and we are getting fabulous results from it.
Speaker 2:So, you know, basically rooted in results. If you can't take pride and energy and take energy from the result, then you're in the wrong field.
Speaker 1:I agree with you, eric. This was a lovely conversation. I believe just based on your entrepreneurial drive, your ability to, or kind of your love for the game ability to, or kind of your love for the game that you know you'll continue to bring great perspectives and solutions to the industry. If you have any closing words of wisdom, here's your chance, eric.
Speaker 2:You know, Ben, I don't know that I do. Thank you for having me and thanks for you for doing the third growth option. I think it's a great service that you provide here and it's a chance for everybody to learn. I know I've learned as I've listened to your audience, you know.
Speaker 2:I would just repeat that it's a journey and I think you're defined by your failures as much as you're defined by your successes, as long as you learn from them and you take the time to be introspective and understand. You know what went right, what went wrong and move forward and and and adjust. Um, persistence is the name of the game. Just keep getting better every day and have some fun while you do it. You know you spend a third of your life working, so you you better better enjoy what you're doing and who you're doing it with.
Speaker 1:I hear you. Thank you so much, eric. There is one I forgot to ask this If folks wanted to reach out to you, what is the best way to find you? Is it the wear aware website or is it LinkedIn?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I probably find you. Is it, uh, the wear aware website or is it linkedin? Uh, yeah, I, I probably. Um, you can get me through my linkedin, or, um, also, just edan at wearawarecom. Um is, uh, okay, that's the email that I use the most and happy to talk to anybody awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, er Eric.
Speaker 2:Okay, thanks, benno Enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this episode of TGO Podcast. You can find all episodes on our podcast page at wwwrealign4resultscom. You can find me, Benno, host of TGO podcast, there as well. Just email Benno B-E-N-N-O at realignforresultscom. Let's keep growing, Thank you.
