351 | How Do you Double Your Company
How do you double your company revenues and impact in the world?
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Target Audience: Josh is an expert contributor to GOBankingRates and has been featured on National television as well as radio. Josh co-authored two bestselling books Transform with Brian Tracy, as well as SuccessOnomics with Steve Forbes.
How Do you Double Your Company: The Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
Leaders in the trenches and your host today is Gene Hammett.
Hi, I’m your host, Gene Hammett, and this is leaders in the trenches. My question for you today is how could you double your company now if you were running a billion dollar company that’s probably way outside your realm and maybe it will happen over time. I hope it does, but if you’re having something more, I won’t say realistic, but more attainable like be doubling a million dollar company or taking your company from seven figures to eight figures and that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today is how a company is planning to take their business from seven figures to eight figures and the reason I picked this is because I work with hypergrowth companies. They are growing very fast and I wanted to find out someone who is actually doing this and what is their plan behind it.
Gene Hammett: I thought you would learn from their plan and then I would be able to ask questions around how that is working overtime. So I picked someone I knew personally. Josh Felber is working with his wife on a primal organics company that has recently made the inc 5,000. So, they are planning to get to eight figures very soon and as fast as they can and the way they’re doing it is probably not as intuitive as it would be for most people. The strategy behind it and a teaser to this is really about less is more so how do you double your company by making your priority less is more. Well, you do it by creating systems and you create focus for the products and the offers that you’re making into the market. And that’s the reason we’re talking with Josh Felber today. Josh is a, you know, a powerhouse in his own right. He’s got making bank podcast. He’s got all kinds of things going on. I want to belittle him by trying to name all of those things right now and get some of them actually wrong, but josh and I go way back. We met each other at conferences and we connected through mutual friends and it’s gonna be a great interview today if you want to grow your business really fast. So here’s the interview with Josh Felber.
Gene Hammett: Hi, how are you Josh?
Josh Felber: I’m awesome Gene. I really appreciate you having me on the show today.
Gene Hammett: All right. This is take two. So we might be laughing a little bit. Guys. I had you on the show because not only you’re a friend of mine, but when you mentioned and really celebrating the fact that your company had made ink 5,000 for the second year in a row. I was impressed and I wanted to have you on the show to get some insight. Uh, so thanks for being here.
Josh Felber: You had no awesome. It’s an honor and you know, it was kind of funny. It was. I think I posted that and then I actually didn’t read the full rest of the letter and all this. Somebody posted, Hey, you’re not supposed to post this. I’m like, Oh, well
Gene Hammett: I read that too. And I started to say something but…
Josh Felber: Nobody knows what the rank is yet. So we’ll find out next week or something. Two weeks.
Gene Hammett: Yeah. So I, I wanted to have you on here, uh, to talk specifically about growth, but before we dive that, let’s talk about your company. Let’s set context. So tell us about the company and a little bit about you.
Josh Felber: Sure. Uh, so my wife, I’m the company primal life organics and uh, my wife started the company a 2012 is when we relaunched it as primarily for Gannett, but originally was back in 2009 after our daughter was born and she had a miscarriage and everything else. She was like, man, what is going on here? And found out a lot of our skincare had so many toxic ingredients and she was a nurse and nurse anesthetists, everything else. So we were eating healthy, we were doing a lot of healthy things. It was just, what was that one thing? That was it. And so that’s why she created the company initially. Then in 2012 we actually rebranded based on a lot of searching and looking at different stuff. I’m into primal life organics. Paleo skincare was the Hashtag [inaudible], there was a lot of searches happening, but nothing, there was nothing out there and so we were the first ones to market with it and just every year you know, we’ve had significant doubling your or above growth and then now there’s a bunch of other companies that have copied what we do and kind of on those second bandwagon behind us.
Gene Hammett: Well that gives us context. One of the things that hypergrowth and we were talking before we cut the recorder on, is the complexity when you’re adding more employees all the time.
Josh Felber: Sure.
Gene Hammett: How many employees do you have now?
Josh Felber: So we have right around 40 plus or minus a couple.
Gene Hammett: All right. And uh, what were you at last year?
Josh Felber: Probably half that maybe or maybe 12 to 15. So somewhere right in there.
Gene Hammett: So that’s a, that’s a pretty good growth rate. Uh, and I think a lot of people can understand that whether you have big corporate teams and you, you’re adding, you know, two people a month, that’s a lot. When you think about how do you engage your new people, what are the keys around getting them to understand their role, their job when they first come in?
Josh Felber: Good question. Because we haven’t had anything for a long time.
Gene Hammett: So this is the way it works.
Josh Felber: We up until recently, um, no, we actually have always kind of taken them through just a process to learn about the company. So we actually do everything here at our facility. So we make all of our own products right here in Akron, Ohio. We ship everything right here from Akron, Ohio and we do all of our marketing and, and just everything, customer service. It’s all done right here. So one of the things that we always did was when people first started with us the first week they would start in the kitchen and they would learn how to make the products because then it kind of gives them context whether they’re in customer service, whether in marketing. So it gives, hey, wow, we actually do hand make all this stuff. And then they move over and they ship it so they can see how they pack the packages with care and love and everything before they go out the door. And then customer service, Hey, here’s how the customers respond to you, can we help them with and unc that interaction and then they move into their respective departments from their overall.
Josh Felber: So that was kind of our initial process that we’ve used recently. We’ve, it’s been modified. We have somebody on our team that’s actually helping with that and they take them through some of that as well as a little bit more of an onboarding process. So.
Gene Hammett: Well, I think that the fact that you have a process is good because most of the time growth companies don’t even think that way. So that’s great. Great to, to see what you’re doing when you are thinking about your monthly kind of interactions, what is the core things that keeps everybody moving forward in the same direction?
Josh Felber: Uh, so what we started, I think it was the first of the year was a yearly or a monthly vision meetings. And so one of the things that we did is treated. I sat down, my wife and we figured out, okay, what is our next three year?
Josh Felber: And we use cameron herold’s vivid vision plan and you know, what’s that next three years look like, where are we at in three years? And so we designed all of that and then what we do is at the meetings we share that, you know, we share, hey, here’s, you know, here’s where we’re going and then we show, hey, here’s what we’re doing right now today, here’s how you’re an integral part of this, you know, whether it’s you shipping out the products or making it, making sure the right formulas all put together. And so the products actually do come out correct and have the right consistencies and everything, two packages to shipping it to how customer service answering the phones responds to emails and interacts with the customers. And so each month we’re always sharing something new with them. Um, I just got back from some retailers a couple of weeks ago. So our meeting begin this month was, hey, here’s kind of the retailers that we’ve, you know, we’ve met with a, here’s some different teams that we have on board to that are helping us and then here’s what it’s looking like over the next 12 to 24 months as we start to move into retail,
Gene Hammett: What have you found the benefits of having that, that level of detail every month?
Josh Felber: I think it, for us from a cultural standpoint, um, one of the big things that we did a, I think it was in June, it came up was I was like, Hey, you know, we were talking and all of a sudden I was just like, you know, whatever their name, you know, John, tell us why you love working here. And then all of a sudden we had, you know, almost 40 people going around saying why they love working here. And it all, like nine out of 10 it all came back to the, the employees and the culture and what, you know, working with each individual person. So…
Gene Hammett: So that’s a place for them to reinforce that.
Josh Felber: Yeah. So one, it was a way to reinforce it, so you know, each person was able to step up and give their thoughts and each person next to it was like, oh man, that’s cool, this personal, it’s working with me and maybe I didn’t think they did and some people liked it because we get pizza every Friday and it’s a fun environment and relaxed and stuff too. But um, overall I guess at 90 percent it was like, Hey, we love the people, we love the culture.
Gene Hammett: Did you feel like culture was going to be that important as you were starting this company?
Josh Felber: Uh, so, I mean originally it was just my wife and my who was, when she wasn’t watching the kids in the morning and stuff, she would help pack up and shipping out. So no, that was like the last thought at the time,
Gene Hammett: Which is common, right? You’re trying to get traction, you’re trying to get, is this a valid idea? Um, at what point, how many employees did it take for you to really think, okay, cool. We got to be more intentional about culture.
Josh Felber: I mean, it was probably in the last six to eight months. Okay. Seven or 10 months, somewhere in there. So right at the end of last year, uh, we started to really look at it and talk about. I mean, because you go from 12 to 15 to 20 now you’re like, okay, well who are you come in sometimes you’re like, you don’t know who everybody is all the time because yeah, obviously, you know, there’s turnover and stuff like that, but as you find that tight group of people and so you know, as we’ve moved into that were like, okay, what can we do consistently to continue to bring people well together to create that teamwork in that environment that people like to be in. So,
Gene Hammett: You know, I want to share some of my research here with you and also with the audience and talk about how it relates to in your business. Does that sound like a pretty good thing?
Josh Felber: Awesome.
Gene Hammett: So to give everyone context here, I have a research over a hundred interviews now with ink 5,000 CEO leaders or corporate leaders like you. Is your wife technically the ceo?
Josh Felber: She’s a face of at the CEO. I just, I’m just kind of in the shadow.
Gene Hammett: You’re in support.
Josh Felber: It was. I’m the CMO.
Gene Hammett: I just, I appreciate that. I’ve been so many of these people. Look at a top level. The company is such an important piece to this and one of the things you’ve been talking about, his vision that’s so critical for the success of a company is to have a vision that people buy into, right? How do you ensure that a new hire buys into the vision of your company?
Josh Felber: So we take them through a hiring process and along the way throughout, through the screening, you know, we look for different things to make sure they’ll click and aligned. I mean, you’re never 100 percent right, which sucks, but you got to go through sometimes a couple of people and then all of a sudden you find the right one. I mean, you know, we’ve been trying to add some awesome people to our internal marketing team here to help grow and you know, we’ve gone through a couple different people to really find it and all of a sudden boom, out of nowhere, like, Hey, we’ve got this person in Akron, Ohio, that’s super cool and you know, there are a right fit and you know, she’s worked hard and knows what she’s doing. You know, we didn’t have to do a whole lot of training, which is super cool.
Josh Felber: Uh, you know, with that. And so I think sometimes it takes time, but part of it is also, I think the hiring that you take people through to make sure they kind of match what your values, what are your beliefs and the whole lifestyle integration. I mean, nobody smokes from here, you know, things like that. I mean we’re a health focus company and so it kind of be hard some days packing your stuff and they just went on and had a cigarette and now they’re getting all of that smell in the box and everything else before it ships out. So we try to make sure we maintain and do what we say and live how we say,
Gene Hammett: Well that’s, that’s excellent because it all starts from the higher, right. How important is it to hire that right person for the company versus how expensive is it to hire the wrong person?
Josh Felber: Right? And you know, if you hire the wrong one, you just got to cut it, cut them loose quick.
Gene Hammett: So well that is certainly a mark of a hyper growth company as someone is willing to make quick decisions. Um, and so yeah, you do have to let people go quick. The other aspect of company is a one of a kind brand. And you already said this, Josh, you talked about, you know, there was nothing in the space, but we saw the need, we saw people searching on it and, and primal or kind of Paleo organics for skincare and for healthcare. And I may get that exactly, get it a little bit wrong because I know you’re very close to your brand, but you created something that everyone knows that you’re unique in the marketplace. You’re not trying to be like someone else.
Josh Felber: Right, and that’s what we’ve done. Or at least that’s what my wife has done since the initial launch of it was, you know, how can we take what we have? How can we be different? There’s, there wasn’t anybody that had tooth powder. There wasn’t really other than Tom’s. There was no other natural deodorant when we launched a, you have to truly, uh, truly natural Dr. I mean, we don’t have waters, we don’t have fillers, we don’t have crap. All the ingredients you can pronounce, you could actually eat any of our products. That’s how healthy is. It’s all real raw good food ingredients.
Gene Hammett: And do they work, Josh? I’m just kidding.
Josh Felber: No, it is because there’s a lot of stuff that comes out and you know, all of a sudden you’re like, Ugh, another deodorant, you or another this or another that. And it’s like, but then they’re not there. They don’t sustain because obviously it doesn’t work or they’re not focused on brand and branding growth and know. One of the things just from a lot of the marketing and events that I’m part of and things like that, they, I meet a lot of people is they’re like, hey, that’s super cool that you guys are building a brand because they’ve just gone out and done. You don’t have one off type products and you know, they sell as many as they can and they bail out and go do something else. And you know, we’ve sustained that and created a brand in a, um, I guess culture is, you said you know, around what the product is and around health and around education and knowing you know, what you’re doing, putting in and on your body.
Gene Hammett: So. Well, I think that’s such an important piece. And I think this. So the next one I’m going to talk about here is under the culture level and that’s create radical transparency. Is that something you guys appreciate is as you’re growing the company is, I know you do as a product to create wholesome products but in the company, radical transparency.
Josh Felber: Uh, yeah. I mean, so I’m a little kind of like partial on this just because I’ve studied it and I’ve seen that it’s like, okay cool, we’re opening up all of our books so you can see every single penny that we do kind of a thing and you know, there’s other companies like, all right, we’re giving it all to charity and then, you know, hopefully we make a profit and stuff like that. And I think one of the big things to sustain and to be able to.
Josh Felber: My whole thing is like, look, we want to hire and we want to create the. Wait, let me back up. We want to make the best products for people out there. We want to have the highest quality ingredients, the best packaging and give people the best on out there, hands down. And so by doing that we got also have great team, great culture, a great education and everything behind that. And you can’t do that for free and you can’t do that for losing money. And so, you know, we, you know, we have giveback stuff, we do, we have, you know, different things we do. And you know, we tried to one pair and plays the best that we can, but also still make a profit and we tried to marketing, we try to do as much education and like I said, give back, but we also have to make a profit that has to come first because if we don’t make a profit to run the business and they keep the doors open and the lights on and everything else, we’re not going to be there.
Josh Felber: And now 40 people don’t have a job or 30 people or whatever. That may be your 100 people next year. And so I think you have to be a profitable company first. And I think there is. It’s okay to share information with your team where you’re going, how you’re going, the vision, you know, here’s what you’re doing. You know what? A lot of times when people see it, they’re like, okay cool, they’re going to do $10,000,000. That means Oh man, they must be bank and cash, but you know, in $10,000,000, you know, after it’s all said and done and taxes and everything else. I mean, you may walk out the door and you got 300 k to put back in the business next year.
Gene Hammett: Yeah. And that’s one reason why radical transparency, even if you don’t do open books, is explained to them how the business works and how these, you know, it’s not $10,000,000 to your bank account.
Gene Hammett: It is shared amongst all these other people and the irs and all that stuff. So radical transparency in the research I was doing was a lot about trust. It’s a lot about having real conversations with people need to, um, you know, principals came out this here from Ray Dalio talking about, you know, how important transparency was across everything that we do and the feedback that we give each other as we grow together. So let me, let me ask you about this because, you know, being on the cutting edge of this market, you’re in innovation got to be pretty important to you. How do you encourage your employees to be, to think innovatively, uh, for the business?
Josh Felber: So one of the things I know that we’re doing right now, that’s a great question, is, you know, we’re just putting these pieces in place to really, I guess encourage it more or to bring it to the forefront is, you know, we, you know, putting, you know, working on putting up a idea walls or I, you know, and things like that so people can put the hey, you know, I had this idea and I think Cameron Herold talks about it in his book is one of the employees was like, hey we need to have a one 800 got junk or one of the companies that he was at on every starbucks cup and so by.
Josh Felber: But that was on the idea wall. And so each person that puts her id on the idea wall, wherever it may be, huge, small, medium has to own that. If you’re going to put it up, you’ve got to own it and you got to create momentum behind it and whether it works out or not, that’s cool. No big deal, you know. But all of a sudden if it gets traction, you know, then that’s something you start pushing working for it. So since we are just rolling out right now, I don’t have tons of feedback on that specific specific area, but I know speaking with and different people in, you know, around culture and things like that, that’s an area that helps unify and kind of bring people to the forefront. Oh Hey, you know, if we had a product or maybe the product could do this or x, y, z, no, that would help more people do this. And so I think by encouraging that and by providing them a space for that, uh, it definitely will help for sure.
Gene Hammett: Well, you said something interesting in there because I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but the overarching research and that I’ve done with hypergrowth companies like yourself is when we get employees to feel like owners when they get them to own it. Right. On the client experience on the project, that box going out, is it packed with care? Know we have everything in there or is it just, Oh, it’s just sort of. We just got it done. Um, is that something you value as you’re growing your company? Is this, this aspect of ownership?
Josh Felber: Yeah, no, I definitely think that’s huge. As you know, one, you know, each person, whether it’s somebody that’s mixing the ingredients or somebody that’s packing the box or even just printing the labels, you know, they make sure they didn’t smear when they’re getting printed out or you know, that um, you know, like you said, the boxes packed and has the right amount of packaging material and everything else so it doesn’t get smashed in the journey and everything else. So I think, you know, an encouraging each person to own that. You know, one of the things we do when the box to ship is the representative puts their name on a line on a card that goes in there. So when they get it, you know, if there is something that happened or maybe it’s something that, you know, nobody’s perfect. So sometimes things, they have five items for make it in when you know it doesn’t, so no, it happens in so. But that person has that ownership of that like, Oh man, you, I totally spaced out and I didn’t even see that or whatever it may be. And so by holding them accountable to that, you know, they can own that area and also make sure what they are doing is maybe double check, triple check before they tape it up and it goes out.
Gene Hammett: Well, I appreciate you giving us that because I always have a practical and actionable. So let me ask you, based on companies that are trying to hit it, ink $5,000 for the second time, what’s, what have you seen the most practical and actionable strategy or tool that you’re using right now to make sure you’re staying focused for the next next year?
Josh Felber: So I think for us, I mean, you know, hit two times was awesome. Uh, I think for us, since we’ve dealt with every year, I kind of had a good feeling that we would hit it again this year or for last year I guess. But moving forward like, okay, you know, how do we double what we’re going to end this year at two next year. You know, and everything, and so for that, I mean, I think you have to be focused like you mentioned and part of it right now, you know, for us we have 60 different skews, so you know, what, what do we want to be known as, you know, how do we want to be an overall general skincare brand company? Do we want to be just an oral care company and focus on, you know, the best, highest quality oral care products, whether it’s tooth powders, led whitening systems, the toothbrushes, you know, everything that we offer from then deodorant and everything, you know, and just really focused and put all of our energy, all the, all of our employees, energy of all of our marketing energy. Um, whether it’s creating graphics, creating copy, creating, you know, emails to making the products and focus it light, you know, laser focused on just those areas. I think by doing that and from a hyperfocus approach will actually see faster growth and overall more efficient productions and systems and everything flowing way better.
Gene Hammett: I see that happening all the time, but most companies believe growth happens from being broader. Right? Going after new markets, uh, going after new products, whereas you told me before we’re going from 60 to a lot less than 60. I’m not going to hold you to an exact number, but in order to double your business, you’re going, you’re literally got you, I guess your top brands and go, we’re putting everything we’ve got into these top skews.
Josh Felber: Sure.
Gene Hammett: And that’s the way we’re going to double our business in.
Josh Felber: It’ll take. Yeah. Um, so it’ll allow us to, as a creation standpoint to create more products in that specific area. Okay. And to that specific, I guess pro se products, se oral care for example, you know, create more products under that specific oral care brand, you know, by creating justice one I know of that we could launch in October, just that product alone, we could do 10 million on before the end of the year and so curious
Gene Hammett: can us what it is?
Josh Felber: or once we launched it, then I’m happy to come back just because, but a lot of approval process stuff happening that goes live October 1 in Canada. And so we’re able to push one of our products in that specific area out in Canada.
Gene Hammett: This is a good chance for me to tell, like if our audience wanting to keep up with what you’re doing and what that product might be, it’s going to be $10,000,000. Um, how can they keep up with, uh, with you and, uh, in the work you guys are doing?
Josh Felber: For sure. I mean primal life, organics.com, uh, is our website here in the US primarily for [inaudible] dot ca is our Canada website. If anybody’s listening from Canada, um, and uh, you know, we, um, my wife has a healthy me podcast called the healthy me on itunes and everywhere else. And then you can also, you can also check out making bank as well. I interview a top leaders like Gene and everybody else and you know, we uh, dive into a lot of really cool tax strategies and ideas. But just primal life organics I would say is the main place to go and we share tons of educational content on there, our youtube channel, instagram, facebook, everywhere else.
Gene Hammett: So. Perfect. Well, thanks for being here, Josh. Thanks for sharing your insights and wisdom.
Josh Felber: Cool. Awesome. Gene, I really appreciate your time and it was an honor to speak with you and be able to share this information with your guests.
Gene Hammett: Alright, that was a great interview. I hopefully you enjoyed it as much as me and hopefully we can check in with Josh overtime to see how things are going as they are putting a lot of force and a lot of focus into doubling their company. Now I share all these things with you because I want you to have new insights and new strategies to grow your company. If you’re having questions you want a second set of eyes on the strategy you have moving forward, then I’d love to get to know you. Would love to maybe even include you on a show here as you’re growing fast so we can talk about your strategy, your leadership, your culture that makes all that possible. As always, lead with courage and I’ll see you next time.
Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
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