Think Big, Act Bigger, with Jeffrey Hayzlett – Episode 137 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

TV/radio/podcast host, and Chairman of the C-Suite Network, Jeffrey Hayzlett, talks about creating “LinkedIn on steroids”, setting conditions of satisfaction, and his relationship with Donald Trump, and why mood overcomes culture, why it’s not the lucky who win (it’s the relentless), how to make a policy of “Big Dogs Only”, and the importance of thinking big, and acting bigger.

About Jeffrey:

Jeffrey Hayzlett is a primetime television host of C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett and Executive Perspectives on C-Suite TV, and business podcast host of All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett on C-Suite Radio. He is a global business celebrity, speaker, best-selling author, and Chairman of C-Suite Network, home of the world’s most trusted network of C-Suite leaders. Hayzlett is a well-traveled public speaker, the author of four bestselling business books, The Mirror Test,  Running the Gauntlet, Think Big, Act Bigger: The Rewards of Being Relentless. and The Hero Factor: How Great Leaders Transform Organizations and Create Winning Cultures. Hayzlett is one of the most compelling figures in business today and Hall of Fame keynote speaker.

Jeffrey is a leading business expert, cited in Forbes, SUCCESS, Mashable, Marketing Week and Chief Executive, among many others. He shares his executive insight and commentary on television networks like Bloomberg, MSNBC, Fox Business, and C-Suite TV. Hayzlett is a former Bloomberg contributing editor and primetime host, and has appeared as a guest celebrity judge on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump for three seasons. He is a turnaround architect of the highest order, a maverick marketer and C-Suite executive who delivers scalable campaigns, embraces traditional modes of customer engagement, and possesses a remarkable cachet of mentorship, corporate governance, and brand building.

Learn more at Hayzlett.com or C-SuiteNetwork.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host
Today’s show is going to compel you. Jeffrey Hayzlett, who you’re about to hear from, is the host on a primetime television show called C Suite. And he’s the chairman of the C Suite Network. He also was on Celebrity Apprentice, he has a book called Think Big, Act Bigger. We’re going to talk through some of that today. He was the CMO of Kodak and was an executive for several large organizations. And so he’s the real deal. And he spent a little time with us, Jeff, thanks for being here.

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Hey, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. And thanks for saying that. I’m real. I like that. I, you know, I love teachers without question. But I like people who really get dirty, who really get it done. And I’ve always been about that, you know, I bought and sold over 250 businesses, my career 25 billion in transaction, I’ve had some businesses that have been huge success, and some that have lost, you know, I’ve started them with the hopes of cornering the market, and I found out there wasn’t one so I’ve done it all.

Host
Well, some people describe you as pigheaded. So just to pick a little bit of a fight right with you off the bat, you know, you talk about that as an advantage in your opinion.

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Yeah, well, somebody, once I was at an HR meeting. Well, many years ago when I was president of a company and I had a CEO, as a friend of mine is now working as a CEO for me and another company. And he had the HR director came in, said, Jeff, it’s like a big Mack truck. And she told me that in the meeting, so and I said, and your point, what’s your problem? You know, that’s my job. My job is to be like that my job is to go through obstacles around obstacles over obstacles to create things to happen. I’m the kind of guy that you bring in for that. And if you want touchy feely, and all those, yeah, I can give you some of that. But that’s not what I’m about. My job is to make things happen. And I do it with great respect of other people, and individuals and ideas and so forth. But in the end, someone’s got to pay the bills. In the end, someone’s got to deliver on the promise that we’ve just made. And that’s really what it’s about. So I really focus in on those promises and being pigheaded about that saying, hey, no, we said we were going to hit this goal mean this number, this this profitability, this net realized rate, whatever it might be, we use terms in sales. And that’s what we’re going to do. And we’re not accepting anything less than that. So that’s what we mean by being pigheaded. So I take that as a great compliment.

Host
Well, but you don’t, that doesn’t necessarily fly in the face of you don’t care about culture.

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Culture is as Gerber once said, you know, I think was Gerber. You know, culture eats strategy for lunch. I mean, it does. I mean, you and I are always talking about mood, I think moods, one of the most important things you can have inside of a business is you have a great mood, you can overcome culture, you know, getting people but you know, if you have a bad mood, even the culture is really tough to break into. If you ever watched a television show you’d like let’s say, West Wing, or pick any show that you see, you can see that has an energy to it a cadence that you can see, as you watch the show, well, the same thing walks into an office, you can walk into someone’s office, and they immediately feel the culture, immediately feel the cadence of the company. Are they stuffy? Are they slow? Are they fast? Are they quick? Are they nimble? And I think the leaders have to do that, you know, it’s like, let’s get it done.

Host
So your kind of style and your approach, which has been very successful is is just exactly what you said. It’s knocked down barriers, your blow through walls, do whatever it takes, what are some examples of companies that have kind of steamrolled their way through stuff?

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Can you say Uber? Can you say, Uber, I mean, there’s a prime example where people said, we’re not gonna allow them, and we’re gonna put up barriers, there’s, you know, legislative or regulatory kinds of things. And these guys are just running right through it and say, Nope, we’re not accepting that this is what we’re doing is that we’re doing it, people said to it’s gonna be more expensive, they’re going to have surge pricing, they’re going to charge you outrageous prices yet, look at that growth, look at what they’re doing, because they have a service that people really want. And no matter what those critics might say, they’re driving through it. And even when they’ve done some really stupid bonehead moves, I mean, and said things they shouldn’t have said, but yet, you can see that they’ve steamrolled through those obstacles, and they’re just making it happen. And in there’s tons of other companies that I can cite as examples of that, that continually, so success after success in terms of just saying, here’s our goal, here’s where we’re at, and we’re gonna get there and no matter what it takes, you know, this, this passion for getting to that, you know, to that ultimate utopia, and my question to you most people who are listening right now is why not? Why not? Well, you know, you get to build anything you want to do you get to do it any way you want to do it. Why would you do it that way? And when people say, well, we can’t do it that way. Well, why? Why did someone put a gun to your head? Someone holding your children hostage and saying you can’t do this? I don’t get it someone you know, I use examples in my book where I think big guy bigger where, you know, people come to me I said, Look, you know, I know the value of a network. I know the value of being a TV, being in radio being books, you know, speaking, like yourself, have, you know, have a consulting practice that your community is important to you. So I told my team, hey, go out and start making sure I’m engaging more with my followers show me how to do that. Show me ways in which I can get more people. And yet when I first they first did this, well, we can’t do that. I said, Well, why not? And they said, well, because of the budget, I said, who gave me a frickin budget? I said, Go do it. It’s up to me to decide whether it’s too expensive or not. You’re to tell me how to go do that. You tell me what I have to do? Do I have to run ads on Twitter? Do I have to run ads on Facebook? Do I have to? Do I have to, you know, tweet more, and I have to do more video, you tell me? What will help do that so I can adopt the best practices and be real because it’s me that’s doing it by the way, it’s not somebody else. And and so those are the kinds of things when we talk about being pigheaded. And just running through obstacles?

Host
Well you mentioned the word passion. Where does passion fall in the equation of the things that are important to the success of that company?

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Well, passion alone will pay the bills, all right. It’s great to have passion, but you got to eat to write, I mean, I love to have romance with my wife all the time. But I you know, I gotta go out and get you know, bring in the money to pay for the things so I can have the candles in the in the in the champagne, and have the chocolates and all the things that go with the passion of our relationship as well. And the little accoutrements, so to speak of that, that’s probably going to get me in trouble with my wife hope she’s not watching her listening right now. But my point is, if it were passionate alone, Kodak would still be standing the way it was, I mean, people were passionate about film, but that That era is over. And you can you can stop reason, rationality strategy, and in the implementation of new technology that replaces those things. So passion alone is not enough, it helps without question, it will carry you through a lot of different places. So whatever you’re doing, you should be extremely passionate about it. But don’t just let the passion blind you to the real facts, and the real way of doing things. And that’s why it’s important for you know, people like yourself, and others who, who help these businesses, you know, understand that the systematic approach and way in which you have to do things, you know, you’re passionate, I’m passionate about sales, I’m passionate about all these different products and these different ways of doing it. But in the end, I got to make sure I got good email, open rates, I gotta have, you know, a regular campaign, I got to run ads, I got to do this, I got to do that I, you know, I have to backup the passion. Great example, let me tell you, you know, just in business books, you know, we own the C suite network, and the C suite, book club, C suite, TV, C suite radios, we’re building out what I call LinkedIn on steroids recur, creating an alter powerful community of business leaders. And it’s the upper echelon of the business world, that’s what we’re going after. But when you think about books, there’s 390,000 new business books this year 398,000, published in North America alone, and the average business book will sell 7500 copies. Now, when somebody like myself and I just recently sold, you know, like 300,000 copies of Think Big act bigger, that means somebody else is losing. And so yeah, the Pat, you have to know these facts and figures. And so a lot of people think, Well, I just published my book, where’s the business? You know, you got to start months ahead of time, I even tell people a year ahead of time, before you you start going, as you know, we market our book very well. It’s what we do. We’re very good at it. And in the results. That’s why we have publishers lined up saying, Hey, where’s my next book, and I’m just been, my books only been out for three months. And now they’re asking me, where’s the next one? You know?

Host
Right? You really understand that machine. And what about, there’s this thing in the book that you talk about, called the Caitlin rule?

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Love that rule. It was written at this very desk. So I’m sitting here in New York City, we help take companies public, we own a company called Tallgrass. Now Tallgrass is a public relations and social media company, its slogan says, If you want to run with the big dogs, you gotta learn to pee in the tall grass. That’s, that’s, that’s the name of the company, and only works with high growth companies while we take companies public, or help them elevate their visibility or celebrities and a host of other, you know, businesses out there. And we were about to go and meet with the CEO of a company about 20 blocks from here to talk to him about taking the company public. So Caitlyn stopped by my desk, young woman, and I turned to her. And she says, Jeff, should we take color copies of the presentation? I said, Caitlin, I said, You’re new here. You’ve only been here for a couple of weeks. You get to ask me 21 questions. I’m going to call it the Kaitlyn rule. And I’d made it up right there on the spot. And I said, I said 21 question. I don’t know why I pulled it out of my room with a flashlight. But here’s what the rule is. From now on. You can ask me any question you want. You can ask me about the meaning of life. You can ask me where the best Italian restaurant is. You can ask me which train to go take across you can ask me do I think your boyfriend’s really serious about you? Any question that you want? Is that one of your frickin questions? And she turned to me right here at this desk right here and said, I don’t think so. And I turned back to her and said good career Move, because if I have to answer that question, what do I need you for? Now? Some people would say, That’s man, is that a little harsh? No, it’s setting levels of expectations are what I call conditions of satisfaction. And I turned to her said, Caitlin, my job is to get in front of that client and give them the advice that’s in his head, and give them my vast experience of the things I do. It’s like hitting a mark on a stage as a speaker, or as a television host. It’s about me showing up being prepared and being ready on that spot, lights go on, I start talking, that’s what I’m supposed to do your job is to make sure that I hit that mark, anything up to that mark? Is your responsibility. And if I have to do that, what do I need you for? I hired you because you’re a big dog. That’s what big dogs do. And tall grass, nothing but big dogs, you’re you’re going to take my job here someday, you’re gonna take and beat become the President’s company. That’s what I saw on you. I can’t wait to do that. If I have to answer these questions for you. I don’t need you. You’re not a big dog. And so that’s really what that’s about. So. So what are you doing in your organization, when people come to you, and asking you questions are doing things that they shouldn’t be doing themselves, and you’re not empowering them to do it or telling them that you truly expect them to do it and hold their feet to fire to get it done. That’s what the Kaitlan rule is all about.

Host
You have to be, if you’re going to be one of the big dogs, to figure it out, you find a way you don’t come to me with that kind of stuff.

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Or I’ll do it once you know, you know, like, I’ve already asked you the answer the question, what do you think we should do? Well, we should take our copies. And I turned to her and I said, Do you have time to make them? And she said no. I said don’t lie to him. He asked me a question. And you know, and in but that’s I think we have to call people in the carpet for those kinds of things. If you’re not calling them on the carpet, you don’t set expectations you don’t, you know, it’s like it’s like a coach talking to a player and saying, you can run that faster, why you sloughing off, you know, you know, I know what she could do she that’s why we got her in, I can see people think I’m a jerk, I think I’m I think I’m being a very good leader and saying, This is what I expect you to do, we set the bar, I expect you to hit the bar, or go over the bar, if you don’t hit the bar and you’re below par player, I don’t want below bar players in my operation. I only want big dogs. And this is what we do. And that’s not a big dog decision. That’s not a responsible person that’s on my team, you’re letting me down. That’s what that’s all about.

Host
Well, and you’re training them to think for themselves, which is one of the best gifts that you can actually give the person. Tell me really quick, I have a couple more questions for you, but the conditions of satisfaction, I just want you to hit that really quick. Can you explain what is that? What does that mean? How does it come into play?

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Yeah, I think this is one of the most important parts of the book. And I’ve actually put this in all my books about conditions of satisfaction, when I call mutual conditions satisfaction. On one side, you always have a customer. On the other side, you always have a performer in everything we do, whether it’s with a customer, a vendor, even our employees, even our kids, you ever make a pinky promise, those are mutual conditions of satisfaction, where I do something for the kids, and then they expect us that’s that’s what it’s all about. And if you break that, oh my gosh, you can’t break a promise, a promise is a promise you can renegotiate it. But you have to deliver on those promises. And so there’s an action cycle that goes with those conditions satisfaction, there’s an offer, there’s the acceptance, there’s the doing of the work, and there’s the delivery of the product, and the acceptance of that delivery. So satisfaction in you at the end of the in the end of this action cycle, you you always go back to the person said, I’ve just delivered you, you know, this book, you know, or this bottle of water, or this cup of coffee or whatever it might be. And then you just say, are you satisfied? Because once they say they’re satisfied, there’s no going back, there’s no pitch and there’s no moment. There’s no renegotiation, there’s no missing the payments on the bill, you’re set. You said you were satisfied. So pay me my money, you know, or give me what you said you were gonna do. That’s the way it works.

Host
Where do you want people to go to connect with you, get to plug into the C Suite, this whole platform that you’ve got going, where’s the best place for them to start?

Jeffrey Hayzlett
You can start right at the Csuitenetwork.com. But you can go to Csuitetv.com, Csuiteradio.com, Csuitebookclub.com. We own everything around C Suite. If you just look up hashtag C suite you’ll you’ll run into us because we have a majority of the conversation or find me at hayzlett.com.

Host
And last little thing for you, Jeff, you have worked at these big public companies you’ve bought and sold businesses. You’ve been a speaker, best selling author, TV show, you’re on Celebrity Apprentice, what is next for you, like what is the thing where you go, “this inspires me, this is the next wall that Jeffrey Hayzlett personally is going to be blown through”?

Jeffrey Hayzlett
I’m really working very hard right now on the C Suite Network. This is a way for me to be able to help business leaders become more strategic and stay the most strategic person in the room. today. We’re just inundated with time inundated with all these different things that are taking up the things that we need to do and so I want to help executives but continue to be the most strategic people in the room that and when Donald Trump’s elected, become an ambassador, an ambassador for some country. I’m trying to figure out which one I should probably go for.

Host
Well, if you didn’t make everybody mad yet, I’m sure you got somebody there.

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Well, I love him as an individual. You know what I give him credit for at least at least we’re talking about elections. And we’re talking about issues in ways we never have before. And, you know, I’ll give him credit for that him and quite frankly, Bernie Sanders a credit for that, as well, because we’re talking about things we never would have been talking about, which is awesome. He’s always promoting himself, which I always think is good. But yeah, the one thing I’ll tell you about Donald, I’ve done some interviews for the post and a whole bunch of others about Him. He loves to throw things out there and then watch people attack it. And then he then alters his position based on those kinds of conversations. It’s called cause causing tension. I think great leaders do cause tension and they’ll say something, push it in order to get people to push it one way or the other. Not necessarily the position that he or she always believes but great leaders do that. And you know, and great leaders have got to have haters as part of the process. That’s why it works.

Host
Well. I love it my friend. Thank you for making a little time for us here.

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Don’t forget, it’s not the lucky who win, it’s the relentless, so get out there and be relentless everyday and think big and act bigger. Appreciate it. It is always a pleasure to be with you.