The Leadership Stack Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Join us on this episode with Mr. Clarry Herrera, CEO of Agenix Digital, as he and Mr. CEO at 22, Sean Si, engage in a compelling conversation about starting and upscaling SEO as a competitive business, proper delegation and leadership processes as a CEO, and what to look forward to in the age of AI .

Listen as Sean shares his journey on growing SEO Hacker from the ground up. Get tips on how to delegate and manage your company effectively as CEO. Learn valuable insights on how to navigate through the Age of AI within the next 5 years.

If you're a startup owner or aspiring to venture into the services industry, this episode is for you!

___

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Website: https://leadershipstack.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/

- - -

Clarry Herrera

Website: https://agenix.digital/

Join us in this episode with Mr. Clarry Herrera, CEO of Agenix Digital, as he and Mr. CEO at 22, Sean Si, engage in a compelling conversation about effective hiring platforms, team structure, and leadership strategies.

Listen as Clarry shares his journey in building a thriving services business. Learn about the ALT framework, the secrets to hiring the right people, onboarding effectively, and retaining clients in the competitive field of SEO.

If you're a startup owner or aspiring to venture into the services industry, this episode is a must-watch!

- - -

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Website: https://leadershipstack.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/

- - -

Clarry Herrera

Website: https://agenix.digital/

Sean: Why would some companies not attract talent? Was usually the problem and what's usually the solution?

Tony: Well, the first thing I always say to people who are leaders and I've always felt it myself, is that if you're the smartest person in the room, you've got a problem because you shouldn't be the smartest person in the room. You might be the most well-rounded person in the room. If it's if we're talking about this, there should be somebody else in the room who's smarter than you are on it. Hiring is very difficult.

It's very difficult at the moment because there are so many new dynamics that you have to bear in mind working from home. You know, the hybrid model that people want work-life balance, which is a particularly important aspect. When I started, it was all about higher, faster, and stronger. We stayed up later, we worked harder.

And that's how you beat your opponents. But the new generation working in that, that isn't what motivates them. They're not necessarily motivated in the same way. So one of the things that can put people off is if you're still working to that kind of model I was CEO of, I would still be there if I had to be there at 1:00 in the morning working to get That's how I was trained to be. 

But very quickly, you realize I can't go and expect that of everybody. In the old days, people expected me to stay later than my boss. And it's not right. And what you have to do is listen. One of the things that's interesting is that we still think and I'm as guilty of it as anybody. We still think sometimes in running our businesses in terms of almost military. We talk about campaigns. We talk about people who walk toward the gunfire. We tend to think about it in that sort of slightly confrontational, aggressive way. And that isn't how a lot of the newer entrants into the job market want to think they want to advance.

So I think the companies that fail are the ones that are not thinking about what it is that the new job entrants would look for. They want to know that you have a purpose. They want to know that you're thinking about more than just profit.

What are your environmental policies or charitable endeavors? How do you keep us together? How do you entertain us? What is your culture like? You know, and I do feel for many current leaders because I find that a sort of odd paradox of workforces that desperately want enlightened cultures, good working experience team they like are rewarded properly with the flip side of they want to come in when we have to or we want to do hybrid working because it is very difficult to create a culture when there is minimal contact.

But we will find a way through it. At the moment because we never legislated for it, it's going to be difficult and there are all sorts of wonderful experiments going on all over the world. A company I know called Hutch, which is a sort of production company that has gone four day week. Everybody is on four-day weeks. We have three-day long weekends.

And they did it well because the people who worked four days already had some. Well, I'm a part-time worker. I work four days. Their salaries went up, then paid full-time as if they were on five days. You know, I think we're going to see some best practices and we just all have to be prepared to learn from it.

But I think this whole thing about, Oh, millennials are terrible and Gen Z and we can't work, that's nonsense. You just have to listen to what they want. So I think the difficulties come from if you're still a fairly unenlightened employer, they can smell it on you.

- - -

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Website: https://leadershipstack.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/

- - -

Tony Harris

Website: https://strayrhino.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-harris-8ab54a91

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-101-Tony-Harris-ebook/dp/B09WXR9Q2N

Sean: Okay. We have our next question from Chucks - how do you find the time, energy, and space to keep working and improving your business?

Ven: That is the hardest thing because time is the most precious valuable resource out there. But this is something you need - we need to build into ourselves. You can't 'not' do it because there's such a thing as working on your business and working in your business. So working in your business is what you do - the things that are bothering you right now, that's your in your business. But working on your business is another important thing you need to do and you have to institutionalize that. So I do have my own - I just finished my think week, so I do take a few days to just think about the business, what we need to do. This is normally around the time that we're planning for next year. So you're really looking at the things you want to do for your business that's not related to what's the current concerns, the current crisis. Like in our family, we learned seven habits very early on, and a large part of that is actually knowing what's important and what's urgent.

Ven: And normally you should really work on what's important even more. And what's important is the viability of the business, the big view, the long-term view, the investments you're making. So it depends on where you're at in the business. Like right now, maybe you feel like there's like wave after wave of problems happening. Just do a little bit of the important stuff first. You'll have actually less crisis down the road. So if you're in that moment right now, this too shall pass camion. But you need to really figure out what's important and try to solve that. And then you go back to what's urgent. And for us it's what's really important is working on your business.

Ven: So like for us to realize like our business is and we're really kind of like a logistics company. So we had to take a look at our warehouses, our relationship with our truckers, our own fleet, the kind of people we would have, and the kind of software that we would recently digitalize our warehouse management software. So these are not easy tasks that you have to really push together. It's like the WMS one is like a two-year thing. It's not easy. And but if you're saying, okay, if logistics is one of the most important things we can do as a business, then we need to put our best investments, our money, our effort, our energy towards that. And it might be difficult in the short term, but you know that you're moving in the right direction and it will pay off in the long run. I think having that courage is really in that perspective is needed. So personally I do think weeks we also follow the Sabbath every week. You really have to take time for yourself. Really step back and have perspective. But yeah, it's probably the most important priority you're going to have, even though it feels like you want to attend to that crisis right now.

- - -

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Sean: What kind of leadership style have you adopted that you found to be most useful for your company, for your team?

Ven: That's a great question because I did not adopt it. It was always been who I was. So that's the thing. I found the best parts of myself and offered that. I think you - Sean and I are familiar with strengths, and strengths development. So I lead with futuristic. So I also lead with ideation, strategy, competition, and relator. So that unique combination of strengths is who I am. I had to use the best of me for the company. So if I had a different set of strengths, I would be a different kind of leadership style. So I had to look at and own who I was and be able to use that.

Ven: So for me, I'm futuristic, so I love thinking about the future, I love planning, I love telling others about what I see and giving them a lot of excitement about what we're going to do. Let's look at the technologies, all the cool things, all the gadgets. Let's get into the cloud and the automation and all of that, everything. And because that's who I am, and if I try to be like, let's say I wanted to be just like my dad or just like my mom. I would do a very poor job of that because I don't have those strengths. I had to be the best version of myself.

Ven: That's probably that kind of thing - I didn't really adopt it. It's who I am. And that's what SCPA, our company, got. So if they got a different president, they would get that person's best as well. I'm not going to force that guy to be like me. In the same way, I will never force my kids or my nephews and nieces to be somebody who they're not, but offer the best of yourself and understand yourself. So that's one of the hardest things right, then really in a company, actually, we have everybody take that strengths finder test so that everybody knows what they're good at and how they could offer that to everybody. And even though they're not yet in a leadership position.

Ven: And, you know, there are times, you know, the imposter syndrome strikes. I wish I was like my dad. He was like this. He was like, I wish I was like my mom. She was like this. She was like that. But in the end, I have to be satisfied with the strengths I have and they're pretty awesome as well. And what's funny is that when you talk to the others and they're going to say,' Oh, I envy you have that, I envy you.' And then we just stay in the company and let's work together, right? So that's the best thing because you have things I really need, you know.' So my sister and I, she has an activator. I just love working with her because anything that I want to happen, she just likes, just gets it done. Perfect for futuristic. So yeah. So you have to adapt it. I would say that in our company we adopt the strengths that you have. We offer that up as your best.

Sean: Yeah. For those of you tuning in and who're not familiar with Strengths Finder, just look it up online. Gallup Strengths Finder 2.0. Very powerful stuff. And as SEO-Hacker, we also use that. So all of our regular team members, unlock their top five strengths and we use that to see who they are, profile them and see if they're at the right seat on the bus in our company and how we can utilize their strengths as well. So very good stuff. And we all have strengths. These are things that we love doing, we look forward to doing and we are really good at and we focus on using our strengths in our lives, not just at work but in our family, how we lead our kids or how we deal with our parents or siblings. I think that overall we will have a better quality of life and better temperament as well.

- - -

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Sean: The first question, straight to the point - would be about family business. What skills did you find to be the most useful in managing a family business?

Ven: I didn't expect that question because that's a lot of reflection. The thing about family business, they haven't been really writing any books about it, right? They tell you how to be a good employee. And I remember actually there's this really great article like ten skills you need at your job that have nothing to do with your work. So I was thinking just now like, what are the ten skills that entrepreneurs should have that have nothing to do with business, right?

00:01:28

Ven: So I would always think the first thing I would probably say when it comes to family business, in particular, is your ability to manage your relationship. So you have to know your parents, you have to know your siblings and your children in the future. So I had the benefit of having a good example for my parents

Ven: So one of the conclusions my sister and I had when it comes to succession planning, in fact, it's actually succession planning is actually good parenting. One of the things I think that's essential if you're running a family business, it's different if you're just running with business partners is that that relationship management is really key and you need to really do a lot of 'give and take listening' also knowing the times that you're going to be able to say your ideas. So I had a good mentor in my father. He made it easier. It's not easy, but he made it easier. But for me, I had to learn how to pick my spots. Know my place. Leave the ego out the door. I think that's super important. That's going to destroy your business experience or entrepreneurial experience if you let that really affect it. So that's the first skill, I would probably say if you're really managing a family business.

Ven: The second skill I wouldn't say is necessarily just in family business alone, it's really having a clear plan - clear vision. That is something that's harder for the second-gen. I'm a second-gen because the initial vision was from my parents, so I had to come up with my own view of the future and own that because you're always going to feel like I'm just following them, you know? And right now I have the right titles already - I'm president and CEO, so I need to really have that plan in place. I really need to have a view of where we want to go. So those two things are probably in a relationship and the vision is probably very important.

Ven: Going back to the idea about second-gen, I think when I met you I introduced myself as a Gen 1.5 owner, not so much as a second-gen, because the true experience of me owning the business, so to speak, was really about identifying myself as a founder as well. Especially for me, because I kind of started with the business almost immediately. So I joined in the fifth year of the business. So right after college, I jumped in. I was still part of the growth journey. I saw my parents work hard. I saw them by example, you know, lead the company. And then when they turned over the reins to me as president and just last year as CEO, I really had to have a good plan already.

Ven: And it wasn't an excuse anymore that, 'oh, you know, your parents are leading the way.' I became president relatively early on. I mean, it's about my 10th year already. So I've had to develop that vision. And then that's where your siblings will also follow you if they know you are heading them somewhere. You know, it's not something you take for granted. So those are the things I think are important.

Ep 392: Skills You Need in Running a Family Business

Sean: What would be something that you would suggest for people to build into their habit routine to become a better leader and manager at the same time with their work or career?

Darby: Yeah, so I think it's going to be different for everybody. However, what I would say is that what everybody should focus on because this is related to habits is, as you analyze, like sitting down and thinking about what are the activities that you do throughout every day. And I mean, like the main things you do to accomplish what it is you do at work, to accomplish your goals as a company or whatever. What are the things you're doing every single day? Just list out everything and then go through that list and pick whatever that top 20% is. Now, this list, depending on how big it is, could be 10 things. It could be 20, it could be 5, it could be 2, whatever that is. Find the top 20% of activities. A lot of times folks will call these high payoff activities. And those activities are the things you should be setting as habits that you complete first every single day.

Darby: The reason being is, you've heard of the 80-20 rule. So the idea behind this is that this guy named Vilfredo Pareto in the late 1800s came up with this idea. He was studying wealth distribution in Italy, and he basically determined that 20% of all people held 80% of the wealth, which this holds true today, maybe even more lopsided than that. But eventually, he obviously didn't call it that. Eventually it became known as the Pareto principle. And what we know is the 80-20 rule. And basically what it says is that 20%, no matter what it is, 20% of activity results in 80% of the results.

Darby: So Microsoft uses this to their advantage. They determined early on that 20% of all their bugs accounted for 80% of their support calls. So what that meant was, if they went back and only focused on those 20% first, they could eliminate the bulk of their support calls. And it worked. This applies to customers. 20% of your customers usually account for 80% of your sales. 20% of your products account for 80% of your revenue. It may not be exactly that ratio anymore, but that's the idea.

Darby: So in your life and in your daily activities, if those highest 20% of things account for 80% of your results, do those first every day, build those into your habit. Because if you accomplish that 20% and you don't get to some of the other things each day, at least you are 80% of the way there - on completing and helping you achieve success.

Darby: The other part about that is, that those things will change over time, based on your priorities, based on your career. So you should be reassessing those every now and then. You should be sitting down and making a list of everything and then figuring out the top things and constantly reassessing them because they will change and they're different for each individual. So my list I would not list in my high payoff activities checking email. It's probably not for a lot of us. However, if you're an executive assistant that works for a CEO whose main goal is to direct the email and sort that out for their CEO to keep them focused on higher level things. If that's their role, then that may be in their high payoff activities. So it's different for everybody.

- - -

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Sean: I want to start with a question. What's the big difference between a leader and a manager?

Darby: Yeah, well, first I will say, in our world in general, we love to have this or that. You can be this or you can be that. And I actually start off the whole premise of my book with this idea of you've heard the question or you may have been asked the question, are you a manager or are you a leader? And I start off the book by saying, that's a ridiculous question. Like, I know quite a few managers that are really good leaders. And if you say, are you this or that, it kind of gives you the idea that you can't be both. You have to be one or the other.

Darby: And those manager folks are the ones who are - these are skills like people who are highly organized, they're methodical. They're all about, how are we going to do this? What are we going to do? This is how it's going to get done. They're the ones that are able to identify. These are the challenges or the barriers we're going to overcome. They're the ones that are checking a box to make sure the stuff gets done.

Darby: The visionary folks, if you're on that side of that, if you think of it as a spectrum, if you're on that side of the spectrum, those folks are that the high idea people, they think of a lot of ideas, a lot of entrepreneurs who start businesses are high visionary, not all of them, but a lot of them are. So they think of a lot of ideas every day. They're the folks that are highly passionate. They're the ones that - they're not saying what or how. They're the ones that are saying why we're doing it. This is why we're doing it. This is why it's important. And in their mind, when they think of an idea like they can visualize it, it's done. 'We're there.'

Darby: Now, here's the deal. You need people that have both sets of skills. You either need people that are on both sides, or you need individuals who can pull in both sets of skills because you don't want to be at either end of that spectrum.

Darby: If you're that high manager person, you're way over there on the left side of that spectrum. Then that person may only be focused on checking a box and getting stuff done. They don't care why they're doing it. They don't care about who they have to snow plow through to get it done. They just need to get it done. If you're way over there on the other side, you don't really care about how it gets done. You just have all these ideas and in your head it's already done. So what's going to happen is you're going to frustrate people because you're going to move on to the next idea and the next idea and the next idea, and nothing is going to get done.

Darby: So what you've got to do is, is instead of thinking of it as a spectrum, I encourage folks to think about it more like a Venn diagram where you have two intersecting circles and try to choose the best traits from both sides of that spectrum and put those into what I'm calling The Indispensable Leader, which is the title of the book. So if you pull in the best traits of both sides and try to utilize those best things and understand what those are, that's going to help you be more indispensable, be the best leader that you can possibly be.

- - -

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Darby: The first thing is, as a leader, I want you to always be curious, be constantly learning. Your goal should be a lifelong learner that's going to help prepare you for change. Change is going to be constant. It's going to help you continue to evolve and grow your business as an entrepreneur. If you're running your own business. So make sure that you just stay curious about things. Constantly read, utilize coaches, training, and anything that you can do to continue to expand your skills, your knowledge base, and your experience.

Darby: The other thing is, just understand and this is something I talk about people when I coach them as well as understand not everything is going to be easy. It sounds very simple to say that, but I think sometimes we just think that we want an easy button. We want a button we can push that just makes everything easy. And there are going to be challenges, you're going to encounter them in your career, your life. There are going to be things you cannot even imagine will happen, that will happen to you.

Darby: But looking back, I use that as a learning experience. That really gets to my next point, which is to view your setbacks, view your challenges as learning opportunities. Good leaders will do this. Yes, you have to deal with whatever the challenge is at the moment. Put the fire out, deal with whatever it is at the time, but then make sure you look back at it and determine how you can utilize that to move forward and utilize that experience to get better and make sure it doesn't happen again to help others grow in that as well.

Darby: That leads me to my next point, which is just listening. And when I say listen, I think we have a tendency as humans sometimes to listen to respond, which by that I mean you're listening to somebody and you're thinking about what they're saying and you're thinking about, 'Oh, I know what I'm going to say.' And that's all you can think about. You're only thinking about what you're going to say when they stop talking and we're all guilty of it.

Darby: But instead of listening to respond, especially when you're dealing with team members or colleagues, listen to understand. So really pay attention to what it is that they're talking about and really listen to help you understand. The other part of that listening is one of my mentors actually told me that his advice for a leader was to listen, but then also know when you need to take action because you're in a leadership role for a reason, there becomes a point where you have to make a decision and move forward. You can't get bogged down in it. So listen and then just know when it's time to move on.

Darby: And then the last thing is again, overarching as leadership, this overarching as a human being is just to be compassionate. Everybody has their own crap they're dealing with in their life. I mean, just think of some of the stuff that you have in your life and your listeners have in their lives that nobody else necessarily knows about, or maybe only those very close to you, but certainly not people at work with you. So as you manage people and as you lead people just remember when you're dealing with those individuals, they have challenges they're going to have bad days.

Darby: I mean, your goal should be to help your folks that you're leading continue to grow in their career as well. One of the things I always tell people is, that I want the people that work underneath me to want to take my job, like I want them to be striving for that. Because I'm striving for something above me and beyond what I'm doing. So I want them to actually want that too.

- - -

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

Sean: What coursed through your mind in deciding that 'okay I'm going to try nonprofit this time, I'm going to try a leadership organization at this time?'

Darby: Yeah, it's kind of one of those things when I coach young people in particular that were just exiting college and getting into their first career. One of the things I tell people is that, what you believe your career is going to be, is probably not what it's actually going to be.

Darby: When I was going to college, I never imagined - I maybe could have imagined managing a retail store. I never would have imagined that I was CEO of a livestock association, especially a livestock association for alpacas. So not something that I could have actually imagined.

Darby: And actually they were advertising - it's an interesting story. They were advertising through an agency, so they didn't list the company name or what it was. They just described the role - reporting to the board of directors, running the company, all of those sorts of things, and so I applied for it. And then when I got my interview, they will tell you who the company is, and I had to look up what an alpaca was before I went to my interview. I had a general idea that it was kind of like a llama then, but I actually had to look up what an alpaca was so that I knew going into the interview what it was.

Darby: And I always tell people it's kind of funny and I use this in coaching also. So if they had put the name of the organization in, I probably never would have applied for it, because I would have honestly thought, how big can it really be? And I wouldn't have wanted to go somewhere where it was just me and one other person or something really small. And it turns out it was much bigger than I anticipated. And I ended up with multiple locations and we went through an international merger with another organization. And it was an interesting experience. And I certainly learned a lot over that time.

Darby: But again, I never would have anticipated that. And in coming to the end of it, like looking back, I was speaking on alpaca DNA testing. And how to verify or validate parentage and bloodlines. And breeding values and stuff, stuff that I never was educated for early on, that I just had to learn as I went. But again, you just don't really know. So as you are evaluating, you're ready to take that next step. It's different for everybody.

Darby: So like. When I was managing at Kinko's, I just kind of got to the point where I'm like, 'Man, I am ready to be done with this 24 hour management thing and this retail management, it's a lot of work. I mean, at one point I worked a 37 hour day.

Darby: So it was pretty crazy. And I was you know - my wife and I were considering starting a family and all of that. So at that point I was like, you know, I'll start looking around and I saw this role and I'm like, 'That sounds like something that I would like to do, and I've never been in the nonprofit sector, but let's give it a try.' And then kind of the same thing 11 and a half years later, when I was ready to move on, it was a similar thing where I felt like I had done everything that I could do for that organization. I felt like they needed to move on to somebody else and it was time for me to move on as well.

Darby: I also was kind of to the point it was a similar situation where I worked for a board, a nine member board of directors, and I got new board members every year. There would be a few that would switch out every year. So you were constantly getting new bosses. So I was ready to kind of be done with that and I decided, let's go back into the for profit sector. And move on to that. But yeah, you just kind of evaluate it as you move on.

- - -

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack