Think Like an Owner – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of Think Like an Owner, host Alex Bridgeman sits down with John Peterson for a wide-ranging conversation on entrepreneurship, adaptability, and building a service business from the ground up. John traces his path from professional golf—where he saw firsthand the parallels between sports and entrepreneurship—to flipping houses during COVID and ultimately founding Westoplex Garage, a garage door and epoxy floor company based in Fort Worth, Texas. With honest pricing and a service-first mentality, John shares how he grew the business from a two-man team in his garage to a multi-division operation poised for expansion into new markets.

We discuss:

• How John’s early golf career shaped his entrepreneurial mindset and approach to financial risk

• Why a $2,200 garage door quote sparked the idea for a new business

• The importance of interpersonal skills over technical experience in hiring technicians

• Lessons learned from starting a service company from scratch versus acquiring an existing one

• The strategic decision to expand into Baton Rouge and the advantages of using private aviation for business

A must-listen for operators and builders interested in the intersection of blue-collar service and entrepreneurial scale.

Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.

Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links:

John on X

Alex on X

Westoplex Garage

Topics:

(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:01:10) - John’s career as a pro golfer
(00:14:53) - Pivoting into the garage door business
(00:23:48) - Epoxy vs. concrete floors
(00:25:36) - Latest tech innovations in garages
(00:27:53) - The self-storage market
(00:33:05) - Building a new customer funnel
(00:36:48) - Training new technicians
(00:37:55) - Recruiting talent
(00:40:31) - What to look for in hires
(00:43:38) - Why people leave the industry
(00:48:02) - Opening a Baton Rouge office
(00:52:35) - Growing pains
(00:55:17) - What are you most excited about in the next year?

Alex (@Aebridgeman) is joined by Richard Emery (@Richardemery2).

In this episode, my guest is Richard Emery, who has held various notable positions in business aviation sales at brands like Canadair, Bombardier, Gulfstream, and Hawker Beechcraft.

Richard shares his experiences in different sales cultures, managing high-performing teams, and participating in brand turnarounds. The discussion covers his leadership style, team management, and the skills relevant to CEOs.

Additionally, the episode includes entertaining stories about selling aircraft to unique clients, making it an engaging listen for anyone interested in business aviation and sales.

Links:

Richard on LinkedIn

Topics:

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:31) - Richard’s career and background

(00:04:41) - How do you organize a high-performing sales team?

(00:14:00) - Identifying ideal customer profiles

(00:23:49) - Developing a customer outreach team

(00:27:44) - Having discipline and focus on a sales team

(00:38:28) - Leadership philosophies

(00:50:08) - What can CEOs do to make their sales teams more effective?

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/UTNl0xeSgZY

Ep.177: Alex Bridgeman (@aebridgeman) is joined by Sieva Kozinsky (@sievakozinsky).

My guest on this episode is Sieva Kozinsky, co-founder of Enduring Ventures, a holding company founded in 2019 with 17 acquisitions to date. Sieva and I met at a dinner following the Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha, his first time attending the meeting. A theme from our first conversations in Omaha that continues through this episode is long-term thinking being a huge advantage, and that compounding happens everywhere. Reputation, lessons, and learning - well beyond capital alone.

We talk about Sieva’s background as a founder and how it impacts his role at Enduring Ventures, how he discovered he is a better buyer than a builder, great companies and founders he’s studied and taken lessons from, and much more. Enjoy!

Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. 

Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links:

Sieva on LinkedIn

Sieva on Twitter

Enduring Ventures

Founders Podcast

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow

The Gambler: How Penniless Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History by William Rempel

Timestamps:

(00:03:53) Belief Documents

(00:08:39) Long-termism trends

(00:11:22) Takeaways from the Berkshire Event

(00:20:02) Helping employees & executives think and behave like an owner

(00:25:44) Being a Buyer vs. Builder

(00:32:36) Culture Index

(00:35:24) The importance of having experience as a founder/operator to succeed at Enduring

(00:44:18) Pareto Prinicples

(00:53:45) Habits, tactics, and learnings from biographies on great founders and companies

(01:08:14) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?

(01:09:34) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?

Ep.177: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Mark Stiving (@Stiving).

My guest on this episode is Mark Stiving. Mark is a pricing expert and consults with companies on developing stronger pricing and product positioning strategies. Our discussion today on pricing is wide-ranging from the purposes of pricing, value-based pricing, segmentation, and who’s responsibility pricing is in an organization. What I loved about this episode is getting a distilled view on pricing based on hundreds of case studies over decades of work, giving tons of great lessons for the CEO listener.

Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. 

Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links

Mark Stiving on LinkedIn

Impact Pricing LLC

Books by Mark Stiving

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

Invest Like the Best: Henry Schuck - Building Zoominfo

Van Westendorp's Price Sensitivity Meter

Timestamps

(00:03:07) Mark’s early career in pricing

(00:11:09) The fundamental purposes of pricing

(00:16:06) How to evaluate your product pricing, the CEOs role, and incentivizing Sales

(00:26:12) Tools for Salespeople

(00:28:14) Teaching Behavior in Sales

(00:30:25) Practices for communicating with customers

(00:36:44) The scientific process for determining the price of something

(00:40:57) When to segment customers

(00:48:30) Positioning plans for pricing within websites and calls

(00:51:59) Companies that have stellar segmentation and pricing pages

(00:53:56) Luxury Pricing

(00:56:12) How to raise prices

(00:59:33) SaaS Contracts

(01:03:49) AI in Pricing

(01:06:18) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?

(01:07:39) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?

Ep.175: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Philip Hussey (@philipdhussey).

My guest on this episode is Philip Hussey, CEO of Outerland, a landscape maintenance, new build, and snow removal business in Cape Cod, owned by Chenmark. Philip took the CEO role through Chenmark's GVP program in January 2022. A concept he spends a lot of time thinking about that we discuss in detail is their focus on their internal customer, i.e., the Outerland team.

They believe by serving and delighting their internal customers, they will do the same towards their external customers. I love the concept and think CEOs of any business can benefit from hearing their philosophy. We also talk about being the high-end service provider and what that looks like, recruiting for high-end and customer service-oriented companies that Phillip admires.

Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. 

Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links:

Outerland

Chenmark

Philip on LinkedIn

Timestamps

(00:03:44) Outerland and executing a rebrand

(00:08:11) Describing the ideal Outerland customer

(00:09:58) How Outerland differentiates themselves

(00:12:26) Building trust with customers

(00:16:37) Recruiting talent

(00:22:16) Internal customers

(00:26:10) Off-season opportunities

(00:28:58) Upsell strategies

(00:32:05) Studying other companies that create “Wow” moments

(00:43:28) Making sure Management gives a damn

(00:46:20) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?

(00:48:05) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?

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Ep.174: Alex (@Aebridgeman) is joined by Alex Thinath (@Alex-Thinath) and Nikita Sunilkumar (@Nikita-Sunilkumar).

This episode is the second in our Launch Series, a partnered series with Pacific Lake Partners and Trilogy Search Partners, focused on starting a search. We walk through the various phases before and after the search begins, with key questions and best practices on how to approach each phase. I’m joined by Alex Thinath, a current searcher backed by both Pacific Lake and Trilogy, and Nikita Sunilkumar, an entrepreneur in residence at Trilogy. In our discussion, we also discuss differentiation as a searcher, choosing investors, key KPIs and metrics to watch, and measuring success.

Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. 

Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links:

Trilogy Search Partners

Pacific Lake Partners

Timestamps

(00:02:22) Introducing Nikita and Alex

(00:04:54) Activities and questions in the 3-12 months leading up to the Search

(00:10:35) Industry research 

(00:14:35) Cap table and investor selections

(00:22:53) Drafting a PPM

(00:32:34) Daily activities and tools to use one month into a Search

(00:41:55) How Searchers should pitch themselves

(00:47:42) Getting into your groove: 6 months into a Search

(00:54:12) KPIs and benchmarks to hit during Search

(00:59:50) Utilizing interns and VAs

(01:05:59) Final thoughts

Ep. 173 Alex Bridgeman (@Aebridgeman) is joined by Clayton Collins (@ClaytonACollins).

Today's episode was recorded live in late April 2023 at SMBash in Austin, Texas, with my boss, Clayton Collins, CEO of HW Media. We opened up talking about how the role came together, but for a short preview, I took a Chief of Staff role with HW Media in March 2022 to help build a media and data company in the housing industry.

It's been an exciting journey with a steep learning curve that I'm thoroughly enjoying. In the episode, we talk about acquiring within your industry, the acquisition journey at HW Media, the case for acquisitions as a compliment to organic growth, what a bad acquisition looks like, and so much more. This event is fantastic for all those looking to pursue entrepreneurship through acquiring a company, and I hope to see you all at next year's event.

Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. 

Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links:

HW Media

Clayton on Twitter

SMBash

Timestamps

(00:03:56) Introducing Clayton 

(00:05:36) The Chief of Staff role

(00:08:26) Growth through Acquisition

(00:11:15) HW Media’s 3 acquisitions

(00:14:53) What Clayton looks for in potential acquisitions

(00:18:47) Evaluating a team inside a company being acquired

(00:20:33) Building relationships in an industry

(00:22:00) Avoiding train wreck acquisitions

(00:26:13) Debt

(00:27:24) Advice for CEOs wanting to build a repeatable acquisition process

#172: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Doug Cook (@DougCook).

This episode was a live recording at a joint event in Chicago between the Booth and Kellogg Business Schools. My guest was Doug Cook, Chairman of several companies throughout Illinois in windows and siding, chimney care, garages, elevators, and more; With windows and siding being his most notable business in Feldco. Doug gives a deeper walkthrough of his very impressive and entrepreneurial career at the start of our conversation. We also talk deeply about empathy and how to develop it as a skill, empathy when building a team and selling to customers, trust and respect as a CEO, lessons that are the hardest to be taught, and much more. Doug is a fantastic person, I think that will come through loud and clear throughout the episode.

Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. 

Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links

Doug on LinkedIn

Feldco

Jack Welch Books

YPO

Timestamps

(00:04:47) Doug’s background and career

(00:12:10) Lessons Learned: Less is more

(00:16:50) Common Skillsets in CEOs

(00:28:09) Developing empathy as a skill

(00:34:30) Finding the line between becoming too friendly with employees

(00:35:14) Developing empathy with customers

(00:37:10) The CEO's role with customers

(00:40:37) Refining a Product line

(00:47:49) Difficulties in Growth through Acquisition

(00:50:37) Building Trust and Respect with Employees

(00:56:33) Are there any CEOs you admire?

(00:58:32) What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?

(00:59:49) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?

Ep. 171: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Justin Nassiri (@JustinNassiri).

My guest today is Justin Nassiri, founder and CEO of Executive Presence, a managed social media service for ambitious CEOs, with a focus on LinkedIn today. We talk about why CEOs should care and focus on building a social media following, and how CEOs can optimize their social presence, including a walkthrough of the most important things to optimize on your LinkedIn profile. We also compare the top platforms for CEOs, LinkedIn and Twitter, and the pros/cons of each and where to start.

Justin also draws on his experience being a founder of two prior companies, Captivate and StoryBox, to be a more effective and balanced CEO in his current business. He has a lot of lessons learned and advice for CEOs looking to expand their reach and improve individual performance. This episode was super interesting and rich with actionable ideas and I think you’ll come away with a lot to apply to your own company.

Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. 

Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links:

Justin on LinkedIn

Executive Presence

Beyond the Uniform Podcast

Thumbtack

SmartShoot

Timestamps

(00:04:05) Justin’s career prior to Executive Presence

(00:09:47) Capturing authenticity in a client

(00:15:04) Thoughts on different Social Media platforms for CEOs

(00:19:06) How to use LinkedIn in a more optimized fashion

(00:23:15) Growth pattern differences between Twitter & LinkedIn

(00:24:58) How to optimize your profile

(00:36:51) How CEOs can benefit from an increased presence on LinkedIn?

(00:41:32) Being Transparent on Social Media

(00:47:42) Lessons learned from founding 3 companies

(00:57:47) Finding work-life balance and creating high-quality work

(01:03:54) What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?

(01:05:10) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?