When It's the Boss Who Wants to Go Remote
Joss Burch is CEO of a refrigeration parts business, Keep Supply, based in Springfield, Mo., where he used to live with his wife and six kids. Early in the pandemic, the family packed up and moved to Europe, where Josh has continued to run the business.
By Loren Feldman
In a recent conversation, Josh Burch, CEO of Keep Supply, talks about why he and his partners decided to open the books to employees, why fast growth can be more challenging than it seems, and how working remotely has changed him as a manager.
Loren Feldman
Tell us a little about Keep Supply. What do you guys do?
Josh Burch
Yeah, we’re located in Springfield, Missouri. We sell parts and equipment in the industrial refrigeration space. So our customers might be food manufacturers, cold-storage facilities. We’ve got some pharmaceutical customers and get a little bit into gas compression, but we are selling parts and providing parts in that space.
Loren Feldman
And where do you get the parts?
Josh Burch
We work with a variety of vendors. So we work directly with a lot of different manufacturers, kind of across the entire industrial refrigeration process, mostly here in the States.
Loren Feldman
Can you give us some sense of what drives the business? What has to happen for you guys to do well?
Josh Burch
A lot of our business over the last few years has been driven by our web presence. So we’ve got a pretty strong presence in the space. We have good search engine placement for a lot of the parts that we sell. And then also, we have a great sales team that spends time getting in front of customers. Our value proposition in this space is, we focus a lot on customer experience. And to be able to do that, well, obviously, we’ve got to be there. We’ve got to be there in front of customers when they need us. So I think between our web presence and our proactive team really trying to spend a lot of time on the phone, helping customers solve problems, that’s what has driven a lot of our success so far.
Loren Feldman
You mentioned your web presence. You have some experience in that industry, don’t you?
Josh Burch
Yes, one of my partners, Chris Langston, and I, prior to purchasing this business, we had a company, and we primarily built websites and web applications for a number of different companies and in one form or fashion helped those companies bring their business online. So in a sense, part of the intrigue in this business was the ability to do for ourselves what we’ve been helping others do for years.
Loren Feldman
When you made that leap, which doesn’t seem like necessarily an obvious one from web development to industrial refrigeration parts, was the thinking kind of what you just said: You know how to sell things. You were doing it for other people. You thought you could do it for yourself. Or did you know much about the refrigeration parts business that you were getting into?
Josh Burch
Yeah, we didn’t know much about it. We looked at it—obviously, it’s not a normal pathway going from web development into refrigeration. But the gentleman we bought the business from had done a great job growing the business, basing it on customer service. And then we had the opportunity to kind of look at the business, look at the numbers, and felt like—based on a lot of variables within the industry—it was a good opportunity for someone to come in and really put a lot of focus on disrupting the customer experience around selling parts in this space.
And we realized that just because of market timing, and a lot of different variables and factors that ultimately looked at it from that perspective, we realized that some of our skill sets—we love to grow a business, push hard, grow a business. I thought there was an opportunity to do that, leverage some skills that we had kind of collectively. So I think when we looked at it, we said, Does this potentially match up, really, regardless of industry? Does this match up with our skill sets? Well, we believe that we can do well and thought that it was a good fit and proceeded that way. I would say, though, that the opportunity, as we got into the business a little bit more, learned more about it, learned more about the customers and how to serve the market, well, we realized that it was maybe a bigger opportunity than we had originally suspected.
Loren Feldman
That’s a nice thing to realize.
Josh Burch
It sure is.
Loren Feldman
Were there things about the industry that you didn’t know going in that turned out to be important?
Josh Burch
Well, certainly there’s a learning curve. Just the principle of going from the kind of business that we were before, where we were primarily kind of trading out hours for dollars, moving into a place where you’re selling parts, there’s a lot to learn there. I think some of the biggest challenge is just trying to learn a lot about the habits of the industry and the way that things had been done—and then trying to try to figure out how can we continue to push things forward and try to kind of innovate around some of these ideas, but at the same time, make sure that we meet the industry and the customers where they’re at.
Loren Feldman
You mentioned the food industry. Obviously, the early days of the pandemic were very disruptive for the food industry. Was it disruptive for your business as well?
Josh Burch
I mean, it certainly was. I think it was disruptive for just about everybody. Within the food industry, people have to continue to eat, but we saw a lot of larger projects that the companies were working on get put on hold. Now obviously, there’s some necessity around the products that we sell, so it certainly didn’t completely dry up or anything like that. But as it related to our growth trajectory, at least the one that we were on, we certainly saw some fears and some hesitation come out of that.
Loren Feldman
Did there come a point where the disruption actually became a positive force for your business?
Josh Burch
Yes, I think so. What did happen over the course of the pandemic is that it caused a lot of stress, put a lot of strain on the supply chain. And I think what that meant was that there were a lot of folks out there who were buying the portfolio of parts that we sell. We’ve been doing that the same way for a very long time, and when they were unable to get those parts, because of the strain on that supply chain, they were looking for alternatives, other folks who might be able to help in that situation. And having a strong web presence, like we did, I think that’s where we saw increased traffic on our site. And we were able to build, start relationships, and help people out as much as we possibly could.
Loren Feldman
What impact did the pandemic have on you personally?
Josh Burch
Obviously, it changed the way that we worked, just like everyone else. For a period of time, everyone was working from home. Fortunately, we had some great systems in place to allow us to do that without a lot of disruption from our day to day. For me personally, and my family, kind of going through that changed the way that I worked quite a bit. And ultimately, coming out of the pandemic, we made a decision, and we sold our home, and a lot of our belongings that we had, and ultimately started to travel as a family—because I was working remotely anyway and continued down that path. And I certainly wouldn’t point just to the pandemic, but it kind of lit the fire a little bit. And so for me, personally, made a big change. We have been traveling a lot, kind of going place to place, working as we go.
Loren Feldman
Where have you been traveling?
Josh Burch
We have primarily been in Europe, kind of bouncing around a number of different places we’ve been able to see, spend time. It’s been a few months here and there and a lot of great places, spent time in the U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, just kind of the European tour, so to speak.
Loren Feldman
Has it been as much fun as it sounds?
Josh Burch
It’s been really great. My wife and I, we actually have six children. And so—
Loren Feldman
Wow.
Josh Burch
Yeah, so five of them have traveled through with us. We’re down to four now. We lost one to university, to college. So two are in the states in college right now. But our four boys have been, they’ve had a great time. They’ve seen a lot of things. They’ve learned a lot of things. It is barely organized chaos, but we laugh a lot, and get to see a lot of things. So it’s been good.
Loren Feldman
Did your kids buy into it from the beginning?
Josh Burch
You know, it’s a funny thing. They had some concerns when we started, but they have been incredibly adaptable. And they’re—if I can brag on them—I mean, they’re really good kids. We’ve dealt with all kinds of things, delays and troubles and things like that. And they usually kind of go through it with a smile. So now that we’re here, I mean, they kind of like the movement. I thought they would probably, at least one of them, would miss their bed, miss their house terribly. They could have made it much harder on us, that’s for sure.
Loren Feldman
So what impact has this had on the way you’ve run the business?
Josh Burch
Um, that’s a great question. I think, Well, fortunately, you know, Again, I’ve got a great group of partners. We’ve got great leaders who’ve really stepped in and done a great job and do a great job day to day. I think it’s made me think more about how I can spend my time, make sure that we’re creating opportunities for others to step in and lead initiatives. So it’s made that a much easier process and a good process, and they’ve all stepped up and done better than I would have. It really has made me thoughtful. It was difficult in the beginning, I’ll say that. Because I’m kind of a—my nature is sort of a show-up-first-and-leave-last kind of a nature. So it was very difficult for me not being there. But it’s made me be very intentional, I guess, about the way that I spend my time, intentional about letting others step in and take the reins on things. So it has certainly matured my perspective on some things.
Loren Feldman
I think you said that initially, when the pandemic hit everybody worked remotely. Have most people come back to an office? Or are lots of people working remotely?
Josh Burch
No, we do. We do have some people who live and work remotely, but the vast majority of our folks are back in the office. We didn’t work completely remotely for a long period of time. We kind of gravitated back toward the office kind of as soon as we could. But we did have a period where we were all working remotely, communicating using lots of tools like Slack and things like that. But we’re mostly back in the office now.
Loren Feldman
And has that felt comfortable for you? Are there times when you wish you could be there in the room?
Josh Burch
No, I think there are certainly times when—again, I think most of the time it works. It works pretty well. Obviously, you’re going to deal with technical challenges and things like that that are not optimal. We are certainly just like everyone else. We have those issues from time to time. And I have been able to go back and forth. Certainly there are times that it would be easier to be there.
Loren Feldman
Does it ever cause any tension? Have there been times when people don’t like the fact that you are wandering around Europe while they’re working in Springfield?
Josh Burch
I’m sure there have been. I mean, just to be honest. Not that anybody has said anything to me openly, but I’m sure that there are times we’re working on things that require a lot of dialogue, that require a lot of thought, where they’re probably thinking to themselves, “Man, it would be a lot easier to do all this if we were together in a room.” But they’re very gracious and if it’s been a big issue, I’ve not heard about it, so I guess I’ll just be naive to it.
Loren Feldman
Do you have any plans to come back?
Josh Burch
Yeah, I think so. As an example, we’ve got some annual planning that we do as part of our, as part of our practice of the Great Game of Business that we do, and some things that we roll out specifically in December. So we’ll come back and be in the area, at least through the first part of February and maybe beyond. It’s a funny thing. I used to, in addition to sort of be in the first-in-the-office, last-to-leave kind of mentality, I would have never thought I would have been in a position where I wouldn’t know our exact plan, where we were going to be, and all those sorts of things for the foreseeable future. But one thing that this has done is help me to kind of sit back and say, We’ll probably figure it out, and it will probably work out. So there’s a little bit of ambiguity as we get into February, March of next year, but we’ll figure it out as we get closer.
Loren Feldman
If you were to come back permanently, and start going back into the office, again, are there things that this experience has taught you that would lead you to do things differently than you might have before?
Josh Burch
Probably so. Probably just trying to be really intentional with the time. You spend time in the right way, spend time with the right folks when it makes sense. Probably what I would have to really focus on going back there is just saying, Hey, let’s continue to let other people that are doing a great job drive initiatives and do those sorts of things. Probably before, I would have been a little less aware of how often I was getting in the way, or the potential to get in the way. So I think coming back, I would at least start with a lot of intentionality around that. Now, would I fall back into business as usual over time? That is certainly a possibility.
Loren Feldman
It’s interesting. You mentioned the notion of making sure that you hear other people and listen to other ideas. That’s kind of the principle behind the Great Game of Business. You’re right there in Springfield, the home of SRC, birthplace of open book management. How did you come to start practicing the Great Game?
Josh Burch
So back when we had our web development business—if my memory serves correctly—back in 2010, we were invited over to talk to the Great Game about their website and about the possibility of rebuilding their website. We were learning about it for the first time, and we quickly became pretty fascinated with it. And then they invited us as a part of that project, wanting us to really understand the premise of the game and really get to know it so that we could organize the information on the website. And so they invited us to go to a two-day, which was kind of a crash course on learning.
And through that process, by the end of it, having the opportunity to listen to such great speakers and hear stories from other companies who were practicing the game, we were kind of at the place where we were like, there’s just no question. This is the way that we want to run our business. It kind of was like, I don’t know why you wouldn’t run your business this way. This is how we felt coming out of it, quite honestly. And so we started.
So from that, we put together kind of our first scoreboard, which was absolutely terrible. But fortunately, we had a great team that was willing to work with us and help us along the way. And we just kind of progressed and learned more and trial and error, and got better.
Loren Feldman
Did you implement it yourself?
Josh Burch
We’ve done a lot of it ourselves, but we’ve also worked with coaches over the course of time. So it’s of been a mix of both trial and error, kind of bootstrapping it and grinding it out that way, and then also getting some coaching. But I can tell you, that the coaching that we have had—we probably would have gotten a lot farther, a lot faster, if we had implemented a coach over the course of time, but I guess we’re a little bit hard-headed that way.
We’re getting some coaching right now. We’ve been such a fast-growth business over the last few years, trying to really understand how to implement the game in that type of environment and be successful when so much is changing, and you’re learning so quickly. You’re having to shift priorities and reprioritize and constantly take a look at some of the barriers to growth and to scale. We did a lot of work on our own in our planning process last year, and we overcomplicated it, to be quite honest. We bit off more than we could chew.
Loren Feldman
When you talk about overcomplicating it, are you talking the planning and forecasting?
Josh Burch
Yeah, I think we fell victim to trying to plan too much and in too much detail over a long period of time—and trying to plan strategically down to a pretty granular level as opposed to realizing, Hey, last year we almost doubled in size of our people. So we had a lot of new people coming in that required a lot of learning, required us to make some shifts in our model, and new managers, and all these different kinds of things. I think we didn’t leave enough room for the adjustment that was going to be required, because it’s been such a big learning year for us.
Loren Feldman
Did you know that kind of growth was coming?
Josh Burch
Yeah, we did know that. You know, we love growth. We love to push hard when we have an opportunity that we can kind of see in front of us. We want to approach it pretty aggressively. So just looking again, looking at the opportunity, looking at the trajectory, looking at what we thought we could accomplish and customers we thought we could serve. That is one really great benefit of the planning that we did, that we knew it was coming. Talk about chaos. It could have pretty chaotic.
Loren Feldman
A lot of the Great Game is based on the idea of bringing people together: the huddles, talking things out. What difference has that made for you working remotely? Has the Great Game been able to help with that?
Josh Burch
Oh, it’s incredibly helpful. It really creates a sense of, weirdly, a sense of togetherness, a sense of understanding. We’re looking at the numbers. We’re not going to miss anything. Nothing’s slipping through the cracks. And I think certainly, being remote, you could feel that. If we weren’t doing those things, if we weren’t intentional about our huddles, if we weren’t intentional about our forecasting, it could be a pretty lonely place, being remote.
