Beyond Trust Falls: An Event Planner Plans an Offsite

Introduction:

This week, Shawn Busse, Jay Goltz, and Jennifer Kerhin talk about what it takes to plan and execute an employee retreat—especially in our post-Covid, more-remote environment. Do you go offsite? Do you take everybody? Do you delegate the planning? Do you try to measure the ROI? Jennifer tells us about the interesting responses she got when she encouraged her employees at her retreat to ask her anything. Shawn explains why he let his leadership team do the planning—and didn’t set a budget. Jay, meanwhile, offers a slightly different perspective: “My company retreat,” he tells us, “is I cut back on my advertising. That’s my retreat.” Plus: How well does The E-Myth hold up as a playbook for business owners? Is it still relevant? Or was it written for a type of business that is far less prevalent today? And Jay tells us what he thinks of Wayfair opening a massive brick-and-mortar furniture store right down the expressway from his furniture store.

— Loren Feldman

Guests:

Shawn Busse is CEO of Kinesis.

Jay Goltz is CEO of The Goltz Group.

Jennifer Kerhin is CEO of SB Expos and Events.

Producer:

Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word.

Full Episode Transcript:

Loren Feldman:
Welcome, Shawn, Jay, and Jennifer. It’s great to have you here. As it happens, coincidentally, I think, we haven’t heard from either Shawn or Jennifer in a little while—in part, because you both had employee retreats recently, which is something I’ve kind of been curious about anyway. Obviously, there was a period after the pandemic where very few, if any, companies were doing retreats, and I’m sort of wondering to what extent they’re back and whether they’ve changed, whether the goals and the way they’re used has changed. Maybe Jennifer, could you start and tell us what you guys did?

Jennifer Kerhin:
Sure, absolutely. It was extraordinary. We’re a fully remote company, and because of that, we’re on a lot of Zoom calls. And those are fantastic and efficient, but it’s hard to develop camaraderie. It’s hard to do some training. It’s hard to have, when you’re sitting in a room, that osmosis and that feeling of give and take and brainstorming. We often go on show sites for our clients for conventions, and so some of that camaraderie, depending on the team you’re working at, is developed there. But we decided last year that we were going to put into our budget a full staff retreat. And it was tremendous.

We did four days. The first day was what we call in our line of work—we’re convention planners—the general session. Everybody was in one room. We had some invited speakers. We had a facilitator and a theme on that general session day. Then the next day was what we call department day. So each of the departments got together and had a series of goals for that meeting. The third day was intradepartment day so that the different departments could meet with each other for like two hours and talk about handoffs, any challenges that they’re facing, or just learn about the other departments. And then they all went home that night.

The next day was our senior management team. We had a full day of management training, as well as planning for the future. Sprinkled throughout were team-building exercises, lots of attendee engagement, a lot of prizes. Throughout, I think, a couple of the big things we did that were fun for engagement.

The first one was we went to a conference center, which is very different than a hotel. And a conference center, why that’s unique and perfect for a staff retreat, is it combines the hotel rooms, the meeting rooms, and food and beverage, because there’s a cafeteria in the room and they’re all-in-one price in one location. So all of my employees were captive. They didn’t go out to a different restaurant. But it was so easy for meeting planning and so easy for all of them there. That’s what they do all day. Nobody had to think. You got up, you had breakfast, you went to the event, you could have lunch in the cafeteria that fit your day. It was really perfect.

But we did two things. One was a culinary challenge. We divided into teams of four, and they had fruits and vegetables. They had to create some sort of vehicle that would go down the slide and the fastest team won prizes. So that was a big hit. We put people who never work with each other, so they had to do some team-building. We gave out prizes for that. It was just a lot of fun.

The second thing we did was red, yellow, and green Post-its, and so they were given a notebook and a stack of red, yellow and green Post-its. And throughout the couple of days, they had to write down if they had an aha moment of something they should stop doing. That was written on the red Post-it. Something that they had to think and consider, that went on the yellow Post-it. Something they should start doing, they had not yet done, on the green Post-it. And on the last day, in the last hour, everybody had to pick the top one. And we put them on those giant large poster boards. Everybody put one red, and the next poster board had the yellows and the greens. We took pictures, and we’re gonna hold everybody accountable for next year to see how they did for next year’s retreat.

And then the final was the blue Post-it. They all got blue Post-its. We had swag bags, right? They got swag bags, tons of company swag. But the blue Post-it was, we did an ask-me-anything. So that’s what they could do throughout the three days. They could write it down anonymously on a blue Post-it, put it in a jar at the back of the room, and then I answered all of the questions that were anonymous from the staff. It was really eye-opening, their questions, and I think they got a lot out of it.

So that’s us in a nutshell. We did a survey beforehand to ask what their top needs were, and we incorporated it into the programming. And then we’ve done a post-retreat survey to see how we did. And everyone said it far, far exceeded their expectations. And they were incredibly happy we did it. So that was a long answer, Loren, but I hope that helps explain what we did.

Loren Feldman:
Absolutely. That’s a lot. I have some questions. I’m sure Shawn and Jay do, too. A couple of things first. You told us about this before you held it, and you told us where the conference center was, but remind me. Where is it?

Jennifer Kerhin:
It was the National Conference Center in Leesburg, Virginia. They did an amazing, amazing job. It’s right by Dulles Airport.

Loren Feldman:
And you said this was full staff? You invited everybody?

Jennifer Kerhin:
Yeah, 31 staff members came.

Jay Goltz:
Wow.

Loren Feldman:
Can you give us an idea of what that cost?

Jay Goltz:
Wait, let me guess. Let me guess. 40 grand?

Jennifer Kerhin:
50.

Jay Goltz:
Okay.

Jennifer Kerhin:
Yep. You were right on: $50,000. That included we had two consultants come in. Lots of prizes.

Jay Goltz:
Okay. I didn’t include those.

Jennifer Kerhin:
Yeah, we did a poll at the end for best engagement. You know, we gave away probably $2,000 in prizes throughout the four days.

Loren Feldman:
Jen, I’m curious about the blue Post-it questions that you got. Of what kind of nature were they? You know, were they tough questions? Or were they silly questions? What did you get?

Jennifer Kerhin:
It was a combination. Some of them I expected. There were a lot about: When is the 401(k) plan coming into effect? And so, I signed off. It just takes a while to set up in the back end. So we’ve set it up at the end of August to have the planning conversations. So there were a lot about that. There were simple ones about dress code. They talked about dress code. There were some really good ones.

Loren Feldman:
Is that dress code when you guys are on site, because you’re remote?

Jennifer Kerhin:
Yes, that’s right. Well, and even when we’re remote, I have a requirement that when you’re on Zoom calls with a client, you can’t wear shirts that have logos or sayings. They have to be empty, right? I don’t want anything from the waist up that’s visible on Zoom. I have a dress code for that.

Loren Feldman:
That makes sense.

Jennifer Kerhin:
Yep, and then on site. One of the questions that was really interesting, they asked what my succession plan was. I thought that was really interesting. [Laughter] Yeah, right?

Loren Feldman:
Was that from your number two?

Jennifer Kerhin:
No, no, no, but I think it had to do with—some of them are fearful I’m going to sell the company. I got great feedback. They are inspired by my vision. So that was fantastic feedback. But then they’re fearful. They don’t want to put in a lot of effort if they think I’m going to sell it next year. So it was less succession, and more, I think the question went toward: Am I selling? And I said, “No, I’m not selling.”

Jay Goltz:
Is it possible that came from your husband? [Laughter]

Jennifer Kerhin:
Could be. Yeah, that’s a great point. I’m trying to think—but those are the ones that stand out to me, that I thought were insightful and interesting. And, you know, some questions, very few, about the future of the industry. But one that stood out was, “What do you think is happening with hybrid events?” That one we had a good conversation about, because I feel very strongly that the word hybrid. It’s still happening. It’s just changing what the new normal is. And hybrid means a lot of different things to a lot of different clients. But it’s still happening. So we talked a little bit about an industry trend.

Loren Feldman:
Was this the first time you’ve done something as ambitious as this?

Jennifer Kerhin:
Absolutely. So we’ve grown a lot. In 2019, we had six employees, and I did a retreat. But it was six employees, and the quality and ability—they were fantastic employees—but it was a very different size company. We’ve quadrupled in size. And so that’s sitting around a living room talking about training, right? Not big picture conversations and not planning.

The management training was really fantastic. We had a consultant come in, and one of the questions was, “As the company grows, what are the opportunities for people who are coordinators and managers?” So also seeing, what’s their personal growth plan in this company? They were really good questions. They really thought about them.

Loren Feldman:
It sounds like somebody put a lot of thought into this. Was it you or did you delegate planning? How did this come to be?

Jennifer Kerhin:
I ran it this year because I had a vision of what this would be, but I’m turning it over to my meetings department and my senior leaders. I had asked for different thoughts and advice. So the person who thought of the surveys, great idea! Because we pulled information in it. One of my other directors came up with the Post-its. They all came with ideas.

I drove it, for the vision, but I’m handing it off next year to our director of meetings. I also drove the location at the conference center, because I think conference centers are really great locations for retreats. It just makes it easier. The ask me anything, I think, was just as a result from Reddit. And, oh, there was a great question that I thought was really interesting, because we have a lot of people under 30. They said, “Why won’t you allow us to discuss our salaries with each other?” [Laughter] Great question, right? And I said, “When did I ever tell you you’re not allowed to discuss salaries?”

Shawn Busse:
Wow, that’s amazing.

Jennifer Kerhin:
And they all looked at me. And I said, “I legally cannot tell you not to discuss salaries. All I can tell is, if you’re a manager responsible for people under you, you can’t discuss their salaries. But feel free to discuss your salaries. But if you do, please know that you’re possibly opening Pandora’s box—that either you’re going to be unhappy, or they’re going to be unhappy. And be prepared for that. I can’t stop you.” And there was a lot of conversation under that. It was very interesting, because the people over 35 are like, “I’m not discussing. Why would you discuss your salary?” And the people under 30—

Loren Feldman:
They’ve already shared it.

Jennifer Kerhin:
Yeah, right. That was a very interesting question.

Jay Goltz:
That was good advice you gave them, because you’re right. It’s Pandora’s box. You can’t get it back in the box after it’s out.

Jennifer Kerhin:
That’s right. That’s right.

Jay Goltz:
All right, I have two questions. One is, you don’t normally work with all these people face-to-face. Were there some people out of that 31, after the three days, who you were less than impressed with?

Jennifer Kerhin:
Yes.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, I would assume so: they didn’t speak up enough … Okay, and the second one is—this could just be me, of course—but I cringe whenever I hear “anonymous” anything. Because I want to have a company where people are grownups and go ahead and stand behind their question. And did you think about not making it anonymous?

My argument is, boy, if they haven’t got the self-confidence or whatever to go ahead and ask a question and put their name on it… I don’t really like anonymous stuff. I just find it to be a lack of courage. I just don’t like the corporate culture part of that. What do you think of that?

Jennifer Kerhin:
That is a very interesting thought. It never occurred to me not to make it anonymous. I wanted people to feel comfortable asking me anything. And I answered every single question in there. And I was worried, especially [about] the people under 30. The people that have been here for a while, people who are older, I don’t think would have a problem putting their name. I wanted the younger people to feel comfortable that, “Look, I’m the CEO. I will answer it. You may not like my answer.”

One of them, about the dress code, I said straight up, “You may not like my answer, but this is my company. And I have a vision for our brand. And our brand is what you wear on show site. And that’s final.” So I wanted them comfortable. Honestly, Jay, it never occurred to me not to make it anonymous.

Jay Goltz:
Well, the other thing you could do next time is do it the same way. And then at the end, like the dress code, say, “Would anybody like to own that question?” And just give them an opportunity. Say, “Yeah, that was my question.” Showing them, like, “Yeah, go ahead. Like, it’s okay to put your name on it.” Like I said, I just have a problem with people hiding in the shadows.

Jennifer Kerhin:
You know, if you’re 23 or 24, and you’re really smart, curious, and I want you to grow your career here at this company, I’m okay if they’re too afraid to ask in front of everybody. I’m okay with it being anonymous.

Jay Goltz:
For that age, maybe you’re right. I got it. Yeah.

Loren Feldman:
Jay, the succession question, it seems to me, might fall into that category. Somebody might not want to stand up in front of everyone and say, “So are you going to sell the business?”

Jay Goltz:
So my combo play would simply be: If you don’t feel comfortable, you don’t have to put your name on it. But I certainly would appreciate it, so I could have a follow-up conversation with you. So put your name on it if you’re comfortable. If not, you don’t have to. But I think that’s a good compromise that at least they know that they could have put their name on it.

Shawn Busse:
Jennifer, speaking of these hard questions, you said that they were really excited about your vision. And that they also wanted to know if you’re going to sell the business, and you said that you weren’t going to sell the business. What did you fill that space with, in terms of where the organization is headed and what your plans are?

Jennifer Kerhin:
So I told them, I said: Listen, I’m 55. You have me for five to six, seven years. At some point, I do have to think about retirement. And that may not be full-fledged retirement. That may be I step back from the day-to-day and just provide strategic vision. That may mean I acquire another company and get a president. That may mean I decide to sell. I don’t know. But here’s where I see the future of this company. I sort of pivoted to how big I see the growth plan for it, what we plan to do, and I want you to be a part of it.

So what I tried to do is: Look, I’m here. We have now made a small company into a strong foundation and amazing possibilities for the future. I want them to still believe in that. And I’m here to see it to the next stage. But the next stage may or may not include me full-time, but the vision will continue. We’re going to stay with association conventions, and what we call non-dues revenue. We’re going to stay in that world. And if you want to be a part of that, we’d love you to be a part of it. We’re not going to change that. But you know, the next phase, I have five years, I guess, to figure out the next phase.

Jay Goltz:
Good for you.

Shawn Busse:
It was honest, too. Because in five years, if you did sell, you could look back and go, ‘You know, this was one of the things that’s possible, and it happened.” And there won’t be a sense of betrayal, hopefully, at that point.

Loren Feldman:
Did you try to reassure them in some way that, if you did sell, your vision would still prevail?

Jennifer Kerhin:
You know what, there’s probably only two people in the company who need that assurance. The rest of them, they have not been with me for a long time. They don’t know me. So the company stands on its own. We’re past the point where myself, as the founder, is the point for the entire company and the vision.

There is a concept out there—and Shawn might be able to talk to this more—about making the owner, the founder, the brand of the company around them. And I have tried very hard not to make it about me—to make it about the company and the people that work here, so there’s not a cult of personality for me here. Is there a little bit, because I started it? Sure. But I’m trying to actively get away from that. So I think there’s probably only a couple of people. Most of the people really are very okay with this. There was not any pushback, to be honest. The pushback was a little bit more about the dress code. [Laughter]

Jay Goltz:
I think you’re 98-percent there. Can I just give you some input about what you just said?

Jennifer Kerhin:
Please. Absolutely.

Jay Goltz:
You said something I would never say to employees. You said just now, “It’s not about you, blah, blah, blah,” but then, when they asked about the dress code, you just said, “Well, it’s my company.”

Jennifer Kerhin:
I know. Good point.

Jay Goltz:
I would have skipped the “my company” thing and just said, “It’s not our brand. That’s our brand: professionalism.” You don’t need to throw it—they all know it’s your company. I’ve never in all these years told my employees, “Well, here’s what we’re gonna do—because it’s my company.” I just think it’s a bad kickoff.

Jennifer Kerhin:
You know what, Jay? That’s a very, very good insight. And what’s interesting, I think that’s the only time I slightly felt defensive. The entire time when they were asking me about salaries, succession plans, I think that’s the only time. And you’re right. Now that I hear you say that, you’re right. I should not have said that.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, I’m glad I’m still providing some value in my old age. [Laughter]

Jennifer Kerhin:
Yes, you are.

Loren Feldman:
All right, Shawn. It’s your turn. Can you top that?

Shawn Busse:
No, I think we need to move on. [Laughter] I mean, it’s really impressive. You know, when you ask an event planner to organize an event, it’s pretty impressive. So that’s awesome, Jennifer. Ours is quite a bit different. I’ve been doing off-sites for, oh, jeez, I don’t know… I probably started doing them 15 years ago or so. And I think that changed pretty dramatically as a result of being a hybrid company and remote work. So in the early days of off-sites, it was really more about planning and setting goals and getting aligned on what we’re going to do over the coming year. And then, usually, there was some sort of fun activity or something like that.

And in the last, I don’t know, three or four years, I’ve really pivoted from an emphasis on “What’s the plan for the coming year?” to building relationships with each other. And I found that, because we are working much more remote—we have employees who are kind of flung across the country, like Jennifer—that the importance of building camaraderie and, as I say, vibe, is just way, way, way higher than it used to be. And so our emphasis is much more on that.

The kinds of things we did were, on the first day, we did kind of a fun process where we broke into groups of three or four. And then each group did a presentation on what they saw was important to the company and what mattered in the coming years. And the group that I was part of, we talked a lot about leadership, and how the kind of work we’re doing now, as we’ve moved from doing a lot of brand and brand strategy work into more organizational development, leadership structure, even like what does the future of the company look like and how’s it get shaped?

As we do more and more of that work, we’ve come to realize that the persona of the leader really, really matters. And we could do brand work pretty well with a leader who wasn’t the strongest leader. But we’re learning that it’s really hard to do this other type of work with leaders who aren’t really in it to win it. And so, we talked a lot about that. And we talked a lot about: How do we get the right types of leaders as our customers, so that we can do the best work we can possibly do?

Because the interesting thing about being a professional-service provider is you can have two clients that are really similar in size and revenue, and even maybe kind of a similar business model. You can have the same team working with those two clients, and one client experiences tremendous results and the other client is dissatisfied and gets nothing out of it. That’s just kind of an extreme case. But so what’s the difference? You know, if you’ve got the same team doing the work, if you’ve got a similar process, it often boils down to the leader’s investment in the effort. And so that was something we spent a lot of time on. And it was really, really valuable when we started talking about what makes a really good customer. And how do we message and communicate to those types of businesses?

And then the other thing we did that I think is really important and often missed in an offsite—I think Jennifer did a good job of this—is that we had activities that weren’t just like, trust falls, or whitewater rafting, or jumping out of airplanes—all of which we have done in the past. But they were more like creative problem solving, kind of coming together to do things as a group, and that aren’t necessarily related to the work.

So Jennifer’s example was like this cooking event. We did some stuff with a ceramic studio, where we all kind of worked on these pottery exercises. It was super fun. So that idea of people coming together, doing something creative that gets them solving problems together in a way that’s really outside of the business helps expose employees to each other in a new way and kind of a vulnerable way. And I found that that type of activity, which on its surface was like, “Oh, you went to a clay studio. That’s so frivolous.” It’s actually really deeper than that, in terms of finding out who people really are.

And so our emphasis was really, I mean, I would say 10X on bonding and connection and communication, and a lot less about solving the problems for the business in it in a real plan-oriented way. And I think that was the right call, because the team really needed that connection.

Jennifer Kerhin:
Shawn, remind me how large your staff is.

Shawn Busse:
We’re 11.

Jennifer Kerhin:
And how long were you guys together?

Shawn Busse:
Two and a half days? Yeah.

Jennifer Kerhin:
So two dinners? Two full days and then two dinners?

Shawn Busse:
Yeah.

Loren Feldman:
Did you go somewhere? Or did you do it out of your office?

Shawn Busse:
A combination. So day one, we met at the office. We did the kind of creative presentation project, which looked a lot like making art and presenting stuff. And that was maybe three or four hours of time together. And then we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant here in Portland that’s got great food—much, much better than Chicago. [Laughter]

Jay Goltz:
Dream on.

Shawn Busse:
So, yeah, and then the next day, I think we went out to lunch. We had the ceramic thing. We went out to dinner. So just a lot of time together. And I think you need that to offset the amount of video time together, because I think video time doesn’t move a relationship forward in the same way being in person does.

Jennifer Kerhin:
Shawn, what were your call-to-actions afterwards?

Shawn Busse:
You know, we didn’t have any. The team really wanted to emphasize connection and reinvigoration. You know, I didn’t do any of the planning for this one. I’m in a stage of my career where I’m letting people do work that I typically would do. And that was the message that the leadership team came to me with: We really want this to be an emphasis on connection and shared celebration. And I let them do it, and I think it was absolutely the right decision.

Jay Goltz:
Did they ask for your succession plan?

Shawn Busse:
We’re real transparent here. My goal is to turn Kinesis into an employee-owned company in some way or the other, and I’m not quite sure what that path is going to be. But yeah, that didn’t come up, salaries don’t come up. We do open-book management. We have transparent salaries. So it’s a different need.

But in the past, I’ve had offsites that are very, very similar to what Jennifer outlined. And so I think we’ve just really shifted, in terms of this one, what it’s going to be. Now, we facilitate offsites for our clients. We’ve led them, and many of them often look a lot more planning, plan, plan, plan. So this is new for me. But I support what they decided to do.

Loren Feldman:
Did you give your planning team a budget?

Shawn Busse:
Nope.

Loren Feldman:
Did they exceed it?

Shawn Busse:
Nope. I don’t even know what they spent.

Loren Feldman:
Really?

Shawn Busse:
Nope. Didn’t ask those questions. I just trusted them to use their best judgment.

Loren Feldman:
Interesting.

Shawn Busse:
Yeah, I mean, I run things differently than a lot of businesses. I think there’s probably infinite money you can spend on these types of things. But I think you can spend a lot of money, and it’s still well, well, well worth it. You know, if you look at the data, employee engagement has not moved at all. Like, it’s terrible. Employee engagement across the board is terrible. And I’ve just been thinking a lot about that lately. Like, why—

Loren Feldman:
You’re not talking about at your business. You’re talking about in general.

Shawn Busse:
I’m talking about in general.

Jay Goltz:
Where does that data come from? Where did you get that?

Shawn Busse:
Gallup. Gallup has been tracking it forever. Like a third of employees are just disengaged.

Jay Goltz:
Wait, do you not think there’s a difference between a large, publicly-held corporation and small business, as far as engagement?

Shawn Busse:
Oh, for sure. I know the data is skewed on that one, in terms of where they’re getting the information from. But I also think that a lot of small businesses take their cues, whether deliberately or inadvertently, from large corporations. If you think about business books, and where the advice that comes out of them comes from, it’s usually from research and academia that’s done on large corporations. And so what happens is, the way things are run and the way things are done often are these kind of trickle-down versions of large corporations, hierarchical organizations, stratification, salary secrecy, etc, etc, etc. And so I am convinced, the longer I get into my career, and the more I watch things, and the more we do work, that the untapped potential in organizations is in the people. And how do you invest in people in ways that get them to be really excited and working, really putting their all into it? And I’ve seen that with our company.

Jay Goltz:
I agree with your conclusion. No, I agree that getting people more engaged is where the payoff is. I’m not at all convinced that the reason why these companies are doing it is because they read some book from an academic or they follow something. I think it’s more natural—they just haven’t figured it out. I don’t know that they’re gleaning this from books and they’re bringing a big business into it.

Shawn Busse:
Let me give you an example, Jay. Most entrepreneurs have read the book, The E-Myth. Great example, right?

Jay Goltz:
Okay, true.

Shawn Busse:
The E-Myth has some wonderful guidance in it. It talks about the different types of entrepreneurs and what motivates people to become an entrepreneur. And that piece I actually tend to agree with. But there’s also a lot of guidance in the book about running your company and making it all about systems. And one of the core precepts in it is: You want your business to be like McDonald’s, where an employee can not show up for work, and you can replace them with another employee right away. That’s a general corporate mentality: We don’t want any one individual to be critical to the business, because that’s a threat. And so that book, if you talk to almost any entrepreneur, they’ve read it. And most entrepreneurs are like, “I loved The E-Myth. I loved The E-Myth.”

Jay Goltz:
Eh, I think that’s an exaggeration. First of all, how old is that book? 30 years old?

Shawn Busse:
It was written in ‘95.

Jay Goltz:
I certainly don’t think that most entrepreneurs have read it. Some.

Jennifer Kerhin:
You know what’s interesting? I read The E-Myth, and I absolutely bought into that years ago. And I have come to the conclusion that what we do as a company—and this staff retreat was a turning point—is the people who are doing the best in this company are the people who are curious and who don’t want to work in a system-driven company. I have revised the type of hiring I need to do. You need to understand events or want to be in events, of course. But I want people who are curious, and that is antithetical to that book. And I don’t think I even realized it, Shawn, till you said it.

Because when I was floundering, I didn’t know what to do. Someone gave me a The E-Myth. I read it. I was like, “Oh, great. It’s a playbook.” Right? And I’m like, “Okay, it has some good points that you need some systems.” But if you try—at least [with] my type of company—and make it so system-driven, I need more curious people to make decisions on the fly and to be more thoughtful and creative than I need systems-driven people. And that’s so interesting that you brought that up, but it’s a little aha moment in my head right now.

Jay Goltz:
Listen, I can’t argue with any of that. And believe me, when I read it, there were a couple of concepts in it, but that was about it. But I can name you 10 books I’ve read that—how about this one? Can you explain the The One Minute Manager, how that turned into this hot book? Did you read it, The One Minute Manager?

Shawn Busse:
That’s a little too old for me, I think.

Jennifer Kerhin:
After reading The E-Myth, I didn’t have any systems, and I swung the pendulum too far. And what I need to do is level it out and come back to the middle. You need to have some systems. You cannot run a company that’s a consulting agency of independent consultants. But then you can’t—I’m not a manufacturing company that’s a system-driven company. And even people in manufacturing need to be problem-solvers, and curiosity, the designers and everything. So The E-Myth goes a little bit too far—at least, I took that premise too far, and I need to recalibrate.

Shawn Busse:
Most people do. It’s not just The E-Myth. You know, if you look at a lot of [Jim] Collins’ books, which I used to love, love, love, love, love, Good to Great, etc., etc. If you dig deeper, once you’ve had some lived experiences and run a business long enough, you start to see cracks in the foundation of these business books—and of larger business principles. And I’m not just saying this from a theoretical case. I’ve seen this in the journey of running Kinesis and then helping clients.

And so as an example, for a long time, as a consultancy, I was given the message of: The most important thing is utilization rates—meaning the time your employees work on client work—and getting that number as high as possible, and to reward the people doing the most amount of work on customer work. And I ran that, I ran that, I ran that, and then sure enough: “Wow, look at this. I’m profitable now, like I never was before. And the profits keep going up, keep going up, going up.”

But then I started to see all these weird side effects. And I’m like, “Wait, the books don’t talk about this stuff.” Like people being really anxious, people whose rates weren’t as high as other people feeling insufficient and insecure, people quitting because of the anxiety created from these things. And in hindsight, what I’ve come to realize is that the overarching concepts in business—like setting aside The E-Myth—but most business is to build your business like a machine or a factory. And that makes sense, because our heritage is in industrial manufacturing. I mean, we’ve been doing it really well for many, many years.

But we’re in a time of not only service-based businesses, but volatility and massive change and changing customer desires. So what you actually need are not people who can do the same thing over and over again. You need people who are dynamic and can adapt. And even Jay, your business, which tends to do a lot of the same things over and over again, I’m guessing a big part of your success is that you help your people understand the value of being nimble to your customers and what goes on.

Jay Goltz:
I 100 percent agree with every single thing you’re saying. And I would add that the problem is also to compete with big corporations that have the systems. You do have to be nimble and innovative and find opportunities. That is the core competency of a successful entrepreneur, because the big business has got all those systems in place. You’re not going to out-system them, but you can outthink them.

Shawn Busse:
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Loren Feldman:
I would like to follow up with Jay on that point: the point of competing with big corporations. Jay, we’ve talked from time to time over the past couple of years about how your home store kind of competes with some very big companies out there, including Wayfair, which has traditionally—I don’t know if traditional is the right word for Wayfair—but they’ve been selling online. Interestingly, they just opened a huge new store—

Jay Goltz:
That I drive by twice a day, every day, down to Edens Expressway. Everyday I get to look at it. Yes.

Loren Feldman:
I’m curious what you think of that. Has it had an impact on you?

Jay Goltz:
Their revenue last year—this is all public information, so this is accurate—in 2023 was $12 billion. The entire home furniture industry is $63 billion, which means they have an 18.8-percent share of the business, which you could certainly call disruptive. The other interesting part is they lost $738 million, which is 6 percent of sales.

Now, as someone who owns a furniture business, who does a good amount of online shipping, I’ve gotta tell you, I wouldn’t be telling you to buy the stock, because they’ve got three issues. You’ve got freight expenses. You’ve got to give free freight. You’ve got the discounting to get them to your site in the first place and then to sell it. And then you’ve got returns. They’ve got the triple threat of freight keeps going up, and shipping furniture is a major, major—this isn’t sending a box of shoes. You’re talking about a coffee table, a sofa. I mean, I’m in that world. The freight is as much as the product sometimes. So I gave up on the free freight on everything. We cut that out. So between the free freight and the tremendous returns and the discounting, I’m not sure they’re gonna pull this off. I think that’s a big gamble.

Shawn Busse:
Well, then there’s other challenges, too, which is like buying cheap crap from China is getting pretty out of vogue pretty fast in lots of ways. You know, cost of transit, carbon footprint, just on and on and on. I mean, not to mention nationalism.

Jay Goltz:
Right. So, let me put my other hat on—not the internet hat. Now, I’ll put my retailer hat on. I went into the store, and I’m confused. Like, “Wait, I thought I was in a furniture store. Am I in Ikea? They’re selling plastic bins and hangers and laundry baskets. Where am I?” And then I read that, apparently, that was their strategy, to go after Ikea. Well, let’s look at Ikea for a moment.

It was started in 1943. They do $47 billion a year, and they showed a 3 percent profit. I don’t think on my list of things to do would be, “I think I want to compete with Ikea.” You talk about a company that’s got their act together. So this could be the next big blow up out there in the business world.

At some point, I think—correct me if I’m wrong—a company’s going to have to show a profit. So the question is, how long can this go on? And like I said, it’s only getting harder with freight costs going up and up and up and up. And people are conditioned now. It’s all, “Oh, I don’t know if I like the color of that table. I’m going to send it back,” and they pay for the freight back. So the jury’s out.

Every day, though, I get a wake up call coming to work and going home from work. I get to look at their gigantic Wayfair sign on the gigantic building. The building is about 200 feet from the expressway, so you get to look at it every day. So does it hurt my business? I sell cool, interesting furnishings and accessories, but I’m sure there’s somebody buying something from Wayfair, including, anonymously, one of my daughters-in-law. Well, actually two of my daughters-in-law. [Laughter] I can’t tell you which ones, but two out of my three daughters-in-law. “Hey, where did you get that rug?” “Oh, I got it—” “Okay, great. Did I mention that I own a furniture store and have carpeting and rugs?” [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
You know, I don’t really care how much money Wayfair loses. I have no sympathy or empathy for them. But it has an impact on lots of others. Are there other independent furniture stores in Chicago? Are there many aside from yours? Or are they mostly competing with big chains, Restoration Hardware, whoever else?

Jay Goltz:
No, no, no, there’s a chain here. It’s been here since the ‘40s. They’ve got 10 stores. There’s half a dozen privately owned, or probably more than that. I’m not thinking about one store. But there are three stores, five stores. There’s plenty of privately owned. The furniture industry is not like a lot of industries where there’s just a couple of big companies in it. So, no, there’s plenty of people, and I know for a fact that one of the bigger ones—because I just went out with my rep from a place that I advertise in—and she told me they’re cutting back on all their advertising because business is not good.

I mean, this is my guess now: If 40 percent of the furniture sold in America was sold because you just moved—and, interest rates being so high, if moving is down by 50 percent, which I think it is—there’s 20 percent of your market. Boom. That’s what I hear when you talk to people in the industry. Everybody says everyone’s off 20 to 30 percent. It’s pretty brutal right now. The high interest rate has a lot of effect on other things than just selling houses. So, it’s not a party time right now. So, when you talk about company retreat, my company retreat is I cut back on my advertising. That’s my retreat, or my retreating.

Loren Feldman:
Well, now that you bring it up, Jay, have you ever done an employee retreat?

Jay Goltz:
No. I’m in retail. I’m in manufacturing.

Jennifer Kerhin:
Have you ever done a summer picnic or something?

Jay Goltz:
Oh, yes, I used to have those regularly. But it got more difficult when I opened Jayson 24 years ago. We’re open Sundays now. I’m open seven days a week, and it’s getting harder to schedule something, so I haven’t had one in a long time. Do I think it would be good to have something? Yes, absolutely. So I probably need to get back to that. But yeah, it’s not easy.

Shawn Busse:
I’ve seen it done. We’ve helped with some of this too, in some kind of sideways ways. But like, there’s stuff you can do at large organizations where you do a lot of stuff offline first. I mean, surveys, conversations, etc., small group stuff. You can find ways to do it. It’s hard, but I think you could do it. And it’s probably worth it.

Jay Goltz:
I take it back. I do have lunches, and we pay for lunch, and I separate—you know, I’ve got the framing factory. I do it over there. And that’s the other weird thing. I’ve got different companies. Somebody was telling me, they were at a party talking to another person. “Oh, where do you work?” “Oh, I work at Jayson.” And this is an Artists Frame Service employee. They work in my other company right next door. They never even met each other.

Jennifer Kerhin:
Would you ever close for the day? I mean, we had to shut down for four days.

Jay Goltz:
That would be really… As a retailer, that’s just kind of heresy to me. I’d have a real hard time putting a note: “Sorry, we’re having our company event today.” And on top of which, like I said, the problem is I’ve got about 35 people working for Jayson. I’ve got about 50 people working in the framing business. I’ve got 12 in the wholesale business. Some of them are even in the same building, but they’re not the same company. And then it’s so many people at this point. I’ve got 130 employees.

Jennifer Kerhin:
What if you did it by area? The warehouse had their retreat, the retail store?

Jay Goltz:
Yes, yes. No argument there. I need to do that. Consider it done.

Jennifer Kerhin:
It was well worth the money, Jay. It’s a big expense.

Jay Goltz:
No, for sure.

Jennifer Kerhin:
And I had a vision for it. But it was really nice. The feedback I got from our surveys is, they felt that it was incredibly successful.

Loren Feldman:
Jennifer, do you think it had an impact on you being closed for four days like that?

Jennifer Kerhin:
No, because we told clients, starting in late April, that we were going to close—that in order for us to be successful for them, we needed to take some time apart to practice, to learn best practices, come together as a team to develop expertise, which corresponded very nicely to say: We’re going to come together in a face-to-face event so we can help you develop your face-to-face event.

So, no, it ties in very nicely with what our clients expect from us. There was absolutely no pushback. As a matter of fact, when I put it on LinkedIn, I can’t tell you how many clients congratulated us for doing it and said, “That was a great job.” So, no pushback whatsoever.

Shawn Busse:
I think about, let’s say you have a leadership team of five people. Let’s say, just stick with a leadership team, right? Let’s say, each one of those people make, I don’t know, $200,000. There’s a million dollars in salary there. Anything you can do to get that group 2 percent more efficient, three percent efficient, five percent more efficient, two percent more connected to each other, 10 percent less likely to quit. These are just hidden opportunities within the business.

That’s why, when you ask, “Well, what was your budget?” I don’t f@*!ing care. I promise you, I could have spent $100,000 on that retreat, and I guarantee you it will pay for itself many times over. And so that would be the challenge I have for you, Jay. Your scale is such size now that tiny little moves could actually have a pretty big effect on things. So I think it’s exciting that you’re open to it. You could really do something exciting from that and really energize people.

Jay Goltz:
Loren, if you want to have a retreat in your backyard, I’ll come over. I just want you to know that. [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
I’ll get my planning committee on it, and I will get you a date. My thanks to Shawn Busse, Jay Goltz, and Jennifer Kerhin—and to our sponsor, the Great Game of Business, which helps businesses use an open-book management system to build healthier companies. You can learn more at greatgame.com. Thanks, everybody.