Vincent Catanzaro: Navigating Change in Entrepreneurship and Family Ventures

0:00:06,000 --> 0:00:26,000
Welcome to the never been promoted podcast with Thomas Helfrich. Get ready for a thrilling adventure as we uncover entrepreneurial journeys and life changing business insights every week. And now your host, Thomas.

2
0:00:26,000 --> 0:00:38,000
Welcome to another episode of never been promoted, where we unleash your entrepreneur by learning from other entrepreneurs in their journey. And today I'm joined by Vincent Catanzaro. Is that right?

3
0:00:38,000 --> 0:00:40,000
That sounds good.

4
0:00:40,000 --> 0:00:56,000
You have such a good radio voice. You don't even have a face for radio. So if you're listening to this good looking dude, I mean, come on. Anyway, Vincent, how are you? Vince, I know you filled out a bunch of stuff to talk to us about who you are, but why don't you just take the moment to introduce yourself?

5
0:00:56,000 --> 0:01:14,000
Sure. All right. So, Vince Catanzaro. I partner in a company called Renee Vincent Executive Placement. We're a husband and wife team. We've been in business about three and a half years, and this is my second run through of being an entrepreneur. This time with my wife, this time with your wife.

6
0:01:14,000 --> 0:01:36,000
So in my book, never been promoted. I don't think I explicitly say this, but starting a business with family is a dangerous venture. And so before we get into that craziness, give me a little bit about your journey, how you got to well, on your entrepreneurial journey of this route, and just give us a little background on you and how you got to become an entrepreneur. Sure.

7
0:01:36,000 --> 0:02:30,000
I'll give you just a few seconds of personal. So I have a big family. My wife and I have six children together, adults now ages 30 to 19. In my career, my career arc has first nine years of my career was in kind of technology recruitment agency side also corporate. Ran a corporate function for Fortune 50 company left that industry, spent a decade in commercial real estate development. The great recession forced me out of that industry. Ended up back in recruiting again, this time now a little bit older, running third party recruiting firms, running global talent acquisition for a tech ed company, and then made my way back into becoming an entrepreneur.

8
0:02:30,000 --> 0:02:43,000
For those of you who've noticed a pause, that's because I talked to the mute button on. Anyway, thanks for this run. Right. What exited you out of corporate world and into your own business?

9
0:02:43,000 --> 0:02:56,000
I think Abby's just always meant to be an entrepreneur. I always find it hard working for other people. I think my wife calls me. What do you call those people who are only concerned about themselves?

10
0:02:56,000 --> 0:02:57,000
Narcissist.

11
0:02:57,000 --> 0:02:58,000
Yes, that's the word.

12
0:02:58,000 --> 0:03:00,000
Narcissist.

13
0:03:00,000 --> 0:03:49,000
I don't think so. But I do struggle working for folks, and I really just want to be able to do what I want to do. And I mentioned I was an entrepreneur twice and once in real estate. And that unwinding from the great recession took a long time, so our bank got shut down in 2009. At that point, I had a bunch of construction loans that I personally guaranteed moved to the FDIC, and that didn't unwind until the end of 2016. So soon after that ended, the bug started to come back. I started talking. So my kids were getting older, and I started talking to my wife about, like, hey, so what's our future? Six kids, stay at home mom. Makes sense, right? But the kids started getting older. I was like, is our future like, I work and you do girls trips? What are we going to.

14
0:03:49,000 --> 0:03:51,000
Great plan for helping. Yes.

15
0:03:51,000 --> 0:04:23,000
I was like, what are we going to end up doing? So we started probably in 2016, talking about doing something together. We discussed going to, like, a franchise trade show. We never did go to a show, but just to kind of get some ideas about what to do together, I was just going to say. And then this business I knew I wanted to pursue, executive recruitment. Started telling my wife, hey, I'm thinking about going to work for myself again. Executive recruitment.

16
0:04:23,000 --> 0:04:24,000
Think I can do it.

17
0:04:24,000 --> 0:05:21,000
Here's my thoughts. And then one day during COVID it hit me. I was like, we need to call this business Renee Vincent, and Renee needs to do it with me. And I went home, where I was actually at the mall. My son, when the idea hit me, went home, pitched the idea, and it was really funny, because for her 50th birthday, she really wanted a Rolex watch. And I was like, are you kidding me? I was like, use your phone like everyone else does, right? No one even wears a watch anymore. And then I ended up inheriting my dad. My dad passed away a couple of years later. I inherited his Rolex watch. So when I pitched the idea to her, which she seemed pretty excited about it, she's like, well, I had to have a Rolex. I was like, that's great. With your very first commission check, go get any Rolex you want. And she did. Exactly. So that was kind of cool. Yeah. So that's kind of how we got started second time around.

18
0:05:21,000 --> 0:05:31,000
So if we were on your podcast, meet the new boss, right. We would play that rap song, I want a Rolly Rolly rolly rolly during that bit.

19
0:05:31,000 --> 0:05:34,000
Oh, yeah, I guess so. I don't know that song, but oh, yeah.

20
0:05:34,000 --> 0:05:49,000
It's terrible. Not in the genre of music that we like as Gen Xers, but I'll give you the floor so you've done more than that, though. So you have your own podcast as well. You want to talk about that? A little bit is one of the things.

21
0:05:49,000 --> 0:07:24,000
So we're in the process of really. It's kind of been merged to the business, but not really. The podcast actually came up before being an entrepreneur again. A friend of mine called me up, and he's like, hey, let's do a podcast. And at first, I was like, I don't think so, man. I hear my voice and I sound like a drunk sylvester Stallone. I don't know if I want to digitize my voice forever. He said, no, it'd be great. It's the next thing I know, we were podcasting about business and music influences, not about the music business, right. And we didn't even know what we were doing. We had no idea how to produce podcasts, engineer podcasts, create podcasts, and we had gotten, like, six, seven episodes recorded and mostly engineered before we even could figure out, how do you post these things that people could hear them? Right. So that was somewhat of a slow journey, but we have three seasons of Meet the new boss, which is mostly guests coming in, talking about what does it mean to be a new boss, what their strategy was, and this is all c suite type folks, and some pretty cool, some pretty cool companies. People would know. We had, like, the chief legal officer of the New York Mets on. She was a real fun interview. And so stuff like, so that podcast has been around a little bit longer than the business, but it's so closely related to what we do, as it turns out, that we're now kind of melding it right into the business itself.

22
0:07:24,000 --> 0:07:57,000
Let's get into working as a family business. I know both you guys pretty well, or well enough. I don't want say to pretty well, but more than most people, I'd say in the world, you were different personalities. I've seen some of your conversations together where you're working in a business together. What do you think are some of the critical factors of just success? And then maybe extrapolate that. Now, when you're working with a family member, specifically a spouse, consider what are some things you should definitely consider?

23
0:07:57,000 --> 0:08:36,000
Well, so we're married 31 years, so we're not, like, newlywed. So we've kind of already stood the test of time and the challenges. And when you're a business partner with someone, it's very much like being married. Right. It's a legal document. It requires attorneys to unwind legal agreements. Right. And so it's kind of like a marriage right. And I've been a partner to other people in the past, and there was a bunch of attorneys involved in unwinding that business, and it was a horrible experience. And so it was either going to be myself or just with my wife.

24
0:08:36,000 --> 0:08:37,000
It's great.

25
0:08:37,000 --> 0:10:14,000
That's been my wife. Now we are very different. So I am a bigger picture, higher level thinker, move faster, but without great level of detail. And she moves fast, but with great level of detail, and spends a lot of time on detail. As it worked out, I'm all operations, so I'm the tech guy, the billing guy, all those kinds of things. And she runs her own desk and has her own customers and does her own business, and she's excellent at it. When we talk about business and talk about customers and talk about the experience, and here's what I would do. Here's what you should do. Let's just talk through that situation. That always goes really well. What doesn't go really well is when we're trying to meet on different subjects, and she's being very detailed. And in my mind, I keep hearing, who cares about this? Nobody cares about this. This is like, I don't care, whatever, right? Because it takes so long to get through her detail, but she's fantastic at it. And we work on different levels of the house, on opposite sides of the house, so it'd be like just working in the same office building and the houses. We're in Alpharetta, Georgia, the big homes here. So it's not like I can go the whole day without seeing her sometimes. Most of the times I see her is on video calls, if we have joint video calls. So we really do have our own space.

26
0:10:14,000 --> 0:10:59,000
And you make a good point, though. When you have different working styles, where you see the law of diminishing returns quickly, comes quicker, few than it does for her. So her shelf is much further away. You have to accommodate both because there are benefits to both. Moving fast without detail has great effect. But when it matters, you need someone who can do that, and you have that in there. And the fact that you can kind of balance those two styles is very helpful. For example, my wife and her, it's a very similar piece where she can hone in on details. And I'm like, no one cares about this, and I certainly don't, but I have to be patient because I know it matters to her and I know about you, but I don't nail that quiz every time, 100%. Usually it's maybe a c level.

27
0:10:59,000 --> 0:11:02,000
It's often like, are you listening to me? What did I just say?

28
0:11:02,000 --> 0:11:03,000
Honestly?

29
0:11:03,000 --> 0:11:05,000
No. Yeah.

30
0:11:05,000 --> 0:11:53,000
Don't. Checked out my mind someplace else to help anyway. Don't do that. Anybody listening? Men just actually listen if you can try to get it at a cb level. Okay, so you're in your business, right? You took the risk. You're in that season of life, so to speak. And one thing we don't talk about a lot on the show here, but I'd love for you, because I know it's courtier you is how faith ties into some of this and how your belief, and you guys, you have an amazing story, which we won't fully get into today. But I think there's a big piece of what you did, because you could have said, you know what? Let's just. Corporate kids are gone. We can just kind of do our checkout jobs. You decided to take on, effectively, another baby by starting your own business. Right. When you had the free time to maybe do some other stuff. So talk about how faith matters in that journey to you.

31
0:11:53,000 --> 0:12:58,000
Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm a faithful man, right. And I think most people don't understand faith, and it's a long journey. So I'm 55 years old. These last five years, for me, have been very impactful. But I could tell you with confidence from scripture that God wants us to be successful. Right? That God has provided everything we need to accomplish what we need. Everything we have, everything we have our bodies, our computers, this video technology, nuclear fusion, rocket technology, whatever. We as human beings pull that out of the elements of the earth as we discover all that. And so it was really going in with confidence, understanding that if we do the right things, we will be successful. Had to work, right. This doesn't happen. I don't pray. And then business comes in. I hump it, right? But I know how to hump it. Right. I know God wants me to be successful.

32
0:12:58,000 --> 0:13:06,000
Right. By the way, those who don't know, he's saying, work hard. He doesn't literally hump anything. He's a faithful man. Be clear.

33
0:13:06,000 --> 0:13:08,000
Exactly.

34
0:13:08,000 --> 0:13:19,000
I just want to clarify the word hump there, because that's going to come out and people are going to read that and be like, what's he humping? Something short of the humping.

35
0:13:19,000 --> 0:13:21,000
I don't know if grinding is any better.

36
0:13:21,000 --> 0:13:30,000
That's a better word either. It's not given. You're not praying. When's it going to show up? You've been given the tool to go hustle, right?

37
0:13:30,000 --> 0:13:42,000
It's been given to us to achieve. At first it was pretty scary because we just did it right. So turned off income, living off of equity and savings.

38
0:13:42,000 --> 0:13:45,000
And.

39
0:13:45,000 --> 0:13:51,000
My wife, I think it took nine months for the first check to.

40
0:13:51,000 --> 0:14:19,000
Come set that stage right. You had just gone through not that long ago, paying off personal guaranteed loans, and now you're back to, hey, let's go pay ourselves some more money and not have income. And so the idea I tie in faith with that is you had so much faith in yourself and your wife to be able to do it. You said, no fallback. Let's go get this. We got everything we need. We've been through rough, we've been through worse, and you jumped right back in that to me.

41
0:14:19,000 --> 0:15:53,000
Yeah, I think you have to know, or you have to know you're going to make it, right. And it's really funny going into 2023. So I belong to an executive group where we meet biweekly and it's executives from all over the world, and we talk about economy, things affecting the world, cryptocurrency, whatever, right? We're talking about bricks and all sorts of global topics. And there was a lot of people talking heading into the year, this year with a bear market mentality. This is going to be a bad market. Things are going to go bad, right? And in my mind, I was like, this is going to be a great year, and it has been a great year. If you can operate with confidence, with knowing that whatever challenges come up, there's a way to navigate it and believe that and own that, then you can move forward kind of fearlessly and not let outside factors affect what you're doing. Right. So that's really how I do it. Right. And how I stay balanced. And certainly we've had times where our business bank account has been really flush, and there's been times where our business bank account has been really low. And during those low times, it's just knowing that, hey, we're moving, things are happening.

42
0:15:53,000 --> 0:16:45,000
Well, that unwavering faith and belief in yourself is tied to a bigger. Some people do it, but it's a false confidence, it's a fake it till you're make it. And you don't presume to know everything, but the point is, because you have a higher power, higher meaning in your body, in your life, you believe it's all there. It's just for me to put it together and not make the excuses to go find reasons not to be successful. You go find the reasons to be successful. And I've seen that with you in annoying you outside that I see that every time I've interacted with you, like, you find reasons to try to find the positive, to go get things done, and you have to go do that. So I think that lesson, and anybody from an entrepreneur listening, is if you're someone who makes excuses, always plays the victim, is always false sense of entitlement. Entrepreneurship might not be the right path for you, because that's going to give you a nice avenue to create a lot more excuses, reasons why you have.

43
0:16:45,000 --> 0:18:13,000
To have a vision, and you have to be able to vision cast, and you have to be able to work hard to make that vision come together. Like, do what you need to do to make that vision come. You know, as I watch interviews or I watch successful people, and they had this, I think it was like Netflix, like this three part series called Arnold, about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right. And the first one was his bodybuilding career, and the second episode was his acting career, and then his third episode was his political career in all three domains, because he was able to see where he was going, he achieved greatness in all three domains. Now, certainly, he's a flawed human with all sorts of things that he regrets. He talks about that in that series. But what stuck with me was that people, when they talked about him, is that he was really able to vision cast. So when you talk to him about where he was going, he was really able to explain that to you. And I don't know this to be fat, but I think about that from Elon Musk and building, like, in my mind, going around telling people you're going to own a rocket ship company similar to NASA, actually bigger than, and send rockets into space and plan a mission to Mars, and just do all these way outside the box, huge, big thinking things.

44
0:18:13,000 --> 0:18:14,000
Outside the planet.

45
0:18:14,000 --> 0:18:35,000
Yeah, outside the planet things, and make that come together and be able to cast that vision and get people to buy in on that vision and attract the experts to make those kind of things happen, that's some great vision. And I think for an entrepreneur, you need to be able to cast that vision, own that vision, and stay on it.

46
0:18:35,000 --> 0:19:04,000
Right? Yeah. And I think sometimes the reality of, and this is one of the problems with social media in general, is that you see ultra successful people, Elon Musk maybe being one of the most successful, obviously, people on the planet. You don't have to be anywhere close to that in your business or even ours, let's say on LinkedIn, 750,000,000 people, and you're just trying to find ten customers a year or maybe ten a month, maybe less.

47
0:19:04,000 --> 0:19:23,000
Yeah, in my case, less. Like a couple of new customers. A year would be great. I tell the people that when they're job searching. So I talked to a lot of executives, right. And a lot of them are going through transition, and we're a small company, so I don't have this huge machine to pump them into for you guys.

48
0:19:23,000 --> 0:19:40,000
Too, because you get personality. So you're taking advantage of that would be maybe a challenge for somebody else. And I don't mean to up you, but I think it's an important point is that you're taking something that could be perceived as a disadvantage and saying, I'm making that an advantage because now I can get more attention to those who we work with, and then they get, exactly, it's a different buyer.

49
0:19:40,000 --> 0:20:48,000
I give them a lot of love in their job search, and then as I talk to them through that, they do this for the companies they work for all the time, but they don't do it for themselves. And it's really business planning. Go to market planning. Right. You're a product, you're a service, right? You're going to take your service to market. Who's your target market? What's your value statement? How are you adding value? So all those kinds of things that they would do in their role as a C suite executive for a mid cap company, they don't ever use that same methodology for themselves. And I kind of get them on that path of, hey, let's, let's think about this as a, you know, hey, this is the Thomas business, and we're going to figure out where Thomas is going. Because once you know where you're going, once you know the destination, no matter what you're doing in life, right, once you have a clear destination of what you want to accomplish, then getting there is building a plan. That's the easy part. And then executing against it.

50
0:20:48,000 --> 0:21:39,000
That's what you might find when you get there wasn't where you intended, but what you do is you retreat and remove distractions that you are sure are not going to get you there. And you can decide along the way of what you do and don't do around the way. And that helps you focus. Specifically, I just want to dive me a layer into your business bit for someone who's listening and going, well, how am I going to compete with my old company? How am I going to compete with the big world as a niche provider of, and there's millions of people doing what you're doing out there, but you guys have found a lot of success in a very short amount of time. Talk about any systems you've created or ways that you found to differentiate yourself and share. Like, listen, if you're an entrepreneur out there and you're a niche in any field, what would you recommend for them to do? To be able to compete and be kind of happy and being able to have a life?

51
0:21:39,000 --> 0:24:29,000
Yeah. So there's a few different things, and Renee and I do it differently because Renee is a little bit more old school and prints and uses files and those kinds of things. But I automate as much as possible. So I use systems services, like, instantly relevant to make my time more productive. Right. In our business, we're not looking to hire employees. We're not looking to grow this into a big firm. And this is a lifestyle business where we can travel like we just did, spend two weeks on the beach in Florida and had our computers with us and worked, but we just happened to be working. So that was kind of the idea. In order to pull that off and maximize how much Vince can get done, a lot of automation had to go into place. Right. And how do I automate without it being automated or appeared to be automated? We do things like that in order to maximize the value, you have to have business. Right. And not everyone is comfortable with new business development. Right? And I think if there's chief revenue officers out there listening to your podcast, they're like, where do I find a couple more really good new business development people? Because it's hard to find new business development people. But if you can figure out for yourself a system that you can repeat because you could do new business development and hate it, and then you'll find every excuse not to continue to do it because you hate doing it. So you have to find a way to do business that you're comfortable with it and you can repeat it so that you don't get burned out. Right. It doesn't cause you burnout from doing it. In my case, I'm a highly social guy, right? I'm an expert at what I do. I've been a candidate. I've been a hiring manager. I've run agencies that do staffing, and I've run corporate recruiting. So I've kind of seen it from all different sides. And so I have an understanding that probably most people that I compete with don't. And then we use data, we use psychometric testing. We kind of take it to the next level. Our level of care for each of our opportunities is greater than, I would say, 99% of our competition, because we are so niched and we can go so deep and we are retained, right? So they're committing to us. We don't do work without them committing to saying, okay, we're giving you this piece of work to go do for us.

52
0:24:29,000 --> 0:25:01,000
No, I agreed. As a business, the way you differentiate, you actually have a methodology. It's called search, right? So you've taken what you do for a customer. And I think this is important for a lot of people to understand. You need to create a system that is yours. Now, it, in theory, could be like everyone else's. But the truth is, if you articulate it and can visualize it and explain it, it becomes yours. Even if they've heard it 100 different ways. The differentiator will be you and how your experience lines up and how you tell that story. Yours is called search. What's the search stand for?

53
0:25:01,000 --> 0:25:10,000
Search is science engage. Get all of this correct as we go through.

54
0:25:10,000 --> 0:25:13,000
By the way, should only always know your own system.

55
0:25:13,000 --> 0:25:31,000
You should know your system. You should know your acronym. But it's science engage. I think it's like action results. I got to spell search out. Isn't that terrible? This is my big thinker, closing and hiring. Right?

56
0:25:31,000 --> 0:25:48,000
Listen, the words actually are the purposes for marketing to have the search. The point being underneath it, I always tell say the joke of I have a great memory. It's just short. I do the same thing in our actions, but I know the steps of what we're doing. And the point is, have it have some kind of secret.

57
0:25:48,000 --> 0:26:32,000
Yeah, well, your customers want to know too, right? So that's what's important. So like, hey, we're a service provider. So it's like, as a service, what is it that you're actually doing for us? Right? And that's how we leave with the science. Because that makes us a little bit unique. So we come out strong with the science. But recruiting is recruiting, right? There's a million different ways to do it. But we have to have our system where we repeat it so that we become good at it. So we can say, hey, are we living up to our commitment? Have we done a proper engagement? What is our research telling us on the marketplace? And are we giving proper feedback to our customers?

58
0:26:32,000 --> 0:26:32,000
Right?

59
0:26:32,000 --> 0:26:36,000
And when we're closing a candidate, is the candidate ready to be closed?

60
0:26:36,000 --> 0:26:37,000
Right.

61
0:26:37,000 --> 0:27:39,000
That's a big part of our job. Because often you can get hiring managers ready to make an offer. But is the candidate ready to accept an offer? Right. And so you have to be able to close that candidate. And I'll give you a perfect example. We have a candidate right now getting ready to receive an offer from a customer. This candidate got his MBA, went to work for one company, has been with that company for 15 years, has not left. So this is a big change for this candidate, right? Going to go to a good job, more money. It's a bit of a promotion, but it's a big change for someone who doesn't make big changes. So as we were getting ready to close, I was like, hey, guys, I would if it's me, right, I'm in your seat. This guy hasn't made any changes like this in his whole career. Let's get him out for a meal. Let's go sit down with him. Let's make him feel good. Let's let him feel the family part of it, so that when the offer comes, you'll be more likely to.

62
0:27:39,000 --> 0:27:50,000
It will, exactly. And I actually think sometimes companies, when they do this, they should recognize that and say, hey, we know this is a huge change. I'm going to get you a career coach for twelve months to help you navigate through the changes you're going to.

63
0:27:50,000 --> 0:27:51,000
Go through and experience.

64
0:27:51,000 --> 0:27:55,000
They'd be smart to make that investment back. They're much more likely to stay and not go back to.

65
0:27:55,000 --> 0:27:57,000
Great idea. I love that idea.

66
0:27:57,000 --> 0:28:00,000
I'm an idea guy. I don't know if you knew that.

67
0:28:00,000 --> 0:28:28,000
Feed Mayo to the tuna, you know that reference. That's when the movie night shift with Henry Winkler and I think it's Michael Keaton's first movie and they were working together and Michael Keaton was an idea man. So he'd get these ideas and he'd record them. And one of his ideas in the movie was like, hold on, got an idea. Be mayo to the tuna. It makes sense because the array tastes like tuna salad.

68
0:28:28,000 --> 0:28:42,000
I like sour cream. That's a tangent. Okay, we're going to come into some more take back. So the book, right? 50 entrepreneurial life lessons to unleash your entrepreneur. What is a life lesson? The one thing you could go back you wish you would have known three years ago.

69
0:28:42,000 --> 0:29:10,000
Oh, a life lesson to be an entrepreneur. Well, man, there's so many lessons. The most important thing is believing is the faith, right? I can't imagine anyone being successful without knowing they're going to be successful before they start. If there's doubt, I wouldn't do it.

70
0:29:10,000 --> 0:29:10,000
Just like an investment.

71
0:29:10,000 --> 0:29:30,000
If you're looking at an investment, you're like, yeah, I'm not so sure about this investment. I wouldn't do it you have to know. You just have to know in your gut, in your soul, inside of you, that's going to work. Anything short of that, I wouldn't do it.

72
0:29:30,000 --> 0:29:37,000
That's why I brought it up, because I think that's core to who you are. What's one regret, and it could be on any level.

73
0:29:37,000 --> 0:30:26,000
Oh, man, I have so many regrets. My frustration, I wouldn't even call it a grab. But my big frustration is, why did I not focus on obtaining wisdom younger? The truth of it is you could teach wisdom to your children, right? And they could learn it young, because wisdom is not trigonometry. Right? It's common sense. Does this make sense? Oh, that's a wise choice. Right? Of course that makes sense. If I would have just learned that stuff much younger, not only would my life be easier for my children, and that would have dramatically reduced heartache and pain along.

74
0:30:26,000 --> 0:31:04,000
Well, youth is wasted on the young and wisdom the old can't give away. That's a pearl jam lyric. Wisdom the old can't give away. I don't know about you, but I was so much smarter. I knew so much more in my smart back then. I don't know about you. I've gotten dumb, so dumb now I have to learn everything all over again. I wish I was so smart back then as I was. I wish I was as smart as I was in my 20s. But you do see people who are still smart, and I am putting the quotes up in their, you're like, I wonder why this guy struggled.

75
0:31:04,000 --> 0:31:43,000
Yeah. You get beaten down. And I think if people ever get so tired or so worn down that they aren't able to have dreams and goals and do exciting things, then they start just falling into a rut. There's a lot of people that don't own, but you don't own anything of any value and don't have any goals. Right. And they're just kind of living.

76
0:31:43,000 --> 0:31:50,000
I think it's okay not to own any. I think there's an argument to be made that, hey, just rent everything, but own a goal. Own your own goal.

77
0:31:50,000 --> 0:32:00,000
If you own a goal, your life is full of adventure and excitement. If you're not moving towards something, that's where I think it gets dangerous.

78
0:32:00,000 --> 0:33:06,000
Yeah, I think Arthur Brooks, I went to go see something at a local leadership lab, and he's an author, and one of his latest book is, like, the science of happiness. And I'm probably not saying the right thing, but one of his things he noticed, he said in there, in later life, you have to get on a new curve to be happy. And one of the biggest factors, there's other factors, but one of them is want less, have less, need less. And so there's arguments to be made of, like houses that are trophies and cars that are trophies. And these boat anchors, literally me, a boat that you have, the less things you have allow you to focus on more of the things you want and need in life. Because what happens in life, right, as you know, as you collect things, you have to pay for them and you have to fix them and you have to maintain them and you have to whatever, if you can let go of that and focus on what's around you, family and friends and adventure and learning or whatever, then your happiness goes up instead down. So I think having a goal to own would be smart. But I'm going to try a new series on you, something new. And I'm not sure I'm going to get the right question, but I know your creativity a little bit, so you're probably going to come back one with me here a little bit. Okay.

79
0:33:06,000 --> 0:33:07,000
Okay.

80
0:33:07,000 --> 0:33:35,000
Would you rather, all right. Would you rather. I'll make it serious because I can't think of anything funny right now that'd be appropriate. Would you rather be happy and complacent in your job, working for somebody else? Like, would you rather have that mentality and make, okay. Money, good money, you're going to be able retirement, or would you rather be the entrepreneur that has to struggle through it all your entire life, but you'll have what you have today? Would you rather have done.

81
0:33:35,000 --> 0:33:38,000
No, that's a tough one.

82
0:33:38,000 --> 0:33:54,000
Let me shorten the question. Would you rather, in your mind, be like, I love working for somebody and I'm okay, that I'm never going to be wealthy, rich or have all the free time I want, but I'm happy because I like that. Or would you rather have the hustle and struggle and you might end up in the exact same place, but you had that, the whole think it's, I.

83
0:33:54,000 --> 0:34:02,000
Think it goes to what you're doing. So I worked for a company. I'll give them a shout out. Prometheum education technology company, loved my job. Love the company.

84
0:34:02,000 --> 0:34:02,000
Right?

85
0:34:02,000 --> 0:35:14,000
We're helping educate children all over the world. Great cause, great sell to candidates. And they treated their employees really well. Really well. And I would have stayed there probably indefinitely because I made enough money, I made a good living, right. I was able to retire at 401K, saving up and all those, plenty of vacation days. None of that stuff was an issue. So I really liked working there, and I would have stayed there. Now, I had a really cool boss, and I love my boss at that place. But if you're like me, so some people are very independent. That's one of the things we measure for in the predictive index, right, is their independence. I'm very independent, right. As soon as it's like, that's not for me, or I'm not going to work for this person, right. I'm not digging what they're saying, I'm out, right? So it'd be hard for me to imagine long term, like that candidate I was talking about, 15 years coming out of college, same place that's stable, right? That's not me.

86
0:35:14,000 --> 0:35:21,000
I mean, 15 years I've had, like, I've been asked to leave six times, not even including job. That's the next.

87
0:35:21,000 --> 0:35:32,000
I'm a little bit of a bull in a china closet. I don't mean to be. It's accidental that I run over people sometimes, but sometimes I do that.

88
0:35:32,000 --> 0:36:04,000
Yeah. Ambition mixed with talent sometimes gets in the way of other people who have been there longer. But that's me making a mistake. A little bit of just not reading. Sometimes you don't care. Sometimes you sabotage your. If you're an entrepreneur at heart and it's in you, sometimes you knowingly sabotage your world. And I know I've done it. I know I've done less than I wanted to because I just didn't want to be there. Like, you start checking out quality quitting, like, day one, you're like, I think I'm just going to find a way to establish enough value to do the bare minimum of the next 18 months and go find something else.

89
0:36:04,000 --> 0:36:20,000
So my wife Renee said that to me. I took a job interview one time, and she's like, you should wear cufflinks. I was like, all right, I'll wear a french cuff shirt. She's like, what cufflinks did you wear? I was like, I wore Batman cufflinks. She's like, oh, she didn't even want that job.

90
0:36:20,000 --> 0:36:21,000
Can you see these?

91
0:36:21,000 --> 0:36:25,000
Do you know what that is? What is it? I can see it, but I don't.

92
0:36:25,000 --> 0:36:29,000
Know what it is. That's the COVID album for Pearl Jams. Ten.

93
0:36:29,000 --> 0:36:30,000
Oh, see, I wouldn't know.

94
0:36:30,000 --> 0:36:50,000
For those listening, that's. I have cufflinks that have the ten. Man up. Anyway, all right, before we kind of get a hot seat where I love to collect data for the potential of sponsorship, do a little plug for your business. So who do you want to meet? How should they contact you and just the, why? Why should they contact you?

95
0:36:50,000 --> 0:37:51,000
Yeah. Best way to contact me is know Vincent Catanzaro at Renee Vincent Executive Placement. That's the easiest way to find me. My last name, Cat and Zaro is the capital city of Calabria, the southernmost part of state in Italy. So you can always look it up. It's pretty easy to find. We support, as it turns out, small cap private equity. So private equity companies that are bringing in new technology leaders, new chief revenue officers, new chief financial officers, new ceos. In some cases, if they're closing on a deal and they're buying it and they're needing a new CEO, those are the types of searches that we do almost exclusively in private equity. That wasn't like part of the business plan when we went to market. Right. It wasn't like, hey, we're going to pursue private equity. But it was an area that I was really interested in pursuing and as it worked out, that's where we really set.

96
0:37:51,000 --> 0:38:37,000
Yeah. Once you know that, and this is a good advice to, I would like to give some advice to entrepreneurs. What you set out to go do is not it's going to change. But don't be so blinded by your vision or narrowness of your vision, like myopic vision, that you don't see the opportunity. That's the one that's brought you there. So take the t at the road, don't run through the sign sort of thing. So if you said, hey, we were going to chase x and this technology startups, but private equity keeps pulling us this way for retail, then go do it because for whatever reason you're the person. And if you go to their site, it's Renee Vincent, it's R-E-N-E-E-V-I-N-C-E-N-T win, which I love w I think there's like an author or something on the, but the win is.

97
0:38:37,000 --> 0:38:57,000
So I think all the other ones kind of point you there. But when we did it, when we couldn't get, I think I got like six ones. So we got like us net. I think we have net even. But win was a new one. I was like, I didn't go with that right, because I like to win.

98
0:38:57,000 --> 0:39:11,000
But your customers do too. So you getting them the right in and helps them win. And I'm not positive thing not the true companies matter in a business because who runs it. All right here. Motsy questions. You ready? Sure. What's your favorite scheduling technology?

99
0:39:11,000 --> 0:39:23,000
I like calendar because the one I use, I just love the simpleness of it. Right. That I can say, here's my calendar and just put it on there.

100
0:39:23,000 --> 0:39:30,000
I agree. And that is we're part of Atlanta Tech Village. They came out of there. So here in Atlanta.

101
0:39:30,000 --> 0:39:39,000
Oh, is that true? That's great to spend. This is the automation. I used to spend so much time scheduling.

102
0:39:39,000 --> 0:39:39,000
Amen.

103
0:39:39,000 --> 0:39:43,000
It's like, oh my God, they go back and forth, back and forth, even.

104
0:39:43,000 --> 0:40:00,000
Today where when my calendar is full, I have to use somebody else's and they're not as proficient. I'm like, can you get any scheduling technology except maybe outlook? All right, another question for you. What's your favorite business book that you recommend people reading?

105
0:40:00,000 --> 0:40:59,000
I have a lot of favorite business books. I think that from a leadership perspective, there was a book called Primal Leadership. I really enjoyed primal leadership and it really talks about the emotion of leadership. Right. Like the mood of the organization is the mood of the leader. And I really like that one. I think from a business like business processing how to business plan, the balance scorecard, I think that was actually the name of the book was the balance scorecard. But like the first balance scorecard book, and it talked about how to balance scorecard of business. That was really insightful. And it kind of helps you trim away all the fat that things you were doing that were like, that makes sense to kind of do, but if it wasn't directly aligned to achieving your goals, well, we probably really shouldn't be doing that. Right. So I love the balance scorecard.

106
0:40:59,000 --> 0:41:07,000
That's another great one for a startup. Do you have a recommendation around crms? I don't.

107
0:41:07,000 --> 0:41:31,000
I wish I was a little bit more savvy. So a customer of mine who's an entrepreneur, he runs a small private equity firm. He is a HubSpot like wizard. The things that he accomplishes in HubSpot make me envious, man. I need to learn. That was really HubSpot.

108
0:41:31,000 --> 0:41:50,000
It's a common answer and I like it as well. I know you need to either really have a resource lined up to it to get the most out of it. That's the biggest challenge with a lot of crms. But if you have the people or it is the most integratable, it's kind of like the gold standard, if you will, to go do it.

109
0:41:50,000 --> 0:42:01,000
Yeah, it's impressive. And I like to automate. So I actually pay for services to automate, a bunch of stuff that probably, if I was a HubSpot ninja, I would be able to do it.

110
0:42:01,000 --> 0:42:14,000
Without that, you still would need someone to go get those set up, probably for you as well. What's your favorite person maybe up and coming on LinkedIn that you like to follow? Or maybe not up and coming. Just who do you like to follow on LinkedIn?

111
0:42:14,000 --> 0:42:56,000
That is a good question. So there's a couple people I follow. There's one woman who I recommend an awful lot. Her name is Vivica von Rosen. And I interviewed her for Meet the new boss. She's an entrepreneur. She's with a company called Mangreso. And they were like a sales enablement business, and they've now become a software as a service provider in sales enablement. And she was a very early LinkedIn influencer. And her, like, if you go to not a LinkedIn, you could put your name like LinkedIn. Thomas Helfrich. Right. However that works.

112
0:42:56,000 --> 0:42:56,000
Right.

113
0:42:56,000 --> 0:43:16,000
Hers is LinkedIn, LinkedIn expert. I love that. And she has a book out there, 101 ways to rock LinkedIn. And she's really a good follow. And there's another guy, I have his book here, so let me get his name right.

114
0:43:16,000 --> 0:43:17,000
Bill Dolan.

115
0:43:17,000 --> 0:43:53,000
He's an interesting story. He has a book called the seven disciplines of relationship marketing. And he has an advertising company, and he's a very passionate, loving guy. And he died on an airplane, heart stopped. And back in 1999 and emergency landing, they got his heart started again on the plane, his budy did. And he's been on like four pacemakers. And he identifies with Iron man. He has a big iron man suit behind him.

116
0:43:53,000 --> 0:43:57,000
When you say he died, he did come back to life. So he's a zombie now. So I'll definitely have.

117
0:43:57,000 --> 0:44:03,000
But he did die. He literally died. He was dead for like a couple minutes and then came back to life.

118
0:44:03,000 --> 0:44:17,000
Well, I will definitely make sure when I do this post that those are both tagged. And I'm like, I'm going to say Vince called him a zombie. No, I'm not kidding. There's another question for you, and those are great pieces. So do you have a favorite quote?

119
0:44:17,000 --> 0:44:23,000
A favorite quote. Now, I go through a lot.

120
0:44:23,000 --> 0:44:24,000
Of.

121
0:44:24,000 --> 0:44:48,000
Quotes, but I have so many favorite quotes. There's so many of them. But one of my favorite things that I try to tell old people, especially young people, and this will apply in business, too. Right? Everyone's always hurt. Be careful who you hang out with. You want to know something about someone, look at who their friends are, who they do business with.

122
0:44:48,000 --> 0:44:50,000
Right.

123
0:44:50,000 --> 0:45:20,000
And in the book of proverbs, I read that book a long time ago, and I remember thinking to myself, the themes are repeated a lot, one of which was be careful who you hang out with. And it was in there, in a matter of which you said, hanging out with foolish people doing foolish things is more dangerous than coming across a bear looking for her cubs.

124
0:45:20,000 --> 0:45:21,000
Right?

125
0:45:21,000 --> 0:45:38,000
And I thought about that, man. Well, coming across a bear looking for her cubs is bad, right? Like, that's very dangerous. But the truth is, you hang out with foolish people doing foolish things. It's super dangerous. Even in business. You hang out with the wrong business people.

126
0:45:38,000 --> 0:45:41,000
Right.

127
0:45:41,000 --> 0:45:52,000
You can end up in a really bad place. Right. So just really keep mindful about who you spend your time with.

128
0:45:52,000 --> 0:45:57,000
Final question. What's your favorite. Well, second to last question, what's your favorite entrepreneurial trait?

129
0:45:57,000 --> 0:46:25,000
Entrepreneurial trait. I think my favorite. I don't know if it's a trait, but my favorite thing, I talked to a woman who was an entrepreneur. She had a failed business, and she was very distraught. And she had an SBA loan and spent all of her SBA loan and spent a bunch of money out of her retirement. Her business was dead. Right. And she was asking me for advice, and I was like, it's time to call a bankruptcy attorney. Right? That's where you're at, and it's okay.

130
0:46:25,000 --> 0:46:26,000
Right?

131
0:46:26,000 --> 0:46:36,000
The system is set up for people to try to be entrepreneurs. And the message I tried to give her was like, no one can ever take away from you that you went for it.

132
0:46:36,000 --> 0:46:37,000
Right?

133
0:46:37,000 --> 0:46:40,000
It didn't work, but you went for it.

134
0:46:40,000 --> 0:46:41,000
You did it.

135
0:46:41,000 --> 0:46:43,000
You could do it with no regrets.

136
0:46:43,000 --> 0:46:46,000
Right?

137
0:46:46,000 --> 0:46:55,000
No one can ever just take that away from you that you went for it. Because so many people don't go for it. And I don't want to die with regrets.

138
0:46:55,000 --> 0:47:12,000
Right. I agree. I know you love music, so why would we lie in our grays wondering how things could have been? David Matthews. Lionel Grace. All right, last question. Have you ever been promoted in the corporate world?

139
0:47:12,000 --> 0:47:15,000
Yes, I have been promoted in the corporate world.

140
0:47:15,000 --> 0:47:17,000
You are not allowed to join the club.

141
0:47:17,000 --> 0:47:19,000
Sorry. Yeah, I have been promoted.

142
0:47:19,000 --> 0:47:26,000
But, yeah, as we say off here. Give me 30 seconds. Once again, how should someone get a hold of you?

143
0:47:26,000 --> 0:48:04,000
30 seconds to get a hold of me. Best way to get a hold of me is LinkedIn, right? So reach out to me on LinkedIn. Vincent Catanzaro. Renee Vincent Executive Placement. That's the easiest way to get a hold of me. You can text me 770-789-9667 I would just mention that, hey, I heard your interview. I've never been promoted and reaching out to you. But don't call me, because if I don't recognize the number. I'm not answering the call, so that doesn't work. Text works. LinkedIn works. My email is Vincent Ernevinson win W-I-N and you can email me as the definitely text them.

144
0:48:04,000 --> 0:48:06,000
Do the number over time, if you don't mind.

145
0:48:06,000 --> 0:48:21,000
Yeah, well, I'm not going to do that. What I'm going to do is, since you brought up music is let you know on Saturday night, I was in Madison Square Garden in New York City at the last ever Kiss concert with three daughters, friends, grandson, and we did.

146
0:48:21,000 --> 0:48:56,000
It right with a bit of envy. I love it. Everybody that's joined today, I say goodbye to you. And the idea that this, it's been another episode had never been promoted though. Vince was promoted. Vince, thank you so much for joining and take the lessons you learned in this about faith and about starting a business with a loved one. And the idea that you get out there and try, no one ever could take that away from you. And I think some of those are some really great ideas to come back with is that have a plan, have a goal and just go after it and be relentless in it. Vince, thank you so much for joining. I appreciate it. Thanks, Ben.

147
0:48:56,000 --> 0:48:57,000
It was a pleasure.

148
0:48:57,000 --> 0:49:03,000
Thanks everybody who's listening, once again, thank you again for listening to the never been promoted podcast.

149
0:49:03,000 --> Unknown
Thanks for listening to never been promoted with Thomas Helfrich. Make sure to check the show notes for our guest contact information and any relevant links. Connect with Thomas personally at Neverbender.