Startup Core Values with Colin C. Campbell

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. The only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be breaking down startup core values. To jot these value bombs, I brought Colin C. Campbell into EO Fire Studios. Colin is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded over a dozen multi-million dollar companies. He's a number one bestselling award-winning author, speaker, and founder of Startup Club, helping entrepreneurs globally through his book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat. And today, we'll talk about core values, a real world example of this.

0:37We'll talk about the key ingredients to core values, custom GPT. You're going to want to stick around for this one and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Colin and our sponsors. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. Colin, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:17You know, one of the things that a lot of entrepreneurs do is they think that they have the best idea and then ideas always come from them. Well, we run a company here called paw.com and our incubator. And it's interesting because when the founder first started, you know, it was he and I were brainstorming all of these ideas. and then we began to realize that there were a lot of great ideas from the people within our organization but we just weren't listening to them so what we decided to do is to incorporate this ideation process in all of our strat planning sessions so now that every member of the team if they come up with a really cool dog product idea then that's going to be on the list and And we're going to vet that idea.

2:03And it actually led to one of our first core values for paw.com, which is ideas come from everyone. Ideas come from everyone. And Fire Nation, you'll see this is a theme throughout our talk today. Because Colin, you really believe that core values matter. So share both why and how you've used them to scale your personal companies. Yeah, I think it's absolutely critical that everyone develop core values. Now, let's let's be quite frank here. You know, if you're a startup, you're just getting started, you have one or two employees. They sort of know how not to tick you off. Right. You order pizza.

2:42It's long hours. There's a culture that exists within these small startups that don't really require a sort of a formalized core values. but the earlier you can sort of identify those values so they reflect your personal values early on and they also reflect the values within the company. I also believe they can be a little bit aspirational as well but we want to primarily try to reflect the values that you have within your organization. And when you do that, it can help you scale your company. Now, how do you know when you really need to have this in place? I think there's sort of a famous line in all startups when someone who was there in the early days says, remember the good old days, JLD?

3:24Remember the good old days when you were starting out your podcast and life was so good and we had so much fun and we were pizza. And it was like, remember those good old days? So when you start to hear that, you start to realize that your culture's not scaling. You know, at Hostopia, we grew to almost 600 employees. And for us, we had to scale because we were also in multiple offices. And so we had to put together key core values, statements. I did this in the book. I talk a lot about this in the book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, that you can develop these core value statements that are sort of rhythmic in nature, and they become the language of the office.

4:00And I'll just give you an example. The core values for Hostopia was really only four pillars. First and foremost is respect, recognize greatness. We spend it like our own. So think like Doge, you know, the Doge in the United States with They're going in to try to cut the costs. You know, you think of it like Doge. We're proud of when employees actually reduce costs or do it more efficiently. And the last one is when our customers succeed, we succeed. Powerful stuff, Fire Nation. And Colin, you're always good at real world examples. So give me an example of how core values actually made a difference in your business.

4:40There's multiple ways that they make a huge difference. You know, one of the examples was we had to fire one of our top salespeople. And I'm like, geez, if we fire this guy, we're going to lose money. We're not we're going to make less money by firing this person. But this person really did not meet our core values. And the core value was integrity over money. And he had done some stuff that we really thought just wasn't becoming of a company that we wanted a salesperson to represent. and the values that we have within our organization. So we made the hard decision. We made the hard decision to fire that employee.

5:21And, you know, in the short term, yeah, we might take a little bit of a revenue hit. But in the long term, everybody in this organization understands where their place is. They understand how and why we exist. And they understand the core values that we have in our organization. You know, I liken it almost to if you've ever played bowling with kids, Uh, and you, and you, and you take the bowling ball and they put these gutter guards. Oh yeah. Like the little bumper balls. Yeah, that's right. So you call it bumper balls. Okay. So you send down the bowling pin and if the ball, sorry. And if the ball hits the gutter protector, it's going to bounce off that and still hit the pins.

6:00So it's sort of like that with a company, you're going to want to put on these guard rails to ensure that your company doesn't go into the gutter. Fire Nation. I love that analogy. And again, if you're going to have core values, you've got to stick to them. Otherwise, what are you doing? You've got to make sometimes the hard short-term decision for the long-term good. Now, you talk about the key ingredients to actually creating these core values. And I mean, you actually call them pillars in your book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat. Talk about those ingredients. Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing to note about, you know, a lot of companies, they do this mission statement.

6:37And honestly, I've asked this in audiences, I've talked to companies and I say, can you tell me your mission statement and almost nobody will put up their hand. It's just not memorable. It's just something that is there. It exists. It might be on a wall. So what we're going to want to do is create these, what I call rhythmic value statements. And they're very memorable in nature. And I, again, they become sort of the lexicon, the voice of the office. I remember with one of the ones I mentioned earlier, when our customers succeed, we succeed. A number of the employees started putting that into their signature on their email.

7:11So it sent the right signal to the customer that this is one of our core values. When you succeed, we succeed. I was working with another group and I thought they did this pretty cool. They, they took phrases and songs and, and made, you know, they sort of connected those phrases in these, in music to their core values. Like one of them was let it be, you know, from, from the Beatles. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we want them to be rhythmic, we want them to be memorable, and we want them to be used in the office on a day-to-day basis as part of the company. It really becomes something within the organization.

7:46And lastly, the core values are really critical for scaling your organization. You need to have a core set of beliefs to ensure the company scales the right way. Else, you could go off the rails. And when you're scaling a business, there's a lot of things that can go wrong, but this is something that doesn't cost a lot of money. This is something that you can spend two or three hours with your team and create and share those with the entire organization. It doesn't cost a lot of money. It's free, actually. There's no cost to it, but it's something that a lot of businesses don't do. And it's one of the reasons why they fail to scale.

8:27Fire Nation, if you don't have these pillars in your business right now, it's time to implement. and we're going to try something pretty cool, pretty different. We're actually going to run a custom GPT. Colin's going to run it on me. There's going to be about 10 questions. I'm going to answer them. So you don't want to miss this as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. Online safety and security is more important than ever. And as business owners who market and promote online, we need to be hyper aware. Unfortunately, our personal information is being compiled by data brokers and sold online every single day.

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9:34The only way to get 20 % off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash EOFire and enter code EOFire at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash EOFire, code EOFire. Question for you, Fire Nation. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For me, mentorship was everything from when I was just getting started in podcasting, webinars, course creation, book writing, you name it, I hired a mentor to guide me every step of the way. For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level.

10:15It's a three-month program, and together we will achieve massive results. If you're interested in learning more, email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line mentor, and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program to see if it's the right fit for you. That's john, J-O-H-N, at eofire.com, but only if you're prepared to ignite. Colin, we're back, and as I kind of teased before the break, there's a custom GPT that you've created, and you're going to ask me the questions. We're going to see what the results are. We have no idea how this is going to turn out. We haven't pre-done this.

10:52Like we don't know what's going to happen. It could completely fall off the rails, but anyway, it's going to be fun. So give a little prep about this and then let's just dive on in. Yeah. And who knows that the AI could hallucinate, but what we use, we use a chat GPT. We create a custom GPT. We put a domain name to it. If anybody, your users want to go to it, it's companyvaluesai.com. They can go to it. It's free to use. And what we're trying to do is use the information from the book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, that I uploaded to the custom GPT. And based on that, create these value pillars or value statements for your organization.

11:28So we're going to test you here. We're turning the interview around. I'm going to be asking you some questions now. So first of all, what motivates and drives your team members on a daily basis? Inspiring our listeners, Fire Nation, to achieve greatness within their life. Okay, great. Now remember, I'm typing this out. That's okay. I got it. It says they love that. Yes, I loved it. Okay, great. I love that positive feedback with AI. Yeah, it's so funny. All right. What overarching principles define the purpose and mission of your team and company? If you have a mission statement, feel free to share it if you do have one.

12:09I couldn't find one on your website, by the way. Yeah, so our purpose, our mission is to provide value with transparency consistently. If you ever quit a job, JLD, because you didn't like working there, what was the reason? I had no purpose. I can picture my cubicle right now. I just had no purpose. No purpose. Okay, I like it. It says that makes total sense. I love the feedback. Okay. What are your company's goals and how do they align with your values? Think of your company's goals and how do you think they align with your values? And I'm getting tough here. So our company's goals are to inspire millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners to reach their potential by giving them the knowledge and strategies of successful entrepreneurs before them.

13:01Oh, that's incredible. Goal. Impacting millions. Fire. Oh, it's got a little fire. I love it. There you go. I like that. Which non-negotiable values should every team member embody to uphold their integrity of your organization? So this is non-negotiable. Okay, so this is if they don't do this, you're going to fire them. Truth, honesty, and being genuine. What are the two or three of your personal core beliefs? This is your personal now. Your personal core beliefs about business in general. Effort wins. You must provide the number one solution to a real problem. And you must always deal in honesty.

13:46Can you describe a situation where a company's values helped in making a tough decision? Absolutely. So I'd say on a weekly basis, we get big time financial offers from sponsors and companies that just don't align with my values. Gambling sites, drinking, things along those lines that just aren't the right fit. Payday loans, things along those lines that I just don't believe in. And because of our company's values, it's easy to turn them away. That's true integrity, as it says. If you had to sum up your company's impact in one sentence, so what impact you're having in the world right now, if you could summarize it in one sentence, what would it be?

14:30providing value with transparency consistently. All right. I think we are getting very close. Okay. You ready? Ready. All right. Entrepreneurs on fire. Okay. Number one, here's one. Here's your value pillars. Your value statements has come up with inspire greatness with fire and truth. Wow. I like that. Number two, transparency lights our path daily. Ooh, they're sticking with this theme. I like it. Honesty fuels relentless entrepreneurial spirit. Number four, effort wins, purpose guides our journey. And number five, solutions first, integrity always shines. And that's it. I mean, it's got some pretty good ones.

15:21I really like the first two. Yeah. The first two are great. I really like those. Yeah. I'm not certain about number five, but I like it. I hate the word personally, but, but you know, I could even ask it to be, it could be five, you know, give me five more, but here's some other interesting things we did for fun on the GPT, similar values of other companies to yours. You want to know them? Yeah. I would love it. Patagonia. Ooh. Orber Parker. Oh, Warby Parker. And Tom. And Tom's. Yeah. It's a fun exercise. Just go to companyvaluesai.com. It's free to do. And you can try this GPT that we created.

15:56And it's really based on the book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat. That's so cool. I actually, I've listened to the founder stories on how I built this of all three of those companies. Guy Raz interviewed the founders there. So I really feel like I have a good handle on all three of those companies. And it's cool to be resonating with them. And maybe they made an impact on you and it had a difference. Could be. It's helped shape your core values for your organization. Yeah. And I think you brought up a good point too, of like those five with chat GPT too, you, you know, always prompt the prompt. So like, I love saying like, Hey, I really liked those first two.

16:30So give me another five knowing that those were the two that I resonated with the most. So on that theme, and then you'll get another five and they'll stick a lot closer to that. You can kind of keep refining that in a way, which is a really cool process. So if our listeners are like, this is cool, what are the next steps, Colin? What is your call to action for them? I mean, the first thing is we love this GPT. It's great. You can create it in five minutes. But I really believe in the old-fashioned way here. When you're at your next strategic planning session, sit down with your team, set an hour aside, talk about this.

17:06You don't have to figure them all out right away. But they should come from you and from the team, and they should reflect you. Again, if you want to use a tool like this, you can do that. But I think really understanding, if you get a copy of the book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, we talk a lot about core values and all the principles you need to scale your business. And setting up core values is one of those things you need to do to scale. I mean, Fire Nation, listen, this is Colin's sixth appearance on Entrepreneurs on Fire. And every time I've told you the same thing, his book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, It is an absolute amazing tool that you can use because it talks about all the things that we're talking about here in a very exciting and pragmatical manner.

17:49So definitely read the book. Definitely keep tuning into these great things. Definitely take advantage of these opportunities that Colin's sharing with the Custom GPT because why not? Why are you not testing yourself and your business limits and just going on on a limb? Like we went on a limb here. This was live. We had no idea what was going to happen, but we had fun and some cool things came out of it. So Colin, give my listeners a call to action. What is the one key takeaway you want them to have from our entire conversation today? And then the call to action for them to take the next step.

18:23Oh, it's really just get over to Amazon and purchase a copy of the book. We've got a hardcover, a softcover, an audible, great audible. Great audible. Yeah, it was done by a fellow Canadian who did Budweiser commercials as well. He made it quite entertaining. Yeah, he did. It was fun. We got the Kindle book. We got the Kindle book as well. And it's now hit 24 global awards. It's being distributed in like 20 countries right now. So good. And it's available at a lot of bookstores now. It's getting more popular. You could probably pick it up at the airport bookstores and whatnot. But that being said, I mean, just head over to Amazon.

19:01Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with CC and JLD today. So keep up the heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Colin in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Colin, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Colin for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. And over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment.

19:38I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit uncommonsuccessbook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout.

20:19Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level. Email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line mentor and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you.