https://youtu.be/4UVKpXiiC6Q

It was a pleasure to join Tersh Blissett on his "Service Business Mastery" podcast. The Youtube version is already online and embedded here in this post. This podcast has a refreshing focus on offering smart ways to build a service business. I really enjoyed the practical approach to business problems and talking about the common challenges faced by entrepreneurs across all industries. We learned together that the lessons of "Grow Like a Lobster" can be applied to any industry. I look forward to sharing details about availability of the audio version when it is released on all your favorite podcast providers. Thanks Tersh!

I had a great time as a guest on the Wealth Junkies podcast which was released today. Brandon Dukeman and Will Harvey are filled with energy and ambition. Their mission is to help at least 1,000 people find a path to success through entrepreneurship. I have feeling they are well on their way to this goal. To listen to the show, please click on the link to the show page here. You can also find the episode on Apple, Spotify, or any platform you find your favorite podcasts. Just search Joshua Dick and Wealth Junkies.

It has been forty-two days since the closure of my children’s school and only slightly fewer since the entire family has been living in lockdown. While it has been a challenge, we realize many others are experiencing deep pain and suffering, both physically and economically. As a business thinker, I find myself looking at difficult times like these as puzzles to be solved and challenges and molts to fight through.

While our top concern must be the health and safety of our loved ones and the healthcare professionals and other workers on the front lines, my mind also wanders to creative and innovative ways businesses have approached the challenges presented. I have compiled a short list of impressive ideas businesses have implemented to keep the lights on.

I share these examples in hopes that one or another might inspire you:

• Tarrytown, New York-based Coffee Labs Roasters is delivering fresh brewed coffee to hospitals and fire and police departments at the request of their customers. Each sale allows the business to generate modest cash flow while also allowing the community a chance to say thank you to first responders.
• Florence, Italy-based Ristorante Accademia is putting idled taxi drivers to work delivering family-style meals sold and prepared for home consumption. 
• A United Kingdom-based coffee roaster is directing all available staff to execute annual cleaning and maintenance protocols normally requiring machine shutdown.
• In Katonah, New York, a family-owned grocery store, DeCicco’s, is accepting orders by email. Once items have been picked and packed, customers are contacted for hands-free collection. Upon arrival, customers remain in their car and pop open their trunk/boot where payment and tip have been left for the person placing the groceries directly in the car.
• A Belgium-based public school teacher forced to teach remotely without any previously installed online resources has turned to the app "Houseparty" for small-group meet-ups and lessons with her fourth-grade students.
• Anheuser-Busch and many liquor distilleries around the world are converting alcohol and bottling operations otherwise intended for beverages to the production of hand sanitizer.
• Independent consulting network Umbrex has organized pro bono consulting resources to businesses hard hit during the lockdown. This will serve as a value to those in need and may also generate future business demand.
• A German business that scheduled a rolling implementation of ERP software over the next six months now has dedicated IT professionals to accelerate the execution of the project in the next six weeks.

I’m sure a million other inspiring ideas and innovations are happening around the world. I’d love to hear about actions you are witnessing in your industry. Stay safe, be strong, keep the light burning, and innovate.

It was a total pleasure to be a guest on Will Bachman's "Unleashed" Podcast. During our conversation we discussed "Grow Like a Lobster" and how the lobster metaphor can be used to help any business grow at a consistent, controlled pace. The episode was released on Apple, Spotify, and all your favorites today. You can listen here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Will is the co-founder of the Umbrex managmenet consulting firm.

A full transript of the podcast interview can be found below:

Will: Hello, Josh. Welcome to the show.
Josh: It's so nice to be here. Thank you for having me.
Will: Josh, let's start with this. How do, in fact, lobsters grow?

Josh: Lobsters grow in a way that, to me, is a scary, painful, and traumatic experience. Unlike humans, who maybe grow just a little bit at a time, lobsters save it all up and seem to grow once a year, or depending on their age, more frequently, and they do so with just this drama. In order for a lobster to grow, it actually has to rip its entire body out from inside of its shell.

Many die trying to do this because you can imagine what it seems like to rip your claw out from the inside of the leg shell. If they don't do it quickly enough, sometimes their gills stop working and they die. Many lobsters have been known to actually rip off the claw, shed the claw, just so that he can make it through the molt process.

Will: Ouch. Then, what happens once they've ripped themself out of the shell? It's hard enough once they're cooked sometimes to get the lobster out of its shell, but what happens once they've ripped themself out? Now, they're this shelless, tasty little morsel.

Josh: Well, for me, that tasty little morsel, that type of lifetime is what I found a connection to in my business. As I imagined what lobsters go through when they go through the molt process and the shedding process, and I saw and I had this image of this very, very vulnerable creature sitting on the ocean floor without a shell, I looked at it and imagined myself and my business. I felt like there were times in my business that I was so vulnerable, that I was just like a lobster that had shed its shell and needed that time for my protections to grow back and my strength and my business security to come back.

Will: Yeah, it's a really interesting metaphor that you use, and we should mention that your book is Grow Like A Lobster. I found it very powerful because businesses don't typically grow just this incremental small percentage every single day on this continuous basis. But there's periods of real dynamism, and then static, where you move into a new factory or you take on a massive new customer or you do a merger or you do a market entry into Asia, or you do some major transaction that really makes you vulnerable and where you're under a lot of stress.

And then, there's some times where you're operating the business as normal and just taking care of routine. So, your metaphor of growing like lobster really helps illustrate that. Tell us about some times when you felt like that molting lobster in your business Urnex, a family business, which you ran for I guess about 15 years, and maybe you should tell the story of Urnex, how did you involved in this family business?

Josh: Absolutely. I'll try and give you a little bit of both parts of that question there. For me, the molt of a lobster isn't something about these little things that happened through a business. I think it's more about awareness. When we can have an opportunity to understand that businesses, like lobsters, go through these ups and downs, where things are really good, where our shells are hard and we're secure, but we know that the molts are coming and we're going to have difficult times in the future, we can use that awareness of ourselves and our businesses to plan and prepare.

So, we can think like a lobster and grow like a lobster by recognizing that there are going to be times when we're strong and secure with hard shells, but the bad times are always out there. And I happen to think that if you're aware that the bad times and the difficult times are coming, they are a whole lot easier to deal with. So, I can go on and tell you a little bit about the story of Urnex as you [crosstalk 00:03:56].

Will: Yeah, let's do that.

Josh: ... to in my earlier... Yeah, okay. Urnex is an interesting story in that Urnex was a business started by my great grandfather back in 1936, way different business than anything that it became when I was involved, but that shell, let's use that lobster terminology again, was there when I got involved in about the year 2000. And the business, at that point, was a collection of seven different product lines, only one of which was what I would eventually pursue in the business that I built and developed.

Josh: We had textiles, we had fabrics, we had products for the restaurant industry. We had this one little small connection through the making of cloth coffee filters with the coffee industry. Urnex or Urnex brands, as it became known, became the global market leader in manufacturing and distribution of cleaning products for coffee machines. Talk about a pretty boring and simple business on the surface, but it was one that really required us to go around the world specializing our formulas, our packaging, our delivery devices for every type of coffee equipment that might be out there, whether it be something you would use in your home or something that might be used at a commercial establishment or restaurant or a specialty coffee chain.

Will: Now, in your book, you have a chapter about the product lines and you talk about this, that when you came in you, as you mentioned now, you had seven different product lines. It must have been a scary decision on your part to pull out of those business lines that were bringing in revenue. Tell me a little bit about lemon covers.

Josh: Yeah, lemon covers was one of the very interesting and exciting business product lines. Lemon covers where, as the story goes, created by my grandfather and those of you who may have seen them on a lemon. It's a little piece of yellow or white gauze wrapped around a piece of a lemon designed to be squeezed so the pits stay in the bag and the juice can come out. Became this very designer product at high end restaurants in the seventies and eighties. It was there as part of the business when I got involved. That along with, as you said, six other product lines, none of which had what I felt was what I would call ownability or scalability.

There was nothing personal, nothing able to be branded, nothing that I felt protected and secure to use the lobster term, nothing that gave me a sense that I had a nice shell. And the only product line that I did find an attraction to was this world of coffee. And for that reason I just said, "Listen, if I'm going to do this, we have to focus on one thing and do it really well." We got rid of the other product lines. In fact, we closed over 55% of the revenue producing product lines in the business in order to just focus on one thing with the effort to really do that the best.

Will: Yeah, that's a pretty bold move to downsize your business by 50% to focus on one product line when you're not guaranteed that that thing's going to take off. Tell us a little bit about how you went about, and I you talk about this in the book some, about how you went about making that something that was not just a generic commodity, soap commodity cleaner, but how you built a brand around that with emotion and a name that people would latch onto.

Josh: Yeah, I think one of the things that's interesting about joining a business that had so many diverse different product lines, I had a chance to see how damaging and dangerous distractions can be to a business. Because I walked into a business that had seven different product lines, I realized that resources were being divided in such a way that no business was really getting the love it deserved. So, from that perspective, picking one piece of the business to focus on made a lot of sense.

Now, once I picked it, I knew that I had given up so much of this security blanket of revenue that came from the other businesses. I had to really go about defining the business and the brand in a way that I thought was going to be meaningful, not just to me for someone that had to spend his entire life focused on it or his business life focused on it, but also for the customer.

So, for me, I set out and really tried to understand the coffee industry. Even though we weren't making coffee or roasting coffee or selling coffee, I recognize that cleaning products were an essential part of this very special industry. And I did my best to really learn about what it takes to make coffee, how our cleaning products were used, but most of all to understand the culture and priorities of the target consumer that I wanted to sell the products to. And that took a lot of time immersing myself and the entire, the entire team in those cultures and trying to get to know what was important to what the priorities were of the customer.

Will: Now, some people may be thinking that you're talking about their home drip brewer, and I think Urnex is to have a consumer product. But primarily, it's business to business. Could you talk about your typical buyer in the use case?

Josh: Absolutely. Absolutely. The business, really the strength of the business, although as you're correct, we did eventually make many different products for cleaning home coffee machines, capsule machines and the like. The real core of the business was recognizing the value that could be created by delivering specialty cleaning products to the restaurant groups in chains. You know them all from the largest specialty coffee retailers in the world, like a Starbucks and a Caribou and a Pete's and a Costa around the world. These are all companies that are out there putting their name on coffee, basing their entire business on coffee.

And coffee is this really, really interesting product that what we love so much about it, this essence of aroma and flavor and oil, is also what is neglected and is not properly cleaned, can lead to this terrible bitter taste. So, only by cleaning a machine properly could these companies, these large, really high powered coffee retailers, maintain the quality that they were delivering to their consumer. We at Urnex became uniquely positioned to understand what they were trying to do and develop products that could help them keep their equipment running properly and delivering the best tasting beverages possible.

Will: Now, Josh, you're one of the most practical guys I know, no nonsense. In your book, you have a chapter on really defining your mission and vision as a business, which some people might think feels a bit fluffy. Talk to me a little bit about what you did there, what was the mission and vision of Urnex, and why was that so important to you being the ultimate, practical, no nonsense executive and owner?

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. To me, it is incredibly important that before you do anything in building a business, creating a business, that you understand who you are and who you want to be. And as a young startup entrepreneur, I read it all. I read all of the books out there on how to write a mission statement and how to build and define your business. And what I started to realize was a lot of them were written for companies much larger than I was at the time. Maybe I aspired to be as large as a J & J, who's often renowned for having done this process very well.

But I wanted to streamline it and organize it in a way that I had these documents created. So, what I did was really went about and wrote down what was important to me personally in a mission and vision statement, and also what I thought made the company a great place to work. With all of those facts, I took a lot of time to make sure that we were going to commit to it. I was a [inaudible 00:12:07] major as an undergrad in college and I had this fascination with the power of the constitution of the US government. The fact that it's there, it's been there for whatever it is now, 200 and almost 50 years as we're getting there. And although we can interpret it differently in different times, the foundation of it is still there.

And that was how I started to look at what a mission was supposed to be for me. It was supposed to be a tool for making good decisions, going back and saying, is it really worth our energy and time to invest in this new product extension? Does it fit with what our mission is? And in essence, I developed this core set with my team of five statements in the mission and five statements under the vision or values world. And we spent a lot of time and ended up grouping it all together for simplicity's sake into one really simple statement.

And that statement became, "It is our mission to help people make better tasting coffee." And every word in that mission was actually well thought out. We didn't want to say we want to help you make perfect coffee, because everybody has a different standard of what perfect coffee was. We knew that from the start that some of the high end specialty coffee retailers thought their coffee was the best. Whereas, some people just enjoy the coffee at their local convenience store.

Our mission and Urnex summarized into that one statement about helping you make better tasting coffee became about delivering products that help you no matter who you were, take whatever coffee you were preparing and make it a little better by cleaning the equipment properly.

Will: Can you give me an example of a decision that you made that, if you had been just purely profit-driven, taking opportunities as they come, you might have gone ahead with, but because of your mission and vision statement you decided not to pursue because it wasn't consistent with the mission and the vision?

Josh: Yeah, it's actually a pretty funny story. I'm not sure if I'd ever shared it with you, but our cleaning products or descaling products were used on coffee machines both in homes and offices, and as we said earlier, in food service establishment.

I got a call one day from a company that had a pretty high end Italian made a special machine in their offices. And that machine needed to be serviced, and when the service technician came to serve it, he brought Urnex descaling powder to work on the coffee machine. And this business happened to make humidifiers. And the guy who was running this company looked at the product and saw how amazingly it fixed his coffee machine and said, "Wow, we could really, really use a product like that for taking care of our humidifiers."

He called me, asked for some samples, asked to have a little bit of an understanding of what we did. And the first thing I said to him was, "Sorry, we only make products for coffee machines. I'm happy to send you some of my stuff. I'm happy to give you some information. I would even help you find a distributor or another manufacturer that can do something similar." Although it was very similar to what we were already doing. I just did not want to be distracted.

The guy was like, "Okay, send me some product." We leave it alone and left it at that. And it went on, and every few months, he would call me and be like, "Hey, can you still talk to me today about doing humidifiers?" And I said, "No, no, really, we only do coffee machines." And this went on for a couple of years where he would call, I would give him some advice. He tried to have a product made by someone else and he didn't get the quality he wanted. He couldn't believe that I wouldn't do it. He started offering me higher prices. And then, we were charging the coffee machine manufacturers and I turned them down and I turned him down.

I will tell you that the funniest part of this story is that I had turned him down so many times, I had ignored him. I took a leave, I was away from the office for maybe two or three weeks when one of my children was born, a really nice paternity leave, and I left things in charge of a young marketing manager who was a guy I trusted with everything. The day or the second day I came back from my paternity leave, this young guy comes to me and says, "Hey, the guys from Switzerland or are coming today." "What are you talking about?"

The whole crew of humidifier manufacturers were there and they were determined to have a product made. This guy had told him we could do it having no idea that I had turned it down so many times in the past. The truth is we ended up doing the business with them and charging them a huge premium just so that I felt comfortable with the fact that I was straying away from my focus only on coffee machines. And I told them to their face that we were going to charge them more because we needed to hold true to our values.

Will: Okay, that is pretty funny, you're marketing manager going on independent operations. That really takes some real focus to turn away business, even if it's just falling into your lap if it's not core to your mission. So, great example. Let's talk a little bit about what happened over time. I don't know to what degree you want to share results, but you say in the book how your business, you manage to grow it nice and steady over a pretty long period of time. Do you want to talk about just how you manageD the growth of the business and how you ended up eventually exiting the business?

Josh: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, for me, it was very interesting. Growth, I always wanted to grow conservatively. I liked growth, but I didn't like the vulnerability, maybe of that molt type vulnerability that I imagined businesses faced when they grew too fast and had cash constraints or other issues going on. I was always out there, and I say in the book about driving the business with two feet, one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake at the same time, slow and steady, trying to find the opportunities.

Every year, we set out to have a growth of the top line of 15%, and every year on average we achieve 15%. Some years, a little bit more, some years, a lot more. But there were years that we had opportunities to really be even bigger than that 15, 20% growth range, and we turned away business. I remember saying to the team, "We have to stay focused. We have to stay in control of what we're doing, and we want to just take it as it comes."

Josh: So, we had 15 consecutive years of 15% growth. Just as an aside, when I was working on the metaphor of the book, I realized that every time a lobster molts, it grows 15%. So, I had basically been living this life of the lobster and not even known it. I had only been using the lobster metaphor in the business to remember to plan and prepare. And as I'm doing this research, I found out that my 15% a year growth was what was the same thing going on with these amazing animals.

The business did that every year for 15 consecutive years. And during that time, we grew from just this one simple product line based in New York selling in the US, to product sold in over 70 countries. We had opened distribution centers in Holland and Hong Kong. So, we were on three continents at this point, dealing with customers around the world. And the business had gotten really strong and really stable. We were extremely well positioned to take the molt as the age came.

But I also had a recognition that there were a lot of things in my life that were important to me. And I also had this sense of fear and vulnerability that so much of what I had created in terms of personal wealth was tied up in this one entity of which I was the primary shareholder. And I went about the process of very proactively exploring the options for sale and exit of the business.

And one of the things that I had experienced over the years with businesses in my industry, sometimes they would sell, a lot of times they would sell very reactively. Companies would be approached by an investor or by a strategic partner and basically answer the phone, hear that there was an interesting offer to buy their business, and they would take it. And for me, that was never going to be right. I wanted to have a really organized, disciplined approach to going out there and understanding what the options were. I can keep going, you know some of this story, Will...

Will: Yeah, keep going. Keep going because this is the dream of a lot of entrepreneurs, to grow their business. 15% for 15 years is amazing. And so, you accomplished what a lot of entrepreneurs are trying to do. How did you manage that process? Tell us a bit about that.

Josh: Yeah, I think the first part for me was talking to a lot of people. Although I had started my career in investment banking right out of college and I had a little bit of a sense of what goes on in terms of corporate valuation and how businesses are valued and developed, I didn't really know what the market was like for a business like mine. We were growing, we were by no means an enormous company, but we were very, very profitable. We were very stable, we were very secure, throwing off significant cash. I needed to get a sense of what the market meant.

So, I just started calling everyone I could imagine that might know someone that could talk to me about things. And as part of that process of understanding the types of questions I needed to know and I needed to ask, I actually sat down and went back to what had been my business plan and turned my business plan into a little bit of a selling memorandum in some way. I sat down and wrote everything I thought a potential investment might want to know about my business, not so much with the intention of sharing with that investor yet, but just for me to think about what the business would look like to an investor.

And I started to get a really keen sense of what the value was, what our level of security was. I was really aware of our product mix, the concentration of our customers, our distribution, our manufacturing capacities. And I started to look and say, "Well, this thing is worth something." It may sound a little bit crazy, but I never really thought I was going to be selling the business, at least not nearly as quickly as it ended up happening. 15 years, to some, may not be quick. To me, it seemed like a lot. I started to really get a sense of what the business was.

And from there, I decided, "Okay, if this was going to be something..." Let me back up a second. The amazing thing about the business and the opportunity for me was that I absolutely loved my job. I had the best job in the world. I was happy going to work every day. I loved the people that were on my team, I love the challenges and the puzzles and the opportunities and the sales and our entire organization. So, that, in itself, gave me incredible power in the sale process.

I realized that for me to sell this business and eventually lose my independence as the CEO, whether it be selling the entire company to a strategic buyer or selling to a private equity firm, the value had to really be right. Someone had to really entice me to give up this great job. So, my process started with basically trying to identify who might be the right advisors to hire. I had four firms come in and do something of a dog and pony show, which you may be familiar with, Will. I'm not sure if you remember.

Will: Yep, yep.

Josh: And really invited four different investment banks to come review the business plan, the business model that I had written and worked on. Let them see it, told them who I was, what was important to me in terms of a potential partner or investor, and gave them each, I think, probably a two hour slot all in one exhausting day, and listened to each of their proposals about how they would market and position the business.

They really thought about the work they were doing very much the way I thought about the work of selling coffee machine cleaners. I wanted to understand how they understood the potential buyers that are potential customers, and get a sense from them the values they thought they could achieve and the process that I might experience. For me, it was very important that we figure out a way to do the process of a sale very quickly because I didn't want to be distracted from running the business, which I enjoyed.

I was very fortunate that things worked out where I found an incredible investor partner in the private equity firm called the Cortech Group based in New York. They came in and I sold the initial portion of the business to them in April of 2015. I could not, to this day, be happier with the group of private equity partners that I found in Cortech.

I found people that understood who I was as an entrepreneur and wanted nothing more than to help me make the business great, and that's really what we did. I stayed on, involved with them as the primary investor, although I was still a significant shareholder, stayed on in the CEO role for about a year and a half after their investment, and eventually moved to a board role where, in that process, I worked with them to do a merger and another acquisition.

The business was eventually sold again in March of 2019 and the ultimate investor was the Carlyle group to give you a sense, based on the scale of the types of businesses and private equity investors that we were able to work with, how the business was perceived and the value that I think was created over that period of time.

Will: Can you talk a little bit about what you're doing personally now that the company that you've left the CEO role and now the company's been sold, what did you do with your personal life?

Josh: Yeah, a very good friend of mine suggested to me, after the first sale, that I definitely had some new found financial security, you can say my shell was hard, if you want to go back to the grow like a lobster metaphor, and what are you going to do? What's next? How are you going to do things? And at that point, I was pretty staying in the CEO role.

But I sat down with my wife one day and we have three young daughters. We were talking about this idea of what are you going to do, what are you going to do? And this friend of mine said, "The world is open to you." And that was where we had the idea to pick up our family from where we were living in New York and relocate the entire family where the weather was better than New York. We could find great international schools. Everyone in the family can learn a new culture and a new language. And now, I'm on my fourth year living in the beautiful city of Florence, Italy, and loving every minute of it and really having a new challenging, stimulating experience living here in Italy every day in a different way than I did as the CEO of Urnex. But really in a wonderful way.

Will: You're living in Florence where a lot of us dream just to visit, and you've spent some time writing this book "Grow Like a Lobster." What else are you doing now that you have some financial independence? How are you spending your time? What's the next stage in your career?

Josh: Well, my wife says that I probably need a full-time job to have more free time. So, that gives [inaudible 00:27:56]. I can tell you a few other things I'm doing. Starting with the book, the book was something that I really felt a sincere desire to produce and put out in the world. I felt like there were so many things that I learned along the way of running my business that I wish someone had shared with me, and I tried to put those in a book.

Since the book was released last fall, I've been out there giving lectures at business schools, particularly in the US. As you may know, I was just at Columbia. I went back to my Alma mater at Kellogg, and I was at Yale talking to students. It was so fascinating, so exciting to have those experiences interacting with students, telling the story of how I built the business along this lobster metaphor.

Another thing I've been doing is investing in coffee related businesses. Another former CEO from the coffee industry and I along with a couple of other people, have created our own small private equity firm, and we've been going out around the world making investments in businesses that we think are run by smart, experienced, or maybe not as experienced, but smart entrepreneurs with a lot of capability and potential. We're not investing just to give these guys money. We're investing because we think that maybe they want our help and maybe we have some help to offer. So, in that level, I'm doing a bit of advisory work with the CEOs of some of these businesses we've made investments in.

I'm also doing a little bit of blogging, as you can see on my website, joshua-dick.com​. I have a blog and I'm probably not the most prolific blogger, but I try and get something out there once a month, little short, two to three minute reads. But I'm also finding myself doing a little bit of advising on a select basis with entrepreneurs that show something to me about their understanding of who they are and who they want to be, have a clearly defined mission statement and understanding of what their mission is, and have a focus that I can find a connection to.

And I want to be there to help. And I've found some interesting opportunities working with some of these entrepreneurs, both from an investment perspective and just from a personal fulfillment perspective.

Will: So, for an entrepreneur who has checked out your book and maybe heard this show and wants to reach out to you, where's the best place for them to go, Josh? Is there a contact us form on your website? What's the best way to get in contact with you?

Yeah, I think the best way to get in touch with me is through the website, which is ​joshua-dick.com​. And on there, there's a subscribe and a contact me form that lets you get on my newsletter, but also will send an email directly to me and I'll have a chance to review it and respond.

As you and I talked about it, I'm fortunate enough that I'm not necessarily in a position where I'm looking to be some full-time consultant, but I'm also a super curious guy, super excited for smart, intelligent businesses, and really enjoying giving back in that way where people that are recognizing some value in the book or maybe there's some idea that I have that confirms for them that their idea wasn't crazy, or maybe confirms to them that their idea was crazy and it helps them feel better about themselves in one way or another. I like giving that back and I'm really finding that an exciting opportunity.

Will: Josh, that sounds like you have a full plate, even without a full time job, with spending some time with your kids, and I guess you're also learning Italian and advising entrepreneurs?

Josh: Yes, I'm very proud of my Italian language skills. Although my American accent, I've been told, will never go away. I can communicate to a point where I've even made people laugh. And that is my standard of excellence in Italian.

Will: That is like getting an Oscar in Italian. It has been great having you on the show. Thanks so much for joining.

Josh: Thank you so much, Will. It's such a pleasure to be here and I'm just so appreciative of the time you've put in in having me on.

Unleashed Episode 261 - ​JOSHUA DICK ON WHY BUSINESSES SHOULD AIM TO GROW LIKE A LOBSTER

Yesterday, I had the honor of being a virtual guest in Professor Josh Baron's Columbia Business School MBA class. The course focuses on family business and outside investment. While I would have much preferred to engage with the students in person, it was a lot of fun to share my perspectives, discuss some of the concepts in "Grow Like a Lobster," and hear their amazing questions. Thank you!

It was a pleasure to be a guest last week on the "Join Up Dots" podcast. David Ralph and I had a great time discussing all things business along with some timely experiences comparing the molt of a lobster described in "Grow Like a Lobster" to the impact of today's COVID-19 lockdown on businesses around the world. You can find the link to the show here. If you'd like to read the transcript of the show, it is also pasted below.

I hope you will enjoy listening on any of your favorite sources including: Stitcher, Apple iTunes, Spotify, and others.

Full Transcription Of Joshua Dick Interview on "Join Up Dots"

Intro [0:00]
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph.

David Ralph [0:25]
Yes, have a good morning everybody. Good morning and welcome to a Join Up Dots. Yes, the motivational, conversational inspirational podcast that literally can go in any direction. And today’s guest has, he certainly got enough experience to go in any direction because over 15 years, he transformed a small family business into a global market leader in the coffee industry with customers in over 70 countries and distribution facilities on three continents and in the process, his sales grew more than 25 times while earnings multiplied over 275 times. Now, after the sale of the business, he moved to Florence, Italy, where he now lives with his wife and his three daughters. Now that’s not a bad start to a show. But of course, we need to know more about today’s guests and of course you’re going to get it. His approach to business has always been about creating an organisation that is strong, secure, and able to avoid distraction and throughout his career in the coffee industry, he relied on the unusual metaphor of the lobster to unite the team and prepare the organisation. Awareness that lobsters never stop growing and of the trauma they experience during molt can remind any business to enjoy the ups while preparing for the downs that always come. "Grow Like a Lobster" was motivated by his sincere desire to help others who seek to build extraordinary businesses and through sharing his personal experiences and insight. He offers a new way to confront challenges and simple approaches to building special and lasting organisation. He has a BA in political science from Yale College. He’s a brainy guy, and an MBA in marketing and finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. University. Along the way to building brands within the world of coffee machine cleaning products. He’s worked in investment banking for Salomon Brothers, and in marketing for Unilever Home and Personal Care. And now he wrote "Grow Like a Lobster: How to Plan and Prepare for Extraordinary Business Results." It’s quite simply it seems when he wants to be in life and in business. So do businesses need the ups and downs that come to truly strengthen their foundations and, and grow like a lobster and now with the issues across the world due to Covid 19. As he has given him a business back component, its corner and survive? Well, let’s find out as we bring them to the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Joshua Dick. Good morning Joshua, how are you?

Joshua Dick [2:57]
I am great, David. Thanks so much for having me here. It’s really a pleasure. I’m excited to chat with you

David Ralph [3:03]
Well I’m excited because we’ve, you know, time stamping it. This is a very sort of generic show I try to make it but somebody can come to it 20 years later and still get the same kind of value. At the moment you are living in Florence, Italy, and of course we have got the coronavirus, running riot across the world has that caused your business to expand like some people. like zoom, if you’d bought shares in zoom, six weeks ago, you’d be a millionaire. How’s your business doing because of the issues?

Joshua Dick [3:34]
Well, I’m fortunate to say that I actually no longer have involvement with that business that I created over the years. So I’m somewhat insulated and protected from all that’s going on. But I do get updates from the team and my friends and the people that I worked with really closely and I will admit that it’s been hard. It’s been hard for them and the businesses is struggling but it’s a very strong team with great people. And it looks like they’ll the Come through this just fine. And

David Ralph [4:02]
Is it one of these troops? Right? all businesses have to have ups and downs because I know that so many people that I speak to, they think that is going to be a natural curve, they’re going to work. The early days are going to be a bit of a struggle, and then success just naturally comes. Do you think that businesses really do need for dips to keep on strengthening their, their foundations as they move forward?

Joshua Dick [4:27]
Well, I’m not sure they need them. But I think they’re inevitable. I think that business and life and living in organisations, they come they always come. We may not even notice them sometime. They may be small and minor, but they’re, they’re there. And I think the most important thing that I tried to convey in in the book is that if we’re aware that they’re going to come, we’re going to be way better prepared to deal with them when they arrive.

David Ralph [4:54]
Now, watch out something like this spin at the moment because you know, January, we wouldn’t have had a clue. Governments aren’t prepared. So how do sort of industries really get themselves prepared for things that, you know, just come come at them?

Joshua Dick [5:09]
Well, this one, I think we missed. I mean, so many of us missed it businesses, leaders, governments, and, and even hospital. So, you know, maybe we can’t be prepared for everything. But we can really take a disciplined approach to thinking about and imagining the things that could go wrong. This is a big outlier for me. And you know, I’m kicking myself, I wish I had seen it coming. Yeah,

David Ralph [5:33]
yeah, I think we all do. Now, let’s take you back to the early days was the young Mr. Joshua Dick, was he always on this path? Or were you like so many of us back in a day, going to university getting a job and not really thinking about the entrepreneurial spirit or was it always in you?

Joshua Dick [5:52]
Well, it’s interesting, I don’t think I was thinking about entrepreneurial spirit, but I did have pretty high aspirations for what I hoped to achieve. I had this sort of innate aversion to the idea of complacency or being satisfied with where I was and it caused me to keep pushing and looking and trying things and asking a lot of questions. And for that, I think that fit very well with entrepreneurship when I eventually got to it after leaving, sort of the corporate world.

David Ralph [6:21]
Now, let’s delve into that because I know exactly what you mean. My wife always says to me, you’re never settled. You’re always looking at something. And I say, Yeah, but it’s, it’s something that’s interesting. It’s something that drives me forward. And at the moment, she’s sort of walking around the house because we’re in lockdown going, Oh my god, I’m so bored. I should do some cleaning, but I can’t even be bothered to do the cleaning. And I’m saying you need something you need at home but you need something to drive you forward. Now, why do you think Ben but you will never satisfied when so many people are so many people are just going through the motions and now suddenly having a way Kept Cova actually, the motions don’t give you the control in your life but other people have.

Joshua Dick [7:06]
Yeah, I mean, the control thing that’s going on right now with this situation of lockdown is definitely difficult for me. I’m one of those people that really enjoys fixing his own mistakes. I don’t like relying on I don’t mind making mistakes. I never minded when anyone in my organisation made mistakes. But for me, it’s really important that if I mess something up, I have the power to figure out how to fix it. And that’s sort of a puzzle and a challenge. That’s always been important to me.

David Ralph [7:33]
I’m exactly the same as that and through through the show, people will know that my mum’s had a stroke. And I find it very difficult when something comes at me, but I can’t do anything about I’m the kind of fixer. I’m the person that says, like, come on, like there’s always a way around this. Let’s think about it. And when it’s totally out of my control, I have a huge wobble I there’s something in me that needs to be in control over time. Is that in your view, Joshua, is that a super talent that people have? Or is that the kryptonite?

Joshua Dick [8:08]
I think there are definitely people that are well, it’s definitely I don’t think it’s kryptonite. I think some people take it to an extreme where it can destroy them. I think it’s finding the balance between what you need to do what you need to control. But also at some point in my career, I recognised that I couldn’t control and I couldn’t do everything, and I couldn’t do everything perfectly. And it was at that point in my business when I recognised that I needed to trust other people and build a team that I could rely on, that my business really exploded that he really saw the greatest growth and in in top line sales as well as profitability, and I was happier. We were doing better and I was working less. And that was the point when I really found that that balance and things clicked.

David Ralph [8:55]
And did your wife see a difference in you because this is something that interest Maybe there’s normally one party that’s driven and the other party sort of says, We will as we are, why don’t you keep on doing it? Why are you working so hard? So when you sort of sat back a bit, was it an improvement? Or did she actually sort of say, I think I actually liked it when he was going out to work all the time. This is this is a bit more difficult.

Joshua Dick [9:20]
Now, you know, I think my wife is pretty driven on her own and you know, has a lot of great accomplishments of her own and she’s pursuing all the time. So we I really one of the interesting things, your question kind of took me a little bit off guard because I never really involved my family where I could with the business, it was a business it was the place I went and did stuff so that I could come home and focus on my family. And I tried really hard to separate those two things. Of course, you know, your emotions are influenced by what’s going on and the stresses you’re under in business but for me, business was business even though you know their family elements of it and relationship elements. It wasn’t what I wanted to deal with when I got home and I tried my best to shield my wife from it, as I hope she shielded me from, from other things. We could spend our energies together on more positive things.

David Ralph [10:13]
Because I always wonder how people do operate. I’ve got a business, as it says at the beginning of the intro live from the back of his garden is absolutely true. I’ve got an office at the back of the garden, I walk up here. I think I could count on two fingers. Basically, the last time that somebody come up to here, in the last seven years from my family, they just don’t they know it’s where I go. And then I go back at home, and I never asked you about it. I just sort of get on with my life. I always wonder how people operate when their business partner is their spouse, and whether it’s, it’s just all consuming all the time.

Joshua Dick [10:49]
Yeah, that is not the place that I would want to go. It’s gotta be quite a complicated dynamic to interject into a business when you know, to me the business. His objective is, in its raw sense, to make money. And when you have to have those you have to make decisions sometimes that are, are separating your emotions from what’s right for the business. You have, to me the idea. One of the things I talk about in the book also is the idea of non emotional decision making. You have to separate sort of your personal feelings for an employee. If it’s time for them to go, you have to figure out how to make a decision that’s right for the organisation. Even if it if it hurts, and for that reason, if your spouse were also your business partner, I have incredible respect for those people that are successful at it. It’s not even a place that I would ever choose to go if I could avoid it.

David Ralph [11:44]
Right now, man Oh, I really think that mentor I can’t think of anything worse been been working with my wife. It would just drive me drive me mental is Oprah

Oprah Winfrey [11:54]
The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move, not think about, Oh, I got all of this too. But what is the next right move? And then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move, and not to be overwhelmed by it. Because, you know, your life is bigger than that one moment, you know, you’re not defined by what somebody says, is a failure for you, because failure is just there to point you in a different direction.

David Ralph [12:26]
Right. Okay, so we’re gonna spin off our conversation, through the words of Oprah Ben, because back in the day, you transformed a small family business into a global market leader in the coffee industry. Now, I’m interested in that. Tell me the thought process as Oprah saying, It’s decision after decision after decision. Nothing is life changing. Nothing is defining but you’ve got to make those decisions. Why did you go into the small family business in the birthplace?

Joshua Dick [12:55]
Well, it’s interesting. I went there when it was in distress. So the business was having trouble. And it was at the point being run by my dad and my brother was involved as well. And they had lost 10 customers 10 of the biggest customers and really hadn’t noticed, until they started to realise that the orders were not recurring. And I went from my position at Unilever spent a little time kind of looking at the business trying to understand what happened, and try to help. And it was at that point that I had this this idea, this vision that if I was ever going to get involved with the family business, now might be the time while it was having a hard time because who knew if it would still be there when I decided I was finally ready. So that was that was a big turning point. For me taking that leap of faith and deciding this was something I was going to do when for a significant portion of my life. I had a total aversion to the idea of ever getting involved with that business

David Ralph [13:54]
Is a strange thing because I’m involved I sort of bought my mum and dad split business, I had a car spares business, and I bought it as an investment. And I was so naive, there’s so many issues not least taking over a business that was under the control of your parents. And even though they sell it, I still feel very in control. It’s very difficult when there’s, there’s personal relationships involved, and you come in and you make decisions which are contrary to what they’ve done, but you know that they’re right to move it forward. How did you deal with that? How did you do the hard stuff when your brothers and your father would have thought they were doing the right stuff anyway?

Joshua Dick [14:39]
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. So it was my dad and my brother, and my dad eventually sold us the business. So it was my brother and I involved and he and I worked together quite well for a number of years. And then there was a point in time where he decided he wanted to do other things. So from that point forward, it was me alone where we We also worked A family buyout transaction. So it stopped being a family business after a period of time. And it became a business that had been started within my family. But we had the freedom now to become this organisation that moved beyond what it might have been. And you know, it’s something that Oprah said that in your in the little passage from Oprah about it to the next decision, the next decision. I agree with that, but only partially, I think one of the ways that my business was able to achieve great success was that Yeah, we did work on each next decision in succession, one upon the other. But we started with a very clear and well articulated target of where we were trying to go. And that was very important to me. So I had to make all those decisions. But those decisions were so much easier than they might have been because I knew where I was going. I had decided it and I had committed to it

David Ralph [15:59]
Now I agree with that totally, because I do a lot of business coaching now. And one of the things that blows me away, when people come to me, they’ve normally tried online businesses beforehand. And it’s very much a case, but they have created a website, and they just have a scattered approach to what they’re targeting. And I always say to them, let’s look at the age of the customer, the location of the customer, let’s drill down all the data is there, and then create something that fulfils their need, and it normally blows their mind. But I think that’s obvious, isn’t it, you find out what the market is asking for you find your ideal customer. And then you don’t just put your finger up in the air and create something that you think would be good. You create what the data is telling you.

Joshua Dick [16:46]
Without any question, I also think that the data is one thing but you need to define articulate and write the the mission of the company and that mission of the company. It shouldn’t only be driven by the numbers because that might not make you happy. For me the mission of the of the company had obvious financial and political objectives and goals and deceit and criteria that it was meeting. But it also had parts of the business that made me happy. Because who wants to work in a business that’s hugely successful if it doesn’t make you happy. And having that balance really helped me, I think ,achieve good things because it kept me motivated all the time.

David Ralph [17:28]
Because I love creating businesses that are not my passion, but they bring money in so that I can then work on things that is my passion. I remember talking to a guy many, many years ago, and he said, a friend of mine now and he was really, really good on computers. Brilliant. And if your computer had gone wrong, you take it to him, and he would just log on he would do it. And I said, Why don’t you do this as a business fail? I said, you know, you’ll make a fortune. You really know your stuff. And he said, I don’t want to do it. As a business, because then it will take the enjoyment away from me. And I thought to myself while I do old rubbish days that I didn’t agree with it at that time, but I now know. But if I was totally focused on building a passion based business, Ben, I think he’s right. I think the passion would go out of it, all the eggs would be in one basket. I like creating multiple streams of income, which I can just play around with every now and again, I can have a week doing one business and then walk away from it because it’s operating and then move into something else. How do you keep the passion about the business? Or are you the same as me, Joshua? It’s not really a passion. It’s just a means to an end.

Joshua Dick [18:42]
Well, I mean, for me, the business is being very, very focused on one thing, and I don’t like to have a lot of different things to work on and a lot of different businesses. I like to be excellent. At one thing. I like to be the best if I can at one thing, and avoid distractions or diversification in any way. I believe that diversification is for the stock market or other investment strategies. And that, for me, the business got easier and simpler and clear, when I wiped away all the distractions and just figured out the one thing I wanted to be really good at. And it was my only way of getting there because I realised I had limited resources, both financially and time and energy and all of those things. And if I could simplify it in a way that that really helped, helped make it efficient, then I might get somewhere so I think they’re they’re slightly different ways of getting there. And for me, that was that was the way that made sense because I came into a business that had many different business lines. In fact, it had seven product lines, and my first decision was to close six of them.

David Ralph [19:59]
So you did a Steve Jobs you you went in there exactly like he did.

Joshua Dick [20:04]
Yeah, I mean, I never really thought about that way, because we were, you know, basically, I didn’t have the energy to try and be great at all seven. I wanted to do one that made me happy that I thought I could really take somewhere special. I thought I could probably get by and survive with any one of the seven or perhaps all seven together. But it wasn’t where I wanted to go. I wanted to hit something that I considered sort of beyond beyond conventional measures.

David Ralph [20:34]
And so what was the thing that you decided you were going to be great at?

Joshua Dick [20:37]
So the thing that we decided, I decided that we were going to be great at was, believe it or not cleaning products for coffee machines. So these were detergents, powders, liquids, tablets, and it was all wrapped up behind the idea of helping people make better tasting coffee. That was it. From there, we were able to dedicate all of our energy and resources on the product line, the distribution, the ease of use to get the product to customers to help their coffee tastes better. That was it.

David Ralph [21:15]
That’s that sort of blew me away because on one side is so obvious. But on the other side, it’s not sexy. But ultimately, it solves a problem. It solves a problem for people, doesn’t it?

Joshua Dick [21:27]
It absolutely does. And I love an unsexy business I think that’s the best place to be much less competition many fewer people they’re trying to scrap for the same piece of cheese.

David Ralph [21:38]
Well, there’s there’s a point to it and I want the audience to understand that but you are so with the old metaphor about the blue oceans and the red oceans and creating your own niche. So many people go to the first level don’t play and where the competition is greater without pepper ting and going depot and looking at the numbers. I’m finding that non sexy business. You know, I’m a great believer in local businesses. I’m a great believer in providing traffic and lead generation to Emergency Plumbers and electrical people and people that are out there that are good at what they’re doing, but they’re not good at getting customers. And I like these kind of very small, niche based location based businesses. They’re not sexy at all. But they work they work. And everybody out there can dominate their niche really, really quickly. Kobe if I really drill down deep enough,

Joshua Dick [22:35]
Absolutely. And I think if you if you get the niche, right, you can take that niche to other markets without really changing it too much. You know, you can you can really for us, we were very fortunate in that. We figured out how to serve the coffee community in a small geographic area. And we quickly recognise that coffee is coffee everywhere you go in the world, probably like plumbers are plumbers, everywhere you go in the world. And if you can tell the story in the message to the coffee community for me at that point it was in New York, the New York area, you could probably take the same story and we started telling it in Seoul, South Korea and in Moscow and you know, all around the world, but it was the same story. We had to play with our languages and regulatory things and whatnot but, but the focus was the same message and really simple as I said, Just wanted to help people make better tasting coffee.

David Ralph [23:31]
Now we’re going to be back with Joshua dick after these words.

Joshua Dick [25:57]
Yeah, so you know, since selling the business that was really the primary motivation for the ability to move to Florence, Italy and spend more time with my family. I’ve taken it upon myself to actually stay involved with the coffee industry. So I’m an investor and some something of an advisor to businesses in the coffee industry, anyone from coffee shop change to Coffee Roasters, equipment manufacturers, and usually they’re a very select group of companies. So it’s sort of my own private equity investment type model, where I’m working working on that. And I wrote the book after reflecting back on my experiences in business. And throughout my business career, over 15 years, I kept a diary. And the diary was the place that I sort of vented about things that were bothering me and frustrating me. And when I sold the business, I sat down and I read nearly 350 pages of diary entries and said, Wow, there is so there are so many things in here that I learned That I wish someone had told me when I was getting started. And that was the motivation to sit down and write grow like a lobster. And from there I’ve taken "Grow Like a Lobster" kind of around the world, sharing the ideas and the lessons at business schools with MBA students, and trying to really help, help and really that’s it. That’s my way of giving back if I say anything more than that, and another things that I find definitely entertaining and keeping me busy in Italy are language studies, you know, learning this amazingly beautiful language and focusing and I’m fortunate enough to have the time and energy and resources to spend a lot more time with my kids. And that was something that I really aspired to the entire time I was building my business.

David Ralph [27:45]
So let’s have a summary of it. Oh, let’s do a little mastermind for for the listeners out there so vast in Bear Bear in their cubicle, or maybe they’re not in their cubicle at the moment. Maybe they’re there on their sofa with their laptop. Apart aside from self isolating, like most of us, how do you plan and prepare for extraordinary business results? If I find a lot of people like the idea, but they can’t get the idea, they struggle with the idea? What would be your advice?

Joshua Dick [28:16]
Yeah, you know, I have kind of a process that I think through that really starts with figuring out that one thing that you want to be very good at, and then taking it and defining what you want the business to be through sort of a mission and value statement exploration. And I go, I like to go from there and incorporate all of that with the effort to understand who the audience is, and to remember that it’s super important to separate yourself from who your customer is. So these three things like trying to figure out what you want to do, articulating it, writing it down, putting it on paper, and doing all of those things with an overlaying view of who your audience is that you want to Serve. And that that’s easier said than done. But it can be done. I think it takes a lot of time. My biggest idea or biggest sort of success of a experiment was going when I knew I wanted to get into the coffee industry. I went out to the Pacific Northwest of the United States, which was at that point, the heart and the growth of the coffee industry where Starbucks is and the like. And I basically immersed myself in that community for a few weeks. I just kind of hung out there hung out in coffee shops, talk to be able to learn how to be a barista did some hiking and just got a sense of who I was talking to, as a way to use that to shape my idea of how I might provide a product and value and benefit to them.

David Ralph [29:47]
That is really easy, but a lot of people would think that that was effort when a lot of people I know just like to sit behind the laptop and sort of bashing out theoretically without actually getting into the into real life.

Joshua Dick [30:01]
You know, I often say I say to my kids, I used to say to my team, you know, very easy everyone would do it. You know, we don’t want to do stuff that easy. You got to put the work in.

David Ralph [30:12]
Now, when you did that, how much of it was obvious to you? And how much of it was an eye opener when you were submerging yourself? I would imagine there was a certain percentage that you felt Yeah. Okay. This is exactly what I was thinking. This confirms it. And then a percent of I had no idea this, this is totally new to me.

Joshua Dick [30:33]
It was totally new to me. I was sort of this New York kid, this guy from New York that had worked on Wall Street and had this fast pace, where a suit and tie every day and I end up in Seattle and Portland and Victoria, British Columbia, and I’m out there, Vancouver, and I’m like, wow, this is a totally different way of life in a completely different level of passion. For a product than I had been exposed to at that point. And that’s what I came to love about the coffee industry, a number, just a collection of great, dedicated, hard working people who love this product and want to bring it to others. So I was inspired, and I didn’t actually think that I wanted to or could do what they were doing, because I didn’t know much about coffee at the time. I’m fortunate enough to have learned quite a bit. But I was like, What can I do to help them? Because here’s an amazing collection of people and I don’t think it’s just coffee. I see the same idea in let’s say, the independent pet store business. These are people that love pets, or grooming, you know, these are people that love being around animals, incredible passion, hard work, dedication, what are the things that could go to that industry and I’m sure there’s the same in the brew home brewing industry or micro brewery and you could probably go out You can find a group of people or an organisation that loves something and then figure out what it is that you like about it or you can provide to them.

David Ralph [32:09]
I used to work with a girl I was thinking about her the other day. And when I worked for an insurance company many years ago, and I said to her, Hannah, you don’t seem like you really want to be here. And she said, No, no, it’s alright. It’s alright. But I’d really like to work with animals. You know, my passion is animals. And I said to her, you know, what are you doing for it? She said, Well, I work in a pet shop on Saturday, and she had this plan. Well, she wrote to me the other day, and she said, I’m now but lion keeper at Colchester zoo, which is a big zoo in, in where I live, and she is the big cat’s keeper. And I thought to myself, Isn’t that fascinating and isn’t amazing, but she could have just gone. This is a pet shop. I love dealing with pets, but she just took it to bigger and bigger. And I think most people can do bad karma. As you were saying earlier, we can find something that we really need. Enjoy. And although it might just seem like a throwaway thing, how can we actually build that to the biggest level possible, just like Hannah did?

Joshua Dick [33:09]
I think I think when we we start to you know, I talked earlier about the idea of understanding the customer and understanding the audience. I think there’s something to be said for trying to understand yourself, this level of self awareness and understanding and knowing who we are and what motivates us. When we take that, and Hannah, you know, the story is perfect. She knew that she enjoyed being around animals and try and found a way to incorporate that into a professional career. I knew that I really enjoyed machines, and production and factory type stuff. And when I made decisions about the businesses that I was going to keep or close, the ones that I really wanted to focus on this coffee cleaning product. It was because we could make all the things that we were going to say So that that was what made it for me. So I think that if we spend some time and maybe during this sort of locked down self isolation period, we can. Those of us starting to think about new business ventures and ideas, can maybe spend some time jotting down on paper, what makes us happy? What are the thing is what are the passions that we have? And is there a way that those can be turned into something that we can also do from a business sense?

David Ralph [34:28]
Because I always say to people, when they start working with me, I say, right, you might be struggling with an idea. But once you start going into the process, you can’t stop thinking of ideas as they’re everywhere. But there are absolutely limitless business ideas out there, isn’t it? Joshua?

Joshua Dick [34:44]
There is no question that it’s limitless. The key is finding the really good one, the one that you can own, the one that you can own and the one that you can scale or grow because, you know, we have loads of different ideas and we need to sometimes sort of continue rollers are measured ourselves to make sure that we don’t try to do them all. I think that if we try and touch all of them, we spread our energy and our resources too thin. So once we get when we have to commit to it, and I say, don’t let yourself have a chance to fail, you know, if you’re going to do it, do it and really go all in once you’ve made the analytical decision that it is possible.

David Ralph [35:25]
Let’s talk about your failures, because obviously, we all have failures. Sometimes a failure is only a failure at that time. And then it’s like you’ve almost tried something too early, but your markets not ready for it or maybe you’re not ready for it. What would come to mind when you look back over everything?

Joshua Dick [35:41]
I think for me, the failure was trying to hold on to control for too long trying to do everything. And it was only you know, trying to sort of have my finger in every part of the puzzle or the stew. When I started to recognise what I could do when I brought in more people and I added great people, not only did they challenge me and stimulate me, but they relieved me of all of these things that I was trying to do. And then let me sort of supercharge my energies and it took me a while to get there. So I would say sort of my my pace of growth and my pace of profitability was was slowed by my sort of hesitation to trust or to let go of things early on.

David Ralph [36:26]
Now, when you do let go, how do you not micro-manage? Because we see that people go, Okay, I’m gonna get this person in place I’m going to get and I’m talking from my last employment 10 years ago, where people would bring people in and then not allow them to do the work anyway, because they just can’t let go.

Joshua Dick [36:44]
Yeah, I think one of the most important things how to avoid micromanaging whether it be an employee in your organisation, or maybe an outsource project, or creative design agency is to do the work up front to right some form of a project brief to articulate clearly, what is the objective of what you’re seeking to achieve? And you’re asking someone to do? And what are the steps that you hope and expect to be followed to get there. And I’m not saying to prescribe what they should be doing, well, what are the parts of that objective that you’re looking for. And if you do that, in the beginning, whether it be writing down a project brief for a designer for one of your team, one of your employees or team members, everything is much easier for everyone. Because we don’t all always understand what’s in each other’s minds. When we put things down on paper, and we write down and we hash out collectively, what our goals and what our objectives are. When we go to see the finished product or we check in on things along the process. If things are deviating from what we articulated in the first place. It’s either because we didn’t articulate it clearly, or because we just had some form of miscellaneous And I say that if I don’t do a good enough job explaining to my team or my employees or my outside resources, what to expect to them, and they come back with something I’m not happy with, that’s on me. I failed to give them the clarity of what I was looking for.

David Ralph [38:17]
This is one of my issues, and I’m aware of this, but I can’t seem to get past it really, is the fact that I’m quite good at most things. You know, I’m not brilliant at everything. But I’m, I’m quite good at most things. And I can, I can turn my hand at most things. And so more often than not, I think I can just do it, I just do it. And the biggest issue, Joshua is actually quite enjoy doing it as well. So it’s like a kind of hobby thing where if I left it behind, I wouldn’t really know what to fill my time up with. So it’s a kind of enjoyment of actually doing the process.

Joshua Dick [38:50]
Yeah, you know, I see that I see a lot of times when there are things that we can all do, or we can all get done or we can get done better than the person we asked to do it. I think The The really important thing is to try and balance and understand and ask yourself, Is that the best use of your time for the business? Do you enjoy doing that more than you would enjoy kicking a soccer ball or football with your kid and if there’s someone else that can do that, and you can spend your time doing something else for the business, and also be able to get out of there and do something with your family, then the business is really going to benefit because if we hire someone we ask someone to do something and you we do it ourselves. What was the point didn’t the business waste a whole bunch of value resources money and time and that’s really important.

David Ralph [39:48]
Well, let’s listen to the words of Steve Jobs. He created Apple but he also kind of created Join Up Dots as well. Here we go

Steve Jobs [39:54]
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very Very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.

David Ralph [40:30]
Those words have resonance to you.

Joshua Dick [40:32]
Fantastically Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I had been thinking and imagining about the ideas of how to how to tell the story and I think it is you have to trust yourself, you have to make decisions. I think you have to have a plan and how the dots get you there. You can guide or help a little bit. But trust in yourself and trust that you’re going to follow things it’s going to work out and that helps you get where you’re going much more successfully and efficiently and positively. But, you know, could we all go into life with a yellow legal pad which is, you know, sort of my always by my side and say this is where I’m gonna be in 30 years. I think that’s pretty hard to say we never know what may come up. We never, we never know about the coronavirus or who knows what else comes in our way

David Ralph [41:21]
is I really looking back on it. I didn’t have a plan, either by global domination. That was the only thing when I launched Join Up Dots. It was I wanted it to be a really big show, but he’s really known out there and provides value. And little by little it’s grown into where it is and I think it’s probably in its its fourth version now. When it’s really becoming a solid structure that has got multiple income streams into it. But I couldn’t have planned it at the beginning. I look at everything that I’m doing now and I think to myself, no, I almost had to try 100 Things to find the thing that really works. He, I don’t think I could have planned it.

Joshua Dick [42:05]
You know, it’s funny, it’s exactly what I was thinking, you know, my, the early part of my career was, you know, I was I studied political science in in college as an undergraduate. And then I went to Wall Street and investment banking, absolutely no connection there. I had never owned a calculator in college. And here I am working with financial models and you know, accounting and all of those things. But each one of those steps I think what I was motivated to do as a as a young man starting out, was to try things, taste things, experienced them and, and put the pieces together and that helped me build a foundation of you know, going from Wall Street to consumer products, marketing and sales and those things. It helped shape who I was so that when I was ready, I could be better at planning a target or planning a goal but it took me a little while to experience different things and test the waters and dip my toe into use all the cliches available.

David Ralph [43:06]
And when you look back on it, I always ask this question so you’re gonna get it as well Joshua, is there a big dot? When you look back on it you Kaka? Yeah, that was that was the moment that was the thing that really sort of took me to where I am.

Joshua Dick [43:21]
I think the thing that took me to where I am was an openness to recognising how important it is to always be looking for new experiences, asking questions, and I think that came pretty quickly somewhere, maybe even leaving leading up to University where I had this sense of challenging myself and trying to explore new things and figure out was out what was out there. I was sort of like a deer looking out in the headlights with this very big ambition to to figure out what the options

David Ralph [43:54]
were. Now, where you are now is it where you you want to Or is this just like a polls? Is this a reset? Are you looking for pastures new?

Joshua Dick [44:08]
I’m extremely happy with the choice for myself and my family to have moved to Italy is where we we say we imagine being in Italy "per sempre" for forever for always. And, you know, I have young kids who are really thriving on learning how to become global citizens, being exposed to people from all over the world dealing with a culture that’s different than the one that their parents were raised in. My wife and I were raised in the US and I’m very proud of that. And I’m very happy with where this living scenario has put me in terms of the options it given me to stay stimulated to keep figuring things out to promote, grow like a lobster and to be involved with other businesses. So for now, I’m quite quite satisfied and quite fortunate that the way the sale of the business worked out, I have a lot of flexibility.

David Ralph [45:07]
Now with that flexibility sometimes comes laziness, where you you, you’re so flexible after a while you can’t be bothered. And the less you do, the less you want to do. How do you find that?

Joshua Dick [45:19]
That’s never been my problem. In fact, that was one of the big things a lot of friends and colleagues and and partners from the business world and from all throughout life said, you’re gonna get so bored, what are you gonna do? And then it’s not been a problem I have not sat around it’s really you know, my wife jokes with me that "I need a full time job to have more free time." I seemed I seem to always have so many different things I’m pursuing and exploring and trying and coming up with project so to date nearly four years in I’ve I’ve yet to, to lose it.

David Ralph [45:56]
Because I agree with you. We’re in lockdown at the moment as we keep on referencing And I wake up every day with a full day of things ready to do. You know, my son who’s 18 is waking up about three and three, four o’clock in the afternoon. My daughter’s not far beyond my wife would quite happily lay in bed all day and she says, oh, there’s nothing really to do when I get up. And I think to myself, I’ve always got stuff to do. I’ve got a full pie every single day unless I decide not to.

Joshua Dick [46:26]
Yeah, I do the same way. And I have quite a number of things to do. There are different kinds of things that I did, leading a business and running an organisation, but they’re stimulating and they’re exciting and even in lockdown, I sometimes feel like you know, where did the time go? What’s going on? And sometimes I’m trying to I’m exploring new things. learning another language has been a really stimulating and challenging mental exercise, which I’ve enjoyed immensely and talking to really, really smart people like you Bit of an interesting way to, to share and challenging question and hear different perspectives and ideas.

David Ralph [47:07]
Well, this is the end of the show. And this has been that we’ve been building up to code the Sermon on the mic when we’re going to send you back in time to have a one on one with the Joshua. And if you could go back into a room and speak to him, what kind of advice would you give him and what age Joshua Would you like to speak to? Well, we’re gonna find out, because I’m gonna play the music and when it fades, it’s your time. This is the Sermon on the mind.

Unknown Speaker [47:37]
With the best bit of the show,

Unknown Speaker [47:43]
sir man.

Joshua Dick [47:54]
Well, who would I speak to and what would it be? I think I’d be speaking to myself around 30 years old when I just started getting involved with taking over and running the business that had been started by my great grandfather. And I really didn’t know what I was getting into. But what I think I need to tell myself is to trust myself. Somewhere along the way. I remember spending so much time deliberating and debating each small decision I made, that it killed me. In fact, if you could see me now I have very little hair from that experience. But it really was about trusting myself, because I would say that over 85% of the time, the first inclination on something is right. And you can spend a little time going over and debating it in your mind and asking people about it. But don’t fail to trust yourself. Because the more you trust yourself, the better worthy you become of being trusted.

David Ralph [48:56]
Now, would that young Joshua, listen to you

Joshua Dick [49:01]
I think I think he would I think he would not quite trust me yet. But I think he might try it on a few things, little things. If you make your own travel reservations and plans, not that any of us can be doing that right now, I used to kind of deliberate back and forth which flight I should be on in which connection I should make. And I would spend hours in my mind working it through. And when I finally got to a point and said, You know what, just go with the first one, it’s usually right. And in the worst possible case, if you messed up, you can deal with paying the change fee and move on. And that freed me and relieved me. And there’s so many other ways that we can think about how to trust ourselves a little more, because we’re pretty good as creatures. We generally, generally know what we’re doing and what we’re doing, where we’re going. And if we waste time, it’s time that could be spent doing other things.

David Ralph [49:58]
Yeah, I always say I’m like a troll. On the mighty stream of life, and I just follow along, and the less effort I make in choosing stuff and making decisions generally it’s the right thing. I remember I used to go into really busy airports. And my mates used to say, Oh, you want to get a higher car and I would just get a higher car because I wasn’t bossing it. I wasn’t trying to, you know, make make effort when effort wasn’t required.

Joshua Dick [50:24]
100% Yeah, it’s, it’s if you if you can dedicate your effort to the things that are going to make a difference and find a way to relieve yourself of those other things. You’re going to be a lot happier and your business is probably gonna be a whole lot more successful.

David Ralph [50:40]
Yeah, great stuff. So Joshua, what’s the number one best way that our audience can connect with you?

Joshua Dick [50:45]
So I have a website that is www.joshua-dick.com so www.joshua-dick.com. And on there, you can subscribe to a blog that I write with very short, little two to three minute reads about business ideas and focus. You can also contact me through that with an email contact form that comes straight to me. And I’d be happy to look at that. And then you can find out more about the book "Grow Like a Lobster" at its own website, which is www.growlikealobster.com. And it’s obviously available on Amazon everywhere in the world and amazing system that they have with that.

David Ralph [51:24]
We will have over links on the show notes and the blogs are great read. I was reading the 1% idea the other day, very short. It’s you sometimes you go over to a blog and it says a 15 minute read of it. can’t be bothered 15 minutes, but yours were like two minutes and I thought yeah, okay, that’s for me, just Thimphu, get the idea. And I’ll be on my way. So Joshua, thank you so much for spending time with us today. joining up those dots. Please come back again, when you have more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our paths is the best way to build our futures. Joshua, thank you so much, and thank you, David. We Real pleasure. So Mr. Joshua dick all the way from Florence, Italy. So started off in America created success decided he wanted his life to be different. And he made it happen. And it is a series of dots, you join up the dots and you make things occur. all starts with the first doc. And it doesn’t have to necessarily be the right doc. That’s the key thing. That’s the message. You just have to have trust and know that you’re willing to put the work in because believe me, once the work kicks in, things do become much, much easier. They really do. As people are finding time and time again, through everything that we do with Join Up Dots. It’s very much about getting a plan, know what you’re targeting. I’ve been going off and making it happen. And fortunately, there are tools galore to make that occur so much easier then a few years ago. Now, for everybody out there. Thank you so much for listening. I do want to say and I’m going to keep on saying it on all the shows at the moment. Please be safe. Please listen to what your local communities and your governments and banks are saying is the only way that we can actually beat this thing and get back on an even keel. So I know it’s boring and I know you get to a point. I will just wind up in a car. Nobody has seen me. Please stay safe. And please do what they’re scientists to do. Until next time, thank you so much for everybody who listens and see again by

Thank you to David Ralph and "Join Up Dots" for use of these materials under their copyright.

https://youtu.be/MlyGy0T3dos

Thank you to Mario Fachini and the entire team at "Expert Authority Effect" for welcoming me on your broadcast today. It was a pleasure to talk about "Grow Like a Lobster" and to discuss business philosophies and strategies. I look forward to the publication of the podcast and will be sure to share links to it when available. For now, this youtube capture of the conversation is available to all.

I recently had the pleasure of being a guest on Bill Black's Exit Coach Radio podcast. During our chat we talked about the lessons shared in "Grow Like a Lobster" and my thoughts about managing a business for a sale. The interview is now available on all your favorite podcast venues (Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher). You can also listen directly on Bill's website here. If you're looking for a diversion during these strange times please check it out. Thanks!

https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-bnein-d652a0

When Kristin and I decided to move our family to Italy, it was the result of a lot of hard work turning dreams into reality. With planning and preparation, we found a way for our family to learn another language, live in a different country and culture, and become global citizens. We were fortunate to be able to do this work from a position of strength when our shells were hard.

Today, like most of the world, Italy is molting. Many of you have reached out to me with words of support, requests for advice, and questions of concern about what life looks like in lockdown.

In my book “Grow Like a Lobster,” I adopted the metaphor of the lobster to stress the importance of businesses planning and preparing for the tough times ahead. I’m the guy suggesting that if you are aware of the fact that good times are often followed by difficult ones, this knowledge can be a positive source of inspiration and guidance. However, I missed this one … I never imagined it could be possible for the whole world to molt at once.

Today, we are all in a molt – weak and vulnerable, lying without a shell on the ocean floor. What can we do with this newfound vulnerability?

In the short term, I go about life as normally as possible. The family enjoys breakfast together after sleeping later than the old normal. The girls go off to their virtual studies in different nooks of the house – we have encouraged them not to do work where they sleep. Kristin and I try to keep the house organized, manage the shopping needs, and push each one of us to be active while we keep up with our other professional and personal responsibilities. We’re fortunate that we’re not struggling with illness, prevented from getting somewhere urgently, or stuck away from our loved ones unintentionally. It occurs to me that we’re doing fine, but is there more we should be doing or thinking about?

No one knows how long this will go on. While I see it as my job to stay positive and upbeat for my family, I have to admit that my capacity for enthusiasm will reach a limit. Italy is on day nine of the official national lockdown, but our kids have been off school for fourteen days. Each evening, we check the reporting websites to see the number of new cases, the mortality events, and also the daily increase percentages. Like the world, we have been hoping for declines, only to be demoralized. They say that sometime between days eleven and fourteen, we will see a peak, and the rest of the world will have a proxy for what is ahead.

While going on and fighting through the problems, I suggest we also plan and prepare for the unknown future. I do believe that one day our shells will harden again, and we’ll be off on our way to explore the new reality. The question is: What can we do today, when we have the time and bandwidth at hand (even though we are weak and floppy), to get ready for the next molt we are sure to encounter? My approach is to write down my thoughts about how I’m feeling, work on my fitness, think about my organization of personal and financial files, and try to imagine what the new world will look like so that I can be prepared for it when the doors reopen.

What are you doing to think about the preparations you failed to anticipate, the contacts you should have maintained, and other things you might need the next time an unexpected molt comes along? I don’t have a crystal ball, but I do believe that knowing the molts are inevitable can be a way to make them less challenging. I missed this one, but I’m going to spend some hard time thinking about what I can do better before the next one. The saying in Italy is #andràtuttobene or #everythingwillbefine. What are you doing to make sure of that for yourself, your loved ones, and your business?

Photo: Kristin Krebs-Dick

http://www.thefocusingway.com/grow-like-a-lobster-joshua-dick-52/

Recently, I had the pleasure of being a guest on David Battistella's podcast, "The Focusing Way." Please give it a listen here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

"Grow Like a Lobster" talks about planning and preparing for the molts. The idea behind the metaphor is that if we expect tough times to come, we will be better able to prepare for their arrival. Right now, Italy and the world are molting. I'm not sure any of us were prepared for this, but it is happening. Many friends from around the world have reached out to inquire about life here in Florence. I'm blessed to report that we are well and enjoying the extra family time together. What can we learn from difficult times like these? How can you plan and prepare for the future?

Today I had the honor of a private tour of the new La Marzocco Accademia del Caffè Espresso. What a beautiful and ambitous undertaking! Thank you so much to dear friend and longtime business sounding board, CEO Guido Bernardelli! Complimenti! Grazie mille! #accademiadelcaffeespresso #lamarzocco

Here is a link to a blog post discussing the design behind both the cover and interior layout of "Grow Like a Lobster." The blog's author, Kayleigh McCarthy worked on the team at WorkGroup Studio in Ireland that completed the project.

When I started writing my latest blog post referencing the facade of the Pitti Palace, I knew a beautiful piece of artwork would be important. When I asked a few local artists if they had anything featuring the building, most just tried to sell me an image of the Ponte Vecchio or the Duomo. Then I met Linda Prelashi ... Although Linda sells her beautiful watercolors just in front of the Palazzo Pitti, she had never attempted to paint the building as her subject. I explained what I was seeking and she took on the challenge. The work she did for my most recent blog is just beautiful! Thanks Linda!

I believe in staying focused on things that we can control and avoiding competitive distractions. In Florence, Italy, there is an old folk story about the edifice of the Pitti Palace. Hearing the story might help you remember to stick to your plan and avoid letting the competition distract you.

The Pitti Palace was begun in 1446. The building was the dream of Luca Pitti, an ambitious and wealthy banker and rival of the Medici family. Unfortunately, Pitti was determined to build a home larger and grander than any of the Medici residences, and he devoted himself to this sole purpose. This led to a loss of focus on his own business – and in the process, the loss of most of his money. He died before finishing the Palazzo Pitti.

Ninety years later, the Medici family bought the Pitti Palace from Luca’s descendants. To memorialize Pitti’s failures and the lesson therein, the Medici architects installed two unique stones on the façade – one is unusually large and the other especially small. The large stone was intended to represent Pitti’s professional potential while the very small stone represents his actual achievements. Ouch!

Perhaps Pitti’s failure to reach his full potential can serve as a reminder to keep your business on course and avoid the temptation to keep up with rivals at the expense of your mission. Did Coca-Cola pull a “Pitti” when it launched New Coke in an effort to keep pace with Pepsi’s “new generation?” Did Kmart get so hung up with Walmart’s “everyday low prices” that it forgot to follow a path of its own? Have you ever found yourself redirecting your business based on the actions of your competitors, and forgetting to stay focused on growing your business based on what makes it unique?

Regardless of how a competitor might get under your skin, Luca Pitti is always there to remind you to focus on the things you can control and avoid being distracted by one-upmanship. You will always have competitors. Just don’t let them distract you from doing what you do best.

Realize the “large stone” of your full potential.

Special thanks to Linda Prelashi for the artwork.