Transcript for the Candy Valentino Interview on the Beyond Speaking Podcast

Candy: But the number one thing that makes businesses fail is profit. So we need people to run the business, we need processes to do it. But if we don't have profit in the company, none of that's going to matter. And if you have enough profit, you can hire the best people and you can build the best processes and you can plan the best vision. But we need profit. So the one thing I do not delegate is any type of financial decisions and directions of where I'm going to deploy capital inside of the company in order to build whether it's a new strategy or hire a new person, the financial aspects of it are all the things that I do. But every leader has something that they do really great. Maybe for somebody listening, they're like, my gosh, I don't know anything about the finances. Well, if you don't know anything about any one acumen, you want to make sure that you spend some time learning it, because they all are important. But if you know that you're really, really strong at something, like maybe you're really, really good at sales, or you're really, really good at managing, well then the things you're really strong at would be the last things that you want to hire someone else to replace. 

 

Intro: Welcome to the Beyond Speaking podcast from Premiere Speakers Bureau, featuring in-depth conversations with the world's most in-demand keynote speakers.

 

Brian: Hi I’m Brian Lord, thank you for joining us here on the Beyond Speaking podcast. I'm president here at Premier Speakers Bureau. And joining us today is Candy Valentina. We're excited to have her. She has a huge podcast. So make sure to check that out. At least finish this one first and then go check that out. She's also a business leader, an entrepreneur, a best-selling author, including her new book, The Nine Percent Edge, The Life-Ching Secrets of Creating More. She was chosen as one of the top 40 business leaders of 40 under 40, one of the top 50 women in business, and just has endless accolades. And still has a lot to go. So, Candy, thank you so much for joining us here on the Beyond Speaking Podcast.

 

Candy: Thanks so much for having me, Brian. It's good to see you again.

 

Brian: Yeah, yeah, it's great seeing you. I know you've had a lot of changes recently, life changes, which are awesome. your businesses are growing. I'm curious to know, you know, one of the things you talk about is reverse engineering, which I like. When you started all this, I think you were like maybe 19. What did you think it was going to look like, or what was kind of your outlook or hope when you're a teenager who became an entrepreneur?

 

Candy: Well, I can tell you reverse engineering outcomes has been kind of my forte for a very long time. because I think that without them, we are just hoping. You know, we're hoping and praying for an outcome and wishing for it, but that's not necessarily a plan. It's good to have all those things, but it's not the only thing that we need. And so when I was 19, my life experience prior to starting a business was growing up in a trailer with two teenage parents. My dad was a mechanic, my mom cleaned houses.

 

I was abused as a child and we were just trying to figure things out. And so at 19 years old, I basically just was like, I want to do whatever I need to do, not to have the life that I've already had. My dad had a small auto mechanic shop. So I was dropped off at his business every single day. So I always say, while most kids were learning dance or an instrument or a sport, I was learning small business every single day from the time I was five till I was 15 inside of a greasy, grimy garage, which is hilarious when people see me today in a in a suit all buttoned up, but that is still in me. And so for me, I was seeing him work really hard. He missed out on a lot of things. And so many leaders make these sacrifices, right? They go all in on their work and maybe they miss out on some of the things at home. And so I saw my dad miss out on a lot of my life and a lot of his life. And I wanted to architect something different. 

 

I wanted to build a team, I wanted to leverage a business so that I could create a life that was beyond my dreams. And although there's a lot of twists and turns throughout there, my goal was to build a company that I could exit by the time I was 40. Because when you're 19, 40 sounds so old, right? So far off. And that's what I did. I basically worked really hard, invested in a lot of things, took a lot of risks, made a lot of mistakes, figured out how to build teams, how to really lead teams. The government basically just gave me the right to vote a year ago. And somehow I'm supposed to figure out how to lead people in the office. And so I figured out a lot of things, made a lot of mistakes. And lo and behold, by the time I turned 39, I became work optional, as they call it, because entrepreneurs never retire. And ended up exiting that company, another company, and several others since. And now I'm able to write and speak about it and teach others and just give back, which is truly what I've always wanted to do.

 

Brian: So in terms of reverse engineering success and when you are putting together a team now, how has that changed since you were putting together a team as a leader when you were nineteen?

 

Candy: So different now, right? At 19, you're just trying to get anybody that has a pulse that is willing to show up to work for you and that somehow has the license or the skill set that you need. Doing it now and doing it wrong for so many years, I know that hiring the best people, the brightest talent, having the people that are the right fit for your organization and for you too, you know, entrepreneurs and business leaders.

 

Sometimes you're working more personally close with these people than your own family. You're seeing them maybe eight, 10, 12 hours a day, depending on your project scope. And you've got to like who you're working with, or at least be aligned in values. And I think that's the strategic thing that I do now. The partnerships, the collaborations, the people that I work with. I make sure that we are aligned in our values.

 

And if I feel that the soft skills are there, that they are maybe they have an entrepreneurial mindset or they're motivated or they're a self-starter or they're they're eager and they're hungry and they're curious and they're asking right questions, to me, I'm looking for that even more so than where they worked prior or what type of talents and experience they're bringing to day one. 

 

And I think if you want to really architect, a great business, a great culture, a great company, a great team, you need to know how you want that to look and feel, much like your life. Like, how do you want to wake up every day? How do you want to feel in your life? 

 

You know, so often people, because I speak too about money and wealth, people think that's the only thing that you want to go for. But I know a lot of really wealthy people who are bankrupt in life. You know, they might have a nice bank account, but their kids don't even want to come see them because they didn't develop those relationships. So I think that when we look at reverse engineering, it's not just the project, the team, the culture, the company, but it's like, what do we want our life to look like? And the one thing as we get older, we know we never get back is time. And so how do we spend more quality time with people that we like being around and that we're excited to talk to? And so I think that's really been the biggest strategic shift from going from desperation to hiring with intention.

 

Brian: I love that word intention. What are some of the kind of building blocks where you knew you had to be more intentional to be successful?

 

Candy: Hmm, that's a great question. I mean, I would say in the beginning I couldn't be intentional, right? But I was always intentional about the vision. And I think that a lot of leaders, that's the one thing we have to get right. If we can cast the vision, we can inspire other people of what they can achieve, that we can achieve more together, that we can take them on a vision, we can take them on a journey towards the vision that maybe they would have never been able to accomplish on their own. So what I realized was being intentional in any area is the only way that we're going to get there. Whether we want a great body or better health, well, we’ve got to be intentional about running the first mile or at least getting to the gym. And that applies in every area, building a team, having better customer service. So I think honestly, everything goes back. Any success that you want to have relationally, I've now been married for two whole weeks. So everything's going great so far.

 

Brian: We're gonna ditch this whole different thing. We're gonna do marriage seminars next.

 

Candy: So obviously to get to your level of experience at some point, right? I got to be intentional of showing up, being intentional of turning off the team and the office and the company and corporate. Like I need to be intentional about that. And I think that so often we are seeking balance in life. And I think that that balance, you know, I always use the analogy of imagine a two by four that you pick up at Home Depot and two Home Depot buckets on either end, and you're trying to pour and balance this water out.

 

Well, there's two buckets there. You are one human, one soul, one life. Like you cannot fractionate yourself. Talk about chaos. So we have one unit that we're trying to balance. And sometimes you're gonna be all in with your family because you need to be there. And sometimes you're gonna be all in on the project, but it's giving yourself the permission to do that and being intentional about creating the life that you want, the team that you want, the company and the morale that you want. I think it all starts with that.

 

Brian: Yeah, no, that is one of those things that that sort of development process from you know where you started then to where you are now and then how intentional you are. One of the questions I do have is when what's the difference? I like how you talk about this. What's the difference between building a company and building a job?

 

Candy: So a lot of people when they're starting out, they feel that they're starting a business or they're starting to create this corporation or this team. And oftentimes they just create a job for themselves, a job that they have to show up for because they are not strategically building a team that will grow that initiative, that project, or that company to the next level. So it really boils down to the people and the processes within the company. That's the only way that you're going to get rid of the job.

 

And I always say that people think that's what they're doing, but they actually bought a job, right? So if it's the entrepreneur or it's the business leader that always feels like they have to show up for everything, that's typically because you didn't delegate, you didn't automate processes or you didn't eliminate things from your schedule that gives you the ability to really show up as the leader that you need to. You know, I always say it's like juggling all these plates, right? 

 

You need to know which plates to juggle. And oftentimes I find leaders are so competent. And they're so good that they actually get diseased. I call it competency sarcoma. All these things made up. And it's like you're so good that you're diseasing your organization because you're not delegating the tasks, realizing that even if they can do it 80% of the way that you can, you then get to focus on building that organization to a higher level. But if you try to manage all of these lower tasks that really shouldn't be, you know, taking any of your time or focus right now. 

 

So eliminate competencies, the elimination and the solution or the pill, if you will, to competency sarcoma is autonomous delegation, making sure that you are delegating to your team, that they have an open line of communication, they can check in with you. And making sure that you give them the tools that they need to be successful is obviously critically important too.

 

Brian: What's the hardest thing for you as a leader to delegate?

 

Candy: Well, the hardest thing and the things I won't delegate. So I do not delegate finances. I have support staff for finances, but the number one thing that makes businesses fail is profit. So we need people to run the business, we need processes to do it. But if we don't have profit in the company, none of that's going to matter. And if you have enough profit, you can hire the best people and you can build the best processes and you can plan the best vision.

 

But we need profit. So the one thing I do not delegate is any type of financial decisions and directions of where I'm going to deploy capital inside of the company in order to build whether it's a new strategy or hire a new person. The financial aspects of it are all the things that I do. But every leader has something that they do really great. Maybe for somebody listening, they're like, my gosh, I don't know anything about the finances.

 

Well, if you don't know anything about any one acumen, you want to make sure that you spend some time learning it, because they all are important. But if you know that you're really, really strong at something, like maybe you're really, really good at sales or you're really, really good at managing, well, then the things you're really strong at would be the last things that you want to hire someone else to replace. So making sure that you know what you're really good at, again, intention, being intentional to decide what exactly lights you up.

 

And I use, I don't know if it's okay to share, but I'm gonna share it real quick and you can cut it out if you don't like it. But I always tell people, I call it the battery tender, and it might even be somewhere buried on my website. But imagine, just take out a sheet of paper, draw a line down the center, and on the left side put red, and on the right side, put green. And in five days of your work week, start to just identify things that drain your battery, which would be red. Things that light you up, which would be green, and just start to take stock in what these things are. So that at the end of your work week, you can look and say, you know what? I am doing these eight tasks that suck the life out of me. Who can I delegate these to that are really good at it? And then if you do this with your whole team, you can actually then look and take a look and take stock in what everybody else's are. So that if I look at yours, Brian, and you've got three things that are green, happen to be red on my column.

 

Well, heck, that's a match made in heaven, right? I delegate those off to you. You're excited about them. Now it frees you up, gives you the ability to double down. That was something I probably picked up around 10 years into business. And when I did that with my staff, it was like, wow, some of these things that I am dreading, I am just holding on to for no reason. I could be delegating them to someone on my team and they would actually do them better and would be excited about it.

 

So we started doing this on a consistent basis. We still do it now. We do the battery tender annually. And it's something just a cheap, easy thing that anyone could do and take stock in to find out what's draining your battery and what's lighting it up. And how can you give people in your team and yourself more things that light you up?

 

Brian: I love the battery tender. I love it. That's great. In terms of thinking of that concept, maybe I know you also talk about, you know whether it's a business leader or an entrepreneur, where it can be very difficult from a business standpoint, so not just like your personal day, but from a business standpoint to eliminate and streamline. Like why is it so hard for some business leaders to eliminate or streamline things and how can they get better at it?

 

Candy: I think oftentimes there is a lack of understanding of what you truly need to do, right? Like I think oftentimes that chaos that we feel inside of any organization, we know, like, okay, I need to streamline processes here. I need to create some automations, I need some systems. But then what? Like what do you do next? Right. You know you need them, but what do you do? And I also think that a lot of people that are great visionary leaders struggle with the monotony of writing out a process.

 

Like I'm sure people listening, like the thought of writing out a soap would be exhausting, right? But it's so important. So making sure that if it's not you, this is my little hack, have someone on your team follow you around for a few days. And every single thing that you do, whether they capture it on video or they take notes of it, capturing a process could be easier than we think if we again delegate to someone else on our team who can help us with it.

 

Sitting down in front of a computer, I can tell you personally, I don't do it, have never done it, and won't do it. I'm not gonna sit down and write down a process. But I can have Jennifer follow me around and write down what I'm doing and then go back to a computer that she's really great at and organizing it in a file. And now we call that process candy podcast, batch recording, whatever it may be, right? 

 

And now that's in there so that if somebody else comes on the team that's brand spanking new, I don't want to train them on all of this, right? We're just going to give them that file that's already documented. That is the way that you're going to increase efficiency. And there's a rule that if you can ever delegate a task to anyone, and it even takes five times longer than what it takes you, meaning if it's just a quick thing that you can do in five minutes, but you can delegate that task to someone else. It's called the rule of five. And if they can do it in 25 minutes or less, over time, when you look at those five minutes of your life over and over, it is still a valuable delegation. And there's a whole process of how you break that down. 

 

But it's an important thing to realize that you may think that you're saving yourself time, but you're actually costing. And it's a cost that doesn't show up in your PL. So it's not something that we realize, but it's a real cost and it's inefficiency. And inefficiency is always going to cost you, your team, the company money. So it's important to understand what can be delegated. 

 

And I'll give you another little framework for that. I call it the D E A, delegate, eliminate, automate. On a different week that you do your battery tender, not at the same time, pull out a sheet of paper. I like to keep things super simple, as you know, no degree, no corporate background. So I like to keep it easy. If we can, if it's easy, we can duplicate it, right? So D E A, just draw a D E A, not drug enforcement agency. This is delegate, eliminate, automate.

 

And in the course of your week, write down everything that you're doing. Are you working with a client? Are you doing a podcast? Are you making calls? Are you working face to face with clients or your team? And writing all of that down to look at what is it within my day that I can actually delegate? And you write a little D by it. What is it in my day that I really don't need to be doing? Scrolling, shopping, whatever it may be. What can you eliminate? And then what is it that you do consistently over and over and over again that you can automate and wrap a process around?

 

And then you start to group like things, the D's. Is there something together with all of these items that I can delegate that I can hire someone to do? Because this is what you'll find. The things that you can delegate will end up being a role or O L E for another job within your team or within somebody that's already existing in your team. And then E, these are just things we're going to cut out completely. Might not be forever, but just for right now. And then A, or what are those things that you can create in automation?

 

Or a process around, and who do you need to get to help you do that? That will start to create massive efficiency in your organization. Because as we know, time kills all deals. Time kills all success. So when you can move forward with more efficiency and more speed, you're gonna close more sales, you're gonna have happier people. All in all, the company and the corporation and the people inside are gonna be better for it.

 

Brian: So from going from sort of inside the business to outside, like talking about customer service, I know you've been saying that that's something that you're passionate about as well. When it comes to that, what are the tips that you have for business leaders to help their teams improve in that area?

 

Candy: So, a customer service principle that I learned really early on, I studied the Ritz Carlton companies when I was in my early 20s because obviously they have always done something right, right? They've been able to make price irrelevant. So, how do you make price irrelevant in your organization? It's through providing customer service better than anybody else in your industry. That's how you can minimize any customer churn. That's how you can minimize any competition from coming in and stealing your market share.

 

It's really doubling down on your customer service. And we know companies that are newer, obviously Apple and Zappos that have done this really well. Most people today think of Apple as the customer service standard. But where did Steve Jobs send all of his top executives when Apple started? He sent them to the Ritz-Carlton. So way back in the day, they were truly the standard and they still are. Obviously, you've got four seasons and other people in the hospitality brand. But it's important to adopt a philosophy within the leadership organization of the team so that it filters down that the customers matter, making sure to take time, whether it's on an annual basis in your team meetings, and saying, okay, what does this mean to us? How do we develop customer service principles that our entire company runs on? And obviously this is probably a two-hour talk that we could do on customer service. 

 

But I just want to give you those high-level takeaways is the only way that you can ever make pricer, the only way that you can ever make pricer relevant and understand how you can raise your prices is to raise the level of customer service that you have within your organization. And how you do that is not easy, but it's everything. And it really does start from the person that's answering the phone to the person that's greeting the customer to the high-level executives and the conversations that they're having within the team. 

 

So I have a great framework. Maybe we'll link it up. It's called care. C-A-R-E to just kind of start that customer service about how to really create the standard, how to be aware, how to surprise and delight. You know, a lot of these things have been adopted from Starbucks and Ritz-Carlton and a lot of Disney principles that are all customer service. But how do you provide exceptional service? You know, one of the things we did probably a couple years on, this was once I went through those Ritz-Carlton training, we had a board in the back for our team meetings. And it literally said above and beyond. And anytime it was a big whiteboard, and anytime anybody could recommend another teammate. They couldn't put it themselves up, but I could go on and literally write Brian went above and beyond for IBM by booking Candy Valentina, whatever it might be, at least like five times. And you know, they write that in the back. And then at the end of the week, we would have all of those and somebody would win a gift card or something. 

 

But it was a way that the team could recognize other team members for going above and beyond. And then on the flip side of that, we had Amos, which looked like a little bomb and it was a missed opportunity. So A-M-O, a missed opportunity. This might be because somebody came in and we heard that they were getting married. And nobody sent them a card or nobody said anything to them when they were in about, congratulations, you know, I heard you're getting married. 

 

So these little things were missed opportunities that then we would just have those reminders. And that's not something that we would ever call out. But in our team meetings, I would then say, or then our operations manager later on would say, Hey guys, here's a couple of missed opportunities. And we would talk about them. So-and-so was here and this didn't happen, or this person was running late and we weren't able to accommodate them, or whatever it may be.

 

And so it talked about the inverse and not just all the positivity. And then what we would do is we would obviously learn more from the AMOs. We would then say, okay, so in the future, the way that we can go above and beyond in this or in this instance is to do X, Y, and Z. And then we would be able to train in the moment. And so I think really focusing on it, letting the team know that you're paying attention to it. And then obviously rewarding and recognizing behaviors that you want to be repeated is really important too.

 

Brian: Yeah, no, I love it. I mean, the idea is not just recognizing it, but putting a solution along with it is so important because so many times, we could have done this. Okay, well, how do we do that? And then they have the permission to go ahead and meet those needs and or or you know, hit those opportunities, however you want to say it, but you know, take charge of those opportunities. I love that.

 

Candy: And that could then, with your customer service principles, right? And I sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I think it's important. The implementation is the important part, right? Like I always say, ideas are not going to change our life. It's the implementation and execution of the idea that will. So the the way that you can loop that in then is how do you create when you start to identify these missed opportunities for lack of a better word, you can call them whatever you want, but when you start to identify them and you start to then talk about the solutions, how can you put a process in for that solution? 

 

So for example, one of the things that we always noticed was when a client was potentially running late and then we couldn't accommodate them. It actually wasn't our service infraction issue. The client was late. But there weren't sometimes opportunities that we could create an exceptional experience because now we have to turn them away. So what we would do is we had something that was up to $100. I think the Ritz Carleton used to have something that was up to $2,000. And it's like for any reason, no matter what, if there's an issue, you can take care of the customer's issue up to $100 without getting manager or prior approval from anyone else. You have to document it. You have to, because then of course you wanted to make sure that there wasn't waste or anybody wasn't taking advantage of it. 

 

So you would want to review why that was done and then also be able to give feedback if that was the best decision. But by having that process in place, what did it do? It sped up customer service. There were less issues emailing back and forth. It created more efficiency and it provided more customer service. And what it did was that we actually got it down to, it was very rare that we even had to leverage that, but it was there for our team. So they felt empowered to solve problems. And really at the end of the day, that's what we're all trying to do is solve our customers' problems in the fastest, most efficient way possible. So the customer service aspect is really important. Reward and recognize the behaviors that you want to repeat. And then make sure that you give them the solutions. So that you don't have to wait and have everybody come back to you to find a solution each and every time.

 

Brian: Great. No, I love it. So I've got two last questions here, two kind of fun ones. So I don’t know if fun's the right word. So I'm curious, you've started, you know, in a number of companies, you've written all these books, you've taken a lot of risks. What's the scariest thing you've ever done in business?

 

Candy: I'm glad you said in business because I was gonna say getting married. There isn't much in the business world that scares me. Getting married scared me. Let's see. scary is I mean, it was definitely, even though now, because it all worked out, I probably minimize it. And it was so long ago. Taking an SBA loan at 19 years old with a six-week run rate and seven employees, and having no plan B, having no backup, not knowing what the heck was going to happen, but knowing that it was going to work out was probably the riskiest move because I had no reason to be successful. And still to this day, there is nothing in my history. I don't have a high IQ. I don't have some epicuric environment or around certain people that helped me get here, mentors and stuff. Like it was just through a lot of hard work, having more belief in myself than the opinions of other people, which I think is required in the beginning.

 

And it is just understanding that there is a life out there for everyone listening, that if you are not in a place where you want to be, or circumstances in your life have happened that have maybe taken you off your path, that there is still a life for you out there. There's a God-sized dream, a vision on your life and on your heart that you can achieve if you are willing to go all in on yourself. And I think that for me at 19 years old, I didn't have any belief and I didn't have any proof around me that I could do that. But when you don't have proof around you, you don't have self-confidence yet that you can do it, you need to lean on the proof of other people that that person did it and that person did it and this person did it. And there are people that have accomplished more than what you have with less. And that's the proof that you need to lean on until you leverage your own and have the self-confidence to realize that you can accomplish even more than you can imagine.

 

Brian: I love it. What so last one, and this goes one of the things I say about authors is when they write books, whether it's fiction or whatever, is that they are writing to solve the problem. So, like C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors, and at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia, like his mom died when he was little. So in whatever one of his books, the boy saves his mom. And so I'm curious to know, and I've had the same thing. I occasionally did get dropped off at a shop that worked where my dad was that was working on semis and stuff like that. Do you ever do you ever go back like if you're going by a shop, do you ever like mentally go back and fix what you would have fixed had you known what you knew when you were now that you when you were like five, ten, fifteen?

 

Candy: Brian, I can't walk into any business without looking and being like, they should do this, they should do that, they should do this, like, or meeting leaders and hearing about their problems within their teams, like, we could do this, we could do that. Yeah, I am 100% a problem solver and I can't help myself. That's why I actually thoroughly enjoy working with people. The biggest, most complex problems are actually my favorite because it's like, how do we get together as a team and strategize around this to come up with a solution? 

 

Because every problem has a result. Might not be the solution you want, but there is a way through it if you are willing to be diligent enough to get there. And so, yes, I totally do that. I don't go back often to my hometown, but when I do go back there, not that there's another auto mechanic shop there, but every once in a while I do drive by where that business was located. It's been completely torn down now, but my dad's garage is where it was. And I still think, wow, how on earth? Like I wish I could take credit for it, but I just always say that sometimes when you are just in faith and you're just moving forward and you just have courage that, like, you know, God put this on my heart. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it, but I'm gonna take the next step and see what shakes out. I think sometimes he can open doors that we could never do on our own. And truly my life is really that. I wish I could take credit for everything, but I can't.

 

Brian: That's awesome. Well, no, I appreciate it. Well, so, so first, thank you for being a guest on the podcast and for sharing your wisdom as a business leader of customer service, taking risks, reverse engineering success, and sharing your personal story. So, Candy, thank you so much for coming on and being a guest here on the Beyond Speaking podcast.

 

Candy: Thanks for having me. It was so good seeing you again.

 

Brian: Yeah, it's great seeing you as well. And for those watching, listening, make sure to go to premierespeakers.com and look up Candy Valentino to learn more and contact your agent there. And obviously for the podcast, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review. So thank you again. And Candy, thank you so much for joining us here two weeks after your wedding and being a part of the podcast.

 

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