339 Greg Alexander

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Greg Alexander is the founder of Collective54, the first mastermind community dedicated exclusively to thriving professional service firms with big aspirations. Collective 54 helps members make more money, work less, and get to an exit bigger and faster. Members get access to a network of peers, proprietary content and benchmarking data, coaching, events, and software all custom built to serve the unique needs of boutique professional service firms.

And before we start the episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Bill, a graduate, who says, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program has transformed the KPIs we're using to accelerate growth and profits.

Or how about Emry, who says, and I love this, and I quote, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program helped me create the right mindset for both growing my business and later my future exit. I now know what questions to ask, what to do and what not to do, which is priceless. The team and [00:01:00] I have found dangerous skeletons and gaps that we're now addressing due to the Deep Wealth program. Today, our actions have a massive ROI. 

Absolutely love that. 

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The Deep Wealth Mastery program, it's the only one based on a nine figure deal. And that deal, that was my deal. You know my story. I said no to a seven figure offer. I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth [00:02:00] Mastery and that's exactly what helped myself and my business partners welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure deal.

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Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, you heard it in the official introduction. We have a fellow founder, entrepreneur, and business owner with us who's doing some amazing things and for all you in the Deep Wealth community that you're part of a services firm, a services business. Wow. Do we have a lot to unpack for you today, but I'm going to put a plug in it right there, Greg, welcome to Deep Wealth Podcast.

An absolute pleasure to have you on. And Greg, there's always a story behind the story. So what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Greg Alexander: Yeah, thank you for having me, Jeffrey, and thanks to the listeners for tuning in today. My story can be summarized into three chapters. So, chapter one was my time as an employee. I got hired off the college campus, University of Massachusetts, by a [00:04:00] young technology company called EMC, and at the right place at the right time.

That company did extremely well in the 90s and early 2000s, and I rose through the ranks there. The second chapter was my time as an entrepreneur. I had left EMC and I started a management consulting company called SBI. Had that for 11 years and sold that in 2017, took a couple of years off and then started chapter three, which is my time as an owner, which is different than an entrepreneur in that I don't run the companies now, I own them and I hire competent people to run them.

And I'm really enjoying that and my passion is to help entrepreneurs, maybe some that are listening today. To go on a similar trajectory and figure out how to grow, scale, and exit their professional services firm. That's what I'm focused on.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, so you've really done the circuit there. So starting in the corporate world and you went into what became a very large corporation, you're right. I remember one of my professors in my MBA program said, Jeffrey, I would always rather be [00:05:00] lucky than smart, although you need both. But there's something to say with luck in the right place at the right time.

And it sounds like you earned your stripes there, but I like how you differentiated, well, I was an entrepreneur, but now I'm an owner. And there's a difference. And oftentimes, we'll just use the terms interchangeably. So for the benefit of our listeners, Greg, entrepreneur, owner, what's going on there?

Greg Alexander: Yeah, so the way I would describe it is an entrepreneur is running the business. Yes, he or she owns it, either all of it or a part of it, but they spend the majority of their time running the business. And I have great admiration for them because it's not easy being an entrepreneur and those that build companies create jobs and they're the driving factors of our wonderful country that we live in.

But an owner is different than an entrepreneur in that they don't run the business. They back a team. Who's going to run the business and they provide the capital. In addition, they might sit on the board and provide mentorship, but they're certainly not in the day to day of running the business.

So that's the distinction. And they're rewarded for spotting good [00:06:00] ideas, finding exceptional people, being so convicted in their ideas that they're willing to write a check to back those ideas and to help those young companies grow up and eventually convert that initial investment into a healthy return.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so as you're going through that, what really resonates with me, Greg, one of the questions in the Deep Wealth community, when we meet a new entrepreneur or business owner, depending where they are, sometimes the answer is the same. Does the business run without you? And for most of them, even if there's a leadership team, the answer is no.

Everything still has to pass through me. And as we know, when you're doing that, you have the golden handcuffs, and you're limiting the growth. At the same time, I often hear, well, Jeffrey, yeah, sure, what you're saying on paper makes sense. I just don't know how to do it. Or, I've tried it before, and it hasn't worked out well.

Or, no one can do it as well as I can do it. Greg, I'm sure you've heard this all. What would you say to those listeners who are nodding their heads, saying, yeah, that sounds a lot like me? I

Greg Alexander: the time because one of the [00:07:00] companies I own is called Collective 54, and it is a mastermind community for professional services firms. So think consulting firms, marketing agencies IT service providers, people that market, sell, and deliver expertise for a living. And if you think about that problem statement that you just said, it's particularly intense within a people driven service business, because in essence, that's what they're selling.

They're selling their expertise or they're selling their time. They're selling themselves. So this issue of no one can do it as well as I can do it, the firm cannot run without me, we see this a lot in in our community. I wrote a book on this very topic. It's called The Founder Bottleneck, How to Scale Yourself.

And this book is available only to members of Collective54. And I dedicated 18 months of my life researching and writing that book to solve this particular problem. And what I would tell you is that, if you don't think you can do this, I'm here to tell you that you can. Because there's several who have come before you who have done that.[00:08:00]

I am one of those people. What it requires you understanding what your key contributions to the business are understanding it all the way down to the task level. So I'll give you an example. So let's say you're a brilliant software developer and your key contribution to the business is writing code. And if you removed yourself from writing code, then maybe clients wouldn't hire you to build that next great application. Your task is to figure out why you're a brilliant writer of code down to the task level. Understand the skills that are needed and the knowledges knowledge that is needed, and start developing successors, apprentices, people like you who can learn to do what you can do.

Because we do need to have a little humility and realize that, we didn't come out of the womb with this great skill. At one point we did not know how to do this. And somehow, some way, we learned it. And in my experience we usually taught it by a mentor. So now you're in the role, if you're the [00:09:00] entrepreneur, the founder of your firm, you're now in the role of mentor.

And if you want to build a firm that can run without you, which is an absolute requirement, if you plan to sell that firm someday and have deep wealth, as you describe it, then other people need to be able to do what you do as well as, if not better than the way that you do it right now. If you're unable to do that, you really don't have a firm, you have a practice, and it's not an asset that somebody might want to invest in.

So, that's how to do it. Think through succession planning. Think through the apprenticeship model. Move your own role from that of protege to mentor and develop the next generation.

Jeffrey Feldberg: really like how you're calling it mentor at Deep Wealth. We'll share with business owners, hey, think of yourself, really same meaning, different words. Think of yourself as a board of advisor, that you're on the board and you're there at a very high level to help and really steer the company. So, Greg, let's talk about symptoms because, again, you mentioned [00:10:00] Collective54, it's a great segue into that, and I know in preparing for today's talk, one of your mantras is, hey, you're probably earning too little, you're probably working way too much, and you have no idea how you're either going to grow the business and forget the exit, just how you're going to get to the exit or even grow it in the first place.

I So those are the symptoms, and I'm sure a lot of listeners are nodding their heads, yeah, check check, check, sadly, that's the situation right now. What's the root cause of that? Because if we can understand the problem, that's 90 percent of the solution. So in your experience, what's going on there? And

Greg Alexander: Is in this particular industry, professional services, and the most common use case there is that there's a domain expert, somebody who's brilliant at somebody, at something, excuse me. So maybe they're a brilliant attorney, or they're a brilliant accountant, or what have you.

And it's their expertise that was the basis on which the firm was founded. these brilliant experts might not be brilliant business people. And the business of expertise is very different than just [00:11:00] expertise. So, learning how to be a brilliant business person and turn your expertise into a firm is the real issue.

And for those that are listening to this and nodding their heads that maybe they're suffering from it, they need to say to themselves, have I reached the point of diminishing returns regarding my area of expertise? So, if I'm a great accountant today, am I going to incrementally become a better accountant?

Maybe I've reached the point of diminishing returns there. Whereas, if I dedicated my own personal development efforts, Learning how to be a great business person, a great firm builder, a great mentor, a great board of advisor, a great investor, what have you. That's the transformational growth opportunity.

And there's a lot more juice in that squeeze, so to speak. So that's what I would encourage everybody to think about,

Jeffrey Feldberg: so as you look at that, and we're looking at the Collective54 in terms of your system and the community that you've created, how are we going about doing that? So someone shows up and says, hey, Greg, yeah, that is me. [00:12:00] I don't want to be the subject matter expert. I want to be the mentor, as you're saying. I want to grow this business.

I want to scale it. I want to unshackle me from the golden handcuffs. What's your secret sauce? What's the method to the madness?

Greg Alexander: but we've learned in the structure of a community is everybody has something to offer and everybody has a need. So if you can leverage the power of mentorship, and let's say you're one of these people. And you want to learn this particular thing, which is, it's maybe like a lot of ways people that solve this problem is they get to a certain size and they separate the role of founder from the role of CEO and they hire in a CEO.

So that's a very specific tactical way to go about this. Well, if I've never hired a CEO before, well, how do I do that? How do I come up with, for example, a job specification for my unique situation? How do I hire an executive search firm that might help me find this CEO? If I'm, if I have the good fortune of finding the right person, how do I onboard them? [00:13:00] Once the CEO comes on board, how do I recast myself into a new role? This new role defined as the founder. And maybe the founder is. A visionary. Maybe the founder is working on the business two, three, four, five years down the road. They're creating the vision, they're helping actualize the vision, whereas maybe the CEO is worried about making this month's payroll or this year's financial projections.

So that's one scenario. So when somebody comes into our community with this particular problem, we put them through a series of diagnostic tools that help pinpoint what their issue is. And I would say about half the times this does come up where it does make sense. For the role of founder and CEO to be separated.

And then if the member agrees to that, then it's the how, you know, how do I go do this and we'll match them with these resources that will help them make them happen. Sometimes that's not the solution. Sometimes the solution is I'm stuck because I'm in a declining industry and my expertise was hot at one point.[00:14:00]

And I kind of rode the wave to a certain level. And now the demand in that industry has softened. I'll give you an example to bring this to life. So we have a lot of marketing agencies that are in Collective 54, and for a long time, social media was new and it was hot, and it hadn't been commoditized. So, providing social media monitoring services and posting services was something that you could charge a lot of money for.

Well today, it's largely been automated through technology and it's been commoditized. So if you haven't added an additional service, and figured out a way to add more value beyond the commodity to your client base, The maybe your business is stagnated. So the skill or the net new thing you'd have to learn there, the business side of expertise is the launching of new services.

So if you're in a community like Collective 54, and there's many of them, we would match you up with someone who's actually done that, someone who's launched a new service, and then you would learn, how they did it their successes and their mistakes. So that's the power of kind of situational matchmaking and the power of learning from peers.

Jeffrey Feldberg: I really [00:15:00] like what you're doing because you've taken people who, as the saying goes, have been there and done that, to people who haven't been there. They haven't done that really across the spectrum. So you gave a few examples, and I'm sure We can do a deep dive and we'd have many examples, but from hiring a CEO to, hey, I am no longer in a blue ocean.

I'm in a red ocean. So much competitions come in. There's price pressures and it wasn't what it used to be. Help me. I don't know if I'm going to see next year as a business, to how do I get back to the point where, yeah, I'm thriving. I'm creating a market disruption and can't wait for the next five years, 10 years, because it's going to be a terrific ride.

Let's go back for just a moment to talent acquisition. And I'm coming to your community. Okay, yeah, Greg, I've drunk the Kool Aid as founder. I'm going to fire myself as CEO. I'm going to find someone who's going to do it better than what I can do and take the company to new levels. How do you go about doing that?

So I get the mentorship role, best practices though, because I know speaking to all kinds of entrepreneurs, founders, business owners, that's one of the challenges. I would love to fire [00:16:00] myself, but, it's always a but, I don't know how, and the people that I've spoken to are the people that I've brought on board.

Jeffery just hasn't worked out. It's created more of a mess than what I had hoped for. So what's going on there? Any particular insights?

Greg Alexander: Well, the first thing that I would ask somebody in that scenario is, Would you work for you? And if we're honest with ourselves, the answer would be no to that question a lot of times. Working for an entrepreneur who's a very specific personality type can be a very difficult assignment. So I would work with the entrepreneur and with the tools that we have available to elevate their own self awareness,

To understand the pluses and minuses of working for the entrepreneur.

And then based on that reality, because, listen, human beings. We are who we are. We have our strengths and weaknesses. We do have the capacity to change, but as we get on in life, that capacity becomes less and less, and we tend to get set in our ways. So in [00:17:00] finding somebody that situationally works well with you in that particular context, the fit is probably more important than the skill.

And once you identify that, then some of the traditional things come into play. For example, can you write a compelling job description and a specification that would attract the right person? Like, what is your employee value proposition? Is it compelling? If you were to explain the opportunity to somebody, a potential CEO candidate, what's the pitch?

Can you get them excited or not? Can you attract the right person given the current situation? The worst thing you could do is oversell. And then somebody comes on board and six months later they quit and they say, hey, you sold me a bag of goods, you didn't tell me the truth. You want to avoid that.

So there's always the blend of buying and selling. And then when you think about it from the other perspective, what do people do in a job interview? They sell themselves. Do you have a good BS detector? Can [00:18:00] you follow a structured interview process? I'm a big believer in the top grading process, which is based on the smart assessment from the wonderful GH Smart company.

Can you walk somebody through their entire career and see the patterns? And their performance and understand what they were born to do and based on their natural gifts and the way they've realized those gifts over time, are they the right fit for you or not? So these are some of the things that we would do to try to help somebody hire a CEO.

And it's a mission critical hire. Sometimes when I walk people through this, they say, Oh my gosh, that's going to take me a year. Like who has the time to do that? And I asked him to add up the cost of a mishire. So in the simple way that you would do that is you would say, what are you going to pay this person?

And how long do you anticipate them being with you? Those are the hard costs. But more importantly, let's talk, let's look at the soft cost, the opportunity cost. What's the Delta between an A player and a B player in terms of real revenue and profit growth? Maybe it's 20%. Okay. Well, if you could grow your business 20 percent in revenue and profit for the next five years, compound that, what's [00:19:00] that worth to you?

And you quickly realize that the cost of a mishire, this is a multi million dollar decision. And spending a year doing proper due diligence in the context of that is probably not an unrealistic expectation.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, absolutely spot on. It reminds me of the saying, we hire for personality, we train for skills. And in our Deep Wealth nine step roadmap, step two, X Factors, culture. Part of the culture, it's, well, your leadership team. It's also who your team players are. I call employees team members as opposed to employees, a little subtle shift, but big change in the mindset.

What's that going on? What's the culture like? Because a rich, thriving culture from the right people can create that market disruption, take the company to the next level. So, Greg, with what you're doing, and you're out there with, again, successful business owners, founders, entrepreneurs, the whole gambit, they're all in different parts of their own journeys, but it really sounds like you've taken, I'll call it, tried and true [00:20:00] principles.

Mentorship, I mean, if you go back through the ages, this is really where it all began. There weren't these quote unquote schools, they didn't have these degrees. You would be mentored by someone, and that's just how it was, often from a very young age. You've fast forwarded something that's tried and true and now you've brought this to us and I know you also have some technology behind this and you've taken what works, what doesn't work and put this into a nice package.

How's that being received? Because as entrepreneurs, we see the world a little bit differently and sometimes it's not to our own benefit. So what's going on with that? And

Greg Alexander: membership is broken into three tiers. There's a growth tier, a scale tier, and an exit tier. And I'm sharing this with you because I think it will highlight my answer to that question. There's really three types of entrepreneurs because they're at three different stages of their own life cycle. We have a belief. That in the professional services space, the boutique professional services space, which we define as companies with billable employees between 10 and 250, [00:21:00] the growth stage is kind of that first five years. And during that stage, you have this incredible, brave entrepreneur who has some secret sauce and they go to market with it.

And during that stage, thrashing about, for example, they're trying to figure out who their ideal client really is. They're trying to figure out how to reach that ideal client. They're trying to figure out who they should hire and what they should pay those people. Trying to figure out their culture, to use some of your thought process from the previous talk.

They're trying to think about what problems should they solve? What should their services be? So there's this kind of experimentation phase that happens. And a lot of fits and starts, et cetera, and through perseverance, they get through that. Then you leave the growth stage. You're no longer worried about making payroll, you're no longer worried about surviving.

You're now asking yourself the question, how big can this get? And the scale playbook is an entirely different playbook. For example, you probably stop doing customized work and you probably standardize your work. You probably automate some of the service delivery [00:22:00] through technology. You probably begin to tap into the global talent pool and leverage brilliantly talented people in other geographies.

And lower your cost to serve. Right now, you're probably experimenting with artificial intelligence and machine learning and how that might impact things. And you're probably getting sophisticated in the financial management of your firm. For example, you're probably now measuring profitability at the project level, not at the client level and not at the firm level.

You're understanding unit economics, like for example, how much does it cost to acquire a client, et cetera. So as you can see, it's a whole different playbook at the scale stage. So. When somebody is leaving the growth stage to the scale stage, it's our job as a community to understand where they are on that journey.

So, therefore, we can tailor their experience with us and the programming they receive based on that. Then if you go to the third tier, now you've been in business for a long time, maybe 15, 20 years. You're at a different stage in your life, maybe in your, Early fifties, mid fifties, maybe [00:23:00] even your sixties.

And you're starting to say to yourself, I want to do something else in my life. Maybe I want to retire. Maybe I want to be a philanthropist. I have 90 percent of my net worth tied up in this illiquid private asset. How do I realize and monetize my life's work? And now you have to sell your firm.

So playbook. For example, you start asking yourself, well, what makes a professional services firm an attractive acquisition target? And you start thinking about risk. Do I have any recurring revenue? Am I growing north of 20 percent of a year? Do I have EBITDA margins in the forties? Do I have high client concentration risk, high revenue risk?

But my key employees locked up in employment agreements, et cetera, et cetera. I start thinking about these things as an investor, as an owner. Can you make it through due diligence? Can you get to closure? So that's a different playbook altogether, and that's a different entrepreneur at that stage.

And it's our job to match up our programming and our mentorship to that type of entrepreneur at that particular stage. The mistake to avoid [00:24:00] is to say entrepreneurship in general, It's a journey, as you said earlier, and how you choose to manage your business as an owner operator, in this case, based on your life cycle stage, those three in particular, growth scale and exit, changes quite a bit along the way, and just the recognition of that, you It is a huge part of the solution and then you can lean into it.

So instead of resisting it, and sometimes entrepreneurs can be opinionated and say, Hey, I'm already doing this. I don't need you. I've got this figured out. By being in a community and being exposed to others like you at different stages on the journey, your eyes get opened up and you say, Oh my gosh, I'm having an aha moment right now.

I wasn't even thinking about that. I didn't know that I had high client concentration risk in my business. I didn't know that if my top five clients represent 30 percent of my revenue, I'm in trouble. Like, I didn't even know that was an issue. I have that problem. What do I do about it? And that's one example of [00:25:00] hundreds of examples of how you become aware of what you don't know as you go through this journey and you associate yourself with peers.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Greg, what's interesting about this with Collective 54 or as you sometimes reference, C54, really one and the same. This isn't theory, this just didn't drop from the sky. This was really a culmination of your own journey. You're a fellow post exit entrepreneur, you ran a very successful boutique firm, you ended up exiting that, and in many ways it sounds like you and I had very similar experiences post exit.

I don't mind, there wasn't that happily ever after for quite some time, and too many zeros in the bank, too much time, and being bored in my pajamas, no one feels sorry for you. So what was it? You've explained the community aspect. You've explained, okay, depending where you are, you might be growth, scale, or exit, and all of that, but how did you come to, okay, you know what, I've sold my firm, I am set for life financially, I can do whatever I want, and I know in researching for this, to your own [00:26:00] admission, hey, how many meals can you eat?

How many steaks can you have? How many things can you really do before it's same old? And you had gotten to that point. So what ultimately, I just say, let me pay this forward in my own way. Let me really take these different phases and stages and begin to help other people.

Greg Alexander: I'm so glad you asked me that question because I have a very particular story there. And I'm very fortunate that I had some great advisors in my life who told me how this was going to play out and what I should do. I sold my firm for 162 million at age 47. And please don't take that as me being braggadocious.

I share that with you to let your listeners know that, believe me, there's nothing special about Greg. If I can do it, you can do it. And I share the age number in particular because 47 relative to retirement age is pretty young. When that happened, I was tired. I had 25 years in of grinding it out, like 60 hour weeks and all that.

And I really did honestly and truly believe in my soul that I was done and I was gonna retire. And those that knew me, [00:27:00] family members, close friends, my wife, et cetera, they said, no way. Not a chance. You might take some time off, but you're gonna get back into it. And I literally thought they were crazy and I had all these other interests in politics.

Religion, and philanthropy, and academia, and I was going to go explore the other dimensions of life beyond just being a single minded, obsessed business person. And during that time period, I was given a book by a mentor of mine, and I'll give him a shout out. His name is Micah Velez, and he's played a huge impact in my life.

He's a former client of mine, but he's about 10 years ahead of me. The book was called Half Time, How to Move from Success to Significance, and you might be familiar with that book. When he gave it to me, I rolled my eyes in the back of my head and said, oh, geez, here we go. Another recommendation, some self help book.

I don't need this, blah, blah, blah, very he was a friend and he said, listen, I'm giving this to you and I want you to make me a promise. And the promise is you're going to actually read it. And because he is a real friend, I didn't make that promise lightly. And I said, okay, I'll do it.

And I read it. And he and I had a conversation with it after it literally transformed my life. And it was, the concept of the book is this, you have three stages of your life. The first stage, to use a football analogy, is the first [00:28:00] half of the game. The second stage, you go into the locker room at halftime to make adjustments, based on the opponent. And then you come out in the second half and you play the second half and the game is won in the second half. Usually, we were recording this during Super Bowl week and something will tell me that, the game's going to be won in the fourth quarter. So intentionally. Changing the way you're going to play the game in the second half happens in halftime.

So after I sold the business, I was in halftime and I had to say to myself, do I just want the second half of my life to be a repeat of the first half? Or do I want it to be different? And I had clarity in that. I want it to be different, but how? I wasn't sure. So the second stroke of luck happened to me then.

And that is I joined a wonderful community called Tiger 21. And I had been a longtime YPL member. So the idea of being in a community was very familiar to me. And I really enjoyed it. And the Tiger 21 community was specifically designed for people like me. They call them first generation wealth creators.

And what do you do now where you haven't [00:29:00] been trained to be wealthy? I mean, I didn't have any money and all of a sudden I had money, like, and there's all these new set of challenges that come up when you have money. And I was like, what possible challenges could you have? Money makes everything go away.

Well, there are a whole new set of challenges. And in this group, I got exposed to people who We're once poor and now wealthy, and they were happier when they were poor than when they were wealthy. And they had all this dysfunction in their life. Some of them had substance abuse problems. Some of them were having extramarital affairs.

Some of them had developed gambling addictions. I mean, it was like this eye opening experience. I'm like, oh my goodness. So then I clearly said, okay, I know what I don't want to have happen to me. And the root cause of all this was these people had too much time on their hands. They didn't have a meaningful purpose in their life. So I went on a mission to find my purpose. And what I realized was really what gets me out of bed every day is [00:30:00] entrepreneurship. And I love being around other entrepreneurs because they're the ones that really change the world and solve the world's problems. They're the ones that create jobs and opportunities for others.

And I said, okay, so if that is my passion, like how do I give back to the entrepreneurial community? I mean, there's a lot of brilliant people out there contributing to that. I'm just another voice. I don't know how much value I can add there. And then I came to the conclusion that, yes, that's true.

But if I niche it down into three things, Then I can create unique value. So those three things were the industry focus of professional services, which had largely been neglected. Most of the entrepreneurial success stories we hear about are like software companies and, the next Amazon.

com or what have you. So that was one. Second was the segment within the industry, which is this boutique segment. There's an awful lot of talk around startups. There's an awful lot of talk around. Those that sell their firm, but there wasn't a lot of talk around those people that were in between those two points, those awkward teenage years.

I'm like, okay, so that's interesting. And then there also wasn't a, [00:31:00] this is the third area, there wasn't a lot of talk around the founder or the owner and how to help that person convert income into wealth, how to shift their mentality from the P& L to the balance sheet, and what that would mean for them and their families if they were able to do that. So I challenged myself to say, all right, well, if I draw that circle, could I have something to say there? And could I add to that? And if I could, would that be fulfilling for me? And fulfilling was the key word. It wasn't, I don't take a dime out of Collective 54, even though it produces a healthy profit stream. All those dollars are used to pay the salaries of my employees because they need. Career opportunities, I've never been more well paid than I am right now because we've had 28 of our members reach exit. These were life changing wealth creation, family tree altering events, and I'm not taking credit for that, but I was able to have a ringside seat to it and helped in a small way them reach those dreams.

We've also [00:32:00] seen dozens, if not hundreds of people become Sellable assets, even though they haven't exited yet, they converted a lifestyle business to a real firm. So this has been incredibly rewarding, so that's what happened to me, and that's what gets me out of bed every day. And I know it sounds cliché, and I'm sure there's some people listening to this, and I was Probably one of these people 15 years ago, it's easy for you to say, Greg, you're rich now, blah, blah, blah.

And I get all that, but I'm telling you, it's true. There's there's something unbelievably rewarding about measuring your own success through the success of others. When you get to a certain point where. A few more zeros in the bank account just doesn't matter. But so what does matter in life?

And this is what matters to me.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Greg, so you found really a path for yourself of, hey, this is what I don't want to do. And I couldn't agree with you more. I say something very similar. All the zeros in the bank, all the success, all the accolades that go along with the success mean nothing if you don't have fulfillment, if you don't have joy.

A [00:33:00] simpler narrative is success without fulfillment is a failure. And so you said, okay, I've been there. I've been around people that have been there, don't want to be doing that. Let me now make a difference and for the listener who they're on their journey They can't really picture or imagine what you went through.

Come on, Greg. You had this great exit You can do whatever you want. You're bored. You're not happy Yeah, maybe that's you. You're a data point of one. I don't get that. How could you possibly be saying that? So what's going on with that for the listeners that dream of the day where they're in a position where they do have an exit and with what you're doing, what we're doing here at Deep Wealth, very similar, helping people really realize financial freedom if that's what they want and where they want to take the business to.

But the people are saying can't possibly be, would never be me. What do you say to that listener?

Greg Alexander: It's going to be you. We're living in this incredible time period in history. Where we have all these innovations that are happening. They're creating just remarkable opportunity. And if you look at the amount of billionaires [00:34:00] that have been created as one data point, I mean, they've doubled in the last five years. If you look at the amount of. Centi millionaires, they've tripled, if you look at the amount of deca millionaires, it's quadrupled, and this isn't according to Greg, this is according to the UBS Wealth Management Report, it's just the amount of wealth that's being created is enormous, and it's disproportionately going to entrepreneurs, it used to be a time that you became wealthy based on your last name, who you were born into, and that clearly does still happen, but it's not the majority anymore, the real wealth that's being created is from the great entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs, I mean, I think right now the two richest people in the world are Bill Gates and Elon Musk, both of them were entrepreneurs, and I think it's nine out of the top ten are brilliant entrepreneurs. So, I would say to those people that it's going to happen to you, and when it does happen to you, trust me, you're going to run into some of these bigger questions as I did, and as, those that came before me did and told me I was going to run into these questions.

And I would say, and I [00:35:00] would acknowledge that it's a wonderful place to be, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change it, I love my life, but just being another rich guy, there's really nothing special about that, but, being a rich guy who is using his resources to help other people, reach their own definition of success, I mean, what gets better than that?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And Greg, for the listeners that are saying, okay, I'm a member of a CEO peer group. Greg, you've mentioned a few of them and they're saying, okay, that's great. I really don't have time for a lot more. What would you say in a sentence or two, again, to that listener? Okay it's great that you're part of A, B, C, and D, but here's where C54 is in the league of its own, that we're completely different and where and how we're going to help you.

Greg Alexander: Well, the first thing I would say is be in a peer group, regardless of which one it is. So if you're in one, congratulations, you're doing the right thing, commit to it, engage with it. The way that I would distinguish ours versus the others is on these three dimensions. So most of the peer groups, so the YPOs, which I'm a member of, EO, Vistage, others, [00:36:00] they're horizontal and they're generalist. Ours is niched into three things. So a single industry, professional services, and I will tell you that industry context Can be very helpful. These are peer groups. So what's the definition of a peer? I was in YPO for a long time and I was in this thing called The Forum. And one of my close personal friends owns 300 barbecue restaurants.

He's a brilliant entrepreneur. But I don't know anything about the barbecue restaurant business and he doesn't know anything about the consulting business. So we would get to a point in our conversation where we just really couldn't help in each other. Socially, I played golf with him. We traveled with our wives together.

It was wonderful. But business wise, it was limited. The second area that we distinguish ourselves. It's not just on an industry, it's a segment within the industry that we call the boutique that's 10 to 250. So it's not the startup group. If you're in the startup phase, we're not for you. They have a whole set of issues there that we don't address.

If you're this large firm like a Deloitte or PwC, we're not for you, you've answered all the scalability issues, we're not going to help [00:37:00] you, but if you're that, if you remember when you were a teenager, you were 16 years old, you wanted to be an adult, but you weren't yet, that's us, so that's the group that we are committed to.

And there's a whole unique set of challenges in that group. And then the third thing is if you're the owner, if you're not just the operator, but you're also the owner. So in other words, you're thinking about someday, You're going to exit your business. How do you pull that off? Selling a professional services business is very hard because it's a people driven business.

It's asset light. They say all your assets walk out the front door every day, and that's true. So how do you pull that off? And for those that say, well, I'm never going to sell my business. I love what I'm doing. You're lying to yourself. You're going to die. You can't run your business from the graveyard.

So it's not if you're going to sell your business, it's when. So knowing how to do it well, so everybody benefits, not just yourself, but your family, your employees, your clients, everybody that's helped you along the way. You only get a chance to do it once. So you got to do it right. So those three things, the industry, the segment, and the persona, the owner, that's what makes our group different than the others.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And as you talk about [00:38:00] this, and in some ways, the only constant thing in life is change itself. Business, personal, same kind of thing. But I'm wondering, as you've been going through this, as you've been working with the business owners, have there been changes, or has it just been same problem, different day, or same kinds of problems?

Are you seeing a shift? And the reason I mention that, you've mentioned artificial intelligence, huge game changer. Thankfully, in the rear view mirror is the pandemic, which is, I'd like to say, well, behind us, and hopefully we'll keep it there. But we've had two Very big inflection points, as we like to say here at Deep Wealth, that have come into our lives.

Some have left. COVID left a permanent impact, for better, for worse, on society. Artificial intelligence continues to change the rules of the game. Every day is a new rule, a new game that's going on. What are you seeing? Is it just different issues coming up that we're navigating our way through? Or have you begun to see some changes that are out there, business wise, people wise, society wise?

Greg Alexander: I would add a third inflection point, and that [00:39:00] is the cancel culture that we live through and the whole Me Too movement and the wokeness and all this and as it relates to people driven businesses against my, again, my area, that was a real issue for a lot of people. We lived through that that cancel culture and, lots of lawsuits and things of that nature. We lived through COVID, which is amazing. And the impact that had on the professional services industry is road warriors are no longer road warriors. excessive travel, for example, in the consulting industry, you would leave your house at Sunday night and come home on Thursday night.

So it was usually a profession reserved only for very young people. They would stay for three to five years and then move on to another job and it plagued a lot of companies. They couldn't scale because of employee turnover. It's not the case anymore. I mean, clients are very comfortable engaging virtually.

was a transformational, monumental change for the professional services sector. Yeah, and then, COVID. I mean, gosh, that was just absolutely incredible, what happened. And I think it re centered everybody. I think the biggest impact on that is leaving the city. Most [00:40:00] professional services firms put their name on the side of a building and required employees to go to a downtown office tower, and that doesn't happen anymore.

So people are all over the place. If you looked at the map of our members, you'd be shocked. We got people living in Bozeman, Montana and Lincoln, Nebraska, and people have made decisions on where to spend their lives because they've now been freed, from that constraint. I would say that I do think that with artificial intelligence that we're on the biggest chains that we'll see in our lifetime, and I don't say that to be, provocateur, but here's where it's happening.

So, when you were a boutique consulting firm, as an example, you had to compete with the big guys. And Fortune 500 companies, Global 2000 companies would hire big firms because of their scope and their scale. Scope defined as they had 50 service lines and scale defined as they had a hundred thousand people.

And was a perception that you had to hire a big firm because they were the only ones that could serve your needs. So the big ate the small. With AI, it's [00:41:00] the fast eating the slow. And the boutique services firms are beating the big guys every day. And here's how they're beating them. They're beating them with speed. We have a member who won a deal last week and he's competing with Bain. Bain went in to compete and they said, this project is going to take six months with a team of five. And our client went in and said, I can get it done in 30 days with a team of two. it showed up in a huge price delta.

And the client said, how the heck are you doing this? And they're saying, well, we're using artificial intelligence. The client said, well, that makes me a little nervous. Can you explain that to me? And they walked them through how they were using AI in a very intelligent way. And all of a sudden now, when you have the world's intelligence at your fingertips, the limitation of scope is gone.

 You have the world's intelligence at your fingertips, and when you have infinite scale because of this, the advantages of being big are gone. So this is, I believe, the moment for the small service firm to realize their day in the sun. And the challenge for all of [00:42:00] us now is to learn it and to know how to use it correctly so that it does allow us.

To be the fast that eat the slow and not be the small that gets eaten by the big.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Greg, as you're talking through that, you're really hitting upon some key points. Quite openly, we can unpack that and each one of those points could be an episode in and of itself. Big picture wise though, big picture wise in going through that, from a services firm perspective in particular, what's always been ironic for me.

From a services firm, we're not bound by the quote unquote traditional rules that you have for manufacturing. You've got to have a plan. You need to walk the floor every day, see what's going on. You're tied to physical product. Really, what we have, we're manufacturing air, as an example, and it's just a click of a button and we can get some more servers in the cloud.

Wasn't always the case. I remember back in my e learning company, it wasn't quite so easy. It wasn't quite so fast, but today it is. But the irony here for services business in particular, and this is your wheelhouse, We have the [00:43:00] golden handcuffs. We're not leveraging ourselves. We still have this mentality, I'm small, the Banes and the others of the world, they're so big, I can never compete with them.

And we drink our own Kool Aid. We are our own worst enemy. And I love what you're saying with AI. We can really use that as a key to unravel all of that and begin to create our own rules that we can win at in a new game because we're small, because we're agile, because we're smart, because we can do all those things.

What would you say to the community who is in the services business that is buying into the old worldview of, quote unquote, how it's got to be?

Greg Alexander: Yeah. I mean, if you don't change it, you're going out of business. If you look at our members, the younger firms, which tend to be led by younger entrepreneurs, they're so far ahead of our legacy members, you know, firms 20 years run by older people. The contrast between the two is, is dramatic.

The older firm [00:44:00] is resistant to change. They're worried and scared about the technology. The younger firm is saying, oh, my goodness, this new enabling technology is going to allow me to do all these things, so. I would tell you that you're only limited by your own creativity right now. And we're just getting started.

I mean, for heaven's sake, I mean, the AI era is barely launched. So if you don't get on board now, if you're already behind, this is going to compound a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. You're going to be obsolete. You'll be gonzo. So you got to get with it. It would be kind of like when the internet came out.

Were you one of those people that said, I'm never going to buy a pair of sneakers on the internet? Look where we are now, and this is going to happen faster than that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Exactly. In the Deep Wealth community, very similar to what you're saying, we're saying this is like 1992 all over again. It's brand new, and not a lot of people know about it. They're very, oh, I don't know, maybe it's a fad, it's not going to be here. But if you look at the companies that jumped on board.

Particularly for websites known as the World Wide Web back in the day, which later became e commerce. Where are they now? They're some of the titans of business, [00:45:00] some of the largest in the world, because they had the vision. They weren't perfect, but they learned as things progressed, they made their mistakes, learned what not to do, what they should keep on doing, and it doesn't come along all that often.

It's another chance of a lifetime, as was the Internet when it came back, and here we are. couldn't agree more that, hey, if we don't jump on this. Cut our teeth, make the mistakes, but get through it, and then just embed it into what we're doing will be the better for it.

Greg Alexander: Yeah, I agree.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Greg, let me ask you this.

Again, we can go in so many different directions. We're starting to bump again some time here. Is there a question in particular I may not have asked, or a topic that we didn't cover, or a message that you want to get out to the community?

Greg Alexander: The question that you didn't ask no, I don't think so. I think your questions were really well targeted. It allowed me to contribute today. In terms of, what to get out there, a few resources to point people at if they're so inclined. So, obviously, Collective54, that's the number, fivefour. com is the website.

For those that are listening to this, you probably [00:46:00] enjoy podcasting. So we have the ProServe podcast. We also have a YouTube channel called Profiting and Professional Services. And then I've got a book that's, it's been out for a little while, but it's done pretty good. It's called The Boutique, How to Start, Scale, and Sell a Professional Services Firm.

So you might check that out. And after you consume some of that, if you're interested in joining the community, just apply on the website and somebody will get in contact with you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, terrific. And for our listeners, again, this is all in the show notes. It's a point and click. It doesn't get any easier. Greg, why don't we do this? Why don't we go into wrap up mode. It's a fun question, it's a tradition here on the podcast where every guest, I have the privilege and the honor to ask this question.

Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. So the fun part, Greg, it's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window, not only is the DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in, which you do.

And you're now going to go to any point in your life, Greg, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time that would be, what would you tell your younger [00:47:00] self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom, or hey, Greg, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like?

Greg Alexander: Boy, that's an interesting one. I would have become an entrepreneur quicker. So I spent 12 years in corporate America and I'm so grateful for that time. I learned so much about how a big company operates and that became my client when I became an entrepreneur. So that was invaluable. I probably could have got that done in half the time.

So maybe six years there and I would have started my entrepreneurial journey six years earlier. I, like many, was probably afraid and young and didn't know any better, so I'd probably go back to that time and take risk sooner.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And I'm just curious, Greg, I love that answer. Becoming an entrepreneur, was that something that was I'll say in your heart or as a top of mind for you for a number of years you knew at one point that you would do that or when did that come about for you? It's always

Greg Alexander: My dream was to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and I was working for a Fortune 500 company, [00:48:00] and they made it clear to me that I was never going to be the CEO. And I didn't see a path into the CEO office of a big company, so I said, all right, well, I'm going to, I'll make my own way. I'll create my own company, and that's what happened.

I'm so grateful to that big company for telling me that they didn't see it in me because it forced me to go do what I did. And if they had allowed me to reach my potential, I probably never would have been an entrepreneur. So their rejection of my skills was a great gift.

Jeffrey Feldberg: 20 at the time, Greg. I'm sure When you found out, hey, this is not happening, probably a few explicitives we could throw in there of what you're thinking and that inner talk and with your loved ones, what you're saying, little did you know, that's exactly what you needed to get you on your path. And that's just the wonderful thing about the journey.

The really tough times are sometimes the best opportunities in disguise, but really follow your passion, follow your dreams is what I'm hearing you say in terms of some [00:49:00] advice for your younger self and also to the community.

Greg Alexander: Yes.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Greg, you mentioned this in terms of your website, and again, for the listeners, it's all in the show notes.

A listener, though, does want to have a conversation. Greg, they want to know a little bit more, they want to become a member, or they just want to bounce a few ideas off of you or the team. Where is the best place?

Greg Alexander: I find LinkedIn to be a really good place for communication. So, you can find my profile on LinkedIn and if you want to message me there. I'm happy to receive your message and start a dialogue.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And again, for our listeners, all that's in the show notes. It's a point and click. You don't have to remember any of this. Come to the site, go to the show notes, and you're there. Well, Greg, congratulations. It's official. This is a wrap. Thank you so much for being part of the Deep Wealth Podcast.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Greg Alexander: Thanks, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. Did you [00:50:00] find this episode helpful? Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

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