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Learn How Bill's Vision and Leadership Transformed a Company into a Community, Elevating Success to Embrace Both People and Profit.
Welcome to another illuminating episode of the Genius at Scale podcast, hosted by John Hittler. In this thought-provoking instalment, we sit down with the exceptional Bill Harney, a visionary leader who has redefined success, one empathetic stride at a time.
Join us as we delve into Bill's remarkable journey, from his days as a junior high programmer to his current role as CEO of Keeping Current Matters. With insights that span the tech revolution and the dynamic real estate market, Bill shares his invaluable lessons on adapting to change while staying true to core values.
In this episode, you'll discover how Bill's people-centric approach has led to the transformation of an entire industry. Unveiling the power of empathy in leadership, he offers candid insights into navigating disruption and building strong, united teams.
Tune in to explore how Bill Harney's story is not just about business growth, but about fostering a community that thrives on shared values. Redefining success to encompass both people and profits, he's a living testament to the incredible impact that purpose-driven leadership can have.
If you're a CEO or a leader looking for inspiration, strategies for navigating change, and insights into building a people-centric empire, this episode is a must-listen. Join us on the Genius at Scale podcast as we uncover the genius behind scaling a business while embracing the journey itself.
Subscribe to the Genius at Scale Podcast for more inspiring conversations with visionaries like Bill Harney. Gain valuable insights to fuel your business growth and transformation.
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
John Hittler:
Hello again and welcome to Genius at Scale. Today's guest is the CEO of Keeping Current Matters, Bill Harney. Bill, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.
Bill Harney:
Sure thing. John, thanks for having me on first of all. It's been awesome spending this time with you and just getting a recall back up today. But my name is Bill Harney. As you mentioned, I run a company called Keeping Current Matters. We help real estate agents really understand what's going on in the real estate market and then give them the tools and the content that they need to be able to communicate that most effectively to buyers and sellers that have the biggest questions when they're going through the process of buying and selling a house. Should I sell right now? Should I buy right now? What's going on with interest rates? how do we articulately answer some of these and then much more complicated versions of those questions given any different market dynamic and built a really fun, very fast growing business around that concept. And I'm just proud to get to be the leader of the organization that does all the work.
John Hittler: That's fabulous. And you guys have been growing consistently through the pandemic and through all that's gone on. I've known you for, gosh, I want to say a decade, but maybe it's not that long.
Bill Harney: It's probably close to that, yeah.
John Hittler:
yeah. Yeah. But it's, I don't ever remember a time when you're not growing. Walk us through. Yeah. Walk us through that because. Especially given the last eight to 10 years, really the pandemic as well, market dynamics and in your. business, the interest rates all of a sudden went from free money
Bill Harney: Sure, yeah.
John Hittler: How do you grow through every market? Regardless of the transition from free money to expensive money?
Bill Harney:
Yeah, I think it's a great question. I get the question a lot. I think the biggest thing is recognizing there's probably two parts of this one is adaptability being built into the DNA of the organization, recognizing that while we stay focused as well as anybody else, being able to adapt and adjust as market dynamics start to shift has been a huge strategic strength for us. Being able to recognize when hey, things are crazy right now. prices, excuse me, interest rates going up right now, as you called out, just creates a lot of volatility and a lot of questions and a lot of people pushing pause. We create a lot of fear in the market. Our job is to be able to help people truly understand what's going on. And these types of times when it's volatile, there's lots of questions, there's lots of confusion. Our primary job is to be the clarifiers of that, is to be the wise sage to be able to say like, all right, here's where the confusion is. How do we bring more clarity to that? And then how do we teach the agents and the members that work with us to be able to do that most effectively and how do we serve the industry in that way? In more normal times, you know, maybe when it's not as crazy, we really help agents with their marketing. We help them have a great message. That's always consistent, but we build tools and we build different content types that allow them to stay current on. where do they need to be in the media? So we've got, we launched about a year ago, we launched a big video product, allowing agents to be able to do video much easier. And that's been a change. I would say it's the understanding of like, who are we given these different market dynamics? How do we show up, right? Allows us to say, sorry, this type of market, we do this and that allows us to go up. When the market shifts a little bit, it gets more confusing. We pull back a little bit on that messaging, right? We really rally around. What is our narrative? What is our service to the industry? And how do we play on that? Knowing that, hey, if we do a great job of informing and clarifying, we'll attract more people that way than in any other thing that we can do.
John Hittler: Got it. So if you're a toy seller, the end user is the kid, but you're actually speaking to and selling to the adult, the parents. Is this kind of the same thing where you're...
Bill Harney: I think that's a really good analogy. Yeah.
John Hittler:
yeah, where you're selling to the agent, but you're speaking to the market, the homeowner or the prospective homeowner?
Bill Harney:
Yeah, so when we're putting together like our vision statements, you know, we have a statement here that's been with KCM since I got here, is we believe every family should feel confident when buying and selling a home, right? That is very consistent. We're trying to figure out how do we help. I don't want to say consumer confidence because that's got a, you know, a meaning behind it. That's got a definition
John Hittler: Right. Got a statistical and Fed reading.
Bill Harney: Behind it in the world, but essentially,
Bill Harney:
yeah, it's...a housing community confidence. I'm like, yeah, one day I'll want to start a stat, you know, for that, track that and see if we can improve that to be able to measure our success in that effort. But, um, Yeah, I think it's well said. Our job is to provide the consumers with the confidence. We know working with the best agents is the best way for us to be able to get there. That creates a really cool flow and partnership with agents across the United States in being able to, we're on the same team, trying to accomplish that. It does create challenges for our marketing team of like, who are we talking to? But a lot of our messaging is around, how do we help the end user, the person actually buying and selling, the person transacting on that side of things. It creates a weird dynamic for a marketing team, which they have a blast with.
John Hittler: Sure. So in a way, your product and the agents are distribution. Okay, and see, that's just the framework I use. Okay, got it. So then how do you measure scale in an operation like that? Is it by user base, or is it a subscription model, or how does that work?
Bill Harney: I don't think that's probably fair, right? I would say it differently when I'm talking to the members that we have in here. But I think the analogy holds for sure. Yeah, I think it's a perfect framework. Yes, I think you're a hundred percent right.
Bill Harney:
Yeah, so it's a, so from the, here, I'm gonna answer that question two different ways, if that's okay, John, and it
John Hittler:
Sure.
Bill Harney: It really comes down to a root belief I have about how to operate a business. I'll set it up this way: there are two words that most of us use interchangeably, but at KCM, we mean two very different things by them. Those words are "business" and "company." When we talk about "business" at KCM, we're referring to user base, subscription service, profit, revenue, sales, operational aspects, all the businessy jargon like cost of acquisition, KPIs, and all that stuff. We all know the business side of it. When we talk about company, when we're building a company, when we're scaling a company, we're talking about what is today 53 human beings that are in our four walls that are in our office here in Richmond, Virginia. And what are all the nuanced differences between each of us? What's the weird that we get to bring in? What's the awesome that we bring to the table? And how do we build this team of different human beings to be able to accomplish this great, you know, tack and this great goal of what we wanna do? So I think of scaling, honestly, in both of those arenas. On the business side of it, yes, it's a subscription service, it's a monthly membership. So we're looking to be able to drive new products, tiers. How do we serve at higher levels? How do we meet the needs of the top clients, how do we meet the needs of agents that are either new to work, right, super young agent, or new to real estate, maybe as a second career, and how do we help them get started, how do we serve all those needs? Your scale is definitely in that area, that's through both just sheer volume and quantity, as well as in different pricing, your pricing tiers offerings, that sort of thing. I think scale on the people side of it is honestly harder. You and I years ago talked about this a lot, right? I spent a lot of time in this space. I think scaling the human component of this, I remember when we were 12 people, right? And communication was just easy, right? You know, if there's 12 people, I could stand up in a room and everybody would hear, like, hey, this is where we're going, this is why we're doing it, and here's what any different buddy would do. With 53 people, I can't do that anymore, right? There are multiple layers. There's one team I think I have to go five layers to be able to hit like the last person on the line. Um, you know, so obviously communication has evolved and scaled tremendously and we go through these phases of having to learn and relearn how to do communication project management Honestly leadership, right? Um as we go through the different phases of scale along the way Um, and I probably spend more of my personal time thinking on that side of the house Um, because I have a great I have a great president, I have a great leadership team that really focuses on how do we drive the business side of things.
John Hittler:
That's great.
Bill Harney:
I think both are critically important and I think that's been one of the keys to our successes that we hyper-focus in both areas.
John Hittler:
No, that's great. That's great. So Annie, you're not the original founder, but this was a family business. And then you came in 15, 20 years ago.
Bill Harney:
It'll be 14 years next week.
John Hittler:
Okay, 14 years ago. How did, how do you... There's the word we use with our clients is there's an embryonic fluid from the founder How do you keep the embryonic fluid? That's great And then put your own stamp on it to help it scale better When you take over as the next generation because that's a difficult. It can be a very challenging thing
Bill Harney:
That's for sure. I have friends that did not do it well.
John Hittler:
Yeah.
Bill Harney:
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it's been perfect because it hasn't. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it's been the smoothest sailing. No, if my dad was here right now, he would be the first person to tell you. He's just like, no, we've had some knockdown drag out fights, you know, as part of that process, but it's, it's going through those debates. That will. allow us to really get to the best decision, to really understand. So I think that from a transition standpoint where I want to give dad all the credit in the world is I came in and shared I have a larger vision for the organization. I'd like you to take me over. That was the short version of the story of how I took over as CEO back in 2014. And to his credit, he quickly made the decision. Your vision's bigger. where we need to go is going to be more your skill set than my skill set. I'm going to keep the piece that I've been great at, that embryonic fluid side of things. I'm going to keep that for as long as you need me to keep that until that just becomes part of the organization. But you need to go do your thing. And I'll give him all the credit in the world because I now know how complicated and how hard that had to have been for him. I didn't know it at the time. Oh yeah, I told you about the fights and debates, right?
John Hittler: And he was generous enough to stay hands-off, even though he must have cringed at times and thought, "Oh god, I can't believe he's doing that." But I told him, yeah, yeah.
Bill Harney:
Yeah, and they were definitely pieces. And as that caused stress in our relationship, yeah, I think he and I would both say, but I think that it's allowed us to grow closer in certain areas and be able to just be able to navigate that side of it. Family business is tough. Anybody that tells you otherwise, just they're lying to you. But I'll also say is recognizing, he's got strengths that I just can't have, right? And so there are times that he'll come back in there. And we are not shy to bring him back into the organization to be able to give a message about like, why was KCM founded? Why did he start this in the first place? What is our duty and what is our mission? Because I'm pretty good about talking about that side of things. My president, Dave, is amazing about talking about that, but there is nobody like my dad. And I think that that's one of the things that we've done well is not run away from him, right? But I'd really honor what he can bring to the organization to be able to hear that. That's amazing.
John Hittler:
and you've kind of optimized his role.
Bill Harney:
He's doing exactly what he wants to do. He gets to do exactly what he wants to do every single day. And shouldn't we all hope for that?
John Hittler:
Right. And he maybe more importantly, people hear this is that he's not doing all the work that he doesn't that he used to have to do because he ran the place.
Bill Harney:
He is equally excited about that side too.
John Hittler:
Yeah. People hear optimization. They see the unicorns and fairies and you say, yeah, but you also stay away from all the broken glass you have to crawl over. You lose all that. That's in a lot of ways way more important. That's funny.
Bill Harney:
Yeah.
John Hittler:
That's funny.
Bill Harney:
That's for sure.
John Hittler:
you've been the CEO since 2014, but you've been involved longer than that. Obviously it's a journey. There's destinations and there's goal posts and there's KPIs and all those kind of metrics. But in the end, it's a CEO's journey. I'm curious, has there been a bigger than average pothole or a brick wall or a Mack truck ran you over where you say, oh, at the time it looked, that was the worst thing, but I'm actually grateful for it now because we couldn't have gotten here unless we went through that mistake. Was there an episode like that?
Bill Harney:
It's funny, I love the analogy of, I love the analogy and the perspective you give there, John, is just, is there a truck that hit you, you know, but now looking back in the mirror, I'm sitting here and it's like, no. Looking back, I'm like, no, I don't think we got hit by a truck. In the moment,
John Hittler:
Yeah.
Bill Harney:
they were trucks, absolutely, right? And so I love that perspective. I think, yeah, we definitely have, I mean, you have some stuff, you between dad and I going through that filters, you know, through on that kind of stuff, we saw that, that felt like a truck at the time, it definitely wasn't. I think probably the biggest one and my hats off not that you need any more platitudes on your own podcast here John but you helped me through this tremendously was Yes, so we are New KCM today is a hundred percent in office, you know organization Our culture really is built around just the relationships that human beings have right? That's really important to us. Not for everybody. It is for us and You remember I was you know, we had our off our team was based in New York, which is where I'm from
John Hittler:
You were split. Yeah.
Bill Harney:
And then my wife and I, you know, we're down in Richmond, Virginia, and a lot of the business flowed through the two of us. And we had two other employees that we had hired here in Richmond, and we were doing this dance between kind of semi remote, semi not. And it
John Hittler:
Yeah.
Bill Harney:
just, it stopped working, right? It worked for a period of time and it just got too hard. So we had to go through the difficult but amazingly successful decision of closing down our New York office, moving people from. Long Island, New York, which anybody that's from or knows anybody from Long Island, New York is a tough place to leave
John Hittler:
Yes.
Bill Harney:
and move them down to Richmond, Virginia, which is a very different place. But we successfully were able to do that, not without its own pains and not without some losses that unfortunately happened as part of that. But I can tell you that five and a half years later right now, for everybody impacted, I think that we are in a great spot. I know from a KCM standpoint, we could not have gotten place that we were right now, continuing to operate the way that we were. And by bringing everybody under like under one roof, it allowed us to go from a good growth rate to some inflection point, your type
John Hittler:
Yeah.
Bill Harney:
of group. And that's allowed us to be able to hire an amazing team and continue to grow.
John Hittler: I'm curious because Long Island and Richmond aren't that far apart geographically. But they're very separate...
Bill Harney: That's a world of difference.
John Hittler:
but I wonder how if you can quantify it or even consider it was the not working very well the fact that I know tons of people from Long Island the mindset and the culture and the attitude in Long Island is markedly different than probably anywhere else in the world, but also Richmond. I'm curious, might it have worked if it was Charlottesville, Virginia and Richmond and you say, oh, they're both in Southern Virginia. Culturally, we're about the same, even though we're separated by 100 miles. Or
Bill Harney:
Yeah,
John Hittler:
was it...
Bill Harney: It's a great question. I don't know if I'm smart enough to know for sure, just on the culture side, because I've spanned both. I spent most of my life on Long Island and the last eight years here in Richmond.
John Hittler: Right. You've lived in both.
Bill Harney: Yep, both and honestly, Richmond is an area that has a ton of transplants from all over the country. It's a growing city. We're blessed in that way. You know, at KCM again, we have over 50 people, but I- I think it's something like 25 or 30 of them are not originally from Richmond. So Richmond is becoming more of a hub for folks from different parts of the country. So it's kind of an interesting cultural dynamic. I think the bigger thing I think where I would say that Charlottesville and Richmond wouldn't have worked either is more about cultural values and the things that made us great and the distance becoming a challenge in that, right? So first and foremost, I'll raise my hand. as the CEO of the organization, relationships are everything to me. My ability to influence isn't about speaking from the stage, typing up a beautiful email, or delivering a one-to-many virtual conversation.
John Hittler: It's not about handing out Benjamins. Yeah.
Bill Harney:
Yeah. It's my ability to be able to lead is very much in a one-on-one small group kind of conversation, like, and really be able to do that when I'm remote. I can't, I'm fighting with one arm tie behind my back. Um, and it's just. That, for me, and for other reasons, but that's one that was very personal for me. For me to be at my best, we needed to be together on that side of things, and I think that's allowed us to be able to grow.
John Hittler:
What sounds like that?
Bill Harney:
And it's surprising, even in this world, how many people, even in today's market and today's just culture, how many people still want the office environment on that side of things, and it's allowed us to be able to create like crap on that.
John Hittler:
Yeah, I was gonna say if part of your magic formula is the connectivity and the magic that happens by being face to face. Yeah, I can imagine splitting between two offices and you were the number one violator because you were the first two guys to leave.
Bill Harney:
Yeah, for sure.
John Hittler:
Isn't that ironic? You go, oh, they ran away from home. It's like, what, they got a new home? What are they doing here? Yeah, that's funny. That's funny.
Bill Harney:
Oh yeah.
John Hittler:
I'm curious, is there a risk profile or a risk, maybe profile is the best way to say it, for a CEO in general? And then I'm also curious how you would assess maybe on a scale of one to 10, 10 being Elon Musk and one mattress in the freezer or cash in the freezer or cash between the mattresses, your own risk profile? Is there an optimal for a CEO?
Bill Harney:
Um I don't think there's one way to do everything. I said earlier, for us, being in person is everything for us. But I have a lot of friends that run companies that are fully virtual and it works for that. And it's just, we're attracting very different people and that's okay. So I don't think there's any one way to be able to do that. I think that if you're gonna be a CEO and you're going to be a one on the scale of, I'm in a penny pinch and I'm not gonna take any risks, I just don't, you may be able to run a very small company, you're not gonna be able to scale. You just have to take risks, you have to bet it, you have to go without all the data. You have to say, my gut tells me this, I need to move in that direction. And I don't need to be right 100% of the time, I just need to be right more than I'm wrong. So I think there has to be an element if you want to create impact, like true larger than life impact. You want to run a mom and pop type of thing, you could probably be a little bit less risky on that, I think. I've never tried that. That's not my game. So I think when you see the larger organizations, you see folks' names that we all know, you have to assume that they're way up on the risk scale. For me personally, I'm definitely not Elon. And I've gotten more risk tolerant as I've grown, as I've matured, as I've earned, and as I've just got reps and sets of what does it look like? I was probably closer to a five, maybe when I first took over. fine with risk, but I was playing a little bit safe. In fact, my probably my biggest regret is not borrowing money to be able to invest in Facebook advertising 10 years ago more. But the, I think today, I probably say I'm an eight. I think that's probably fair. My wife would probably tell you nine sometimes. She's a little bit more risk, risk averse.
John Hittler: Yep, yep. On that score, what have you seen, Bill?
Bill Harney: What have you seen, John?
John Hittler: Well, there's a couple of things. First of all, we don't allow seven. Because seven means "I want to be risk-tolerant, but I'm really a five or six." It's like wanting to sound like you're in the cool kids club. If you eliminate seven, six is very different than eight. And so, we just say you can't have seven, but we do that with any survey. Because, in customer service, a seven is pretty good. But, was it a great restaurant and I should go there tomorrow, or was it just okay? Seven is like, "I don't have any complaints." But that doesn't help anybody. The eight is interesting.
Bill Harney: Hahaha, that's fair. Yeah, that's interesting. Seven's like being indifferent.
John Hittler: Yeah, it's like being polite but not wanting to give more details. Like saying, "Yeah, the burger was good." But then you think, how hard is it to make a good burger?
Bill Harney: Right. Or did it need some help? Hahaha.
John Hittler: Yeah. Tell me what, tell me why I have to go there. Um, But the eight is interesting because it is risk, certainly risk tolerant if not risk seeking. My guess is at eight, you wouldn't have any problem. It still may give you sweaty palms, but if you have to go all in on a decision that affects the next year, you can do that. At five, you'll struggle with that. If you over-analyze, you'll really struggle because you'll slow down. You might say, "I need 30 days." But the opportunity is this week, or not at all. An eight won't have any problem making that decision quickly.
Bill Harney: Yeah, I think that's fair. I'll stick to my eight.
John Hittler:
Yeah, no, it's funny that, um, statistically, uh, what we find is the most successful CEOs, not all the ones we work with, but, uh, we're seeing it more and more are less than five and I've talked to them about it and what they say is my job is not, uh, I still, in a poker game, I still have to go all in. It's, it does give me sweaty palms. My real job where I can create value is to, uh, a lot of them will call it de-risk a situation and make, and just increase my odds because a nine or a 10 will make a decision today and say, let's go. And if they have another 10 days and they can take some of the risk out of it before they make the decision, might they make a different decision? And the, I call them pragmatists. They're very pragmatic about it. They say. I've got 10 days. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna call my regional bank and see if I can up my line of credit because if we can do this deal but we don't have additional credit for Facebook advertising, it's actually a horrible decision. But if I know I can get Facebook advertising, I can buy another, bump the line of credit by a million bucks, then it's a no-brainer.
Bill Harney:
Yeah.
John Hittler:
I'm a, I would say I'm an 11. I don't see risk.
Bill Harney:
Hahaha
John Hittler:
I only see opportunity and that's a horrible thing to be. I always have to have a second command that talks me out of it. But, uh, a pragmatist oftentimes makes better decisions because they don't feel compelled to, to move like an eight, nine or 10, um, and a lot of it is a speed thing and I would have never thought of that, but it just raises the percentages on their successful decisions. Like you say, you have to, yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Bill Harney: I'd be curious if we could segment based on founder or entrepreneur. While I'm not the founder of KCM, I consider myself the founder of the next phase of KCM. That's how we talk about it here. I think of it as my version or KCM 2.0.
John Hittler: Absolutely, that's for sure.
Bill Harney:
I can't raise my hand on the, you know, how to struggle for payroll. We were at a point now that. when I took over that wasn't a struggle anymore. I don't have those scars, right? But I had plenty of the rest. I'd be curious if that's founder or entrepreneurial led and then size and stage, right? Cause there are aspects of the business right now where I had a conversation with my leadership team. It's just like, I'm a new idea, visionary entrepreneurial founder. And there are times at KCM that I struggle because what we need right now is operational excellence. Well, that's boring, right? We need to execute. You go, execution? Who cares?
Bill Harney: To me, that's not fun. I don't want to do that. Yeah. But that's what's needed, right? So like, I'm curious, like there are days that KCN needs a CEO that is less risk-taller and is more, you know, how do we do this better? How do we do that? Like, I don't want to take this risk right now, not because risk's bad, right? Because I'm gonna focus in, you know, in this area. And that's a weird, it's a weird dynamic to go through.
John Hittler:
Yeah, it's actually, it's very inexact. Um, what I find is that the pragmatists that in year three can actually be a four or a five, and that works for them in year one by default, uh, they have to be a nine or 10 because in year one, your first hire could sink the company. Your first customer, if
Bill Harney:
Yeah.
John Hittler:
you take on the wrong customer, any decision you make and sink the customer or sink the company. What I find is they are still the. at their core the same. The difference is if you're an eight in year one of founding a new company, your stress level is way less than the four who's in year one because the risk and the speed is
Bill Harney:
That's fair.
John Hittler:
the same. You've got at least a dozen company ending decisions that you have to do well enough. You don't have to kill it, but you have to survive it. You have at least. 12 of those in your first year, it's just way more stressful for somebody that's got a lower risk, risk challenge. And then you can grow into, okay, now we've got our, we've got enough product. We've got some cashflow. We've got our funding. You can be, you can grow a little bit more into it. That's been my experience and it's anecdotal more than it is scientific. But, um, I noticed with my clients, they're all over the map on stress. And the ones who have a higher risk profile, much less stress there because they, they go. Whatever, if we have to pivot tomorrow, okay, that's our job for tomorrow.
Bill Harney:
Hahaha
John Hittler:
That's great, good for them, good for them. Curious what you personally optimize for, like on your daily or weekly or quarterly or whatever, and do your teams optimize towards one company objective or do the teams in your organization optimize for different things?
Bill Harney:
Great question. For me, yes, I do optimize around things. And again, I have a phenomenal president that runs the business. So I truly get to be a CEO in visionary culture leadership capacities. Nine times out of 10, that's where I'm at. So for me, I optimize around how many days do I not take my computer out of my bag. So I have a phenomenal executive assistant and she and I work on. are there at least two days a week that my computer stays in my bag the entire day. So she's got everything, everything coming at me, managed that we'll talk through. And I really get to spend my team, my time with leaders and leadership teams. So I'm trying to optimize down, right? I'm trying to minimize the number of times I'm on the computer. Obviously, you know, webcasts
John Hittler:
And,
Bill Harney:
like this,
John Hittler:
and that's
Bill Harney:
you're different.
John Hittler:
if I can poke at that and that's with no interruption or, uh, or you don't, you don't turn, um, Sterno can fires into bonfires because you didn't open your things. I think everything's running well
John Hittler: And nobody's feeling left out because you didn't open your mouth? I got it. Okay. That's great. Yeah, we know what's going on.
Bill Harney: Correct. Yep, 100%. So, it's like that. And I'll be on my phone. I'm not saying I'm completely oblivious.
Bill Harney:
to everything that's going on, but the number of times that I need my actual computer for something is really small. And I can just fire up messages and that's the operating mode that I should be in. So I apperate around the apper, optimize around that. Also optimize around how many conversations can I have? in a day, right? That fuels me, that gives me energy. I'm in the STP, I'm in Enneagram 3, I hit all of the things of just be around a lot of people and influence and teach and coach and mentor. So that is what I love to do all day. So I'm just trying to figure out if there's a day that I'm in a meeting that I shouldn't be in, that drains my energy. If there's a day that I'm in a meeting and I get to talk about the things that are really important to KCM and really see like light bulbs go off, I know I'm making the impact that I'm supposed to make in my job. So that's me. I think the teams, this is fun because we're in a transition. I think that we, for a long time, we're very focused on one large company or two large company priorities in any given time. I think growing quickly, adding a lot of new people to the team and various degrees of leadership and having teams have to figure out like, all right, how do we kind of reform in this new world? We went from... John, I'll tell you, we went from probably 25 to 55 people in the last two years. So it's been a lot, right? Half the people have less than two years experience at KCM. So I think that we got into a space where we were all focused on our individual areas, more so, right? Not 100%, but less than I think that, well, more than I think I would want to. And we are literally this week, last week, getting together around how do we get back to where one company working on one... or two kind of large priorities day to day has to happen. Yeah, but we're focused on how do we keep the most important thing, the most important thing and moving in that direction.
John Hittler:
Yeah, that's great. It's great. And so the teams do or don't optimize for different, even if the one thing, the most important thing for the company is, uh, is, is sitting up here...
Bill Harney: I would say we optimize for common shared goals. And then each team obviously has their own certain things. So if obviously one of our goals is growth, both market share, revenue, profitability, growth of all those metrics in the business side of the house, different teams will have different ways that they are contributing to that. Marketing will be, how many people can we have to start a free trial? How many leads do we have coming in? Our member success organization will be very much focused on utilization, usage, value being driven, all in an effort to be able to reduce churn, right? So all focused in the same area, but how we do that kind of comes into our individual
John Hittler:
No, I got it. That's great. That's great.
Bill Harney:
So that's where we're at right now, and it'll be different a year from now.
John Hittler:
Yeah, well, that's the benefit of being an eight pro risk tolerance. It's like, yeah, it'll be different and it'll still be fun. And at what point do you say, what has to happen for it to be so unfun that you say, okay, we're at 7,000 people now, this feels like the federal government,
Bill Harney:
It’s before then.
John Hittler:
I don't want to do it. I mean, are there any standards you would hit like? Non-negotiables that you say, if it got to this, I don't want to sink the company. I think I would probably move out and go do something else. Is there, do you have any of those lists?
Bill Harney:
Um, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that. I think the, um, I think the way that I think about that is that, you know, I'm listen, I'm the owner, I'm the CEO. Yeah. I have the privilege of being able to kind of make decisions that, you know, optimize around what do I want to be working on? How can I deliver the most value? So, um, a year ago I did finance also. I wasn't very good at it, but that was my, one of my responsibilities. So when I went out and hired a director of finance and accounting, it was unbelievable. He does it so much better than I ever did, and he's teaching me stuff that I never knew. Shocker,
John Hittler: Well, you know, give yourself credit. You set the bar super low. That was generous. And you could have brought in a high school intern to do it and said, "Yeah, you're following me. You're going to look good. Yeah."
Bill Harney: Right? Oh, I set the bar super low. I was good at math, so they gave it to me. I had my name on it, so I'm like, "Yeah." So what I've been able to do is just the aspects of the business that, or listen, I never enjoyed the accounting. I just knew that, or the accounting was always outsourced because I'm not doing accounting, but the finance side, projections, profiles, those kind of things. I never enjoyed doing that, how to get done. All right, so I can hire you for that. Like I mentioned, I have an amazing president in the organization who runs the business side of it because the business side of it is not the area that I get to have the most fun. Like I said, I optimize or I minimize number of times my computers out, I optimize around how many conversations I have. I love doing that. Is there a day that we get so big that I don't, I don't know. 7,000. Yes. It's before 7,000, right?
John Hittler:
Yeah.
Bill Harney:
A hundred. I think I could do that at a hundred, right? That's
John Hittler:
Sure.
Bill Harney:
double. And let's, let's cross that bridge when we get there.
John Hittler:
And, and a hundred, if from the vantage point today would be like, Oh, I'll be even better. Be more fun. A hundred people I get to deal with instead of 50. And there's a point where you say, Oh, 7,000 versus Oh God. I have no answer from doing that. Yeah. No, that's
Bill Harney:
Yes. Yep. There's somewhere between today and 7,000 is the number and I don't know where it is yet.
John Hittler:
I got it. I got it. I think I know the answer to this given your background, but the audience doesn't. Easier to scale a product or a revenue stream or an engine, or easier to scale through people.
Bill Harney:
I think it is short-term easier to scale through products. Through products, upgrades, you can roll another upgrade out. And if you have like, so we're blessed to have a very large membership base, which means if we roll out a new product, I know X% are gonna buy it the next day, which allows us to be able to massively grow short-term very, very quickly. I think on the long-term, the right people. in the right seats, leading in the right areas with the right motivations will be the long term scale because those are the people that are coming up with the ideas for the next products.
John Hittler:
Yeah.
Bill Harney:
Those are the people that are serving the customers, that are talking to the clients and understand what they need and can have these aha moments. I'm almost out of aha moments. Everything that I know, we've kind of already done. So now the next wave of folks talking to our members and really understanding what they need. Um, you know is really important. So I think the long-term scale is people. I'll also say the more rewarding side of things is a hundred percent people. I am more, if somebody asked me, what are your most proud moments of KCM? The top 10 are all people before we get into any really cool product innovation or something that we invented that didn't exist before, or categories we created that, you know, nobody was in before now there's a lot of people trying to chase us, so, um, those are easily lower on the list for me than, you know, a lot of really amazing things and stories that I've heard. folks on our team that wouldn't have been possible if they didn't work here.
John Hittler:
No, it's great. It's great. Um, uh, quick question. Then then we'll, I've got two more questions, but a quick question. You hire me and I don't work out in the role that I hired for. Do you redeploy me in another team and say, gee, that was our institutional mistake, we hired him for the wrong role. Or, uh, are you just passing a mistake? And, and when you're talking about me. People do it all the time. They say, oh, you just passed that guy from one to, you're just gonna wreck another department.
Bill Harney:
Right. Yeah. The short answer depends.
John Hittler:
Okay.
Bill Harney:
And honestly, John, you gave me a quadrant matrix. Both axes, you have to go. Character and culture, skill and will. And it's just like you have to match. So if that person is high skill, high character, or high will, high culture, whichever ones we want to put into those boxes, if they're high in both of those areas, 100%, the job's just not right for them. But they're a good job. They're a cultural add to organization. They bring things that nobody else can bring to the organization. They're great to work with. They're just in the wrong role. Let's figure out what we can do here. Never want to lose good people, especially in this talent world. Never want to lose good people. Uh, and we've done that many times over almost exclusively successful. I could probably think of maybe one that we probably screwed that one up. Um, if you're in high character, low skill, that's training opportunity. Right? Cool. We may not be able to move you right now, but we can develop you and give you opportunities to have experiences that might be able to parlay you into another part of the team. You're at low character, it's real tough, right? To hang on. Low character, low skill, it's just like, we made a mistake in hiring or whatever the case is. Low character, high skill is probably still, we made a mistake on that side of it and maybe
John Hittler:
Right?
Bill Harney:
we should give them a good referral someplace else. But,
John Hittler:
Those are the ones that will wreck another role. Yeah.
Bill Harney: Oh, for sure. Those are the hardest decisions to make: low character, high skill. Because they deliver results, but they make things a lot harder for everyone else. And...
John Hittler: Yeah, they wreck people.
Bill Harney:
there's anything I've learned over the last few, through the pandemic, right? And obviously we're in person, so the pandemic was a tricky spot for us to navigate, but business is a team sport. It's not about adding up the outputs of 55 individuals. It's the multiplication of the outputs and of the people that delivers what the team is responsible for. Business is a team sport. It's not about individual productivity,
John Hittler:
Right, having the scoring champion and being in last place. And you go, that's great, we had the leading scorer in the league and we're in last place. Yeah, that's
Bill Harney:
Absolutely.
John Hittler:
not so hard.
Bill Harney:
This is Alex Rodriguez, right? I'm a Yankees fan. I had that pain. Alex Rodriguez, the best player Only won one championship, but it wasn't really because of him. So
John Hittler:
Yeah. So we like to have fun with our guests. If we went to your junior high, you know, so your seventh, eighth, ninth grade, you probably have braces and you're, you know, just
Bill Harney:
Very different haircut.
John Hittler:
getting, yeah, bad haircut at which you think is
Bill Harney:
Oh
John Hittler:
cool.
Bill Harney:
yeah.
John Hittler:
You're starting to have pimples. Yeah. You can't dance and it's, there's a junior high dance going up. Would we have, if a national geographic film crew, the kind that go and follow a pack of lines for six months, had we followed you for a semester in junior high school, might we have placed a big futures bet on you in Vegas and said, you know, he, he's an awkward junior high cause that's redundant. Everybody's an awkward junior hire, but bet on this guy, would we have bet on you? And if we would have, who were you in seventh or eighth grade that we'd say, you know, it was all there. The packaging wasn't quite right, but it was all there.
John Hittler: Or would we have taken a pass? I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Bill Harney: I don't know that I would have bet on me. It feels hard to say, "Absolutely, I totally bet on myself. I was perfect." No. I'll answer that, John. I think the things that have helped me become the leader I am and lead the organization the way I do, building the culture we have... those things are twofold. I've had them since junior high. They've been consistent with me. It's in my DNA.
John Hittler: He's had a seventh-grade version. Yeah.
Bill Harney: Relationships are critical. Yeah, relationships are critically important to me. Probably way too important when I was in seventh grade, some of them especially. But relationships are critically important to me. And yeah, I was smart, right? I was a good student. School came easy to me. I could put things together. I find patterns really easily. That's just one of my superpowers. Plenty of things I'm bad at. That's not one. So I think those two things have really aided me. I'm a great student, right, and relationships matter. And I've really, that's the hand I was dealt. And I've played that hand to the best of my ability to be able to put me and 52 other people where we are today right now. I was definitely more arrogant when I was in seventh grade for no reason. I didn't, I shouldn't have been, but I was. I was arrogant and selfish and I think the thing that I've where I've evolved since then is I've needed to develop a great deal of empathy um and become a better listener and I think that has been a game changer in my leadership journey, um is Continuing to have my strengths but to be able to really focus in those two areas on you know Something to really try to round out your who I am as a leader and how I can show up for people And i did not have that in seventh grade for sure
John Hittler:
Yeah, well you shouldn't have. I mean, yeah, that's, yeah, seventh grade, you're not supposed to have all that figured out. So that's funny. Some of the people tell us who they were in seventh and eighth grade. And it's either, oh God, you would have never bet on me. Or maybe, but not so many would people say, God, would I have bet on me? I'm not so, your answer's very. Very similar. But the story behind it is pretty cool.
Bill Harney:
Yeah, I was a nerd and right at the time that nerds, it started to become cool to be a nerd, like
Microsoft.
John Hittler:
you are a trendsetter, you are early.
Bill Harney:
Well, no, the Bill Gates and like made nerds cool. So it was just like, oh, I don't have to just be a nerd. I could be a little bit cool and be a nerd. And I was definitelythe nerd, so.
John Hittler:
Yeah, that's funny. That's funny. That's great. Well, Bill, thanks so much for being on Genius at Scale
Bill Harney:
Thanks for having me, John.
John Hittler:
For our regular listeners. Thank you for tuning in and we look forward to seeing you on our next episode of Genius at Scale. All the best.
