Choosing Leaders To Scale Your Business

Intro  0:06

Matt, welcome to the Growth + Exit podcast where owners of privately held middle market companies talk about founding, scaling and exiting their businesses successfully. Learn how to maximize and monetize your business on your own terms. Let’s get started.

Heather Bennett  0:30

Hello, I’m Heather Bennett, your host for the Growth + Exit podcast. This is the podcast featuring middle market owners and experts talking about founding, scaling and exiting their businesses successfully. Past guests have included Doug Tatum, founder the Tatum financial. Doug Dan Lawrence, the co founder and CEO of OBM Inc., and Allison Cummins, the founder and CEO of Blue Outcomes. This episode is brought to you by Newport LLC, a team of seasoned C suite executives who help CEOs of privately held companies grow de risk and exit their businesses successfully. Go to Newportllc.com our website, or find us on LinkedIn to learn more and to reach out to us. Before introducing today’s guest, I want to give a big thank you to Doug Tatum for introducing me to Kelly. Doug can be reached. He’s at Newport LLC comm through the birthing of giants, or I highly suggest reading his book no man’s land as well. So I’d like to introduce you to Kelly. Schrod Kelly is the CEO of CapStone Technologies and the founder of DataVizion. He has brought his expertise in driving business strategy and operational excellence to both these organizations, and we’re going to during our conversation, get into that discussion as the founder and CEO of DataVizion. Kelly built a $20 million organization at the same time fostering a family culture recognized with multiple Best Places to Work awards in Lincoln, Nebraska and those Best Places to Work awards are really a hallmark of what I would consider incredibly successful companies. So their leadership focused on developing transparent, trusting environment where creativity and innovation are encouraged. Kelly implemented innovative programs such as employee onboarding and employee engagement early on and contributing to what I would call a very high performing team. Kelly also disrupted the status quo, renewing interest in innovation change and regaining team alignment. So hopefully we’re going to get into some of this during our discussion about how he was able to do that, because right now, so many businesses need to bring innovation and energy to their teams, to their employees, and we can all learn how to do that better. I believe. Kelly, welcome to the show. I’m so glad you’re here. Good morning. Heather, glad to be here. Good morning. So, so tell me a little bit. Let’s start with DataVizion. Tell me about the company, how you founded it. How did it get started?

Kelly Schrad  3:20

Yeah, no, in the in the 90s, I started my career off as a computer guy, setting up, you know, Novell servers and doing small networks back in, back in the mid, mid 90s, after getting out of school, and I worked for a couple of different value added resellers over the years, in the late 90s, and then eventually came to the conclusion that there was, there’s just something missing around what these Companies were doing from from a long term standpoint, a lot of things I was seeing was there is either a small managed service provider that was kind of coming into the mix their their managed services was starting to become a new thing, and it was a, it was a good it’s a good system. It’s great system. It’s, it’s what we what we have in our company as well today at DataVizion, but there is just something around the way companies where they’re focusing on that smaller market managed services platform for the for the companies that needed that, which is typically the, You know, 50 to 300 seat type company, and so there was a focus in the companies that it worked for, either to do the larger stuff or to do work on some of the smaller stuff. And so I thought there was a good way to come to the market with some sort of a blend, and where we focused not only on the small. Managed services provider, but also the larger companies that needed that higher level of integration and innovation with technology. And I felt that there was a opportunity to bring good people into the company and allow them to be have a transition path in their career, so they just didn’t get to a certain point with their high level of skill set, and then they had to move on to somewhere else to continue their career. I wanted the opportunity to keep those people within the company long term, and DataVizion has had, or, as of you know, today, we’ve had com people in that side of our company for the last, I don’t know. Yeah, I think the employee that has been there the longest has been there since the beginning So, and there’s several other employees that are 10 plus year people. So we’ve been able to establish that look and feel of the company and the continuity needed through that approach. And so that was how DataVizion come into play. I i started off just doing, you know, services as a sole owner, and then brought another person in and tried to scale them, you know, and just kind of continued that process until we got to a point where we had a decent amount of services work going on, but we needed to scale from a sales standpoint. So sales came into the picture in the in the 2010, area, and and then things just kind of took off from there. So

Heather Bennett  6:47

wonderful. I like the timing, like the I’m interested in the timing of that. So what was the the flag that said, Okay, now you need to bring in a professional sales team. What was the like indicator

Kelly Schrad  7:03

I wasn’t able to bring in enough business just myself and so to really put a amplification on the growth opportunities that were there, really needed somebody focused squarely on just going out and finding those new opportunities and bringing us to the table and allowing us to get to that point where we could continue to be strong partner in the area. You know, early on, I established strong partnerships with other companies, and then did their side work, or did their their work that they couldn’t handle. And that worked out well to get started, but it needed to be more than just that, so

Heather Bennett  7:47

awesome now, and so important to know when those moments come, when you’ve reached a point where you are ready for that acceleration and that that scaling opportunity. Um, let’s talk about leadership with regards to scaling. So I’m guessing, if you had awareness around the 2010, range, that there was a sales a need for a sales team. When, when do you think were some major, we’ll say, points in the evolution of the company where you needed to shift up, how the leadership like, what the leadership look like. What talk about a few of those points? Because I’m guessing there’s a couple of them along the way.

Kelly Schrad  8:27

Yeah, yeah. Great question. So once we started bringing sales into the picture, the company started really exploding and growing. And that basically brought a number of people into the into the organization, and I would say, got to the point where it was probably around 25 people, and I felt I just really couldn’t keep my hands around what was going on. And even if I could do that. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do anyway. And so I started to realize that I needed to take a different approach and transition what I was doing with the company. You know, I started out doing a lot of the services, and then, you know, being more of a manager, and then, you know, doing all the bookkeeping and all of the, you know, the stuff to run a business around that. And from a small business standpoint, that worked well. But then when it gets to a certain point where it’s about, I would say, from what I’ve seen about 2025, people, it’s really just hard to keep your hands around everything and what’s going on and the opportunities that are out there to capitalize on those and so, or the revelation kind of hit me as like, I need to transition more towards a business owner and and get away from being, you know, the in the day to day operations. And so I started some things to accomplish that. I joined Vistage. It’s a nationwide business network, peer networking group program that introduced me to various principles and things that I needed to start kind of thinking about exposed me to other leaders that were just doing, really, what I wanted to do was focus on on the business and being more of a leader. And so this whole leadership thing was a new thing in me, and that around that time frame. And so through the through the three years I was in Vistage, I ran across various systems, learned a learned a ton, studied, read books, just absorbed myself, like I’ve done in my technical past. Around if I wanted to learn something, I just kind of dove right into it and learn as much as I possibly could. And so going through that process, I realized that we need to put some sort of a framework in place for our company. So we were exposed to a system called Eos, and so we did the thing that most business owners try to do, is implement EOS on our own, and it miserably failed, and got an implementer eventually put people in place. I made the mistake that a lot of owners make that I’m seeing that today is too many people on the leadership team and really trying to still kind of understanding what a leader was. I felt like, Okay, this skill set, this silo, needs to be managed by somebody. So put a person there, and it was really more about as I evolved, I learned more and more that it’s more about the type of person more than the skill set, the attributes that they

Speaker 1  12:04

they carry.

Kelly Schrad  12:08

So, you know, we’re in the mid and I’ve got

Kelly Schrad  12:15

this whole process started too many people on the leadership team, we evolved through that process of figuring out, okay, we need to shrink down to, you know, three or four people. There are people in the organization that I relied upon a lot, that I realized that got me to where I was, but not necessarily going to get me to where I wanted to be. And so we had to make some hard choices around those folks, potentially not being on the leadership team and then, and then evolving through that process of helping them folks stand in the picture with the company if, as we could, we didn’t keep everybody, but I did get the right people in Place eventually that we’re able to kind of take it to the next phase. And the next phase was just kind of like, I would call it. We were crawling at that point, and then we kind of stood up and started walking, but we’re kind of fumbling around, still not knowing what we were doing as a team. And then eventually it just kind of clicked. And things, I would say, just kind of fair over time. Just work themselves out. You know, you kind of figured out, like, yeah, you sometimes you put the wrong person in the wrong seat. And so you go through that process. Sometimes you elevate somebody that shouldn’t have been elevated. You learn through that process, we ended up focusing on bringing people from the outside at that point that had leadership skills and the ability to lead. And then, you know, some you bring somebody in, you think that’s going to do the job great. And potentially that doesn’t work out in a few situations that that occurred. And, you know, I would say, by the late teens, we had a really strong team in place, and the company was able to move forward. And then I felt my next step was to to allow people to continue to elevate I need to focus on something else. I needed to probably start pulling myself away and going, Really, going, really going through that process of what EOS traction teaches you about letting go as a leader and so letting go is a whole another learning process. You know, start by kind of letting go of functions and learning to delegate better. And then you start learning about what works and what doesn’t work in delegation at that level. And then finally, I got to a point where I was able to step out, out of the picture in one of the roles. And then lastly, I replaced myself and fully. Stepped out of the picture,

Heather Bennett  15:02

and you’re currently the chairman? Correct? I am, yeah, so I we, I know I sit on boards, and so we talk about the role of a board member is, you know, noses in, fingers out. So when you’re talking about that transition of delegating and stepping back, it’s the organization is getting the benefit of your experience and your wisdom and your strategic thinking without you having to be doing all that day to day work. So it’s really It’s impressive that you were able to have that acknowledgement of what that process is like, and then to see the timing of that. So in your role as the chairman, what, what are the say, What? What are the the challenges, or what are the opportunities you’re seeing from that that role versus the CEO? Because I’m sure there’s a lot of our audience who are contemplating that move, like they’ve been the founder. They’ve, you know, they’ve been there from day one, turning lights on in the morning, you know, hiring everybody all the way through. And they’re, they’re thinking about that next step, you know, what? What do you think the opportunities are, or the reasons why they might consider moving to that?

Kelly Schrad  16:20

Yeah, I think it’s, it’s really what it is, is, it’s a continuation of the process of letting go, over the years, of, you know, replacing myself and bringing other people in a picture. You know, it’s really hard, especially a detailed, analytical person like myself, to kind of let things just happen. And I think it’s just an evolution of that process. And I’ll be the first to admit, I mean, I did not do it perfectly. It was, it was, there’s a lot of mistakes that were made, and over the years, you know, I learned through those mistakes, and, you know, eventually you just kind of continue it. And fortunately, Ave really, really good people in place today that have helped me through that. They have good leaders. You know, people that have run businesses before were brought into the picture, people at that level of understanding. And so as Chairman, I’m still learning. I’m still trying to understand how I can be impactful a DataVizion, and not be a roadblock or be in the business a bit. I’m currently at a point now where I meet with the CEO of DataVizion about once a month, maybe twice a month, and we’re still formalizing a bit of a cadence around the topics that we discuss. But most recently, some of the projects that they’re working on are exciting. Exciting for me to step back and say, Oh, that’s really exciting for them. It’s not necessarily something I can be involved in. You know, they’re looking at, they’re in an acquisition mode, and they’re looking for other companies at a smaller scale than ours that we can add on to our business and scale and grow. They’re finally getting to a point where they’ve got a really solid middle, middle tier management team in place that are running a lot of the day to day operations. So the the executive team now can be really focused on strategic and planning and forward looking items, that’s just a process on its own. And from what I’m seeing, it’s really difficult, I think, to have involvement as a founder and allow that to happen correctly and and not that they’ve done it completely, or we’ve done it completely correctly, but it’s it’s allowed the process to happen. I think if I was too involved in it, I would be relying a lot on my historical past and what I’ve experienced, and that that’s that isn’t necessarily a good thing, because the company has to evolve, and it has to find its own way, and by me being completely out of the picture, it’s allowed that to happen.

Heather Bennett  19:31

That is wonderful. And I’m seeing a couple themes here about the importance of hiring the right people, not necessarily the right skill set, but the right people. It sounds like you’ve been very lucky or also very, very smart about the focusing on that, as opposed to just, well, this person says they can do this job. It’s i, and their history says they can do the job. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the right fit. Yeah, we’re seeing the. Fit of culture and the individual, especially in a leadership position. And I love that you also mentioned the middle leadership tier and what that relationship is like, and how those different leadership tiers really rely on each other to do the roles they need to do. And I know since you’ve had experience of birthing with birthing of giants, and definitely with Newport, we really focus on helping business owners, founders, work on their business and be able to think strategically, as opposed to being in the day to day and working in their business. So what have you what did you learn from birthing of giants? Like, what do you think the big lessons that you got out of that experience? And maybe tell me how you got to birthing of giants. And I love hearing that you did Vistage. The lifelong learning is, we’ll get back to that too. But how did you find birthing of giants?

Kelly Schrad  20:54

Birthing of giants came about, I want to say 2019 2020, area. It was kind of the area right where I was slowly elevating myself out of the business and cultivating the next CEO, the next, you know, leadership team, to take over and and run the company. We had experienced some significant growth over those couple years, and it landed on the CRNs fast growth or or one of those, I’ll call it Inc, 5000 criteria rewards. And I believe due to that, we ended up on a list. And I think Lewis had reached out via email through his company. And I’ll be honest, I saw the email, and I’m looking at it, I’m like, Okay, this looks, looks a little gimmicky. And I even joke with lists today is like, I, I don’t know where, really, at the end of the day, made me, you know, follow up on this, because it looked, it looked, it looked a little suspicious but, but I ended up applying and following through and and joining the program. And I would say it’s just a continuation of seeing other business owners and how they’re going about things from a where they’re at. And I would say in that birthing a Giants crowd, there was a wide variety of entrepreneurs, you know, there was folks that were doing that had really small companies with maybe seven to 10 people, but they were doing, you know, high revenue that were in, you know, a specific industry segment, and the Spectrum was wide, and so just seeing that, experiencing how they looked at different things as as we went through their process, and I’ll talk about their process in a little bit. But just seeing that environment and being exposed to it, it also challenges me. It’s something that you know, you’re sitting there and you feel a little bit intimidated, you know, around all these other people that are really successful, so it pushes your game up a little bit. And so there was that aspect from a from a culture standpoint, um, talking about their process a little bit. When they have a program, they have a system where it’s, it’s basically focused on one year from today. So you show up, you kind of, it’s, it’s a little bit awkward in the beginning, you know, there’s a series of questions, and you’re kind of thinking about things. And Lewis really challenged us to think outside the box. You know, what is it that you’re really, really good at? So we had, we had this exercise where we emailed a bunch of people and said, Hey, what do you feel are my strengths? And then we got those responses back. And then it led it led people, I would say, in that group, down different paths. For me, it led me down the path of continuing my theme, which was building strong leadership teams and and help coaching people and helping people through their their career. And so I’m continuing to do that by, you know, right after that I joined, I went through an I program called IPAC. It’s a coaching, executive coaching program, found several other different kind of frameworks that we could use to help other business owners, and it kind of spearheaded me down the path of getting into the business advisory side of things, and so that’s, that’s where I’m at today. But going back to that time frame, or in that program you’re focused on when you’re from today, and you know, in the mid week, it says it’s fairly awkward, you get to that point where it hits you, it’s like, okay, I need to do this one thing. Yeah, and then you put the the plan together, and they do at the end of the week, like a shark tank kind of thing. So you get up in front of, you know, all of these folks and and they bring in kind of an advisory council, a high level people that are, you know, specialize in certain areas, and one of which was Doug Tatum. And, you know, they kind of pick it apart and just kind of challenge you on what your what your one year plan really needs to be. And so it’s just that, would say that was probably the most valuable part of the program is just seeing those really high end business people that have been there, done that. They advise those folks on, really, where their focus needs to be. And, you know, Doug, if you haven’t met him, I think he’s, I think the world of him, I think he’s like the rain man of business in my in my opinion, like he just knows, like he can see and hear what you’re talking about. He knows exactly where that business is headed, how it’s going to potentially be sold one day, what that looks like. And so hearing and seeing all of that through the different businesses was pretty valuable. And I would say that’s probably the biggest thing that I got out of it.

Heather Bennett  26:20

That’s awesome. And I love the fact that over you know your career, you’ve continuously sought out those groups, and you even mentioned like books and like how you continuously been a lifelong learner. And especially for leadership, I think that is one of those areas that you really you do need to continually Hone and improve, and it’s always much more fun to do it with a group of people you can learn from and with, which is good. So that’s good. I was gonna ask the question like, What do you do to continue lifelong learning? You just answered it for me. So back to the company in your journey. What are some of your proudest moments, for DataVizion for your career,

Kelly Schrad  27:07

some of the moments, and there probably weren’t really big moments, it’s really, you know, sitting in a meeting and just seeing all the collaboration of all These people that you brought together to accomplish something just happened in front of you. I think that’s probably some of the biggest things that or thing that was really rewarding for me was I really enjoy helping people and serving one of my my personal values is serving others. I try to do whatever I can to help people and serve them and elevate them. One of the things that in my journey as I move forward, as I think about, you know, the things that really led me up in my past was that whole bettering of people’s lives. You know, there’s a lot of companies out there where people are in it and they’re just miserable. They just hate coming to work. It’s just, it’s a dread. And I just feel really bad about those people that going through life, just kind of going from day to day and trying to survive and and, you know, having a hard time operating in a company they just hate. And I just think that’s it’s sad. So one of the things that I work on right now is working with companies to help build that culture, help build and really, it starts with the leaders and helping them understand what good leadership looks like, and helping them really, at the end, they kind of let go. It’s kind of that letting go process. It’s not being so controlling, letting go, allowing people to step up and and have excitement in their roles and just be kind of a grind. So I think I went, I don’t know if I want the right direction, that’s your question or not, but that was just some things that came to mind.

Heather Bennett  29:16

Excellent, no, and I love, I love this part, like being able to ask what the proudest moments are because they tend, you’d think that they would tend to be some big, huge event, but it tends to be those smaller ones that are more memorable and impactful long term. Because I they’re the little you know we talked about, like the flags, like when you know something has occurred, or or, you know, recognize that point. And it’s those smaller things that sometimes are the moment that you realize we accomplish the goal we set out to get. And that’s yeah, and the call, the fact that you keep mentioning culture and people, it really, it’s, I’m not surprised your company has been as successful as it has been. It’s, it’s, it.

Kelly Schrad  30:00

Yeah, very cool, yeah. And when you think about those moments, it’s, it’s really, it’s like you go through this process of putting something in place that you see where, where it’s at, and where it can be, but not everybody else is quite there yet. And you kind of move along and you’re ahead of everybody. And eventually you kind of look back and like, everybody is at that point. And it’s sometimes as entrepreneurs, we kind of really forget to realize it’s like we’re always chasing and going, you know, chasing growth and going bigger and better and all of that. And people come along at a different pace. And then kind of, when you reflect, you can like right now, I look back and say, Okay, well, we had such a hard time building that middle management team within our company, but now they’re at that point. Now they’re seeing that traction. And it may have been really frustrating for an entrepreneur like myself at that time to not see things snap into place quickly. And, you know, we want things to go fast, and they don’t happen at the pace we had. They happen at the pace so that everybody else can come along at and so just kind of seeing those points where you look back and like, Okay, well, that was really frustrating, what I was trying to accomplish. And now I got the team in place, and now they’ve got to that point where five years ago, and I was trying to get them there to that point, but we, or I was working to get them there to that point, but now they’re there. Now they’ve arrived, and they’re doing that thing that we were working so hard to accomplish at the time. So it’s almost like this lagging view of success as you go through it.

Heather Bennett  31:39

And that’s definitely the role of the leader is to be able to see around we always talk about Newport partners, where our job is to see around the corners and then to help that business owner, you know, like bring them with us so that we can show them. Look, look, here’s, here’s where you’re going, and this is how to get there. Um, so let’s see where we get I’m going to start with this one. What was, where did you grow up, and what was that like? And what do you think you got from your beginnings that helped you become such a good leader?

Kelly Schrad  32:21

Yeah, I don’t, I’m I’m trying to think if some of those items are the same as being a leader, as more or less being a high performer. I’ll talk a little bit about high performer maybe first, because I think that’s probably the first point that it that where I where I came from, got me to where I’m at. So I grew up on a farm in northeast Nebraska, right outside a little town tell elles in Nebraska, 800 people, a small rural community. My dad farmed, actually, in the early days, he worked construction and he farmed in the evening. So I grew up in a small trailer house on a small plot of land. And my my dad worked two jobs. Basically, he worked construction during the day, and he come home at night, and we would work in on the livestock operation or in the fields or whatnot. So my dad was a really, really hard worker. Is a really hard worker. And so just seeing that, and the the fact that, you know, they talked about, you have to do the things that other people probably aren’t willing to do, and he should. He led that with me, by example, he did a lot of things that, yeah, I look back and go, Man, that’s even, even what I’ve gone through. You know, he’s, he’s done a lot of things that I’m not sure I would, I would, I could have done. And, you know, he made a lot of sacrifices over those years to do that, and my mom supported him and all along along that way. And you know, they had some difficulty later in their years, and ended up, you know, going through divorce. And so, you know, you talk about, we call it adversity, and there was a lot of adversity in our life at that time, a lot of adversity growing up over the years, a lot of things that I would say were really difficult growing up as a kid, you know. So, you know, my dad had this expectation of me, you know, I, you know, he was working two jobs. He was like, Well, you know, from the time I was probably six years old, I was out doing something, you know, I was there they’re doing chores, or I was working on something, and then eventually got into school, you know, and I go to school, come home and after school, and the first thing was, is change and go do. To, you know, what I needed to do for the evening. And then a lot of that time was spent, you know, working in confinement barns and cleaning out barns. And so there was a lot of time to sit there and just kind of like, you know, you’re sitting there just doing this monotonous job. So a lot of time just to think about things. And so spent a lot of time thinking and dreaming and wondering, okay, what’s my life going to be like outside of this? And, you know, eventually I got hooked into computers, which was a very entry level thing back in that, in that time, you know, there they weren’t very, I think we had about six computers at all in our school, and they’re older apples or something like that. So, so just getting exposed to that, and really kind of it honed my curiosity that direction. And so when I got out of school, I ended up getting into computers and go in that direction, but, you know, but to go back and look at those years, it was really a lot of the hard work doing what you had to do to get something done, you know, you didn’t want to do it. It was kind of all those things. Like, I came home every day and like, I didn’t want to go out and work in the barns and do all that stuff. I want to go have fun ride my dirt bike, or what, you know, whatever normal kids would do at that time. But I didn’t, I didn’t get the opportunity to do a lot of that. It was a lot of work, a lot of working on things. So like I said, is it just instilled this culture of of hard work inside me, and then that just kind of stuck with me for the rest of my life.

Heather Bennett  36:43

So I love hearing that, yeah, work ethic is something I see consistently with leaders who are successful and are good leaders, good servant leaders. So yeah, thank

Kelly Schrad  36:55

you, yeah, and I draw the kink the parallel, because I said in the beginning of like, high performing versus leading, I think there’s a little bit of a distinction between the two. And so I think that’s a transition that leaders have to somewhat go through. Is you’re a higher performer. You’re performing the work you’re doing, doing doing, getting things done. That’s part of that letting go and transitioning to leading people and elevating yourself to be able to be the teacher or the guide or the leader, you know, the you’re the path moving forward. And so you can’t be that high performer in the day to day. You know being you can’t do both. You got to pick. And so I think that was one of another transition that had to happen for me anyway, at least Excellent.

Heather Bennett  37:48

So what are a few of your daily rituals that you find help you succeed in your day?

Speaker 1  37:56

Yeah, well,

Kelly Schrad  38:02

I’m still honing in on what my true daily ritual is. I think I like I like a lot of variety, a lot of variety. I like chaos a bit, and so it’s hard for me to establish that sameness every day. So I really push myself to sit down and just think about things at one point during the day. So matter what it is I’m doing, and I try to try to take time just to just to sit down and think about what the future looks like and what what I’m doing today, what I’ve done in my past, that I need to reflect on to get to that point. And I think it’s that just spending time thinking and you think, Okay, well, that seems a bit lazy, but it really is important, you know, because you got to cultivate that. It’s almost kind of like being a kid again and dreaming about the future. And I think it’s really important to do that activity pretty often, and then, you know, taking some of those thoughts and bringing him into structure, and then figuring out, okay, now that I have some structure around what those thoughts look like, how do I execute on this?

Heather Bennett  39:26

I think that’s that’s such an excellent recommendation for aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs, is to to carve out that time to do that long term strategic thinking and planning. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day and not take time for that. So I that’s a great advice, really good advice. I do have one last question, but before I ask it, I want to point people to your LinkedIn profile, which is probably, as you had said, that was probably the best way to. Reach you. And then the last question I’d like to ask is, what is a hard lesson that you learned while starting and growing your business that you’d like to help other CEOs and entrepreneurs and avoid? And I do recognize that, you know, failing early and often is part of the learning process. And you know, like, I’m firmly I was originally a scientist, so I firmly believe the scientific method is that every failure is just one step closer to success. But is there a hard lesson that you’d like to share to help entrepreneurs maybe avoid one less failure, one less difficult moment.

Kelly Schrad  40:45

Yeah, like you stated, there’s, there’s a lot of small failures over the years that shaped, you know, my future. I would say the biggest, probably one that was probably the most difficult to to to deal with and this, and the results of this actually happened to me here pretty recently, was just, yeah, you run, you go, go, go, go. You’re building, you know, you’re kind of trying to, it’s exciting. So it’s pulling you into it day to day as you’re building your business, and it’s really hard. I have a family of five, four boys and a girl, and it’s really hard to balance that, to focus on your family. And I would say I probably didn’t focus on my family and my, you know, my marriage and that whole thing, my personal life, as much as I should have. And you know, the results of that are lagging results over time. You know, I still coach my kids, and they’re incredibly dear to me. I do a lot of things with them. I love them, obviously. And some of them are actually going off to into being an entrepreneur and helping, helping them has been exciting to see, but the quality of their life, maybe the difficulty that they face as as you know, maybe I’m not, I wasn’t around. And I would say, I would say, like, from a present standpoint, wasn’t around as much as I’d probably like to have been. That’s probably the biggest thing I would say, looking back, is establishing a system that allows you to be more present with your your in your personal life, and with your family and and focusing on that more. That’s probably one of the things that was the heart. That was a hard lesson I’ve I’ve learned and continuing to learn.

Heather Bennett  42:51

So that is one wonderful to hear and and it probably makes you much more aware of where you are now, which is, is good. And you know, again, it’s all those things that it’s so easy when you’re working in your business you don’t pay attention to. And so it’s good to be able to step back and say, Okay, what’s the priority? What’s important? Yes, really good advice. Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you, Kelly. This is for being a guest on the Growth + Exit podcast. It was such a pleasure learning about you and hearing more about the process of growing DataVizion and your advice. It’s for other business owners. So I have been interviewing Kelly Schrad, the founder of DataVizion on the Growth + Exit podcast. Thank you for listening and again. Thank you so much, Kelly, this was wonderful.

Kelly Schrad  43:48

Thank you, Heather. It’s been a pleasure.

Outro 43:56

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