How To Be the Best and the Brightest: Choose To Be Challenged for Over 30 Years

Intro 0:06

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, podcast featuring middle market owners and experts talking about founding, growing, scaling and exiting their businesses on their own terms. Past guests include Philip de Souza, CEO of Hot Lunch, Matt Vuckov, co founder and CEO of TalentCraft, and Kelly Schrad, founder and chairman of DataVizion. This episode is brought to you by Newport LLC, a team and of seasoned executives who help CEOs of privately held companies grow de risk and exit their businesses successfully. Newport LLC is the winner of the prestigious Inc. Magazine 2025 Power Partner Awards, a list of elite B to B companies from across the globe. To see the entire list and learn more, visit Inc.com/powerpartnerawards to learn more about Newport, visit us at Newportllc.com, or find us on LinkedIn. Before introducing today’s guest, I would like to thank many of my friends at PDA and a few of our guest, our guest and I have many mutual connections, good friends, which is, which is always a wonderful opportunity to get to know each other better. So the Growth + Exit guests that we have in common are Jody Jankovsky and Mark Bealin, for example. So you’ll have to check out their episodes as well after we talk. Today’s guest is Tim Padgett. Tim Padgett is the founder of the Pepper Group, an award winning agency that serves a broad variety of B2B businesses, from local manufacturers and trade organizations to Fortune 500 companies. A lifelong entrepreneur, and he’s still an entrepreneur, and we’ll talk about that later. Tim has scaled Pepper from an early stage idea into a trusted operations platform used by companies looking to modernize and grow. His experience spans the full founder journey, identifying market gaps, building teams, navigating growth challenges and creating systems that make businesses more resilient and scalable. Tim brings a grounded, operator, focused perspective to conversations about what it really takes to build, grow and prepare a company for the future. Tim, welcome

Tim Padgett  2:55

to the show. Well. Thank you very much, Heather, I worked up a sweat just listening to that. Thank you so much.

Heather Bennett  3:04

Oh, it’s I was so excited when we met at we met at a Private Directors Association event, and I got to hear a little bit about your story. I knew you would be an excellent guest for the podcast. So tell me about Pepper and how you got started?

Tim Padgett 3:22

Well, Pepper Group is boy, it’s my pride and joy. I mean, I just never realized how much it would give back to me over the years. And I had worked for 12 years for other people, and I think I was an intrapreneur, working inside of a company and doing entrepreneurial activity, and that would be, you know, helping with systems and helping with relationships within the company, building culture, which I didn’t even know how to spell culture back then, it was something that isn’t as popular as it is today to do, it was more of a hierarchy in business, but I was lucky enough in the last six years before starting Pepper Group to work in the print industry at a very, very cohesive company. Of when I got there, there were 50 employees, and most of them were either related or lifelong friends of each other. And I think that that was a built in culture that really was kind of magical. And the fact that we were doing some of the most cutting edge work in printing for the time didn’t hurt. And I went to school for graphic design and communications, and I ended up taking a different path. I didn’t I never worked as a graphic designer to that point, but I knew enough about the print industry and trying to be a bridge between the creation. Of people who were giving us the content, and then the manufacturers that were on the other end of it. And one day, I went into a meeting. I had kind of achieved, I don’t know I was like the third or fourth person in the company. We had 190 employees, and I went into a meeting thinking I was going to talk about one thing, and I was handed a box to put my stuff in. And it was not a performance issue. It was a political one. And the actually, I couldn’t help as I was sitting there listening to the Tim This is the hardest thing I ever have to do. Speech to a sense of relief, because the culture was sliding downhill. The industry was changing rapidly. The artistic measures that I grew up with and surrounded by some of the best people in the world who did what they did was with the digital age was no longer necessary, and it was, you know, clicking, ticking, tock, tick, ticking clock that would have to just take its course. And so it gave me a chance to reevaluate, where am I, what am I going to do? And I went out and I interviewed, and I because of my background and the varied experience I had, I was getting offers, but I realized I kind of knew this much, and everyone wanted me to do this or do this. And I thought, this is more fun. This is this is maybe worth more as well. And so as I was kind of contemplating what to do on the side, I was doing some graphic design work for companies, it was just a way to to make some money and hang out and do my interviewing and all that kind of thing. And one day, I get a call from a social acquaintance, and she says, I heard you’ve been looking for some work and doing some design work. And she said, if you’re here tomorrow morning, I’ll give you some and bring some business cards, because I’ll invite introduce you to some people that I’ll invite to sit in with us as well. That’s when my world changed. I showed up the next day as T Padgett, graphic services. I had no time to figure out a real name, and I didn’t even know how far this would go. But luckily, it was a good size company, and they did have a lot of work that I could dive into, and it gave me the confidence to maybe formulate a way in which I can do my own thing. So literally, a spare bedroom story where my wife and I decided that, hey, give it a year. Let’s see what happens. And it was about six months, and I started to need to add people, and I didn’t want them working out of the spare bedroom with me. So, you know, I got 400 square feet of office space, and we went around eight years as a design firm. We also brokered a lot of printing, because part of my experience was knowing everyone in Chicago that had a printing press and what they did best. And so I was able to place our clients work in the right place and make a nice markup on it. And then about eight years into it, people started to ask me more and more for strategic advice, not just the design side of things. And as luck would have it, I decided at 41 years old to go to a taekwondo school. And I was just curious, how do these people get to the point where they’re smashing things, and how do I needed a workout regimen, and I thought it might be an interesting way to go. Little did I know that would be a 10 year journey that I joined a culture and a sense of learning that I’ve never been exposed to before, and that was really cool. But beyond that, I met my future partner at the business, and he just happened to be in the neighborhood and did a little taekwondo when he was eight years old, and decided to join the same school. And one day after class, we were just talking about what we did, and I learned that he worked for Michelin for 11 years in sales and marketing, and was looking for a career change because they wanted him to move to North Carolina or South Carolina. And this guy was the perfect person to meet at the perfect time. It, there is a great survey done of entrepreneurs, and it asks, out of everything that has happened to you, what is the one thing that you think contributed to your success more than any other? The answer was timing and the fact that I joined this school, he showed up. He was the perfect yin to my Yang. I was the creative. He was the business guy. Just finished booth MBA. The University of Chicago, for those of you who don’t know, is a wonderful place to get your MBA. And I mean, we didn’t even let him draw stick men. He couldn’t do any of that, but he really was a great communicator, and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met my life. I get goosebumps talking about and that’s how goofy This is. But really a wonderful guy, and he was the one who was able to start creating that ability to really be a full service agency and take our business to the next level, as far as that’s concerned. And in 2021 I kind of hit a crossroads as to, what are you going to do with your life? Tim and we worked out a plan. He has. He bought my equity then and now. He is the sole owner of Pepper Group, and I work as an independent contractor, but I’m still like a full time employee in that I bring in new business. So new business development is where I focus now, but it’s also given me an opportunity to start a couple of other businesses like a true entrepreneur, I guess would. They’re not always successful, so you have to build that into it. But that’s been my journey, and I I’m just really excited about where we’re going from here. Obviously, the marketing industry is changing, always evolving, yeah, and there’s a lot of facets to that, not the least of which is, AI,

Heather Bennett  12:20

okay, well, before we get to that, because I do, I do want to hear your view on the future of marketing and what’s going on right now. There’s a lot of uncertainty going on, but let’s go back. So where did the name Pepper Group come from?

Tim Padgett  12:36

Very good question. Well, T Padgett Graphic Services wasn’t as professional as we thought it could be, my name is pretty easy to get used to, if you see it and you hear it, but what I did hear is these people, working for me, having to spell it every time they were on the phone with someone. And I have a little bit of an ego, but not that big of an ego, and I wanted it to be something that not only referenced our energy, but also didn’t make it so that we had to be only one thing. So T, Padgett, graphic services. What if we weren’t graphic services in a little while? What if we were this? What if we were that? So I told the team, let’s do a naming exercise like we would for a client. And we went through all kinds of gyrations of trying to figure out what we wanted to do. First of all, we didn’t want to have to spell it anymore. So pepper is a pretty easy word. Nobody misspells it. But then we started to think about, you know, what are the metaphors of what we do? Every one of our clients knows the meat and potatoes of their business. Literally, I am always excited to learn how gross they are, and whatever that industry is, whatever that service they provide, whatever they building, the minute calculations that go into being better every day is just fascinating me. And so they know the meat and potatoes. We add the spice, we put the flavor to what their messaging is, how they present themselves, how they look and feel, all those things. And I think it goes beyond that to where we try and find the audience that has a palette for that taste. You You know, you don’t want to shotgun your marketing. You want to laser point it whenever possible. So we try to find people like that. I think, you know, ancillary Is that even a word cancellur, really, there’s connection in that I like to cook. So that’s that is nice. I’m not a chef. I like to cook, and I love baseball, and there’s a drill in baseball called playing Pepper. And I thought that was a good metaphor, and that it. It’s a drill that you work together to improve your skill quickly, but you can kind of talk while you’re doing it and get to know each other. So it worked out.

Heather Bennett  15:10

Well, that’s a great name. I like it, but, and I love hearing how you created it. Let’s, let’s talk about the people. So when you’re building a business, and, you know, out of your spare bedroom to your 400 square feet, and you’re all right next to each other, basically, but talk about the process of building that team, like, what did you look for? You know? What? How did that experience of adding those key team members happened because I saw there’s quite a few of your team members who’ve been there for a while. So how did you What were you looking for when you were trying to find them, and how did they help with that growth process, and then again, continuing even now, to help Pepper,

Tim Padgett  16:01

yeah, I think that at first, I, you know, just became overwhelmed by the amount of work. My first hire was a girl right out of college and who was supposed to have been a designer, and I could afford her and brought her in. But as I quickly learned, when I was out trying to sell, while she was doing the work, I’d come back and the work wasn’t quite where I was hoping it would be. And so, you know, my very first hire was a disaster, so I didn’t I did a little hiring before that, working with other companies and such, but now it was all on me, and I didn’t have a lot of money or time to spare, and my next hire was someone who was recommended to me. And I think recommendations are really nice, because someone’s sticking their neck out to recommend that person, and if they don’t work out, it’s going to reflect poorly on that person. So she was great, and I just really got lucky there. My third hire was to bring in a creative director, and this was someone that I had known socially for a while, and he was looking for a new adventure. And we had lunch. After talking a little bit about it, we had lunch, and I’ll never forget it. It was the day that the verdict on OJ Simpson came up on TV. It was on, on the bar TV that we were in, that we were having lunch, and, you know, we talked about terms, and I’m going, that’s more than I’m going to make this year. You know, that’s, I don’t know, but I knew he was extremely talented, and you can’t dismiss that, because if I was going to be out selling, I need someone who is really going to take the ball and run with it. And the very next day, I went to a meeting with another strategic partner of mine, who was print broker, and we were talking to a company, and the company agreed to do a project with us. It was $5,000 which at the time, was the biggest project from a design standpoint that I have done for a single project. And I got to the the parking lot, and I called up Jim, and I said, When can you start? And you know, luck, timing those kinds of things, it just happens. And he was with me for, I think, about 910, years, and it worked out just wonderful. He was able to bring in some people that they worked great together, and I think growing our culture along the way was a force multiplier. We I did not hire in a vacuum. We did team hiring, and if you could get along with the whole team, that’s what we wanted to see, and the whole team is surprising. The questions they will ask that I probably would never would have asked, and it was really helpful to do it that way. And hopefully, you know you’re going to make a good decision. You don’t always, some people interview well, but they don’t show up the way you think they’re going to. But I think all in all, we’ve been extremely lucky. And as you said, people tend to stick around. They enjoy the environment and the challenges of our craft. You know, it’s a weird place to be, where you’re creating every day we go into. A meeting, and we show three concepts and two will die by design. You have to take something to market, so we hope one of them makes it. So it’s a it’s a unique value proposition to get up every morning and know that you know 66% of what you do might not make it through the cut. And not to say that good ideas can’t be brought up later again, but you work just as hard on all three of those ideas, and we wouldn’t present them if they weren’t great, and they made the cut from 10. So it’s an interesting business to keep people motivated Absolutely.

Heather Bennett  20:40

And I love how you talked about doing team hiring and the importance a cultural fit, especially when you’re working on, you know, projects where it’s a lot of collaboration, a lot of communication, absolutely necessary. I’ve had the pleasure of working on a number of hiring teams, and it makes a huge difference exactly for like the specific reason you mentioned, every person in that hiring group will ask different questions. And even if the criteria for why you’re hiring someone is very clear, there’s still different nuances to how you can understand whether that person is prepared for the role and will be able to accelerate that role. So that’s, that’s wonderful, good to hear. So talk about a few of the turning points for the company I know you mentioned. You know, growing, growing to a certain point, maybe overlay that with how marketing has changed, because I would imagine that’s had a huge effect over the years.

Tim Padgett  21:52

Oh, yeah, it you know, one of the things I say about marketing is that you always have to talk about it in terms of investment, and an investment is required to have an ROI to be good. And so there’s different levels of ROI, and there’s different ways in which it’ll impact the success of a company. But at the end of the day, it’s not a cost, it’s not an expense, it’s something that you’re putting your faith in that is going to pay back in a multiple way. So you know, back in the day, 30 years ago, we had 3035 years ago, we had a situation where desktop publishing came in to be right, and hey, if we give, you know, Susie or Joey a Mac and some of that software, they can start doing our marketing. But of course, we know that that didn’t evolve exactly that way. And so I think, though, that the digital age did allow us to do so many more things that we relied on other people to do down the line. I talked about being in the print industry, and what we did was called pre press. So that’s you take the hand off from the designer, you make what our end product was, film, and we give the film to a printer so that they can expose plates with that film and run the press. Well, that’s all gone now, because now you take a digital file and you give it to a printer and and they either have a digital press or they still have plates to make, but they can make them themselves. From a marketing standpoint itself, how we’re able to communicate with our prospects and clients has completely changed. I remember early in my career, I could go knock on a door and say, Does John have time? And someone would call back to John. John 10 is here? Yes. On the back, I want to hear what’s going on, and 90 minutes later I’m walking out of there. But that was the way we taught our clients about what was new and what was exciting. Now you have so many other ways to do it. They say that it’s probably even higher, but the last statistic I saw is that 67% of a buyer’s journey is completed before any contact with a supplier is made, and that gives us a great opportunity to reach out to our friends in mass, go on LinkedIn and ask for help. You can read so many ratings about everything that’s happening with a certain company. You can certainly ask chat GPT or any one of the I. Of searches that way to give you a list of the top five of these or that. So there’s a lot of research that gets done beforehand. So what do you bring special to that? What can you add to that? That makes sense. Some of it is bringing that character, that personality, of who you’re going to be working with. Are they old school, or are they very progressive? Are they responsive? And how do you prove that? Because a lot of people you know they they need quick responses when things hit the fan or whatever, there’s just a lot of different value that you’re trying to communicate today that you didn’t in the same way before. And certainly people’s attention spans are not only shortening, but with the onslaught of information, it’s only natural. You only have so much time to look at things, and so that’s why video, you get four times the response using video versus other methods, because someone can absorb in two minutes not only the facts and the features and benefits, but you’re also going to get a feel for something, and people still make decisions based on how it makes them feel. I think that, you know, if I could add one more thing to that, I think that today’s marketing,

Tim Padgett  26:47

you have to quickly get a conversation going, because people, I work in the B to B world, so we don’t do any Consumer stuff, so we’re selling a very complex offering. Usually you have to break that down into some small sound bites that will catch someone’s attention. But people still buy from people. People still buy through trust. And so as soon as you can get that conversation going, you got a better chance of making a sale Absolutely.

Heather Bennett  27:24

And you we talked a little bit earlier about the exit. So you know, you’ve talked about how you started Pepper, how it grew, the people culture, the different types of technologies, and how marketing has changed. And and you know what, what you do differently. You know what Pepper does differently in order to, you know, help those clients more. And you came to a moment where there was a decision about exiting the business talk about the process and how you worked with your partner to make that happen.

Tim Padgett  28:07

Well, I have been involved with an organization called The Entrepreneurs’ Organization EO. It’s International. I have I was in it for 20 years. I Since resigned because I don’t really have the challenges that I used to have. But my point is that I’ve seen her live through all kinds of acquisitions and sales of businesses with our clients as well. You form a very personal relationship with a lot of business owners over the years and their journey, I got a chance to sit on the sidelines, but understand what the process becomes, and the opportunity to sell at that time, it just kind of came to a head in a lot of different ways. Personally, I wanted to be able to broaden my ability to use my time as I wanted to. Time is your currency. I’m in the fourth quarter. I know nobody would realize that. But, you know, I I want to make sure that I am spending my time in the best possible way. I got five great kids now, you know, I have to devote some time to that which I didn’t you know before. And I thought that, Hey, George, who is my partner, stuck it out for 20 years. He was the heir apparent. There was no question in that. I wasn’t going to shop the company around or anything like that. He was already a partial shareholder, so he had been basically doing operations for. A long time, and it just seemed natural, and all of the horror stories of negotiating for things and so forth, we didn’t have any of those. I I was realistic about what the going value is for a marketing firm, and I also came to tell myself that whatever deal you make today, you may wish you would have waited and gotten more, or things could fall apart and you don’t get as much. So just be happy with where you’re at. Be happy with what you’ve got. And it was a nice payday at the end of 30 years, and I made good money along the way. It’s a service based business. You’re not going to get a giant multiple for this anyway. So it was one of those things where I was putting it in the best hands imaginable, and no disruption in the business. We literally signed off on the papers, I think December 30, on January 2, when we went back to the office, we told everyone, and we said, you’re probably not going to even notice anything change. And that was a big relief to everyone, too. And I think that not having disruption in any way was the biggest blessing of doing a deal like that.

Heather Bennett  31:27

Yeah, we talk a lot at Newport about de risking that entire exit process, because you’re right. There’s a lot of points in which things could get very difficult and be very complicated. I’m interested to hear more. How did you determine the value? Did you have valuation team come in, or was it market research?

Tim Padgett  31:51

Yeah, I mean, you know, you get a lot of friends in various businesses over the years, so I bounce things off of them, and basically a marketing firm. It depends on how much recurring revenue you have, but at the end of the day, it’s usually one time sales, or one and a half time sales, somewhere between that margin factor,

Heather Bennett  32:19

doing the research, figuring out what things were going for, what the price should be, all of that good due diligence. But it sounds like at a much less complicated situation than a true, true M A deal which, like you said, the not the lack of disruption to the clients and the employees, that alone is is a wonderful way to de risk the handoff. We’ll say which is good. So tell me about the future of Pepper. What do you see? I know you’re What do you see Pepper becoming?

Tim Padgett  33:00

Well over the last half a dozen years, we’ve really started to get a lot of clients who are portfolio companies of PE firms. And that is been great, I have to say. I mean, you hear a lot about PE firms being hard to deal with, or very demanding, and it depends on what side of the table you’re sitting on. But why we found it really good is that we have 20 full time people. We’ve got a half a dozen, you know, contractors that we work with, so we can do a lot of things, and they are demanding. But going back to the investment versus ROI, they get that. They get that real well, and none of them went to school and majored in marketing, so we are respected as a professional service that they couldn’t do themselves. Everyone can be a critique when you see something finished, but you don’t know how it gets there. And we learned also how to communicate with them. That’s a big part of it. They want to see a spreadsheet or a dashboard. Tell me what you want to tell me in five minutes, and it’s all good if the arrows are in the right direction. So as a clientele choice, I want to work with more. I I love getting the call. Hey, we just bought so and so company and they do this. You guys have time, you know, instead of RFP process and everything else that you might go through, which is absolutely the worst way to pick a marketing firm, an RFP process, let me just say, but that that being said, I think that from the aspect of. What are we going to provide going forward? What? What’s what is going to be replaced by AI, the ability to do research in a fraction of a minute, compared to what we might have taken two weeks to assemble before it’s ridiculous and it’s exciting and it’s great in some aspects, obviously, we’re using AI in every way possible, to use it ethically and to use it the right way. So we’re in that timeframe where we’re going to have a lot of clients think, Oh, we can do that ourselves. Oh, we’re going to, you know, put together this or that. What they’re discounting is not only a design sense to certain things. And AI actually can design some things that aren’t half bad. I got to admit, you know, they can be good enough, and sometimes that’s okay, but that, that element of curiosity and creativity, it doesn’t necessarily have that yet. And so when you say, you know, manufacturing a widget is like baseball in that blah, blah, blah. That’s the essence of a story about something that someone can relate to, and bring it back to a business. Ai doesn’t do that. They don’t know how to find those nuances. So that’s another thing, I think that from a strategic standpoint, we’re still going to be very effective, because there’s so many options in what you can do in marketing and to be able to really bring together the right elements for AB testing. For instance, let’s try this. Let’s try that. There’s things that we’re still going to be doing, there’s things that we’ll still be advising on. Will we do the more mundane things that we used to well, to be quite honest with you, an agency like us, oftentimes we would build the template or build the process and turn it over the client anyway, so it’s we’re not really doing a lot of the things that AI can do anyway.

Heather Bennett  37:33

So yeah, I would, I would agree with that. I think where humans need to be kept in the loop of marketing, one of those key points for marketing specifically, is that strategic decision making about what is when is it appropriate to use the minimum viable product when it’s okay, like, that’s fine, that’s good enough. And when are you going to make a major misstep by not bringing in a strategic, strategic insight of a professional marketer, to look at something, to make those decisions, to have that, that that ability to create something that AI is not quite capable of, and that’s, I think, going to be the key for Marketing, is at which point does that key marketing strategic insight need to be injected into the process. So I would definitely agree with that.

Tim Padgett  38:29

I’m sorry, Heather, you made me think of one more thing that I think an agency or an outside partner for marketing brings to the table. And I talk about this a lot. It’s that perspective of your business, a third party perspective. We don’t live with the biases and all the things that have happened before. We take an objective look at something, we go out to market and see what your competitors are doing. Where are they creating a foothold in time, price, quality. You know, how can you best compete in that marketplace? And we also bring, hey, we got 42 clients. They, a lot of them are doing something similar. Let me share that experience with you that you wouldn’t get by sitting in your your own little world. And oftentimes that’s invaluable. There’s hard to put a price on it.

Heather Bennett  39:26

Absolutely, yeah, experiences is well worth bringing to the table for a client. Would agree with that. So, so what’s next? I know you had mentioned the West Suburban angels. What are you working on with them?

Tim Padgett  39:41

Yeah. So having the itch to build companies, I did start completely different company a couple of years ago. It wasn’t the success I was hoping for. I had the concept, and I don’t want to go into details, but this is how things happen. I had the. Concept 15 years ago. And I think if I would have launched it 15 years ago, it would have worked, because the internet was a different place. But I got a chance to work with some great people and to mentor some young people in the business who were designers, copywriters, etc, and that was worth the investment I made in a company that didn’t quite make it. On the flip side, I still enjoy being around entrepreneurs, but I don’t want to have the the responsibilities, the accountability, so I joined the West Suburban angels, and we are able to make small investments in up and coming companies that we get excited about that have huge potential. You’re always looking to see who, who are we investing in? And it’s a great opportunity. I I made an investment about four years ago in soapbox soaps. And soapbox soaps does all kinds of hair care and body washes and that kind of thing. Their angle, though, or their their differentiation in the marketplace is for every product that they sell. They donate our soap to people who need it in a lot of different ways, and I’m talking millions and millions of bars of soap, amazing. But here I would I’m able to email the CEO of this company and talk whenever I want. He’s been very gracious about sharing things with me. I’ve tried to put him in touch with the right people that might help him. There’s ways in which I can add value, but I really, on a day to day basis, have no responsibility. And hey, not all of them work out. I mean, a couple of them have been duds, but a couple of them have incredible potential, and that’s very exciting to be on the sidelines. I have no control as to whether I will or when I’ll get my money, so that’s a little bit frustrating at times. But tonight we have a meeting. We have one about every six to eight weeks, and it’s like Shark Tank. Three companies will come in and pitch us. They’ve already been vetted through a screening process of probably 10 companies, but three of them will show up tonight, and I’ve already seen their decks, and I see what they’re they’re about. Now I want to see the people and see who they are, and just a really good experience, because a lot of the other members are just like me, and so we have a great time, and they bring such perspective to these companies that I never would have. Yeah, they can look to me to make a comment on marketing, but on the other side of the businesses, I have no idea how to deal with logistics or things like that.

Heather Bennett  43:09

It’s a lot of fun. I’ve been working with entrepreneurs for about 24 years now. It never gets old. I love, I love just the list of questions like, let’s, let’s talk about your business. Tell me about it, and let’s go through and see where there’s opportunities to do great things. So I have one last question, but before I ask it, I want to point people to your website@peppergroup.com, or to reach out to you on LinkedIn. Final question, what is a hard lesson you learned while starting your business that you’d like to help other CEOs avoid.

Tim Padgett  43:52

It goes back to the thing that you and your whole audience have heard many, many times, and why does it have to be reinforced all the time? It’s it’s pretty evident you got two errors in one month. Listen, ask the right questions, whether they’re your employees, your suppliers, your prospects, your customers. And I think that oftentimes I addressed the wrong problem, had I asked the right question, it would have been better, and I lost people over that. I lost opportunities, and, you know, not talking about a major dysfunctional situation here. But everyone hurts. Every one of those things hurts. And I would say that today I am such a better question asker, then I am diving out my perspective and trying to get out ahead of something. And that I haven’t really a clue about what’s really affecting someone else in it, and I think that that’s that’s one thing we could all do better at, for sure,

Heather Bennett  45:13

I agree. I’ve been talking with Tim Padgett, founder of the Pepper Group, Tim, thank you so much for sharing your story, your experience and your perspective.

Tim Padgett 45:24

I truly appreciate the opportunity to share it.

Outro 45:33

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