Enterprise Building Challenge Stories

What’s your story?

"My story is one of risk and ability to navigate that risk through learning. It also includes the willingness to jump into different adventure careers almost sight unseen for various myriad reasons.

"I attended the University of Texas with the dream of being a doctor—an orthopedic surgeon. Turns out, I didn't really like blood and organic chemistry, so I moved to Boulder, CO to the University of Colorado in 1995, the summer after my junior year with a good friend. I was hired by Scott Sanderson, the son of famous basketball coach Wimp Sanderson from the University of Alabama. I ran his summer basketball camps on campus.

"The University of Colorado was not known for basketball. But when I got there, it caught lightning in a bottle. There were two reasons for the change. The first was that the women's team had just made the Final Four for the first time in history, led by an All-American player. Second, the men's team had just signed its first No. 1 recruit ever—a young man from Denver named Chauncey Billups. He ended up being an NBA Hall of Famer who won multiple titles. Today, he is the head coach of the Portland Trailblazers.

"Hooked on basketball, I went back to the University of Texas and decided I was going to pursue that as a career. I talked to the coaches there. They were very open. There was Jody Conrad, who's in every woman’s Hall of Fame imaginable. The men's coach was Tom Penders. Both left their doors open for me and wanted me to be part of their programs.

"I was young and aggressive. They recommended that I start in high school to get my feet wet. They said to teach and make some money. So I did. I graduated from Texas and went to the University of Georgia to get a Master's Degree in Math Education.

"My first job was at Roswell High School in metro Atlanta, where I was a 9th grade basketball coach. I was mentoring under a pretty successful coach, where I was able to really achieve my own knowledge base of learning. I attended clinics and worked summer camps all over the country. I went to 5-Star, visited programs at Georgia Tech, Kentucky and Clemson. I worked with coaches like Tubby Smith, Rick Barnes and Bobby Cremins—all Hall of Famers. I soaked up their knowledge.

"In 2000, Chattahoochee, a metro Atlanta High School became overcrowded, and the district wanted a new school, which ended up being Northview High School. I applied and became its first head basketball coach. I was 27—the youngest coach in the area. I also taught AP Statistics and SAT prep.

"When we started the program, we won our first two games, which made me think I was the greatest coach ever. We ended up losing the next 22 in a row, finishing 2-22. It was very humbling.

"Three years later, we were ranked, sponsored, and had college-level players. I felt like we were on the right path to becoming a really good program. Unfortunately, several of our biggest competitors were loading up, too, including Norcross High School, which ended up having seven or eight future NBA-type players.

"But while I enjoyed coaching, I was tired of teaching. And when we started a family, I knew it was time to get out of the education field. My wife’s family was in the retail business and was looking to expand. The company sold school uniforms to private, Christian, Catholic and parochial schools—a lot of the big schools in the Atlanta area like St. Pius, Marist, Lovett, and Woodward Academy.

"They wanted me to come work for them and learn the business. Within the first 90 days after I took the job, I realized the business may have grown too quickly. There were no controls in place for inventory, cash, back orders, service (etc.). They had grown too fast, and it had to be fixed.

"While I didn't know what to do, I didn’t have a choice. I had to try and assist my wife’s family business. It was their legacy ... their pride and joy. Working with my in-laws, we tried to right the ship. We eventually were approached by a private equity firm from Texas. It had just sold its 24 stores to a private equity group and wanted us to be part of the roll up.

"After a year of negotiations, we had a record year of sales. I didn't believe we were ever going to hit those numbers again. As it turned out, I was right. We sold the business on the first day of January 2011. I agreed to go to work for the private equity group, helping them integrate the two companies. It was a challenge, so after my three-year contract was up, I left. Two years later, the company went bankrupt.

"In 2016, after we bought another company in California, they sold it to another private equity firm out of North Carolina and went bankrupt that September. It was a classic tale of a private equity firm not listening to the owners and operators—not understanding the true sales cycle and the risk of not having good customer service.

"I started looking for something else to do. I had a little money from the sale of the company, but I had young kids. I had some offers in various coaching and training areas, but I decided I would like to won a business. I just didn't know if I wanted to get back into the coaching or the retail worlds, even though they were two things I had become somewhat of an expert in.

"Growing up, my father was in the clothing business. He eventually sold his business when I was about 18 and got into the real estate business in the early ’90s in Atlanta. The area was booming. He had a nice career, selling the business in 2004. He had kept all his money in the business and then the recession hit. The real estate business took a bath, so I ended up going to help him.

"Today, I have built a nice private lending business in Atlanta.  We help real estate investors get from Point A to Point B.  We provide capital that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them.

"The moral of the story is that over the years I was able to adapt and learn new businesses. I've been able to pivot and change careers. I'm on my third now.

When facing big challenges, what keeps you stuck?

"The biggest thing is communication. I am an over communicator. Today, people can text, email, do virtual calls or make phone calls. There are so many ways to communicate, so I don’t understand why people don’t.

"Unfortunately, in my line of business, when you don't communicate, there are issues. The challenge becomes how to react, when to react, the pace of which you react, and the timing of your reaction.

"For example, recently I sent an email to a borrower on a Wednesday and needed the information back by Sunday night. I didn’t hear back for five days. Did his computer break? I try to be as cordial and polite as I can, but these are legal situations.  

"The patience to manage that communication is definitely something I've trained myself to handle over the years. As I said, as a former coach, you usually get instant feedback and gratification. If you don't like the way the play is run, you run it again. You keep trying to get it right. But that's not the way the real world works. I understand that sometimes people need time to work their issues out.

How do you manage yourself to overcome this?

"I try to tell everybody up front the way it is. We're going to play by the 24-hour rule. If I reach out within 24 hours, unless you're traveling or there is a medical emergency, let's try to communicate. It really helps when you can take a step back and say, Okay, I have 24 hours.”

What typically frustrates me when tackling any kind of challenge?

"I'm lucky right now. I have great partners, where in the past, I've been frustrated with people just not being honest. I'm a straight shooter. What I have found is that money makes people do crazy things. If they're about to lose money, if they don't have the money for something, it makes people crazy. I've seen that a lot in my line of work.

Pivoting Quickly

To New Situations

Can you share a specific problem you encountered that was a real learning experience?

"When we were struggling in the uniform business in 2009, we received a letter in the mail that we thought was a joke. The company had mailed letters to just about every uniform business in the country. At the time, there were a lot of mom-and-pop shops. The thing that caught my eye was that the letter was from Austin.

"I called this person, Jack Cardwell. He said that out of the 100-plus letters he mailed out, I was the only one who called him. Turns out we knew a lot of the same people in Austin and hit it off.

"I met with Jack and the owner of the Parker School uniform business. They had just hired a new CEO from Lands End. The three of them came to Atlanta and we had dinner at a restaurant in Buckhead. At one point, the person noticed Dr. J (Julius Erving) sitting at a nearby table. He was mesmerized. Turns out we were all big sports people.

"Over the next year, we had to negotiate. I had to figure out how to sell a family business that had been in my wife's family since 1946. It was in the third generation. It was either sell it or lose it. Those were my options.  

"The hardest thing to do when selling a business is trying to manage it. You are in a triangle of negotiating a sale, running the business and trying to make it profitable. It was one of the greatest challenges I had faced at the time. There was a lot of emotion involved because it was my wife’s family business.

"A friend of mine helped me, especially learning all the new terms. I never heard of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) before. In business school, yes, they teach you about that, but not when you’re teaching kids math.

"Turns out the buyers were not looking for our inventory (something they had thrown some hints my way). They just wanted our sales. It was a learning process. When you’re selling a business, at some point everyone throws their arms up and surrenders.

Choosing  People

to Help

Take On Challenges

What was the toughest situation you faced during this?  

"We were doing lots of things at once: managing the business, managing inventory, sales, customer service, and managing negotiations. There is a lot of back and forth in the negotiation process. And we did it all ourselves. The goal was to negotiate the best possible deal.

"There were more than 120 employees in six or seven retail locations over two states. It was a lot to manage. So, how did I do it? I had to compartmentalize, focus and block out the time needed in increments. You do the best you can and move everything forward. This is in a business where you literally do 85% of your sales in a six-week period (June 30 -Aug. 15).

"The key is to decipher the most important things to do first. I can multitask, so it is a matter of putting what needs to be first, first. That’s why I have always been able to push forward. I know what needs to be done first.

"If you're in charge, you're the leader. Being able to say no is very important. There are things you just cannot do. When I look back, I think we do a really good job compartmentalizing our time and efficiency. We did what it took to get where we had to be.

"This group approached us and we were not ready to sell at the time. We had no idea we were not built for a sale. We were built to manage and take care of our employees. There was no thinking about the long-term; we were making short-term decisions. When we came out the other side and I look back, it was really unbelievable. We pulled it off.

How did you sketch out the strategy you embraced?  

"I called a friend who works with PwC (PriceWaterhouseCooper). He conducts multi-billion-dollar transactions. I asked him to walk me through the process. I remember him saying that for a small family business, it was all such a hot mess.

"With his help, I was able to clean everything up. That meant basically taking over all of the accounting. We had an old-fashioned accountant who was not into technology, so I had to let him go and hire another group. Overall, there were some tough conversations. Some of the people had been with the company for 20-25 years. I had to convince my in-laws that it was all necessary.

"I had to learn a whole new language—a new way of doing things. It took getting the inventory through technology and RFID (Radio-frequency identification). We had to spend money to do that. It took some time, and what ultimately ended up killing the business. The lack of technology hurt us.

"The whole process forced me to open my mind to new ways of doing things. I have never said no to a challenge. Now, I’m not always the best at it, but I am going to put my best foot forward and try to learn. I am going to make the calls needed to find people who can help me learn. Having the ability to constantly learn is important. We are all in a learning environment. There are always better ways of doing things. 

Why do you think others struggle with getting results when they take on challenges?

"I'm a big believer in that you must be willing to risk whatever it is you have to lose on the other side. Whether that’s money, another deal, a promotion. What are you willing to risk to make it happen? Some people just are risk averse.

"I’m also a big believer in competition. The cream always rises to profit. It's the ability to compete and believe in yourself that matters. If you're going to have a risk, take the risk. What's better than betting with yourself? I always want to be the person with the ball in my hands with the game on the line. I am most comfortable there.

What advice would you offer someone in the same situation you were in?

"Sleep on it. Think about how you're going to approach whatever it is you have to approach. That 24-hour rule is great. Give yourself 24 hours to respond to something. That's always effective. Who are you communicating with about this challenge? It should be someone who has been there before.