Business Beyond Business

by Paul Edwards

  This isn’t as difficult as it might seem. For one thing, you already have yourself to use as a reference tool. Look deep within yourself, and ask … “Why do I do this?” Don’t settle for the shallow answer, “Force of habit.” If it’s from routine, then why the habit? Did someone teach you? Did you accept it as “sufficient” from them? Did you perhaps interpret it as the way to respond because of something that happened long ago? (That’s how many people get stuck in the rut of doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result). By doing this, you on-board the same curiosity I exhibit in interviews, which really gets guests talking.

  I used to call one section of my seminar “Carnegie’s Critical,” and perhaps now you see why. Sincere interest in people, in how they think and what matters to them, will prove one of your most unforgettable traits. That’s why I say that it’s “who knows me” rather than “who I know.”

  If you ever have someone tell you – in a non-romantic way – “I’ve never met anyone like you,” don’t let go of that. Ask them why they say that, what makes them feel that way. It will cue you into what God is up to with your life.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Inroads

  (Not-for-Profit IS For-Profit)

  I want to tell a few personal stories where simply not understanding the connection between nonprofit work and entrepreneurship became awkward and embarrassing.

  It was the summer of 2014, and I was the newly minted president of the Olympia-Tumwater Subchapter of the Association of the U.S. Army. We were looking for a temporary venue for our board meeting. Our usual hosts said they had to use the space for the entire month.

  The Liberty Mutual office was in the ReMax/Parkside building in Tumwater. I’d struck up a casual friendship with Jim Bennett, the owner of the building. Jim also worked in the building, as the designated broker of Re/Max Parkside. I mentioned in passing, during one of our hallway chats, that we were looking for a place to hold our meeting, and he volunteered the upstairs conference room. I was delighted, as it had plenty of space with desks and chairs.

  I’d been talking about AUSA wherever I went. We needed funds and awareness of our mission to support the 17th Field Artillery Brigade. There was a lot of interest in joining us for the first board meeting where I was serving as president, and we probably had 10 extra people converge on the meeting.

  It was exciting to see many enthusiastic faces, but I wasn’t ready at all. Some people mistook it for a networking group and placed their business cards and flyers in front of every member present. Others were there, I would guess, because I had a reputation for leadership and making things happen … perhaps they were intrigued to see what we were up to.

  It really didn’t matter, because I knew nothing about standard board meeting rules, including who could vote on motions made. So, whenever there was a motion for consideration, there were all kinds of people saying “aye” who had no business doing so. I hadn’t taken time to explain it, but I knew it was wrong as soon as I heard the voices.

  I labored for a further two years in presidency of that subchapter before reaching out to Tina Torfin in the neighboring Lacey subchapter, to merge. We were on the verge of bankruptcy and hemorrhaging volunteers; it was time to come clean and admit I didn’t know what I was doing. At the time, it felt like another compounding failure next to marital and professional difficulties. One more dagger of accusation, showing how I couldn’t get anything done. Nonprofits and volunteer associations are always famished for new blood and cash flow. Personally, I don’t recommend volunteering in executive leadership until you’ve been with one for a few years and have some idea of how they work.

  Another Embarrassing Story

  That same year, there was an invitation to parents of students at Evergreen Christian School, where my eldest son was enrolled. It was to attend the school board’s meeting to hear about a proposed curriculum change. Somehow, from the way the invitation was written, I inferred that there was an opportunity for people to volunteer to serve on the board. (In point of fact, it said no such thing.)

  I leapt at the opportunity to be at this meeting because I wanted to meet people and get involved. A friend of mine was already serving on the board. I went to that first meeting, stayed until the end, and everything seemed hunky-dory. Then I went to a second meeting and participated in discussions through to the end.

  You can imagine the offense I could easily have taken when I got an email from the board president asking me not to return and regretting the communication breakdown. I honestly thought they were looking for parents to participate with the board on an ongoing basis, and I was ready and willing to do it. If you feel embarrassed reading this, think of how embarrassed I was to write it!

  No one “teaches” you this stuff if you’re unfamiliar with it. Think of the fallout, however. Polite and kind as the ECS board members were, I’d set myself back further in building relationships with them. Now I would have to overcome the hurdle of looking rather amateurish and salesy, in addition to finding ways to make myself useful in the future.

  Bankrupt without Love

  In a powerful interview for Influencer Networking Secrets, my friend Cameron Hall discussed one of the main problems with retreats, seminars or networking opportunities offered to entrepreneurs. It’s common, unfortunately - the tendency to make their entry fee and their attendance the only contribution.

  With everything we’ve learned about how entrepreneurs get paid to solve other people’s problems, would you agree it’s a disservice to muster a bunch of them in a room somewhere and not engage their talents? This makes “shallow business” shallow, after a while. Startup entrepreneurs, who don’t have gobs of disposable income (or time) to contribute, can end up feeling like “takers” – or worse yet, “nobodies” because they spend money and time to simply “get information.”

  Standard networking groups have a similar issue. As I grew and honed my skills in Olympia, I observed the problem: we’d show up week after week, pay money to eat lunch, listen to the same 45-second commercials from the same 20-40 people, then we’d hear the same predictable six-minute “business spotlight” featuring one of the same people we’d already heard it from.

  I don’t mean to paint my former activities in a negative light. I enjoyed them, but I found they each had an expiration date. Unless you can think on your feet to transcend the limitations of networking groups and masterminds, you’ll quickly decide they’re a waste of time. If your aim is to grow beyond mediocrity, you won’t engage … and it will do you no good.

  A Ravenous Market

  Business networking could add tremendous value to participants with this component! For one thing, ongoing partnership with nonprofits gives younger, more inexperienced entrepreneurs a chance to learn about how they work. Dummies like Paul Edwards wouldn’t walk into board meetings acting like they own the place.

  Most of all, networking becomes vacuous and predictable because it’s all “take, take, take.” There aren’t opportunities for people to bring value and effort in service of others. Is it any wonder networking groups so frequently dwindle down to just half a dozen people showing up for breakfast? Very few people can “just keep showing up” to a recurring parade of shallow self-interest.

  The B2B marketplace is ravenous for meaningful relationship-building. There might not be an established science of how to do this, but entrepreneurs know it when they see it. There isn’t much of a cap on their appetite, either. The challenge is that it’s difficult to communicate the value in a single set, especially short-term interactions like billboards or social media advertising. You need something more like an invitation into a fellowship of Radically Generous Entrepreneurs.

  Camaraderie multiplies when you get Radically Generous Entrepreneurs working together. They will stick with a group’s mission long after everyone else has disappeared, and they won’t walk away or disappear without at least fulfilling their commitments and trying to pass on what they’ve learned. When you mee
t such a person in a nonprofit context, their objective will never devolve from the nonprofit’s agenda into their own private business one.

  Play It Again, Sam

  My relationship with my biggest insurance client comes to mind. In 2015, I was in a circle of people at the Lewis County Business Showcase in Chehalis, Washington. The topic was public speaking, and of perhaps 10 people taking turns sharing their feelings on the subject, I was the only one to say, “I love public speaking.”

  Melinda Wilkes, who owns a janitorial business and organized the event, stood next to me. She immediately grabbed me by the arm and said, “Good, I’m glad you like public speaking, because you can finish doing the raffle prizes for me.” Within moments, I was in my element, standing on the stage and raffling off prizes in my radio announcer voice. I suddenly had ten times the eyes and ears on me as I’d had 20 minutes earlier, and everyone knew who I was. (Write this down ↑ … this is how you scale networking.)

  Three weeks later, Melinda sent me a note asking if I’d be open to emceeing the Miss Lewis County Pageant. I had zero familiarity with the Miss America program, but I accepted without hesitation. I knew enough to know that willingness to provide for one of Melinda’s needs led to me providing for another. I also knew, subconsciously, that providing this need would lead to more opportunities to connect. (I’d gone from an audience of 10 to an audience of 40-50, and now I’d host an audience of 250-300 people. Complete with tuxedoed-Bond photos of me surrounded by beautiful pageant contestants. You see how this works?)

  With the 2019 Miss Thurston County contestants and Brielle Bryan (wearing crown), Miss Thurston County 2019

  The second year I played this role, my cohost was Samantha Styger, an executive vice president of the Line-X Corporation and co-owner of the Twin Cities Line-X franchise in Centralia. She learned of my occupation just as her current insurance relationship deteriorated. Over the next nine months, she moved a massive $100,000-premium empire under my care at Insurance Services Group. Sam became, dollar for dollar, the most valuable client I had during my six years in the business.

  People’s charitable and community causes are inroads for you to deepen relationships with them. You can donate money, time, labor, or acquire resources on their behalf to simplify the ever-present difficulty of volunteer organizations. It sets you apart in the eyes of your friend who sits on the board or serves as a volunteer. As my mentor Jonathan Garrick said, “You’re either in the business of making relationships or breaking relationships.” Nonprofits provide you ample opportunity to do both, sometimes at the same time, and with no sales agenda.

  Cameron’s Interview

  One reason our meetups include mandatory days of participating in charitable or nonprofit events together is because of what it facilitates between attendees. In the interview, Cam was the first to put his finger on it. “Anytime I go to a business event - a conference, a retreat, etcetera,” he told me, “I never leave feeling full unless there’s opportunity for helping someone else who can’t pay it back. I go to events and I take a lot away, but nothing like what I can depart with if I leave something good behind.”

  In planning our meetings, I tell my team, “There’s no point doing this if we only help ourselves and each other, who already can afford to attend. I don’t want our attendees to leave without feeling both that they were impacted by what we teach and that they made an impact by what they did.” It’s loosely parallel with Adam Smith’s law of capitalism – there’s no exchange taking place unless both parties benefit.

  I told Cam the story of how I first volunteered in the community, back during my earliest days at Liberty Mutual. I got recruited by Jackie Ashley, then serving as president of Rebuilding Together Thurston County. We got assigned a repair job on a home in the declining town of Rainier, Washington. Our work for the day was to help with yard and exterior maintenance for an aging World War II veteran and his wife, who couldn’t afford the repairs the home needed.

  I lugged my personal gardening tools, shovels, weed eater and old pickup truck down to their home. It was tidy, as you’d expect from that generation, but clearly falling into disrepair. Our group of loan officers, insurance agents, contractors and realtors spread out over the property. I did mainly weed eating until the call went out for some fresh gravel in the driveway. The elderly husband was confined to a go-kart, like you’d see for disabled customers in grocery stores. We needed to smooth out the space between the ramp leading up to their deck and the driveway with gravel. I drove to a local lot and picked up a cubic yard.

  I spent the rest of the time shoveling gravel out of the back of my truck, which “paved the way” for some great conversations with other men who helped me. You can imagine, as an Iraq veteran, the privilege and honor I felt at helping one of my combat forebears. As the old man shook my hand and said, “Thank you,” I replied, “No, no. Thank you. Thanks to you, I grew up speaking English instead of German.”

  Participating in that work fomented the free exchange of information and value. It came through casual conversations done over simple tasks, with no expectation of pay or reward. It helped me drop the salesman facade and focus on the humanity of people I worked with. This is one of the most disruptive questions we put before candidates for the mastermind:

  How would you feel about going to a mastermind dinner where you guaranteed a minimum of a $100 tip for the wait staff regardless of how well they did … and on top of that, your fee to attend went to the restaurant to send the wait staff home two hours early with pay, while you and the other mastermind guests donned aprons, washed dishes and mopped floors?

  It isn’t a very popular question. Many are baffled by our removal of the meritocratic element. Out of every 75-100 applicants, we usually get two or three who understand what we ask. I’m going for the heart of the matter. Many speak of “what’s really important in life,” or say things like “it’s not about the money,” but we’re after someone different altogether. We’re seeking someone possessed of and skilled at earning plenty of money. That person must also be totally unattached to and unfettered by it. Short of devolving into sheer waste, we walk the fine line of radical generosity.

  There’s nothing to gain by second-guessing the replies we get, or the people who make them. It just begs the question in my life, “Do my actions line up with that reality?” Knowing full well that entrepreneurs need, want and intently pursue earning their own money, just how far am I willing to go without getting paid and/or publicized when I do what I do?

  The answer means a lot. Jayson Gaignard says that you can be stripped of everything – your business, your property, your portfolio, even your freedom. But you - and only you - can lose your reputation and your relationships.

  That’s why our members regard a few hundred bucks for an on-the-come tip and an entry fee to wash dishes as a drop in the bucket. They’re not even thinking about the “money on the cheap” mathematical model – making a small investment so they can earn it back at 10 times the rate. They’re seeing with Kingdom eyes; they know radical generosity paves the way for massive reward in every dimension.

  Epilogue at Evergreen Christian School

  Now back to ECS, where as a novice networker, I’d made a fool of myself by self-nomination to the school board without their vote. Or the people’s vote. Or anyone’s vote, for that matter. The only person I consulted was myself.

  The good news? My mistakes didn’t stop me from building a great relationship with Talia Hastie, the school’s marketing director and president of the Washington Scholarship Foundation. This woman is a jewel of the Kingdom. She’s on the board of regents for Northwest University, and she is a huge relationship-builder who speaks the language of exchanging value fluently. We started helping each other from our very first meeting.

  The first shot Talia gave me was to speak at the school’s 2014 Veterans’ Day Assembly. I leveraged my role in AUSA to procure an honor guard from the military base. I made a slide show with photos from Iraq and g
ave a talk to students about my experiences deployed to the Middle East. I later joked with my pastor that it was the first time I’d ever worn the remote, flesh-colored head mic evangelical pastors are known to wear. This, I told him, “made me an honorary pastor.” It freed me to move about the stage and demonstrate some of the more physical parts of the story, evoking delightful laughter for which young children are known.

  The event also included some professional photos, including one which captured me looking like a pastor, at the lectern, on a well-lit stage in business attire. Posting that picture to Facebook clued me in to the value of professional photography as a means of self-promotion. Do you see the value that you reap when you volunteer to do things like this?

  That same year, I learned Talia was trying to procure items for the spring 2015 Visions Auction. I joined the procurement committee and discovered one item she sought was a tablet or iPad. I immediately recommended friends of mine working for Dell’s Military Program. They had a division assigned to reaching the local business community. I scheduled a meeting between Talia and Jessica Lugo.

  That meeting went so well that not only did Dell donate a tablet, but Talia also invited them to bid on a deal to replace substantial portions of the school’s aging technology. This ended up saving the school at least $10,000 in projected expenses. Another entrepreneur I know, Matt Purcell, donated a free pest control inspection from his growing company, PCI Pest Control. Matt ended up doing some work for Talia, if memory serves – and got connected to several other Evergreen parents as well.

  When all was said and done, I drew on good will from Jim Ladd, the senior pastor of Evergreen Christian Community (the school’s adjacent, overseeing church). For the launch of my first book, he recorded a 60-second video testimonial for the book, in which he said:

  I’ve seen Paul demonstrate the power of his principles and live them out. They turn out to be very compatible with my faith system and the teachings of Jesus. One of them is this broad, simple idea that when you exist to serve others and give rather than take, and when your pour out your life, you just can’t out-give or out-produce the return on it. The secret is to give your life to others, investing and adding value to them. Paul gives very specific ways to do that, which bring value to people’s lives and businesses, and come full circle back to your own.