Jack Tompkins With Pineapple Consulting Firm

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one, and for the folks out there, this is an important one for your business as well. So please help you have a pad of paper your phone handy to take some notes. This is going to be a lot of great information today on the show. We have Jack Thompkins and he is with pineapple consulting firm. Welcome, Jack.

Jack Thompkins: [00:00:54] Thanks, Lee. Pumped to be here. I couldn’t agree more. I think we’re going to cover a whole lot of good stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:59] Well, I’m excited to learn more about your practice. Tell us about pineapple consulting firm. How are you serving, folks?

Jack Thompkins: [00:01:05] Sure. So we’re kind of your outsource data nerd. So everybody is familiar with the fractional CFO and fractional C-suite executive type thing. We’re kind of the fractional analyst. So that’s what we do. We put everything into dashboards, help folks become data driven. So even non-financial or non numbers, folks can easily make decisions and build strategies from their numbers.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:29] Now this is an area that’s, I think, really not appreciated by most entrepreneurs. There are so much data out there and there are so many numbers to look at. It’s very difficult for a business owner to really hone in on what are the kind of metrics that matter and how to discern what are the numbers you should be paying attention to every day. How do you help educate your clients to the importance of that number one and then give them some tools so that they can pay attention to the stuff that matters and not get bogged down by all these other distractions?

Jack Thompkins: [00:02:05] Yeah. So we’re obviously doing audio only, but I was aggressively nodding my head in agreement while you’re going through that. So, so number one, what’s important, right? Or how did they get started? What metrics do they pick that kind of thing? Honestly, I always say, start simple, start with something that you probably look at every day and I’ll use like revenue and profit as kind of the basic example, something that most business owners probably look at pretty frequently. Maybe it’s not every day, but whether they’re numbers, people, financial people or not, that is something that they’re going to look at every day. So kind of start there and then let the snowball grow from there. I always encourage people to start simple and then ask yourself, like, what does that mean? Right? So revenue is up 10 percent. Fantastic. That’s awesome. Why? Right? So was it more marketing? Was it better conversion rate? Did people come in from LinkedIn as opposed to networking groups? Stuff like that? And your questions will kind of feed your next steps. So that’s always my advice on where to start. And then second, part of your question stuff that we do at pineapple to kind of help make it easy is all just using dashboards. So an income statement, I’ll stick with the revenue example. I’m a financial nerd and I I absolutely love going through an income statement. Most people don’t because it’s a black and white piece of paper, and it’s kind of boring to look at. It doesn’t really tell you a lot of insights when you throw that into a dashboard. Now you have a trend graph, now you’ve got indicators of your performance and you’ve got your brand colors, and it’s actually kind of fun and engaging to look at. So I guess the all in answer is start simple. Feed your curiosity and then make everything visual because it becomes a whole lot more usable when it’s visual.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:54] And I think that’s another important kind of component with this. A lot of times people get, they just see kind of numbers and they see columns and it’s numbers and that that doesn’t really give them any context unless they can somehow remember what it was at the same time last year or over time or last quarter. It’s difficult to really understand and appreciate the direction your business is going unless you put this kind of data into some visual tool that helps you kind of see trends.

Jack Thompkins: [00:04:28] Right? Yeah, it’s exactly right. And the same thing goes for obviously this is Coach the Coach and everything. So for the coaches out there, for the consultants out there, when you’re working with a client, it’s a whole lot easier to point to a number that is in a graph or in a chart or something like that and have a solid foundation of to your point. The context around it, right? Here’s what it was last year. Here’s what it was last month. Here’s how we’re trending. Boom, now you have this solid foundation for the conversation, and you can get into strategy now that you’ve covered the numbers piece the quote unquote boring numbers piece that you have to get through.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:06] And I think it does a better job when you have these this information in a visual form, I think the story becomes clearer. It becomes when people can kind of see the graph and see the trends and see. However, you’re kind of framing the visual, whether it’s a pie chart with a big slice of pie that just improved, you can see it. It helps you tell your story better. It helps. You kind of understand the impact that people are making in the company.

Jack Thompkins: [00:05:37] Yeah, that’s exactly right. That is one hundred percent right. And that’s I think the number is like sixty five percent of people are visual based learners, but through a big red down arrow on the screen, everybody’s going to understand that that is not something that should be. That’s not what you’re going for it, right? That’s kind of the big red X that you want to avoid. So you dig into it and it becomes really clear with the visual. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:02] So now what’s your back story? How did you get into this line of work?

Jack Thompkins: [00:06:05] So kind of boring, honestly. I grew up, if you will, professionally in the insurance world. So Up in Connecticut was an analyst for an a bunch of different capacities and had some really cool like leadership roles in there. But really like the analysis, really liked making dashboards because I had to present every now and then to like the CFO of the division or my boss’s boss’s boss or something like that. And I quickly realized even continuing our visualization conversation. The best way to get my point across to this leader, who only has two minutes for me is to just not even explain it. Just turn my computer around, show them a picture of the dashboard, and then they’ll get the insights that they’re looking for. So that’s kind of where it all started. And then I’m about two years full time in running pineapple on my own.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:58] Now, kind of the epiphany of a dashboard or seeing the value of a dashboard. Was that something you were like, OK, I can create dashboards. I can take this data and kind of smush it into a dashboard so that it becomes very crystal clear just the handful of metrics that matter for an individual client. It was that kind of the epiphany, and now I can. Now I have a tool that I can now deploy and offer to lots of people. Was that what happened or is this something that you work with clients and then customize some solution, whether it’s a visual dashboard or whether it’s numbers or whatever the solution is?

Jack Thompkins: [00:07:36] Yeah, it’s kind of both. So I think I should know this because I’m a numbers person, but at least 90 percent of what I have done for clients has been completely custom from the ground up. And I honestly love that I have an absolute blast making that type of stuff. But to the first part of your question, that was kind of the formula, right? It was let me take the things that matter because in my corporate life, it was I know that they’re going to ask about these three metrics. And now in the small business world, I know we care about, you know, revenue, profit and leads and conversions or, you know, whatever it is. I know that those are the big things. So how do we package them and they kind of formed together to be this a bit of default stuff so we can have the conversation of here, the KPIs that we’re thinking about. Here’s why they make sense in general. Let’s see if they make sense for your business, too. And then part two, let’s let’s make it custom to your business and make it visual and make it engaging and make it interactive.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:39] Now, most small businesses, if they don’t, they would imagine not have kind of a data analyst on staff, but they might have a bookkeeper. They might have themselves with QuickBooks or some, you know, software. How does your firm kind of play with those tools and how do you help them get the most out of those tools?

Jack Thompkins: [00:09:00] Right. So it’s a very complementary situation, and I’m glad you brought it up early because my business is very garbage in, garbage out, right? So if the bookkeeper is or if there is no bookkeeper, right, maybe that’s the better example. There is no bookkeeper. It’s difficult to create a dashboard, a financial dashboard, right? Which is a very common thing. I link up to QuickBooks all the time. But if the data is not good in there or it’s inaccurate or whatever it is, the dashboard is not going to be totally useful. So whether it is the bookkeeper, whether it’s the CPA, whether it’s the CFO who wants to know or wants to drive the strategy but needs to know a few metrics first, those are all folks that are great, either information feeds for us or data sources for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:49] And then so how do you kind of work with your clients, is it something that you just say, OK, here’s what you need and then you just give them the resources to do that? And then they just now the bookkeeper is doing this kind of work or their CPA or their themselves? Or is it something that your service is kind of been ongoing, like a retainer like relationship?

Jack Thompkins: [00:10:12] It depends. It’s again, so everything that I build is custom, and that’s kind of the model for working with clients, too. It is very client by client. More often than not, it works out out to be a retainer type situation. So the example the standard example is people come in for, Hey, I have this idea. I want to see financial dashboard with, you know, sales by SKU or by product that came in through online versus versus whatever channels online or whatever other marketing sources. So they have that idea to start and then it kind of evolves into. All right, this is great. We also want to see how that impacts our operations. We want to see some more marketing stuff that we can do better. And so it kind of grows from there. So I guess kind of wrapping that up. It does transform into a retainer thing after starting as a project in more cases than not.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:08] Now are you typically kind of partnering with CPAs or these payroll services or the people that have some of this data? Or are you kind of going arm in arm with them? Or are they referral sources or are they just kind of, you know, you’re just complementary services that are both serving a similar client?

Jack Thompkins: [00:11:27] Yeah, it’s a good question. Kind of a little bit of all of it, I would say. Referral sources, both both directions, right? So a business coach, for example, needing to see the numbers, they talked to me and then me creating the numbers, building the dashboard and then saying, Hey, talk to this business coach because he’ll help you kind of build the strategy off of it. So the referral partner is most common of those options with, again, just very, very complementary services.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:56] And then in your work, are you kind of. Is this kind of industry agnostic or do you have some niches that you focus in on?

Jack Thompkins: [00:12:05] It’s been kind of all over the place, which honestly is a whole lot of fun for me because like I said, I came from insurance and that I really like the people. I like the work I did. I didn’t like insurance that much. So to be able to work, I have clients and transportation. I have clients and e-commerce. I have I have other consultants as clients and kind of the whole gamut. And that’s super, super fun for me. Honestly, there’s so many different metrics out there and so many ways to slice the data, and a bunch of different things matter to a bunch of different people. So I am pretty industry agnostic. I should say we are pretty industry agnostic because it’s just it’s more fun that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:45] And then because the dashboards don’t care about the data, right, it’s just a matter of aiming it at the right information that the person cares about.

Jack Thompkins: [00:12:52] That’s exactly right. Yep, 100 percent

Lee Kantor: [00:12:54] Now for you. Can you share a story? Maybe that kind of illustrates some of the impact you can have in an organization. Maybe share what the challenge was before they got a hold of you? And then what happened after you kind of deployed some of your services into their world?

Jack Thompkins: [00:13:09] Yeah, absolutely. So this will be a we’ll go with a transportation company, so fairly big company, big for my term. So I think there are 40 50 employees, something around that. But a whole lot of truck routes every day, right, going in and going out, delivering packages, all sorts of stuff. That is it feels like kind of what was the analogy that we used? It was putting out fires with a blindfold on. So it was so many things happen in a day, right? Maybe a truck breaks down, maybe a deliveries and all that stuff. So it was kind of just whatever happens today, we’re going to deal with it and then wake up and try and figure it out tomorrow, kind of thing. And and that’s probably a bit too cavalier. But the bottom line is it was put out the fires first and then try and build the strategy second. So what we did was we created an operational dashboard and a financial dashboard. So the operations was how many stops do we do? How many packages did we do? What was the time? What was the efficiency on all of that stuff? And then how does that lead to financials, right? So two complementary dashboards and now the operating structure isn’t put out fire figure out solution. It’s now anticipate what’s going to happen. Select the most efficient things, aim for specific targets that we know it can hit based on data and run the business much, much more efficiently and honestly with a lot more confidence. Because when when it’s not just dealing with. Fires. It’s a whole lot less stressful. And when the numbers are backing your decisions and you’re telling your management team and stuff like that, hey, here’s what we need to do. It’s a little bit of a stretch, but I think we can do it. You have the confidence of the numbers to back you up. So this client in particular would be the first to say that the dashboard is something that he looks at every day, and it is just it’s a 180 for his confidence in his day to day business.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:16] Now are there some kind of symptoms or breadcrumbs for you or for a company that says, Hey, you know what? Maybe a data analyst is the right person that we should be talking to, because I would imagine that this isn’t an area that a lot of that it’s top of mind for a lot of folks.

Jack Thompkins: [00:15:34] No, you’re right. It’s it’s not super top of mind. It’s one of those data is one of those things that honestly, even in the corporate world too, it was, Oh man, we should definitely look at that right? And then kind of crickets because it

Lee Kantor: [00:15:46] It seems like a nice to have, but not a must have. But I think that in today’s world, with so much data out there and everybody having the ability to collect so much, I think it moves higher up in that hierarchy and it becomes something that is becomes a must have.

Jack Thompkins: [00:16:01] I completely agree and I think that is the that’s the shift that’s happening. So corporate has had data and dashboards and stuff like that for a while and making decisions off that for a while now. I kind of seeing the transition into more small businesses and I have a couple of solopreneur clients as well that one of their first priorities when they started their business is let’s get the data set up. And I absolutely love that just in general for the for the whole field of data. So you’re absolutely right, it’s becoming more of a must have because of the decisions that come from it, because of the strategy that can come from data. And and again, that confidence and your gut tells you one thing your gut is going to be right your gut. Plus your data can make you completely profitable, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:16:49] And that’s the thing. I think a lot of, especially the smaller businesses they rely on just kind of their gut or just like that initial, you know, whatever happened first and then they’re using that data point as that’s kind of modeling for everything going forward, and that’s just one data point. And exactly. And I think that that’s a mistake. A lot of people and you can get into a rabbit hole and you can go down the wrong path pretty quickly if you adopt that kind of thinking in terms of strategic growth.

Jack Thompkins: [00:17:19] Right, it becomes a short term strategy that only has good short term results.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:24] Well, and then you forget when you’re wrong and then say you don’t have any kind of data that supports you having a good gut feel for things like you think it is. As long as you’re in business, you know, you just have to win a little bit more to stay in business. You don’t have to be that right. But if you have some system that kind of looks at your data and you can make better decisions, you’re going to increase your chance of success dramatically.

Jack Thompkins: [00:17:47] Oh, a hundred percent, absolutely. And this isn’t to say get rid of your gut, right, your guts, why you got into business in the first place, but again, your gut plus data, you’re absolutely right. It’s you can be so much more efficient grow, so much more scale, so much more when you have those processes in place and data being one of those processes, it is about as important as automating some of your marketing or developing a marketing strategy or consistent emails and conversations with clients. Anything like that. And if that operational day to day stuff data is right up there in terms of importance.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:24] So now is there any kind of low hanging fruit for our listeners out there right now, anything they they should be doing today or something they could do today that could at least get them thinking about, you know, kind of analyzing their data or even just kind of being aware of the metrics that matters or something that you would recommend people do.

Jack Thompkins: [00:18:45] Yeah, so I think first would be just kind of a kind of an easy take away for listeners is somewhat what we talked about at the beginning of starting simple. So even when you’re just walking to your next meeting in the shower or whatever, wherever you do your thinking time, I would encourage everybody to just challenge themselves a little bit and say, I know what I focus on, right? There’s a few metrics that I pretty much know offhand just because I have to. What’s the next step? So using the example we use at the beginning revenue, most people are going to know it. Why did it grow? Where did it come from? And then kind of build on that, right, so it’s that sort of step one is what is the next step of importance because every step that you take is going to be exponentially better. So if you go into why data are scary, why clients have joined me, fantastic, you’ll get more clients because you know that answer. And then tools wise, I always encourage folks to start with whatever sort of visual representation that their software they’re already using has. So QuickBooks, for an example, and most crimes have this Google Analytics as well for marketing and website analytics, there is always a default dashboard out there. It’s not going to be great. It’s not going to be exactly what you’re looking for. You kind of dip your toe and say, OK, this is cool, I get it, but it’s not exactly what I want. And then again, what’s the next step? And that’s where you get into some more in depth data conversations and and making sure that the processes are in place for the data flow properly and making it easier to update and easier to visualize. But it starts kind of like most cliches out there, right? How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? This is very, very similar. Just start with the next logical step that makes sense to you, and it’s important to you today.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:48] So what is it that you need right now? Is there something we could be doing for you? The what is there anything the listener could be doing for you? Or are you looking for more referral partners? Are you looking for more clients? What can we do to help you grow?

Jack Thompkins: [00:21:04] Oh, I appreciate that. I never get that on the podcast, so thank you. More clients and more referral partners are always fantastic. Honestly, I really like just kind of talking shop. Like I said earlier with being industry agnostic, I always learned so much. It’s always a lot of fun. I just like kind of seeing what other folks are doing, so I would absolutely love to have a conversation with anybody that’s listening. Just kind of talk shop here about your business, and I’m sure there’s ways that we can help each other that will come out of that conversation, too. So I just I love small business and I love talking with other entrepreneurs. So please contact me and let’s talk some shop.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:41] All right. If somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website or the best way to get a hold of you?

Jack Thompkins: [00:21:46] Best way is the website, and it is pineapple kfcs, and that’s the abbreviation pineapple abbreviated consulting firm So Pineapple KF.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:56] Well, Jack, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jack Thompkins: [00:22:00] Oh, thank you so much for having me on. This is fun and and I hope it was good for the listeners, too.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:04] All right. Lee Kantor we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.