Tom Kosnik with Visus Group

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:14] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with the Visus Group, Mr. Tom Kosnik. How are you, man?

Tom Kosnik: [00:00:34] I’m doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on the show. It’s, uh, the day after the eclipse, and, uh, I am just full of positive energy.

Stone Payton: [00:00:47] Well, we are delighted to have you on the show. When I first saw that we were going to have a chance to to visit I, in my mind, I was thinking we would be talking to a staffing company. But no, you’re actually consulting to helping staffing firms produce better results in less time, aren’t you?

Tom Kosnik: [00:01:05] That’s absolutely correct.

Stone Payton: [00:01:07] Well, I got a ton of questions. We’re probably not going to get to them all, Tom. But. But maybe that’s a good place to start is just mission. Purpose? What you and, uh, you and your team are really out there trying to do for folks, man.

Tom Kosnik: [00:01:19] Yeah, yeah, great. We, uh, work with the senior leadership of staffing companies, uh, predominantly privately held staffing companies. And, uh, it from the outside, it looks like an easy industry, but, uh, Stone, you’ve got you got candidates and, uh, contract employees that walk and talk and have their idiosyncrasies, and you have clients that walk and talk and have their idiosyncrasies. And the staffing companies are really the mediator between those two entities. It’s the only it’s the only business where, uh, where, where the, the product that you’re representing is, uh, is a live, live, uh, person. And uh, so the staffing we, we help staffing companies grow and we have about 120 active staffing businesses across the United States and, and the Canada and, uh, yeah, it, uh, it’s great work.

Stone Payton: [00:02:18] Well, it sounds like noble and probably lucrative work, if you can get it, but I got to know what, uh, what’s the backstory, man? How in the world did you find yourself doing this kind of work for these kind of people?

Tom Kosnik: [00:02:31] Yeah, yeah, it’s a it’s a great question. I was making a career change, and I connected my, uh, my father in law, who’s a serial entrepreneur, he introduced me to a gentleman out of Cincinnati that taught in some of the business schools, and he was managing a small peer to peer round table program. And he he was interested in expanding and my, uh, buddy. But he wasn’t interested in managing people. So we struck a deal, and he taught me how to develop these, uh, these roundtables, these peer to peer roundtables. And at that, at that point, uh, the staffing industry was growing at 12% a year. And off we went. And and three years later, we had over 100 staffing companies and 8 or 10 different, uh, peer roundtables that, uh, that I was facilitating. And that’s all we did at that time was manage the peer roundtables. And, uh, and today now we have president roundtables, CFO roundtables, CRO roundtables, and CMO roundtables and, uh, yeah, no, no, uh, no dull moment. So it was a was a career change and, uh, just worked the network and, uh, lucked into it. And, uh, and here we are. Here we are today.

Stone Payton: [00:03:53] Well, I am genuinely intrigued with this peer to peer learning discovery growth model. Can you speak to the the virtues, the advantages of a peer to peer model for people who are trying to accomplish more?

Tom Kosnik: [00:04:10] Yeah, our our clients tell us that the most effective learning that they can get, and we do have a lot of we do have a lot of clients that read books and take classes and do things online. Uh, but they tell us that the most effective, uh, way that they learn how to grow their business is peer learning. And that is people that have that are in the same industry that have tried, uh, tried certain things, have accomplished certain goals, have climbed certain mountains. And to learn from that experience, uh, is is invaluable. And that’s so that’s, that’s one side of the coin. And the other side of the coin is is what? We do, how we break open these these questions, these topics, these issues, these challenges that that the men and women that own and manage these businesses have and trying to get them to see things differently. So Stone, the the Einstein said, you cannot solve a problem at the same by thinking at the problem the same way you’ve been thinking. So you really have to change the way that you think about the the problem in order to come up with a creative, creative solution.

Stone Payton: [00:05:40] So it’s certainly one thing to get a group of people like that together. And even if we got them together over a glass of bourbon, there’s probably something good that would come out of it. But but for you to to do your work, there must be structure, methodology, rigor, discipline around all this. Can you speak to to that a little bit?

Tom Kosnik: [00:05:58] Absolutely, absolutely. We one of our differentiators is that we facilitate through a creative problem solving process. There are a lot of really good peer to peer, uh, roundtables and, uh, things like that. But but what what differentiates us is the creative problem solving process that, that we facilitate through. And the way that that works. It’s, uh, a little bit of a touch of organizational development, but but Arthur Van Gundy, who was the grandfather of creative problem solving, he taught at the University of Nebraska and Lincoln and and I was trained by him. And he connected me with a bunch of, uh, his associates that taught me all kinds of great things about creative problem solving. But it’s really a process of allowing somebody to unpack an issue. And then for the rest of us that are in the room to ask questions, you know, the five level deep questioning, uh, where tell me more about that. Tell me more about that. Tell me more about that. And Stone, here’s here’s what we never talk about. And this is this applies to your your life with your kids, your spouse, your your business associates, anything that you’re trying. I want to lose weight. I want to run a marathon. Uh, we have certain assumptions about the way that the world works, about the way that men and women relate about the economy, about employees, about how sales are done. And in order to get somebody to, uh, resolve, resolve an issue at a different level, we have to ask questions, good questions deep enough where we get those unspoken assumptions out on the table.

Tom Kosnik: [00:07:57] And if, if, if once those assumptions come out on the table, then the person who is in the batter’s box, so to speak, that’s trying to resolve an issue or trying to get past an issue, uh, which if we get those assumptions out on the table and then put those assumptions under the microscope, and if we can get them to change those assumptions, two things, two things happen. One, the whole construct of what they’re trying to achieve changes. They see the world differently and they behave differently towards the problem. And ultimately, you’ve heard it, uh, how many times do people try to solve a problem by doing the same thing that they’ve always done before? And it’s not a it’s just it’s human nature. But the reason that one of the reasons that is, is because they are operating under the same unspoken assumptions that they have about how the world and business and people, uh, work together. And so that’s that’s what we do at, uh, at the roundtable and, uh, many, many, many times, uh, the business owners that are with us, uh, say the, the, uh, that phase of our creative problem discussion where people are asking really deep, thoughtful. Moving questions becomes even more important than somebody telling me, well, I did this and these were the results. And if I were in Usher’s shoes, I would do that. They tell us that that’s that’s almost more important than getting actual responses from from other attendees in the, in the group. Uh.

Stone Payton: [00:09:45] So I have an observation from admittedly very limited experience in some kind of group setting where, you know, a small group of us were genuinely trying to help another person think through, through their, uh, through their challenges. Well, a couple of observations. One, we didn’t have to be geniuses about their thing. We just kind of made it easier for them to to talk about and ask themselves some questions. So that was one observation that was kind of revealing for me. But also I came away from that, even though the purpose of that period of time was to help Bill, I felt like I came away from it better to like like my thinking was more crystallized, solidified in my it made me that much better of a practitioner in my cases. Is that something that you see a lot? Is that a unique.

Tom Kosnik: [00:10:35] Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are some times where, uh, yeah, where people come where people come to the roundtable and they may not have an issue at all. Yet they come up to me and say, Tom, this was the best roundtable I’ve been to in the last five years. Uh, because they learned something. Somebody else had an issue that they may have not even realized was an issue for their business also. And, uh, and then, of course, their, their mind is, is is reeling and then look, uh, we, we, we do want to help people. So at, uh, most most individuals do want to help each other. And there’s that sense of giving and that sense of building community and a sense of of helping one another. That really is a it’s a good, a good, uh, not an ego, but just a good human development sort of thing. And I should say the other the other piece of it, stone, is the, the what we call the leadership development piece of it. And that is that. Uh. Uh, no. Well, of course you’re going to be thinking about things differently, you know, upon your departure. But the leadership development is that one one is developing as a leader, one is growing, one is developing particular competencies about about. So for example, I have a, a client that’s been in the roundtable for, you know, maybe 12 years. And he recently shared with me, uh, I’m really Tom. I’m really trying to slow down, really understand what’s going on in my business and just ask, observe and ask much better questions, not only of myself, but my key reports so that we can not just make a decision, but that we can make a prudent decision. That’s, that’s that’s not just based on hearsay, not based on emotion, not based on solely on fact, but just good, solid decision making. So there’s that dynamic of of leadership development that happens as a result of these of these peer groups as well.

Stone Payton: [00:12:54] So now that you’ve been at this a while, what’s the most rewarding? What’s what’s the most fun about it for you?

Tom Kosnik: [00:13:02] You would think that after 30 years of facilitating these, these roundtables, that that I would be bored and would want to move on. But it’s more exciting now than it has ever been because things are changing so fast. But the most, the most rewarding is really to see, see our clients develop and grow and become the leaders that they were called to become. And it’s a it’s a it’s a very great thing when, you know, a company that’s got 350 employees or 525 employees, you know, is that is that company grows and becomes more profitable, there’s more opportunity all the way down from the leader down. So we’re really affecting opportunity for all those individuals within those within that organization. And it’s a it’s a very honorable, very honorable thing to, to be to be a part of.

Stone Payton: [00:14:05] You must sleep very well at night because, I mean, clearly you’re doing important, important work, and I’m sure it’s financially lucrative, but I, I just I get the sense that a great deal of your comp package is, uh, what I would characterize as emotional compensation. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Kosnik: [00:14:20] Yeah, yeah, that would be fair. That would be fair to say. That’d be fair to say.

Stone Payton: [00:14:24] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you? A practice like yours that is mature as it is, do you still find yourself out there with a need for a systemic methodology or strategy for getting new clients? The stuff just come in over the transom.

Tom Kosnik: [00:14:45] Oh yeah. No, absolutely. I mean methodology, discipline, there’s there’s freedom and discipline, right. That uh uh, so we we have a method, we have two selling methodologies, one, uh, for bringing in new roundtable guests to, uh, to find out if they would make for a good member in a roundtable program. And then we also do a lot of consulting, organizational development, consulting work. And so that’s a different, uh, different. And it all starts with knowing knowing the ideal client, knowing the buyer persona, knowing the buyer journey, uh, not getting ahead of ourselves or too far behind ourselves in terms of that. There’s alignment between, you know, the buyer journey and what we’re presenting to, to the buyer, uh, and, uh, and then managing that, having a CRM and doing things on LinkedIn and doing posts and social media, all those, you really have to have some kind of a game plan and a methodology and consistent execution. That’s where a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of companies, uh. They get going on something and then they it goes by the wayside or, uh. But consistency is is the big thing consistent and persistent is.

Stone Payton: [00:16:11] Sounds like you’ve been reading my mail because, you know, uh, my business partner, Lee and I, we run the business radio network, and we’ll latch on to to something, a methodology, a framework. And it just it works so well, we stopped doing it, you know? Yeah. Right.

Tom Kosnik: [00:16:27] How is it? How does that happen? Right. Uh, it’s it’s funny.

Stone Payton: [00:16:32] Speaking of methodology and framework, you’ve kind of handcrafted and refined. Refined your own model for the odd work. Right. The organizational development work in, in I’m operating under the impression you, um, you establish and execute on that model, but you’re probably at a point now where you’ve also got to bring on other people that can execute that without. Uh, correct. Too much dilution. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Kosnik: [00:16:57] We’ll we’ll get involved in strategic planning, financial analysis, some mergers and acquisitions, work compensation development. Uh, interim interim CFO, interim sales manager. But that’s not me. Uh, we, uh, I was three years into this, and I decided to get a master’s in organizational development from Bowling Green State University, which which is in a top three, uh, organizational development programs in the country. Uh, so now, uh, you get you we have over over 100 independently owned companies as clients. They all have challenges and issues and things that we can help them with. Uh, and so now it yes, we we, we have people that have competencies and expertise in certain ways, whether that’s valuation work, whether that’s interim sales management, whether that’s coaching CFO, whether that’s looking at a tax tech stack, whether that’s doing an internal assessment on the business overall, like all those all those projects, we we have people on staff that are that are that are executing on on those. So it’s it’s a good spot. It’s a good spot to be to be in.

Stone Payton: [00:18:12] It sounds like you’re able to keep the work fresh. And at the same time, I got to believe that you must run into some, uh, patterns, I guess, like with. And maybe you don’t vocalize that just yet this early in the conversation with them, but you’re thinking to yourself, yep, I’ve seen this one. Oh yeah.

Tom Kosnik: [00:18:31] Yeah yeah yeah, yeah. Although every time I say I’ve seen it all, uh, sure enough, uh, something gets said or something gets shown to me and I’m like, wow, I thought I seen it all, but that’s. I never, never seen that. Uh, there are some similarities. Uh, and I would say, uh, the, uh, the plateaus that, uh, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that start a business and they hit a plateau. And there are various levels of plateaus. Uh, there’s the owner operator that gets in his own way or can’t not delegate or, uh, or doesn’t doesn’t, uh, doesn’t believe in methodologies and processes and, uh, and then there’s the middle market guys, the guys that are too big to be small, but too small to be big. And and they get what, what we call stuck in the middle. And then they start stagnating at 50 million or 80 million in revenue. And they can’t seem to they can’t seem to to grow past that. And, and and the funny thing is, is that, uh, oftentimes they, they make the same mistakes. Stone. All I need is a one more rainmaker. I just need to hire the lucky charm. And then somebody comes by who says I’m the rainmaker. And my salary needs to be 150 K, and I need to make 350,000. And I want to guarantee in the first year. And and they a lot of entrepreneurs fall for that. And, uh. In any year later. There’s no deals closed.

Stone Payton: [00:20:11] Yeah, another year and a half million dollars later.

Tom Kosnik: [00:20:14] Another. Another common. Another common mistake is, uh, is is, uh, uh, these businesses will go out and hire a president that came from a much larger organization. Well, if they were in that kind of an organization, they can come in and teach us how to go from here to there. But, you know, companies are made up of people. Every company has a different culture. Every company has a different mission and vision that they’re trying to accomplish. And and a lot of times, the execs that are coming from those big companies, they actually didn’t build anything. They they got on board after the business was a certain size. And they may have a lot of competencies and a lot of areas. But when it comes to, well, how do you take the business from 50 million to a half a billion? They’ve never done that before. And so I see I see that that’s another common, common error that that business owners will, will make as they’re trying to trying to grow the business. But yeah, we do see a lot of we do see a lot of common commonality in some of these things.

Stone Payton: [00:21:22] Well, with your pedigree, your experience base and I dare say maybe some scar tissue that you can call up when needed. I got to believe you’re called on to to speak. Do you find yourself on the dais talking to companies associations as a professional speaker?

Tom Kosnik: [00:21:39] Sure. Yeah. We we speak at, uh, state associations. National associations. We do a lot of podcasts like this. We do. We do quite a bit of that, uh, that work. Yeah. Well, the.

Stone Payton: [00:21:50] Reason I’m asking is I’m curious to know, like when you started speaking in front of large groups and you. And you’ve got this depth of knowledge, did it take you a while to figure out how to distill it to, to where it would be very beneficial for that short time period, but set the foundation to go do some real work at the opportunity presented it. So like, what was it like? What kind of shifts, if any, do you have to make when you’re speaking as opposed to facilitating? Because I think there is a pretty good distinction there, right? Oh, the first, the first.

Tom Kosnik: [00:22:24] When I first started speaking, I was terrible, terrible. Uh, and uh, a good friend of mine, I did a, I did a short stint. It was like a 15 minute thing and I thought I did well. And, uh, so I asked an associate of mine, hey, on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you rate me? And, uh, he rated me like, a four. Like four. And, well, you know, tell me why you rated me a four. And so then I went and got a, uh, a coaching for a, uh, to, uh, speaking, coaching and the best money I ever spent. And I try to I try to invest in myself, try to develop, uh, every year there’s certain things that I’m trying to learn or get better at. And so I’ll either I’ll either invest in, in a class or a coach or a program. And, uh, so anyway, I went ahead and, and, uh, and, and found a speaking coach and. My gosh, you just don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know all the mistakes that you’re making. And and she was has has been continues to be a tremendous help. She’s helped me with speaking in front of groups of people, developing the outlines, uh, the execution, the and not just not just like in front of groups of people, but when I’m on camera, on, on, on video, when I’m doing these kinds of things, she really has, has educated me tremendously. I, you know, so that was that was my my experience.

Stone Payton: [00:24:02] Well, what a marvelous reminder. And I think important piece of counsel for anybody who’s listening out there. I don’t care how accomplished you are. The, the good ones, the great ones, man. They continue getting coaching and they’re life learners. And that’s the.

Tom Kosnik: [00:24:21] Yeah that’s the Stephen Covey right. Always be sharpening the saw.

Speaker4: [00:24:24] Yeah.

Tom Kosnik: [00:24:26] There’s a there’s a great you can put I don’t know if you have notes in your, in your uh in your podcast. But there’s a HBR Harvard Business Review, uh, uh, uh, paper that was written and I can’t remember the author’s name right now, but the, the, the title of it is The Power to see ourselves, the power to See ourselves. And it is I was written back in 1962. And Stone, let me tell you, if you read it, you would say, this is so applicable to to today, to every executive out there. Uh, and it just it really talks about taking ownership of my own development, uh, becoming a professional leader, a professional manager, and the whole that whole process. And there’s too much in that article for me to kind of go into. But it, uh, yeah, it’s such a great read. I yeah, such a great read. Well, believe.

Stone Payton: [00:25:28] Me when I tell you I’m going to read it. But speaking of reading, is there a a book in you? Do you have any designs on on writing a book?

Tom Kosnik: [00:25:37] Yeah, I’d love to. I’d love to. Yes. Uh, the, uh, in fact, I’ve got a little project going on right now. Uh, and, uh, once we get through that, I have an editor. Once I get to that, uh, I’ve got a couple more ideas, but I’m hoping to, uh, hoping to be able to to get a little bit more published. I’ve been published in magazines and things like that, but, uh, but a book. Book? Uh, I, uh, I’d love to some some of my lessons learned. I’ve got a handful of ideas that I want to, I want to process. So I’m on the front end, front end of that one stone.

Stone Payton: [00:26:13] Well, I look forward to reading that and following the story. And if you’re up for it, when you get ready to to release that, let’s let’s have you back on the show and talk about it.

Tom Kosnik: [00:26:23] Yeah. Yeah, we’d love to. I’d love to.

Stone Payton: [00:26:25] All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to tap into your work touch base, have a conversation with you or someone on your team.

Tom Kosnik: [00:26:32] You can look you can look us up on, uh, on LinkedIn or on the internet. We’ve got all the contact information and ways to to reach us. Uh, the website is Vise’s group. That’s v like Victor I s u s group. Group.com. Uh, and you can look you can also find us on LinkedIn. We post pretty regularly on LinkedIn. Uh, we’ve got a page, uh, Vise’s group page on LinkedIn, and I’m on LinkedIn. It’s, uh, it’s such a great, great tool for us.

Stone Payton: [00:27:04] Well, it has been an absolute delight to have you on the show, man. I really appreciate you sharing your insight and your perspective. You’re doing really important work and we sure appreciate you, man.

Tom Kosnik: [00:27:16] Thank you. Thank you so much. I, uh, I appreciate you saying so.

Stone Payton: [00:27:20] My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Tom Kosnik with Vise’s Group and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.