In episode 4, Matt Knight is joined by Tim Latimer, the founding visionary, and Lindsay Dodd, the first non-family CEO who is leading Cashco Financial into a new chapter. We discuss the transformative story of how Cashco has become a champion of financial inclusion and the remarkable leadership transition from founder to non-family CEO. Tim and Lindsey share the inside story of their leadership transition, how they maintained a unique company culture through this change, and the powerful role of daily meetings in building trust. 

Tim, as a ‘Best Practice Junkie,’ shares his journey from starting in the pawn business to building a national consumer finance organization. Lindsay shares how Cashco’s noble cause first attracted him to the organization as a board member and his path to leadership. We discuss valuable lessons on trust, gratitude, understanding ‘folklore’ and the critical importance of values alignment during leadership transitions, tailored for emerging leaders, entrepreneurs, and family businesses seeking to navigate their own transformative journeys.

Learn more about ABFI at https://abfi.ca/, connect with Matt Knight at matt.knight@ualberta.ca or LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattknight/ or Twitter @mattaknight

Learn more about Cashco Financial at https://cashcofinancial.com/

Matt Knight  00:06

Welcome back to Table Talk. I’m Matt Knight with ABFI. Today we’re joined with by Tim Latimer with and Lindsey Dodd, both with Cashco financial. Before we get going, can we maybe get one of you maybe Lindsey to give us a quick 30 second elevator pitch on what cashco financial is for people who may not know anything about the organization? Yeah, sure,

Lindsay Dodd  00:27

Cashco Financial is a consumer finance organization that’s really, its purpose is really simple. And that’s to end financial exclusion. And it’s going to do that by putting a million Canadians on a path to financial health that started in 2009. And currently has about 250 employees across four provinces in Canada.

Matt Knight  00:46

Awesome. So Tim, can you maybe start, kind of share your journey and kind of what made you start and build Cashco? And kind of what were some of the key challenges and milestones that you went through? Over the many, many years that you were involved with the organization, 

Tim Latimer  01:01

I wasn’t – I didn’t deliberately mean to get back into the subprime space, I actually thought I was kind of out of it at one point, but I did help a company out. And I always liked the pond business, and they were in the pond business. And I thought, Oh, I’m going to help them out. And they started to fail. And I, I took them over. And instead of thinking about building out the pawn business, I thought, I want to build out these individual petty loan and installment loans division, and they actually wanted to start out and try to get it up to 250 stores across Canada. And so the initial thing was really about taking the idea of providing relief for today and hope for tomorrow. And how can we take the left out the left behind in the working poor and give them we can give them the money that they need right now. But the more important thing was, how do we get in the hope for tomorrow and help them climb back up that economic ladder? So we started working through that, I want to say, those that noble cause said, and eight words or less, that people could latch on to and that really became a bit of a mantra for us to say this what we’re doing, do you want to join in this journey? Kind of thing? That makes sense? Yeah. Yes. So we stopped doing the pawn business. And we really, and I love the Pawn business, I have to say that, it’s, I would say, it’s like working in the laboratory life. You know, when people come in, and they’re on the other side of the counter, you can understand they’re for the grace of God yet, for a couple of decisions I made, we could be on the other side of the counter at any one time. And in that business, you get reminded it’s almost like the Be reminded every day to be grateful sort of thing. So it’s good stuff. Yeah. Excellent.

Matt Knight  02:42

Thank you. So Lindsay, can you kind of tell us how you come into the story, like what made you first join the organization and then eventually transition into becoming the CEO?

Lindsay Dodd  02:52

Yeah, sure. This was back in 2018 2019, Tim was putting together a board of advisors for the company, he’d enter into a partnership with ATB financial, and the next evolution of the company was really, to get into the board of advisors and help guide the company and management in the evolution of that company. And I joined that board with really around the purpose of the organization. And that really resonated with me, you know, I’ve lived through my life, kind of, you know, bootstrapping my own way through life. And I’ve been to the food bank, I’ve been without money, I know exactly what it feels like to be in those positions. But I thought this is a company that’s trying to make a difference in the world. And that’s a purpose I can sign up for. So join the board of advisors was on that for about two and a half years. And then one day, Tim said, I think my best before dates coming on. So let’s start a CEO search. And at that point, we we started that to open the discussion whether you know, I might be a good fit for that role. And a year later, we made that transition as Tim stepped down. 

Tim Latimer  04:00

That’s not how it went. Yeah. How’d it go, Hey, went like this. I was really grateful. We’re best practice junkies, we say all the time. And you know, perhaps say a little bit more about best practices, but they said you need to put an advisory board together. And you know, had a peer group that said that you go get somebody you’re not smart enough to do this Tim get put an advisory board together. And I did I hired a consultant and I love these best practices out there hired a consultant and they said, Well, here’s the structure that you need. Here’s maybe the way you should do it. And let’s help you try to find some people. And they did quite a bit of interviewing ourselves over at Cashco at that time, but they said, we’ve really got a great candidate for you and Lindsay came along, super grateful for everything that Lindsay brought to the table on the advisory board, but one day so how did he end up CEO is a kind of a little cute little story one day at the very beginning of COVID in about 60-90 days in at one of the Advisory Board meeting In meetings, he says to me, you’re not moving fast enough to him, you got to do things faster, because it’s COVID. And things are happening. And you got to do things faster. And I kind of lashed out a little bit right into me, I didn’t lash out, I said, Well, if you think is so darn easy, why don’t you do it? That’s when he called me back two days later, and he says, I’d love to do it. And that’s when I said, Yeah, my desk before dates come and gone. And, uh, super grateful. It did take us about a year and a half to negotiate, which, you know, was a long time, we had lots of little things that we had to figure out. But absolutely the most amazing thing, we knew that, you know, Tim, you know, myself, I talk and sell your third party kind of thing, it was getting a little long in the tooth for all the energy that it was going to take to take it forward. Plus, I’m a Gorilla entrepreneur, and we really needed a more corporate entrepreneur that could take the company to the next level, we were getting to that size where you just can’t do it, as you know, handling all the stuff yourself, you’ve got to get a lot more people around. And you’ve got to build people. And I didn’t have the I don’t, I would say I didn’t have the I, one of the things I think that I’ve been fortunate is not to know what I don’t know, but to know, I don’t know a lot. And so I wasn’t fooling myself are getting in my ego in the way. There’s other people around here that can do a better job. So I was really grateful when he called me up and said, Yeah, I think I want to switch places. Okay, that sounds like a great plan. And, and we did switch and even to that degree. You know, Lindsay’s done, amazing, but the board chair said, Tim, you should not be the chairman of the board. We’ve got to control your impulses. And, you know, so it’s been really good. Surrounding yourself with, I’m going to say people that are smarter than you. It’s so wonderful,

04:45

To kind of starting out as that family business or gorilla entrepreneur, you know that that next step was, you know, your your, your peer group convinced you to start an advisory board. You hired a best practice firm to build this board for you. Yeah. What else? Any other steps in there that that maybe other Gorilla entrepreneurs or other? 

Matt Knight  07:05

Oh, yeah, there’s a ton just on that little slice, sort of thing. Because if you say your best practice junkie, well, then where? What are the best practices? And so you start asking people around recognizing you, you don’t know what you don’t know, let’s just be curious. And Lindsay and Gerard, the chairman of the board, they found a lady had to consult with us on how to go about setting up a good governance model, how to go about a transition model, how to go about a good PR model, so forth, and we devised a whole program for you know, Tim’s departure with a celebration of you know, all that I brought to the table and a recognition. Okay, the next one is celebration of what Lindsay is going to bring to the table. So we had a proper, I would say, program out process that we followed with intake, kind of assessments before, and take information during and assessments after to see how we’d done we knew our most valuable product out there that we had was culture, and we wanted to keep culture together.

Lindsay Dodd  08:12

Yes, the most important handoffs that you’ll ever do in a company is going from one CEO to another, but more importantly, from the founder to the first non founder, CEO. And so we were very blessed to get some great counsel on how to do that. And we did it deliberately over a period of time didn’t rush it made sure that we were doing it right, because culture was job one, absolutely maintaining that culture was job one. So So it worked out really well.

Matt Knight  08:38

So going back to governance for a quick second, you know, as that new CEO, first non founder, CEO, what we’re kind of some of the governance or decision making challenges or changes that you had to address when you took over as CEO.

Lindsay Dodd  08:52

Well, like I said, we had really good counsel. So one is having that board of advisors was critical, because then it wasn’t just the old CEO and the new CEO in a room arguing about how things should be done. It gave us a platform with really bright people around the table to help me transition in and as a support mechanism to Tim, as he’s coming out of the organization and into a different role on the board. So he still has a voice, he still has influence. He still has a perspective on the company. So that was really critical. Some of the challenges, we didn’t have a ton of challenges. The big challenge for me as a CEO, less from a governance because we had the governance in place. We recruited a great new board. I think we had 100 applicants for our board. When we when we expanded the board after after we transitioned. We went from we went from three board to six. So we have more dimensions to the conversation in the boardroom. But really that first year challenge was making sure the culture was intact, that the people were comfortable that the staff felt supported, that they knew what was going on. Hang on, and they felt like they had a voice as the as the organization transitioned into new leadership. And so on that point, so as you’re working on kind of making sure that people felt included and valued and kind of continued on that core vision, how did you bring innovation and new ideas into that?

Matt Knight  10:19

And how did the you know kind of your thinking and your leadership start to evolve to bring those new things into the organization.

Lindsay Dodd  10:26

So in that first year, is you’re maintaining this amazing culture that Tim built. I mean, that’s job one, you have to be so careful to honor the things that make the company special, that make it successful, and make sure that you keep those intact. The last thing you can do as a CEO is come in, kick down the door and say, hey, everything’s different. Now I’m in charge, we’re going to do things differently around here, you have to be super careful about that. But making sure that we really understood what were the elements of the company that were so special, and we needed to celebrate every day, through that first year of transition was really critical. And I think we were very successful at keeping the culture going, keeping people celebrating the things that were important, and then starting to bring in that innovation. And there’s really two types of innovation from from that perspective, one is product innovation. And Tim was our chief product officer. I mean, Tim, Tims vision for new product is unlike any in the industry. And so we had to figure out how to replace that. And we’re still working on it to this day. But product innovation is fairly straightforward. The process innovation, you have to be careful for, because that’s the way the company does things. And you need to celebrate what’s working, and then fix the things that don’t. And you always have a new opportunity with fresh eyes to say, Hey, I’m looking at this kind of differently, what if we thought about it like this, and people will actually react positively to that, because it might be something that was overlooked in the past, but through that you really get people’s buy into, we’re keeping all the stuff that’s good, and we’re moving forward to towards our purpose. And that that’s been very successful. That’s and

Matt Knight  12:03

Tim, how did you know kind of through this process? How do you how do you notice your your yourself for your leadership style change? And kind of what you know, it? What legacy? Did you leave? Or do you want to leave behind with your role in that company?

Tim Latimer  12:17

Now? Good, great question. You know, I think Peter Drucker said, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And so I think the one thing that we in my time at Costco is we really worked hard on culture and Marissa best practices and culture, we sent people down to Vegas to the Zappos shoes, because they did things differently. We’re purpose driven organization, social impact driven organizations, that it just capitalist capitalist. And we started really asking ourselves, what does it mean to bring people up the corporate ladder, bring people up the street credit ladder to more conventional kinds of credit? And when we started pushing those envelopes, did I stray off? What where you asking me?

Matt Knight  12:59

The kind of the legacy you wanted to leave. 

Tim Latimer  13:01

Oh, sorry. That’s why they sent me home. I was gonna say once was, but I’m only good once as I ever was. Yeah. So I think what we wanted to do was go through the process of building up that the people around and helping people build a business and keep them in place. And to Lindsay’s credit, what he did was he went around and visited every store in Canada firsthand, personally and said, Hi, shook hands. And it looked people in the eyes and said, Hi, I’m Lindsey, and what do I need to be to make this amazing for you? What are the tools you need? And where’s the struggles? And he asked that across the country in that first year, and that was kind of amazing. He kept all that culture in place. And you know, there was practices and he said, Yeah, I’m gonna I don’t think like, you know, at that time, and, you know, correct me, you know, how much it’s different now, perhaps not so much or perhaps Ilana mature, but we said you need to, you need to create a vivid vision. And we said, in order to create that vision, you have to have a compelling noble cause and eight words last we need, the next thing is in that vision, is a big, hairy, audacious goal that you’re going off to something that’s about 10 years in the future. But the thing that I always thought was the most important is how you’re going to behave to each other as you’re on that journey. And we call that our core values. And I don’t know why she thinks she has the princesses calling. And we call that our core values and and we developed a core value tree we called it and we really practice really hard at getting how do you how do you it’s not it’s good enough to put it on the wall sort of thing, but that doesn’t mean anything is still unless you can be living it day to day. And so then we developed or developed, took on some other best practices and one was the daily meeting and the ability to have the daily meeting and start it with a core value story. And so when Lindsay took over he said you know, I don’t really want to do the daily meeting. I’m so A little I don’t really want to say goodbye if you don’t keep doing the daily meeting. And so I tried to convince him to do it for a year. And he said, Well, maybe I’ll do it for 90 days or 30 days, and then we’ll see what we do. But I wanted Lindsay so bad, I agreed to 90 days, even though I thought that this was really important best practice that we had calmed into the organization. And to lose his credit, after 90 days, he, or sometime after that sort of thing, and he’s doing the daily meeting, he’s getting the impact that connecting on a very genuine, authentic, vulnerable trust building daily away for only a short time, 15 minutes. So thing really made a difference in building people. And if you’re going to build people, they’re going to build the business. And so he picked that up. And to his credit to this day, maybe he’ll correct me, sort of thing, but he’s told me, you know, Tim, we should write a book about the power of daily meetings to change your organization. And so I think he leads still by that, being that genuine, authentic, vulnerable, daily meeting, robust communication, guy 100% in that organization, yes.

Lindsay Dodd  16:07

So they still happen. They still have it every day. And so the mechanism that Tim put in was a cascading set of daily meetings. So it starts off in the executive team at nine o’clock in the morning, and by early afternoon, the entire organization has had daily meetings, and all the information that needs to cascade through the organization is down to the fingertips of the organization, by the middle of the day. And that happens every single day. So communication is super high, it gets everybody centered on what’s going on. And you know, when you come in as a CEO, following a very, very capable and charismatic founder, you’ve got to think about what do I need to honor? And what do I need to keep in place that’s working to keep the culture the spirit of the organization live? And then what’s just processes that we can change? Because there’s just a better way of doing something? The daily meeting? Tim’s absolutely right. I would say like, well, let me say, Let me have a look, I’ll see if I like it, you almost wrote it into my contract. And so so he did give me some time to assess it. And I’m, I’m a raving fan, absolutely a raving fan. And I evangelize about the daily media to my peers all the time. And

Tim Latimer  17:19

it’s kind of odd, because you can’t get them to go over there. They’ll say you spend too much time you waste so much time you do all this, but especially in a diverse workforce, you know, where you’ve got 60-70 sites and stuff, you’re getting the information down to the tips of their organizations, small, thin works, sorry. And you’re keeping them engaged, and you’re not battling. I don’t know what’s going on. They don’t tell me you’re not battling rumors, you’re not battling a whole bunch of HR. dilemmas that happen when you’re not communicating. People think you’re trying to keep things so he’s done an amazing job. And I think it’s a testament that people don’t leave, you know, sort of thing they stay around. And that’s the continuity that you were looking for. Now, there is one person that left he didn’t kick me out. Said you’re sitting in that corner office time to leave the guy. sort of thing. So 

Lindsay Dodd  18:07

We are best practice junkies. 

Tim Latimer  18:08

Yeah, that’s one person was asked to leave. 

Matt Knight  18:11

Maybe take us back to that day, kind of the first day you were not the CEO anymore. How did you feel? What was going through your head?

Tim Latimer  18:18

I loved it, I wanted to, because I was it’s about, you know, I’m not that guy. sort of thing. And I’m leading the thing. And I it was time for the for the right thing for the organization was for Tim to step aside. And I went into a corner office and set up a desk and a quarter office and I got to go in there and, and be a cheerleader and didn’t have to be involved at all. Like, that’s amazing. And this is the best thing ever. Oh, let’s hear your story. Right. You’re not telling me I have to come back and do this next week. This is for real, right? And so yeah, it was lovely. Because, you know, I think you have to, you know, hey, there’s going to be struggles and I call it the school of hard knocks and it’s going to cost 100,000 Or a million dollars because we made some mistakes. That’s the price of scarred knocks. But if you’re truly thinking you’re making a difference and you’re truly building people, you got to let them go through that process. You got to let them learn through that process and cheerlead the man and so I’ve been delighted to be able to cheerlead and not get in it. I don’t want to be in it. I I committed to being a cheerleader. And and sitting on the board and be neutralized on the board has not been too loud because I’m not the chair. So those are all really good governance practices. And at for the most part, I think we kept them alive, what do you think?

Lindsay Dodd  19:42

Absolutely, every board meeting the spirit of the intention of how we’ve set up the organization is absolutely honored. Yet we’re able to get the best out of everybody because Tim’s still full of knowledge, experience, great ideas, great perspectives, and bring so much to every board meeting.

Tim Latimer  19:58

I like David Chen way better than He’s got a better person to counter, he’s really sees our world in perspective. Yeah, Tim’s got some, but his stuff might be a little old. So we’re always mindful, let’s not be, let’s not follow him down the garden path too far. 

Lindsay Dodd  20:14

Well, it’s actually very effective. So one of our board members is in the similar industry, down to Calgary. And so he brings between he and Tim, they bring, you know, 20-30-40 years of absolutely valuable knowledge on things that we might be experiencing, that we haven’t experienced before. But he’s seen them three or four times, so can really bring that balance. And so that’s invaluable. That absolutely.

Matt Knight  20:38

Kind of his his group. And his team is, you know, in essence, a direct competitor of cash go at that branch level in Calgary, probably what kind of brought you to bring some, you know, your competitor onto your board. And I don’t know many people who would be that holding to do it?

Tim Latimer  20:53

Unbelievably fortunate. First of all, it’s just, he’s a good guy. And reasonable, fair minded and a little bit funny. But on top of that, I couldn’t think of anybody you know, if you you’re in a space, you want to be in that space with somebody that knows exactly what the space is all about from the front. And you know, that he said, Yes, sort of thing was a testament sort of thing. And, you know, I think the law of abundance kind of plays out to that, you know, we’ve never thought that there was last I, you know, he wanted to get started in it about 1012 years ago, he came and asked me and I said, Oh, and sat down and shared what I thought I knew, sort of thing. And he went off, he’s always been very gracious about that, about the support that we’d gave. He’s been successful over the last 12 or 13 years, and learnt a whole bunch. And he’s got such frontline experience that he can bring all the way up to board. It’s really, really fortunate. And I think we’re lucky to absolutely blessed. Yeah, you bet. Is that answer founder? Yeah. 

Matt Knight  21:52

So aside from the daily meeting that we talked about, was there anywhere where kind of your your vision or what you had in mind for the company different when you when you took things over? Lindsay?

Lindsay Dodd  22:02

So Cashco is an amazing organization and amazingly successful organization, and Tim built it out that way. And being a best practice junkie, he’s brought so many good things into the company. So there wasn’t a lot that needed to be fixed. It was what can we build on with this amazing, firm foundation of excellence, and have a vast staff and a vast retail component? So lots and lots to build on? So what we’re trying to do, and means the new CEO and the leadership team is say, Okay, where’s the world going? What’s happening? What new things can we bring into the company to actually leverage where we’re at. So for example, we have an amazing frontline. And they build relationships with clients. And so we are working overtime to try and figure out how to elevate that frontline role. The people that work in our stores, who deal with our clients day in and day out, from rather than being a retail clerk style job, how can we make them into financial health advisors, where they can build a book of business, have a very rich group of clients, and earn a great living off of that. And that’s, so that’s taking a really good idea and then running with it in a new way. We’re looking at what technology can do for us and where the fin health and fintech world is going. And it’s changing so fast every day. So keeping up with that, and keeping ahead of that and leveraging all those sorts always building on on what we’ve got in place as a great foundation. 

Matt Knight  23:35

So with that in mind, to kind of where do you see kind of the company going in the next five to 10 years?

Lindsay Dodd  23:42

Sure. So I think our Bhag lays it out. So clearly, so our purpose is to end financial exclusion, because so many Canadians are facing financial exclusion, be a very tight banking world here in Canada, and millions of Canadians can’t participate in that. So we have to be there for them when they need us. But our B hag really talks about where we want to go as a company. And that’s to put a million Canadians on a path to financial health. Because when they come to us, they’re excluded from mainstream banking, because they’ve had some problems or issues in the past may be their issue or not. But they’ve got to deal with that. And our job is to help them get back into mainstream banking, turn them into non clients. And that’s kind of the vision that drives the company every single day. So how can we help a million Canadians? Well, we’ve got 65 branches right now are scattered across four provinces. But we’re serving Canadians outside those branches, through our digital channels, through online banking, through phone relationships. So we’re able to reach far, far more Canadians now than we ever could before. And we want to hit that million Canadians within the next eight years.

Matt Knight  24:54

So Tim, now that you’ve kind of stepped back a little bit, what are you you know, have your hopes for where cash was going changed? All? And then you know, kind of what what are what are you working on now, if you’re not there day to day, and you’re just, you know, the cheerleader every once in a while, or you know, at the board, what does that look like? 

Tim Latimer  25:14

Well, starting from the back there, what am i Mom? Because I think one of the things we figured out is here’s all these practices, we got them from books and and podcasts and seminars. And I think one of the great places that we got it for a long time was peer groups. And then we had we hired a company that we had hold us accountable third party accountability kind of thing. And so the, your question, So

Matt Knight  25:50

How your vision for the company has changed. 

Tim Latimer  25:52

my, No, no, no, I think that it’s that idea of that relief for today, hope for tomorrow. And now that we moved it to ending financial exclusion, I think that relief for tomorrow and ending financial exclusion has energy for people, hey, I can make a difference. It’s not just all about the corporation here. It’s about social impact. And I can have a social impact if I if I get into this and do something with it. So I’m really excited actually, where Lindsey takes that concept of social impact, and not being just capitalist capitalists, it’s all about us and the money sort of thing, I think we have to be, you know, on the equity side of this equation, I think we have to be really patient to say go make a difference. And let’s see what you can do with that concept of noble cause, sort of thing. And then as to what I’m doing today, I’m actually bringing those ideas, I’m bringing the, what I call the first three foundational ideas as you into other companies, I’m saying you have to generate a vivid vision, here’s a you know, we had an accordion card that we generated. Here’s the accordion card, of how we generate a very simple and consumable vivid vision. Here’s what eight words or less feels and looks like as a noble cause. Here’s what a big, hairy audacious goal looks like, they really don’t have a lot of chance. But you’ve got to work at it. And here’s how you need to behave to each other as you’re doing that. So I’m trying to introduce that to other places, and, and, and how they execute on it. I have Deanna, a former person that’s been involved, she’s actually got three or four companies down in Texas now that are saying this is unbelievable, has made such a difference over the last year and a half. She goes down there once a month, and she executes on those basic things. Okay, let’s get you a vision. Let’s ask your people to come in and be the amazing, best version of themselves. And then the third thing, let’s practice robust communication. And so I think that’s a package and I think it makes a difference. And I’m not sure where I was kind of surprised how much Texas took onto it and said, and unbelievable, sort of thing. And she’s getting more clients. So she’s kind of going through, she wasn’t really into flying to Texas. That’s where the first one said, yes. Yeah. sort of thing. And then I do think Western Canada, I think more so Western Canada than eastern Canada, is really a place where that concept could make a difference for a lot of businesses. And so I see that as an opportunity going forward.

Lindsay Dodd  28:13

So what’s in what did you name your new accelerator? 

Tim Latimer  28:16

And so because I thought that was I had to remind myself every day what are we doing when we get up this morning? It’s business as a force for good. And so using you know, I, I got it from somebody I’m not saying I came, I’m not that brilliant. But I really did say to me, that’s what we do today, your business using it as a force for good rather than just it’s a everybody, all the stakeholders, not just the shareholder, it’s about the people that serve the clients. It it’s about the clients and people that serve the clients. And there and then it’s the shareholders is not the other way around. And so I believe that it just got better at framing it up in my mind for the last 1015 years. So Casco is kind of the my version of it, sort of thing. And Lindsay I’ll have his version in his stamp on that concept. But I think that’s kind of the consistent is social impact servant leadership, and how do we how do we get them? How do we ask people to be amazing, and then help them get their mess? Did I say that? 

Matt Knight  29:17

Yeah. So I think those three things someone answered the next question, but looking for, you know, as a founder or CEO or board member or whatever you want to take on as your role. What advice would you give to another business about succession planning, specifically in that first transition to a non family or a non Founder CEO?

Tim Latimer  29:36

Asked me both me mine’s pretty easy. Especially because most of the founder kind of businesses and you know they had somebody that’s went up there and plugged and spoke has been spunky and done all that that a type kind of stuff is Get over yourself. Get over your ego get over yourself. Yeah, it’s not about you. sort of thing and if they can’t I don’t think you can really succeed. So you got to ask yourself, how do I grow? How do I get myself to the next level. And I was really fortunate many years ago, to build myself on Stephen Covey’s idea of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, build myself a mission statement. And I should have went back and updated it, because I’ve been the same one for the last 30 years. So I shouldn’t really updated it. But I did take with a final line line saying that one day, I want to say, I touch the mind, I touch the soul, I touch the heart of our men or women that changed the world and say I had a part to play. And when you build that, it’s it doesn’t talk, it talks about how you make a difference for others. And I was fortunate to add that line 30 years ago, because that’s always been my North Star. I’m shooting towards that. So I’m looking for Lindsey to change the world here, you know, and say, I, I touched him sort of thing, but that that keeps you from getting too much ego. And and I think ego will destroy a lot of transitions dice 100%.

Lindsay Dodd  30:58

Yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. And, you know, the greatest thing that Tim’s done is give us space, give us space to grow into the role give us space to figure out what the company is going to be as it grows and evolves. And without his ego showing up. And he does that very effectively. In formal board meetings. He does that very effective informally. We’ve had him out to a number of events as our honored founder, and he continues to edify the transition, he continues to edify new management. And that’s been so critical now to give to give the executive team really the relevance and credibility that they need to run the organization. We had a lot of help through transition, we did it very thoughtfully. And that was helpful. It certainly helped that Tim had new projects that he wanted to achieve, which, which again, is part of the giving of space, right creating space. And you know, I have been on a lot of SEO forums with people who are running as as the first generation of of nonfamily CEOs, and they don’t get the space the CEO is firmly planted in his office or her office right next to the CEO every day. And that’s a recipe for disaster because they can’t let go their ego is so wrapped up in it and Tim has been brilliant.

Tim Latimer  32:15

And I just adding to that, I think one of the things that we were able to latch on to one day well given Fraser a walk that’s phrase are being the dogs is I, I sent you know it when you read all those books out there, and they talking about character, and they’re saying what is the one and Willie Nelson kind of said it, what is the one thing that changed my life he was having the Internal Revenue Service in United States serve me in his mid 60s, and he had to go back to work to pay them and everything. And he came up with one concept, he said made a difference. He got up every morning and said, Who gets to do this, I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this. And when you could get gratitude into your mind and own gratitude, it just changed the way that you behave. And I think we built some base foundation is we built in gratitude, we built in modesty and we built in selflessness. Yeah. And he Lindsey has been able to keep those kinds of ideas going. But when you build it, I’m grateful for Lindsey coming forward, when you got that as a base component, sort of thing, you can celebrate everything that he brings, and there’s no need to complain about the stuff that he isn’t. That’s it’s not important. It’s celebrate the good stuff. And we all come with our own luggage. So I’m absolutely I think it was really fortunate for us to own the idea of gratitude, and, and be able to promote it inside of our organization. And we can have wonderful organization to do that in the most like if you’re working for an oilfield company, it’s going to be a little hard, it’s internal. We get people coming external to us every day, that we kind of get a dose of gratitude, hey, the African grace does not go i and and who gets to do this, we get to walk away with that at the end of the day, many, many days. It’s this, this is a complete privilege to be say that at all right? Yeah.

Lindsay Dodd  34:00

So and that goes both ways. I mean, my gratitude comes in having someone so experienced next to me on the journey, to say hey, this is this is how it’s, this is how it really happens. What you’re experiencing is not unusual, here’s how I got through it, here’s how we can help you through it. And that that’s been amazing. And you have to have that gratitude. You can’t see it as a threat of the old way of doing things. It is and I’m grateful for the company that he left me with because it is an amazing company. And you know, as companies are seeking that next leadership, the first nonfamily leadership, the most important thing is values alignment, and making sure that that is absolutely dialed in. And that’s something that I was I was lucky to get immersed with for two and a half years on the board is getting immersed in the core values of that company. We use it to hire we use it to fire but it is absolutely critical in the selection of your leadership team. And it’s made all the difference and so gratitude extends right to having that culture and those core values well defined. And we talked about them at every single meeting in the company.

Matt Knight  35:07

Yeah. Nice. So a little bit more of an open ended question Is

Tim Latimer  35:12

this too much of a love fest

Matt Knight  35:16

there was a bit of tension with the the daily meeting will be on that. Okay. So kind of what lessons learned Would one of you or either or both of you like to share for either aspiring entrepreneurs, new CEOs, or family businesses in kind of the early stages of their journey. So if they’re just thinking about building an advisory board, or just thinking about hiring a non family CEO, we’re just thinking about starting that new business. So make it very open ended, but just wanted to give you an opportunity to provide some lessons learned or advice.

Tim Latimer  35:49

New business is completely different than at this stage. sort of thing. So, you know, I, I think new businesses, there’s, I heard Brian Tracy say it the other day, there’s some three rules. The first rule is, is make sure you go for quality. Don’t go for cheapest, make sure you go for quality. And the second rule is go find revenue and keep going find a revenue. And the third rule is there is no third rule. Go back to that’s kind of when you’re starting out. I think, when you get a little bit farther along, I do think it’s it’s a little bit more layered sort of thing. But yeah, yeah. How would you answer?

Lindsay Dodd  36:34

So you know, what are some of the best practices that we’ve got? So one is the board is immensely valuable, I think for Tim and I, as a as a neutral, safe space in which that we can have heart discussions and that I think that’s an excellent, excellent mechanism to keep that relationship balanced, between founder shareholder and executive number two was we got lots of help making the transition, it wasn’t Tim just stepped out one day and I stepped in, there’s a whole way to lead up to it, and there’s a whole way to lead out of it and best practices, just follow them. Number three, as a if you’re coming into the role of a CEO, first fit, nonfamily CEO, make sure that you spend time to understand the company and what’s made it special to this point, and then honor that every single day. Because that is the culture of the organization. So don’t come in thinking you’re going to kick down the door and change everything, because that that will cause nothing but heartache for the founder for the former CEO for the family and for the staff just creates chaos where there doesn’t need to be any chaos.

Tim Latimer  37:47

I think that’s a real hard one to use, there has to be a little bit of blind trust, you know, is Lindsay really the Lindsay Il sort of thing that he’s presented to me, you know, if he gets in and takes over, you know, with his ego, you know, be a different, you know, will construct different model of the world. And so you have to go with some blind trust, but within short order, and you know, he’s he is, you know, is going across, get oh, are you just doing that? Oh, is doing that? And, you know, he was pliable enough to in all of that say, What’s the good stuff? How do I learn the good stuff? How do I keep the good stuff? How do I not be afraid, losing the the other stuff that I should lose? sort of thing? And how do I have and be brave enough to have conversations with Tim, if I need to transparency, being kindness. And so, you know, he didn’t he, I, I’d say, you know, we went and got professional help, but the trust is the big piece, and you have to come with the trust, and the one leaving has to Belize. And it has to be, I think, I would say to all out there, you have to be bold enough to trust first not force him to, you know, show me the trust or even got here, give the trust and then allow them to mold in, earn it or confirm it or whatever. But if they go backwards, I wouldn’t know what to do. Because fortunately, I haven’t experienced that.

Lindsay Dodd  39:19

But you’ve been very good at offering feedback as well because there are blind spots that I’ve got things that I’m still evolving my own personality or my own management style, which is different than Tim’s and and some of that works and some of that doesn’t work. And so Tim has been very effective at providing suggestions and feedback on how we can do things faster how we can do things better how we can so it’s all very encouraging. And so he’s understanding where I’m really strong and he’s understanding where I need some coaching and he’s willing to provide that coaching in an honest and open

Tim Latimer  39:51

I’m not offended though if he doesn’t take it I’m not the smartest guy in the room if he doesn’t, I think that’s the other thing you know, I’m I’ll get on his case maybe and share that with him. I say inland Z Come on, you gotta Lindsey. Remember how you told me I gotta move faster? Lindsay, you got to move faster. It’s coming back to haunt. It is and, you know, and but hey, you know, he’s the man, if that’s the speed he moves at I’m absolutely following and cheerleading behind them doesn’t mean they, you know, I I can agree, I can agree to disagree, but I can be very agreeable about it and I can support them on the whole way, you know sort of thing. So disagree and commit, I think was one of the concepts we picked up along the way we had a business meeting, sorry, we had a meeting rules and disagree and commit, you know, have, you know, honest conversation. So those are all part of it nice dose, I don’t struggle. In fact, talking head Tim had no struggle, but he thinks he’s got to be talking all the time, as you can see, but I have no compunction, especially when I found out I was Dutch, I didn’t notice that. Or they speak very bluntly. Oh, good. That’s me. So I’m I allow myself to speak blindly, to throw it out there to put not to be mean about it. But to try to be you know, like hard on the numbers, not on the people to throw it out there and have the honest conversation about it rather than a, you know, pretend it’s not happening and stuff did I say that

Lindsay Dodd  41:16

I know what you’ve just given me, given me remembering a perspective. So when you come in as CEO of a family business, you have to manage risk as much as you might need to manage the operations. And so a founder has a different risk profile than a hired CEO. And so early on, as we were starting to make some decisions, we were very careful. We wanted to make sure everything was really thought through because we don’t want to make a big mistake with the family’s assets that the family might do differently if they were in charge. Where we’ve got I think, in the past six months, is we’ve really moved the needle in terms of what we’re willing to do as management because we know we have the trust of of the family and the board, that if we make a mistake, as long as it’s in the spirit of of what we’re trying to achieve, and we’re doing it with the best of our efforts that we’re okay. And so we’ve actually increased the speed, and perhaps some of the risk profile and some of the things that we’re doing that we wouldn’t have done even a year ago. And that’s because the of Tim and him saying, You got to move faster, and you got to take more risks. Don’t blow it out of the water. But you got to you have some latitude to take some risks that don’t do everything like you’re a government organization, and that you got to get to that place. And it just doesn’t come overnight. But it does come through with these conversations where they’re saying, you know, I’d like to see something different than what I’m seeing how can we get there. And so I think as as the executive team, we’re this year where we’re much more aggressive in terms of moving the ball forward faster, with perhaps a different risk profile than we would have done even a year ago. Yeah.

Tim Latimer  43:04

I think that’s right. That’s really interesting. Because, you know, if you look at my business card, it talks about, you know, I got a degree in the school of hard knocks, and what was the degree in the school of hard knocks? Well, every time I made a mistake in business, a cost money, and I call that the tuition fee and the score knocks in in the beginning, when it’s just you, it’s in the you know, that was $500, it cost you and you thought that was a lot. And then all of a sudden, your lesson was 5000, the tuition fee was 5000, and then your 10,000. And now you’re hiring people, and they’re coming and they want to take they want to take the same lesson and you say, well, I already learned this lesson. And then I learned after a while they don’t care that you learnt the lesson and you give them the lecture. They want to take the class themselves so I got a little better after a while and I said listen, you go take it I’m happy to pay for your tuition fee. Can you just be a little smarter I was a slow learner to either go four or five times to learn you could you do it in one two or three. And so I give that speech all the time because I quite truthfully believe the best way to learn is to go through some struggles and fight and get it wrong and it costs money. If you if you say if you go into those organizations I say cost me money sort of thing. Why aren’t you smarter dumb shit sort of thing you’re you’re you’re not setting them up for success they’re they need to learn so let them go through the school hard knocks and get a degree. And now I say this and let this what I was saying to Lindsey is listen, like last couple of classes I took their you know million and a million and a half each and I’m still a slow learner and he reminded me that I had a lesson on cosine simple for and Lady loans for example, and I’m saying okay, well, that’s my tuition fee and yes, I am a slow learner. I got to in one year two classes in one year, and I’m still learning but I’m saying to him is listen, if the class costs for our size here if it costs a million and a half and you learned it I’m I think we’re all right pain, that sort of thing, given the license to go make a couple 100,000 mistakes and saying well, okay, fine. Come to the board when you share us what we think we learned as an organization and I’m, I’m I think that’s, that’s kind of maybe I don’t know if it’s liberated or not, but it allows them to behave a little bit more flexible pivot, do what you have to do in a very fast moving environment. So I think otherwise, I don’t think a bit most businesses can survive in this day and actually won’t be alive and 10 years from now, if they’re not encouraged to go make a whole bunch of mistakes in the in the moving space. 

Lindsay Dodd  45:23

Yeah, I say, I got an honorable to take some risks. Yeah, exactly. If you don’t, you’re not going

Tim Latimer  45:27

to grow. If you just listen to the accountants and the academics and the, and now analysts, they’ll say this line here is really troublesome chemical trim this out of this line, and that’s really risky. Let’s not do that. And, and we got to stop, let them driving the chips for the business, we got to say that that helps inform us, thank you very much. And now we’ll make this decision, sort of thing. But I and I, and the other thing that we got to get rid of, okay, I’m going on consensus. And so I always thought my position was and I learned this from one of the books or whatever is that fill the tub up with about 90% of these of the issues. And if you’ve got smart people around the room, usually the answers will show up, and you really don’t have to make a decision, they will make the decisions for you. But if they can’t, don’t allow yourself to go into analysis, paralysis, make the decision go forward. If the if it succeeds, give everybody in the group, the credit for it, if it fails, it’s you. And you get to own that. And yeah, so and then I have just learned tonight added to that recently, that idea of filling up the tub, I find that my acquaintance over there, I’m telling them fill the tub. He’s so afraid of making the decision. He now overfill So Tom, I’m saying you got so much stuff, all the stuff flowing over the edge, you got too much in the tub, you don’t need to fill it that full time to make. So you can make it I’d never thought of it. You can make it both ways. But it’s kind of a version of analysis paralysis, keep on looking for more information, never make a decision. There we go. I don’t know if that was fun at all, whenever

Matt Knight  47:00

it was good. So asides from kind of the the risk tolerance and moving faster, and maybe kind of that patient capital that you alluded to that what have been kind of some of the differences that you’ve noticed, coming into a family business?

Lindsay Dodd  47:14

Well, the biggest thing is that there’s a very strong tradition in every corner of the business. Like there’s a very strong language, there’s a very strong way of doing things. There’s this very strong history. And navigating that is absolutely fascinating, because you’ve got to be able to say, that makes sense. Let’s build on that. But then there’s another word that we use within the organization post him which we call folklore. And folklore is stuff that’s hanging around the business that nobody actually ever tested. Whether it was true or not. It was just folklore. But everybody thinks it’s true, because we’ve been saying it for 20 years, for so long. Exactly. So we do have the other side of that was let’s just test this idea. Is this truly, you know, something that we need to build on or can build on? Or is this folklore and if it’s folklore, we’re gonna go find the real answer, and then do the real thing that needs to be done here. And so it’s absolutely fascinating going through that, but we had to invent that term, in order to say, let’s just test, you know, we’re not just going to take everything at face value, let’s test and it’s worked out really well. And it’s lovely when you when you think something might be folklore, but it’s absolutely true. And there’s a real substance behind it. You think, Okay, this is a bedrock that I can rest on, we can put a foundation on this idea and run with it. And then there’s others that just crumbled because they are folklore and then you clear them boy, and you put in a new,

Tim Latimer  48:41

they must have been good stories for me to keep them

Lindsay Dodd  48:44

they were great stories. Absolutely. But it’s not just the founder, right? I mean, the whole organization has 15 years of building this this dialogue, and you just have to

Tim Latimer  48:56

get your own language inside. And I always said you know that again, this is you know, that but to count improves and that what you self count can improve faster sort of thing that that when you inspect improves, but the piece that I always kind of pontificated honest, you come across these ideas, or these best practice or whatever, and you got to capture them. And the way to capture them is to name them. And you can name them anything, you can name them folk, or whatever, but if you don’t name them, they’ll go like this and they’ll disappear into the ether again and then six months later, your mind will say oh, oh should do anything. And so if you don’t capture it, name it and then once you name it, that’s beautiful. You call them folklore or the now we can define what folklore is. And now we can start testing folklore. And now we can start counting how many we have and that we can see how many the average one is ah, but if you did start out with the naming it folklore, you will never be able to understand it. Never be able to analyze nebulae own it, or discard it or do anything with it. just keeps on floating around on you. So folklore, that practice of naming ideas, concepts and strategies, and then going through all the other stuff that improves them is really and I think that’s actually where a lot of now and then kind of saying it out loud a lot of where best practices, we named best practices and then tried to escalate them on. Yeah.

Lindsay Dodd  50:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really leaned heavily on the executive team that I inherited, to help me understand what those were, you know, what were the the named pieces of the culture of the organization that we had to really embrace and which ones that we could, we could challenge. So they’ve been invaluable in that kind of 

Matt Knight  50:44

validating the different folklore

Lindsay Dodd  50:45

hundred percent. 

Matt Knight  50:48

So one of the kind of closing questions I like to ask. So what kind of book or speaker or seminar and I know we’ve heard several books from Tim already, which is awesome as the best practice junkie. But what what Book or speaker or seminar and I’ll make Tim pick one hasn’t changed the way you think about business the most.

Tim Latimer  51:08

about business. So I think Verne Harnish the Rockefeller Habits, and he consolidated it into. The second one is, you know, it’s a consolidation of all sorts of best practices. And you can kind of pick up one part of it and, and you can cherry pick out of it, the pieces that you need, and the different spaces that you need at the at the different times. I’ve never even made it all the way through because I kept on cherry picking. And it takes a bit to do all of that. But that book is phenomenal. That’s actually where the idea of the daily Modi came from. And so when he asked not escalation cascade cascade, yeah. So thanks. So I would say that, but but I would say the one book that changed because I think you’re talking about building business, but you can’t build business without building. Tim first, for example, and I’m a dumb farm boy come from the farm south here. So, you know, I came to the city at 18-19. And thought, holy smokes, I I was on a dairy farm and you worked all the time. And here I came and found I was on my way to riches because I got a job at Boston Pizza, bussing tables and Holy smokes. You they paid you every two weeks and everything you didn’t help and counsel at the farm didn’t pay you every two weeks. It was amazing. And they said you can go home and don’t have to do anything tomorrow. What’s that about, you know, sort of thing you got to know cows. Anyway. You know, I think that naive dumb farm boy had a lot of people around him that kind of tried to coach them around for about 10 years. But the one book that, you know, as I went through different transitions of Tim, the one book that became foundational was the as Steven Covey’s seven habits, and because that allowed me to build Tim. And then once I built Tim, I could start spreading out from that. But until I could build a good version of Tim, there wasn’t there so grateful for that. Stephen Covey, and all the work that he did with that use it to this very day, sort of thing is my foundational version of Tim, isn’t this terrific?

Lindsay Dodd  53:13

You know, there’s so many, that’s an unfair question. It’s really unfair, you know, after, after doing an undergrad in business, and then an MBA, you know, I was full of lots of concepts. What really stuck out to me was a book I read 25 years ago, and it was called the 22 Immutable Laws of marketing. It has kind of the title logo on the front. And the concept in that book, I said, was more valuable than all my MBA knowledge. And that is, as a successful business, you need to own the category, your company needs to become synonymous with a category. And the most valuable companies in the world are synonymous with their categories. And you can think about it as an iPhone, as a FedEx as a Kleenex, however, you want to think about it. They’re all absolutely synonymous. So part of our strategy is how do we own the financial health category? And we’re working so hard to try and figure out how do we define it? And then how do we own it so that cash flow becomes synonymous with financial health. And that was seminal to me and I’ve given maybe 200 copies of that book out to entrepreneurs, because, you know, if you want to start up a hair salon, you might be the 50th Hair Salon on your block, but you’re not special unless you own a special category. And then you will be and that’s kind of that thought about quality, right? Start with quality will start with solving a problem and then own that problem be the number one problem solver in the world. Yeah, 

Tim Latimer  54:45

I think he’s you know, its purpose before profit and absolutely, you know, that’s that quality is has got a plus. That’s the quality of it. And then, you know, if we get it right, then we’ll make some profit and stead of the other way around, where you’re asking about new businesses. Uh, sort of thing. I think in the beginning, it’s like Maslow’s hierarchy, you have to really work at being able to pay your bills, you don’t want to run out of money. It’s like playing Monopoly, you’re out of the game. But it once you get to the next level up, then you start asking yourself, you got to drop the profit piece, and you gotta go errored on purpose, and maybe from the beginning, but you gotta at least be able to pay your bills. But purpose has to be and then profit follows. And I, it, you know, that’s when you come into work, or rather to come into work or into the environment, they say, Holy smokes, this is amazing. This is different, you know, there’s an energy here that isn’t in the other place, sort of thing. And I think that’s, you know, that, that quality that you got to own that that’s that purpose. sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. Good on a minutes, that he doesn’t need me. And you could have done this interview with him and not with me. So yeah, great.

Matt Knight  55:51

Excellent. Well, I think, you know, kind of, to wrap up a couple of things that we talked about today. So a lot about the kind of that transition and the trust required on both sides going through that process, a lot about the kind of the power of purpose, and that big, hairy, audacious goal of knowing where you want to go, really having that vivid vision as well. And then that robust communication, including Lindsay’s favorite daily meetings, and then ultimately, you know, one of the other themes that came up was gratitude. And I think it’s now my turn to have gratitude and to thank both of you for for joining me today, and for sharing your time and thoughts and wisdom. So thank you very much. Awesome.

Lindsay Dodd  56:30

Thank you very much for having us.

Tim Latimer  56:32

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, sir.