Episode 271 - Colson Steber/Todd Westra

Todd Westra

Colson Steber

01:48 We have an awesome guest today and we're going to love to dive into what he's done to grow his scale, what he's up to. So we're going to dive right in. Colson, who are you and what do you do?  

02:01 My mantra is relentless, intentional action towards ten acts joy in abundance, and to experience the wonder of the world. And you just got my life's purpose. So as a leader, I'm looking to actually be a builder of a community that creates opportunities. My company delivers to the next conference to research, recruitment and data collection. And so if you're completely unfamiliar, think online surveys and in-depth interviewing for call inquiry search.  

02:40 Love it! Are these are these. I mean, what's the main problem you're solving? You're doing a call on clients, calling potential clients going wins losses, like what kind of data you collecting and for who? Who's looking for the stuff?  

02:44 So, about 40% of our business is in the agriculture sector. And it would be like if like major OEM is working on product development for a new set of operating controls on a tractor that's going to require tens of millions of dollars of investment. They would invest in research to make sure that what they're doing matches the market and we would actually be the ones to run the operations of the research and deliver that data back, engage, know and engage the audience in it.  

03:33 Cool. That's cool. Okay. So that's a that's a big play. I mean, the a lot of people discount how important the ag business is to our nation and to our economy, but it's massive. And you being from Missouri area, is that right?  

03:50 Yeah. 

03:51 So there's a lot of agriculture going on in Missouri. And isn't Caterpillar based out of there? Something like that?  

03:53 You know, I don't actually know.  

03:59 I think they might be. I think they might be. Well, that's cool. So. So you have. How long you been doing this?  

04:10 I've been doing this for this is my 12th year. My self and my business partner. But the company about seven years ago.  

04:19 Fantastic. So you started as an employee and then bought the company.  

04:23 Yes. It was my father's business.  

04:28 Right on. Okay, well, that's awesome. So, so that's a different story. That's a that's a whole different side of the picture that I didn't know coming into the interview. There's a lot of people that find themselves in that type of scenario. What was it like working for your dad and transitioning from that into, Hey, guess what? I think I see the direction I want to take this. And then making the move to have to move on that.  

04:55 That's a saga worth a long conversation over. I mean, the benefit that you gain from joining your father's business is that you get trusted to have some leeway and actually, like, find your own place in the world at a very young age. And the disadvantage is that if you have completely different ideas about what the direction of the company should be and the way in which the company should be managed. Like myself and my father, as you have, then you will have incredibly intense conflict until it gets resolved. And the best way to resolve it was in my mind for me to run the business.  

05:46 There you go. Yeah, I bet that's a good way to do it. And how to work out. Like what? What was that? How did you know though, let's take one step back. I mean, you started working for him when out of college or how did this?

05:59 Pretty much.

06:01 Okay, say, come out of college. You started working with your dad and then you're like, what made you decide to to stay with that business as opposed to going and starting something of your own and then be when you thought of the idea of of, Hey, you know what? I think I could take this and do something different with it than what my dad's ever been able to do it. Let's do this. How did that kind of trend, what was that whole process like?  

06:29 A saga. We.. I mean, we did. I. I really. And optimizer of all things, and look to what is my path of least resistance to like owning my own company. And, I had gotten a finance degree and thought that that was the path that I was going to go down. And then.. but then and joining the organization that I'm now the owner of, I was able to realize that like a business model that was in place was something that I had worked for 15 years, but it was not going to be sustainable and we were overly dependent on one largest client. And it was it was very much necessary that like evolve or die. And I had enough insane, unwarranted ego and hubris to think that I could make all of those changes, even though I was 26 years old. And so I teamed up with what had been kind of his right hand man to say, you know, we'll run through it. But those first three years essentially are the definition of entrepreneur oil, poverty, right? Like, we love it. We took on we had no money of our own, took on debt to sustain the continued business operations were in a forever battle because that largest customer was acquired from a new private equity firm the year that we took over ownership. And yeah, I mean, so and then fortunately, out of like complete and utter frustration, I had probably figured out the business model, but we were killing ourselves to do it, just working non-stop. And then at the end of 2018 decided I had to go different. And it took probably. You know, the journey of the last four years to be in a completely different place than we were then.  

08:49 Love it. Well, tell me about it. I mean, so during this journey of transition and during the journey, take it out of debt and really it sounds like almost a whole new startup at that point, because you really you lost your anchor client. You you had to kind of redefine yourself. What was your favorite part about that whole experience? And then we'll dive into a serious challenge of that whole experience. It sounds like a nightmare.  

09:17 I mean, my favorite part is that as long as you're listening, entrepreneurship is like the greatest vehicle for personal self-development that can possibly exist. And for my own self, I mean, who at my like, age and experience level has the opportunity like I get to invest so much back into my own personal growth, right? Because I essentially like where this company can go is like how much I can personally grow and then see this company become a true self-expression of like what I'm capable of.  

10:03 Love it. That's that's actually a really deep that's pretty cool. The very, very introspective of you. That is a great thing to come of it. What was the hardest part? I mean, you just rattled off like three or four big, huge hits in the face and the transition of the ownership of the company. What was the hardest challenge and what did you do to overcome it?  

10:29 I would actually also go on the introspective route and say that might the constant fight against my own ignorance. Like I just, I just have felt like I've spent far too much time peeling back layers of the onions of ways in which I can screw this up and, uh, and then realize that only in seeing my own financial outcomes at the end of the next quarter or the next next cycle that we go through, and just always having to break that to understand the current state, learn from that experience and set a new course for what actually needs to be done. I've always, particularly in those first three and a half years, I, I was very ignorant to figuring out how to get that outside help that I needed. And because I never had the resources to because I was always broke and I was just always trying to solve it myself and be the hero. And, you know, now I've stepped very much away from that. But like, you know, those are hard, hard lessons that you don't learn them, that you can choose never to learn them if you're not willing to.

12:00 Agreed. And I think that's what drives a lot of people out of business or mental or mental.. they start having a lot of other mental issues going on, emotional issues, if they don't find some some resources for that. What drove you the first in the first part of the of the acquisition, you talked about taking on some debt. I think a lot of a lot of bootstrapped startups struggle to wrap their head around. Why would I why would I bring on debt to build and grow my business? What was your decision making process look like? What did that look like when you did that?  

12:38 When I did it, it was based upon knowing that I could cashflow it. I'm still in that boat. I mean, we still have a disproportionately high debt to equity ratio. But I don't, I don't want to write. I mean, we can service and cashflow the debt and I don't want to sacrifice. Like I. I like always, I always have a lot of ideas of ways I would like to be reinvesting in growing. And part of what I now had to go through after seven years is the realization like, we can't like, we can't just only play that cycle. Like I have to have a healthy and strong business, right? And so that I can actually be in a position to keep it going because we're about almost triple the size we were when we bought it. And now, we were at that point where we can self-fund because of how free credit was in 2020. For or to double where we are now. But then like, we're going to have to be a really healthy business.  

14:08 Right. Right. Congrats dude, that's really cool. Tripling in size of a business is an exciting feat. I mean, doubling is exciting but tripling in size. Would that be due to your diversification? I mean, how much of your business now is dependent on one sole client versus, say, an industry versus, you know, you said 40% of your business right now is AG? How did you decide to to diversify? Was it clients, Was it industries? What did you look at and say, We're going to run into another problem again if we stick with this? But what did that look like?  

14:45 Mike Michalowicz Pumpkin Plan your Business, don't know if you're familiar with him as an entrepreneurial author. Yeah, he's a he's a very fun, entrepreneurial author that helped me to decide on that Ag sector as, like, such a narrow niche that we could actually target it and be like, essentially people would find us for that, right? If your question was where did we.. so now our client concentration is pretty nonexistent. Our biggest customer was 11% of our revenue last year. 

15:28 It’s safer?

15:29 Yeah, it's not. And then outside of them, no one is more than 5%. So and I think but that's also very representative of try to move myself out of being the primary new business development salesperson and actually having two salespeople in sales seats and doing a much more customer account acquisition over the past 18 months than was ever done in the entire history of the company. So those, you know, the relationships we're in should be ones that grow in value year over year, and they really shouldn't stop as long as we are appropriately providing the service delivery. The people who are investing in research continue to invest in research. So,

16:20 Right, Right. That's awesome! So as you I mean, are you are you aggressively marketing? Are you obviously sounds like where did your dad kind of run into as an owner driven sales force versus having reps in play? Or how has that evolution happened in your in your revenue operations?  

16:41 Right. My dad was I would say, as I've gotten to know a lot of other entrepreneurs, he was that quintessential small business hustler. Like, I mean, everything ran through him and he made I mean, he was the rainmaker. He was the relationship guy. Like there was-

17:07 Decision maker for everything, right?  

17:09 Yeah. And that that centralized world keeps you to a relatively limited amount of scale. And, It's not like I do any better, but I really, really, really wanted it to be different. So I have certainly worked to figure out how to lead, managed a different way to deliver on that.  

17:35 I love it. Dude, we've covered a lot of hard topics on this call. I actually love it. You've talked about, you know, acquiring a legacy family type business. You talked about bringing on debt. You've talked about challenges and losing, you know, key clients and and and challenge of diversifying. I mean, this has been a fantastic interview. Not gonna lie. I mean, what kind of what kind of advice do you give to people dealing with what those types of challenges like? Do you have someone that you look at in your immediate network that like when you hit some of those walls, you were you just kind of went through it and said, these guys inspire me. I want to talk to this person. I hear what they have to tell. Advise me, mentor me. There's some like if you'd like to give a shout out to today?

18:33 One would be, Mike, I one of my friends that helped me immensely over the last four years is a my friend Tim Petron, who is actually way finding doing some of his consulting right now, but at the time was a partner at a management consulting firm that specifically focuses on organizational health and creating safe and trusting environments within workplaces. What's helped me so much to like learn how to be the type of leader that I actually wanted to be.  

19:15 Yeah. That's awesome! That's awesome! Yeah, I noticed that your LinkedIn profile gives a healthy description of your main focuses and your main goals and objectives. As a person, your favorite quotes. It was inspiring to read through your profile and see. Now, having talked to you, I can really see that you are not only striving to be an amazing business owner and growth strategist in your company, but you're also very involved in your own personal development and and becoming a better person at the same time. That would be fair to say?  

19:55 Now, as would probably be an understatement if I if I'm in the 1% in any zone based off of everyone that I know, it's and like actually being willing to share how aggressively I work to like, optimize my own life.  

20:11 I love it. I love it. Well, it shows. And and I'm sure that your business thanks you for it because going through what you have survived through usually kills businesses. Those are business killers. And you've made it through and you've been able to to achieve a great level of success since then. Tripling the size of your business since acquisition is awesome and I wish you all the best moving forward. I really appreciate the time you spent with us today and those listening. I'm positive you've learned some great insights as to what it takes to scale goals. Where do people get a hold of you? Where can they follow you? Are you most present on LinkedIn or is there a different platform like to hang on?  

20:55 Yeah, I'm the only social I do is LinkedIn. And so, I post a few times a week..  

21:04 Awesome. Awesome. Well Colson, appreciate the time today. We will send people your way to follow you and take a look at what you've got to say and how you can advise them. And we appreciate you taking the time.  

21:16 Yeah. Thank you.