Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Kris Bishop — The folly of prejudgment, enjoying the chaos, and the unsung power of intuitive decision-making | Episode 21
2 Playsin 14 hours
Welcome to episode twenty-one of Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief! Joining me today is Kris Bishop, CEO of FIntegrate.
On this show, I’m unpacking the stories, decisions, and influences that make people successful leaders.
Kris grew up on a farm in Mississippi, working from “can to can’t” as his father would say. Although he fully absorbed the relentless work ethic of his family, Kris knew his destiny wasn’t going to be at the wheel of a tractor or on an assembly line. His affinity for technology is what eventually got him into the world of banking.
My name is Nathan Baumeister; I am the Co-founder and CEO of ZSuite Tech and the host of this podcast.
As you’ll see, like some of our other guests, Kris has been involved in pivotal moments in banking technology, ushering banks and credit unions through digital transformations from the days of DOS to the era of the cloud. And however technical and difficult the work gets, it just elevates the enjoyment Kris feels in tackling the challenge.
But over and over again Kris discovered that some of his biggest learning curves didn’t happen with migrating data centers but with navigating the intricacies of people leadership.
FIntegrate is a company build around serving institutions that are undergoing huge transitions, such as mergers, acquisitions, or simply digitizing their back office. It’s a niche that Kris and his team have worked hard to perfect.
Whatever high-tech domain that Kris is working in, he never loses the qualities that have helped him along the way, like thinking the best of people and being willing to admit mistakes and ask for forgiveness.
Resources:
Kris’ book recommendations:
The Noticer by Andy Andrews
The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni
Connect:
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
<unk>ve I've said I've made a lot of money with exuberant ignorance. Because I'm just excited, but I didn't know any better. So I jump off in there and then it's like, all right, well, this wasn't what I thought. But you know we got a lot of smart people around us.
00:00:13
Speaker
I know a lot of people and we can figure this out. And I think if you go into it with with honesty and say, listen, that we can do this. I don't know how yet, but I'm confident we can. um And you've got the the background and the the trust of the client to say, okay, I believe in you. i don't understand it, but I believe in you.
Introduction to 'Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief'
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi, my name is Nathan Baumeister, and you're listening to Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief, a podcast where executives from the world of finance and technology share the story of how they got where they are and the decisions that made them who they are.
00:00:48
Speaker
I'm looking for hidden moments of truth and sacrifice, wisdom and folly, and what it's like to navigate the treacherous waters at the helm of a growing company. I want to do all that so that together we can learn from their journey and use that insight personally and professionally.
Chris Bishop's Early Life and Work Ethic
00:01:05
Speaker
In episode 21, my guest is Chris Bishop, CEO of Phinegrate Technology, a provider of operations and process solutions to help financial institutions automate and simplify collections, data recovery, and transaction disputes.
00:01:19
Speaker
Growing up on a farm in rural Mississippi, Chris Bishop gained a strong work ethic and the firm determination that he did not want to spend his life on a tractor or in a factory.
00:01:31
Speaker
But he couldn't have guessed how much time he would spend on server farms wrestling data instead of livestock. What Chris discovered instead was a passion for serving clients, pursuing his own curiosity, and doubling down on his core competencies.
00:01:46
Speaker
In fact, Chris exemplifies what the author Jim Collins might call a hedgehog concept for a career. Spinning up data in IT t companies comes as naturally to him as it does for a hedgehog to curl up into a ball and send predators packing.
00:02:01
Speaker
For some people, that would mean that they never grew past the limited set of skills and competencies.
Journey through Technology Sector
00:02:07
Speaker
That's not Chris Bishop. His relentless work ethic and passion for helping financial institutions has led him to work at some of the industry's best companies, managing pivotal technologies like check imaging, disaster recovery, and complex data integrations for mergers and acquisitions.
00:02:24
Speaker
He's also taken his fair share of Knox as a people leader. The wisdom that Chris brings to episode 21 of Builder, Banker, Hacker Chief is born from a rich, lived experience, whether that's selling vacuum cleaners to gun-toting old ladies or unplugging printers to help shepherd an organization into a complete digital transformation.
00:02:44
Speaker
So prime your mental vacuum cleaner and get ready to collect all the lessons that Chris Bishop is about to lay down.
00:02:55
Speaker
Well, Chris, I can't tell you how excited I am to have you on Builder, Banker, Hacker Chief. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Nathan, for having me You know, it's been such a pleasure over the many years that both of us have been working in this industry to get to know you and ah excited to be able to capture some of the stories that you've shared with me as well as uncovering other ones that have helped you to become the the leader that you are.
00:03:15
Speaker
As you think about who you are today, I'm sure you could think back of growing up and how that has influenced you to become who you are.
00:03:27
Speaker
And I'm curious, as you look at those things, are there any specific times in your life that really stand out that helped shape the leader that you are today?
Lessons from Selling Door-to-Door
00:03:35
Speaker
I was raised on a farm in Mississippi, so hard work was always but was never an option, right? Like from from start to finish, as my dad to say, from can to can.
00:03:45
Speaker
You just get up and you do what needs to be done until it doesn't need to be done anymore. um But a couple of things a couple of things that that have always stuck with me was, I guess, and this proved out later in life to be very valuable, is is don't prejudge anybody, any situation or or anything.
00:04:04
Speaker
I remember we went to an equipment auction once in like Blytheville, Arkansas for farm equipment. And this old gentleman gets out of this little dumpy truck and is is out there bidding on like a, i don't know, two, three hundred, four thousand dollar piece of equipment.
00:04:22
Speaker
And I remember asking my dad, i was like, you know, how's that old man and in these dirty overalls, you know, getting of that little dumpy truck going do you think he's going to buy this equipment? Like, that's crazy. And um I was quickly educated not to prejudge because that guy could have had more money than anybody in the county.
00:04:41
Speaker
And he ended up buying the piece of equipment. And from what I understand and what what I remember, paid cash for it that day out of that little dumpy truck. And so that that always stuck with me. I remember on the drive home, my dad and talking about, you know, just don't prejudge. That guy looks one way, but you don't know his story. You don't what he's going through, what he's been through or anything about him. So never prejudge.
00:05:04
Speaker
And um I think later on in life, when I was at my first job, where was making you real money and but in in Birmingham in college was selling bagging cleaners. yeah right door to door. and um They were expensive to me. i mean They were $2,000, $3,000 vacuum cleaners. are What type of vacuum cleaner? We got to know.
00:05:22
Speaker
They were Electrolux. Nothing's better. Electrolux. Great. Electrolux. My motto was nothing sucks like Electrolux.
00:05:31
Speaker
So the best vacuums on the market. And you have to believe that even in today's, like see if you sell something, right, you've got to be a champion of that product. and And I firmly believe that that's that's the best one on the market. ah But, you know, you didn't have to go to the richest house in town. In fact, I made tons of money selling 50 and 60 of these units a month.
00:05:50
Speaker
going to outside of town, to the small communities, to the, you the places that everybody else thought couldn't afford a vacuum, didn't want a vacuum or something like that. But, you know, I learned very quickly not to prejudge this those situations either.
00:06:04
Speaker
So I think that that early lesson really, and and the hard work, the virtue of hard work, just has stuck with me and something I've always done. Yeah, I love that. it um One of the One of the things that someone shared with me a long time ago that's always stuck with me is that curiosity and judgment cannot exist in the same place.
00:06:22
Speaker
So when you prejudge someone, you're not curious about them, right? You've already made up your mind about who they are, what they could teach you, what they might be able to help you with or whatever it might be. And so you're shut off. I love that.
00:06:36
Speaker
But if you take back that judgment, then you can be curious about it. And ah you know I think that that goes to both of both of what you just showed there. i think yeah I think you can learn something from everybody, whether they're two-year-old or a hundred years old, especially the older they get in life.
00:06:51
Speaker
And I always try to, mean, my daughter taught me so much in the last two years, right? Aside from growing up and how to raise a child, but I learned a lot then too. But just learning from her and today's culture and what she does, I think you can learn from anybody.
Influence of Farming and Sales on Entrepreneurship
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. yeah Another thing I'd just like to get some of your thoughts on is the amount of entrepreneurs specifically ah who grew up doing some aspect of farming or ranching and or did door-to-door sales have been hugely influential. Now, you did both. So I would just love to hear some of the some of the lessons or the stories that you had within either of those realms that really helped maybe show why it is that this common experience set ah breeds entrepreneurs like yourself.
00:07:45
Speaker
I've never thought about both of those and their impact or how many entrepreneurs have done that. I would tell you that in my experience, you know, farming and and ranching is just hard work.
00:07:56
Speaker
And, you know, you can't put in the work. i mean If you don't put in the work, you're not going to reap anything, any of the rewards. Right. So and and there's there's animals, there's crops that that just depend on you. Right.
00:08:08
Speaker
So if you don't do it, they will not survive. And then when they don't survive, you don't survive, ah you know, metaphorically speaking there. And and so it's just the virtue of hard work. There's not an option.
00:08:21
Speaker
it It is from the beginning to the end, wherever that might be. And and rarely on a farm or ranch is that end of five o'clock. Right. and And it's always seven days a week. um The vacuum cleaner, and I learned a lot of lessons from from farming and and that type of stuff, um mainly that I did not want to be a farmer my entire life.
00:08:38
Speaker
ah That's fair. but ah But it it served our family well over the years. I'm not taking away from that. Yeah. The door-to-door sales, i think, hardens your character.
00:08:50
Speaker
It was for me because it's not personal. you know The no you get at the door, it's not personal. It's just like, go to the next one, go the next one, keep it up because I had to eat.
00:09:00
Speaker
right my My livelihood depended on own me doing what I needed to do there. And, um, and I did it long enough where i learned my, my quota, if you will, or or my, the number of doors I had to knock on to get into, to do demos and the number of demos I had to do to create a sale, um,
00:09:22
Speaker
So I think that really taught me character coupled with the hard work I learned from the from the farm is, you know, the the whole don't prejudge and just work hard every day. But when they slam the door in your face or when they pull a gun on you or, you know, you get into someone's house that, you know, maybe is older or has some mental challenges, you know, don't take advantage of them either. Yeah.
00:09:43
Speaker
either Right. So there's things that, uh, that it's different nowadays. don't think anybody can make a living nowadays going to door to door and sale just because of our, our, our environment. But, um, but that worked really well in the, in the mid nineties.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah. What's the, uh, what's one of the craziest door to door sales stories? I know you have them. Yeah. Um, I remember a lady in a very nice house. Well, two tea things, I guess it always amazed me. I could pull up to a trailer on a 500 acre farm in North Alabama and she would buy $20,000 worth of product and write you write a check for it.
00:10:22
Speaker
Right. So again, don't prejudge. I can take you to that lady's house today. She bought one for, for herself and in one for each of her daughters. right that that is amazing And that was all on ah and a simple call that nobody else wanted to take because of where it was. And they said, well, I've been to her trailer before.
00:10:38
Speaker
you know Don't prejudge anybody. well The other one was you go to a big house in the best part of town, very expensive, million-dollar mansion, and they can't afford it. You know, they want it.
00:10:50
Speaker
Their two housekeepers say they need it. And, um you know, the two doctors can't afford it. yeah So, again, it goes back to the prejudges. It's never what it seems on the surface.
00:11:02
Speaker
And... um ah And then I had ah an older lady one time that that went to pay, and she's going through her purse, and she pulls out a gun and a piece of cheese. Did you say a piece of cheese? She pulls out a piece of, like, belvita cheese and says, well, will you take either one of these?
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah. And, um, ultimately we went back, we we called, we found her son. We kind of said, Hey, mom might need, you know, some, some more help than you guys are giving. And I didn't know her from, from Adam, but, um, sweet lady. yeah And just those kinds of memories. I made great friends in college by people that would help you understand what were the plight you're in. People had been where I was probably.
00:11:44
Speaker
you know, they'd invite you in for dinner, right? You would see them out at the store in town and they would speak to you. Um, so lots of good memories, lots of good stories. a lot of some I can't share too from, from that, that time period.
00:11:57
Speaker
I'm sure. I'm sure it's a, it's definitely a different life going door to door. And when you work with the public, right. Whether you're working in a store serving the public every day, i mean, people are just weird and and you're going to meet, if you meet enough of them you' you're going to meet some, some characters.
00:12:13
Speaker
Yeah. Well, as as you think about ah having done farming, door-to-door sales, you mentioned that you were doing that in college. You also mentioned that you knew for sure you didn't want to do farming.
00:12:25
Speaker
As you went to college and you started thinking about what you actually wanted to do for a living, what did you end up with and why?
Passion for Computer Science and Problem-Solving
00:12:34
Speaker
So honestly, I had no clue. like I knew I didn't want to stay in Mississippi. I followed my best friend and roommate to to college here in Birmingham and these these cool things called computers at the time, which I think we had like two of them in my entire high school when I graduated.
00:12:49
Speaker
So um I just wanted to go somewhere and do something else. And I think the good Lord led me into down the path of just... wherever we ended up, right? And so that that led into a degree in computer science. And and I learned that i I'm not a developer by any means, but I have a, I do enjoy the the data design, the database side, the kind of geeking out on um um the design and the and the data flow. And I've built on that over the years and my passion for solving problems or just helping people fix things that maybe nobody else wants to fix or hasn't fixed.
00:13:25
Speaker
um And that's kind of what led me to to where I am. Yeah. So what was the, so you got your degree in computer science. Developer wasn't necessarily the route, but you did like understanding database design and knew that you wanted to solve problems. So how did you step into that world?
00:13:45
Speaker
So I also had the entrepreneur always like it just wanted more. Like i'm I'm very happy where I am, but I always just knew I wanted more. I enjoy the the chaos, I guess, of the unknown and and wanting more. and And that sounds bad, probably you' wanting more, but, you know, just warning um wanting something new and different and and more.
00:14:05
Speaker
um So I took a job out of ah the first job that was offered to me was actually with a company. but doing PLC logic programming for a company that cuts trees, a logging company.
00:14:18
Speaker
And that that didn't... For those folks that are listening, what is PLC logic? ah Programming control language. So some of the older automation, if you will, that that run the saws and did things automatically with with precursor to maybe robots type thing.
00:14:33
Speaker
um And that that didn't excite me. So then I took a job with a company in in Dallas called BankTech. And that was my entrance into banking
Banking Technology and Career Transitions
00:14:43
Speaker
and fintech. And it was kind of electromechanical servicing the payment systems for companies like South Central Bay at the time, which became Bell South, but also a lot of the banks in our area servicing their payment system. So again, I didn't really like and didn't have a knack for the electromechanical piece of it. I'm not really good with my hands. I always say I can't build a box, right? But I can tell you to program a bank.
00:15:10
Speaker
ah to make their item processing post to to the Fed. We don't always get to choose the things that we're good at. Some people are blessed with aptitude in multiple areas and live for the variety of life and work.
00:15:23
Speaker
Others discover a niche they can thrive in and develop deep expertise. Chris found a massive opportunity in a domain of banking that is vitally important, but easily overlooked.
00:15:35
Speaker
That's part of what has enabled his continued success. He's not afraid to work hard at solving problems that leave most bankers pulling their hair out. It takes a rare blend of technical skill and organizational know-how to achieve what Chris has. And he got there by serving others first.
00:15:55
Speaker
So I realized that working through bank tech and traveling with them that I um ah did enjoy the computer science side of it, the fixing the problem and and the payment flow and kind of adjusting the the workflow of of how to help them become more more efficient in their daily operations.
00:16:11
Speaker
And that just led me to less mechanical and more programming and more automation, more computer stuff. Yeah. Now, one of the things that I love from what you just shared is is it sounded like you joined a company, you started a job, realized fairly early on that wasn't for you, and you made the decision to leave, um to to go find something else.
00:16:33
Speaker
I think there's a lot of people who like, or they end up going down one path and they kind of feel like they just need to stay there and give it enough time to decide whether or not, you know, is it really something I like or don't like?
00:16:46
Speaker
So i just love to hear kind of how you balance those two out and maybe share a little bit more about that story of how you knew it's like, yeah, I'm going to pull the trigger. i definitely need to go somewhere else. It goes back to the, I guess, the way I was raised, right? I knew I had to do what I had to do farming or helping my dad and his mechanic shop and working, pulling wrenches, but I didn't like it.
00:17:06
Speaker
I didn't want to do that. And so I think when i when I took a job and it didn't have that fulfillment, that excitement of of this is cool. I want to do this more. I want to figure out a better way. I want to help whoever owns this business do more, better, faster.
00:17:21
Speaker
If it didn't have that for me, Um, I just pulled the trigger and left quickly because I didn't want to be stuck in a job that, that I didn't like. I didn't want ah to be like, I know i have a lot of family that grew up working in factories, uh, furniture factories in North Mississippi, and and they serve our community well.
00:17:37
Speaker
They provide a lot of jobs for a lot of people, but it wasn't for me. And I just knew I didn't want to be that guy that, you know, they, they tell you what time to show up, what time to take a break, what time to eat lunch, what time to go home.
00:17:47
Speaker
And you do the same thing over and over again. And so I learned early on, it's okay to, If it's not you, not for you to leave quickly. And I try to teach that to the kids. and And my daughter today is like, honey, it's okay that you're not going to have the one job forever.
00:18:02
Speaker
Even though my my first job, I remember telling the the guy that interviewed me, like, I want your job. I think I can retire here. and Some of the dumbest statements ever made. But, um you know, it's okay to change jobs because just be passionate.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Be passionate. Be willing to follow your curiosity. i think there's a lot of talk these days about setting boundaries. I think this is part of that as well. Be willing to understand what boundaries you have. What is it that you want to do? What is it that you don't want to do?
00:18:28
Speaker
Be willing to have the courage to say, okay, this isn't for me. i know that there I know I can find something that is for me. Yeah. I mean, how depressing in in my mind would it be to get up every day and do something that you hated?
Challenges of Entrepreneurship
00:18:41
Speaker
Because you can't look forward to a Friday afternoon being off because you're just miserable thinking about Monday, right? Like you're just going to be there so quickly.
00:18:49
Speaker
and And like if you can't be excited about your your work and your life and your your friends and what you're doing, and i just think that's that's just non-existence that I would ever understand.
00:19:00
Speaker
I'm not trying to put people down that do it because there's a lot of people that have jobs and love them and live for the weekends and don't want the responsibility of an entrepreneur, right? Because you can never turn it off. That's the other side of that, right?
00:19:10
Speaker
is Is the excitement and all that. You can never turn it off 24-7 and it's always your problem, right? Even though you have a staff of great people, in my mind, it's always my problem. How can I fix it? How can I serve them better? What did my guys do? What can I teach different? So, you know, there's trade-offs. There's a lot to be said about for going home at five o'clock too, right? And just turning it off.
00:19:30
Speaker
Ha ha. Yeah, that's different different different mindsets, right? I think it ties a little bit to what you said from farming or ranching. It's like you learned and you felt you found out that you're comfortable with kind of having that pressure. If I don't do this, I don't eat.
00:19:43
Speaker
um And then when you start businesses, it's if I don't do this, not only do I not eat, but none of the people that work with me either. ah But it sounds like you were able to understand that that was that was the type of pressure that you were, one, able to thrive in, and two, that you're okay with it.
00:20:01
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And I love the fact that we can build a team here. A lot of my my guys, we've been together. i say my guys, but they've been together for the last you know two or three companies that I've had. And I love the fact that that you could go back to the support, to implementations, to development and say, what's your job? Ultimately, what's your job here? And they would always say to support sales.
00:20:20
Speaker
Right. Because they understood it's, you know, without sales, nothing happens. But conversely, the sales guys knew their quota wasn't for them. It was for us. It was for everyone. And if you don't do your job, make your quota, you know, do it ethically, do it right.
00:20:36
Speaker
um Then somebody behind us back here in operations and sales that's helped us so much is going to be without a job, can be without a car, without a mortgage. So that's that's a heavy weight I placed on our sales team to. Try to make them understand, you we're team and it does take all of us. Sales is not more important than development or implementations and can't have implementations without sales.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. And so on and so forth. It's a complex system that all thrives on each other. That's right. So you ended up in bank tech. I think many of us in this industry kind of have a similar story that we kind of fell into it.
Innovation in Fintech and Business Creation
00:21:10
Speaker
um You started learning about banks and how those come together. ah Tell me a little bit about how this transitioned to your to your first business. like wheres Where is it that you actually took that first step from ah from a job in bank tech to starting your own company?
00:21:27
Speaker
so the the The folks at Bank Check tried to kill me, I think, or I tried to kill myself, one of the two. Well, hopefully not with a piece of cheese and no and a gun. And a gun. I should have took her purse.
00:21:38
Speaker
ah um So I was just working so much. My health was was going down, blood pressure was going up, the stress of that job. um And again, I'm 21 probably at the time.
00:21:49
Speaker
Not old enough to actually rent a car everywhere they sent me to work. I remember that. So um you know I left that company to go to work and I'm for a company called Document Solutions that here in Birmingham that created the first check image system.
00:22:01
Speaker
and And that was all about the software. right It was all about, we were the first to actually do imaging, check imaging, working with IBM and NCR and and the cameras. and And I just fell in love with that and and loved working with that.
00:22:15
Speaker
And it also allowed me to serve the customers and put in new stuff that really impacted their operations. I remember teaching some of the older staff at banks who had literally been there longer than I'd been alive ah to to to scan signature cards.
00:22:30
Speaker
ah You put them on the flatbed scanner, you hit the button and boom, it shows up on the screen way over here. and And they were just amazed that that paper could get from here to their monitor and you know i So I enjoyed that aspect of teaching and and helping the the banks to grow there. um We created it department for disaster recovery within that company and ultimately um created my own business with disaster recovery out in Dallas that that partnered with the company I was working for to serve all of our West Coast customers. And that was really my
00:23:02
Speaker
my first big foray. Before that, I'd had, you know, some computer repair ah side hustles, if you will, back before a side hustle was a thing where you're working all weekend building computers and parts and memory from older stuff and then selling it at the flea market and, you know, just doing the hustle to, again, what I enjoyed, both selling and and building and computers and stuff. And so um that's kind of the the first foray into it.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. And i there's got to be some really interesting leadership lessons and also just entrepreneurship lessons in this. like It seems like a very interesting situation.
00:23:41
Speaker
ah A department was created in your company to do disaster recovery. And you're like, while working there, you also kind of started your own business to be able to help them with the disaster recovery. ah sounds like That sounds pretty complex, and it sounds like there might have been some some folks that were like, hey, is a good idea? Is this a bad idea? I would just love to hear a little bit about that specific story and maybe some of the lessons that that you shared on maybe what what what you did well, what maybe didn't go as well as you wanted it to, and trying to do that intrapreneurship aspect.
00:24:11
Speaker
Intrapreneurship, like that. So um but we grew the the disaster recovery within our own customer base, right? providing services for these banks and credit unions that was running that system.
00:24:22
Speaker
And our president, the company at the time, said we need, you know, me telling him if we're going to right for our contracts, we've got to have something further towards the left coast so that we can have the bank be there within 24 hours. That was our contractual commitment to our customers, right? as we We'll be within 24 hours. We'll have you up and going.
00:24:38
Speaker
And you couldn't always do that flying from Oregon to Birmingham. Right. And then flying your checks there every day. It wasn't digital. It's paper checks. So we had to bag and drag from wherever they were, from all their branches, fly them to Birmingham process them.
00:24:53
Speaker
That wasn't the main goal of the company. Their their goal was selling check images and and so image statements and systems. So the president said, though I present him a business case. And I think his his comments was like, you know, we we don't have the time resource. We don't really don't want to be in that business completely. Just go find somebody to partner with.
00:25:09
Speaker
And so, and and looking around, i was like, well, nobody knows the business better than us. I said, would you mind if I went out there and we did something? And he's like, just make it happen. It satisfied my geeky side of being able to do some cool stuff that nobody else could do.
00:25:23
Speaker
Well, it satisfied my business side too, of being able to to put this in, serve the customers, have them come down and run their DR tests. and And I loved everything about it. I mean, I just, I could do that day and night because it was just fun.
00:25:35
Speaker
It was servicing customers. And I knew nobody else was doing it.
00:25:40
Speaker
You could be forgiven for being skeptical that Chris Bishop loves his work as much as he says he does. Chris is not the sort of person who found a job that he could tolerate and is running the clock out for retirement.
00:25:52
Speaker
His passion and enthusiasm is infectious and deeply genuine. He has purpose and fulfillment in his work. Chris followed his curiosity until he found a vein of banking technology that he could keep chipping away at for the rest of his career.
00:26:07
Speaker
That kind of focus is what allows leaders to innovate in areas where lesser mortals fear to tread.
00:26:18
Speaker
that That company that I worked for didn't really take the path that me and my infinite knowledge thought they should have taken at the time, so I left. and um and And so I still had my own business then, and then I was doing consulting, setting up data centers, disaster recovery centers for this other company, and that was really kind of the first foray into truly you know but fintech company.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah. I love that the the the president at the company, that ah it seemed like he understood what the company's main thing was, which was check imaging, not disaster recovery.
00:26:57
Speaker
And then he also recognized that there was someone in you... that he could say something like, just go figure it out. If it ends up you have to create your own business or not, it's like, whatever, like go do it. I trust you.
00:27:08
Speaker
um Go figure it out. And I think that that level of understanding of both not something to invest in for themselves, but then also being able to have that trust and being able to give that challenge to to someone um is a really cool story in and of itself.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think so. And I think his wisdom to say, this is not our core business, right? So let's not take our focus. up We have to provide this service to our customers, um, regulatorily or just from a customer service standpoint.
00:27:38
Speaker
Um, but it's not our core business. I think that was the business lesson I learned there. Um, I think from him, he was, he was a good, good manager. Yeah. the The level of curiosity that you had as well in trying to figure out how to solve these complex issues um in a way that's cost effective um is really fun to hear as well. And I mean, so far, you're on the forefront of check processing. You're on the forefront of DR ah for small ah community banks and credit unions.
00:28:09
Speaker
I mean, that's that's that's pretty cool that you're you're right there in that and doing some of the first things in both of those spaces, which obviously are huge
Acquisition by Jack Henry & Associates
00:28:18
Speaker
now. So now you have your own business.
00:28:20
Speaker
You're in the DR space. as Some other folks are like, hey, this partitioning of these databases across different financial institutions, interesting. I mean, what's what's next for you? What happens then?
00:28:33
Speaker
So we we started... um a business when I was putting these data centers or disaster recovery centers together, working with kind of some of the same banks and credit unions um that that ran the image system,
00:28:46
Speaker
we realized they didn't have a backup. They they couldn't backup these large glass platters that they were posting to. so back and So today everything gets archived off to a hard drive. We've got lots of disk space everywhere. It's it's just almost free and it's cheap. So just dump any kind of data you want to out there.
00:29:00
Speaker
Well, back in the day, you know you had to post it somewhere that was not nearly as cheap as disk space is today. So we archived it ah either to tape for a backup, but it had to be a retrievable archive. So a lot of the banks and credit unions would archive to platters, so a magneto optical platter.
00:29:17
Speaker
and um the company had no way to back up those platters and you couldn't make a duplicate of that platter. So I created a product with the developers. I didn't create it. they They wrote the product. I just had the ideas and kind of thought it would work that,
00:29:33
Speaker
would read data off of these platters, recompile the ones and zeros back to images and then repost. Now we come further, we repost to an optical, another optical platter duplicating the original or drive disk space was cheaper. Now we could post to hard drive.
00:29:49
Speaker
and then point the system to the hard drive to retrieve the check images and statements. So we um had a about 500 or 600 customers at that time that were using us to convert data off of these platters or to duplicate these platters so they'd have a backup. And if you dropped a big glass platter, you can imagine what's going to happen, right?
00:30:09
Speaker
Or they get they get scratched or... Something along the way, they just don't don't work. um So we we grew that business and and but it was acquired by Jack Henry & Associates in the early 2000s.
00:30:24
Speaker
And um that was really you know a game changer for me, understanding that, hey, we can build something here, we can serve customers, but then some of the other bigger players recognize what we're doing.
00:30:37
Speaker
you know, that and, and want it. And so my former company actually, um, made an offer as well. And, uh, we ended up going with Jack Henry and associates, which I'm glad I did.
00:30:48
Speaker
Um, I was going to be there six months. I think I was there almost seven years. Right. Uh, again, because they, they did such a good job. Um, i mean, Jack Henry, Mike Henry, Tony Wormington, the whole group there, um in keeping things interesting and honest and just working hard and having fun.
00:31:07
Speaker
and serving their customers and their and their shareholders. So that was my first public company, that first public company, but the one that I had some chart in charge of some things there. And I really enjoyed learning, watching and working from the people that that I worked with They probably didn't like it as much as I did because seemed like we were always butting heads, but I guess that's my way of learning and challenging the status quo and saying, why, why? Like a two-year-old every time we turn around, right? But you you don't,
00:31:33
Speaker
I remember Jack Henry telling me one time that it was his name on the plane. you know, he could do what he wanted to. That was the answer. That was the why. That was the why. i love it. But, you know, you look back and you realize those guys, um they were masters and in banking and fintech and early days.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, when it's it's interesting to me. ah i ah i relate personally to your story as well, because I've always wanted to do entrepreneurship. And then I joined a company and thought I'd be there for a year or two, ended up there for 11 years.
00:32:03
Speaker
um But I'm curious from you, like what was it that The company at Jack Henry did, and maybe you can have some specific individual stories, that was able to keep an entrepreneur like yourself, someone who's so curious, someone who always wants to be inventing and trying new things and trying to solve problems and stuff like that, engaged that you were there ah contributing to grow their company for seven years.
00:32:26
Speaker
I think they gave me a chance to see how big public companies operate. We were growing, but also the, the input, they, they really valued the input of but what we were doing. The, you could challenge them. I'm, I'm always one that, again, ask why, but maybe not in the nicest of ways sometimes.
00:32:44
Speaker
And that could be a little, little abrasive, but they could be very abrasive back and, and, And they didn't take it personally when we kind of went heads up and we both learned from each other. I think I certainly learned more from them and than they did from me.
00:32:58
Speaker
But, um you know, that we kept our entrepreneurs around. I think we did in those seven years, maybe 15, 18 acquisitions. acquisitions And it was always interesting. There was a new challenge. We're going to come, we're looking to acquire, we we need to acquire something in this, this realm. We have a need over here, need over there. Well, I met this guy that owns a company and they, they kind of do something like that.
00:33:20
Speaker
Well, then the you know CEO and the president will establish a team to go out there. And and I'm just tagging along. Sometimes I get to learn what they're looking for from an acquisition, from a business acquisition standpoint, what's important to their business.
Leadership and Empathy Lessons
00:33:31
Speaker
And, and, um,
00:33:32
Speaker
you know, their focus was, was always on the people, right? Not just the product or just their customers, but how's the people going to fit into our company? Because those are the guys we got to work with. And, um, back then they did a good job in keeping the founders around for, you know, three, four or five years after the acquisition, which I think spoke a lot to their business philosophy and kind of how they treated people.
00:33:56
Speaker
Um, certainly that's why I was there because every day there was a new challenge, um, uh, They had great resources, but there was also great challenges and and great opportunities, new products, new services to change ah changed the world for for banking.
00:34:09
Speaker
I look at some of the guys that are there today and, you know, and I'm like, yeah, you're you're in a good position. you can You can change the world, you know, the world of banking and make it better for everybody. Yeah. Well, two follow-up i have questions I have and what you just shared there.
00:34:22
Speaker
The first one is I would love to hear a little bit more about your evolution of ah challenging. So you said now lots of times there, Jack Henry, maybe butt heads a little bit more than you otherwise wanted to, but they were willing to jump right back in ah As you have developed as a leader over the years,
00:34:42
Speaker
Do you look back at that time and you're like, oh, I probably, you know, here's a couple things I, you know, I do differently now based off of that in that communication? Because I think it is people who desire to be leaders oftentimes have very strong opinions.
00:34:56
Speaker
And figuring out the best way how to gain advocacy, whether you're in the leadership chair or not in the formal leadership chair, ah is oftentimes difficult. So I would just love to hear a little bit about that journey in your interpersonal communication.
00:35:11
Speaker
So certainly made lots of mistakes. Lots of them come to mind right now that are not only embarrassing, but, you know, you should have done better. that you know The good thing about having a management team that ah with thick skin um is they can yell back at you. It's not personal. It's like, let's figure this out ah together.
00:35:30
Speaker
Um, but conversely, a lot of times with people that work for you or work with you in other roles, maybe don't have that same personality. They don't have the thick skin. Um, you know, you, you can't go in there pounding your fist and yelling, uh, because you're upset.
00:35:46
Speaker
You have to come in with more, more empathy and listening to get your story across there. So, um, you know, I, I would, I would have done some things differently. Um,
00:35:58
Speaker
Other things, like you said, it's just because of my passion and and that maybe their lack of understanding or or my perception of their lack of understanding at the time, um you know, was where my passion came through. And and um I'm the kind that we can go heads up, have a stern discussion or even a fight. And then, you know, 20 minutes later, I'm over it and let's let's go out and have lunch and and continue to figure out our problems. And I realized, I should have realized early on, not everybody's like that.
00:36:26
Speaker
There are multiple solutions to the same problem. And um yours is not necessarily wrong.
00:36:33
Speaker
I love the way that Chris's intuition and expertise comes together in his leadership style. He clearly cares passionately about the clients, his employees, his colleagues, and the work.
00:36:45
Speaker
so much so that it can come off abrasive or intense. That's not to say that intensity and passion are wrong. Those qualities can help you maintain your focus and purpose as a leader, especially when other people are challenging your vision.
00:37:00
Speaker
The goal is to learn how to listen deeply and entertain the idea that your solution isn't the only viable path. Oh, and do your best to not take the intensity or conflict personally.
00:37:12
Speaker
Your team will thank you.
00:37:15
Speaker
Can you think of a time when you really internalized that and figured out how to step into that empathy a little bit more? Yeah. Um, but there was a a lady that had worked for me for probably five or six, seven years.
00:37:30
Speaker
So proud of her. She, she was an amazing, uh, person and in her job. And, um, in a particular all hands meeting, probably in front of a hundred employees, I kind of called her out in, in a not so sensitive way and on something that had happened. I don't remember what had happened, honestly, or why, um,
00:37:49
Speaker
But I remember after the fact, the discussion we had was, you know, she was in tears. And in in my response was, I did not mean it like that. Like, I thought we were communicating.
00:38:01
Speaker
I had an issue. You know, I wanted to communicate my complete dissatisfaction. ah What I should have done was taking it offline, not in front of the group, and and approached it differently.
00:38:12
Speaker
You know, she's she's not me with my personality, and and I should have listened and and kind of approached it differently. So I can think of several of those and, you know, they're not they're not fun to remember, but they um yeah they they were the lesson that that I learned. So, yes. Yeah, no it's important. Well, ah you know, as someone who has had to work on this as well, I always tell people the reason I've worked on my communication skills, I was tired of just making people angry at me.
00:38:37
Speaker
ah ah It's like, I don't, I'm not someone who wants people to be mad at me, but somehow the way I'm talking to them, they keep getting mad at me. So I need to figure out a better way. Well, I'm glad you understand it. That's perfect. That's me right there. like ah that way I'm not yelling at you. Yes, you are. This is not my... I'm good with customers.
00:38:57
Speaker
yeah both thank you for Thank you for sharing that. i think it's a I mean, it's a real story that I think lots of people have to go through. And unfortunately, sometimes it is seeing someone that you care about hurt that helps to wake you up that, oh, hey, maybe there's a better way. Maybe there's a different way to approach that.
00:39:15
Speaker
An example, too of what I've learned maybe a different way was had some staff that would show up at the office once a month for for my meeting there, and they're very paper process driven, right? Everything, ah write it down, I put it on paper, I pass it over to your desk, you pick up the paper, you sign it, you add more paper to it and you pass it over to the third desk.
00:39:34
Speaker
And then they do what they got to do with it at the end of the day, we sell a piece of hardware. Right. That drives me nuts. I put together a process with SharePoint to where it's like all electronic. You know, a call comes in you fill out this form online, hit the button, it goes to the next guy. He does what he needs to do to configure the hardware, purchase it, price or price it, person hits the button to go the third guy who puts the proposal together to send in the customer.
00:39:55
Speaker
Right. And it's all automated. They refuse to use this system, this process. And like, so um I didn't yell at anybody. I um i was just flustered. I probably yelled, but I was in a different office in different states, so they couldn't hear me.
00:40:07
Speaker
But one day I showed up at work, I went in and I unplugged all their printers. And I instructed our our IT staff whenever they call, don't answer, because they're going to call us so their printers are not working. And um I went to my office set quietly and I listened to printers banging and, and which turned into louder noise and then people banging and then they walked to my door I'm like, yeah, you know, like I've been telling you for a month now, we're not printing paper.
00:40:33
Speaker
Because I can't see the paper in Birmingham. I need to know and get access to this information. You're going to follow this process, right? You're going to follow this process. We can improve the process. We can change the process, but we're going to do this electronically.
00:40:46
Speaker
And um so, The next time I showed up at that office, I don't think I had breakfast ready. I think the the door was locked to my office, which I never had a key to. you know So they got a little bit of retaliation there.
00:40:58
Speaker
But if you fast forward probably five or six years after I left the company, I remember getting an email from from a lady there one day said, thank you for making us do something outside of our comfort zone.
00:41:10
Speaker
Because if you didn't do that then, I couldn't have had my job now in the in the environment we work in today at this company. yeah I'm like, okay, that's awesome. Yeah.
00:41:21
Speaker
Sometimes a dramatic show, ah you probably would have never thought that I'd say anything that you do is theatrical, but that's pretty theatrical. It's pretty dramatic ah to be able to do, but it definitely makes an impression.
00:41:34
Speaker
I was just proud I didn't go yell at somebody and like break something. Yeah. You're like, I handled this very calmly. I just unplugged all the printers. And sit there quietly. I did miss breakfast the next time I showed up at the office.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, a little bit of retaliation. It's okay. It's all right. It was warranted. Yeah. There you go.
Success in Acquisitions and Cultural Fit
00:41:54
Speaker
ah So the the other thing I wanted to ask about your time at Jack Henry is... ah There's a lot of academia about mergers and acquisitions and ah talking about basically how 90% of them fail to capture the value ah that people were expecting.
00:42:13
Speaker
You had a lot of opportunities, a lot of at-bats at batt at Jack Henry to work through acquisitions. And I'm sure ah through your own both your own lived experiences as well as your observed experiences, you probably walked away with you know some good things like, hey, definitely do this or definitely don't do that. And I would just love for you to share that with ah some of our listeners here because I think it's a great, provide great lessons for just acquisitions in general, but it also can provide great lessons on change management.
00:42:44
Speaker
Well, you one of the themes there was if you don't like change, it's going to be a bad year, right? Because we're we're always changing. The only thing constant is change. And so you had to kind of embrace that, which to me was the the fun part, the curious part, the part to redeem yourself, right Because there's always you can do it better next time.
00:43:04
Speaker
um they did a lot of acquisitions. They, they, they did a really good job of putting together a very good team that listened. They knew, they knew their business inside of what Jack Henry was looking for inside of what the company needed.
00:43:16
Speaker
But then I think they did a really good job of listening to the founders and the employees of the companies that they acquired initially to see how the fit would be. But for in in for instance, for my company, they acquired a company, my first company, we sold to them.
00:43:31
Speaker
And we had a lot of customers outside of their traditional core banking base so or their competitors, their direct competitors. Right. And, um, They were smart enough to know that they couldn't continue going to market if our product was going to be successful with what they bought and in the revenues they were expecting and the customer accounts they were expecting and the growth they were expecting if we couldn't sell to their traditional banking competitors like you know Fidelity or NCR or whoever it was. Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:00
Speaker
so That was, they they'd probably learned that lesson from a previous acquisition that didn't go as well because they tried to sell it as their brand inside the market to their competitors and and they just stopped reselling the product.
00:44:13
Speaker
So that was the advent of the creation of the profit store to think brand within Jack Henry to say, hey okay, guys, this is a perfect fit with inside our core base, but let's also brand it differently so that our guys can be successful and sell outside the base. Yeah.
00:44:29
Speaker
um So that was the first thing, right? They realized, they listened, they reviewed their previous failures and said, how can we do this better? um And then just being honest with, about the business, about the founders and their employees. If it didn't work out or you didn't think you want to be around here, just have that conversation. Like, listen, are you going to, are you going be here a year from now? Do you want to be here a year from now?
00:44:49
Speaker
What can we do to keep you here three years, four years? um It wasn't all about the product, the price and, and, you know, the the revenues. Right. um So there is absolutely a human component, I think. And I talk to a lot of banks about their M&A activity and is it a cultural fit?
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Same thing with with the bank. M&A is up this year, but you know if it's not a cultural fit, if it's just a fit on paper with revenues, it's it's probably not going to make the revenues that you see on paper.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah. So I think you've got to have that cultural fit. Yeah, I love that cultural fit. It sounds like understanding a good strategic fit, but being flexible to say the way to unlock all the potential.
00:45:29
Speaker
It might not be the exact model that we're expecting. We need to be willing to be flexible and creative. And you know one piece that I know just having been in the industry so much is the the amount of, you know from my perspective, legends in bank tech that started their career, had a formidable time of their career and prophets in this Profit Stars division at Jack Henry.
00:45:51
Speaker
It's
New Business Ventures and Market Opportunities
00:45:52
Speaker
amazing. like it I mean, it's crazy. You're one of them, but there's many others as well. There are. and And they did such a good job ah in that so many iconic names that that ran that group, ran that division, worked with them ah through the years. And I'm um proud honored to to know a lot of them.
00:46:09
Speaker
Yeah. But at some point you did decide to leave. I did. I got bored. the the the Starting a new business. it was just you had to The itch was just too much. you had to leave and go go get started again.
00:46:22
Speaker
Gary Norcross told me one time I seem have a problem keeping a job more than seven years. He's like, you know, cause you seem to be unemployed every five to seven years. And, um, so I did, I mean, it was a great company, but we were hitting strides there. There's all these changes by the way, and all of this, this founder led stuff is a lot easier to do when you're smaller.
00:46:40
Speaker
Jack Henry had crossed probably the billion dollar revenue and things changed on their side that, that maybe I didn't understand completely or it wasn't, you It impacted me ah probably more than I thought it should. And um so I left and um started the kind of a data conversion business and a newer version of the same same old thing.
00:47:02
Speaker
Right. Except this time it it wasn't coming off of optical platters. It was coming off of disk because 10 years later, the hard drive, everything's posted to hard drive. um But there's still the same problems that if a bank's merging with another bank, they've got two separate systems. They don't really know how to take the data into the new system. And again, just being the data geeks and and loving to to geek out on the data, we said, well, we can we can figure out how to do that. So accessing the data wasn't the problem now. It was...
00:47:32
Speaker
learning what to do with how to convert it and keep all the indexes and the metadata and all the stuff that made that data valuable to them, not just how to get to it and duplicate it but how to make it valuable and reuse it. And, um, so that was really the beginning of, uh, ILS and, and again, serving the same community banks, um, and credit unions that we'd always serve because they're still growing and changing and they're changing systems or they're merging with others.
00:47:56
Speaker
And, uh, it was the challenge. Um, and think a lot of times either through, um kind of reminiscing stupidity or or whatever it is, you over-romanticize the beginnings of the startup. Maybe that's because that's where I am now.
00:48:13
Speaker
So I'm reminding myself that I over-romanticized it ah yet again. and And so you jump back in there.
00:48:21
Speaker
That is the voice of an experienced and incurable builder, always sussing out the opportunity in the market and trying to bring the lessons of the past into the new venture. In a minute, Chris Bishop is going to talk about his exuberant ignorance.
00:48:35
Speaker
Ignorance typically has a negative connotation, but this is a quality that all entrepreneurs need. The conviction that with the right team and resources, any challenge is solvable.
00:48:46
Speaker
He believes in his bones that a way could be found. That is the quality that inspires his teams and builds successful businesses. Right. And there's there's a problem. There's a niche that that you love. You learn more about it. You go and try to figure out those problems. And <unk>ve I've said I've made a lot of money with exuberant ignorance.
00:49:06
Speaker
Because I'm just excited, but I didn't know any better. So I jump off in there and then it's like, all right, well, this wasn't what I thought. But, you know, we got a lot of smart people around us. I know a lot of people and we can figure this out. And I think if you go into it with with honesty and say, listen, that we can do this. I don't know how yet, but I'm confident we can.
00:49:25
Speaker
um and you've got the the background and the trust of the client to say, okay, I believe in you. and don't understand it, but I believe in you. And yeah I'll pay you when we're done. Then that's I've enjoyed that.
00:49:40
Speaker
I had a banker call me two weeks ago and said, you know what? we We bought this product from you, even knowing it wasn't developed yet, um but also knowing that what we ended up with would be better than anything else on the market because we yeah we we knew the team behind it.
00:49:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. It has less to do with the product or the idea. it has more to do with the problem you're trying to solve and the team that's trying to solve it, right? That's right. That's exactly right. And you get that team that that wants to serve your customers and your clients and each other.
00:50:10
Speaker
And, you know, it's, it's, there's no stopping. I mean, it's just software with enough time and money. Anybody can do it. Yeah. So, but it it takes that right service mentality and, and and the customers to make it happen. but Yeah. And it sounds like a common thread amongst your clients.
00:50:26
Speaker
not just your leadership philosophy, but also just even your business philosophy, you love to serve people. um Like, you genuinely want to help people. And you want to understand what their problems are and how how how you can move forward. And I think that's what ah what a wonderful trait um as a leader and as an entrepreneur. And yeah, I admire that in you quite a bit.
00:50:49
Speaker
Thank you. It's... It's fun. I mean, I just enjoy solving problems, I guess, and watching, making people happy when you're doing something better than maybe others. Yeah. I think the other thing that's fascinating, because this is, ILS isn't your last startup either, right? So you did ILS, you worked on that for a while and yada, yada, yada.
Current Business Focus and Leadership Philosophies
00:51:08
Speaker
And now you started again, right?
00:51:09
Speaker
Yeah. So we got that up to four or 500 banks, sold that to a private equity ah group. And I really want to do something different, right? I wanted to do something that wasn't in the kind of the the whole data access and integration automation, which is what I'd always done with with the the previous companies companies.
00:51:28
Speaker
um So I had the bright idea that we wanted to get into looking at the market, the economy and thinking we wanted to get into collections and recovery and maybe some dispute management, just kind of looking at what everybody was doing in the, and again, in the economy. So um acquired a product out of Charlotte for collections and recovery, knowing we could bring our team back together and kind of add our 20 years of experience and in automation and core integration to that product and make it better day one.
00:51:56
Speaker
Right. Right. And then we out of that, we we rewrote some of the workflow engines and started building again. And then we come up with a new product for dispute management 18 months ago. We've got probably 40 customers on it now.
00:52:09
Speaker
And, um you know, it's it's it's a lot. I've forgotten how much it was when you've got a company to add a product. right When you've got only four developers, access to a couple of more on contract and and your staff, and you've got to run the business to develop a new product and bring it to market and sell it and service it. and and It's a lot on every resource. but We've got great customers that understand what we're doing because we're honest with them. We have great guys that work with us that that love what they do and are really good at it.
00:52:39
Speaker
so That made the product come to life a little faster, a little better, I think. And then our third product was you know what we've always done. Our customers come back to us because we're just that's all we know.
00:52:51
Speaker
And they said, would you help us do data conversions and and automation and access again? And um of course, we said yes. And and so now just this past year, fourth quarter of last year, we kind of started back into that business again.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah. So with the small company, ah just getting started, ah three products. I'm curious, just from, ah again, a leadership perspective, I think this is a child this is a challenge that many people have is, you know, how can I manage that complexity um with few resources? So I'd just love to hear some of your thoughts on that and lessons you've learned there.
00:53:27
Speaker
think right now I feel like not well, right? Because we're kind of in the throes of it. um But we got again, like it's a great team. We've done this before. um the The two products, the collection and recovery and the dispute are kind of sold to the same people in the same process. It's a financial sale. it's It's an automation, a process sale. So those are to the same people. The third one is a complete outlier. The data conversions And, um, because that comes so easy to, our staff, we've done it, you know, two companies previously, can do it in our sleep. And that's the hard part for everybody else is, is the stuff we spent 20 years building.
00:54:03
Speaker
So we kind of feel like we can just do that, add that third product, um, But the the management piece of that and working with limited resources is tough because right now yeah we kind of have, it's very easy to get a single point of failure at every turn, right? You've got one developer, one installer, one support guy, whatever that knows that product.
00:54:28
Speaker
that knows more about this particular process, knows everything about that product, right? And so getting that information out, well, there's only four people in implementations. So we got three products.
00:54:40
Speaker
Yeah. And and it's so you got to balance that all the time of trying to educate and keep subject matter experts on the customer, right? To give them the best service possible, the best experience possible, will meet the timelines they committed to, we committed to.
00:54:53
Speaker
But also how do you train new guys? How do you train the other staff? Maybe they're not new guys ah because they're small, but train the other staff to do what you're doing. So I think that's a constant challenge with us, especially with system like our collection recovery, where it's so in-depth, so complicated with shadow accounting, with delinquency, with you know bankruptcies and reporting.
00:55:13
Speaker
ah There's a lot of information here that just has to be disseminated and learned. lot of times small companies don't have ah the necessary ah training paperwork and you know all the documentation. It's just all up here in their minds.
00:55:25
Speaker
And so getting that out when your team is spread out across the country has been a challenge. um I think that I haven't dealt with before because everybody's remote. Yeah. Hey, new challenges are fun though, right?
00:55:37
Speaker
Sure. Remember the remember rest of the, we over romanticize that, but yes, they are. I mean, it's a, I had this discussion just this morning with, with our guys, like I'm going to do this again. I'm like, well, this is the third time we've done this. Like why, why, why would you expect it to change? If we do it the same way, we're going to get the same result.
00:55:54
Speaker
Try something different. Yeah. Yeah. ah And when you try something different, I'm sure part of it is is a willingness to understand that it might not work also, right? So try, try again, right?
00:56:06
Speaker
That's right. It's okay to fail, but let's make a decision quickly and move on to something else. And if it works, we'll all look like geniuses and we knew it all along. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
00:56:18
Speaker
Well, it's funny that you talked about the ah over-romanticizing the beginnings of ah of a startup. ah You've had such deep experience multiple times starting companies and then also working with companies when you um acquire and integrate them.
00:56:36
Speaker
It reminds me a little bit of having kids, right? Like you have a kid and man, those first six months, they're pretty rough. But you know, you fast forward a couple years later and you're like, oh, it's amazing having a baby. Maybe we should have another one.
00:56:49
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's true. Then you're like, oh, diapers again, 2 a.m. feedings. up But you get through that, right? And you love that thing. And you're like, this is awesome. You forget about all of what you felt like at 2 a.m., right? And you're trying to rock and sleep at the same time and you drop the baby and the bottle.
00:57:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Awesome. You know, there's there's ah there's two questions that we always like to end our time with. The first one is um ah non-business book that you might recommend. There's plenty of people that talk about business books and what you should read and shouldn't read, but there's very few business people that sit and talk about non-business books that they'd recommend, and I'd love to hear yours.
00:57:30
Speaker
love that. I've ah I don't completely read a lot of books. I read a lot of books, I think, but not all of them. So, but that there's terrible that they've been impactful.
00:57:41
Speaker
Um, I think one of the ones I like is, the, the, the noticer by Andy Andrews, simple, quick little read. but it's a very deep meaning about noticing what others are going through, you know, noticing,
00:57:59
Speaker
ah someone else's challenge, you know, it's, it's like noticing the little things. it It takes the little things to change your perspective, right? it's all about perspective. So, uh, I mean, there's a lot in in his book. If he follows a Jones, which is a character who just pops up and and meets these people randomly, um,
00:58:20
Speaker
And it just happens to be said in Gulf Shores, Alabama as well. um But these people are struggling with maybe financial problems or loneliness or relationship problems. And Jones just pops up and and gives them a little bit of advice to change their perspective. He always knows exactly what to say.
00:58:36
Speaker
And, um you know, you've got to notice that the small blessings and in life and the small problems, so the problems really are small, right? The old saying, don't sweat the small things and everything's a small thing.
00:58:49
Speaker
um So I like that one. I like you anything about Andy Andrews, basically, but that' that's one of the ones I think that's got some really deep meaning there. um And one of them one of the ones, Patrick Lencioni, I like this kind of a business book, but the the ideal team player, anything in his, in that genre there about, you know, again, maybe it's about people. It's about reading people, learning people and and realizing, you know, you need somebody that's hungry, humble and smart.
00:59:14
Speaker
And if you've got people on your team that doesn't fit that criteria and that's truly the company and the culture you want to build, you know it's okay to get rid of them because they're probably not happy either. And so to build the ideal team, you need those three qualifications. But to do that, I think you have to realize have to know how to read people. You have to be honest with people.
00:59:31
Speaker
You have to have the hard conversations. So um those are two two non-business books, I think, that I've enjoyed. Yeah, and Lencioni, we'll let it slide, because he does a great job of telling a story while teaching you the leadership lessons, right? He's he's the master of the parable.
00:59:46
Speaker
That's right. That's what I like about it, too. His books are easy reads. I give them out to a lot our employees along the way say, this is how we're going do this. Yeah, I love that. Excellent. And then to wrap it up, we like to ask everyone that we talk to, from your perspective, is leader born is leader made?
01:00:03
Speaker
I think the answer is yes. <unk> I've thought about this. I've listened to your podcast, right? And I've thought about this question. So um it's a little bit of both, right? I mean, you can be born with certain personality traits or innate, deep down abilities like naturally curious or you're just driven. Maybe you're outgoing.
01:00:23
Speaker
That doesn't make a leader necessarily. Right. I know many extroverts that are educated, outgoing extroverts that are terrible leaders because maybe they are too outgoing or too extroverted. They don't take the time to listen.
01:00:37
Speaker
um But conversely, there's... um Leadership is made of of also your experiences, right? Your life experiences, the situations, the environment you're put in.
01:00:49
Speaker
ah Maybe sometimes not of your choosing, right? and in In your family life or growing up or maybe it is ah not even your choosing in work, some specific situations where you're forced to lead ah product, a team, maybe even a conversation.
01:01:03
Speaker
that that you don't want to or that's hard that nobody else is doing. um And I think it's in those times that you realize or afterwards, okay, I did just lead this team. So you can be an extremely painful um introvert and be a leader. I know several of my very best friends that are that are introverts that are phenomenal company founders and leaders.
01:01:27
Speaker
But then you take them out to a different environment and they're such an introvert. And I've often thought about that with them. Like, hey, you're not an introvert. You're the most interesting guy in the world to me.
01:01:38
Speaker
But conversely, they there they're really personally, they're they're an introvert. So I think it takes a little bit of both. And it takes someone to be to read the situation, to be thoughtful in this to lead with intention, you know, things that that that matter, not just forcing direction and beating them into compliance.
01:02:00
Speaker
Well, thank you so much. i I so appreciate that you took the time to sit and chat with me today. Thank you. I've enjoyed it. um
01:02:12
Speaker
I'm going to lightly paraphrase the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and say that leaders are not made from easy victories, but based on great defeats.
Conclusion and Episode Highlights
01:02:23
Speaker
In the case of Chris Bishop, you could see how his early days having doors slammed in his face while selling Electrolux vacuums and refusing to prejudge people paved the way to his success with Vinegrate.
01:02:36
Speaker
You cannot build a great team or company if you accept failure as the signal to quit. Sometimes the solution is to show up with a cheerful attitude and desire to work hard at things that nobody else is willing to do.
01:02:49
Speaker
And even when you get the technology right, sometimes the biggest obstacle is bringing people on the journey with you, which might require you to unplug some printers or issue a heartfelt apology when you embarrass a team member in public.
01:03:03
Speaker
If like Chris Bishop, you set your priorities on serving others and staying hungry to learn, there's no obstacle or failure you won't break through. Hopefully you could get rewarded with something more valuable than a handgun and a slab of Velveeta.
01:03:17
Speaker
This has been another amazing episode of Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief. We know there are lots of podcasts to choose from and we're grateful you chose ours. You'll find the links to Chris's book recommendation in the show notes.
01:03:31
Speaker
You've been listening to Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief, a podcast produced and distributed by ZSuite Technologies Incorporated, all rights reserved. I'm your host, Nathan Baumeister, the CEO and co-founder of ZSuite Tech.
01:03:43
Speaker
This show is co-produced, written, and edited by Zach Garver. Sound engineering was done by Nathan Butler at Nimblewit Productions. If you enjoyed the episode, please take a moment to leave us a review or share the episode.
01:03:55
Speaker
This helps other people to find our show. You can also listen on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, and Spotify. ok