Dan Rogers, This BEATS WORKING

April 01, 2023

Seattle-area entrepreneur Dan Rogers is on a mission to redeem work—the word, the place, and the way. Dan believes you can honor people and make money at the same time. That’s why he created the podcast “BEATS WORKING: Winning the Game of Work.”

Dan’s vision is to create a community dedicated to making work better for everyone. He hired former television journalist and anchor Mark Wright in January 2023 to host the podcast.

In this inaugural episode, Dan explains how his own work history shaped his business philosophy and desire to change the status quo, how he grew a multi-million-dollar business without a sales department, and why sometimes it’s better to be a sidekick instead of a superhero.

Dan is the founder of WORKP2P, a global transportation, logistics, and non-traditional media agency that helps organizations of all sizes get where they need to go and transforms leaders who want to develop their communities. He’s also a longtime member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization.

Resources from the episode:

  • Dan’s an open book! Get to know him here.

  • Want to connect directly with Dan? Message him on LinkedIn.

  • Learn more about BEATS WORKING and Dan’s mission to redeem work here.

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Transcript

The following transcript is not certified. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. The information contained within this document is for general information purposes only.

Speakers: Dan Rogers, Mark Wright

DAN ROGERS  00:00

If folks just listen, they’ll hear credible people with credible stories that are winning, quote unquote, winning the Game of Work in a wildly different way than what I think most people think it needs to be, and then when they hear how these people talk and you can hear the joy in their voice, like that BEATS WORKING. Man, we don’t have a quiet resignation on our side, like, we’re just having fun.

MARK WRIGHT  00:26

This is the BEATS WORKING show. We’re on a mission to redeem work. The word, the place, and the way. I’m your host, Mark Wright. Join us at winning the Game of Work. All right, Dan Rogers, welcome to the BEATS WORKING Podcast.

DAN ROGERS  00:44

Thanks for having me.

MARK WRIGHT  00:45

I, I, it sounds a little bit funny to, in, you know, invite you to the thing that you created, but it sounds, it feels really cool all at the same time.

DAN ROGERS  00:55

Well, uh, you’ve heard this before and is this probably the right place to say it cuz it’s completely true. Um, once we added you to the team, there was a massive release and relief, uh, of yeah, now I think we’re really ready to go. So, thank you for joining us on the BEATS WORKING podcast. Yeah, and I think folks are gonna be really happy you joined the team.

MARK WRIGHT  01:18

Well, I’m super happy to be here. Dan. This is the inaugural episode of BEATS WORKING, winning The Game of Work. And you know, I, I hope this first episode just really sets the table for people who are not familiar with you and not familiar with the podcast and, and the mission that we are all on but I think this is gonna be a really fun conversation. So, let’s, let’s just jump right in, Dan, and, and talk about how you came up with the idea of redeeming work, because we’ll go back and talk about your early work life and, and how your, your, your view of work has changed and evolved, and now how you’re instructing, um, you know, what, you know. But take, take us back in time, to the place where you decided, yeah, I gotta figure out how to move the needle in the workplace.

DAN ROGERS  02:05

Well, I think it was, I’m gonna, uh, answer it slightly different. So, for me, where it started was in 1994, I was having a conversation with a mentor and I said, these guys are gonna pay me to practice. Um, the principles that you want me to learn, and his response to me was, he said, Dan, to the extent that you can keep that, will be to the extent that you don’t work another day in your life. And so, I’ve worked way more than my ego wants the cop to, but I’ve been paid for way more than I’ve worked based on that criteria and it was really in 1994 that I, I literally started saying to people when we were in that moment, when I was using those principles at work, there’s a, there’s a joy that comes with that and I would look at somebody and say, “Beats working!” And it would freak ’em out because we were definitely working at the time, but I wasn’t working and so that’s, that’s. That’s where the name comes from. And, and so then fast forward a little bit, I got, uh, as I got more and more, uh, uh, supervision and or supervisory roles and leadership and that sort of stuff, it just became obvious that the opportunity was there to, was to create that for everybody.

MARK WRIGHT 03:16

 So, so take us back in time, Dan, in terms of just your work life. What are some of the early jobs that you had and how did that shape you as, as a human?

DAN ROGERS  3:27

Yeah. Uh, so, uh, I am, uh, my, my folks, uh, uh, got divorced before I remember. And, uh, so I’m, I’m, you know, uh, I’m 53 in 2023. So, uh, back when, when she was a single mom, doing the best she can, there’s, I have an older brother. Uh, it wasn’t a super cool thing to be, uh, divorced in general. It certainly wasn’t a cool, glamorous thing to be a single mom. Um, and so she did the best that she could and we, we usually, mostly always had what we needed. Um, but if we wanted anything more than base minimum, it was, I mean, she made it very clear that it was for my brother and I to go get that and she was helpful in, uh, helping us find, uh, constructive places that we could do that. So, I mean, I, um, I mean, I had a paper route probably by third or fourth grade maybe, I was helping out. Um, I, I mean, I was always sort of chasing after my older brother. Um, and he was usually industrious around that stuff. So, paper routes, odd jobs, helping around the neighborhood, that sort of thing. Yeah, from the very beginning.

MARK WRIGHT  04:33

And then you got into moving, was that as a teenager?

DAN ROGERS  04:37

Yeah. So, I, um, I got recruited. I was a, wasn’t a terribly good wrestler, but I wrestled as a kid and a guy that I wrestled with, he was a little bit older. Um, he was 18 at the time and I was only a sophomore in high school, and so he recruited me to deliver and install appliances. And, uh, I’m, I’m a small guy, uh, but I was, uh, at that point I was pretty fit. Uh, and I’m, I’m, uh, pretty strong for my size. So, two little guys would jump off the back of the truck and deliver appliances, but we, we did pretty good. And, and I realized right away that if it had some sort of physicality to it, I was gonna be better than average at it. And so, um, I, I was a furniture mover, I worked some construction, I was mostly semi-skilled labor. Yeah. Yeah.

MARK WRIGHT  05:21

As I’ve gotten to know you, Dan, it seems like from a pretty early age you not only were just doing the work, you were also observing the work and mentally kind of de deconstructing how parts and people were moving through the world, right?

DAN ROGERS  05:39

 Yeah. I mean, I didn’t really think about it exactly this way at the time, but looking back on it, it’s pretty obvious. So, I was born with the brain that I was born with. We all are born with brains that we have, and mine is fairly obsessed with trying to get to the next version of next and getting closer to right. And so, um, there is, uh, uh, a real incentive when you’re carrying a heavy piece of furniture to get there as quickly as you can without running into something, without dropping it. And so, so, uh, and then in all seriousness, um, you know, I started doing that in the mid to late eighties and did that until the early nineties. And at that point, all the crews that I worked on, there was a real profession of furniture movers and, and so there’s a proper way to pick up a couch. There’s a proper way to do all this. There was a right way to do everything on the job and, um, the right way to do all of it was also the least, the, the most efficient way to do it, and also the quote unquote, cleanest way to do it, and, um, that’s a very, very tough business, it doesn’t really exist anymore, but the people that survived in that were phenomenal operators, cause you just, the, the bad ones don’t survive. You know, you can’t, uh, the, the men and women that run the ran those businesses back in the day, they were phenomenal, phenomenal operators cause they had to be. So, it wasn’t surprising that the crews that I worked on were really great crews that they just, they just, I mean, that was how it had to be there. There wasn’t, there wasn’t an option not to be right. Yeah.

MARK WRIGHT  07:11

A big turning point for you in terms of just growth is when you started working for a, a little startup that was a, a, a burrito rolling company, a very well-known, uh, now chain that started here in the Northwest. Tell me how that, uh, first of all, what were you, what was your first job there? And then take, take me through that story. It’s a fascinating story of, of your growth not only as, as an employee, but also as a manager and a business strategist.

DAN ROGERS  07:40

Yeah, so we’re at 1994 at this point, and so professionally by 1994, I was re, I was regularly working a couple three jobs, so I was moving furniture during the day, uh, truck driver and then I worked in restaurants at night and on the weekends, and, uh, so by the time I got to 1994, I was trying to get a college degree. I never managed to get one, but I was, uh, taking college classes during the day, and so, I needed a part-time job to sort of, uh, round out. The rest of the day. And so, I, I, I went to work for Taco Del Mar. There was three employees, or excuse me, three, three locations, 11 employees, three of them were owners. And I was, I was hired to just close one of the restaurants. I was a closer, uh, five nights a week. And, uh, about the third or fourth day I was there, literally a guy comes in right before close and he orders a burrito and he comments, he says, gosh, it looks like you’re gonna be outta here in a few minutes, and I said, yeah, I am, but I’m on the clock. So, take your time if you wanna eat. And then he said, well, I’m not gonna pay for it. And I sort of was taken back and then he pulled out his wallet. So, I didn’t think much of it, but he pulled out a business card and said, of money, and he handed me the card and it said, had his name on it and it all also said, founder of Taco Del Mar. And he said, I don’t know if you knew this, the guy that hires you is my brother, and the first thing I do every day is I, I go to all three restaurants and, and, and, uh, take the money out of the safe and reconcile the books, and he said, this, this restaurant is cleaner than when we opened it. And you close faster than anyone I’ve seen. So, I came here tonight just to see, cuz I actually thought you were, you know, clocking out and then staying. So, he asked me if I could train other people to do it, and I said yes, and then he shared me the vision of the company at the time, which was to be Subway, but with, uh, with burritos. And I had worked at a Subway before and I was like, look man, I, I’ve worked at Subway. This ain’t anything like you. If you want Subway, I can give you Subway, but this ain’t it. And so, uh, from that point forward, uh, he and the other two owners, thank God, they never gave me equity. I’d still be rolling burritos, but, but they, they gave me, um, sort of authority to start fixing bigger challenges with the company.

MARK WRIGHT  09:42

I’m intrigued by that statement, Dan, that they wanted to be Subway. What, what did, what was their vision then that that wasn’t, sort of, didn’t reconcile?

DAN ROGERS 09:50 

They wanted the scale and size of Subway, but they didn’t understand that Subway had total standardization of process and had a system. And respectfully, I mean like the, it is different ownership at Taco Del Mar than the guys that I worked for, but, but when I was there, I mean I literally set the recipe. We didn’t have a recipe cause if you don’t have portion control, then you don’t have a recipe. So, I was the guy that picked out the utensils that like, this is the sour cream utensil and this is how much we put on it and this is the utensil to scoop protein and this is how much it is. So, I mean, I, they did not have a standardized experience. And the thing about moving furniture is a standardized experience. If look when, you know there’s a right way to pick up a couch if I’ve never worked with you before, but we’re both furniture movers. We can, we can move anything together and we don’t have to talk about it, we just, we just go do it cause we know what we’re doing. Yeah.

MARK WRIGHT  10:37

So, you helped grow this chain. You wrote operating manuals; you wrote a franchise manual. I mean, you literally grew this, this company. What did you learn, Dan, about managing people and also about, you know, processes at the time? What did you learn?

DAN ROGERS  10:54

So, so I just wanna go on the record on this one too. So, I, I would borrow money to do that job. I used to say I would do it for free. I would borrow money to do the job. It was arguably one of the greatest professional experiences I’ve ever, ever had. So, the first thing, is it demystified business. Because I thought business was like some sort of wizard that had, you know, this man or woman that had a great idea and they like, they cast a spell, and it was like, and, and what, what, what those guys taught me was like, no, you, you had to take a risk and then react to the marketplace quickly and learn in real time, and I was like, oh, I could do that. So, I did that not only operationally, but also with people. Um, I was sort of the fixer and so it would not be uncommon for me to go into a location. I oversaw the day-to-day operation, so I would go into a location that was struggling and I would fix it. Um, and I might have to come back in a few weeks, and it was worse than it was before because it was a totally different staff. And the, the benefit that I had was we had a, we had a set model with standard standardized process, but we had a fairly decent churn of people. So, I got a lot of practice managing people. I got a lot, a lot of practice managing and supervising, and I needed it. I, I still need it today. It’s, it’s still a challenge. It’s still a challenge.

MARK WRIGHT  12:11

One of your, mantras, I guess we could call it, is you encourage all of us to make mistakes at full speed. And, um, I’ve never heard that from a boss before. Uh, maybe I’ve heard it in different words, but I love how that sounds. Is that something you learned back in your Taco Del Mar days?

DAN ROGERS  12:28

Yeah, I, uh, that was one of the principles that I was trying to learn just in general. And, um, the idea, so my, my experience, uh, prior to trying to live a different way was, um, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was just terrified of life. That’s just how it was. I was just really afraid. And so, uh, one, you know, one reaction of fear is fight and the other one is flight, and then the third one is freeze, and so, what I would do is I would just freeze and sit on the fence and then windows close eventually. And oh, it wasn’t meant to be. And so, uh, when I made that decision to sort of go a different way, I was like, look, I’m gonna make mistakes at full speed. I’m not gonna wait for perfection. I’m not gonna wait on any of that stuff. I’m, I’m gonna learn anyways. I’m not gonna be able to do it perfectly. So, we’re gonna just make mistakes. And I say mistakes cuz that’s how I think other people view them. I just literally view it all as learning. It’s all just reference. It’s all reference. So,

MARK WRIGHT  13:20

You told me a story one time that, when you were training some of the staff there, you told one of the servers, if you act like a robot, you’re gonna get tipped like a machine ha-ha. So, what was it about, about customer interface that, that you learned and, and taught at that time?

DAN ROGERS  13:36

So, I, I mean, and it’s, I think it’s fairly common at this. I mean, like, you certainly hear it all over the place, and I, I didn’t use words like this, but to sort of translate it into 2023 talk is I was encouraging folks to be the, their authentic selves. I’m like, you gotta be you. So, have a personality, even make one up. And this was of the era of Seinfeld, and I was like, you can even be the soup, you can be the soup Nazi, you can be the burrito Nazi. You can be a jerk to every single person that comes in. You just have to be a jerk to everybody, and you’ll get away with it. If you’re nice to a couple people, then they’ll just think that you’re a jerk, right? And so, I would encourage folks to have their own personality. Is, I was just like, you know, a-at least you’ll have some fun, right? And, and obviously it needed to be their, I’m, I’m hoping it would be their personality. They wouldn’t create a character or whatever, but, um, yeah, so that was. It just BEATS WORKING ha-ha.

MARK WRIGHT  14:27

So, talk about Point to Point Transportation, Dan. Let’s talk about the current company and, and how it got there. Um, it’s an event transportation company. Um, tell me, help, help everybody who has not heard of Point to Point Transportation, what it is and, and how you got to, to be, uh, the owner of that.

DAN ROGERS  14:46

Yeah, so it, it’s, it’s sort of, uh, several different tales, but just sort of global pandemic timeline. Um, so going into Covid, uh, in 2019, we were, we did someone in the neighborhood of about 10,000 events on five, uh, on five continents. And, um, that’s was the scale of the, of the business. An event for us might be a single box or several hundred trailers, just sort of depends who the customer is and what’s going on.

MARK WRIGHT  15:17

And you’re shipping stuff for companies right? From Point to Point?

DAN ROGERS  15:19

Yeah. Yeah. We were, and we were starting to do other things in between events and doing some other things on event site for people, but the website, uh, so people understood exactly what we were, the website said we were an event shipping company. So, we, we, we just got it there. Uh, our job was just to create help, create the environment, and, and somebody else would actually figure out all the cool stuff that went on. And then, um, you know, since Covid we’re, we’re still that company as well, but we’re, we’re trying to do some, some different things with it. And, and so pr running into Covid, we had been on the Inc. 5,000 for seven years in a row. And, um, that that’s, you know, where there’s a lot of people that can, uh, uh, that get to take credit for that. Not, it’s not just me obviously, but, uh, and a handful of people knew about it and other business owners knew about it, and I, I never really bothered to explain it to ’em. I mean, we had made a lot of mistakes at full speed and we had, we’d done a lot of things intentionally, but we did it without sales and marketing. And I mean literally without sales and marketing, we didn’t have people called salespeople. We didn’t have people that were salespeople that we called other things. We didn’t do things that were marketing. We didn’t do other things that looked like marketing, uh, and call ’em something else. We literally did not have sales and marketing. We had arranged and organized our business in a wildly different way. It creates, the byproduct of that creates that people ask to be customers. You don’t have to ask ’em to be a customer. They ask you to be customers. So that was, that’s, that’s what the company is now.

MARK WRIGHT  16:48

So, you ship, uh, all kinds of stuff for huge companies, tech companies. You’re really good at that. You don’t, you didn’t need a sales department because, your reputation and word of mouth. And so, tell me how you structured Point to Point Transportation, Dan, based on all the lessons that you learned from those early days up until now, I’d love for you to share some, some insight to other business owners who might start thinking about doing it a little bit differently.

DAN ROGERS  17:17

Yeah. So, um, when I started, I was actually, uh, so I, I started as a salesperson. That was my title. Uh, thank God they didn’t gimme any training cause I would had to unlearn it all. But, but, um, so I had a basic idea. Like, I was supposed to call people and crack ’em over the head and drag ’em back to the cave, and like, that’s like, that’s my job. You, you know, and the owner even told me, you know, you’ll, you’ll eat what you kill. Uh, I it’s a hundred percent, uh, commission. And so, so, um, initially I started calling people and because we were, I was selling specialized transportation, so in the, in the mid to late nineties, that was something big, inexpensive, or at least big and difficult to move, or small and difficult to move, or small and expensive, whatever. So, it was actually pretty easy to find a quote-unquote qualified prospect. Because they, you know, it was a tangible asset that we were moving, and so, it, I I, I went to the, the library and got the manufacturer’s guide and, and, and I called and, and at that point, people still had careers that were like a role for, for several years. So, it was actually quite easy to get a meeting with folks. It was very, very easy to get appointments when you showed up, you the, you were, the expectation was, is that you could sell something. And, uh, I showed up and I didn’t know how to sell anything, but I did. I did. I was, I’m a pretty, pretty curious person, and so I would just ask them a bunch of questions about what they were trying to accomplish, and then in very short order, I realized what we were good at versus what the quote-unquote competition was good at, and so, I was essentially, I became like a freight consultant, not a freight salesperson. And, uh, in very, very short order that led to tremendous success. I mean, when you talk to someone in a sales meeting and you refer your competition because they’re a better fit or you suggest that they change something, so they don’t need to work with any of us knuckleheads and their life just improves. They tell people about that. And so by the time I was about 18 months into being a quote-unquote salesperson, the phone was, they were calling us and asking, so and so said I should talk to you, you know, and, and so that, that was intentional by design was, you know, the idea was that we wanted to go create value cause I didn’t know how to sell anything. I, I just, I just knew how to fix problems. I, I intimately understood how to move things through time and space, so that’s what I could help ’em with. I didn’t know how to, I didn’t know how to get them to pay us or select us, but I could fix their problem and that sounds sort of ordinary and, and a lot of people, uh, might be doing that, but that isn’t the way that jobs are structured. That’s not what salespeople, what, what salespeople are told to do, and what salespeople are paid to do are two wildly different things, and in very short order, they respond to what they get paid for, not what they’re told. Told.

MARK WRIGHT  20:11

Right. Yeah. I’ve seen How many times do you, do you hear that? I mean, salespeople are measured, you know, purely on sales, how much did you bring in? And it sounds like what you’re talking about is, you know, rewarding people on something. Like how many relationships did you form, how many people did you help, as opposed to just pure sales?

DAN ROGERS  20:32

I got paid on what I, on what we killed. I got paid on what we brought in. The issue was, is I didn’t, I was so happy to be alive and I had that sort of BEATS WORKING, literally. I mean, I was thrilled to be alive. I, I mean, it was just, it was, I couldn’t believe that, that I got to, at the time, I got to wear a suit with a tie and people, I, I told my dad, I said, these people are paying me to think. I mean, I, cuz I had carried couches or like I had to bring you, I had to bring you the food, I had to cook the food, or I had to move something for you to pay me. I’m like, you want me just to think? Holy smokes. I can think, right? So, uh, I mean, I was just so happy to help people because it was so much better than carrying couches. Um, so that, that really, I mean, that, that honestly was what it was all about. And so, so um, that was the core of what would sort of get us to a totally different place was, was I thought our job was to basically help people figure out what they wanted in our space. Not, and I think what salespeople are told is how many people did you convert? And all we were trying to do was inform ’em like, hey, this is what your preferences are, and based on what your preferences are, these are the companies that will be a really great fit for you. If you’re one of these really whackadoodle people, then you can work with us, but we actually have a fairly tight requirement for you to be a customer. And so that was really what, what we were doing, you know, as a team, is that we were selecting the people that we wanted to work with, and we were sending the other people to the competition.

MARK WRIGHT  22:11

When did you decide, Dan, to go from business owner of Point to Point Transportation to, um, I’m just gonna say business mentor, someone who wants to teach how this stuff works, you started WORK POINT TO POINT this podcast is part of that new company that you’ve started. When did that happen? When did you decide, I want to go from business owner to, to something more than that.

DAN ROGERS  22:34

Yeah, so I mean, I, I think, you know, looking back on it, it’s sort of a natural progression. At first, we were trying to teach it internally, and then Covid happened, and gave us, gave most of us a really big pause, that certainly gave us a pause. I didn’t have anything to do. Um, I have a couple really large networks, one of which is business owners and so, I called bus the business owners that still had operating businesses and I said, look, uh, my problems are horrific, but they’re simple. I’ve made the tough decisions, we’ve taken the tough actions, I’ve thrown up in the garbage can. I’m now waiting. Uh, I’d really like to help you solve your problems of trying to operate through this global pandemic, and can I be helpful? And that led to some free consulting, which eventually some folks said, hey, you’ve been helpful enough, we’d love to pay you. And then about six months into that, maybe four or five months into that, um two different people who have since met but didn’t even know each other at the time. Both said to me, they’re like, the way that you talk about sales and marketing that isn’t sales and marketing, you, you, you really should do this for a living, you should do this. And so, um, that’s a very long, drawn-out way saying, as I did what I’ve always done, which is I show up and try to be helpful, try to fix, uh, try to help people fix their problems. And when the market tells us we’ve got a good idea, then we say we’ve got something. So, we had a Covid baby, uh, it’s, the company was called Sales Sidekick and we’re rolling all of these activities together cause it’s all based on the same principles as WORK POINT TO POINT. And so, um, the short answer is, is we made the decision to do this when the marketplace said they were ready and that there was value in it. So that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do now, is WORK P2P hopefully will demonstrate what we to believe, what we believe to be true about how, uh, an organization uh can operate legally for profit, but set up on the principles that we believe to be true, which are in some cases contrary to what typical businesses run by.

MARK WRIGHT  24:34

One of the first five episodes is going to be with Jeff Kaas from Kaas Tailored, a manufacturing company in Mukilteo. You turned me onto Jeff and, um, you know, he’s one of the guys that you’re really inspired by, Dan. Talk, Talk about Jeff Kaas and, and why he is so inspirational in your mind to, to how business should be done.

DAN ROGERS  24:55

Yeah, so a little backstory, just, I mean, he’s got a great interview, but, um, so literally one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, like top five, like brilliant, brilliant guy calls me one day and he is like, hey, have you heard about this waste tour at Kaas Tailored, you should go. And single worst piece of marketing of all time is the waste tour.

MARK WRIGHT  25:20

So, so waste tour?

DAN ROGERS  25:22

That’s what they call it. That’s what they were calling it at the time, right? Right. And I told you, this is Jeff. Jeff’s heard all this before. It’s like the single, but, but this, uh, this is pull though, right? So, my buddy James says, you gotta go. But because it sounded so awful, I didn’t even bother. So, he was working at a very large, successful company at the time. I knew that, right? So, he’s cool enough that he got recruited by places that didn’t get, that, don’t even do recruiting. So, he’s now at a different, even more successful company than the one he was at before cause, they hired him away and he said, hey, did you ever come up here? Cause, I swear to God this guy is you. You are the same guy, you’re even in the same business. And so, at that point I was like, okay, wait a second, James is really smart. This is now the second time he should tell; he’s told me I should go do this; I should just go check it out. So, I went to check it out and uh, if you have it, they’ve got a lot of different ways that I’m sure in Jeff’s interview that you’ll be able to find to get ahold of him. Cause pass a whole bunch of things. Um, It’s amazing. It’s, it, it is amazing. Uh, they, they, I, I, uh, I’d like to think that we’re on, uh, uh, a similar journey. I’d like to think that Jeff and I have a lot in common. We’re just, uh, maybe a, uh, a decade plus, maybe a decade and a half behind him in our journey. Uh, but we’re trying to close ground, and he’s very generous with his wisdom and learnings and his mistakes as well. So, yeah, no, he, he’s, um, doing a lot and has been, their team has been doing a lot of the things in their way, in their own, in their own intentional demonstration. Um, yeah, we’re, we’re not trying to, uh, we’re, we’re trying to copy them, but in our own unique way as well.

MARK WRIGHT  27:07

Yeah. Jeff’s, uh, mantra and business model is developing people first and says everything else will follow from that, and it kind of reminded me of a conversation we had a while back talking about the Mariners when they won 116 games, and you said they didn’t have the best individual players in baseball, but what they did have is a team. Talk, talk a little bit more about that.

DAN ROGERS  27:33

Yeah, so I mean a little bit, and this is where, you know, I mean, I’m happy to tell the people that we’ve copied off of, I’ve got nine restraints number five is don’t be arrogant, copy off the smartest kids in class. I’m happy to point those people out and Jeff is, and will continue to be, uh, a mentor and a guide and a friend. Um, but some of this I had into, had intuitively, or, or based on those principles, that’s why my buddy James said, you guys are the same guy, and so, I bought the company because I wanted people to have the opportunity that I had. I went from six bucks an hour to, I don’t want to tell you what, I made a lot more than that, uh, to signing the checks, to having multiple businesses, to having all that stuff, and I was like, if we do this right, this same opportunity should be afforded to everybody. And so that’s where Jeff and I are similar, is I, I, I wanted, I wanted like people like, oh, you should write a book, you should do this, and I was like, you don’t understand, like, I want to employ thousands of people who have sold thousands of books. I don’t wanna write one. I want, I want to be on top of something that creates that level of, of, uh, excellence. So that’s a little bit of the motivation as to why I bought the company when I did in terms of the interactions amongst the team. Um, you know, again, we all intuitively understand this, we just don’t go do it, right? So, we’ve all heard, you know, synergy is, is, you know, the exponential combination of parts, you know, um, and so it really, it boils down to a team is the product of its interactions. It’s not the sum of its parts, it’s the product of its interactions, and when we were talking about the Mariners, I was like, I don’t think, other than Edgar playing DH, they probably didn’t have the single greatest position player on, on their roster, but clearly, at least in the regular season, they had the best interaction of, of the team, and I mean, two outs, so what? Like, you know what I mean? They, they, they came like, you could just count on that team, that somebody would step up to play their part when it needed to be played. And, and so again, we all understand this, but that’s not how business is set up. Incentivizing a salesperson by commission is not, is not the interaction of the internal parts. It might be the interactions of external parts, but it’s not the interactions of it, of the internal parts spending far stretch.

MARK WRIGHT  30:07

Dan, tell me more about how you want to help transform business leaders. Um, you have a goal of redeeming work you want to make the workplace and how we show up in the workplace more honorable, but give me some practical ways like, you know, a business leader is listening to this podcast and what are some things that that person could, could start to think about when it comes to doing business a different way that honors people in a more genuine way.

DAN ROGERS  30:35

Yeah, I mean, I, what I would say is I have yet to meet a person. In all seriousness, I’ve yet to meet a person, uh, and I’ve yet to hear a story of a person as an individual who’s done it honorably, right? That can brag about how they did it, that hasn’t put these principles that we’re talking into play. What I would say to a business person is, don’t lose sight of what made you successful. Just because you have a group of people doesn’t mean you have to start being smart and optimizing and all this other nonsense that leads to, to destroying the interactions, right? Um, uh, you know, there’s usually two types, at least small business owners that are growing their businesses. Uh, there’s usually, you know, there, there’s the one that’s sort of like the rainmaker person, you know, he or she’s out there in the marketplace and they’re just out attracting, relationships and, and people love ’em, all that. And then there’s the sort of internal, you know, wizard or whatever that is a, just a great artesian, and that man or woman is just so phenomenal at what they do that the marketplace is like, oh my God, you, you, you’ve gotta, you, you just gotta work with this person. But then they bring people onto their team, and they start acting like a boss instead of being what they’re great at, which is just continue to, to, to coordinate that interaction. And if they focus on coordinating interactions in an honorable way, in a way that they could brag to their, to their loved ones about, not about like how much they move the needle or how many dollars that like, hey, this person showed up and I was there for ’em as a human, ha-ha right? And we’ve got systems at our workplace that allow for that. And we’ve got systems in our workplace that allow for us to be humans. It’s not surprising that incredible results follow behind that. It’s just not like it’s just not right. And if we go back to the Taco Del Mar story, when I told people, if you show up, if you act like a robot, you’ll get tipped like a machine. If you show up like a person, people will tip you like a machine, it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing, right? So, if you’re a boss and you show up like a boss, they’ll treat you like a boss ha-ha. If you show up like a person who genuinely cares about them as a person, they’ll, they’ll think it. Right, right. And, and uh, and, and consequently, you know, they’ll, they’re, they’re likely to bring a much level, uh, higher level of effort to work, and then the people they’re interacting will sense that, and that will start to create pull. And, and obviously if you do that, some people are gonna grow and develop right out of the company. Of course, they will. That would be to me, if, if you wanted to have metrics, like metrics would be how many people did we graduate from our system? You know, I mean, that, that, that’s, that’s a way better, that’s a way better measure than, you know, how many did we force to stay? Yeah. Which is what retention is, yeah.

MARK WRIGHT  33:39

You’ve talked a little bit about pull during our, our time, Dan, and one of your rules is that the universe is a pull, not a push. Um, for people who haven’t heard that concept before, um, explain that.

DAN ROGERS  33:55

Yeah. So just to be somewhat factually correct, uh, the universe has many forces in it, right? Ha-ha and pull and push are probably, you know, um, they barely make the appetizer page of the menu in terms of the menu that what the universe has. Um, so it’s a little bit of an intentional simplification on my side that I say the universe is a pull system. Until I, until I master, until I master pull, which is gravity, until I can fly, I should probably stay in my lane and keep right size cause pushing definitely doesn’t work, right.  And, and forget all the other forces that are available out there, right? Like, those are way beyond my pay grade as well. So, so like, if we push on somebody, every action has a reaction. We all know, like there’s only, there’s only a couple, three things that can happen. If I push, you’re gonna push back. If I push, I can knock you over, right? Or I can push, and I I don’t move you like you, you know, I didn’t push you hard enough. Well, that’s my, my ego is such, is that I, I have, I can push like I have a pushy personality, but I actually want you to come along, cause you wanna come along. So, so what, what I, what I was shown and what I’ve seen in my own practical experience in every facet of my life. Is that if I create an environment of pull, there’s a whole bunch of people that just pass and that’s okay, but, but the few that actually pull, they’re here and they want to be here. And you know, if we talk about the business, we talk about Point to Point, there was a whole bunch of customers that passed and didn’t stay or didn’t ask, but the ones that do ask, the ones that do pull, they stay, they stay for a very long time, and you do great work for him.

MARK WRIGHT  35:36

So that pull is essentially just doing things in a way that attracts other people to you. Yeah.

DAN ROGERS  35:42

It’s in alignment with not trying to defy gravity. Yeah, Ha-ha-ha, yeah, yeah. It’s staying grounded on earth and like, you gotta know who you are, knowing what, knowing what your unique, unique contribution is and, and staying inside of that. Yeah.

MARK WRIGHT  35:56

So, part of the new business that you’ve created, Dan, is uh, the Sidekick process. So, you’re, you’re side sidekicking, uh, businesses and organizations. Um, for lack of a better term, you’re, you’re helping them go from where they are right now to where they want to be. That sidekicking process and how you and I met last fall is, uh, a personal development sidekick, uh, curriculum that you developed called Intentional Sidekick. I was super impressed with that. It’s about how, how we get what we want in life. Through intentionality and organization, and I was super impressed, impressed enough that I said, who is this Dan Rogers guy? Um, help people understand what that Sidekick, pro, uh, process is and why that’s important to this whole business model you’ve created.

DAN ROGERS  36:42

Yeah, so it, it literally is just the fractal off of what I was doing when, um, when I was quote unquote selling stuff. Um, uh, and I, and I. Where when I started having success selling, um, I, I, uh, I got really, really, really systematic and, um, cause as I’ve already shared, I, I, I didn’t know how to sell anything, so I just interviewed people and so at first, and I first I was just trying to interview ’em just to find out, you know, was there, like how much opportunity was or wasn’t there. And that was pretty easy to do. But then in the course of them answering those questions, I also got to find out like, what type of person they were. And I was, I mean, I was generalizing for sure. I mean, I wasn’t like getting, you know, usually only about 30, 30 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes long to go run through the whole thing. But I asked them the same questions every single time and in the same order. And what I was doing was graphing out ha-ha what I was gonna do with them. Like, I mean, there was I, there was gonna be four quadrants and they were gonna be in one of the four quadrants, and each one of the quadrants had an action for them, and, and only one was to work with us. The other three was to work with somebody else, and, and, and, um, and we systematized that, uh, I mean, we literally systematized it. And so when I took a look at that and saw what we’re really doing, I saw, oh, this is all we’re doing is helping people really figure out. First a little bit of who they are, right? And then we figure out, well, what they want and then how to get it. And if you’ve been on that path before, then you, you should be able to sort of be out in front of ’em. So, the Sidekick process is just nothing more than that. And so, um, we can do that with individuals cause we understand the game of life a little bit. We can certainly do it with business people cause we understand the game of business. Um, and so that really is the Sidekick process. It’s nine activities. Um, uh, sequenced, uh, and, and, uh, figure out who you are. Figure out what you want, figure out how you, how you want to get it. And with all this stuff, I don’t know that we’ve, uh, figured anything out. We, uh, at, at most, we usually just remind people what someone smarter than us has already figured out somewhere in history, or we might sequence things differently or bring some things together that weren’t normally together, but that’s the Sidekick process. It works for individuals. It works for teams and it works for organizations.

MARK WRIGHT  39:08

That’s cool. So, you’re the sidekick, the business, the organization’s, the superhero. It’s kind of a, kind of a cool, cool model, isn’t it?

DAN ROGERS  39:17

Yeah, well, I mean, I, with my zippy personality, good, bad, I mean, I wanted a different word. I didn’t want sidekick, I didn’t want any of that stuff, but I knew intentional, like I knew the first, the first part of my title I knew I had like intentional. I can get behind that. Like, and, and good, bad, right or wrong. I have been incredibly intentional for 30 years. Uh, it doesn’t mean I’ve been a great guy the whole time, but I always knew what I was doing. I’m good, bad, right, or wrong, and then unfortunately the best way that I can show up is a sidekick. And, and I don’t, I’m not, I’m not saying this to be cute. This is straight up. This is just as, as real as I can make it. If the building is on fire and I tell people we have to leave Noah moves, if I just show up and help out, like the entire room gets behind me. So, like, it’s just how it is ha-ha. Like I, I’m, I’m an intentional sidekick whether I want to be or not. Um, that’s, that’s definitely my best version. So, um, and then what’s also sort of cool about that is, is that I think most people think they want to be a superhero, right? But once you get any sort of flavor of being a superhero, I’ve obviously had some success or been around a lot of successful people. The really successful people that understand how they were successful, they know that it was, they just get the trophy. There was all these other people that contributed. They get, they get to be the face or the name or whatever, but obviously, it’s always a group. It’s always we. It’s never a single person that does any of this stuff. So, once you get any real flavor for that, you’re like, well, I owe it to them to find other people to help out, right? And it, I don’t know how it is. I just know that this is how it is. My greatest joys, hands down in every walk of my life is when I’ve been a part of something way bigger than what I could accomplish myself. And I’ve had a couple, like a couple moments where I was the guy or I got the credit for it and that didn’t suck. It’s just not nearly as cool as being a part of something way bigger than yourself, and sometimes even making a very small contribution, even semi-inconsequential contribution to something way bigger than yourself is just way cooler than, like, being the guy that hits the home run. It just, I mean, it’s, it just, it just is and, and, uh, that’s the message that we’re trying to share and give, uh, some folks some intentionality about how they can be that person, if that’s, if that speaks to ’em.

MARK WRIGHT  41:35

Last year you hired a couple of my former colleagues from the television world and that’s how we all connected with the Intentional Sidekick series last fall. And um, I was, I was super impressed, Dan, and the fact that we are sitting here today speaks to your ability to inspire people and to create a team that really wants to make a difference in the world, and, and this is no small investment on your part, and I think we’re all aware of that. I guess what I’d love to, to wrap things up with, Dan, is I know that you want this podcast to be an interactive platform where business leaders can gather and learn and share ideas, but how do you hope to move the needle over the next 1, 2, 3 years?

DAN ROGERS  42:19

Well, I’m, I’m hoping at first that this will be an intentional demonstration on, on multiple levels, but if folks just listen, they’ll hear credible people with credible stories that are winning, quote unquote winning the game of work in a wildly different way than what I think most people think it needs to be, and that’s sort of what I’m just hoping as a baseline is that they go, wow! And then when they hear. How these people talk and you can hear the joy in their voice, like, that beats working. I am like, try our way cause it’s a hell of, I mean, your way, like, like we don’t have a quiet resignation on our side. Like, we’re just having fun. So, so on just a base level, we’re hoping for that. And then as, as we get a little bit off, off the ground on it, we’re hoping that we can essentially curate an ecosystem. For like-minded folks to come in and make mistakes at full speed and learn together. I mean, we’re really hoping to develop a community of, of learners where we get to learn from each other about how best to do this. So, we’d like to dent, um, this mission of redeeming work, at least scratch it. You know what I mean? As a furniture mover, I was like supposed to move it without touching it but we want, I mean, I wanna leave a mark on work.

MARK WRIGHT  43:40

Well, Dan, this has been so much fun, uh, super inspiring to spend time with you and can’t wait to, uh, let people hear the rest of the episodes as, as we go forward and as you’ve said, “beats working.”

DAN ROGERS  43:54

It sure does. I’m looking forward to it. Thanks a lot, Mark.

MARK WRIGHT  43:57

I’m Mark Wright. Thanks for listening to BEATS WORKING part of the WORK P2P family. New episodes drop every Monday, and if you’ve enjoyed the conversation, subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Special thanks to show producer and web editor Tamar Medford. In the coming weeks, you’ll hear from our Contributor’s Corner and Sidekick Sessions. Join us next week for another episode of BEATS WORKING where we are winning the Game of Work.