0:00:00 - Betsy Jordyn
So if you've been wondering how to expand your consulting or coaching business beyond just one-on-one client work and build a course or program or something else that people will pay you for, well, find out how to go about doing this on today's episode of the Consulting Matters podcast with my guest, calvin Williams, who did exactly that. And welcome to the Consulting Matters podcast. This is the show for purpose-driven consultants and coaches who are ready to own the power of what they do and position themselves for greater impact and income. I'm your host, betsy Jordyn. I'm both a business mentor and a brand messaging and positioning strategist. You can find out how I help my clients turn the complexity of what they do and all their ideas into clear and compelling client converting messages, offers and strategies on my website at wwwbetsyjordyncom. And don't forget, jordyn is with a Y, not an A.
So today on the show, we're going to get into how to turn your consulting or coaching expertise into a product, a program or a technology that people will pay you for, and we're going to begin this conversation with getting real about why you might want to do this in the first place. So maybe you're tired of the grind of constantly trying to find clients or doing one-on-one work. So you're looking for more scale, bigger impact or maybe even just passive revenue. But what most people don't fully understand or appreciate, that switching from a service-based business to a product-based business isn't a little tweak, it's a total transformation that changes everything not just your offers, but your marketing, your messaging, your value proposition, your entire path to scale. So this shift totally doable and can be massively rewarding if it's right for you and if it's done right.
To help us make sense of what it really takes, I'm excited to bring on to the show Calvin Williams. So he's an industrial engineer turned operations and continuous improvement leader turned successful consulting business owner. And now he's taken his consulting business and he's turned it into what he does now and he's the executive leader at Improver, which is a subscription-based software that helps companies develop continuous improvement culture. So in our conversation we get into both his journey from leadership to consulting business owner, as well as his journey from traditional consulting into the product and technology business he runs now. So, because we're looking at it from both sides, you're going to get real-world insights into what it takes to turn not just the best of your career but your true strengths and passions into the right business for you. Well, welcome to the show, calvin. I'm so excited to have you here.
0:02:42 - Calvin Williams
I'm excited as well. Appreciate you having me on Betsy.
0:02:45 - Betsy Jordyn
Well, I think you and I met well like a month or two ago over our shared passion for ROI and my latest passion around lean, and I do really want to get into your the conversation about how you move your business into the product base. But I have to start off with your background in lean and like how you got there. You started as an industrial engineer and you fell into lean, or like, tell me a little bit about your, your background before you got into entrepreneurship.
0:03:13 - Calvin Williams
Okay, so I'll start with my college experience and then kind of get into, you know, the lean part of my story. So I went to University of Nebraska in Lincoln, actually went there on the track and field scholarship. So I got an opportunity to run with Eric Crouch and Bobby Newcomb and some of the you know famous Huskers that came through the program. They also ran track. So that was. That was a lot of fun. But got into industrial engineering while I was there and probably three years into my you know academic career let's call it that track and IE became a lot. So decided to just focus on academics and got into the program. A few years in they introduced us to Lean and Six Sigma and they gave us the opportunity to get certified. Now I didn't take the opportunity then but I think the seed was planted to. Yeah, that's something you definitely want to look into later. So a couple of years into my career I went to go work for Tyson Foods. Right out of college I went to go work for Nestle, actually started working on my Lean Six Sigma certs at Nestle. Tyson was in a weird place where they were nuts and bolts ie Right, it was almost all time studies and big, huge manual labor force and they wanted to drive efficiencies, process improvements and that kind of thing. But they weren't necessarily going all in on Lean and Six Sigma that kind of thing. So I said you know what, after about three years of you know really fundamental IE stuff, I said let me go work for a company that's a little more serious about the continuous improvement stuff. Right, because I was, you know, wanting to go that way. So took a role with Nestle as a performance improvement engineer and that was my okay. So let me give you the backstory. So I was working there for probably six months, right, and corporate came in and said hey, we've got a process, we want to try to reduce changeover times across the network. And we think you guys have a lot of opportunities. Let's do this changeover training for a bunch of people and, you know, after that we'll see if we can apply some of this stuff. Right, so that was probably 30 people in the changeover training course and I just loved it. I loved every minute of it. It made so much sense to me, it was just so intuitive.
Thinking back, I think I was a lean person from birth. I just didn't know the language, didn't know the tools, but that came later, right. So I took up the mantle after corporate left. I went to my bosses and said so I took up the mantle after corporate left. I went to my bosses and said, hey, you guys mind if I actually do something with this. You know newfound knowledge that they gave us and they were like sure, but you know, don't let it interfere with your day job. So it was like go ahead and do continuous improvement, but do it on your own time. We're not going to pay you to do it is what they're saying, essentially Right. So you know me being me, I was like, okay, yeah, well, great opportunity, I'm going to take it.
And I ended up over the next six weeks applying a bunch of the SMED stuff, applying Gantt charts and a lot of the tools from the lean toolbox, and we ended up reducing change over time by about 36% and about a month and a half timeframe. And the same folks that were like go ahead, calvin, do that on your own time, they became the anytime somebody came to the plant, anytime they want. They wanted to impress a visitor. This was the first thing they showed off. Look what we did with change over times. We did this right and I would just be sitting back like, yeah, we did it. We sure did, didn't we? But that was my foray into it. The plant, I think, became a lot more convinced and they turned up their lean and CI activity. After that. It sort of started to spread throughout the network. I ended up winning the Nestle Very Best Award in that year. I think I came in second place throughout the entire 50-something plant network for the best-laid Kaizen project and that was my jumpstart and it's been full speed ever since.
0:07:16 - Betsy Jordyn
So I hear the seeds of why we have our shared passion around ROI.
0:07:21 - Calvin Williams
Yeah.
0:07:22 - Betsy Jordyn
You know, it's like you showed the ROI and then you got the support, so I really love that. For those who are listening, who don't know the difference between industrial engineer and Lean Six Sigma, process improvement, continuous improvement can you like quickly just describe the difference between those two disciplines and why you feel like what you were able to get better results from this approach that you were taking the continuous improvement?
0:07:47 - Calvin Williams
The way I look at it is, ci is a subset of industrial engineering. So industrial engineering is older and it's broader. In fact, a lot of the IE stuff, and even some of the lean stuff too, came from what was more formalized back when Henry Ford was running, building the Ford Motor Company, right, with the continuous flow assembly line, with standard work, simplifying the works that had the training curve, the learning curve which was shorter, that kind of thing. So time studies, statistical analysis, a lot of that came with the development of industrial engineering. And when you think of IE, think of the industrial revolutions, right, all of the industrial revolutions are, is to now, are really energy revolutions, meaning energy is more abundant so we can do more, right, with less money, less resources. So that's IE Now, continuous improvement, lean and some of the other principles came out of industrial engineering.
So what happened was Deming and maybe Shuhart and those guys studied at Ford, kind of made sense of what Ford was doing. They probably I think they applied a little more of the scientific thinking to kind of what they were learning here in America and then they took that to Japan after World War Two and they took it into Toyota and Toyota sort of looked at some of these concepts and simplified them down to, you know, the scientific approach, right, pdca, pdsa, you know whatever you want to call it. And they said, all right, let's take that kernel and apply it everywhere, right? So they sort of brought almost an art, almost an obsessive discipline to the idea of applying scientific thinking across the whole business, the way the business operates. And from that came Lean. The Toyota production system, all the things you see visually, visual management, the 5S and 5Ys and even Hoshin Konri all of that came from the same kernel of let's run our business in a more scientific way, which came from industrial engineering.
So, yeah, yeah, and that's the concept and the challenge that a lot of companies now lean is becoming a global phenomena. I think I would say maybe past becoming. I would say it is a global phenomena. The challenge that a lot of companies run into is that, while you can go in and train frontline people, middle managers, on lean and CI and all that, it's really the upper leaders who have the power to implement and sustain and make it work. So there's a lot of focus right now on how leadership should support this type of transformation, the application of scientific approach to the way the business operates.
0:10:47 - Betsy Jordyn
So it's like it's really interesting, like I like I'm so late to the game on understanding lean, because I thought of lean for all these years of like just as process people you know, and then, as you're talking about it, as like scientific thinking and then the whole management approach and and this whole discipline, it's really different and I think that that's part of that's part of the challenge that a lot of us consultants have is like we're all in our little world or even coaches have it and we're all in our little world and we get it and it all makes sense and it's like, why does everybody not get it?
I don't know if you experienced that as a so as an internal person, it seems like you were able to proactively advocate, like I want to create this type of value within the organization and you were able to build the career you know that way. Tell me a little bit about your journey from like having that formal role within an organization to starting your own consulting business. Like when did you start? When did you leave an organization and start a consulting business? All?
0:11:45 - Calvin Williams
right At some point along the way. I think I've always been entrepreneurial in thought and always wanted to build and run my own business. I think I was like shoveling snow door to door from nine years old, growing up in South Chicago. So I've always had a little bit of a hustler's mentality. Right, go get it, go make it happen, step out of your comfort zone, you know, do what you can to capitalize on what you have. Right. So I think, even going into my first job I mentioned, my first job was at Tyson Foods back in 04, 05 time frame. Right, and even going into that, I already had like a music record label going in college and other you know hustles. So I've already had, I've always had that in me, right, it wasn't anything new when the time came, it's just I guess I had to get some other things in position before I could make the leap, you know, officially from corporate so um, but I, but I also started to realize that a lot, of, a lot of the barriers I was running running into to affect the kind of change that I wanted to see was internal politics. It was, you know, people playing these games of oh you're, you know you're, you're not out here on the floor with us every day and and dealing with the crisis at a moment. You know you're not a team player and therefore you know maybe we shouldn't we shouldn't help you as much either. Right, it was that kind of stuff like internal politics. Right, I realized that I could potentially be more effective outside the company than I can being an internal employee, and I mean lean.
Industrial engineering to some extent is a consultant's game. Right, the original people who came out of Toyota with lean were academics and were consultants. They weren't internal employees doing this. Right, taichi Ono was, you know, somewhat of an internal lean driver and TPS driver, but then, you know, the consultants went in and studied Toyota and came out and said, hey, we got this thing is called lean, everybody should do it. Right, and then it became a huge consulting gang. Right, got the shingajitsu consultants. You got you know everybody. You know everybody who could was jumping into that to play, to play that game and, you know, did well for themselves for the most part.
So, um, now, the thing about a consultant is traditionally, a consultant is going to go in, assess the situation and maybe leave a task list task list of things to do in order to get the results that that that are being projected also. So, um, so me, kind of my, my foray from corporate into independent actually had a pit stop at a top tier management consulting firm called AT Carney. So I went to Carney for about two years and I'll tell you something incredible is that we were doing project work. Um, I was a little older than a lot of the other consultants right At my, at my same, you know seniority level, so I I knew better what to do, how to do it, than most of the people on the project teams that I was on, even better than the manager, right. So I was, you know, I had a, you know, more more experience, more natural inclination, more talent, right In that specific thing, right. But I also recognize that they were selling.
I don't know if I should say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. They were selling consultant. The billing rate was like five thousand dollars a day for me and the people on my team each person, right for me and the people on my team each person, right. This was when I was there. It's like 2012, 2013 timeframe, something like that. The number's gone up since then, though, right, so that's I'm like five grand a day. Me, being the entrepreneur I am, is thinking, wow, I could do great with half of that. I mean, give me a fraction of that and I'm doing great, right, living a great life. So you know, that was always sort of bouncing around in the back of my head. So, after working for Kearney and learning the business for a couple of years, decided you know what I'm going to go for it? Right, I'm going to start my own practice and I started a company called Manuficient Consulting to help small, mid-sized manufacturing companies with operational excellence.
0:16:10 - Betsy Jordyn
So what is interesting and I hear thematically in your background is you're an entrepreneur by nature, like that's just your personality and it seems like as an entrepreneur like. To me, like an entrepreneur is not just somebody, like there's the archetype of an entrepreneur, and to me, like an entrepreneur is not just somebody, like there's the, the archetype of an entrepreneur, and then there's the position of an art, of an entrepreneur, like the archetype of an entrepreneur I think you and I are alike is like we're always going to be inventing something, because we see something that other people don't see and we have to, like manifest it.
You know, like so you were an entrepreneur. You were an entrepreneur as a young kid and then in college. But then you became an entrepreneur and then, even leaving, it was like, okay, I think I can create more value. So it's like, okay, I'm going to step outside and then, even as you're in this firm, and it's like well, I could do this. You know, I have a vision, so I'm going to go out and do that, which I think is really unique, cause a lot of people, when they actually leave the security of a nine to five for a lot of people, it's like they kind of have to be pushed out of the nest. You're one of the few people like you kick the nest behind and it's like all right, I'm going to keep flying and I'm going to go from there.
0:17:15 - Calvin Williams
So that's unique to you. I would have never got in the nest if it was totally up to me.
0:17:22 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah, because you're independent.
0:17:24 - Calvin Williams
Yeah.
0:17:25 - Betsy Jordyn
You know in that way. So I think that that's probably a big part of like it's making me realize, like I know a big part of our conversation is going to be around how you took your consulting business into a product-based business. But what I'm kind of imagining is this is not going to be the final end. There's going to be probably several other iterations that Calvin's going to have, and I'm also seeing thematically that you like putting a couple names together and making something new. So your consulting business was meant menu-ficent or what was it?
0:17:56 - Calvin Williams
Like magnificent and manufacturing together.
0:18:00 - Betsy Jordyn
So that's unique to you as well. Okay, so for people who don't have this entrepreneurial kind of like you know, long-term kind of drive, could you just give lessons or insights or best practices from just what it means to leave your own, leave the security and start your own business? If they don't have the wiring that you do Like, what could you recommend? What suggestions would you make of somebody who's at that place in their consulting career?
0:18:26 - Calvin Williams
All right. So let's, let's go with the assumption that they're going into a consulting business because you know it could be a coaching or coaching, right Cause you learn so much in manufacturing or whatever logistics, supply chain, healthcare, whatever you learn so much, there's so many ways you can spin off.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So let's just assume you know like lean consulting, right, no-transcript, and take great notes, right, obviously, you're going to be working with clients and you need to service those clients to the best of your ability, do excellent work, of course, but also study the go-to-market, right. How do they market, how do they sell, how do they package a product, how do they package a service, how do they price and things like that? Right, understand the full 360 spectrum of the business. Now, as an independent, though, right, you're not going to operate like a big company. You're going to do all the functions finance, you know, sales, service at a much smaller scale. So you can't go to market as an individual or a small team, thinking you're going to play like a big player, right? So you know, kind of keep those things in perspective. So ideally, yeah, go work, start by working for a company that's already doing exactly what you want to do and then sort of learn the game from them. Right, there are some companies that do non-compete and things like that. Keep that in mind. You want to steer clear of any type of legal problems, right? But then save up some money. I'm going to say, save up about a year's worth of expenses. And, in fact, if you can get your expenses as low as possible before you jump the ship, do that right. Reduce your expenses to the bare minimum to take care of your business at home Right, and then save up. If you can do a year, right, because you may think you're going to step off and then businesses is going to come rolling in. It never happens like that, right.
It may take you a while before you land your first, your first project, project project. Like myself, I think it took all of seven or eight months before I got my first project and I had, before I left, I had five or six commitments for projects from senior level executives saying we're going to do something. You know we're just waiting on, you know, some funds to get cleared up or waiting on the budget or whatever it is, and then we're going to do it. I had five or six, so I thought I was good. A month or two after I left and started my own practice, all five or six vanished into thin air. So now I'm scrambling like I got to build a business from scratch, really right? So yeah, if you can secure projects, try to do that and hope for the best, but plan for the worst, plan for any prior commitments from friends and network and all that to not go through. Plan to be able to basically hit the streets and build business from the ground up, and one of the first things I did yeah, go ahead.
0:21:42 - Betsy Jordyn
Now I really like what you're doing is like you're managing expectations, like, instead of like waiving the, you too can make a million dollars, you know consulting, you know your first year like you're making it more realistic of you're just really managing expectations, like. So I just want to summarize what I'm hearing you say and then I want to add on to it Like one thing it sounds like is a really good best practice is go, go to work for a firm and learn what you can, but go in with the expectation that I'm not doing this forever, because I think a lot of people leave their job and then they go and subcontract with somebody else and they don't really have it as like I'm doing it as a pit stop rather than this like it becomes their destination. So then they get caught in this subcontractor trap rather than I know this is going to be a pit stop. I'm here to learn, to build my skills and that's kind of it, and so it's fine that I'm making less than what they're charging the client, but I'm not going to stay stuck here. So I really like that as managing that part of the expectation.
The other part is a lot of people get like, feel like, oh, I have to make this amount of money to live the lifestyle that I'm used to living as a corporate leader, rather than, like you don't actually have to live that lifestyle, you can actually reduce expenses. Like you could downsize your house, you can do other kinds of things to even reduce your pressure on how much money you need to earn, because you don't have to have the huge house. You could have a less house, you could have less expenses, and I think that's another way that you can manage your expenses. And then the third part of what I heard you say is have money in the bank because you just need to go in and say, just because I build it, they're not magically going to come Like I'm going to have to go and do stuff and I have no idea how long it'll take.
So those are the three. Those are three really good best practices slash, managing your expectations. That I think is really helpful and that I think will really change things for a lot of people. And I want you to add on cause I know you're I interrupted you but I wanted to make sure cause those were really good points and I didn't want to lose your key points, so like we could add a fourth one, if there's the fourth one of what you would recommend no, I think you're hitting on it.
0:23:46 - Calvin Williams
I think any anybody who's got that entrepreneurial spirit is not necessarily seeking comfort. And, like you said, people fall into that comfort trap and they say I'm gonna sit here, I'm gonna learn enough, I'm gonna be confident at my job and I'm gonna stay here forever. That's seeking comfort. I think an entrepreneur isn't necessarily seeking comfort as much as they're seeking freedom. And yeah, freedom and building wealth and building a legacy and having no up, you know, no, no limit, no glass ceiling, right, you go as far as your talent and your skills can take you, right. That's kind of you know, I think that's that, that's the mindset. And you know, I think that kind of person Doesn't necessarily run toward the security blanket of a job and a salary, right.
0:24:33 - Betsy Jordyn
So if you do like. I think it's like a lot of people leave the corporate environment because it's like I want control over my career, I want control over my earning, earning power, I want control over my time, like I want those things. But at the same time it's like I, the hustle that you seem to have a a a resonance with that, it's like that's part of the fun, you know, is like figuring this out, like somehow in your mindset it's like this is part of the journey. This is fun, figuring this out as fun.
A lot of people like oh my gosh, like getting on the marketing myself, you know like so then it's like I'm going to retreat from my goals by subcontracting. Subcontracting, as you could tell, makes me batty because you know people are at this level in an organization. Then you go subcontract and you make less. But I think it's like it's avoiding the marketing and I think that there is something about like maybe we change it different from the word hustle, because the hustle has a bad connotation, but it's like it's just kind of like the challenge of getting out there finding clients that you seem to be OK with.
Like that it's fun, it's energizing, figuring it out. Like what would you encourage people to have that mindset? It's like it's fun, figuring it out Maybe it's your continuous improvement background as well to have more of that like embracing. Like what would you encourage people to do around embracing the whole marketing, business development and all the things that so many consultants and coaches hate.
0:25:50 - Calvin Williams
You know I'm going to say something about subcontracting. Okay, subcontracting is not a terrible way to get from full-time employee to independent, because it's a good transition window. But if you, if you, if you really want to reach your potential to your point, you've got to pick up the marketing and sales. There's no way around it, right? Maybe you don't like cold calling, I don't like cold calling, but it's a, it's a necessary evil, because what I do like is worth so much more than avoiding the thing I don't like, right? So there's a saying that says that a fool recognizes the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
So, if you can see the value in those cold calls, but you can also see the costs, which is annoyance, it's a lot of rejection, it's time consuming. You waited too and say you know what, if I could, I could land a six figure client and it takes me two weeks of cold calling to do it. You know, even two months of cold calling to do it, hell, that's. It's worth it, right? It's worth the, it's worth the pain to get to the, to the prize. So, yeah, I think you got to have a certain tolerance for pain to, yeah, to do it.
0:27:02 - Betsy Jordyn
Or the vulnerability, Like to me. It me, it's not even the pain, it's just the vulnerability putting yourself out there. I'll push back with you on the cold calling thing I never do cold calling In all of my years as a consultant and what I do now. There's a thousand ways that you can get clients and you don't have to do things that you don't like.
Most of my clients come from creating content. I had content from the beginning. When I launched my business 15 years ago, I had videos, I had my YouTube, I had my blog. Like I had clients come to me through that and but that was a stretch at the beginning. Like I remember when my web guy who I was working with him he was a web guy, slash mentor and he was like telling me like you know, you need to have, like you're going to go and make videos, You're going to write blogs I'm like, ah, like I'm not going to do it. And he's like, yes, you are. And he just told me you're going to do it. I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and you know, I love creating content. Like if I were going to strip everything away from my business and it's like I that's it. Well, you know I love working with my clients, but I still love content, and I think that that's the other thing too is you don't have to do what everybody else does. You can still chart your own path.
0:28:12 - Calvin Williams
That's true. So you're making a fair point. I said I mentioned cold calling because it's the most miserable thing, and to make a point that sometimes you got to do stuff you don't want to do. But you should do what you're great at right. If you're great at creating content and that works for you and you enjoy it, do that and go crazy with it, and you know. But you got to do it right. If you're not good at creating content, you, you know, don't like the way you sound, don't like the way you look, don't like what you create. You got to find another way. But but there's, you know, there is a way for everybody, right, even if it's, I think, authenticity is part of the part of the equation too. Right, you got to do what? Do what you're naturally inclined to do.
0:28:55 - Betsy Jordyn
And do it in a way that works for you, like even like, let's just, let's just unpack the cold calling thing, because I think that's what makes people have anxiety attacks about this whole thing.
You don't have to be like one of those people on LinkedIn who you know, like they're like you could see them a mile away, Like they, they, they pretend that they want to connect with you, but they really don't want to connect with you. They just want to sell you. You don't have to be that kind of person. Go on LinkedIn, find somebody who's interesting and actually develop a relationship and then see if there's a partnership opportunity. You don't have to do it in the way that makes your stomach turn, Like you. Don't have to do it that way. You can forge your own path.
0:29:33 - Calvin Williams
That's true. Yeah, you don't have to spam and in fact, you shouldn't spam people in any way, right? Whether that's calls, direct messages on LinkedIn emails, right? Spamming is bad, okay, and it's not smart either. It doesn't work, like people don't like it. You turn more people off and you can ruin your reputation that way. So I guess the mentality you got to have is value first, and I can see, I see what you do and I see you have that mentality. I have that mentality. I've honed it over time, but you know value, value, value. And then, when it's time to call in the favor, it's a lot less, it's received a lot better by your prospect.
0:30:15 - Betsy Jordyn
And and really understanding the value of what you're doing. Because if you know like hey, you know I'm, if I'm clear on my value and I know it's going to create an ROI, like you did back at Tyson or Nestle where you initiated it and they said, do it on your own time You're like I know I can create value here, like once you see it, it's like then you can't unsee it and then you can continue on. Let's talk about your transition from so you started with traditional consulting and working with organizations, working on projects, and then you made the move into Improver Improver or Improvers within us.
0:30:52 - Calvin Williams
I think I call it Improver. Yeah, yeah, it's Improver.
0:30:55 - Betsy Jordyn
Another fun word that you smushed together into that. But what made you like? Was there, like a moment there, like huh, I should probably create a product. Like what made you decide to say I want to move from traditional consulting into? I realized that I did not like the feast and famine.
0:31:27 - Calvin Williams
Nature of consulting right. While you're not on a project, of course you're chasing your next project. While you're on a project, you're not really chasing your next project. So you might do well on a project, right, it might give you some runway, you know, eight, nine months or whatever it is six months, but then you spend that time chasing your next project. We're always anxious about whether or not it's going to come on time, right? So that's.
I realized I didn't really like that. I had some pretty good tech acumen. I actually had started a tech company back in 2009 called Excelville. I actually had started a tech company back in 2009 called Excelville, and it was a spreadsheet marketplace. Because I was, you know, pretty good at spreadsheets. I can build spreadsheets to be like fully functional software, right. So I was like, you know, let me create a marketplace, let me offer my spreadsheets, but let others upload and offer theirs too. Right, and that did OK. It did OK, not great, but it did OK. It sustained itself plus a little more. But I had one spreadsheet that really, really, really sold like crazy and it was a OEE downtime tracking and that kind of spreadsheet. Right, you could track your line stoppages and efficiencies and that kind of thing on a manufacturing floor.
So I started saying, ok, instead of having this whole Excelville platform, when really this one thing is just rocking and rolling, why don't I create a software product? And two, I can get to a subscription-based cashflow that we get paid a subscription and get out of this feast and famine, you know, sort of payment model that I'm in as a consultant, right? So I started building Improver. It was called FOS, first Factory Operating System, terrible branding, terrible name. But then you know, maria, my co-founder, wife and co-founder got together and said we need to read, we need to come up with something that works for this.
We started thinking through options, landed on I think it was called, I think it was like Improvementcom or something close. And then we got to improverscom right, and the thought behind improver, improvercom and the thought behind improver is that the people who would use our software are improvers and the people who would become part of our community are improvers. So we're calling the software this, but we're really branding the user, we're branding the person we want to become part of this thing we're doing. So it's an improver. If you are, you should be with us, you should be using this product. You should be part of our community, right? So? And I think a lot of people would identify themselves as improvers, right? People who drive, drive cultures of continuous improvement.
0:34:38 - Betsy Jordyn
So you started with that one spreadsheet but now I know you have a certification program that you offer. You have tons of other types of tools to help somebody with everything that they need in order to lead that kind of lean transformation. Like, how did you go from the spreadsheet to the full suite?
0:34:54 - Calvin Williams
OK, so this is a whole like go to market journey for us. So this is a journey that's nine, 10 years in the making, right? So we went to market with that OEE tool and it just tracks like line efficiencies and all that. Right, we started getting connected with Silicon Valley, understanding like the tech world a little more and, at the same time, we're trying to convince manufacturers to use our product. And I got to give a shout out to Troy Magruder and a few folks at WTI, world Technology Ingredients in Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. I got to give a shout out to Damon Nix at the Georgia MEP for plugging us in with our first customer who started using the product, started getting great results, gave us all the feedback we needed to refine it, make it a better product and that kind of thing. Uh, this was back in 2017, 2018 timeframe, I believe. Uh, maybe 2019, but somewhere in there, right, and um, from from that, we learned that, okay, just people using OE um is not enough, really right, they also need some coaching to coach them into the thinking process that goes behind OEE and how to see the data and how to assess what to do with the data and all that. So we started getting again.
Some of that consulting came back in the form of coaching. Right, I was always a fan of coaching. I was always a fan of Toyota Kata, pdca and all that. But so later the next iteration of our product was to sort of transition out of just OE by itself. The other side of that was there's a bunch of great OE products out on the market. So we're entering a competitive market and we're early. They're very mature. We needed to pivot.
So we pivoted toward more of the coaching model, pdca style coaching model like Toyota Kata. Right, toyota Kata is like hey, what's your target condition? What's your current state? What obstacles are there? What have you tried? What you learn from it? What you're going to try next is a very, very simple instructor coaching model. So we started moving that way and in doing so we started realizing OK, people like Kata is usually like a one off person in the company, picks it up, takes it, likes it, does things with it, but they can't really scale it. They can't get other people to take it up, they can't get other people to take it seriously, they can't get. It's sort of dependent on the coach being there. And if the coach is not active or good, then it falls apart, right. So it's got a bunch of dependencies.
So we started realizing that in order for companies to really take up PDCA from top to bottom in that time frame, I wrote a book called Fit the Simple Science of Achieving Strategic Goals. It was a number one seller on Amazon for like 11 or 12 weeks in about four categories. It's still out there if you want to check it out. So we started thinking like we need to educate people, we need to get people to understand why they should be doing this and the impact it can have, and that kind of thing. So we started doing that. We started selling books, we built a course, we built the Improver University to launch that course Agile Strategy Execution, which is part of the book. The book talks a lot about that.
But then we started realizing that you know these people are that are buying our product and taking it up and trying to get started. They, they fall off after a few months and our diagnosis is the reason that they're falling off is that they they don't really have a good, thorough foundation, foundational understanding of continuous improvement in general. So then we started developing the, the, the, all the training courses that would go into Lean Six Sigma certification, started organizing those courses in terms of belts. Then we started taking that to market and we found a lot more companies taking interest in getting their people certified and that actually helped our other software product, which is the you know the platform, the coaching and the PDCA platform, to uh to do a lot better, brought a lot more value.
Um, since then we've said you know what, if they're learning all these other lean tools and all this, then they should be able to use those tools in the platform also. So we started uh, we open low-code, no-code tool builder so that we could build, or our users could build, custom tools, just about any tool you can think of 5Ys, DMAIC, value stream mapping, sipoc, you name it and then they can essentially deploy those tools within that same PDCA framework. We also added the DMAIC framework, so everything's there now right. So you got both sides. You got the university to learn it and then the platform to apply it.
0:39:55 - Betsy Jordyn
It feels like your business success is based on your philosophy around continuous improvement.
Anyway, you know like it feels like when you hit a situation where it's like, okay, that's it.
Like, let's say, if we were going to go all the way back to like when you were in the organization, then you went to the consulting and then you started your own consulting business, is it feels like you're this like kind of person where it's like, okay, I'm going to try this out and if this doesn't feel well, like I'm not going to double down on what's not working for me or what I don't really enjoy, I'm just going to keep figuring it out and keep moving.
You know so, even though you were in your consulting business, you weren't in it that long that when you decided to make a move because it sounds like you didn't double down over like what didn't feel like it was working for you, like you didn't want the feast or famine, it wasn't going to work for you you weren't doubling down. That's like oh, I have to figure out the whole kit and caboodle of like exactly what all this is is. I'll take this one tool that seems to be doing well build that, get the feedback, listen, improve and then add to it, and then you just continue to add, and I think that's why, like there's probably 12 other iterations for you, it's like continuous improvement is not what you teach, it's what you want.
0:41:08 - Calvin Williams
To be right, having some idea of vision for yourself and your place in the world, right, and then thinking critically every step of the way and saying, all right, I tried something, this little piece of it works, the rest of it didn't right, and this part over here made things worse actually. So let me just scrap this part that made things worse and see if I can double down on what is working Right and then sort of so, just just routinely iterate all the way to you know until you achieve success. So yeah, I mean, if you study Toyota Kata, it's like what's your challenge, what's your long-term view, what's your current state? And then, what's your short-term view, what's your next target condition? Right, it's the same mindset right For me, I think it was natural, because I remember being in high school on the track team and saying to myself I want to high jump seven feet, that's what I want to do.
You know I could jump, I knew I could jump high, but seven feet is kind of absurd, right For like a freshman in high school.
So I would just constantly critique critically, break down my form, my technique, my approach, my diet. I mean it got to a point where I was looking at sleep habits, diet, behavioral, you know things at home I was looking at everything, trying to figure out what can I change in order to get me closer to high, jumping seven feet right, weight room, everything right. So I think I either was coached this way through in growing up right I did like five sports in high school either coached this way, to think this way, or I was born this way, I'm not sure. But then when I found industrial engineering, I said, oh yeah, this I'm not sure. But then when I found industrial engineering, I said, oh yeah, this just makes sense, right. And then when I found Lean and Continue True, I said, oh yeah, this just makes sense Right. So I think the you know God put something in me already and I just sort of found out how to do it better through, you know, through my profession, throughout my profession.
0:43:22 - Betsy Jordyn
But it seems like this product, technology, business model is a better fit for you. Like. It seems like it's like taking advantage of more of your strengths than you could have, if you still like. Let's say you didn't have the feast or famine and you had tons of consulting clients, like it. Just, you know, on the regular they were showing up on you know like a train, you know a train schedule. All the trains were showing up whenever you wanted them to. But it seems like this particular model suits you better. You know what is it about this model that's a fit for you that you might not have realized if you didn't have the feast or famine and that led you into this path. Like, what is it about this model that works for you All?
0:44:02 - Calvin Williams
right? That's a great question. I'm glad you asked. I'm gonna try to do my best to explain.
So you know, like I said, I'm not sure how I arrived at this mindset. I don't know if it's through nature or through nurture, through coaching, perhaps Could be either way, could be a combination. But I do have a fundamental belief that the best person to solve a problem is the person that's closest to that problem. It's not the consultant that flies in from across the country, it's not the coach even that's you know, maybe they're building discipline it's the person that's dealing with the problem day in and day out. So one of the things I learned at Kearney I'm going to give away some secret sauce here as a consultant is the CEO or some executive leader would say, hey, we got this problem, go ahead and put some scope, some definitions, some context around the problem and then propose some solutions. And we did that. We built beautiful decks. In fact, most of the time on site was built building decks, not actually driving improvements, which I felt some kind of way about.
But when it came to the recommendations, I simply just took what the people doing the work told me needed to be done and just put those in the deck A lot of time. I didn't tell them what to do because I don't honestly feel like I know. You know I'm coming from the outside. I don't know the context of that situation, I don't know the politics. I don't know the context of that situation. I don't know the politics, I don't know the realities of the process. I don't have a history of issues that have happened throughout, you know, throughout the, you know the time of doing it being in business. So the person who does know that is sitting right there on the production line or on the, you know, at the hospital, whatever it is.
So for me, I learned that the answers are there, the ideas are there. I don't need to bring that. What I need to bring is the conditions for those answers to bubble up to the power, to the people who can actually effectuate those ideas Right. So so I realized, you know, consulting probably isn't wasn't the ideal fit for me. Coaching, yes, to some extent, but can I build a lot of that, my way of thinking, into a product and then and then let, and then give everybody access to their product in such a way that it's not just reserved for rich companies but also available to medium and small companies. Democratizing, continuous improvement, so that you know everybody can play.
0:46:41 - Betsy Jordyn
But it sounds like you have this ability to create, like you have the technology background, the engineering mindset, like it seems like this particular model like pulls on more of your strengths than just peer advising. Advising like that, you know you're a musician as well, like, so you have that creative side, you know. So it seems like this just kind of plays with more of your skill sets than like, let's say, I'll use myself as an example, even though it's like I love creating content. You know, like every time I kind of hit a burnout moment, you know in my career, I'm like, oh, I'll make a course, you know, like that will solve it, you know, and I'll, I'll scale it. But then when I go in, then like I get some rest and it's like, oh, okay, I, this isn't what I'm. You know people don't really want this for me.
People like my branding experience, you know, like my ability to kind of get in there and it's like, so, like a product business isn't really the right fit for me, because that's not really what my value proposition is or it's not necessarily like my key strength. This seems like for you. So I really want you to think about like my audience is some lean people, but there are some of them like parent coaches or leadership coaches, od consultants, like they all might want to have this type of business model that you have. What would you say would make this the right fit for them? Like, how would they learn from your example to say I need these skill sets? And then what would you say is, what do they need to know or understand about this type of business model and how it's different in terms of marketing and selling versus like a service-based business, you know, I would say, to be successful? I guess those are two questions.
0:48:15 - Calvin Williams
Yeah, yeah, I would say to be successful in any type of business, you got to have the basics right. You got to be disciplined, you got to be, you got to have self. You know, be a self-starter. You got to take initiative. You can't just like wait on somebody to tell you what to do. You got to want to see something and be willing to take the steps to do it, but also be willing to take the risk and all those kinds of things right.
I would say if you're going to pick up the tech handle, though, you got to right. Tech is all logic. So if you're good at math, that's probably a good early indicator that you could build a good tech product. Right, great at math, even you know it's even better because it's software is all logic. So you're also putting you know the customer first, right, and understanding that they probably couldn't just cut a check for 50K, 100k, a million dollars to go out and hire a consultant or coach 50K, 100k, a million dollars to go out and hire a consultant or a coach but they could probably pay, you know, a couple grand every month. You know to have a subscription-based thing, but they, you know you got to pack that thing full of value for them and you also got to talk to a lot of customers before you build something. Ideally. Now, I'm not always. I'm guilty of my own law in a lot of cases and I've learned my lesson the hard way in a lot of cases.
But yeah you got to be comfortable approaching a lot of people and saying, hey, I'm thinking about doing something. What do you think about it? What problems are you having? What have you tried or what are you trying to do right now to solve those problems? If I built this, would you be interested in trying it Right? Everybody will say yeah, go ahead and build it. Almost everybody will say yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Very few people will actually pull out their credit card and pay for it, so you've got to be willing to accept that. Again. This is the lesson I learned right out of corporate is a lot of people will say they want it and they'll do it, but then the reality is only certain people will do it, actually do it.
So it's a. It's kind of a ping, it's a, it's a PDCA cycle. It's, it's this continuous improvement. You know, do something, try it out, do something, try it out. You got to be willing to iterate a lot and give yourself time to iterate and iterate quickly, learn fast. There's a there's kind of a fail fast culture. At Silicon Valley, I got mixed feelings about that right, especially when you're doing damage while you're failing. You gotta, you gotta be careful and be mindful calculated risks, not just you know. You know, yeah, just smart about the way you proceed. But when you're building software, though, you got to be thinking about scale too, right, so even small problems at scale become big problems. So you got to almost have a little bit of a course, like, let's say, somebody is not a techie person that they don't want to create.
0:51:15 - Betsy Jordyn
They don't want to create a technology, but they want to do the course, like I think the real question is is how do you know like a product-based business is more is a better model for you versus a high touch service-based business? And then, what does it take to convert a service-based business into a product-based business?
0:51:33 - Calvin Williams
You know. Honestly, I think the first question is what do you feel you can sell better? You know what's easier for you to sell. Right, because you know cash is fuel for whichever way you go, you're going to need cash. You're going to have to stay to keep that business funded. If you love and can't do without that human touch, you got to see people and deal with people and you know, be in high touch, contact with the customer. Some people thrive on that and they love that and they want that and they desire that. They can't do business without that Right, then you're probably you're probably more on the service side, right, but if you're thinking on the side of I'm a creator, I'm a build great things kind of person, engineering mindset, like I started this business almost 10 years ago and every day I'm not thinking, oh, let me come up with a new product.
It's let me add another brick to this house I'm building. Let me add another room to the to the house I already got. Let me add, add, add, add, add. So it's kind of a building, a skyscraper type of mentality, but the building itself is is. You know, you love it and you want to see it go out and thrive in the world and bring value to a lot of people, right? If you're that, if you got that kind of mentality, then you may be more of a product person.
0:52:56 - Betsy Jordyn
So you know, I guess it comes back to what motivates you, what you love, and you know, your icky guy if I'm saying that right, what you know, what you wake up to, what excites you, get you out of bed in the morning. Most of the people in my audience are like. They're like lean. People are new to my audience, so you got to translate it for the rest of us non-lean people.
0:53:16 - Calvin Williams
So ikigai is a Japanese term. That, in short, it's what excites you, what gets you out of bed in the morning. It's a very oversimplified way of explaining it, but it's what can you do, what can you do, what you want to do, what makes you money and what the world needs. Right, it's like a four point star, and in the middle if you can find something, a way to use your time that checks all four of those boxes, that's your thing. That's your icky guy. So if, like I said, if you just love Interacting with people all day long and being in the place and shaking the hands and kissing the babies and all that, you're probably a service-minded person. But if you love building something and sticking with that and perfecting that thing and being married to it for a long time and being dedicated to seeing it successful, you're probably more of a product person.
0:54:11 - Betsy Jordyn
And it's also like if you were going to do a mix, like I would say, on certain things that are very like, I think, products, if you're, if it's like I need to transfer some new knowledge and skills, like then you can do that in a product. But you were even saying is like with the product, when I'm transferring knowledge and skills in the system, like that could work, but when I'm working on the mindset, like that's more of a coaching type of thing like because you're not going to, somebody's mindset is going to transform because they went through an online course.
You know like nobody's going to get more confidence, but they could learn some skills, you know so like.
I could do a blog writing. I could do a blog like how to write a blog that converts, like I can make a course on that if I wanted to, to support my business. But coming up with your big idea, the controlling idea behind your content, like that's not going to be in a course, like that's going to take some of that or even having the mindset of a thought leader, like that's not going to be in the course.
So I think it's like depends too, is you, don't? You don't necessarily have to go one way or another, but if you're going to really want a product to work, you really have to kind of like commit to it. And I think that's what I learned from your journey is it wasn't like I'm going to build it and magically it's going to make me a million dollars a year, like it was like I'm going to keep building it and building it and building it and adding to the house that you were saying, and brick by brick, and I, I'm nurturing this thing because I want to, I want to see this happen, and then when the coaching is needed, you know. Then you, you augment it when needed. And I think that's what I really like about the whole thing is like it does suit your personality, it suits your gifts and you nurture it, you know, and you're going to keep responding to the market.
But since we've talked so much about your system, I haven't given you a chance to explain, like where people can learn more about your system, who should buy it. Can you give us that information?
0:55:55 - Calvin Williams
Yeah, so I guess, in short, we've built a platform and a university. There's two sides of it. One, so you can learn the fundamentals and the basics of Lean Six Sigma, continuous improvement University, even get certified white, yellow, green, black, master, black belt. The other side is to apply what you've learned. And apply is more focused on the application of Lean Six Sigma concepts and principles in your real world work environment. So kind of to double down on what you said.
You said you know the product isn't probably going to solve 100 percent of your problem. That's where a consultant or coach can get you to 100 percent. But you know, if it can get you to 70 percent with almost fully automated, that's still worth a lot. You know, you know 50 percent is still worth a lot. 30 percent is still worth a lot, right? So in the URL is improvercom, that's I-M-P-R-U-V-E-R dot com. That can take you into the university. You can do a pilot. We have a 10 by 10 pilot, 10x return in 10 weeks. We also have a free trial on the platform. It's a 30-day free trial, Takes about 15 minutes a week for about 30 days and you have a very solid proof of concept for the technology and how you can use it. The other place is LinkedIn, so that's easy to find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on there as well. Look for Calvin L Williams.
0:57:16 - Betsy Jordyn
And your podcast.
0:57:17 - Calvin Williams
That's right. We got the Improvers podcast and you have been a guest. One of my favorite, one of my favorite guests. If I must say Thank you, you know, more or less two weeks, sometimes faster, sometimes not. But yeah, we bring on thought leaders in the space, people who can help provide a service, provide some ideas to those who are out there trying to improve the world around them.
0:57:42 - Betsy Jordyn
And your rap album.
0:57:46 - Calvin Williams
Yeah, so the rap album is on Spotify. It's called Calgaryth. Uh, you can see tying the tech with the my name and, uh, the music and all that. Uh, it's a great, it's a great piece of work. It it's almost a biography, autobiography from birth up till up to now. Really so, uh, but it's very cool. Song after song, it's all a hundred percent factual, real, real stories and and all that real people in my life that I'm, that every song is dedicated to a real person in my immediate, in my immediate life.
0:58:18 - Betsy Jordyn
So very cool. You're a true renaissance man. You're like you have mastery in a lot of different areas, are you? I'm thinking you must have a side hustle on like coming up with fun names where you swish things together. Have a side hustle on like coming up with fun names, where you swish things together.
You know I'm going to challenge you, as this episode is ready to post, that you're going to come up with some sort of fun name for, like my branding service or something where you swish my name into something that would be really funny.
0:58:48 - Calvin Williams
Hey, the Michael Jordan of branding Betsy Jordyn right, oh, you know, and I am from.
0:58:54 - Betsy Jordyn
Chicago and I do have positive memories of Michael Jordan. I know we do.
0:58:59 - Calvin Williams
There you go, right, hey, hey, that works, that works.
0:59:03 - Betsy Jordyn
So is there anything else you want to tell me about entrepreneurship, pivoting your business, focus, what it takes to thrive, and I'm just not asking you the right question.
0:59:14 - Calvin Williams
You know, I think it all comes back to continuous improvement. Right, you got to first know what you want. You may not know how to get it, but at least know where you want to be. If you can think longer out, that's great, but if it's just a year, two years, five years, that's good enough. And you know, try something within your scope of resources and time and what you got, use what you got to get what you want and don't give up. That last part don't give up is probably probably the most important.
0:59:44 - Betsy Jordyn
Use what you got to get what you want. Is that a Calvinism?
0:59:50 - Calvin Williams
As of today, right now. Yeah, let's go with that as of today, right now.
0:59:55 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah, let's go with that. All right, so I'm going to make sure that we're going to have a quote in in social media that you're going to comment on use what you got to get what you want.
1:00:01 - Calvin Williams
Wait, you tell me again use what you've got to get what you want you could go with that. When I tell my kids I say you got to flip what you got into what you want, I'll tell them that too. So yeah, I like that'll work. I like both of those.
1:00:13 - Betsy Jordyn
All right, I'm going to definitely have to lead with that one. All right, you and I could probably chit chat for a long period of time. This was really wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show. I highly recommend Calvin as an example. If you do want to shift your business, definitely tap into his mindset. If you want to move into more of a product-based business and I believe that there's transferable principles like for even if you're not lean, if you are all kinds of coaches, all kinds of consultants, there's lots that you can learn from the whole improver journey. So, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show.
So here's my take on all of this. The real secret to sustainable and scalable success really is about building a business that aligns with your best at strengths and your authentic passions, and that requires you to take yourself seriously and do the work to figure it out. And the other truth that I know for sure is burnout, just like fear, are horrible strategies. Now I speak from experience. Every time I hit a wall, when I hit some level of burnout, I always had this thought like, oh, I'm going to go and build a course. And once I recovered and got some space and I really listened to my audience. What I realized is that people don't want a course for me. That's not the primary thing they want. They want me. They want my ability to help them untangle their complex ideas and turn them into words and messages and offers and content that connects and converts. So if you're at a crossroads in your business whether you're just getting started, ready to pivot your focus, or thinking about doing something like Calvin did we really need to chat. We really need to make sure that this is the right path for you and it makes the best use of your strengths. So book a call with me and let's get you to the right business and the right clients faster. I also have a couple other podcasts you might want to listen to to help you get clarity on how to make this happen. Definitely go and check out episode 120 if you haven't listened to it, which is all about strategically positioning or consulting or coaching for the right clients. Or episode 122, which is all about what no one really tells us about sustaining our success as a solopreneur, consultant or coach.
As we wrap up this conversation, I have a couple of reflection questions and some action ideas for you to think about. You know, before you jump into creating a course or a program or a technology, like Calvin did, I want you to really think about, like what your ideal client engagement looks like. And is a course, product or program really right for you, or is it just a short-term fix for burnout? And if you want to test the waters, go for it? I recommend doing low-cost probes on everything. Maybe you can create a short video series as a lead magnet, which would give you an opportunity to not just grow your email list but give you a chance to see how do you feel about creating content.
Or, if you have a technology idea, you know, test it out with a few people, ask their input and, for sure, talk to people like Calvin, who has made this transition. Get curious about what it really takes before jumping in. And it's not just what does it really take to get this thing started, but what does it really take to get those clients or those customers in the case if you have a product, and what does it take to get those clients or those customers in the case if you have a product, and what does it take to sustain and scale that success? So that's it for today. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review the show, hit subscribe and share it with other consultants and coaches who are seeking to save type of impact and income that you are, and until next time. Thanks so much for listening.
