02:45 Hey, welcome back to the show. And I'm excited because we've got someone who actually knows what they're doing, has actually done some amazing things. Sean, will you tell us who you are and what you do?

02:55 Sure. think probably the biggest thing to know is I'm still not sure if I know what I'm doing, which is probably why I'm still able to keep doing what I'm doing. I would put it that way. But anyway, my name is Sean Campbell. I'm a CEO of a market research firm that targets B2B tech. And I've been in the chair of CEO for about 18 years or so now, kind of pushing right up to 18. And I owned a company before that that in market for basically six and a half years. So when you do the math, I'm just shy of 25 years of business ownership at this

03:33 Amazing to have a 45 year old say that. It's awesome. 

03:39 53 so 53 so yeah

03:40 Come on, dude. Way to go, way to go. No, Ozzy, that's really cool. It's an exciting thing to be in business that long and to know that you've been able to sustain. I'm guessing families come along. I'm guessing like life is not the same as it was 25 years ago, but you've been able to ride that wave and run a business.

04:03 Yeah, no. mean, I've gone from no dogs and no cats and no kids. I was married to my wife before I started my first business, but now I have two kids that are adulting and I've got two dogs and two cats. So yeah, lots of change. mean, there's things that have been the same, still in the same house I was when we started the business, know, things like that. But well, actually that's not true. I forgot about that. I moved into the house in 03. So you're right. Anyway, small point, but yeah, no. So a of, a lot of stability in other way. But other than that, yes, there's also been some life changes.

04:37 I love it. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. And for those listening, if you talk to people that have made it this long doing the same thing, regardless of what they say, ignore what he just said about not knowing what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. He's able to sustain himself, his lifestyle, his family. And that is super cool, Sean. I wanna know what you do. You say market research, you say B2B, you say all these things. What are you actually doing and what niches are you working with? Who do you help with what you do?

05:07 So technology companies, but the business to business side of it. So no Samsung dishwashers, no webcams for consumers. It's all business to business sales. So we work with the likes of Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, AWS, and a bunch of mid markets and some startups. And for them, we basically do two things. We either alleviate pain. So they come to us and they say, our competitors are killing us. Or we shipped a bad product or we don't know what to do about AI and we're building something with AI or there's a market opportunity issue. So again, you know, maybe they think there's an opportunity with AI. They want to go into a new geography region, new market segment. And we do research to help them make sure that they've got clarity about that. You know, that's one of our main mottos is act with clarity. So we want people to walk away and feel like they can feel strong about the decisions they're about to make to tie it a little bit very briefly into the theme of the show, owning a business always comes with a degree of ambiguity in your decision making. I don't know how often you get a hundred zero certainty when you make decisions as a business owner. I think it's one of the biggest pieces of initial advice anybody should get is that most of your decisions won't come with that kind of clarity. Your staff would like it if you had that clarity, but you won't.

06:35 Sure, and sometimes you fake it.

06:36 Yeah, well, that's the thing. mean, like, there's just not that. So we move those percentages, right? So somebody sitting at 60 -40 likelihood that it's a smart decision, we move those goalposts to 85 -15, right? Which is a huge thing when you're about to make a big.

06:53  Right, right, right. I love it. And when you say making a big bet or taking a big bet, like, what do you mean? Like what kinds of things? You know, you've been doing this a long time. What kind of big bets have you made that seemed, I don't know if this is gonna go or not.

07:42 Hmm just a couple ways to answer that you know, I'd like to think I take measured bets. I'm definitely not that guy you meet at the networking event that's telling you all of the times, you know, he scaled Everest in his business, right? Because I don't know. I feel like sometimes those stories are a little made up. two, I, yeah, and two, I think I've always done this as a way to serve, to provide for my family and to have a sustainable business, right? So that doesn't mean a lack of growth. That's been there for sure. But I tend to lean more into sustainability than just growth for growth sake. so that's kind of measured sometimes some of my decision -making, but we've certainly made big steps. We had to go fully remote after COVID and we stayed there. I I was a big proponent of that. Two times now I've had to deal with a business partner exiting the business. So I've had to do that twice in my first company. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot going on. Let's just put it that way. There's a lot going on for you. There's a lot going on for your family. There's a lot going on for the employees. There's a lot going on for your clients. So that's definitely something that I've gone through twice. yeah, so there's that. even having two businesses is a big thing because I fundamentally don't believe you can learn some things unless you go through it twice. Like you just can't, you can project all you want. Like even on my personal life, don't bring this up because I need counseling or anything. I'm not to make light of what I'm about to say, but like I'm fully fine with everything that happened. But like my parents even got divorced when I was in fifth grade, got remarried and got divorced again from each other and then got married again. You know, like to other people, right? I joke I should be on Oprah. Like I don't know anybody who like that happened to, right? But the only reason I bring that up is.You know, your parents get divorced the second time, you kind of scratch your head. You're like, huh, I don't know if I should take sides this time. You know, they seem like something going on here that's beyond me. And the same thing happens a little bit with like being in a business a second time, right? You have a different perspective on it. You know, same thing people say when they have their second kid. You know, it's like things are different. I've been blessed that I don't have that in a marriage scenario. I've been married to the wife of my youth. I intend to be married to the wife of my youth for a long time. So, but yeah, I think that's, those are some of the bigger things for sure, you know, that I've gone

09:44 I love it. I love it. Those are really great points. And I'll tell you, I wasn't anticipating taking the show this direction, but it definitely is something unique in that talking to people that are in the throes of launching and trying to kind of transition from a launch stage into a growth stage, it's an exciting time. You've now gone through this stage, multiple stages of obviously launched but sometimes I'm guessing you launched new product types, you've launched new iterations of what you're doing, new offerings. How does that flow go for you now versus when you used to launch something for the first time and you're super nervous versus now you're kind of like, okay, I kind of see what they're needing, let me see if this works. How does that go for you?

10:31 Well, I think there's a couple things. mean, one. Businesses are an ego creation deflation factory, right? From an ownership level, they are. I don't know who isn't infected by that when you start a business. And you know it is, right? Because the first time somebody starts a business, what's the first thing they say to you for the first six months? Like your relatives, like, I'm starting a business, they say, right? You know, my business has now started. I've got my first client, right? Okay, well, you know, and great for them, right? I think entrepreneurship and business ownership, is kind of the equivalent of like owning a farm in the 19th century. the self-reliance it teaches you, I don't know where else you get it. I just don't. And that doesn't mean somebody's a lesser person for not having done it. It's legitimate. It's like serving in the military is its own unique experience. I never served, so I don't claim that I haven't. So in essence, I think, yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. So the biggest thing I was going there is I just don't really let my ego get wrapped around what's happening in the business to the same degree. Those were kind of like really tightly wrapped like a candy cane, I think, in the beginning. And part of that is experience and part of that is faith. For me, it's been a huge change for me, the depth of my own Christian faith from the beginning till now. that provides a great deal of assurance for me. Somebody in control. But the other thing that stands out to me though, is that you have to just be okay with certain things. know, meaning when you make decisions, there's this book, I think about all the time when it comes to making decisions, it comes from the book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and it's got the classic two by two consultant grid in it, in one of the pages. And there's a section of the grid that says, you decide against the crowd and you are right. And in the box for that, it says, if you remember that you made the decision, but the company succeeds. And, 

12:36 I love that.

12:38 You have to get used to the idea that nobody's going to knock on your door a lot of times and say, good job. Like, and I don't mean that, like I need counseling for it again. Like I don't, but, it is so different than being an employee, right? Because an employee, you have a standard view. The last review I had was 24 years ago. You know, the last like, like, yeah, well, I mean, and the thing is it's like, you are getting a review, but you're getting it what feels like every hour, you know, by what's happening in the business. So you have to figure out how you're going to relate to that, right? And what your brain's going to do when things go up and down. And that has a huge impact on your family, too. I mean, we've all heard stories about, you know, the the business owner who terrorizes their family in maybe even small ways just because they can't get their head out of the business, right? When they come home at night. And so I think that's huge.

13:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is interesting because, yeah, which is interesting because you you mentioned that your faith has grown stronger through this experience. You know, balancing family, faith and business are not easy things to, that's kind of the trifecta that usually something breaks along the way. Talk to us about how you've been able to balance that because I think that's a huge, huge challenge that most people find and trying to continue to move forward in their business.

13:56 Ultimately, you got to decide what's most important. You're going to have clients who are going to say, why can't you meet one hour before your kid's graduation? You're going to employees who are going to quit the day before you go on vacation. They're entitled to. That's fine. You just have to get to this place, I think, where you in both directions are willing to flex a little bit. It's equally true that you can't, as a business owner, say, yo, that's my vacation. I'm not talking to anybody on my vacation. I remember a guy, Alan Weiss, he goes by the name Contrarian Consultant. He's kind of closer to retirement now, but he's got a great stick. Plus you have to love the name, the Contrarian Consultant for a brand. But he had this thing in one of his books. He's like, what's wrong with you? You live a good life, you work independently, you probably make okay money at least working independently, and you can't answer an email halfway through your vacation? Like how entitled could you be? But his argument isn't like don't sit there for eight hours and send emails. I think it's that kind of weaving and flexing. My wife's been huge. She's been a rock in a lot of ways in terms of things. You know, I think it's just putting your chips where they really matter. I mean, it's as simple as that, but it's as hard as that at the end of the day, because back to that ego creation deflation thing, you know,

17:22 I appreciate that. I normally don't go there in this type of interview setting, but you went there, so I decided to take a bite of that. For me, it's always a game of that balancing act. So yeah, mean, I think that when you dive into family, and you dive into your faith, and you dive into the business, I do look at that in that order typically. And when you go family, faith, and business, I feel like there is a natural progression of your prioritization, right? mean, your wife, yeah, yeah, please.

17:47 Well, let me say one thing on that. There's a phrase there that I think it's somebody else's phrase. I forget how you pronounce his first name. I think it's Vodi or Vaati -Vaakam, but he gave a sermon once and he said, all horizontal problems are vertical problems. Meaning, you have to have an orientation and a faith to something bigger than you. And in my case, as a Christian, That's pretty clear what that is. But that settles down all those horizontal relationships. And without that anchor, you just have a very different relationship with everything that's right next to you. And I think that's fundamentally a huge part of what has allowed me to get through some things that were challenging, like I said, over the years. So anyway.

18:44 No, I appreciate that and honestly what you just said I chuckled because one of my sons who's adulting right now is leading a sales team and he was talking to his team just recently, he told me that he was like, dude, don't always go horizontal with your questions, go vertical. both in your personal sense, you've gotta go vertical to God and in a business sense, you like, don't ask the guy who's doing worse than you how he's doing things, go up. Go to the people that really know where they're at to get advice.

19:15  Well, it's funny you mentioned the sales thing because I'm going to be teaching a class in the fall at a Christian university as an adjunct. I've done it before when my kids were young and I'm getting back to it now. 

19:30 I love it. Love it.

19:31 I love teaching and it's a sales course, but they have a huge emphasis on Christian faith integration. And to your point, that's an area because I think it has a lot of analogs with entrepreneurship where you're on your own a lot, you have a lot of independence, you have a lot of influence then too, right? And you have to decide how you're going to use that. And you have to decide what's going to influence you for the same reason, because you're on your own a lot. And I think there's just a ton of stuff like that. But anyway, anyway, I know you probably got other things you want to jump to

20:02 It is pretty scary. No, no, I actually really like it. It's kind of comforting to not feel like I'm guarded against these topics. So it's all good, man. No, I feel like, no, seriously, you know what I mean? You never know. So I feel like, you know, going vertical, both in your faith and going vertical in terms of, from a business level, you know, rarely do you see someone who naturally is instinctively going to nail it on all aspects of the business. Who do you turn to when you're needing business advice? Do you have that community? Do you have people that you mentor with or am a mentor of? And kind of how does that work in your ability to flex when you need to, but also be humble when you need to in your growth?

20:52 I don't have like a specific individual mentor, know, my wife's a great sort of counsel. You know, we talk a lot about the business. It's a lot of that, you know, classic, the, you know, the president's wife knows a lot, like in terms of politics, right? You know, kind of thing, like, and I, so there's a lot of, there's a lot of that. And I think we keep it in a a good line. You can go too far with that, either overburdening your spouse. And she works in the business too, HR and finance roles. And so she's seen it from the inside too. We already talked about faith. That's massive. The other place where I draw a lot of inspiration from is probably two things. history. I actually feel pretty optimistic when I look at history. I told somebody a while back, they're like, you're optimistic when you look at history, aren't things getting worse? I'm like, no, because we have seasons of ups and we have seasons of downs and we have revivals. I mean, human history is full of amazing stories. And so I'm a huge history buff. And the final thing that I look for, I guess, is just more, and it's probably my biggest piece of advice I'd give any business owner, is read stuff you disagree with and actually read it, read it to the end, decide whether or not you like it or not, that's fine. We're recording this during a political season, so whatever channel you like the most, just leave it that way. Try to watch the other one for a week and actually try it. And don't just throw rocks at the TV, just try it. And maybe you're just a little changed. We're way too on our own bubbles that way. And business owners are probably equally at risk of it, or maybe more so because of some of the dynamics we talked about earlier, because you are in a position of authority. And you need different outlets, basically, I think. that's a piece of it.

23:04 Well, I love what this conversation's gone. Definitely not where I was anticipating, but I do love the discussion on balance because it is so critical for your own mental health, for your own anxiety, and I find that when people do have more balance in the areas they can control a little bit easier, then it does feel like less of a burden to make decisions in the one that's most challenging at that moment. Sometimes it is your family, sometimes it is your faith, and sometimes it is your business. But if you can keep two of them healthy, usually the third one's it makes it easier to make healthier, smarter decisions. So looking back, no doubt about it. 

23:43 100%. Well, your faith and your family are with you forever. So yeah, go ahead. What were you gonna say?

23:49 Well, looking back at this business in particular and looking towards decisions or points in the business where you feel like, doing that thing took us to a whole new level and maybe even later on doing this thing took us to that next level. Can you pinpoint any of those spots and kind of walk us through that?

24:09 Yes, and narrow was a big one. mean, we, in the second business, the current business, you know, we started out, well, maybe, maybe a brief bit of history. So first business was so narrow that we only really had Microsoft and Intel as an account. So I was always in fear that one of them was going to go away. And then we have to riff 10 people. Right. So I was like, never so we start the second business and we're like, okay, let's go work with a broader set of people. Like, so we're working with a furniture manufacturer and pharma and tech and, you know, and I was like, eh, ick. I can just feel my value deflating. Like I can just feel like I'm getting thinner and thinner and thinner. 

24:44 Not niche enough, yeah.

24:45 Yeah. And so I was like, okay, okay, let's, let's do this a little differently. So anyway, you know, we built a good marketing engine so that we weren't just trapped with two accounts. We, we were, and I think ultimately that's, that's one of the hugest things because that's where you can provide a lot of value. You can provide a lot of depth. You can get a lot of value out of knowing your client base. You know, you can get repeat business, all the, all the, all the good stuff that that's normalized through that. So I think that's one of the biggest things frankly, is just, is just doing that. I would also say being a remote company, you know, this was a little bit of a back and forth with my other business owners over the years, you know, I was definitely way more pro remote than the two other business owners were per se in the first business. Maybe one of them was closer to me than the other one. In the second business, there was definitely a difference of opinion about that. And I think it's amazing. mean, like I can hire talent from anywhere. I mean, I'm in an interview loop now. I won't say what cities I'm recruiting from in case somebody hears this. You know what I mean? Like who gets, like, why didn't you pick me? I was from blank, blank place, right? But like, but I'm not constrained by geography that has big cultural impacts in the team because we're not just all homogenized from one part of the country. You know, I, I think to tie it back to something I mentioned earlier, I feel pretty missional about remote work because I, really do feel being able to offer remote environment.at least gives people the opportunity to have better relationships with non -business colleagues, their family, their friends, their kids. It's just the opportunity. I'm not here to fix them. Lord knows just because you're working remotely doesn't mean the household's in a good place, but at least you have time. You have time that wasn't in the car. And we live in a time where they're kind of trying to roll some of that stuff back, right? And it kind of makes me angry. You know, cause I'm like, there's no data to support that rollback. Not really, really, when you look at it, says the market researcher, right? And I'm sure somebody listening is now like waving the one study. They probably work at Dell and senior leadership, the company that wants them to all like, you know, come back or they don't get promotions, right? You know, but, so, you know, there's somebody out there listening. It's like, I've got the one study and I'm like, no, no, no, no, man. Look, look at, look at all the studies before you do that. Yeah, so I think being remote's been huge. Staying focused on a sector, learning to say no. And I'll share one other quick thing that's a real, in a way it's a real tactical thing, but it's something I say all the time. So I know it's had an impact because it's always coming out of my mouth. There's this story by a guy named GK Chesterton, and I won't do the whole story because he's a 19th century writer. So it's like that kind of pride and prejudice, not that that's 19th century. You know what mean? Like long writing. So I'll summarize the whole thing. He basically says, there's a person who walks up to a fence and they say, I don't know why this fence is here. I'm gonna blow it away and do X with wherever the fence is. And there's another type of person that walks up to the fence and says, before I blow it away, I wanna understand why it's here. And I tell my team that all the time because I think one of the things that's hardest when a company's been business for a while, 18 years, whatever, is that new people come in and they're new. They wanna shake things up. They wanna say like, hey, I got an idea, boss. So how do you navigate getting that juice, getting that new idea, but not just being like, yeah, let's try to run Facebook ads again. We failed five times over the last 15 years, but let's try again. Maybe our audience likes them this year. And you're like, this is a waste of money. Why am I gonna go do that? You know, and there's some people who will like go that way. They're like, well, maybe this year's the year. Maybe I should listen. Right. And, and what, what I think makes more sense is to say to the employee, like, look, as long as you can tell me why the fence is here, I'm happy to blow it away. But if you try to tell me to blow it away before you know why it's here. And I found that's like a really good level setting thing. I think it's very honoring. I think people are Okay, makes sense to me. And I think it's also helped me to be honest, work well is the last thing on it. know, frankly, as you get older and you hire people that are younger, there's certain dynamics that creep in, you know what I mean? So is boss aware of that? Is boss as fast as he was? is he? You know what I mean? Like, and I think that's a way of level setting and saying like, sure, I'm happy to question my assumptions. I mean, if the gate shouldn't be there anymore, fine, we'll get rid of but if you can't tell me why it's there, then there's something you don't know that you need to ask me. And I don't know, it's this weird little thing. I came across it in a book like 10 years ago about actually managing creatives. They were referencing this guy's work. And it's huge. It probably comes out of my mouth like once every week around here. So that's a 

30:26 No, I love it. And I love that you recognize that you say this often because, you know, a lot of us read books, a lot of us, you know, listen to mentors or influencers about specific topics. And it is interesting when you find yourself repeating things that have made an impact on you and expecting the team to kind of rally behind that. It's important to know that this is probably important because it keeps coming to top of mind. You know what I mean? And I think that you've been very wise in recognizing that this seems to be coming across in my heart and my mind a lot. Let's really dive into this and what does this mean? What does it mean to you and you and you and getting specific with your team about why it should matter? You know, it's awesome.

31:11 Yep, 100%.

31:12 Well, this is awesome. Honestly, this is taking a little bit of a different path than I normally take, but I love it. I really appreciate this interview because it does share an insight into integrated growth and scaling that is a continuation of, it's not a one -time thing to make a decision whether you're going to transition from launch to growth because you're constantly iterating and you're constantly getting better and better and better at advancing your business. What would you say is the thing that if you could pinpoint one or two things that makes it so much easier for you to iterate now than it was early on.

31:49 Hmm, easier to iterate. I'm less personally invested in being right.

31:56 Interesting. I like that.

31:57 I think if business owners are being honest with themselves, that's a little bit of a motivation to launch a business, you know, to be right about whatever that thing is, you know, write about the product, write about the product market fit, write about a perspective you have as a lawyer, you know, and there's a weird line in there where as you start to employ people, like, you got to be able to listen. Right? You can't just lord it over them. Right? And you, you gotta get out of the way a little bit. And that doesn't mean there aren't crisis times where you just gotta grab the rudder and be like, you know, in a, another line I love. I forget what book it's from. I think it's Super Managers was kind of a sad name of a book, but I think that was the name. But it was, they did a bunch of interviews of like leading managers. That's not the name, but it's close to. And the line from one of the managers was, management is disappointing people to rate they will accept. Which by the way, no one laughs at unless they've managed or had children. But if they've had one of the two, they're immediately like, ha ha, that's really funny. And then I've had people who've done neither and they're like, should I laugh? You know what I'm like, yeah, you should laugh. And now, I don't really believe that. Otherwise, I just have a sad company, right? All day long. Like they'd be just puddle glum all day long. But I think the connection there is like, yeah, you're going to have to find that line. so to me, it's just like, I'm less invested in being right. I can easily walk into a meeting and take a beat and go, yeah, these young people figured something out I didn't. Okay, go for it. Yep. Do you know, whereas before I might try to like fight, unfortunately, in my own mind, even just, you know, kind of for my position a little longer, you know, like what I thought was right. And, but again, you got to marry that with Chesterton's fence. Sometimes I am right, right? Sometimes that fence is there for very, very good reasons. And just cause you can't see it, then it's an education issue. and the other thing I would say is, and this is probably the biggest, probably could have said this earlier. I'm pathologically incapable of learning something and not wanting to teach it. It's just how I am. Like every hobby's like that. I learned fishing, I want to teach everybody fishing. I learned skiing, I want to teach everybody skiing. I do business ownership, I want to teach everybody business ownership. I I don't know how to not do that. I'm just wired to be that way from like, I was in second grade and Father Boven came up to me. I didn't know this at the time, but my mom said that he used to call me the little professor, not cause I was smarmy.But because I just like to read a bunch of books and I like to say things that I read from the books, right? And so it sounds like I was geeky to those listening. Yes, I was geeky growing up, 100%. But that's how I get around problems is I just go learn. The last thing I'll say on that from a personal note, because we're recording this when we're in the throes of a lot of election things. Let's just put it that way right now. And so last election, you know, I'm like, huh, I think it'd be really smart to learn more about the office of the presidency. What would be a really like kind of neutral way I could do that? I mean, no content is truly neutral, but I'm like, I'm going to go read a biography on every president. And I did. It was great. It was great. Did I agree with every president? Nope. Did I think that every president made the right decisions? Nope. Did I want every president to be my president? Sure not. but you recognize that there's a lot more to what was going on than maybe you think, right? Just by investing the time to learn. And that's a big step. Like that took me three years alongside a bunch of other reading, because there's no biography that's less than 700 pages for some reason that I can't quite figure out. 

36:00 Yeah, of course not. Yeah. Well, they are awesome people. Awesome people.

36:03 Yeah. Yeah. So, but, so there's lots of pages that went into that. But that's the reason I give that up is like that's how I tend to solve things, right? I'm just like, I'm going to go learn and I'm going to read stuff I disagree with and I'm going to interact with different things. And I'd like to think that's normalized, but I think you and I both know it's not.

36:26  It's not, no. It's very much a trait amongst our audience though, which is totally relatable to me and likely a lot of people listening to this is that we are the people who want to have answers. We don't like to go blindly. We will if we need to, but we'd like to know that our assumptions are validated in some way, And so whether that comes from a client acquisition or whether it comes from, you know, reading every biography on the 47 presidents or whatever it is, you are going to learn things that, okay, this validates what I was thinking and what I was feeling. And we tend to be people that operate off of feel oftentimes, as opposed to actual knowledge. Other than people like you who are data managers and are doing the market research and really figuring things out, I think a lot of us are that way and wanting to know. So I can totally relate to where you're coming from, man. I appreciate it. Very cool stuff. But Sean, honestly, your time is so valuable and I really appreciate you hopping on here to have this discussion with me. Again, it took some turns that I really am glad it took because I think that there is such a spiritual side to all of us and when we do tap into that, it does balance a lot of things out in your mind and in your heart and in the way you are energized towards your business. And so I applaud you for diving there and going there today. And for those of you that are shy about it, don't be. And make sure that you are tapped into your family, tapped into your faith, and tapped into your business in a way that all three complement each other as opposed to always battling it out. Sean, thank you, man.

38:10 Hey, thanks for having me on, man. And thanks for the conversation. was super appreciated.

38:15 You betcha. All right, we'll catch up to the rest of you on the next episode. Thanks for being here.