[Speaker 2]
Welcome to another edition of the inside BS show. I am Dave Lorenzo, and we've got a treat for you today. I've got somebody who has done probably one of the most difficult things anybody can do, and that is start a business and a difficult business to start during one of the most difficult times to start a business.

That's right. My guests today started a brand new business during COVID almost from scratch. And I cannot wait for you to hear her story.

We are speaking today with Francine Lasky, who is a Vistage Chair in the Chicagoland area. We will explain exactly what she does as a Vistage Chair, but here's what you need to know. She had an entire career in business before launching this, I want to say second act as a Vistage Chair, helping other business leaders, just like you, just like me, grow our businesses and build a business on a solid foundation.

So if you're a family business owner, you own and operate a privately held company and you're looking to grow, you're looking to scale, this is the show for you. Please join me in welcoming Francine Lasky to the inside BS show. Hey, Francine, great to have you with us.

Thanks for joining us.

[Speaker 1]
Thanks, Dave. Appreciate it.

[Speaker 2]
Well, so I built this up, so now we got to deliver. Tell us what your career was first, tell us all about your background. And then we want to hear the story of how you started as a Vistage Chair right at the precipice of COVID.

[Speaker 1]
I got it. So I'm going to start, go way back and say, when I entered college, I wanted to be the first woman Secretary of State. That was my goal.

And I loved politics. I loved kind of international relations, got into it, went through some big questions, there's been big questions that have kind of changed the course of my life, met somebody who said, you're a person who likes to get things done, who moves fast, you make decisions quick, you're not going to be happy in the foreign service, so you should try something else. So I went back and went, shoot, this is my last year of college, what should I do?

And what I really loved was decision making, how people came to make decisions. And so decided to get into the advertising business, because that was a way you could make money and influence decisions. So went into advertising, worked for two years for the advertising firm for Wendy's Hamburgers, and then decided to get my MBA, left the advertising world to go work for my parents who owned a small medical device firm.

And that's where I started and fell in love with small business, running a business, facing all of those challenges. So worked with my parents for quite a few years, and then my mom suddenly passed away, and all of a sudden, I was kind of in the big seat. My dad ran kind of the manufacturing and the research, and everything else that a business was suddenly fell in my lap.

And that was an amazing trial by fire to kind of go, here is a whole business that you've been around, but haven't been making those decisions. Decided I needed a group to help me, somebody, could have been networking, could have been a coach. I found Vistage, an organization that helps CEOs and other levels of executives make decisions within a peer group.

Loved it, loved it so much that a couple of years later, after it had really transformed my business, I decided I wanted to become a chair and run my own groups, and that's what I do now.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the first, the medical device business that you were a part of. What was the product or products that you were responsible for?

[Speaker 1]
So if we were, do you remember Brookstone, right? Really cool kind of gadgets that used to be out on the market? If you were a microbiologist working in a microbiology lab, we were the Brookstone.

We were the cool, nifty, not necessarily high tech, but really neat gadgets that my dad, who was the inventor of all of this, entrepreneur in his DNA, came up with it, and then we started marketing those products. So if you're a microbiologist, you know scientific device lab.

[Speaker 2]
So how much of your day-to-day, at any point in that journey, was selling or connecting and developing relationships?

[Speaker 1]
I would say not until the very end. So we went through a strategic planning process in the last two years, and it was a deficit that I saw. My dad owned all those relationships, and it was something that I needed to take into account.

So in the last two years, I really started traveling, doing a lot more kind of relationship development. My expertise was really inside the building, was a little bit more in building our culture, was building systems and processes. I was a spreadsheet guy, not the sales guy.

[Speaker 2]
Well, so I love the culture aspect. I love the systems and prospect. The process aspect, because I find in family businesses, this is the one thing that is always, it's always a stepchild.

It's always done like when you have to do it, right? In fact, right before our time together today, I was working with a family business owner who is in the middle of revitalizing his sales process. And I said, and he had a breakthrough and he was really excited.

And I said, okay, while you're this excited, you need to pull out your phone and record everything that you just told me, transcribe it and have, you know, AI now put it into a job description because you've created this new role. And when you bring somebody on, you're going to pass all this knowledge on to them, but they're going to need a job description. You're going to need a training program.

And that system is going to serve you so that you don't have to be the one to constantly train people. You'll train one person and they'll have this system and process in place. And the business owner looked at me and said, well, that seems like a lot of work.

I said, it's a lot of work one time, but once you build the system, the system works for you. And the light bulb went off. Francine, you tell me, is that typical of a family owned business where it doesn't exist?

And if they would do it the one time, it would make their life so much easier. Is that your experience?

[Speaker 1]
Absolutely. I would agree. The limiting factor in most family businesses is the fact that you happen to have somebody who does the job well and that basically it doesn't scale.

It doesn't. Like once the job gets a little bit bigger than Bob, who was doing a great job at sales, at AR, at culture, at HR. You name the whatever the job title is, Bob just happened to be a great guy.

And that's how you got to this point. The problem is, is that now you need two Bobs or you need three Sally's in order to do AR. And you don't even know what made Sally good in the first place.

And so doing those processes is essential. And I see it as one of the most limiting factors in family business is why they don't grow or why they can't scale once you do get that success. And sales, Dave, it's nothing more.

And I'll give you my take on because most likely the founder is the salesperson and they don't even understand what makes themselves good. Like they cannot take the self-actualization to kind of go, OK, the reason why I'm a good salesperson is because I remember a lot of details. I remember every guy's kid's name and I remember when they sold it last.

And you have to bring those processes in. I have a great story from my business, which was we had a million parts in the medical device business. We had kind of over 800 products, right.

And too many. And I kind of scaled those down. But we had a guy who was our purchasing agent.

And off the top of his head, he could name you every part that went into every single and every vendor and what the last price that they paid. And I said, we're in danger, right. We cannot if if that guy got hit by a bus tomorrow, we are in danger of losing the business because nobody else knows that information.

So we put in we got in an SAP, right. We put in an ERP system. Most people say it's the worst thing they've ever done in their whole career is put in it.

I loved it. I loved the process. I loved the flowcharts.

I loved the taking the knowledge and putting it into a system that everybody could access, especially me.

[Speaker 2]
So you were a systems person at heart. Your unique ability was you probably made a system for everything from putting paper in the copier to, you know, like you said, making sure there was a system so that everybody knew what pieces went with what products. Right.

So your unique ability was everything that you saw, you could create a system out of it, which is a huge advantage in being a business leader. When you work with people now today, what do you do to introduce this concept to them when somebody comes to you and they say, Francine, you know, they join they join one of your groups and they say, Francine, my number one challenge, my number one issue is I'm having trouble scaling. How do you how do you in the back of your mind, you're probably thinking, OK, it's one of two things.

It's either sales or systems. Let me ask them some questions to figure out whether it's sales or systems. You figure out if it's systems, you know, it's systems.

How do you introduce this to them? How do you get them excited about capturing everything? Because the first thing I hear from people is that's so much work.

Right. So how do you get them excited about it?

[Speaker 1]
And I say there's only two things as CEOs you have control over resources and people and people are a resource and resources are people. Right. So really those two things go together.

I try and share with them my story about kind of control. But I think the most effective way to get people excited about it is Vistage in itself is a peer group. Right.

There is not me as one business owner or knowing all knowing consultant. It is about sitting with a group of your peers. And when you hear as a business owner, what I heard as a member, because I was a member of Vistage and then I became a chair.

When I hear people who I think are smart, people who I think have successful businesses, who know who have the same limitations and superpowers that I do, when they say you have to have a sales playbook, you have to have an ERP system like you can't do it otherwise. Right. Like that's just not the way you're going to get where you want to go.

I think the best way to get them excited is to say, where do you want to go? Because if they don't know, then they can stay where they are. I don't mind if they don't have a plan to say, I would like to be X million dollars, you know, within five years, or I would like to have a life balance.

Right. That's another goal that I think is great. Work life balance.

If they don't have that, then they can pretty much stay where they are. But if they have a clear goal in mind, then they're going to look for tools in order to make that work.

[Speaker 2]
That's great. I think I think that's terrific. And when you talk to business owners who who have the money coming in the door, but they hit that Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach calls it the ceiling of complexity.

Right. And I find that the ceiling of complexity, it exists because there aren't enough systems, there aren't enough processes in a lot of businesses. So when you find people who are able to get in front of folks, they're able to develop relationships.

And the missing element is systems. That's what those are the people who jump all over it. Now, you mentioned something that I think is really important.

It's really valuable. And it's another area where it's a force multiplier. And you said self-awareness.

And I know this is a big thing for you. I know you do. You do a lot of work in this area.

Talk about how being self-aware is is important for a CEO of a, you know, mid-market or lower mid-market business.

[Speaker 1]
Well, I'll ask you, Dave, too. You have you work with those people. How many businesses, percentage wise, the CEO is the problem.

They're the one who's standing in the way.

[Speaker 2]
I mean, they wouldn't be in front of me if they weren't the problem. Like, that's why they don't know it. But that's why they don't know it.

[Speaker 1]
That's absolutely it. It is it is the awareness that you can't be everything. You can't do everything.

You can't know everything. Why do you start a business? Because you do think you can think those things, right?

What got you here is not going to get you there. So you have to make a switch at some point. The switch has to turn to say, I can hire people better than me.

And I'm OK with that. Right. And in order to attract those people, I have to do the work to think about what makes me good at this, what made me good up until this point.

And what do I not have? There's the big key. That's very hard to an ego, right?

To kind of say, what am I not so good at that? I need to hire for that somebody that's better than me. And some people take that really easy and they have that growth mindset that Carol Dweck talks about that says I can grow.

I can grow in terms of I'm never going to be good at that. I need to hire somebody to do that. Does that answer your question?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. No, no, I think that 100 percent answers the question. And I'll tell you my own from just being vulnerable myself, it took me.

So I had an entire corporate background, 26 years in corporate where I was super successful, not realizing that the reason I was successful in the corporate world, not only because it was not only because I had other people's money to use to build things before the revenue came in. But I also had people who had complementary strengths to mine who could bolster where I was weak and I never had to worry about it. Now, because all these people worked for me, that ego element was not a problem.

So I go on my own, Francine. I start and it takes me forever to break that seven figure barrier. And I'm wondering why I can't do it.

And my wife is sure as hell wondering why I can't do it, because there's less money now than we had when I was working for somebody else. And she can't figure out why.

[Speaker 1]
That wasn't why we started our own business.

[Speaker 2]
Exactly right. And so we go through COVID and this is where we get to your COVID journey. After COVID, I pretty much had to start over.

And when I'm starting over, it finally hits me that I don't want to do all this other stuff. Let me figure out if there's somebody out there who can. And I joined forces with someone who has strengths in all the things that I can't stand.

She loves those things. So we became partners and now every day is a good day because I only do things I like to do. I don't have to do the books.

I don't have to deal with the vendors. All that stuff is, and she's so much better at it than I am. I don't have to worry about that anymore.

So for me, it was eyeopening that, and it wasn't like, I had that ego problem that you mentioned all this time. And I'm thinking to myself, I got to give up my freedom in order to have this. I'm more free now than I ever was because I don't, I'm not chained to all that crappy stuff that I can't stand.

And she's more free now than she ever was because the stuff that I love to do, she was terrible at in her business and she didn't want to do it. So, I mean, it is, it's, if you think about it as liberating and never, like it would take me three times as long as it takes her just to be adequate at like the books, let's say, like at the end of the day, you'd be depleted.

[Speaker 1]
Exhaustive, right? Like you would, you would not want to do the things you like to do because you were completely depleted by doing things you didn't like to do. And I'd like to redefine it rather than ego to say identity.

I think a lot of times we do it as our identity. I can power through, I do the hard stuff. Like I don't, you know, I know what it takes to make a business successful and I know that there's crap that I need to do, right?

And you use it as your identity and it's very hard to let that identity go. But I agree with you. I have seen people sell their businesses, clients of mine that have kind of been through Vistage, started out as control freaks in their business and ended up at the end of their careers, right?

Where they, they built this organization that does all the things, they're working very little time and the last thing that they have to do is sell the business. And even the transition isn't as hard because they have kind of given the people that they've hired the right people, told them what they needed to do, given them the vision and they're done. And then they cashed the check.

[Speaker 2]
No, it's that, that to me, so we, our philosophy is we help you build a business that isn't, that acts like an investment because if your business is acting like an investment, the opportunity for you to step away is an opportunity that you take advantage of because you feel like this is the, this is the time for the investment to make the final payoff to you. But if the investment is delivering dividends all along and you get to jump into that investment to do the things that you're really good at, you might not sell your business at that point, but you could, if you decided you wanted to, or if life circumstances changed or if the mood struck you to do something else. So building a business like an investment requires that you bring in people to fulfill all the, to fill all those roles that you have throughout the business.

Now, I want to, I want to fill our promise to the folks when we started out and I want you to tell the story of starting as a Vistage chair during like the most difficult time I had to start my business over during COVID not by my choice. It was, it was the choice of the fact that my clients pretty much closed their doors and they didn't know for how long. Right.

So you started a business during COVID. You started your business as a Vistage chair. So what I'd like you to do for the, for the person who's just joining me for the first time and who's never heard what a Vistage chair is and what a Vistage group is, describe, I think we'll take a, take a CE group to start and you can describe the other groups if you want and describe what you do and what the groups are like, and then talk about how you started.

[Speaker 1]
So I'll give you my journey as a Vistage member first and then to go from there. So I joined Vistage because my, my mom had passed away quite suddenly and all of a sudden I was now at the head of this company. My dad was, was kind of taking a break.

He was, he was mourning at that point in time in the business and I knew I needed support in some way. Here I was kind of at that point not having run a whole company before. I only had 30 people.

I mean, it wasn't a huge company by any means, but I needed some support and ideas that didn't come from somebody who signed my third grade report card, right? Like that was my dad, right? Like, and that's all I had.

So I asked every person who walked into the office, do you know of someplace like this? Where can I go? Could it be a coach?

Could it be a networking? And I found Vistage. And what Vistage is, is a peer group that meets monthly.

One, a full day monthly in order to work on your business. It's people who bring their hardest issues, the hardest things that they're working on to a group. And instead of having just one coach, I serve as the chair, much more as a facilitator than a coach in the meetings.

And in those, I facilitate those discussions. So you are not getting my opinion on my $3 million business. You are getting 15 to 18 people sitting around that table who have various businesses with various perspectives at various stages in their career with actually probably industries that have nothing to do with yours, right?

And I always say, if you want a great solution from an industry group, do an industry group. Like go to manufacturing, go to construction. If you want an out-of-the-box solution, take a construction company and take a solution from an IT company.

Take a manufacturing company and get it from a service company, right? Like you have to look at something else that's been proven, but outside the box. So I joined this Vistage group and loved it, right?

It was transformational for me for a couple reasons. The first one was my business, right? Like here was ideas.

I didn't have to reinvent the wheel at every turn. Something would happen. I'd go to my Vistage group going, hey, has anybody ever gotten a letter from the transportation that says I'm right next to an expressway and that they're going to take my land?

And the commercial real estate guy who was on my Vistage team was like, ignore it. It doesn't mean anything. Do you know what that saved me in lawyer's fees?

Like the $500 that it would have cost me for them to say, ignore it, it doesn't mean anything. That was the first thing. But honestly, the most important thing from Vistage, which I got, was the lonely at the top syndrome, right?

When you are running a business, you have nobody to talk to, right? Like there is very few, and especially an agenda-free forum to bring up your problems. You cannot, I'll give you my example.

I got an MBA. It was in marketing, right? So finance, I took my finance classes.

I really wasn't sure what the balance sheet was supposed to tell me. I got P&Ls, no problem, profit, loss, no problem. I really had no idea, and I could not go to my CFO and go, I don't understand what the balance sheet means.

Can you help me with this? I was too embarrassed. Why?

Like it always balances, so why are we like even looking at this, right? And so I went to my Vistage group, and I said, look, I'm not afraid of looking stupid in front of you. I can be completely vulnerable and say, I don't know what decisions I'm supposed to be making based off of this.

Can you guys help me? And they went, yes. You don't have a cash problem.

That's why you don't think, you don't ever have to make a decision about a balance sheet, right? Like your business runs this way. There's other businesses that do, and these are the decisions that they would make off of that.

So that for me was just transformational to have the support network, the people who are in your corner. I just heard a story from another chair who a member came in and said, look, I have people who know me as a business person. I have people who know me personally.

This is the only group of people who know both, who know both sides of me. And that's beautiful. Like nobody, if you had to quantify like what that support means, you couldn't put a price on it.

It is literally priceless to have people who will help you make the hardest decisions you're ever going to have to make.

[Speaker 2]
That's great. And I had the same experience as a Vistage member, and it was incredibly valuable. Talk about what you do as a chair now.

[Speaker 1]
What I do as a chair, and I'll use it in the COVID example. So as a chair, you are kind of the conduit for these 14, 15, up to 18 people to communicate to each other. So it is kind of the easiest way to put together.

I am the CEO of those CEOs, and in the best sense of, I don't have to be an expert in any of their businesses. All I have to know is how to connect them, how to facilitate them, and make sure they're all getting something out of the experience. So if you think about kind of an executive team meeting where the CEO just makes sure that marketing is correctly talking to manufacturing and manufacturing is correctly talking to quality control, that's all I have to do.

And I say all, but that's wrangling 18 big personalities in the room and making sure they get what they need. So during COVID, we went, we were supposed to have our meeting on, let's see, the world went dark March like 11th or 12th. We were supposed to have our meeting the next week.

I didn't know what Zoom was. Like I had to figure out that we were going to get together because everybody was panicking, and every business owner had to appear like they knew what they were doing, right? Like that was what their employees were looking for.

The world was falling apart. And how were we going to do business and who's safe and who's not safe? So we had to get together, figured out Zoom, and then we basically paired resources.

So let's start talking about when PPP loans came out. We shared resources. My bank is doing a great job.

Let me introduce you to my bank. They got it to me a lot sooner. What are you doing if your employee wants to go on vacation?

Remember way back when, when somebody wanted to go on a vacation to a X, to a hotspot, and you had to get a letter? We shared all of those resources. So in a time of crisis, and let's face it, COVID was a level 10 crisis.

Businesses operate on a level four crisis all the time. If you're lucky, you get up to seven or eight, right? You never go to 10.

But those four to seven crises, we do that all the time. My salesman is a prima donna. He thinks he can, you know, he's my top guy.

He doesn't want to follow the rules. He doesn't do his documentation. He treats everybody like crap.

He never fills out his paperwork. Everybody's got one of those.

[Speaker 2]
You just described the best salesperson in every organization.

[Speaker 1]
Absolutely. And can I afford to let them go or not, right? Who makes that decision?

You're the only person who can make that decision when you're sitting in a vista group, and as the chair facilitates it, we go, what's your core values? What are the things that are the most important to you? If respect for each other is it, then is it worth the business that you potentially could lose, right?

And somebody's got to ask you that question. And that's what we do in a vista group is we really, we never tell you what to do. You absolutely have autonomy.

But if you're sitting there and you say, I'm going to fire my salesperson and 14 other smart, successful business owners go, you cannot do that. I really think you should reconsider. You're an idiot if you don't reconsider, right?

Or if they say, we think you should fire him, and 14 people say, I think he's toxic to your organization and you'll be fine. Somehow that safety net is what business leaders need because it's always what would happen if you couldn't fail, right? People ask that question all the time.

And in a way, it's a stupid question because you always could fail. But what if you had a safety net of 14, 15 people who sit in the same seat you do, who are saying, okay, I think it's worth the risk. Like that's, that's decreasing your risk a lot for making a risky decision.

[Speaker 2]
No, that's great. So tell us how you got the folks. So you have, you have two CE groups.

You have two groups of business leaders now that you facilitate. How did you get folks interested? How did you get folks, like, what did you do to reach out to people?

Cause you started in 2019. How many people did you have going into COVID?

[Speaker 1]
I had one whole group.

[Speaker 2]
So you had a group already going. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Well, I took it over. So basically my chair, like the group I was in, I had left my business, decided to become a chair and my chair and I co-chaired throughout all of COVID, which was an awesome way to do it because she was 70 something at the time. So her technology was not high, right?

So it was a great partnership, kind of the way you were talking about. You find somebody, I can do the tech part and I can do the, how do we share documents? How do we get people together, right?

Online. And she had all, and I got all of her knowledge about how to chair a group. So that group was together.

The other group I did start during COVID and I always tell them I'm a lot shorter. I'm a lot taller in Zoom than I am in real life. So but you know, basically it's people who have already had, they know they need something, they know something needs to change in order to go forward.

And so I try and find them at the right time and say the right thing to say, is this better than doing nothing? My biggest competitor is not other peer groups. It's doing nothing, thinking I could do it on my own.

My identity is tied to me figuring it out by myself. And if you can move past that, the sky's the limit.

[Speaker 2]
All right. So tell me what you're, you're very good about reaching out to other VISTA chairs. And I think there's an enormous amount of value in doing that.

You even have your own show, your own podcast. And we're going to put a link in the show notes where you talk to other VISTA chairs. Tell me about the conversations you have with VISTA chairs and some of the big takeaways, the big things that you've learned, because these are like super connectors.

These are people who hear the greatest ideas and the biggest problems that people who are just like you and me, business owners are facing. So what are some of the golden nuggets that you've heard from VISTA chairs that you've talked to?

[Speaker 1]
The best nuggets. So I'll put them in two categories. One is for the coach, right?

Like we're all coaches. And that's another piece of VISTA is that we're facilitators during the meetings, but we also do coaching for the CEOs. So you get a, an element of coaching.

The most, the best part about, the best nugget I'll say on coaching is sharing the weight of it. It, there is times where we're dealing with really, really hard stuff and that's people's families, people's businesses, the weight you carry as a business owner that you transfer to your coach, right? I have responsibility for, I had 30 lives that families that were dependent on me.

Some of mine have 600, 800, a thousand families that are dependent on their decisions. To have a community where you can talk about what those challenges are, we also, it's very lonely at the top, right? Like you need a network of people to be able to talk through those things with.

In terms of the business side of it, I would imagine, I'm trying to think of my best golden nugget that VISTA chairs talk about. I would say it's that self-awareness piece. How do we bring out self-awareness in people?

I mean, it goes back to what we were talking about before. What do you say, and it's not one formula. There's, I wouldn't say there's limitless formulas.

There's personality types that kind of come up. How do you get somebody to be their best self? And what is the language you have to use?

How do you have to show up for them? What are the ways to attract the right people for your group? How do you balance that group?

All of those things are important. And I would say everything that we do as a VISTA group, you as a CEO then can take back to your own company and use it in your own company. Monthly summaries, like, wow, if you have a lot of divisions, people who don't talk to each other, maybe you should have a monthly summary before you get back together for your monthly one-to-ones or whatever it is.

We have lots of tools that we use that then you could adapt for your own business.

[Speaker 2]
So what are some of the key questions that you and your VISTA chair peers ask CEOs to help them uncover some of the gaps, let's call it, in their leadership?

[Speaker 1]
Usually I'll ask the question, where do you want to be in three years? And I figure a three year is a good number, right? You could ask five years.

And I've done it even in exercise in 10 years with my members. And that's another whole area to explore. But let's say the three years.

Where do you want to be in three years? Okay. And they say something like a revenue goal or they'll say an employee goal or they'll say a market share, whatever their goal is.

Or I think a much more telling answer is, I don't know. Honestly, that for me is the most self-aware answer that you can do. Because if they do say, I'd like to be at 10 million in three years, why?

And then I shut up. And they go, well, because, you know, that's where our goal is. Why?

What's 10 million going to get you? Well, you know, once we're at 10 million, then I'll have 50 employees and it'll be blah, blah, and then I do another. Why?

Until they get to the personal part of that. What does it mean for you? Well, when I get to 10 million, I'll be able to tell my dad, like, I'll show my, I, I, that is the, once they get to the self-awareness piece of saying, then I know I'm successful, then I know I'm successful.

Because that's the number I always set. That's the one my uncle Charlie said to me when I was 14 that said, a real man has a $10 million business, right? Whatever it is, that's what we get to.

And then I'll say, okay, what's preventing you? What's the biggest thing that's preventing you from getting there? And it's usually down to people, almost always it's people, right?

And it's not having the right people, not letting go of people that you have been amazingly helpful to your business that you need to let go of. And it's very funny because so many members of Vistage who first start out and who are kind of a hot mess when they first start out, they're like, are you going to have me fire my whole staff? And we're like, maybe, like, maybe.

Cause they're not serving you the way you want to be served. And then they don't have the vision that you have for going forward.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. It's, it's people, it's process, it's place. Sometimes, very rarely it's product, right?

It's the four, those four P's, right? People, process, and sometimes it's place, meaning industry or, you know, market, but it's almost always people in process. Yeah, you're a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

[Speaker 1]
And honestly, I would even say process will happen if you have the right people. Like the reason why you don't do process is because people resist process. Why do we need a process?

Why are we making this so complicated? Those people are standing in the way of growth.

[Speaker 2]
Right. No, no, for sure. For sure.

All right. So if I, if you were interviewing you, what would you ask you now?

[Speaker 1]
I would ask me what, that's a really good question, which is my favorite compliment to give anybody to say that's a really good question.

[Speaker 2]
Um, if I were interviewing me, what's the nugget of value we haven't extracted from you yet, Francine? What have you been, what have you been holding back from us?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, such a good question. Can I have a second to think about it? Would you edit out my pause here?

[Speaker 2]
I'm going to, I'll, I'll let people know. Francine Lasky is a Vistage Chair. She's in the Chicagoland area.

All of her contact information is down in the show notes. If you like what you heard today and you live within, let's say within 50 miles of anywhere in Chicago, you can reach out to Francine. She's got a group that's not full.

She will be happy to talk to you about it. You may be a fit. You may not be a fit.

I can guarantee you if you're not a fit for Francine's group, she will find a group for you that you are a fit for. So all that information is down in the show notes. If you want to reach out to her.

Okay. Francine, I've stalled long enough.

[Speaker 1]
You did a good job. Excellent job.

[Speaker 2]
What is the golden nugget you got for us?

[Speaker 1]
I think Francine Lasky's word, right? Everybody's got a word. Do you have a word, Dave, that like, is you?

[Speaker 2]
I think probably persistence. I am the, I am persistence and resilience. Those two things.

And they go hand in hand. Like, you know, I'm a donkey pulling a cart, Francine. That's what I am.

[Speaker 1]
I love that. I think Francine's word is intentionality, right? That if you approach your life with intention, you can really pretty much achieve anything.

If you let the wind blow you and say, I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, or I'll react to it when the time comes, there's an element to that, that you're letting the world and other people determine what your future is. And one of my best coaching techniques is to go, what's your intention in doing that? Like, what do you want to get to?

And then let's build backwards. So if I had to have a tattoo on me, uh, I would say it would probably be the word intentional or intention.

[Speaker 2]
That's, that's awesome. I, I say it as clarity of purpose, but I think it's the same thing. I think that's so, man, that is, I think that's one of the reasons why you're successful because you think of the end and work backwards, that is the ultimate way to do it.

All right. So Francine, I told everybody we were putting your information down in the show notes, what is your, everybody has a preferred method of contact. Like I'm a phone guy.

I'm not a big email fan. What's your preferred way for people to get in touch with you?

[Speaker 1]
I would imagine email is good. My Gmail account, I have a Vistage account too. I don't check that one as much.

My, my regular Gmail account is the one I like the best. Um, you can also reach out. I mean, I'll put my phone number in there.

You're welcome to text or call. Uh, so any of those are fine. Um, I really enjoy what I do.

I think this is a calling more than it is even, uh, my job. I enjoy doing it. I, I really find purpose.

I think Vistage calls on us to come up with our why. And the why that I have is that I can think we can save the world one small to medium sized business at a time. I do believe that we can, if business owners are their best selves, then that translates down to everybody's families, those families that we all affect.

And if you can do the best you can do, and that means money as well as balance, right, then we can all make the world a better place. So I, uh, that's kind of where I do it. So I'm happy to kind of talk to whomever, and I do look at every conversation, whether it's you're interested in Vistage or not as just an opportunity to learn.

I'm a lifelong learner. So that kind of fits for me.

[Speaker 2]
All right, folks, you heard it here. Francine Lasky, her information is down in the show notes. We're going to put the Gmail address and the Vistage chair email address down below.

Also, her phone number will be down there. If you're in the Chicagoland area and you want to grow your business, you want help getting clarity of purpose, intentionality, that's what Francine's here for. Reach out to her.

You can find her at the information down below. Francine, it was such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much.

[Speaker 2]
Alrighty, folks, that'll do it for this edition of the inside BS show. My name is Dave Lorenzo. We're back here tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. with another show. We're back next week with another great interview. Until then, here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life.