David Kreeger traded legal briefs for business breakthroughs. In this episode, the founder of GoPedal shares his journey from practicing law at WilmerHale and IBM to owning a painting franchise and now leading strategic transformations for companies that feel stuck.

David reveals what drew him away from the legal grind—a desire to make decisions, improve quality of life, and be present for his family. His pivot into entrepreneurship wasn’t just about freedom; it was about creating value where others saw commodity. One $1,700 job turned into $600,000 in revenue because he treated every customer like gold.

Now, David uses his legal training to dissect complex business challenges and help companies focus on what really matters. His superpower? Asking the right questions. He explains why leaders often miss what’s obvious—and how the right data can shift everything. If you're facing tough decisions or struggling with clarity, David’s approach offers a fresh blueprint for forward momentum.

Want to learn more about David Kreeger's work? Check out their website at https://www.thegopedal.net.

Connect with David Kreeger on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-kreeger-b1264b4/.

Key Points with Timestamps

• 00:52 – Introduction of guest David Kreeger and his pivot from D.C. lawyer to business strategist
  
  

• 04:41 – David tells a story about influencing Capitol Hill proceedings without his wife (a Hill staffer) knowing

• 08:07 – Transition from corporate law to business ownership driven by family and lifestyle values

• 13:01 – Why he left law: decision-making, burnout, and desire to create impact

• 17:02 – Choosing painting over supplements: high-quality service as a differentiator

• 19:09 – A $1,700 job that led to $600K in business—why treating everyone well pays off

• 21:12 – Consulting focus: helping businesses through strategic challenges and transformation

• 23:00 – Leadership through questions: how asking better questions leads clients to self-realization

• 26:01 – Why many leaders overlook obvious issues—misaligned data and assumptions

• 28:19 – The value of legal training in breaking down complex issues into actionable clarity

• 29:16 – Writing and communication: explain complex ideas at a 7th-grade level for real leadership impact

• 30:38 – Final thoughts on understanding businesses fast and leading through clarity, not ego

Transcript

00;00;05;20 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment in my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;17
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on this show.

00;00;51;19 - 00;01;19;10
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome David Kreeger. He is the founder of GoPedal. And we we've literally spent like almost a half hour in the green room chatting. And we should hit record before. Just a fascinating guy who went from being a D.C. lawyer to now helping businesses get unstuck. And he helps businesses figure out ways through their toughest challenges.

00;01;19;12 - 00;01;19;28
Craig Andrews
So

00;01;19;28 - 00;01;21;06
Craig Andrews
David, welcome.

00;01;21;09 - 00;01;22;22
David Kreeger
Thanks, Craig. It's great to be here.

00;01;22;29 - 00;01;26;21
David Kreeger
And apologies for being a little bit long winded in the green room. I fit accused of that before.

00;01;26;28 - 00;01;30;20
Craig Andrews
Oh, no. No. Well, and the internet going out didn't help much.

00;01;30;23 - 00;01;45;27
Craig Andrews
There you go. Which was, for those listening, it was my internet that went out. But, you know, it's always enjoy meeting people from D.C.. I grew up on the Eastern shore of Maryland. And so we were definitely outside, you know, the bubble of DC.

00;01;46;00 - 00;02;09;12
Craig Andrews
But I've had friends have lived in inside the Beltway and you know like Northern Virginia. Yeah. Off King Street. And, and the thing that I realize is D.C. is just like this different world. And when you live inside the Beltway, you hear things. You see things. You run into things that would blow the mind. And most people I I'll give you an example.

00;02;09;15 - 00;02;31;12
Craig Andrews
Yeah. A buddy of mine had talking to him last night and back in the late 90s, we're talking on the phone and he lived off King Street, and he starts cracking jokes about cigars. Like, Steve, what are you talking about? He's like, you know Monica? Like, who's Monica? He's like Michael Lewinsky. I was like, Steve, I have no idea who she is.

00;02;31;15 - 00;02;40;08
Craig Andrews
This was two weeks before the story broke publicly, and it was already a discussion inside the Beltway.

00;02;40;11 - 00;02;41;08
David Kreeger
Yeah. It's,

00;02;41;08 - 00;02;45;09
David Kreeger
it's a it's a crazy world, actually. So funny story on that one.

00;02;45;12 - 00;02;51;20
David Kreeger
My my wife worked on Capitol Hill. She worked for most of the time. We were there for the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

00;02;51;20 - 00;02;55;11
David Kreeger
And she had a good friend who she had gone to grad school with,

00;02;55;11 - 00;02;58;12
David Kreeger
who worked in the white House.

00;02;58;14 - 00;03;19;08
David Kreeger
I came to find out after the whole story broke that even if the president if you're the president of the United States, if you make a booboo that big, you actually get kicked out of the bedroom and you have to sleep on the couch. So after the story broke, President Clinton was actually not allowed to sleep in the bedroom with Hillary.

00;03;19;08 - 00;03;22;14
David Kreeger
She kicked him out. He had to sleep on the couch or in a different bedroom.

00;03;22;17 - 00;03;34;21
Craig Andrews
Wow. Well, you know, it's funny. I heard a former CIA officer, a guy named John Kiriakou, who was around Clinton in the days following that.

00;03;34;23 - 00;03;35;04
David Kreeger
Yeah.

00;03;35;06 - 00;03;39;08
Craig Andrews
And he said that Clinton absolutely hated silence. And,

00;03;39;08 - 00;04;01;13
Craig Andrews
and they were over in Europe somewhere. And Hillary comes out of the elevator and this CIA agent standing right there, and Bill goes, hey, one and he him over. You know, when that great tour around town Hill and she's just silent. They, like, repeats himself. Right. And she just shoot some of these cold, you know, heart stopping eyes, you know.

00;04;01;16 - 00;04;02;05
Craig Andrews
Right, right.

00;04;02;10 - 00;04;03;19
David Kreeger
Right, right.

00;04;03;22 - 00;04;20;23
Craig Andrews
Melchior. And he say, I was tense. He said the interesting thing about Clinton was then he got on stage like minutes later, and he was like on in his classic Clinton form, you would never know. You just had this major blow up with his wife two months ago.

00;04;20;25 - 00;04;26;12
David Kreeger
Yep. And you have to be able to you have to be able to do that as a politician because you when you're on, you have to be on.

00;04;26;15 - 00;04;29;00
David Kreeger
It's it's a crazy skill. It's not one that I have, but,

00;04;29;03 - 00;04;30;13
David Kreeger
yeah, for sure.

00;04;30;15 - 00;04;39;20
Craig Andrews
Well, you've I mean, okay, so I gotta ask anybody. It's lived inside the Beltway. They have. But there's just one of these stories it's hard to believe. No way outside would believe it, but, yeah, it's real.

00;04;39;22 - 00;04;41;17
David Kreeger
So. So we have one. So,

00;04;41;19 - 00;04;42;15
David Kreeger
I was,

00;04;42;15 - 00;04;44;07
David Kreeger
out of law school. Been out of law school for,

00;04;44;07 - 00;04;53;24
David Kreeger
a couple of years. Was doing work for pro bono client. I was working for one of the top three DC based firms. It was firm at the time called Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering. Now it's WilmerHale. And,

00;04;53;24 - 00;04;55;14
David Kreeger
we had a pro bono client,

00;04;55;17 - 00;04;58;18
David Kreeger
who, was,

00;04;58;18 - 00;05;03;25
David Kreeger
a professional association in a very partizan segment of the health care industry.

00;05;03;27 - 00;05;04;16
David Kreeger
And,

00;05;04;16 - 00;05;09;09
David Kreeger
they had asked me to draft an affidavit,

00;05;09;12 - 00;05;28;25
David Kreeger
in connection with some other litigation in that world that was going to get used to blow up a hearing that the other side of that issue had called on Capitol Hill. And my wife, who is a health policy analyst working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Democratic staff, I couldn't tell her about it.

00;05;28;28 - 00;05;32;17
David Kreeger
Forget the normal like, you know, legal rules of,

00;05;32;19 - 00;05;32;27
David Kreeger
and,

00;05;32;27 - 00;05;49;25
David Kreeger
and legal confidentiality. If I told her what I was doing, she would have been way too tempted to tell one or more of her colleagues what was going on, and that was going to spoil the element of surprise when this affidavit got used to actually blow up a hearing that the Republicans were calling on this,

00;05;49;25 - 00;05;51;00
David Kreeger
this Partizan issue.

00;05;51;02 - 00;05;53;14
David Kreeger
So the day of the hearing, the

00;05;53;14 - 00;06;10;19
David Kreeger
Republicans called the star witness, the hearing gets blown up because there's an affidavit that discredits all of the testimony of the star witness. So the hearing gets canceled. My wife comes home. This is exactly the effect that my client wanted. My wife comes home and she's all excited. You never going to guess what happened today at,

00;06;10;19 - 00;06;11;01
David Kreeger
on the Hill?

00;06;11;01 - 00;06;23;25
David Kreeger
And I said, oh, tell me what happened. And she said, oh, she starts going on and on. They call this hearing. And they had the star witness and they thought he was going to testify to this. And then there was this affidavit that circled around. She's going on and on and on. And so I looked at her and I said, so,

00;06;23;25 - 00;06;25;12
David Kreeger
you know who drafted that affidavit?

00;06;25;13 - 00;06;46;29
David Kreeger
And she looked at me and she's like, you know who? And I was? And I looked at her and she said, did did Wilmer draft the affidavit? Wilmer is the name of my firm. And I said, yeah. And she said, do you know who it was? And I said, And so do you. And she's like, who was it.

00;06;47;01 - 00;06;58;22
David Kreeger
I said, it was me. Well she had no idea. She had no idea it was going on for weeks. But I couldn't tell her because it couldn't put her in that position. It was hilarious.

00;06;58;24 - 00;07;06;02
Craig Andrews
You know, that would be hard for me because, you know, I'm really good at keeping secrets when somebody tells me something confidential.

00;07;06;06 - 00;07;07;09
David Kreeger
Right? Right.

00;07;07;12 - 00;07;26;09
Craig Andrews
You know, as you know, I spent six years in the Marines, worked on secure equipment. So I'm good at keeping secrets. But it's hard when it's my own wife. Because, you know, especially when it's about work. Because I love to talk to my wife about what's going on. Sure. And that would be really hard for me to sit on for, like, three weeks or four weeks.

00;07;26;12 - 00;07;27;02
Craig Andrews
So.

00;07;27;05 - 00;07;36;20
David Kreeger
So the good news is it largely Karen has not been that interested in. And then the nitty gritty of what I do professionally for the 24 years that we've been married. So,

00;07;36;23 - 00;07;42;26
David Kreeger
this was one situation where I just had to be intentional, and it was as much for her benefit as it was for my client's benefit.

00;07;42;28 - 00;07;43;14
David Kreeger
So,

00;07;43;14 - 00;07;50;10
David Kreeger
and I also knew that was going to come a point at which I was going to be able to tell her, because once the hearing came and went, then obviously the cat's out of the bag.

00;07;50;13 - 00;07;57;22
David Kreeger
But you're right there. I mean, it was it was funny because I was coming home on a daily basis, and it's like there's I think I know that you would be very interested in knowing you.

00;07;57;22 - 00;07;59;12
David Kreeger
You can't know yet. So.

00;07;59;14 - 00;08;00;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah.

00;08;00;14 - 00;08;07;25
Craig Andrews
Oh, wow. Wow. So now you're not a lawyer? Well, I mean, I guess you are. Do you still have,

00;08;07;27 - 00;08;13;25
David Kreeger
I, I'm still admitted to practice in two jurisdictions. I don't practice, I haven't practiced in years.

00;08;13;25 - 00;08;20;10
David Kreeger
And I had a stint of 15 years as a business owner. I owned a franchise painting business after I left the practice of law.

00;08;20;13 - 00;08;20;26
David Kreeger
I did,

00;08;21;02 - 00;08;26;16
David Kreeger
so I left from the the firm in DC, went in-house to IBM. They sold their PC business to Lenovo.

00;08;26;16 - 00;08;33;01
David Kreeger
I went over to Lenovo with the sale. The business was there for a few years, and then left the practice of law and became a business owner.

00;08;33;03 - 00;08;39;20
David Kreeger
Did that for 15 years, sold three businesses in 22, and then started my consulting practice in 23.

00;08;39;23 - 00;08;42;09
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And so you were in RTP. You're at the

00;08;42;09 - 00;08;44;07
Craig Andrews
IBM facility there? Yeah.

00;08;44;07 - 00;08;48;03
David Kreeger
That's what brought us down here was IBM. And before they sold the PC business.

00;08;48;05 - 00;08;51;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. You know, I just bought a new Lenovo.

00;08;51;06 - 00;09;02;22
Craig Andrews
I became a fan of the, you know, the ThinkPad carbons, X1 carbon years ago. And, you know, the business, you know, I'm generally I'm not a big fan of buying Chinese products, but,

00;09;02;25 - 00;09;05;06
Craig Andrews
it's just it's such a good computer.

00;09;05;09 - 00;09;22;10
David Kreeger
The ThinkPad is a is a really good product. And it's it's one of the few laptops that has been differentiated versus its windows based competitors. I have to confess that I actually went to the dark side, and I bought a mac a year ago. Oh, and I have never turned. I haven't turned back now. It's it's been such a great experience.

00;09;22;10 - 00;09;25;00
David Kreeger
So I've got a MacBook Pro and I love it.

00;09;25;03 - 00;09;29;15
Craig Andrews
Well, Apple's very happy because they just reported disappointing sales growth on on the

00;09;29;15 - 00;09;32;16
Craig Andrews
on the Mac. MacBooks. So I did my best.

00;09;32;16 - 00;09;36;01
David Kreeger
Right. I'm not buying another one. Not like another one right away. But yeah. Yeah.

00;09;36;04 - 00;09;42;19
Craig Andrews
Wow. So but anyway, so you, you went from being with the DC firm to in-house counsel at IBM and then Lenovo.

00;09;42;22 - 00;09;43;18
David Kreeger
Yeah.

00;09;43;20 - 00;09;45;04
Craig Andrews
And then what happened?

00;09;45;06 - 00;09;47;24
David Kreeger
So Karen was pregnant with our first child.

00;09;47;27 - 00;10;04;08
David Kreeger
And I realized that the more successful I was getting as a corporate lawyer, the worse my quality of life was getting. And I was about to have another job description added to my resume. And I didn't didn't feel particularly good at that being the husband part. And I knew that being a father was could be harder than being a husband.

00;10;04;10 - 00;10;10;04
David Kreeger
And I just realized that I needed to, to to get off of that. And just as an example, the last trip that I had to Beijing,

00;10;10;07 - 00;10;17;15
David Kreeger
when I was at Lenovo, was on three days notice for an hour and a half meeting with the CEO, the head of internal audit investigation, the head of the Asia Pacific region,

00;10;17;18 - 00;10;20;16
David Kreeger
the head lawyer for the Asia Pacific region.

00;10;20;18 - 00;10;33;03
David Kreeger
And that type of a trip, three days notice to fly across the world for a few hours or for a day was not unusual in my tenure at Lenovo, and that just was not going to work with, you know, with a baby. And so,

00;10;33;03 - 00;10;34;11
David Kreeger
I decided it was time to,

00;10;34;11 - 00;10;38;21
David Kreeger
to try something else. And, and so I worked with the franchise consultant and ended up buying,

00;10;38;21 - 00;10;41;17
David Kreeger
the Durham Chapel Hill territory for sort of pro painters.

00;10;41;19 - 00;10;43;16
David Kreeger
And did that for, for 15 years.

00;10;43;19 - 00;10;59;08
Craig Andrews
Wow. You know, I think the first time I went to Beijing, I went from the airport to almost Tiananmen Square, maybe a mile, maybe a couple miles from Tiananmen Square, but basically down in the heart of Beijing.

00;10;59;09 - 00;11;00;10
David Kreeger
Yeah. Yeah.

00;11;00;12 - 00;11;03;11
Craig Andrews
I think it took me like 45 minutes, half hour to 45 minutes.

00;11;03;12 - 00;11;05;26
David Kreeger
The traffic in Beijing can be completely insane.

00;11;05;29 - 00;11;08;29
Craig Andrews
Well, now I think that's like an hour and a half or something like that.

00;11;08;29 - 00;11;10;05
David Kreeger
It's true. Sure. Yeah.

00;11;10;07 - 00;11;19;07
Craig Andrews
It's nuts. Yeah. And I just remember thinking, you know how easy it this and this was years and years ago. And I remember thinking how easy it was to get around and,

00;11;19;10 - 00;11;20;21
Craig Andrews
that's all changed.

00;11;20;23 - 00;11;29;28
David Kreeger
Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a different world. I mean, I haven't been in my last trip there was in 2007, so it's been almost 20 years since I've been,

00;11;30;01 - 00;11;37;01
David Kreeger
so. Yeah. Yeah, but it was, it was I was there a lot. I was there a lot.

00;11;37;03 - 00;11;37;17
Craig Andrews
And,

00;11;37;17 - 00;11;41;12
Craig Andrews
And so. So you had a pink business. Was this like.

00;11;41;12 - 00;11;42;21
David Kreeger
Yes.

00;11;42;23 - 00;11;44;06
Craig Andrews
House painting? Not. Yeah.

00;11;44;06 - 00;11;58;14
David Kreeger
Stuff that doesn't make sense. Stuff that doesn't move. I did get a call once from a lady who said she wanted to get a, quote to paint her Lexus, and I told her that it was going to be a really bad day for her and for us if we actually tried to paint a Lexus and that maybe she should try a body shop and not a painting contractor.

00;11;58;19 - 00;12;02;18
David Kreeger
But yeah, we did. It was residential and commercial, interior and exterior painting.

00;12;02;21 - 00;12;32;17
Craig Andrews
I mean, that's an interesting transition because, it's challenging my thoughts a little bit because, I mean, I, I marvel at the field of law because I think or at the, at lawyers, because I think it may be the professional training that has the highest percentage of people not working in their training, you know. Yeah, you put out you see lawyers everywhere, they become journalists, they become franchise owners.

00;12;32;17 - 00;12;53;26
David Kreeger
They my law school roommate had no intention of of practicing law. He went through three years of law school. He was done with every reading assignment and every class. By the middle of every semester, I finished second in my class. I didn't read every page that was assigned in all of my classes. He was done with everything by the middle of the semester, and he did not like law school, and he did not want to practice law.

00;12;53;26 - 00;13;00;28
David Kreeger
I'd talk about somebody who could work hard at something he did not enjoy. But yeah, I mean, he was a a case in point, he never practiced law.

00;13;01;00 - 00;13;04;16
Craig Andrews
So what was what was the interest in the painting business?

00;13;04;19 - 00;13;18;02
David Kreeger
So I, I knew I wanted to so part of the reason that I wanted to leave the practice of law was the craziness. And I knew the next step for me was to become a general counsel. I was a direct report to the general counsel of a $13 billion a year company. Where are you going to go next?

00;13;18;02 - 00;13;25;03
David Kreeger
At some point, you're going to be a general counsel. And I knew enough general counsel's to know that the quality of life was going to get worse, not better.

00;13;25;06 - 00;13;25;28
David Kreeger
So,

00;13;26;02 - 00;13;40;13
David Kreeger
I also, as a lawyer, you actually get to make very few decisions. So you advise your clients and your clients get to make decisions. So as an example, one of the one of the deals that I worked on when I was in-house was in a strategic outsourcing deal,

00;13;40;16 - 00;13;41;09
David Kreeger
for the,

00;13;41;09 - 00;13;42;11
David Kreeger
the service department.

00;13;42;11 - 00;14;15;29
David Kreeger
And I remember having a conversation with the senior vice president, who's the head of the services business unit, telling him that that that he wasn't going to get what he wanted out of the deal. What he wanted was not to have a hard minimum commit on dollars because he wasn't sure it was an outsourcing deal, and he wasn't sure what the volumes they were going to need from this outsourcing partner were going to be, and he didn't want to have a sunk cost of the infrastructure of setting up a call center, etc., etc. and this partner that they had chosen wasn't going to do a deal without a minimum commit.

00;14;15;29 - 00;14;30;05
David Kreeger
That was significant. It was a it was an eight figure minimum commit. So I had a conversation with him about it, and I sent him an email laying out very clearly. Just to be clear, if you don't sell enough of the underlying service that you're then outsourcing the delivery on,

00;14;30;05 - 00;14;36;24
David Kreeger
you're going to be on the hook for this dollar amount unless your partner's not meeting service level commitments.

00;14;36;26 - 00;14;44;20
David Kreeger
And he said, got it. Six months later, I get a call from him. What are my options for getting out of this deal? And my first question was,

00;14;44;23 - 00;14;51;08
David Kreeger
okay, so what's going on? Are you guys just not making the the sales volumes? And he said, yeah. And I said, are they meeting the service levels? And he said, yeah.

00;14;51;14 - 00;15;08;14
David Kreeger
And I said, okay. And in my mind I'm thinking, how about the email that I sent you that told you exactly what the scenario was, which is you're on the hook for eight figures, right. And I thought, you know what? Like maybe I should try making some decision. It's like, I might not like him, and then I can blame the guy in the mirror.

00;15;08;16 - 00;15;31;04
David Kreeger
But at the time is, as the attorney, you provide the advice. It was a bad deal I knew was a bad deal. Right. And you provide the advice and then they don't follow it and then you got to go help them, help bail them out of it. I thought, you know what, let me try making some decisions myself, which was a bit of an ego play when I'm in, you know, when I'm in my 30s because you think, okay, you know, I've, I've, I've been practicing law at a high level.

00;15;31;04 - 00;15;39;26
David Kreeger
I'm in rooms with people whose net worths are in the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. I was at every board meeting for Lenovo for the first two and a half years after they closed the deal.

00;15;39;29 - 00;15;42;25
David Kreeger
And I thought, let me try making some decisions and see how it works out.

00;15;42;28 - 00;15;49;03
David Kreeger
And so the other piece was wanting to rediscover being an attorney is one of the,

00;15;49;03 - 00;15;49;14
David Kreeger
it's

00;15;49;14 - 00;15;57;12
David Kreeger
one of the professions aren't that many of them where when you ask people what they do, they say, I am a instead of this is what I do.

00;15;57;14 - 00;15;58;06
David Kreeger
Right. Yeah.

00;15;58;06 - 00;16;03;03
David Kreeger
So you talk to salespeople, they'll usually say I'm in sales. Right. You talk to

00;16;03;05 - 00;16;08;22
David Kreeger
you know, business people. I have a business that does whatever you touch. You ask an attorney what they do. They say I'm an attorney.

00;16;08;25 - 00;16;11;29
Craig Andrews
Yeah, that's an interesting I never thought about that, that differentiation.

00;16;12;04 - 00;16;28;20
David Kreeger
Which is a way of labeling yourself. Right. I practiced law for almost ten years, and I thought, you know what I like? There's other stuff that I'm capable of doing. Let me tap into other skills and interests and also build other skills that don't get applied in my in my world is,

00;16;28;24 - 00;16;30;04
David Kreeger
a practicing attorney.

00;16;30;07 - 00;16;35;29
David Kreeger
And so, so then the question was, okay, well, can I, can I get somebody to hire me to do something other than practice law?

00;16;35;29 - 00;16;51;07
David Kreeger
Well, when you have a resume and this is before all the eye scrapers for, you know, with all the online applications and stuff like that, when you have a resume of somebody who's practiced law for ten years to try to convince somebody to hire you to do something other than practice law, not the easiest thing in the world to do.

00;16;51;09 - 00;16;59;28
David Kreeger
And so then I decided, okay, well, maybe I'll just buy a business or start a business, because then I would be dumb enough to hire myself to do something other than practice law, which is to run the business. And,

00;16;59;28 - 00;17;02;22
David Kreeger
I ended up working with a franchise consultant who presented

00;17;02;26 - 00;17;08;23
David Kreeger
several different franchise concepts, and sort of I was the one that appealed to me because it wasn't a gimmick, like one of them was,

00;17;08;23 - 00;17;10;07
David Kreeger
a nutritional supplement business.

00;17;10;07 - 00;17;18;02
David Kreeger
And that is such a dirty industry because the product claims are unproven and there's all sorts of baggage that goes along with that. And,

00;17;18;04 - 00;17;18;18
David Kreeger
there were a few.

00;17;18;19 - 00;17;21;12
Craig Andrews
Fine. It's fine. Like ten years ago.

00;17;21;15 - 00;17;37;08
Craig Andrews
In the marketing circles I was traveling in, there are all these supplement marketers, right and right. I hadn't heard from them. You know, I don't hear I don't hear about that now. But there was a period of time where, oh, I help. And they specialize. They, you know, they niche down.

00;17;37;10 - 00;17;55;12
Craig Andrews
And it's about and it's funny when I try to tell people what I do, I use that as an example of why I don't do, you know, I'd say we work with people that have complex high ticket services. So if you're doing supplements, we're not the guys for you. That's actually like a con, right? Right? Right.

00;17;55;12 - 00;18;02;02
David Kreeger
Exactly. So you get it, right? So you can imagine that when they presented supplements to me, I was like, yeah, I'm not touching that one. Right. And

00;18;02;02 - 00;18;14;14
David Kreeger
so what I liked about sort of pro was the basic mission was to deliver a high quality service with a high level of customer service across a skilled business and an industry where that was not the norm.

00;18;14;16 - 00;18;16;14
Craig Andrews
I love it, I love it.

00;18;16;16 - 00;18;23;03
David Kreeger
And so I thought, if I succeed in that mission, I can put my head on the pillow and feel good about what I'm doing.

00;18;23;05 - 00;18;28;25
Craig Andrews
Well, and I think, you know, I get so frustrated. And usually it's around the,

00;18;28;25 - 00;18;45;06
Craig Andrews
private equity acquisitions, you know, don't want, you know, private equity. They acquire somebody and they, they suck out everything that's good and virtuous about the business. Correct. And often my my wife is working for NCR and she said, hey, there's a rumor that they're going to be acquired by P.

00;18;45;08 - 00;19;09;11
Craig Andrews
I said, if they do the first thing, they're going to cut this customer service. And I just I think it's hard because it's we don't have to debate the point. Customer service pays for itself again and again and again. Unless you charge more. It brings back customers. It creates referrals. It's just a phenomenally good investment. I don't know why the PE guys cut it.

00;19;09;13 - 00;19;10;06
David Kreeger
So,

00;19;10;06 - 00;19;47;09
David Kreeger
there's a there's a great little story that actually got repeated multiple times by the then CEO of Serta Pro. So the largest, the first significant six figure project that I got when I had the painting, this, it was a $300,000 project to paint 140 townhomes. That was a referral off of a $1,700 interior. Wow. A year after that, I got another $300,000 project with the same property management company that was also the referral off of that same $1,700 interior.

00;19;47;11 - 00;20;07;25
David Kreeger
So a $1,700 little interior paint job, which was half the average job size that I had at the time, yielded $600,000 worth of work within two years. Yeah, right. If you don't take the $1,700 job as seriously as you take the $17,000 job, it doesn't happen.

00;20;07;27 - 00;20;17;17
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And that's such a good story because it's easy to sit there and kind of write people off. And you just you never know who you're talking to.

00;20;17;19 - 00;20;20;02
David Kreeger
Correct? Yeah. Correct.

00;20;20;05 - 00;20;22;25
Craig Andrews
And that's when I moved to Austin.

00;20;22;28 - 00;20;25;15
Craig Andrews
And Austin's changed a lot since then, but,

00;20;25;18 - 00;20;41;28
Craig Andrews
I lived down south. I was in southwest Austin, but there's an area of south Austin called Oak Hill. And I was told very early, they said if you're sitting in a restaurant with somebody and or and you see somebody near you that looks near homeless, chances are they're a multi-millionaire.

00;20;41;29 - 00;20;43;10
Craig Andrews
Treat them well.

00;20;43;13 - 00;20;45;08
David Kreeger
Right. Right, right, right.

00;20;45;14 - 00;20;50;28
Craig Andrews
And it's it's those things you just don't know who's you don't know who's going to influence,

00;20;50;28 - 00;20;56;21
Craig Andrews
and you don't know who's going to make those connections for you. Yeah. You have to treat everybody well.

00;20;56;23 - 00;21;07;06
David Kreeger
100%. 100%. Yeah. I mean, if you don't believe it, just because it happens to be the right thing to do, believe it. Because pragmatically, the world works better for you if you do treat people well.

00;21;07;08 - 00;21;12;09
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, what are you doing now? So you're out of the painting business, right? Yeah. Oh, business.

00;21;12;10 - 00;21;14;17
David Kreeger
Yeah. So in. So I sold,

00;21;14;17 - 00;21;19;24
David Kreeger
the painting business. I also had a couple of businesses in the radio controlled cars and trucks space. Hence the toys here.

00;21;19;27 - 00;21;22;06
David Kreeger
Sold those in 2022.

00;21;22;09 - 00;21;26;14
David Kreeger
Took a little bit of time off. And in 2023, I started doing consulting work. And,

00;21;26;17 - 00;21;31;14
David Kreeger
the common theme, it's strategic consulting, is that we help organizations,

00;21;31;21 - 00;21;33;09
David Kreeger
tackle their toughest challenges.

00;21;33;11 - 00;21;40;05
David Kreeger
So whether it's business transformation projects for large scale enterprise companies, whether it is,

00;21;40;08 - 00;21;47;06
David Kreeger
startups that need help with a go to market strategy or with a fundraising strategy or with a pivot,

00;21;47;09 - 00;21;48;11
David Kreeger
whether it's

00;21;48;13 - 00;22;01;20
David Kreeger
yeah, I mean, it really just takes the form of the the toughest challenges that organizations face where they're either having a hard time figuring out how to get to where they know they need to go, or they're trying to figure out where they need to go.

00;22;01;21 - 00;22;15;02
David Kreeger
They just know that they can't keep going. Current course and speed. That's where we come in, and we're able to help sharpen their focus and help them develop a plan that they can implement to get to a better place than the place that there are.

00;22;15;05 - 00;22;20;03
Craig Andrews
So you went from lawyer to Leary pretty much. Yeah.

00;22;20;05 - 00;22;34;13
David Kreeger
Pretty much. Pretty much. And what's interesting is that what led me out, one of the things that led me out of the practice of law, which was let me make some decisions, and if I don't like the way they turn out, I'll leave that alone. The results of those decisions for, for better or for worse,

00;22;34;16 - 00;22;36;21
David Kreeger
there's no pride of authorship in what I do now.

00;22;36;21 - 00;22;40;17
David Kreeger
In fact, I'm. I'm happier. My fingerprints don't have to be on it. Yeah.

00;22;40;17 - 00;22;41;05
David Kreeger
And,

00;22;41;05 - 00;22;55;03
David Kreeger
so that piece of it, you know, the 53 year old me doesn't care what attribution, if any, comes from. It's really just about trying to help our clients get to the best outcomes that we can help them get to.

00;22;55;05 - 00;23;00;05
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, as, as I think about it,

00;23;00;08 - 00;23;08;21
Craig Andrews
you know, we're recording this episode in, you know, kind of mid-January. And I, you know, I took,

00;23;08;21 - 00;23;21;08
Craig Andrews
I took an afternoon before Christmas and I invited two people kind of into my world to advise up to help me see the things I couldn't see,

00;23;21;10 - 00;23;23;08
Craig Andrews
and was all about working on my own business.

00;23;23;08 - 00;23;28;01
Craig Andrews
And it was just a amazing, amazing time.

00;23;28;04 - 00;23;44;18
Craig Andrews
And both of them had just incredible clarity for me. And one of them, one of them kept telling me, said, Craig, I didn't tell you anything. I just asked you the right questions to to help you do what you already knew was right.

00;23;44;20 - 00;23;56;14
David Kreeger
A lot of the work that we do is really about asking the right questions, because when you have the right information in front of you, the answers oftentimes reveal themselves.

00;23;56;16 - 00;23;57;07
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;23;57;09 - 00;23;57;22
David Kreeger
Right.

00;23;57;29 - 00;24;06;06
David Kreeger
And so, you know, and to some degree, I actually rely on some skills that I developed when I was practicing law. There was a case that we won on behalf of,

00;24;06;06 - 00;24;09;09
David Kreeger
a household name client. It was an appeal.

00;24;09;12 - 00;24;09;21
David Kreeger
Of,

00;24;09;21 - 00;24;10;28
David Kreeger
employment discrimination,

00;24;11;03 - 00;24;30;04
David Kreeger
lawsuit. And we actually won the appeal on an argument that the appellate court didn't actually give us credit for making because and, and also an argument that the partner that I was working with wouldn't allow us to put a heading on in the brief.

00;24;30;06 - 00;24;49;29
David Kreeger
So I said, listen, let me at least write the the legislative background section of the brief. I wrote the background section in a way that the argument was staring you in the face without it looking like you were making the argument. And when we won the case, the court went out of the way to say hear all the arguments they've made and here's why we don't think they're persuasive.

00;24;49;29 - 00;24;55;04
David Kreeger
But there's one argument they didn't make and that's the one that decided the case. And we want.

00;24;55;07 - 00;24;58;10
Craig Andrews
Well and so you did that intentionally.

00;24;58;12 - 00;24;58;29
David Kreeger
I had no

00;24;58;29 - 00;25;18;08
David Kreeger
I was given no choice in the sense, because the attorneys I was working with, one of whom had been a managing partner of the firm, didn't think the argument could win. And so he didn't want to give it its own heading in the brief. So the only way to make the argument was to do what I did, which was, hey, let me write the background section of the brief, which nobody really, nobody really cares about.

00;25;18;08 - 00;25;44;25
David Kreeger
They do care about, but they don't care about. But I wrote the background section of the brief in a way. I laid out the the the background in a way that the argument was staring the reader in the face. Yeah. And so to your point, if you ask the right questions and the right information comes forward, that usually ends up getting you 90% of the way to where you need to be in making a decision and figuring out what you need to do.

00;25;44;27 - 00;26;09;15
Craig Andrews
So from your perspective, why is it that people I'm sure there were many times, you know, you sit down with somebody and and maybe like within five minutes, you know exactly what the issue is, but it takes you half hour, 45 minutes to get them to that point. Self self-realization. Why do you think people are so blinded to, to the issue, especially if they already know the answer.

00;26;09;17 - 00;26;21;13
David Kreeger
So to sum first of all, they may not know the answer because they might not have been focused on the right data, the right information. Okay. So let's take the large enterprise context as an example.

00;26;21;16 - 00;26;32;25
David Kreeger
Even back to when I was practicing law, almost without fail, whenever I was talking to a subject matter expert in a large enterprise context, they would give me the anecdotal narrative of what was going on in a particular area of the business.

00;26;32;25 - 00;26;37;20
David Kreeger
And whenever I would ask for the data, the data would tell me a different story.

00;26;37;22 - 00;26;55;06
David Kreeger
So the first thing that I'm going to do when I'm talking to somebody is I'm going to actually ask for not just the feelings and the emotions and the anecdotal. This is what I think is going on is okay. What data have you been looking at and how do we know if that's what's going on, or is there maybe something else going on?

00;26;55;10 - 00;27;03;28
David Kreeger
So for example, I had a startup client who came to me about three years ago and they thought they needed a marketing program to build up their user base,

00;27;03;28 - 00;27;18;22
David Kreeger
on their platform. And so when I started digging in the data, I realized they had a different issue, which is they weren't actually achieving success for enough of the users that were coming on their platform looking for a thing.

00;27;18;22 - 00;27;22;29
David Kreeger
And there were ways that we could measure it. I don't want to say more than that. I don't reveal the particular client. Right.

00;27;22;29 - 00;27;28;26
David Kreeger
Once that data, once we had that data and I pulled back from some, some, some,

00;27;28;29 - 00;27;47;11
David Kreeger
data dumps that we got out of their platform, it became obvious that the first problem that they needed to solve was a higher hit rate of getting wins for the people who were already coming on the platform before you go and you spend money trying to bring more people on the platform who are then going to become disappointed because they can't find what they were looking for.

00;27;47;13 - 00;27;49;23
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So it's about snowballing,

00;27;49;26 - 00;27;52;14
Craig Andrews
success rather than snowballing misery.

00;27;52;16 - 00;28;01;13
David Kreeger
Correct. And you don't know that unless you're looking at the right numbers. Yeah. If all you're looking at is a certain volume, you're missing that picture.

00;28;01;15 - 00;28;19;09
Craig Andrews
Well, and and I think, you know, one of the most powerful kind of going back to the whole comment of when I look at all the formal trainings, you know, there's so many people that are trained lawyers not practicing law, but I think they're practicing the skills that law school gives them. And I think it's this,

00;28;19;12 - 00;28;25;17
Craig Andrews
you know, I think one of those skills is being able to look at complex things and break them down and ask the right questions.

00;28;25;19 - 00;28;30;29
David Kreeger
Yeah. That's right. And I think another piece of it, I remember working on a Supreme Court brief,

00;28;31;01 - 00;28;44;29
David Kreeger
that we were filing on behalf of one of our telecom clients when I was back at working at the firm in DC, and I was working with a partner who's known as one of the best writers in the firm. And as we were strategizing, initial strategizing before I was going to go off and start drafting a portion of the brief,

00;28;45;02 - 00;28;47;01
David Kreeger
as I was getting ready to walk out the door, he said,

00;28;47;01 - 00;28;48;29
David Kreeger
and remember one thing when you're writing,

00;28;49;02 - 00;28;52;17
David Kreeger
pretend like you're writing to a seventh grader of above average intelligence.

00;28;52;19 - 00;29;16;11
David Kreeger
And this was on a very highly technical, telecom, regulatory legal issue that had a probably 150 or 200 page FCC opinion that we were appealing. Right. And we were sending we were filing this at the Supreme Court. This is like the highest level at which law gets practice in the United States. And he's telling me, write this as though you were writing to a seventh grader of above average intelligence.

00;29;16;13 - 00;29;18;06
Craig Andrews
Wow. Right. Yeah.

00;29;18;07 - 00;29;29;13
David Kreeger
So you have to take the complex, and you've got to turn it into something that's digestible for your clients. And that then becomes actionable. And that is a skill that I had to learn to develop.

00;29;29;15 - 00;29;31;25
Craig Andrews
Well, I mean, I see that marketing,

00;29;31;25 - 00;29;37;21
Craig Andrews
and one of the things I've read, the average lawyer writes a 12th grade level. And,

00;29;37;24 - 00;29;49;06
Craig Andrews
my goal has been driving it down. And so depending upon what I'm writing about, most of the time, I can come out of the gate right at the third grade level, if not third them fourth grade.

00;29;49;08 - 00;29;50;18
Craig Andrews
I do a lot of work in the,

00;29;50;18 - 00;30;01;23
Craig Andrews
wealth management space. That's a that's hard to keep at third grade, but I keep it at fifth grade or less. And so, you know, it just it makes it it's just so much more effective.

00;30;01;26 - 00;30;28;17
David Kreeger
Yes. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. And so I try to apply that, you know, if I'm coming to a new client. So another skill you learn as a lawyer, especially if you're a firm, is you have to learn people and businesses very quickly. Right. When I, when we when I was taking on a new project for a client, when I was at the firm in DC, like I didn't have the luxury of taking six months to learn an industry, you might have six days, right?

00;30;28;24 - 00;30;31;15
David Kreeger
And so you learn how to learn quickly,

00;30;31;18 - 00;30;37;27
David Kreeger
and then digest and then communicate it in a way that's, that's accessible to your to your audience.

00;30;38;00 - 00;30;50;05
Craig Andrews
Wow. Well, David, I hate to do this. I mean, we lost so much time with the internet and, being out, but we got gotta wrap. But the,

00;30;50;08 - 00;31;02;24
Craig Andrews
I mean, so if I'm hearing this correctly, you. One of the best things that you do for folks is if somebody is having a tough time wrapping their head around something, their bed, their business.

00;31;02;26 - 00;31;10;20
Craig Andrews
You're going to come in, you're not necessarily going to tell them what to do, but you're going to help them kind of uncover truth and see what they're missing.

00;31;10;22 - 00;31;12;09
David Kreeger
Yep.

00;31;12;11 - 00;31;16;18
Craig Andrews
Well that's amazing. Well how can people reach you.

00;31;16;20 - 00;31;21;12
David Kreeger
So the easiest way you can go on to our website, the go pedal dot net or hit me up on LinkedIn.

00;31;21;15 - 00;31;22;19
David Kreeger
Easy to schedule.

00;31;22;19 - 00;31;23;24
David Kreeger
An appointment for,

00;31;23;24 - 00;31;26;09
David Kreeger
initial an initial meeting and,

00;31;26;09 - 00;31;30;16
David Kreeger
love to hear from new people and love to hear what people are trying to wrap their heads around.

00;31;30;16 - 00;31;31;01
David Kreeger
And,

00;31;31;01 - 00;31;33;29
David Kreeger
usually it doesn't take me long to figure out ways that I can,

00;31;33;29 - 00;31;35;21
David Kreeger
help with some insights that,

00;31;35;24 - 00;31;42;01
David Kreeger
will allow people to start finding paths forward through whatever it is that they're they're trying to figure out.

00;31;42;03 - 00;31;45;04
Craig Andrews
Well that's awesome. Well, thanks for coming on, Leaders and Legacies.

00;31;45;07 - 00;31;53;03
David Kreeger
Thanks so much, Craig. It's been a pleasure.

00;31;53;05 - 00;32;14;27
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;32;14;27 - 00;32;16;22
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;32;16;24 - 00;32;40;04
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest. Tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.

00;32;40;06 - 00;32;48;11
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up. Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.

00;32;48;11 - 00;32;58;20
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Ally's for me.com. Or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.