Bill Simmons offers insightful leadership lessons from his diverse career spanning retail and non-profit sectors. Simmons emphasizes the importance of adapting leadership styles to suit different organizational needs, highlighting his experience with the "Thrive UPS Cycle" in business. This approach focuses on continuous improvement and strategic planning to drive success.

He discusses the significance of setting clear goals, quarterly sprints, and fostering a culture of accountability and execution. Simmons' journey underlines the value of strategic vision, adaptability, and the ability to turn challenges into opportunities for growth. His leadership philosophy centers on creating a lasting impact, both within the organization and in the broader community, demonstrating how effective leadership transcends industry boundaries.

Want to learn more about Bill's work? Check out their website at https://thrivebusinessoperations.com.

Connect with Bill on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/billsimmonslive/.

Key Points

• 00:04:09-00:05:10: Early career experiences in retail, learning about leadership from the president of the company, Harry Ham, and developing skills to organize chaotic environments into effective operations.

• 00:06:05-00:07:11: Importance of checks and balances in leadership to prevent corruption and ensure open communication within the organization.

• 00:09:44-00:11:23: Transition to working as an executive director of a non-profit focused on urban and public school outreach, highlighting the impact of serving and problem-solving on leadership.

• 00:17:24-00:19:19: Insights on leadership from non-profit experience, emphasizing the necessity of implementing learned strategies and executing them effectively.

• 00:22:13-00:23:46: Introduction of quarterly sprints as a strategy in leadership, focusing on running a business 90 days at a time and prioritizing objectives for successful outcomes.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:35:21
Craig Andrews
Today I went welcome, Bill Simmons. Bill has quite the speaking background. There was a time in his life where he did 300 speaking engagements over six years. So I'm excited to hear what he's going to bring today. Bill is the founder of Thrive Business Operations. The firm provides fractional CEOs services, helping growing businesses that struggle with operational challenges succeed by integrating a fractional team and optimizing businesses through the thrive UPS cycle.

00:00:35:23 - 00:01:02:09
Craig Andrews
Their primary mission is to help businesses unlock growth through, smooth operations, improved communications, and increased accountability. Bill is passionate about helping business owners reduce frustrations and increase their profits through excluding and advancing their strategy, systems and people. Bill welcome the leaders and legacies.

00:01:02:11 - 00:01:13:22
Bill Simmons
Well, thanks, Craig. I appreciate you, allowing us to be a part of today and, also respect the work you're doing and, you know, promoting leaders and leaving a legacy. Those are big topics to.

00:01:13:24 - 00:01:36:14
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, you know, it's funny, we were talking a few minutes ago and you were talking about, you know, being in the, you know, the Baltimore, Maryland area, which always perks my ears because I grew up in Maryland and haven't lived there in a long time. But, then you said you lived in Columbia, and, the first question I asked you was, are you a spy?

00:01:36:16 - 00:01:47:10
Craig Andrews
You know, and it's funny, it's. What's with Columbia, where it seems like every other person there is tied to national security?

00:01:47:12 - 00:02:07:16
Bill Simmons
Well, you have the NSA right around the corner, so it doesn't hurt to, you know, get a lot of people that are, you know, involved in government, living in that area. So and, you know, it was just a great place to live. It was actually well-located geographically, and it just attracted a lot of those people that were part of government.

00:02:07:18 - 00:02:25:04
Craig Andrews
You know, and this is a little bit off track. And we'll get back on track here in a second. I remember years ago reading some stories about Columbia, and there were, you know, Columbia, for those that don't know, was kind of a, you know, one of the early kind of design communities and was supposed to be just this really amazing community.

00:02:25:04 - 00:02:50:04
Craig Andrews
And it was going through a period where it was deteriorating. And one of the most fascinating things I saw was the story said that you would see people on the streets taking a baseball bat to the, and swinging it at the base of a light. And I guess it would make the, the pole vibrate and make the light bulb go out and, you know, do do you know why they were doing that?

00:02:50:08 - 00:02:53:03
Bill Simmons
I honestly do not.

00:02:53:05 - 00:02:58:02
Craig Andrews
they were getting ready to do some drug deals, and they didn't want the drug deals to be illuminated by light.

00:02:58:04 - 00:03:01:05
Bill Simmons
Oh, yeah. Okay.

00:03:01:07 - 00:03:22:13
Craig Andrews
and so, but we're going to touch on that because that's an important part of your story. But, what you were doing there, but let's, let's kind of go back a little bit. You, you started off in the business world, what were you doing when you started off?

00:03:22:15 - 00:03:44:12
Bill Simmons
Yeah. So right out of college, I started working for a retail organization that often no longer exists. It was, part of, similar to what you would see today and a true value or a hardware. So it was before the Lowe's and Home Depot big box stores, kind of took off. And, you know, the company's headquarters were out of Butler, Pennsylvania.

00:03:44:14 - 00:04:09:04
Bill Simmons
but they, you know, we were kind of one of their satellite stores at the beginning, but very quickly became a buyer for the company. And, you know, I was 26, 27 years old, spent and $20 million a year, you know, which in today's world and in business, printing is probably not that much. But back in the 80s, yeah, that was a big deal, you know, and I'm thinking like, why are you let this young guy, you know, do all these things?

00:04:09:06 - 00:04:36:19
Bill Simmons
but, you know, it really bought me a lot about leadership. I had a great relationship with the president of the company. Probably one that I didn't appreciate enough in real time, but in retrospect, realize how much of an impact, he had on me. He passed away a couple years ago. His name's Harry Ham. And and I probably quote Harry almost every day when people don't even realize it's it's, you know, I'm getting credit for the quote today.

00:04:36:21 - 00:05:10:21
Bill Simmons
but, came from him, but worked it for about eight years, kind of growing up through the company, doing a lot of different, even even back then was a fixer, you know, the company would send me to certain stores or certain departments that were underperforming and say, okay, let's let's do a turnaround here. So very early in my career, I, was, you know, recognized and trained in how to really take chaotic things and organize them to be more effective, effective and efficient.

00:05:10:23 - 00:05:12:19
Bill Simmons
And, so it was it was a great part of.

00:05:12:19 - 00:05:46:03
Craig Andrews
My life, you know, there's a couple things I want to ask about that one. So you were you were overseeing $20 million transactions in your 20s. And one of the things, one of the places my mind goes anytime I hear about large movements of money, I think about corruption. And and the the risk of the desire of anybody when they see an opportunity to enrich themselves and to take advantage of that in an improper way.

00:05:46:05 - 00:06:05:15
Craig Andrews
And, and that had to be a risk when you're buying that much, there's, you know, the vendors, are looking to ingratiate themselves to you sometimes in honorable ways, sometimes in dishonorable ways. How do you protect an organization from the dishonorable ways?

00:06:05:17 - 00:06:26:18
Bill Simmons
Well, you know, I at the risk of feel like it's common sense, we both know that in today's world there's not a lot of common sense. But, you know, really, it's, no one person having all the keys to the kingdom. You really have to protect and have, you know, an open communication, open policy. And no one person being able to sign off on just about anything, right?

00:06:26:18 - 00:06:50:13
Bill Simmons
There has to be checks and balances, other people involved in transaction. So nobody is isolated from, those things. And, you know, not to jump off, but, you know, we've worked with clients, that have had, exactly that one person who had too much autonomy and therefore that that, for lack of a better word, that corruption takes place.

00:06:50:18 - 00:07:11:16
Bill Simmons
So really it's you have to protect yourself as a business and trust is a big deal. And you want to give away trust. I, I always said I prefer trust over suspicion, but you have to have trust with wisdom and trust with wisdom. So as you protect the individuals and you protect the organization.

00:07:11:18 - 00:07:42:01
Craig Andrews
When you know, I, I believe part of protecting the individuals is keeping them out of, of a situation where they're tempted. You know, we're all human, we all have temptations, and we all have those those moments when we're presented with the right opportunity. We may not make the best choice. And so I see, you know, having those systems in place as, as being something that's thoughtful and compassionate for the people that they're faced with, those choices.

00:07:42:03 - 00:07:59:03
Bill Simmons
Well, yeah, absolutely. I think you would always want to. That's why I you know, you share both that it's it's you're protecting the individual and you're protecting the organization. And, you know, many people do things that they say they would have never done, but they just didn't know until they were in the circumstance to do it. Right.

00:07:59:07 - 00:08:06:10
Bill Simmons
So let's keep them out of that circumstance. Let's keep them out of those situations. And I think that's that's important to do to protect everybody.

00:08:06:12 - 00:08:31:03
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And the other thing that you mentioned in that was, you know, you found fairly early in your career that you were able to create order out of chaos. what what would you say is, kind of your magic formula there? What's what is it that you see that allows you to do it when others fail?

00:08:31:05 - 00:09:01:20
Bill Simmons
Well, I think the key to turning, chaos into order is clear communication and clarified expectations. I think a lot of times what happens is when there are when our communication is confused and our own and our expectations aren't clearly communicated. That's that's honestly the majority of where chaos comes from. I actually have a faith background. So I use Genesis chapter one, chapter two right away.

00:09:01:24 - 00:09:24:10
Bill Simmons
You know, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and it was chaos and and void with no form. And then the next verse says, And God said so, in other words, in the middle of chaos, in the middle of confusion, God spoke something. And then from there order began. So I think as leaders, we have to be mouthpieces for effective communication and clear expectations.

00:09:24:10 - 00:09:29:09
Bill Simmons
And when we do that, we can start taking the steps of turning, chaos into order.

00:09:29:11 - 00:09:44:00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. When something is said, I think kind of leads into the next phase of your life. You said you you told me that you left the traditional workplace and you went off on a little, you know, excursion for a few years.

00:09:44:02 - 00:10:13:00
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I did, I had an opportunity, to work with, you know, teens and young adults and took an opportunity, as an executive director, eventually of a nonprofit, that focused on college interns coming for two semesters from August through September. We had a 33 acre campus in Columbia, Maryland, where we talked about there. And these students would come and we had an extension campus of various universities from, throughout the country.

00:10:13:03 - 00:10:36:20
Bill Simmons
And these students would learn how to do both urban outreach and public school outreach. So I was young and skinny and had hair, and I, I used to do, public school assemblies, if you remember those, you know, we would go, you know, and I would say, hit me little balls in the stand in the middle of a high school gymnasium with 3000 high school students and a microphone, like, you have to be, you know, you know, pretty quick on your feet if you're going to do that.

00:10:36:22 - 00:10:58:03
Bill Simmons
And so organization did a lot of that. And I ended up doing a lot of recruiting for the organization and obviously fundraising. And so it allowed me to travel quite a bit. But we were also teaching about how to make impact, and we were training students to think outside the box and to serve in ways that, they may not have, thought was possible.

00:10:58:03 - 00:11:23:14
Bill Simmons
And to this day, our organization, you know, it's a small firm delivering, you know, support to small businesses, serving people, solving problems is still our, mission today. And that's where, as I was able, to be an executive director of the nonprofit world, really, you know, understood the impact of serving people, solving problems.

00:11:23:16 - 00:11:28:06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Now, you said urban outreach. What? What does that mean?

00:11:28:08 - 00:12:03:02
Bill Simmons
Yeah. So, you know, certainly inner city, you know, we were, really focused on Washington, D.C. and, from a variety of, of, you know, so much need in the inner city. So, you know, over our, our years there, there was a lot that we were involved in, in one aspect or another. you know, having learning how to collab with like minded organizations and government agencies and impacting children, impacting the underprivileged, connecting where, you know, homelessness was a big part of what we did.

00:12:03:04 - 00:12:29:17
Bill Simmons
And so really, you know, children impact addiction. All the things that the inner city is impacted by. We did a lot of work in southeast D.C. so in those years, southeast was, you know, and still is today. But, you know, we were, you know, right in the mix of a lot of tragedy. And, also trying to, you know, be a mouthpiece for triumph on the other side of that tragedy.

00:12:29:19 - 00:12:43:07
Craig Andrews
Do you know where, 295 intersects Pennsylvania Avenue? Yeah. If you remember, there's a little gas station on the northeast corner of that intersection.

00:12:43:09 - 00:12:44:07
Bill Simmons
Yeah.

00:12:44:09 - 00:13:06:19
Craig Andrews
So in oh seven, I had to travel back to, the area. my dad had just been diagnosed with brain cancer, and I went back and I was going back to the airport, flying out national at the very last minute, and I had to gas up my rental car, and normally I went and gas up there, but I was so short on time.

00:13:06:19 - 00:13:22:12
Craig Andrews
It was the middle of the day. I thought, oh, I'll be okay to gas up here. And I'm gassing up and people were walking by me and the look on their face was, dude, you're either really stupid or you're really dangerous.

00:13:22:14 - 00:13:25:20
Bill Simmons
Yeah. And that you stood out.

00:13:25:22 - 00:13:29:10
Craig Andrews
And that's southeast DC. That's the area that you're talking about.

00:13:29:12 - 00:13:47:15
Bill Simmons
Yeah. No doubt. Yeah, yeah. We had a, we had a, we had fortunate, partnerships, one of our partnerships while we were there, we had access to a building that we did outreach out of, and it was right on the corner of good Hope and Martin Luther King. So not too far from where you're talking about there.

00:13:47:17 - 00:14:11:19
Bill Simmons
And, yeah, certainly there was a lot of, you know, communication. I was able to kind of pull out of that. So, you know, here we are standing on the street, the corner of good Hope and Martin Luther King. And, you know, today, here we are, it's Martin Luther King, celebration today. And, as listeners, maybe listen to this later on.

00:14:11:21 - 00:14:39:10
Bill Simmons
But, you know, part of that was really impact. We were in a Anacostia, which was a very, devastated area. and yet we wanted to bring that message of, of good hope and having a dream of being a part of something bigger than yourself. And I think that's that's big. When you talk about leaders and the legacy, I think the biggest thing is, you know, lead with a positive message that impacts one generation after another.

00:14:39:10 - 00:14:56:21
Bill Simmons
Right. And I think when we when we do those types of things, even in the midst of an area that's chaotic in the midst of a area where people are living their best version of themselves, we can bring a message of hope, and we can bring a message of dreaming of a better future.

00:14:56:23 - 00:15:22:21
Craig Andrews
That's that's incredible. just kind of a quick note, for those that they're listening, obviously this episode's being broadcast, probably 6 to 8 weeks after it was recorded. it's a very cold day and in Texas, and we've been getting warnings about power outages, and we just we just had a flicker. So if you heard some beeping, that's the UPS going off.

00:15:22:23 - 00:15:42:11
Craig Andrews
fortunately I've got set up where, we can lose power, but, I have a few minutes where we can keep the, the interview going, but if the power drops off again, the beeping will become annoying, and we'll have to drop off. But, now, what you were saying, there was just really, powerful. And the.

00:15:42:13 - 00:16:10:05
Craig Andrews
You know, for those that aren't familiar with that part of, you know, DC, the area where you're serving that's, that's a that's a dangerous area. And, you know, I used to drive through down one of the roads near there when I was going to visit my, you know, my parents down the eastern Shore and my parents would just straight up beg me to not take EVs, New York Avenue, they would beg me to not drive down New York Avenue.

00:16:10:07 - 00:16:27:23
Craig Andrews
And that's, of course, been gentrified. And, you know, it's a lot different. But I remember going down New York Avenue and just seeing police cars with sirens blazing, you know, crossing over New York Avenue to go deal with whatever was going on there. And it was frequent.

00:16:28:00 - 00:16:59:00
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I mean, certainly, DC through the decades has kept that reputation, you know, just, you know, difficulties and challenges. I don't think they're unique to any other. It's just, you know, the a lot of the, spotlight is on them, but, you know, certainly there are challenges, in the inner city, there are challenges in, these types of communities and, you know, and it's we're meant to bring light into dark areas.

00:16:59:00 - 00:17:02:24
Bill Simmons
And, you know, that's that's what we were trying to do.

00:17:03:01 - 00:17:24:06
Craig Andrews
And one of the things that you said in the the Green room was that this period working in the nonprofit really teed up to come back to industry. And I'm, I'm, I'm having a little trouble connecting the dots. What were the skills that you learned doing that? They're now helpful for you and helping other clients today?

00:17:24:08 - 00:17:50:09
Bill Simmons
Well, I learned very quickly, when we went to DC that and even earlier than that. But, in order for me to be effective, I had to learn better ways, to lead and, and, and one of the things that frustrates me is a lot of times, I believe we're educated beyond our obedience. And what I mean by that is we learn things, but we don't actually implement and execute them.

00:17:50:10 - 00:18:17:21
Bill Simmons
And so I try to put best practices into practice. And I had to because I was traveling at such a high rate. We had so much going on, in the city where, you know, back then and, you know, my cell phone age a little bit, you know, online education was not what it is today. And so being a, an extensive campus of a college university was a compelling and an administrative nightmare.

00:18:18:01 - 00:18:37:11
Bill Simmons
And so you're putting all that together to satisfy things required me to be highly organized at an operational level. And what I would find is that as I would travel and maybe we did some school assemblies and we did a small tour in a particular county and hit all of our high schools, and other people were helping fund that.

00:18:37:11 - 00:18:54:18
Bill Simmons
A lot of times it was business owners. Well, we'd end up having dinner in the evening and, you know, with the other executive directors and, and, and community leaders and people would simply say, so let me get this right. You're traveling 3 to 4 days a week. You're on campus 3 to 4 days a week. I mean, I can't even leave my office for 3 to 4 hours.

00:18:54:18 - 00:19:19:03
Bill Simmons
How do you do that? And and just informal conversation started talking about, well, you know, here's how we plan on operation so I can walk away and hold people accountable. This is how we hire and share vision. Here's how we implement strategy, systems and processes so that things can maintain. And, you know, honestly, in the nonprofit world, you're kind of known for, you know, just meeting needs and moving on.

00:19:19:03 - 00:19:36:10
Bill Simmons
It's not known for, you know, super organized systems and processes. But here I was talking that conversation. And then would, you know, because our heart was to serve, to be able to say, you know, well, maybe we could come back and I could do a, you know, a retreat with you and your team on how to do X, Y, and Z.

00:19:36:10 - 00:19:56:03
Bill Simmons
Or we could or I'd be happy to meet with you to, to navigate, you know, kind of organizational structure and how you operate. And so from there became, you know, basically seeing the meet a need and was and beginning to see how organizations could benefit from the things that we could bring to them.

00:19:56:05 - 00:20:20:04
Craig Andrews
Well, you know, the other thing I think of when I think of the nonprofit world is there's always more mission than there are people or dollars. And so I think there's a natural level of chaos in the nonprofit world because there's so much mission to be accomplished with so few people to be, to accomplish it. Would you would you say it was true?

00:20:20:06 - 00:20:44:08
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I would, and I think sometimes we can get sucked into the, to that. So one of one of my favorite sayings, in relation to that is, you can't do everything, but you can do anything. It is your job as a leader to narrow down what the unique things are going to be. Right. So so what happens is, is as leaders of mission based organizations, you just like you see all the needs.

00:20:44:08 - 00:21:06:17
Bill Simmons
And we want to do everything we want, do everything. Well, you can't do everything, but you can't do anything. So just decide what the anythings are going to be. Narrow your focus and sell out to that to make the biggest impact you can on those narrow things. So I think I hear you, I do agree, you know, people and and and and and funding is a big deal in the nonprofit world.

00:21:06:19 - 00:21:24:24
Bill Simmons
But I think people are wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves. So if you have a big enough vision, share it. And it will attract the right people. And if you really believe that what you're doing is worthwhile, I just, I constant and it doesn't mean you it won't be the 11th hour in funding, but funding always comes right.

00:21:24:24 - 00:21:28:16
Bill Simmons
And and you always end up meeting the need.

00:21:28:18 - 00:21:52:03
Craig Andrews
You know, there's a theme that I'm saying. It started with your first job out of college. You discovered that you could go into chaos and bring order to it. And then you move into the nonprofit world and there's chaos, but sounds like you brought order to it. and. And so that's that's pretty cool. that's that's pretty cool.

00:21:52:03 - 00:22:13:07
Craig Andrews
And so now as you work with people, because other than the description of some a business owner, some entrepreneurs are just life is chaotic. And I love what you said, you can't do everything, but you can do anything. And how does that apply as you coach businesses now?

00:22:13:09 - 00:22:43:04
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I think it's narrowing the focus. And, one of the biggest things that we really focus on today is how to help run a business 90 days at a time. And I believe business is a marathon of sprints. And every segment of the sprint is about a 90 day, you know, quarterly rhythm. We, call those quarterly sprints as a, as, as a process and how we deliver or fractional CRO services.

00:22:43:06 - 00:23:11:20
Bill Simmons
But it's when all these things that we could do, let's narrow down in a 90 days at a time, what are the priorities and objectives that we want to, pursue. And then part of our role as fractional CEOs is to help lead the execution, to those objectives being accomplished. So people use the word the term. Okay, I'm saying objective, but really what it comes down to for me is outcomes.

00:23:11:22 - 00:23:35:22
Bill Simmons
Define what outcomes you're wanting 90 days at a time. So we've systematized prioritizing. And if we can help prioritize then that's where we're deciding the anything's right. We could do all these different things. What what have we determined to that are going to make the the most, beneficial results in the next 90 days based on our larger, vision and goals?

00:23:36:02 - 00:23:46:00
Bill Simmons
And let's pursue those. And I think when we have, when we can come into a company and help be a voice to that, that's the beginning of chaos. turning into order.

00:23:46:02 - 00:24:01:10
Craig Andrews
Now, there are some people who are listening. And when they hear you talk about these quarterly sprints, they their mind is thinking that you're talking about a quarterly financial report and aligning your efforts to that quarterly financial report. But I don't think that's what you're talking about now.

00:24:01:12 - 00:24:27:23
Bill Simmons
I think it's turning strategic planning into a living document that you're constantly running your strategy in a way that you're you're getting execution. One of the biggest frustrations of business owners have is having that that that moment where you're sitting in a meeting going, I feel like we've talked about this was a six months ago. We had the same topic, and then we brainstormed, then how to fix it.

00:24:28:00 - 00:24:46:21
Bill Simmons
Why are we still talking about it? Right. And it's those moments if you're like, I think I'm really pissed now because I've had this conversation. This is not a dream. This really happened. And so our thing is to take those strategy conversations and turn them into execution from an operational perspective. Now, certainly finance is a part of that.

00:24:47:00 - 00:25:08:18
Bill Simmons
We operate on the nine functions of a business. We look at that and again, I could give you five books that all have the same, you know, similar, you know, verbiage about business operating systems and, and different functions of, of a business. We we do it in a way with, with those nine there's nine squares but operations is at the center touching all the other areas.

00:25:08:20 - 00:25:34:15
Bill Simmons
in order to centralize strategy and execution. So from a CEO perspective, we shouldn't be running your sales, but sales shouldn't be a silo either. It should be a part of the, the the overarching, strategic direction of the company. Same thing on air and people management, same thing on finances. Are we are we assimilating strategy all work together to accomplish the results that we're looking for.

00:25:34:21 - 00:25:50:05
Bill Simmons
And so certainly we want it to align financially. But it's it's much bigger than that. But it's also a big part of the we don't need to be needy and we don't need to be greedy. But the real reason we all got into business was to make money, right? Unapologetically. So let's go, let's go. Let's don't be insecure about it.

00:25:50:11 - 00:26:11:22
Bill Simmons
Just don't. Don't be needy. Don't be greedy. Don't be a jerk. Right. And I clean that up. But, at the end of the day, we're building a business that's meant to hold financial results. We're doing everything we can to increase our capacity to be, to create as much revenue as we can, to create as much profit as we can, to create as much cash flow as we can.

00:26:11:24 - 00:26:30:24
Bill Simmons
All of those things are important. But if we don't get the people thing right, we don't get the marketing and sales things right. We don't, we don't get our actual financial management right. A lot of people simply lose. They're good at making money, but their financial management is so poor, they they can't ever seem to get the traction they're looking for as a company.

00:26:31:04 - 00:26:44:04
Bill Simmons
And so we want to align all of those aspects and make sure that we don't have chaos in silos of different business functions, but we're assimilating it in a way to execute at a high level.

00:26:44:06 - 00:27:09:10
Craig Andrews
You know, and let me give another plug for quarterly sprints, because when I work with clients, this was, one of the most powerful things I did was move to quarterly sprints. And what I found was before I did that, whatever we were doing, there was always more to do. And and so when we would accomplish something, we then would fixate on the next thing.

00:27:09:12 - 00:27:31:24
Craig Andrews
And the thing that was missing was a clear declaration of accomplishment and a sense of accomplishment. And one of the things I love about quarterly sprints, and our clients love them as well, is at the beginning of the quarter, we set out goals. We get to the end of the quarter, we review how did we do against our goals and if we met or exceeded our goals.

00:27:31:24 - 00:27:40:08
Craig Andrews
That gives us a moment to celebrate that we were missing before when it was just continuous. Do more, do more, do more.

00:27:40:10 - 00:28:05:08
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I find high capacity leaders don't celebrate well to be realized. You know, most, most of the time we're like, mission accomplished, move on. Like mission accomplished, move on. But our team needs us to celebrate. And, part of trust building and and building a team that executes at a high level is taking the time to evaluate and celebrate what we've accomplished.

00:28:05:08 - 00:28:08:24
Bill Simmons
And so it's a very important.

00:28:09:01 - 00:28:24:16
Craig Andrews
Build. This has been absolutely fascinating. What an amazing journey that you've been on. And I love the principles that you've laid out. I'm sure somebody is listening, wants to reach out and have a further discussion with you. How do they reach you?

00:28:24:18 - 00:28:53:16
Bill Simmons
Yeah, the best thing to do is to, you know, go to our website, Thrive Business operations.com. You can meet with myself or my business partner Kimberly. She's a phenomenal part of helping lead our firm, in a way that really resonates with our clients. And, you know, we would love to connect, but you can also find me on any of the social media platforms, whether LinkedIn or, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Bill Simmons Live.

00:28:53:22 - 00:28:58:10
Bill Simmons
If you look for that handle, you'll find me on any platforms.

00:28:58:12 - 00:29:03:00
Craig Andrews
Excellent. Well, I do hope people reach out though. Thank you for being on the Lives and Legacies.

00:29:03:02 - 00:29:07:16
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Thank you for having me.