Dec 7, 2020
Brandon Anderson:
The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not morefollowers. Ralph Nader. I am Brandon Anderson and I am a Tri-Citiesinfluencer.
Paul Casey:
And if we must assume, the only thing I would say is to assumepositive intent. So if there's a gap between why that personbehaved as they did, and you don't know the answer, fill in thatgap with positive intent and check it out.
Speaker 3:
Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities ofEastern Washington, it's the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. Welcometo the TCI Podcast where local leadership and self-leadershipexpert Paul Casey interviews local CEOs, entrepreneurs, andnon-profit executives to hear how they lead themselves and theirteams, so we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience.
Speaker 3:
Here's your host Paul Casey of Growing Forward Services,coaching and equipping individuals and teams to spark breakthroughsuccess.
Paul Casey:
It's a great day to grow forward. Thanks for joining me fortoday's episode with Rocco Luongo. He is an executive coach forprofessional services and he's got a fun fact I think we're allgoing to like today. It has to do with dad jokes. Rocco.
Rocco Luongo:
Thank you, Paul. Great tee up. I appreciate it. Thanks forhaving me on the show. So with all the homeschooling going on, I'vegot three kids at home. So we do a walk every morning beforeschool, what's on the agenda for today, how we're going to do it,and we start off the walk every morning with a dad joke. So that'smy thing. So, I thought I would share today's dad joke with youall.
Paul Casey:
Please. Please do.
Rocco Luongo:
The cringe factor has to be there. Any good dad joke has to makeyou cringe. So today's joke was, I once had a hen who could counther own eggs. She was a mathemachicken. Ooh, isn't thathorrible?
Paul Casey:
It's terrible.
Rocco Luongo:
It's terrible.
Paul Casey:
It's terrible.
Rocco Luongo:
It's terrible. But it got a big laugh.
Paul Casey:
You're owning it. And you're wearing the shirt today.
Rocco Luongo:
I even have my dad joke shirt on. You can't see it, but it is. Ihave my “dad joke loading” shirt on, so it's become a thing. Wehave to adapt. We have to adapt to these things, Paul.
Paul Casey:
We do. Well, let's dive in after checking with our Tri-Cityinfluencer sponsor.
Paul Casey:
Mario Martinez, Northwestern Mutual. Mario, what types ofservices do you offer?
Mario Martinez:
Hey Paul, thank you for letting me be on here. We run bifurcatedpractices in that we focus in two areas of a financial plan. Thefirst one is we do protection pieces, which include life insurance,disability insurance, long-term care insurance, really the thingsthat people should be focused on to protect their families, theirbusinesses. And on the other side of our practices, we doinvestment services. And on the investment platforms, we do boththe brokerage platform and we do the advisory level services. Sodepending on what someone is looking for, as far as guidance ontheir investment strategies, we can curtail and build a strategyfor them that makes sense.
Paul Casey:
Mario, how can people get in touch with you?
Mario Martinez:
The easiest way, you can reach out to me directly on my businesscell phone is (509) 591-5301. You can send me an email atmario.martinez@nm.com or you can reach out to us on our socialmedia platforms. The easiest one being, Mario Martinez NorthwesternMutual on Facebook.
Paul Casey:
Thank you for your support of leadership development in theTri-Cities. Well, welcome again, Rocco. I was privileged to meetyou here in this building and Fuse, walking by your office one day.Who is this guy? He's got the word coach on the doors. I’ve got tomeet this guy. Did a one-to-one I think a few months later. And weeven staged a picture in this very studio, here in Fuse for theTri-Cities Journal of Business and the podcasts that are startingto pop up all over the place. So glad you could be with ustoday.
Paul Casey:
So, tell our Tri-City influencers a little bit about you, acouple of your career highlights that got you to where you aretoday and why do you love what you do?
Rocco Luongo:
Yeah, thanks Paul. I appreciate it. Yeah, we definitely met hereat Fuse. It was so great. We've seen each other around, we swim inthe same circles with the chamber and with community events andthings. We're both very community oriented and I think that'simportant for everybody to do. And so that was great. And about mycareer, so I've been in the business for about 22 years. Mybackground is engineering, did my undergraduate in New Hampshire inmechanical engineering. Sold a lot of table saws, swung a lot ofhammers to pay for undergraduate. And I think a lot of peopleprobably did the same. And I sold a table saw to the right guy. Heturned out to be a director of engineering for a German firm. Andbefore long I was an intern with them working in the same town,doubled my pay, working on engineering projects.
Rocco Luongo:
It was amazing. I thought, great. I was still a senior doing myundergrad. And like I said, it was a German firm. And I said, "Hey,could I ever maybe work in Germany someday?" And they said, "Yeahmaybe two, three years, with some hard work you might get there."And I thought, 'Well, that's not bad." Six months later, theproject got called back to Germany and they said, "Everybody whowants to go can go."
Paul Casey:
Whoa.
Rocco Luongo:
And it was just a great opportunity. And I said, "Well, there'ssome more schooling I want to do." They took a look at what I wasdoing and said, "I tell you what, we're going to bring you overthere. We'll hire you as a German and we'll put you right into ourmaster's program."
Rocco Luongo:
And so I did my master's program there too. So I got a master'sin mechanical engineering and industrial engineering in Germany, inGerman, which I didn't speak. So I had to learn to speakGerman.
Paul Casey:
Wow.
Rocco Luongo:
Yeah, that's hard. I got hazed too. They were telling me all thetime, "An American engineer, is there even such a thing? Can anAmerican be an engineer?" It's like, "Hey guys." We had oneAustralian there who used to always say, "Who won the bloody war?"I'm not trying to incite violence or anything, but there wasdefinitely some hazing going on.
Rocco Luongo:
Then from there, came back to the US. Was supposed to be a twoyear program, stayed for five years, had a great time, just stayedthere working. I had six weeks of vacation, it was an awesome time.Came back to the US. Then actually got recruited by a tech companythat was a spinoff of WSU working on some very cool technology.Helped them raise 180 million bucks. They were called Infinia. Theysubsequently sold off a chunk. Is still here handling governmentprojects. The other part was sold off to a company in Utah. Thatwas a heck of a project. We did NASA projects, DOD. We made theseminiaturized nuclear power points basically for Mars rovers and forother projects that we can't talk about, but other interestingthings.
Rocco Luongo:
So that was really fun. From there, started my own engineeringconsultancy. Started realizing that management and leadership andbusiness acumen stopped many more of these projects thanengineering problems. And just, I was always managing right fromGermany. When I was in Germany, every engineer, there is a managerand a leader, even if you're no good at it. And so I stumbledthrough, and I learned to manage by listening because I couldn'tspeak the language super well. So I just would listen to everythingeveryone said, and I would just give simple, as clear guidance as Icould. Do this, do that by Thursday, Donnerstag.
Rocco Luongo:
We would just do it as simple as possible and just evolved thatout into my own consultancy. Now I still do engineering work,mostly expert witness stuff. And then I do a lot of coaching andconsulting for professional services for engineers, architects,healthcare lawyers. And it just expands into certain areas.
Rocco Luongo:
Like this year we had helped one of our clients change a federallaw. So kicked off a lobbying campaign and got that changed becauseof there was just a problem... It's complicated. But a problem withthe way the services were being done. The government wasn't payingon time and these benefits just weren't being paid on time topeople. So we had to change a federal law.
Rocco Luongo:
Done that a couple of times with new products and new services.And so it's expansive. And I think you'll agree with this, itultimately comes down to fundamentals. It comes down to what youget up every morning. What your mindset is, what you choose to doand what you choose not to do.
Paul Casey:
And why do you love what you do? It's apparent that you lovewhat you do.
Rocco Luongo:
Oh yeah. It's challenging. It lets me use my whole brain. Idon't have to just use the science stuff. I love science and math,but I like it when it can tell a story when it can solve a problem.That's what I always loved about engineering. It was just problemsolving. And very soon I realized, in product and servicedevelopment, is that the product and service is just a way ofsolving a problem. And that's really a business problem. Meet thecustomer's needs, hit the price point delivery, all those otherthings. And so it's really all just business problems. And so Iengineer the business solutions, is what I do. And just use thegood leadership techniques and help people solve their ownproblems. Try to lead them there, but not give them the answer sothat they can solve it and learn it for themselves.
Paul Casey:
So our second engineer in a row on the show, and engineers withpersonality, I like to say.
Rocco Luongo:
We're a lot alike. Thank goodness. I was about to say, I'm gladyou didn't say just one of them because then I'd be like, "Wait,which one am I?"
Paul Casey:
I also work with another group here in town. They callthemselves accountants with personality. We like to tease some ofthe professions. They're scary smart.
Rocco Luongo:
Perfect.
Paul Casey:
So there were key moments along your journey. What helped youmake some of those decisions about whether to jump or not to jumpto a new opportunity? And what advice would you give to ourlisteners who have a crossroads decision to make?
Rocco Luongo:
Well, humans are emotional beings. And so ultimately, everydecision you make is going to be emotional. If you're an engineer,you're going to do the math, you're going to do the projections.You'll figure it out. Hey, I'll make more money going this way orthat way it'll take me more time this way or that way. Butultimately, you're going to make an emotional choice. And so what Irecommend when you're at any kind of a crossroads is, examine youroptions, keep your options open. And one thing I like to do is Ijust take a look at the best case, worst case of making the choiceor not. And you end up having four boxes if you take a look atthat. And then you you can dig into those. You can look atfinancial specifics in each box, timeline specific box.
Rocco Luongo:
You should certainly include emotional impacts in those boxes.If I make the choice, wow, I'll feel amazing because I told mygrandma on her death bed that I'd finally do this. And this is abig deal to me, even if it doesn't make as much money down theroad. Or whatever it is. But realize, ultimately, your heart isgoing to choose. And so let it, but get all your thoughts togetheron paper so that you can sleep at night too.
Rocco Luongo:
And then when you've made the choice, do it, just do it, go anddo it. And a lot more is lost due to inaction than wrong action, asI'm sure you've seen. Making rapid, high quality decisions isessential in business and in life. And one of the things that holdspeople back all the time is, they don't quite understand that noteverything is quite as permanent as they might feel. If I'm at thiscrossroads, man, I'm going to be on it for the rest of my life. Notnecessarily. If you look close enough, tomorrow, there'll beanother crossroads you can see. And the day after that there'll beanother one. Life is a series of opportunities if you keep youreyes open and you're tuned for it.
Paul Casey:
That's great advice. I love the four box system, but it doesn'thave to be four boxes probably.
Rocco Luongo:
Sure.
Paul Casey:
But it's weighing out all the different categories. Like yousaid, emotional being one of those and that every decision you makeprobably isn't permanent. There's going to be a chance to iterateoff that or go a different route. It's not all or nothing kind ofthing.
Rocco Luongo:
That's right.
Paul Casey:
Good stuff.
Rocco Luongo:
Thanks.
Paul Casey:
What's most rewarding for you in your job? How do you stayfocused on that? There's probably some hassles, disappointmentslike in every job, but instead of focusing on that, you're going tofocus on what's rewarding. What is rewarding?
Rocco Luongo:
My client success is ultimately my success. And so, if you canjust tune your services to the betterment of your client, so thatliterally you are doing the very best you can for them. And if youlike to do that, then you're in the right field. That's going to beit. You'll enjoy it. And I also have learned, as I'm sure you'velearned too, that you have to say no to certain clients, that thereare just some clients that it's just not going to work out. And Ican tell right away. At first, I couldn't. And so earlier in yourcareer, you just want to try and serve everybody. I can helpanybody. I can do anything. I can help with anything. And so youjust learn that there are certain people who, what they need, isn'twhat I do.
Rocco Luongo:
If you want to grow, I can help you do that. If you want to seta measurable goal and set metrics and track them on a regular basisand adjust, I can help you with that. If you like feedback andaccountability, I can help you with that. If you like treating yourbusiness like a business and actually building an advisory board,building a board of directors, if it's big enough, managing that,building your team, managing your team, if you really want to doall those things, not every company has to, but the more you wantto take your business seriously, the more I will be able to helpyou with it.
Rocco Luongo:
I've had some clients that haven't done so well. They talk agood game, but they don't really deliver. I have been tolderroneous numbers. How are sales going last week since we put inthat thing? "Oh, it's going great." Weeks and weeks in a row. Bythe time we get to the monthly report, what's happened here? It'slike a calamity. What is this dumpster fire of a report? Where areall these numbers? "Oh, I guess I wasn't right about that stuff."What are you doing? You're wasting your resources, my resources andtime. You're not getting anywhere. What's going on here? I'veunderstood what the DNA of an ideal client is. And my success isjust their success. So if you'd like to grow, if you like to worktowards measurable goals, especially in professional services,that's where I shine.
Paul Casey:
Your rubrics were very clear with that. So if someone, no matterwhat field they're listening to this podcast, how would you saythey should figure out what their ideal ideal client is?
Rocco Luongo:
Yeah. And of course that can really vary. For example, inengineering, you may offer more than one service, in which case youmay have more than one ideal client. Law firms, especially, too.Practice area. If you're in family law, if you're in crim or ifyou're in civil litigation, that ideal client is going to varyagain.
Rocco Luongo:
But definitely understand your business in terms of the businessmodel canvas, which is one of the models that we use here all thetime at Fuse for the accelerator. Really take a look at who yourclient channels are going to be, your customer channels andcustomer segments are going to be, how you're going to reach them.Create personas for those people, give them a name like Paul,Cheryl, Brenda. Something that means something to you. Empathizewith them, understand what it is. And then you can build it up. Andthen you can test it out with your clients. You can really see ifthat's going to be the right model for them. Am I going to beanswering the questions right for them? And just try it out. Youhave to always test.
Paul Casey:
That is really important. So my ideal client, her name is LeslieMaxwell. I did give her a name and she's a middle manager on theway up, she reads Self magazine and does yoga and never has enoughtime for that. And has a couple of kids.
Rocco Luongo:
That's the perfect point.
Paul Casey:
Working with homeschooling right now and struggling with that.And I've created a whole page on my ideal clients. So that in yourmarketing, or as you say, when you're discerning whether this wouldbe a great client for you, run it through that sieve and go, "Yeah.That's somebody that I could really serve."
Paul Casey:
So leaders have to keep growing or they become irrelevant. Howhave you matured as a leader, as a coach, even in recent years,maybe even in the last five years?
Rocco Luongo:
So, one thing that differentiates me is, I may not be thesmartest guy, I may not be the fastest, whatever, but I love tolearn. I absolutely love to learn and I spend a lot of time on itand I spend a lot of money on it. I'm constantly going to seminars.The last six months, not necessarily.
Paul Casey:
Right.
Rocco Luongo:
In case you guys haven't been paying attention, we've beenhaving a bit of COVID issues going on. But I love going toseminars. I love going to learning opportunities. My wife and Iactually go together. We're kind of nerdy that way.
Paul Casey:
Cool.
Rocco Luongo:
We do these things together. We're both into learning andprofessional development. So we do these things together. I love toread. My engineering side is math and tech heavy, so when I learnand read leadership books and business books, I can quickly distilldown elements that I can work into models and tools that I can usein my practice. So I quickly build tools out of things I learn. AndI can put them very rapidly to use because I've got a goodrecurring slate of clients on constantly trying these new thingsand seeing how they work.
Rocco Luongo:
So putting those things to use is really what helps. If you onlyread something, but don't write or create anything out of it, don'tmake a computer model or a guide or just a note to yourself, orwhatever is meaningful to you, if it only stays in your brain andnever comes to the real world, to some level, that's just entropy.That's just heat being wasted. It's energy, not being directed at apurpose. Once you write something down, that's a neural muscularprocess that really crystallizes your thoughts into something real.And if you want to take that and share it with a friend to hold youaccountable, "Hey I wrote this down."
Paul Casey:
Even better.
Rocco Luongo:
Even better. So the number one thing really is just, I love tolearn. I love to put it in action. And I think that energy justcarries forward into my clients. They feel that and while we setgoals and we achieve them. Your clients too, every client hassetbacks, this happens. So how do you deal with a setback? How doyou deal with the pivot? You just deal with it.
Paul Casey:
So you're sitting at a seminar at a conference... I'm just goingto go there with you because this is so much fun. And a speaker isup there sharing. What are you doing while you're sitting therewith your notebook? When right in the middle of a seminar, thatperson maybe sends a great idea or maybe it's just, you're in thezone with them.
Rocco Luongo:
Right. So I tend to listen with my whole body. So I just sitback and I just listen. I take it in with my eyes, my ears, justeverything, the room around me. I just want to see how this wholething is happening. It's just very exciting because I love doingtalks myself. I love training. I love speaking. I did a Ted Talk. Ijust love this stuff. So I love watching every one of thesepresentations, because I'm always looking for a little nugget I cantake back.
Rocco Luongo:
So what's in my notebook? Usually a top three is what I try toget, three things that are really meaningful to me out of thistalk. Because I can't just spend my whole time writing notes orelse I miss a lot of stuff with my head down. So I try to capturethree big bullets.
Rocco Luongo:
And they are sometimes simply substantive, like a piece ofinformation, like you can get 16% better web traffic if but blank.Oh, okay. That's cool. I'll write that down. That's a great idea.Sometimes it's about the structure. I saw one great talk and I'veadopted this, and I encourage anybody out here listening to trythis as well. Whenever you're doing any kind of a presentation,like a sales presentation, you're talking to a group, it's a freetalk. Come on in. If you like, what I'm saying, come on, sign up.We'll have a meeting. Move into the process. I love having myclients come up and talk too. I share the stage with them. I letthem talk about the challenges that they've been through, how we'vesolved them, how things are going now. Thank you very much.
Rocco Luongo:
So I end up doing relatively little of the talk. I provide theplatform to my clients so that they can share what great thingsthey're doing. And all of a sudden you've cleared a tremendous gapof credibility in the minds of the audience, because wow, thisguy's got his clients up here saying great things. They're doingthe talk for him. So I saw that one time and I'm like, "I'mdefinitely doing that. That's fantastic." Then I thought, "Man, canI get my clients to do that?" And guess what? You can, if you do agood job for your client. So couple of nuggets.
Paul Casey:
Yeah. Really good stuff. And just Tri-City influencers, it'sreally important to write after you read. And I love what you saidabout the neuromuscular connection that happens when you do that.I'm a massive filer, so I'll rip stuff out of magazines that havebeen highlighted, I'll file it by a certain leadership topic.
Rocco Luongo:
Nice.
Paul Casey:
And then that turns into a seminar or a book or somethingeventually. But you're right, I'm always ripping stuff out anddoing stuff with it, journaling it. So much fun.
Paul Casey:
Most of our a to-do lists are greater than the time we have todo them. So that requires a leader or an entrepreneur to triagetasks, and delegate, outsource things so that you can focus on themost important tasks. So Rocco, how do you sort how you spend yourtime? And maybe what tips could you give on delegation oroutsourcing?
Rocco Luongo:
Yeah. So how I sort my own time is, I've got overarching goals,like assets I'm building for other programs that I'm working on.I've got current client matters and I've got some administrativetime. There's always some biz dev as well. So there are differentcategories. So I try to keep myself moving in each one of thosecategories. I've got a pretty good formula that keeps me moving ineach one of those.
Rocco Luongo:
I developed a template I called the block and tackle sheet. Andwe'll probably talk later about my website, so if you can get itthere later. We'll do that plug later. But it's one tool. It's aweekly organizer. It keeps me on track. I use it all the time. Buthow do I choose the stuff? I'm a big fan of Covey's four quadrantsmodel.
Paul Casey:
Oh yeah.
Rocco Luongo:
The important versus urgent matrix. That one. Every now andthen, we all get jammed up with too much stuff. And you've gotthese task lists that are maybe exploding out of control. I'mstarting my third one before I finished the first two.
Paul Casey:
Day's gone wild.
Rocco Luongo:
Day's gone wild. Exactly. That's funny. And sometimes you do. Ithink you said triage in there. I sometimes just call it audit, butsometimes there needs to be a reboot. You got to pull the plug outon this, let it calm down for a minute and plug it back in and seewhat really matters. And so I generally have each one of my taskson a little sticky note. I just like it. It's very visceral. Whenit's done, I put a little checkmark on it and I put a pile that atthe end of the week, I review all my sticky notes. It helps mejournal for my next week. So that's just my little model that Ido.
Rocco Luongo:
But if the sticky notes get out of control, I will take them andliterally take the four quadrants, put it up on one of mywhiteboards and I'll just find a home for each one of them. And allof a sudden, you start seeing, well, man, if this thing is notimportant or urgent, time for them to go away. Sometimes a thingyou thought was worthwhile to do, just didn't have enough priorityand it kind of went away. It's been replaced by something else. Andwe just try to keep everything in that important, but not urgentbox-
Paul Casey:
Yes. Quadrant two.
Rocco Luongo:
So you can plan it. That quadrant two. Exactly. As you know. Andif anything else is urgent, then just handle it. Just handle it.And you can get wrapped up in so many things. Well, I'm aprocrastinator or I feel anxious, or I just don't know what theright thing to do is. Well, you're a procrastinator or you'reanxious, the same kind of thing to do is just start going. Justtake action. Any action is so much better than wrong action thatyou are going to be moving yourself in a positive direction.
Rocco Luongo:
And if you don't know what to do, this can be the hardest thingin the world. Ask for help. Call a mentor, call you, Paul. Paulknows a lot of stuff. Call me, call any number of people. The Fusem*ntor network. If you don't know them, call the pastor at yourchurch, call the neighbor, call a friend, whatever is meaningful toyou. Don't let it stew. I think people sometimes feel so veryalone, especially early business folks can feel very alone, likeit's me against the world. And that's really not true. Even here,especially in the Tri-Cities, we have a great community supportingentrepreneurs and there's a ton of people who'll give you helpsupport for very little or for free. There's a lot of good peoplearound. So ask for help.
Paul Casey:
Yeah. I love the “pull the plug and then plug it back in.” SoI've asked my clients, this very week, one of the questions for anicebreaker, I asked them was, what do you do when you getoverwhelmed? And you said the three things that are the number one,two and three answers. One is you’ve got to pull the plug, you gotto step back, breathe, compose yourself. Second, you might have tojust tackle one of those tasks and get something to done. Or makesome progress, kick something down the road, spin that plate again.And then, ask for help, being that other one, because clearly it'stoo much for you because you're saying the word overwhelmed. Soyou're going to have to get some help.
Rocco Luongo:
Yeah. That's right.
Paul Casey:
Before we head to our next question on relationships andleadership, a shout out to our sponsors.
Paul Casey:
Mario Martinez, Northwestern Mutual, Mario, why should peoplework with a financial advisor?
Mario Martinez:
Hey Paul, that's a great question. Really. I think there's twotypes of people who should be seeking out a financial professional.The one person is somebody who has very limited access to financialguidance. Maybe they're a younger professional or somebody who justhasn't had an introduction to a financial professional yet. And theother type of person is really someone who has a lot of differentexposure to different professionals. They just haven't found theone person that they really trust to take guidance from. So there'sreally an over information in that sense. So those are really thetwo types of people that should be looking to be introduced to afinancial professional.
Paul Casey:
Fantastic. So Mario, how can people get in touch with you?
Mario Martinez:
The easiest way is to reach out to me directly on my businesscell phone, which is (509) 591-5301. You can send an email tomario.Martinez@nm.com or you can find us on our business Facebookpage, which is Mario Martinez, Northwestern Mutual.
Paul Casey:
So Rocco, you probably believe like I do that leadership isrelationships. So talk to us about what relationships are key toyour success? How do you intentionally develop relationships?
Rocco Luongo:
Well, I do agree that relationships are instrumental toleadership and business in general. Business is about people. Youhave to think of your customers as people, as individuals, solvingan individual's problem. And if you do it right enough times, itbecomes a business. And a big part of having a successful businessis having good, both client relationships, but also other partnerbusinesses that can provide complementary noncompeting services tohelp you become successful.
Rocco Luongo:
For example, like if we do off-sites for example, I'm not goingto have everybody come to my home necessarily. We're going to goand rent a space. So you need to have that. You're going to have tounderstand how to work with catering. You're going to have tounderstand how to get your materials printed. You're going to haveto understand how to work with event coordinators. In my team, I'vegot marketing people, I've got web people. So you need to be ableto manage your team, both internal and external.
Rocco Luongo:
You also need to be able to manage your clients so that you canunderstand where their gaps are and augment them and help them besuccessful. And what I have to do to help one client be successful,isn't necessarily going to be the same thing as a different client.So I always mold my programs around their needs, as I'm sure you dotoo. That's one thing that a mechanical engineer learns is thatpeople are not machines. Whether we all do something about it isdifferent, but we all learn it pretty early. Some are justfrustrated and stay stuck there. But the rest of us, we learn andpeople are emotional beings. And so you have to be intentional andwell, start with your intention. That's how I do it. What is itthat I need to get done? What value can I bring to thisrelationship that will be worthwhile for that person to come andget excited, and be motivated, to be a marketing affiliate or to bea service provider of whatever kind?
Paul Casey:
Which is one of the best networking tips that we could share is,go into those relationships serving. What can I do? What can I get?Can I give advice? Can I give a tip? Can I connect you to somebodyelse? People love those kind of connectors in our community. Andpeople are going to love working with you if you're just kind tothem and you treat them with honor and respect and value. So, Idon't like the finance part of my job personally. So I've got a CPAand I've got a bookkeeper and I've got a wealth advisor and I lovethose folks and I want to treat them awesome because they're takingcare of the stuff that I don't want to do.
Rocco Luongo:
That's right. And we need those results to be good.
Paul Casey:
We do.
Rocco Luongo:
Yeah.
Paul Casey:
Well, self-care is also essential to our mental health,especially in the land of COVID and just for top performance ingeneral. Because if you melt down, you're not good for anybody. Sowhat recharges your batteries?
Rocco Luongo:
So I'm a very athletic person. I played a lot of sports. Iplayed Div One rugby in college. I love that kind of stuff. I didCrossFit for a long time. I love cycling, mountain biking. Imountain biked over the Alps while I was in Germany, a seven daytrip. It was beautiful. I still go bike packing with friends.Carried that forward with my kids, biking and hiking to the levelthey're able. They're growing up. A lot of that has been changedbecause of COVID. Can't really go to the gym. It's not quite thesame. So repurpose exercises as I can around the house. Going for ajog is pretty easy. You can pretty much always do that. Going for abike ride again, pretty easy. You can always do that. Doing yoga,doing the video of yoga, sometimes some strength or flexibilitybased yoga is good.
Rocco Luongo:
It's really just about really picking a time to do it, and thenfollowing through on that time. And if you keep doing that longenough, then the pattern starts forming, breaks into your brain andinto your heart. And then you start doing it. You look forward toit more and it becomes less of a burden and more of a true benefit.And some days you just don't feel like doing anything. And so youcan honor that time too. You can say, "Well, I'm going to take aday off." If there's a couple too many of those days, then maybeyou should say, "Well, maybe I'll do a 10 minute ride, not aone-hour ride?" Just get into it and do it.
Rocco Luongo:
And a lot of that, if you're resistant to it early, a lot ofit's just this out the door factor. Once you're out the door doingthe thing, you're probably going to like it.
Paul Casey:
Get started. Yeah.
Rocco Luongo:
It's just that activation energy to get you going. And I'm sureyou've seen it too, but in coaching and consulting, you see thatactivation energy hurdle get in a lot of people's way on a lot ofdifferent kinds of topics. But get them started, that momentum willstart building.
Paul Casey:
Yeah. A body at rest tends to stay at rest.
Rocco Luongo:
Yes. I'm pretty sure an English scientist who died a virgin saidthat a long time ago when an apple hit his head.
Paul Casey:
Activation energy. We just got to get going, put something intoplay. We've got to move.
Rocco Luongo:
Right.
Paul Casey:
Well, we've rarely discussed money on this podcast previously,but every leader, every entrepreneur has to know theirorganization's financials. What does evaluation of financials looklike in your position?
Rocco Luongo:
So I'm also not a CPA. Pretty good with numbers. I do likenumbers. And so what we do is, also bridging on what I saidearlier, just to make sure no one is telling me baloney, we havestandard reports that we take a look at. So I think the three mostimportant financial reports that you look for in a business aregoing to be your balance sheet, your profit and loss and yourcashflow statement. If I can see those things on a monthly basisand certainly on a quarterly basis, that's going to be adequate tohandle that side.
Rocco Luongo:
What we do, then, we tie that back to other sets of metrics likenumber of impressions, or number of posts or a number of meetings,or whatever is meaningful for your business, that we can then tieto that top line in terms of revenue. And once you've done that,you basically can distill pretty much all businesses down to fivenumbers of business. You've got your leads, your conversions,number of transactions per client and average sale price perclient, and then margin at the end, which incorporates all of yourefficiencies and all of your inefficiencies, if the case may be.And then what comes out of it is profit. And so you can basicallyfind what those four top line numbers are and tie them back intothose standard three cashflow, profit and loss, and balance sheetstatements. And then you can really see how the business isgoing.
Rocco Luongo:
And that's usually where we go, because money is an output, asyou know. People get wrapped up on and it's also very emotional,but it's really an output. When you do enough of the right stuff,money ends up in your account. If you don't do the right stuff,money doesn't end up in your account. And that might seem flip, butit's pretty true.
Rocco Luongo:
What do you think?
Paul Casey:
Yeah. See, that's a lag measure. That's what you're describing.Right?
Rocco Luongo:
Exactly.
Paul Casey:
Money is that. In the lead measures, what are those things wecan control? And as coaches, that's what we try to do is helppeople set those goals that are within their control, that's goingto get them that money in the bank later.
Rocco Luongo:
That's right.
Paul Casey:
Good stuff. Finally, what advice, Rocco, would you give to newleaders or anyone who wants to keep growing and gaining moreinfluence?
Rocco Luongo:
So the thing that I would say is, read first of all. Read acouple of key books, if you haven't already read them. Read SevenHabits by Steve Covey, which we talked about earlier. Read How toWin Friends and Influence People by Carnegie. Go down the Collinsroad, probably do some Good to Great. That will really help youout. Boy, if you do any kind of management, checkout Blanchardstuff, One Minute Manager, that stuff is really good. I thinkbetween, I think four or five books I just said, man, if you getstarted there, you've really got a good foundation. Find yourself agroup of other like-minded people who want to talk about thesekinds of books and work together, if you can. Maybe like a littlebusiness book club kind of thing. Or come on down to Fuse or comeon down to whatever your local business accelerator is.
Rocco Luongo:
Get involved. Get involved somewhere. Maybe it's a nonprofitthat you want to get involved in, but put that leadership intoplay. Maybe become an advisor on a board somewhere or a board ofdirectors member somewhere. Just take action, take motion, go in adirection and serve. And like we said, when you show up at thatfirst meeting, what gift can you bring? If you go to someone'shouse for the first time, you're going to bring a gift. Well, Ihope you will. Please bring a gift. Bring a gift with you. And thisis also metaphorical. Maybe the gift you're bringing is aconnection or a favor or something else, but bring some kind of agift. And when you do that, it just makes everything easier. Peopleare going to like you. They'll show that you care, you put someeffort into this moment. Just everything goes a lot smoother if youdo that. So I think you should prepare and then you shouldengage.
Paul Casey:
Great stuff. Well, Rocco, how can our listeners best connectwith you?
Rocco Luongo:
You can check me out on my website, gorocco.pro. I've got mycoaching and consulting stuff there. You can read what I do. Youcan see some of the other companies that I've worked with. You canalso connect with me there. I have stayed pretty far away fromsocial media over the last few months. It's just become dead toxic.So you can get on my mailing list there if you want. And I send outperiodic emails with offers of services and also just things tothink about and templates and tools.
Paul Casey:
Yeah. You mentioned one tool earlier. Did you want to plugthat?
Rocco Luongo:
Oh yeah. The block and tackle sheet. That's my weekly planner.It's a two pager. There's a PDF. You can check it out ongorocco.pro. Go under resources, search for block and tackle sheet.It pops up. You can download it and fill it in. No charge there.Just trying to help. Trying to help you guys out.
Paul Casey:
Well, thanks again for all you do to make the Tri-Cities a greatplace and keep leading well.
Rocco Luongo:
Well, thank you, Paul. And thank you for having me on here andthank you for being a great leader of the Tri-Cities too.Appreciate you.
Paul Casey:
My pleasure. Well, let me wrap up our podcast today with aleadership resource to recommend. It's a program I'm offering herein the Tri-Cities for young professionals and emerging leaders.It's called Leader Launcher. You go to leader-launcher.com and itis a monthly seminar. Right now, it's virtual. We can't wait to getback together live, but it's a two-hour seminar on a leadership orpersonal growth proficiency. If you want to move up in yourcompany, your organization, to the next level, you want to come toLeader Launcher.
Paul Casey:
You're going to meet some awesome people that are also at thesame stage of leadership growth. You're going to pick up 12proficiencies in a year. You're going to be able to put those rightinto play, like we talked about in our podcast. Again,leader-launcher.com.
Paul Casey:
Again, this is Paul Casey, and I want to thank my guest RoccoLuongo who is an executive coach for being here today on theTri-Cities Influencer Podcast. We also want to thank our TCIsponsor and invite you to support them. We appreciate you makingthis possible so that we can collaborate to help inspire leaders inour community. Finally, one more leadership tip for the road tohelp you make a difference in your circle of influence. LeonardBernstein said, "To achieve greatness two things are needed. A planand not quite enough time." Until next time, KGF, keep growingforward.
Speaker 3:
Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to today's show. PaulCasey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providingpractical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their livesand on their teams so that they can enjoy life and leadership andexperience their key desired results.
Speaker 3:
If you'd like more help from Paul in your leadershipdevelopment, connect with him at growingforward@paulcasey.org. Fora consultation that can help you get past your current challengesand create the strategy for growth for life, grow your teamforward. Paul would also like to help you restore your sanity toyour crazy schedule and getting your priorities done every day byoffering you his free Control My Calendar checklist. Go towww.takebackmycalendar.com for that productivity tool or open atext message to 72000 and type the word growing.
Paul Casey:
Tri-Cities influencer podcast is recorded at Fuse SPC by BillWagner of Safe Strategies.
