Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast leader Legion today I’m thrilled the share with you today’s guest because he has had success impacting the customer experience and has defied common practices. Paul Maskill was born and raised in Goodridge, Michigan with his older sister Nicole. Both his parents worked, his father owned his own hardware floor business and his mother was in financial services. Starting at the age of 14 working at the local country club, washing dishes at the golf course, Paul worked his way up to a bag boy. Living a somewhat normal childhood Paul fulfilled his boyhood sports stream to attend the University of Michigan. After graduating with a finance degree in hand Paul set out to climb the corporate ladder in Chicago all the way to the top not long into his career in corporate America the buzz of a finance job in the big city lost its luster and Paul was looking for more. Sitting in a cubicle for 10 to 12 hours a day while staring at spreadsheets and building someone else’s business was not Paul’s idea of living a dream, so he quit. 

After taking two months to travel around South America, Paul decided to relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina and start a career that was rewarding. In 2011 Paul invested in his first Teach, Grow, Achieve franchise, combining his business experience with passion for sports. TGA makes golf and tennis more accessible to students ages 3 to 15 through on campus afterschool programs, summer camps, parent-child events, and more. Over the next four and half years Paul grew his business to four franchises impacting 1000+ kids each year. At the end of 2015, Paul was ready to make his next move. He sold his four franchises for over six times his initial investment and three times net profit, soon after Paul was hired by the franchisor to be in charge of business development based on his business experience and ability to grow business to over 40 employees and $400,000 in revenue in four years, Paul now works with current franchise owners to help build their businesses into an organization with people, processes, and systems in place so that the businesses can thrive without relying on the owner. He also works with all prospective franchise owners on putting together their business plan while evaluating all the moving parts of the business and their geographic area. Paul currently resides in Holly Springs, North Carolina with his wife Angela and their new baby daughter Amelia. Paul Maskill are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Paul Maskill:    Wow! I am ready as ever Jim. Super excited to be here.

Jim Rembach:    I’m glad you’re here! And I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better.

Paul Maskill:    Yeah! My current passion really is business, entrepreneurship, impacting people, which is one of the reasons why I still stayed with TJ even after selling the business I just really believe in the impact we can make in the local community. When you help other people get where they want to go I think it’s going to help you get where you want to go. So along with those hang out with the family, playing golf, playing tennis, playing basketball that’s really where my passions are today.

Jim Rembach:    Well you know, it’s interesting and one of the reason I wanted you on the show is because there’s a couple things that stood out to me. First of all, when you start thinking about becoming an entrepreneur and owning your own business everybody kind of has this dream of that and a lot of people are trying to find ways in order to be able to do that. You and I met through the podcasting scene and when you think about podcasts and the ones that are the most popular are about entrepreneurialism and so you actually had gone the opposite direction you became an entrepreneur but you are not an entrepreneur, maybe kind of, how did you do that and why did you do that?

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. So when I decided to sell my four franchises it really was just timing, the right person at the right time at the right price I wasn’t necessarily actively looking to sell it but if the right price came along, you know I’m a believer of what Warren Buffett says, buy low sell high and the right the right price came along and that really allowed me to do pretty much anything I wanted at that time. I was looking at starting another business a consultant business coach one of those things taking my experience and helping others and lo and behold I was able to get that opportunity with TGA. I’ve had a ton of experience obviously with TGA on a business level and having the success so I really had the opportunity to take what I was able to do and now really impact, I kind of look it and it would impact even more kids because I’m impacting all these business that surf kids.  So I’m still working for an entrepreneurial type business, our headquarters team is less than 10 so we’re still very front facing really entrepreneurial forward thinking, always looking to innovate and I do have a vested interest in the success of the TGA franchises going forward. So in my opinion still sort of entrepreneur but like you said I did kind of step back and now I’m technically working for somebody else but that is not to deter my entrepreneurial passion and enthusiasm and I actually do run an e-commerce store on the side as well. So yeah. I saw it as a great opportunity to take what I’ve done and impact others and continue to fulfill my passion around sports people and building business.

Jim Rembach:    Now there’s another thing that stood out to me of course is even when you—and I’m sure this is why you’re possibly working with—and even as you said now have an equity stake within the company as a whole, so your passion is really more than just having your own business and that for me is a little bit hard to understand is that it wasn’t the fact of owning your own business that was really the underlying passion, it was more so in the growth and impacting and making a bigger impact, would that be a fair assessment?

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. I would say that’s a fair assessment. I mean when you have a passion for whatever business you’re working in, it just makes that much easier to get to success because you’re driven, you want to make an impact, and you want to succeed. Not everybody, I mean even if you look at people that, say the first ten people that were working for Facebook they weren’t Mark Zuckerberg but they probably instill a pretty good passion for it and still probably had a pretty good outcome. So being an entrepreneur, being your own boss might not be for everybody but it’s okay to be the wingman of an entrepreneur and help them get where they want to go because every entrepreneur needs people and needs to surround themselves with successful people. They get to where they want to go and usually when they do that they also have some sort of vested interest in the outcome of the business.

Jim Rembach:    You know I  think that’s a great point. I mean for me I’ve always say that I’m not the person who necessarily has to be the one who has a spotlight shining upon them and really even when you start talking about the format of the fast leader show, one of the reasons I’m doing the fast leader show is to put the spotlight on other folks.

Paul Maskill:    Exactly.

Jim Rembach:    And I get to do that and I get to learn so much about their stories and the things that they’ve had overcome and gain different perspective and to me it’s just a valuable growth experience and for whatever may come of that in regards coming back to me it’s because I am, like you are saying, focusing on others and that’s my primary objective and where I get passion. And now another thing that we actually look at as far as passion is concern on the show are leadership quotes and I should just really start saying quotes in general because when you start thinking about quotes that impact us they really help us do lead ourselves and others better most often. But is there a quote or two that kind of helps you get up in the morning and be energized can you share that with us.?

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. Like you say there’s tons of quotes and if you’re on social media and Twitter and Instagram you’re reading quotes all day, but one thing that I kind of built our businesses around and really built our—the customer experience and the employee experience, cause both those groups of people are so integral in the success of any business, would be: Do the little things and big things will happen. So no matter what the task is if you focus on the little details, you are going to set yourself apart from pretty much everybody else. Most businesses are pretty much a commodity at this point, so everybody whatever you’re selling there’s probably a 100 other people selling the same thing or very similar so what are you going to do to set yours apart? It’s those little things, whether it’s your customer service, taking care of your employees, showing appreciation, anything and everything just take that little bit extra time to do something a little bit quicker, a little bit better, a little bit more well thought out and you will get to where you want to go.

So that was really what I kind of preach to our employees and that’s really what I lead by example with as well as if a customer called, call them back right away, email them back right away. It’s actually pretty amazing when you do that. What low expectation most customers have, because when you do that their like, “Wow thank you so much for calling me back within 24 hours.” I probably learned that from my dad originally when he would go out to estimates to people’s houses to take a look at their hardwood floors, he would show up and they’d just said, “Thanks for showing up the three other people we called didn’t even show up. “ So, I think, Do the little things and big things will happen, would have to be my leadership quote.

Jim Rembach:    Well I’m glad you shared the because that was also one of the other reasons that I wanted you on the show is because you were able to have success with these franchises  sold it for a profit. Obviously when you start thinking about, even the parent company of the franchisor offering you an equity stake to commit, and that’s huge, so obviously you stood out far beyond all of the other franchisees. When you start thinking about the little things, there’s often little things that can make massive impacts. You shared one thing about the communication response back but what else did you do differently and do you teach now these franchisees to do differently that will make a bigger difference so they did do stand out like you were saying because pretty much all  products and services become commoditized and we all as far as consumers look at our experience from a lot of different companies and compared them to the one that were doing business with in front of us so you know it’s now a situation where even the playing field has been kind of leveled across all different products and services that we purchased. What did you do different?

 Paul Maskill:    It probably starts even before. If you take a step back and not even your interaction with your employees or your customers I think it starts before that and really just staying organized. I’m very organized, coming from a finance background I have spreadsheets for everything and I kind of take the approach of when I’m doing something for the first time or I’m building a process or building a system, no matter how simple the task might be I always ask myself, would I be able to do it this way when I have 40+ employees? And would I be able to transition this task to somebody else doing it this way? And if not let’s take a little bit extra time, make it so in that way it’s repeatable, replicable and somebody else could do it and staying organized. 

When people start their business they have a lot of time to kind of do a little bit of everything so they’re probably not as efficient as they should be but as you start to scale your business you really have to get efficient. You can’t provide that great customer service or that great employee experience if you’re busy doing all these things that are not really organize from a time management and an efficiency standpoint, so that’s probably really one of the biggest things that I work with people is building that solid foundation so that way you’re setting yourself up for future success. So perfect all your processes get them all documented and then start to scale because then you’re going to have more time to go out in the field and make sure your employees are happy and showing them appreciation and  giving your customers a courtesy call and sending a thank you note to your most loyal customers, all those little things that then get people to promote you as well as continue frequenting your business.

Jim Rembach:    That’s some very good insight and thank you sharing it. I have a friend of mine who is kind of like a realtor for businesses. He works on the buy and sell side of small businesses and one of the things that he works with companies that are essentially getting ready to put their businesses on the market to be sold is that he’s working with them to help them build and document their processes.

Paul Maskill:    Exactly! Pretty much every time I did a process I would record it using a screen recording software, something like Camtasia as well as do a type up step by step process because I was, if you read the book, Built to Sell, that will really give everybody a good insight of building a valuable sustainable business. Thinking with the end in mind really does help get you where you want to go and when it is time to sell or to transfer ownership or even just to step back and have somebody run your business on a day-to-day basis and you can just kind of collect the profits in sort of a passive income way, having all those things in place will let you do it and make sure there is no bumps in the road from the sense of lower customer experience or lower quality of product your deliverable.

Jim Rembach:    Yeah. I think you also bring up this as an important point. Even if you’re an employee of an organization, this is an important point that’s going to help us move onward and upward faster. Even though it does apparently seem to be the case because were stopping and taking the time to document all of these processes, to document the different flows the different, and looking at things from a different perspective but in the long run. And that’s what we talk about a lot on the fast leader show, in the long run you’re going to move onward and upward faster if you have that foundation and those things in place.

Paul Maskill:    Exactly, and that’s spot on.

Jim Rembach:    So when you start thinking about, gosh, getting to the point as you are now, I mean you talked about going to university in Michigan and there was a sports dream and now you’re living and doing sports kind of through TGA and the work that you’re doing there but there’s had to be humps along the way where you’ve learned a lot lessons, 55555555is there a story that you can share with us on one you had to get over the hump?

Paul Maskill:    Yes, I think it would probably be when I was leading TGA and that time we probably had about 25 part-time coaches out there delivering our product and service and getting kids excited about golf and tennis but I was still doing all of the other works. All of the busywork, all the admin work, probably working 60 to 80 hours a week pretty easily which is taking time away for me leading the business having the ability to take it to the next level so really that was probably the hump to get over. I took a few days and just sat back and wrote down everything that I did on a regular basis, so it’s basically a big giant chart, whiteboard wrote down everything I did and I just started dividing them up in a similar roles and then created a team to fill those roles so that way I could begin to really take a business to the next level really continue to lead. I don’t want to get to the point where my employees felt like I wasn’t out there enough with them because I was always busy doing busy work that wasn’t really helping the business grow and then same thing on the customer side eventually you’re not going to build the service always customer. So I really took that step back realize what I need to do and then started putting the systems in people and processes in place so that way we could take our business to the next level.

Jim Rembach:    Okay, so that’s interesting and somewhat scary for a ton of folks. Because when you start talking about doing that and turning over that responsibility to other people, how did you get over the fact you still needed to control those things? How did you release that power?

Paul Maskill:    It does take a little bit of work because like you said when you start your own business you want to do everything your way and you think that is the only way. The way I got over it was one putting the right—finding the right people that I knew I could trust but then it really goes back to the systems and processes and I try to be as detail oriented as possible so that there was no way that they could do this process some other way, like there was no cracks that they could veer off and then all the sudden, why did you do it this way? You didn’t tell me that I needed to do it like that. So I really took the time to be very detail oriented and then provide them the support, training and leadership that they need to succeed. So meeting with them on a regular basis, showing appreciation, sending them messages and just checking in on to them to make sure they don’t have any questions and letting them know that it’s okay to make mistakes. I wouldn’t have gotten to where I was if I didn’t make mistakes, I think that’s the only way you do to get to where you want to go is making mistakes learning from it an and improving. 

And if you get on the same playing field and same mindset with them they’re not nervous they’re not worried about making mistake because they know that—we’ll figure it out together and we’ll improve the process along the way. Delegating that first task is probably the toughest but once you do it and you see it work you feel like a proud parent or something. So it’s like, you know that aha moment that all of a sudden, I can do this they can do this they’ve perfected that task let’s give them another one and give them some time to learn it and let them digest it. The beautiful thing about a few creating some sort of training videos or training library that they can learn it at their own pace, they can pause, rewind and really do what’s best for them. So, once you do the first one and get success then it’s kind of like the floodgates open and it’s a whole new world. 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, as you were talking—and thanks for sharing that, is that I started thinking about the flipside of this. One of the problems is that a lot of organizations have and today’s world is a problem with innovation. If you start thinking about, I have employees they now have VST standard operating procedures and everything is documented to a tee. We could possibly fall into a problem of stifling our ability to be innovative and our creative thinking. How did you balance that?

Paul Maskill:    Yes, so that’s really a great point because you don’t want to make these employees just feel like robots. We would meet once a month to have those brainstorming innovative discussions, Where are we? Where do we want to go? And how are we going to get there? So what new products we want to add? How can we improve our current products and deliverables? So, we would meet once a month I would take them out to dinner as a little bit of a sign of appreciation, thank you for your time, employees love appreciation, people in general like to feel appreciated even if you’re not an employee. So really, brainstorming with them—okay, this part is going really well can we improve it? What about this how can we make it better? And then what other new things do we want to add? What have you heard from our parents that say, I really wish you offered X, Y, Z. So, it’s really important to have those brainstorming meetings to kind of get the creative juices flowing. And what I found was the most valuable is when you put this team together everybody has different mindset, different mind frame and they see the world totally different than you do and they brought up so many things that I never would’ve even thought of just because my brain doesn’t  think that way so it’s really powerful because then you get 4, 5 people at the table that aren’t afraid to make a comment or make a suggestion it really does keep the innovation going, so I think that’s really important to stay connected with your people. Appreciate them so they don’t just feel like they’re just doing a job, once it turns into a job probably they’re probably going to leave.

Jim Rembach:    Okay so, Paul as you were going through and talking about that I started thinking about the word humility. You have to have the humility and be open to listening to all those ideas and thoughts from other folks, when you’ve created this—your baby, right? Where do you get your humility from Paul? 

Paul Maskill:    I guess just growing up realizing that one that you’re really not that important in this world. Right there 6 billion people, you’re not really anybody important so don’t treat yourself that way and don’t put yourself up in a pedestal. Everybody out there are probably going something more difficult than you, so I think there’s probably just part of the way that I was raised is to show appreciation for everybody no matter where they came from you don’t know what they’re going through. And then as you continue and start to build the business you really have to throw your ego out the door and you’ve got to give credit to everybody else that’s helping you build this business. 

So without employees you’re not going to have a business. Without customers you’re not going to have a business. and once you realize that and you’re okay with that you don’t need to be the center of attention you don’t need to be the first getting all the credit I have no problem giving the credit to other people and I think that really goes back to my passion for sports and when you watch really good teams play. I grew up watching the Detroit Pistons in basketball, basketball’s probably is one of my biggest sports passion is when they had really successful teams it was about the team it wasn’t about one star and they were kind of going against the grain but when you see that and you see people sacrificing something for the betterment of the whole organizational work or the whole team that really does make an impact on you so you know whether are your coaching or playing sports I think sports do give you a lot of tools that you need to succeed in and out of the business world.

Jim Rembach:    Yeah I think we’re learning that more and more. Thanks for sharing. So I you got a lot of things going on, you have an equity stake in TGA, you’re trying to build and help others grow their business and make an impact on more and more kids, you just have a brand-new beautiful baby, what are some your goals?

Paul Maskill:    Yeah so some of my goals, on a personal level it’s really just continue building businesses to allow me for more freedom. I’m the backend kind of being patient in there a lot of people I think it caught up in the get rich quick, I want to build this business and make all this money and then you know retire in two years but I think to build a viable business it does take time and patience. So you know my goal, they’ve all kind of come full circle when I was working in the corporate world it was like I had two different lives, I left work at 5, 6, 7 o’clock and I didn’t even think talk or deal with work but I didn’t like going at the same time so it’s like two different world now they all kind of come into one and I kind of used them to feed off each other so if I want to go play golf, tennis, or basketball I know that I need to get X, Y, Z done with work and if I want to hang out with family I need to get this done with work and I need to get up early to make sure I have time to do that and then on the opposite side in order to have a family that what we want to do and have the freedom we want, I got to work hard in business. So those are really my goals, is doing all those things kind of in a synergy way and I think the best way to build any business is by the more people that you impact and help get to where they want to go you’re going to be successful and you’re going to be a leader within whatever type of nitch, organization, wherever you’re doing your work, I think if you become a leader and you see that you’re putting other people first, it’s going to help you get where you want to go.

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor:

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Alright, here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Paul the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Paul Maskill, are you ready to hoedown?

Paul Maskill:    I am ready and ready.

Jim Rembach:    Alright! So what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Paul Maskill:    Yeah so ironically this is the fast hump day hoedown, it’s probably going a little too fast sometimes for others, so I realize that my mind is probably assuming that people know things that they don’t know. So just going a little too fast and then I should just take a step back and explain myself before getting ahead of myself, especially getting ahead of them.

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Jim Rembach:    It’s simple you learn it probably when your 3 or 4 years old. It’s the golden rule “Treat others the way you want to be treated”, when you do that to your employees and your customers and give them the experiences that you would want as an employer or customer you will be successful.

Jim Rembach:    What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Paul Maskill:    Like we talked about before, time management and organization when you are organized and you have your time set up for success you’re just going to get a lot more done a lot quicker.

Jim Rembach:    What do you feel is one of your best tools that help to lead in business or life?

Paul Maskill:    I think it’s simple. A calendar. Kind of working from your calendar, making sure everything’s on your calendar, you got your time blocked off to make sure you get everything done. It’s simple but it still works.

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, it could be from any genre?

Paul Maskill:     “The Go Giver” by Bob Burg I think is his name. Great book, his a great guy, out on twitter as well, his very responsive and love his message and what he does.

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today show by going to fastleader.net/Paul Maskill. Okay, Paul this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take your knowledge and skills back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? 

Paul Maskill:    I would have to say my work ethic and determination. So you can always obtain knowledge again, I mean there’s more resources out there than ever but you really can’t teach somebody how to work hard and hustle, I think you just kind of grow up with it and if you have it you can pretty much do whatever you want, not giving up and you can always go find answers to knowledge that you need. So that would be work ethic and determination.

Jim Rembach:    Paul it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the fast leader legion how they can connect with you.

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. So if you’re out on Twitter it’s just Paul Maskill is my Twitter handle. You can always send me an email, I’ll respond to your email personally PMaskill@playTGA.com and if you are interested in any sort of TGA information opportunity just head over to FranchiseTGA.com/fast so that’s a landing page, welcome page just for your listeners. You can schedule a call with me if you want to talk about anything, it doesn’t even have to be TGA, there’s a little survey there to see if a franchise might be right for you and more information on TGA in general what we’re trying to do.

Jim Rembach:    Paul Maskill, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

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