In “CEO Insights & Self Care with Chris Younger,” Chris shares lessons from a career spanning telecom, private equity, and advisory leadership. As President of Expanets, he acquired 27 companies in just 3 years before selling to Avaya, and today, as CEO of Class VI Partners, he advises middle-market businesses and family offices on transactions and growth. Chris opens up about the physical toll of overwork, the importance of managing stress, and why diet, sleep, and exercise are critical for executives. He also explains his “Dinner Test” for CEOs and why executive presence sets the tone for organizational success.

For the full interview: https://ocns.co/ceo-insights-self-care-with-chris-younger/

10 Min Clip Transcript

Chris Younger: [00:00:00] I think as a leader, you may not have all the answers, but you do have to have been thoughtful enough and planned ahead enough to say, you know what? I may not have all the answers, but I know I’ve got the team, or I have a plan. Alright, I’m gonna kick it.

Michael Mitchel: CXO conversations, talks with C-level executives on how they became one, and share advice to those who want to be one today. Chris Younger joins us. Chris is an executive with many chapters in his career. President of a telecom reseller that acquired 27 companies, owned a PE firm, and now provides transaction and strategic advisory services.

To the middle market businesses and entrepreneurs more on Chris’s background can, and his bio can be found in the show notes. Neil is to say, Chris will have an insightful perspective on C-level issues from being one and consulting with many CXOs. Chris, welcome to the conversation. Thanks so much.

Appreciate [00:01:00] it. So I’m gonna kind of just, um, I like to get to know people. Sure. And by the way, I should wear everybody. I have a, I’m on a tail end of a head cold, so if I sound a little funny, that’s why. What’s a unique life experience? 

Chris Younger: Uh, great question. I, um, I don’t know if these are unique life experiences, but um, uh, after.

The, uh, experience doing all those acquisitions that you just mentioned and, uh, trying to integrate that. My wife had been asking me to go get a physical for years. And, um, so, uh, I went to the physical, I was probably 25 pounds heavier than I am now. And, uh, went to go get the physical and the doctor comes back and he says, here are all the different issues that you have, and here are all your prescriptions.

And I was 34 years old, 35 years old, and I said, well, how long is this like a week or. He said, no, these will be for your life. And uh, I said, well. Do I have choices? He said, well, yeah, I mean, you could, you know, go exercise and change your diet. He said, but most people aren’t gonna do that, so here’s your [00:02:00] prescriptions.

And so I said, well, can you gimme six months? And, uh, literally it, that, that meeting really changed my life. Right. In terms of, um, a. Completely changed the diet. Um, started doing triathlons, ended up doing three of the long distance triathlons, the Ironman distance. And, um, and it was, for me that was, uh, a little bit of a wake up call, 34 years old.

And, and, um, uh. And, and I, my dad and my grandfather had heart troubles. And so it was, uh, again, it was more of a, a wake up call for me, but I think it, what it demonstrated for me was if you kind of put your mind to something that’s important to you, uh, you. You know, odds are with you, right? Mm-hmm. You’re, you’re, you’re gonna be able to get it done.

And obviously, you know, staying alive, I had three young kids at the time, was pretty important to me. And, um, uh, and to this day, I think you saw, when you saw some of the, the guys who worked for me, I, uh, I, I helped. They probably wouldn’t refer to it as help, but 

Michael Mitchel: I heard them, [00:03:00] I heard them haggling over an apple.

So that’s a good sign. Yeah, that’s good. 

Chris Younger: That’s good. Yeah, no, uh, uh, like I said, they’ll, they’ll laugh about me being the, uh, lunch police. Um, just trying to help them think a little bit differently about, Hey, how do you live your life and make sure that, uh, you got plenty of years left. 

Michael Mitchel: Well, somewhat, two things to that.

Um, I was basics kind of in the same situation. I was in my thirties and um, I saw a photo of me. I was like, oh my God, who’s that fat bastard in that photo? Um, and I started working out, I start, and I, I dropped so many pounds that my friends actually were like, are you sick? Are you sick? I’m like, no, I have a personal trainer and I’m eating better and I’m on the bike.

And I, that I ended up racing on the bike for in, in the mid s Yeah. Um, but the other thing that struck me from that story you just told me. You were 35. Yeah. And you were just coming off being a president of Expedite and you just acquired 27 companies. Yeah. And sold a company to Avaya. Yeah. At 35. 

Chris Younger: Yeah.

Yeah. No, I was, uh, way out over the tips of my skis as a youngster, so, wow. Yeah. 

Michael Mitchel: Well, you know, when we talk about the 27 companies within three [00:04:00] years, I mean, you’re averaging 1.3 companies a month. Yeah. Um, how did you kept the transaction team pretty busy, I would imagine, right? We 

Chris Younger: did. We had, uh, so our transaction team, it was myself and I had a couple of analysts, and then we had an outside accounting firm that was doing our financial diligence.

We had an outside law firm helping us with the legal diligence, and then we had a couple of industry. Kind of veterans that helped us evaluate the companies. And so we had, you know, that total team was probably eight or nine people across the different disciplines. 

Michael Mitchel: How did you manage all the teams? I mean, you’re integrating these companies.

You got hr, you got it, you got sales. I mean, I. Yeah. Um, uh, 

Chris Younger: so we had a, a fairly large corporate group as well. Um, so we had, um, we had a great HR team. We had a great finance team. Uh, we had great operations team, good IT team. So, uh. We had the different groups and, and the business was organized to do this [00:05:00] consolidation.

So we had hired people with experience doing those integrations. And so, hey, we had a deal team that was there responsible for getting the deals done, and then we had an integration team responsible for bringing those folks on board. Um, I used to always joke when I was on the deal side, now I’ll explain why this is funny.

Um, when I was on the deal side, you know, and I would. Out of those 27 deals, I joke that, you know, a third of those, I looked way smarter than I am. A third of those kind of went as we planned, and a third of those, I absolutely should have been fired for doing so for that third that I should have been fired for.

I always joked with the operations team that, you know, when, when those businesses inevitably didn’t perform, I, I’m not sure what happened. It was a great business when I threw it, you know, when we acquired, I’m not sure what you guys did to it, and then my reward for that was the president. You know, I ended up becoming the COO, so I ended up having to integrate all those businesses.

So all the problems that I had created for the ops team were now mine. So. 

Michael Mitchel: Well, how did you at, at 35 become the, uh, well, that’s when you left. So 32, 33, yeah. Your president of Expon. How [00:06:00] did you achieve that level of career success so early? 

Chris Younger: Um, I was really lucky, um, and I had. Uh, so I was working for the investor group doing the acquisitions, and then we hired a CEO.

His name’s Jim Walker. He, he lives here in Colorado and to this day, still a great mentor of mine. And Jim, when he came on board, I, I actually went to, you know, my boss and said, Hey, I’d like to go work for Jim. You know, I, I knew I was gonna take a big pay cut, but I wanted to go work for him just because, uh, I just.

I loved his style. Uh, I knew that I would learn a lot from him. And, um, so, uh, I, I originally joined to head up marketing and strategy, and then I became the COO and then the president. And that was all because of Jim. Mm-hmm. And his tutelage and mentorship and, um, uh, he was just, he was just an awesome human being, but also.

You know, he, uh, [00:07:00] taught me a lot and, and was, you know, uh. Kind enough and generous enough to, you know, to put me in that position. And, but what was interesting, even when I was in those positions, I, I never felt like I was on my own. Jim was still the CEO and Jim was a, um, outstanding leader. Um, you know, he was there through nine 11 and, and through a lot of challenges in the business and, um, uh, again, I just, I learned a lot from him and I was very fortunate that he put me in that position.

Michael Mitchel: Was there a moment during this time where you, when you’re like, okay. I’m gonna hit the C-suite. 

Chris Younger: Well, I know when I was, when I moved into the COO role, um, as a, as a head, as the head of marketing and strategy, I probably had three or four folks that reported to me. So it was a really, really small team. And obviously when I was running the DEAL team that was, you know, eight or nine folks that worked with me, then I went to managing about 4,000 people.

Um, and, uh, uh, and I certainly felt. You know, I was [00:08:00] anxious, right? Mm-hmm. And that’s, um, and I, but you know, Jim purposely put my office right next to his. And so anytime I felt like, Hey, I, I’m definitely out over the tips of my skis on this. I would just go sit down with Jim and he would walk me through it and, um, you know, and give me the advice that I needed.

And, um, and as I reflect back, yeah, make a lot of mistakes, right? Mm-hmm. At, at that age, in that role. But those are the things you learn from and how you develop and how you grow. I mean, that’s what I tell our team here is, you know, unless you’re slightly nauseated, you know, from time to time at work, you’re probably not, we’re probably not stretching you enough.

Michael Mitchel: Right, right. If you’re comfortable, you’re not for sure. You’re not doing something right. For sure. Not sure. You’re not trying hard enough. 

Chris Younger: Yeah, and we want, I’m a big believer here, right? We, I would much rather clean up broken glass than have to push someone, and that’s something that Jim taught me. 

Michael Mitchel: I’m also a ask for forgiveness rather than permission kind of guy.

Chris Younger: Yeah. And that’s the type of folks we want on our team. Yeah, right. Is, hey, we’re [00:09:00] hiring talented people with the right intention and the right motivation. Let them run and yeah, they’re gonna make some mistakes, but that’s inevitably how you learn and how you grow and how you develop. 

Michael Mitchel: Yeah. If someone’s like, well, I don’t make any mistakes.

I’m like, well, you’re not learning for sure. If you’ve ever been fired from something, you didn’t learn anything. Right, right. And we’ve all been fired. And so if you tell me, I’ve never been fired, I’ve said this before in the podcast, if you, if you tell me you’ve never been fired, either you’re lying or you’re not trying hard.

Yeah. You’re not learning. 

Chris Younger: Well, I do remember we used to have these, uh, the executive team meetings. And so, uh, that was, and I was by far the youngest person there, and we had, you know, very experienced people in HR and IT, and the CFO and Jim was there. And, um, I’ll never forget, I mean, we, it was a pretty challenging, you know, when you acquire that many businesses and trying to do that integration, we were dealing with, you know, the.com bubble bursting.

Nine 11 trying to integrate those businesses and we were doing a big IT system conversion. And when I would go out and talk [00:10:00] to our teams, I would always say, you know, any one of those things can kill a business. Right? We’re dealing with all three of ’em, right. And, um, uh, but it was. And I, I remember to this day, uh, and Jim laughs about it, um, you know, we were going through something and he said, you know, we’re making a lot of rookie mistakes right now.

And that was clearly pointed at me and, and, uh, uh, and it was right. And, uh, you know, at the time, I, uh, took it pretty hard. But in retrospect, it was the right thing for me to hear, 

Michael Mitchel: hear. Well going, looking back on those times. You know, we were talking about earlier, a little bit earlier about the teams, you know, HR and, and integration.

How did you support them? I mean, obviously Jim’s supporting you, but how are you supporting your teams? You know, it really come, it came down 

Chris Younger: to, I mean, I knew that I didn’t have the level of experience that they did. Um, I certainly didn’t have the level of experience managing people that they did. But, um, and maybe it’s just a style thing, but I, I ask a lot of questions and.

And I respected their experience and their [00:11:00] expertise. And I think that just that collaboration and saying, Hey, here’s where we need to get to as a team. Here’s the help that I need from you and, you know, here’s what the organization needs. Uh, and they were all really professional, I will say. So that was the corporate group.

And then we had, uh, three regional presidents, and then about 17. VP GMs around the country. And again, we were running through some pretty challenging times. And so, and that’s probably where a fair number of the rookie mistakes came in is, you know, my, you know, my solution to a lot of things is work harder and longer.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, as a young person that’s, you know, kind of that, that was my go-to. And, uh, dealing with folks that had just had a lot more experience. I know that I, uh, you know, I pushed some of them probably in the wrong direction. And, um, you know, those were great, great learning experiences. Anything, anything you’d do differently?

Oh, yeah, we, how long is the podcast? Yeah. I would do a lot of things differently, for sure. Well, let’s, 

Michael Mitchel: let’s [00:12:00] rephrase the question. What was the, what was the big takeaway from that, from that time that you applied going forward? Just how important 

Chris Younger: people are in the, as you’re acquiring a company. One of my old bosses was one of the early folks at Nextel.

And you know, Nextel, I dunno if you know the story behind that, but they basically built their company by buying taxi companies in different cities because the taxi companies had the radio frequency. 

Michael Mitchel: Oh, 

Chris Younger: interesting. So they were buying these companies just to get the radio frequency and then they would obviously divest of the rest of the operations.

And I remember him telling me. You know, acquiring a business that’s entirely dependent on people is a way different ball game than acquiring an asset like radio frequency, right? Just a lot easier. You know exactly what you’re getting, you know how to protect it. When you’re acquiring a business that is all people, that’s a lot trickier.

Um, you know, the need for communication is greater. Uh, the need for kind of anticipating [00:13:00] potential issues is greater. Uh, your risk level is way higher. And so, uh, you know, as I think about our business today, right, and the m and a game, you know, learned a lot of lessons about, hey, what makes for a great company?

What makes for a poor company? And I learned a lot about how do you, how do you think about the people equation, and certainly in the context of acquisitions. And there’s, like I said, countless lessons on that. 

Michael Mitchel: Uh, I’ve heard from previous guests a, a reoccurring theme of, you know, lonely at the top. Um, sometimes cliches or cliches for a reason.

Right. Um, I remember in an earlier conversation we, we’ve had, you mentioned that your biggest stress was responsibility of 4,400 families that were depending on you. How did you. Manage it. The stress. Yeah. I, I think ’cause this is, applies to, you know, your current clientele base, I would imagine. Right. It applies to everybody.

I mean, even me, I mean, I’m, I’m responsible for payroll. Yep. How do, how did you manage that? 

Chris Younger: Well, as evidenced [00:14:00] by the first story right? About my health at that time, I’m not sure I managed it, uh, terribly well. And again, I think my solution was work longer and harder. Yeah. Um, which I don’t. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend, I just felt like, Hey, I know that I had in my head if there are times that I’m not working, I’m letting those folks down.

Right? And so, and as my wife can probably attest to, you know, those were, those were pretty stressful times around the house. And I’m not sure that, uh, you know, I was the best help, uh, at that time. But I think the. What I’ve learned since then, probably more relevant, is just, hey, how important it is to have a good diet and to sleep well, and to get exercise and to take, take breaks and to step away from time to time, all of that stuff.

I think I, I’ve managed stress now much, much better, and so it’s a lot easier for me to help, you know, our clients, our CEOs, Hey, here’s, here’s how to think about this. I also think most CEOs are pretty type A. Um, we’re very driven. [00:15:00] Um, you know, we’ve got a goal in mind. You know, we want to, we’re gonna do anything it takes to get there.

Sometimes all it takes is just reorienting perspective, um, because, you know, I can look at what you’re going through and give you a different perspective and you could look at what I’m going through and giving me a different perspective. And oftentimes I think for, for leaders, just hearing that different perspective, it, it may not.

Change their mind, but it may cause them to think a little bit differently. And sometimes I think that’s all that’s required to get people reoriented. And, you know, out of that, you know, the cycle of, uh, worry and despair and, um, feeling like, Hey, I don’t have any options. 

Michael Mitchel: Well, yeah, and I can’t agree with you more on the exercise and the sleep for sure.

I, I mean, it was. I can tell when I’m, when I haven’t been active and like, like I’m sick. Like this head cold, right? Yeah. Uh, at as of this recording the week prior, uh, I was so sick and I got so trying to address it, hopped up on Sudafeds that I [00:16:00] actually went through a bout of a week of insomnia. Yeah. And I’ve never had insomnia before.

Uh, trust me, you don’t want it if you’ve never had it. It was the worst thing I think I went through. It was like this, like, I’m never gonna sleep again. Yeah, there’s, and, and then it compounds the stress. ’cause I’m not getting this work done. I had to cancel his meetings and then it just, you get in the cycle.

Chris Younger: There’s a, uh, obviously there’s been a lot of research on sleep. Yeah. Since 20 years ago. Um, I mean 20 years ago, the. I think the common refrain certainly among high achievers was, you know, I’ll, I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Right. I’m gonna, I’m gonna grind through this and the more hours that I can put in, the better.

And. Again, obviously your effectiveness decreases over time. Um, if you’re not sleeping well, your ability to deal with that, stress goes down significantly. And now you’re in a position where, okay, now I’m stressed and I can’t actually manage it. Um, you know that then you did. That’s the vicious cycle. Yeah.

And then it’s, to your point, and it becomes much more difficult to sleep or get, you know, the right kind of sleep. [00:17:00] So all of that stuff I’ve learned, you know, probably in the last 10 years, um, but. If I could go back and change something, you know, I probably would do that and I think I would be more tolerant of, you know, team members who were taking those breaks who probably were doing exact right thing.

I just didn’t recognize it. 

Michael Mitchel: How many CEOs do you think you’ve advised over the years? Because currently now you’re, uh, you’re the owner of class six. Um. Uh, partners. And so you’re advising family offices and entrepreneurs and so that’s the now, but over your career, how many CEOs would you roughly guesstimate?

Chris Younger: Uh, probably a couple hundred, maybe 250, um, that I’ve worked, you know, more closely with, uh, whether that’s helping them sell their company or helping them grow their company and get ready. Or obviously a lot of the entrepreneurs that when we bought their business, I worked very closely with them. Mm-hmm.

So that’s, yeah, that’s probably a good number. I haven’t really added it up, to be honest. Fair enough. 

Michael Mitchel: I, I, if someone asked me how [00:18:00] many places I’ve done in my 22 years, I would say hundreds. Yeah. Right. I mean, I don’t. Do thousands and I couldn’t count. So when you look back at the, at the hundreds of CEOs, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve advised any observations on successful CEOs, you know, those characteristics?

Chris Younger: Yeah. Uh, actually during COVID I had started a project, I was gonna write a book. I was interviewing all these CEOs that had exited companies successfully, and I got about 30 of ’em done. I have another 70 I’d like to do at some point. We’ll see when it gets done, but I. What I learned from listening to them, I, the first and foremost I think is, um, you know, the successful CEOs that I’ve worked with, they’re all kind of servant leaders.

And I know you’ve, you’ve probably read the book, but basically they’re very concerned about their team and they’re very concerned about taking care of their team and making sure that they develop and making sure that they’re doing everything they can to support them. Um, and I would, Jim Walker is a prime [00:19:00] example of that, right?

My old mentor. That focus, um, in addition to the successful CEOs and entrepreneurs that I’ve worked with, are all persistent as hell. They are gonna do whatever it takes to kind of work through things. And in talking to a lot of these, some of them, you know, they took family money on, right? Friends and family money when they were starting their companies.

That pressure, right? Basically, that meant there was no, there was no plan B. Right. They had, they had to succeed and so they would, they would do literally whatever it took. And so when I think about successful entrepreneurs and CEOs, that’s part of it, right? You have to have this core belief and a core commitment to, I’m gonna.

Pretty much do whatever it takes. But that combination then of I’m gonna do whatever it takes to support my team and develop my team. Right. And have that integrity. ’cause you can get a lot of CEOs, they can have that commitment to win, but if they’re not committed to the team and the team’s [00:20:00] not behind them, uh, their ceiling is gonna be pretty low.

Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm. 

Chris Younger: Um, but if they’ve got that commitment and care for the team, then they’re going to, you know, they’re gonna do great things and it, and they’re setting that example of, yeah, there is no plan B. 

Michael Mitchel: Any areas where you, you see a common theme of where they come up short? 

Chris Younger: The it, the CEOs that I’ve seen probably in terms of what are those things that I would put in the category of came up short.

Um, it’s some of the stuff we’ve talked about before, which is they’re not terribly balanced. Um, and to be honest, I don’t know that for a lot of CEOs. And certainly entrepreneurs that they can be, if they want to be successful, they’re probably are gonna be a little bit out of balance. But sometimes you see that, uh, you know, get way outta balance.

And I would say that’s certainly harmful to them. It’s gonna be harmful to their business. And again, if you ask my 30 5-year-old self right, I would never have recognized or admitted to that. The other, [00:21:00] I think the only other issue that I see is a lot of CEOs. Particularly of growing businesses have a very difficult time disengaging from certain aspects of the business and delegating.

When we look at companies, one of the risk factors that we see in almost all of them, we, we deal with a lot of small to mid market businesses, is the business is way too dependent on that. CEO or the owner. Yeah. And so helping them understand a couple of things. One is. There are tasks that you should be delegating that other people can do better than you, and quite frankly, will free up more of your time to do the things that you’re really good at, um, and that you like doing.

But the second piece is to help them get more comfortable, kind of just letting go. And that’s a challenge for a lot of CEOs, right? It’s a, I think there’s this core belief which has been reinforced throughout their lives. I’m sure that they can do most things better than anybody else. Yeah. Right. That I have this confidence.

That’s why they’re entrepreneur. A lot of times I’m, I have this confidence that I can do this [00:22:00] better than anybody else, and so helping them start to. At least challenge that belief system is, uh, you know, that’s one of the primary objectives, right? When you’re trying to get a CEO to let their business scale is to, is to give them that perspective.

Michael Mitchel: You know, I I, I’ve known friends that have gone to be a CEO for a family owned business. You know, the founder wants to retire, but the family’s still involved. And I, I can, I’ve, I’ve, we’ve talked about the challenges. Getting ’em to let go. What advice would you give to someone in that situation? 

Chris Younger: When we use an exercise in our firm with the CEOs, it’s really a succession planning exercise.

And really it starts with analyzing where they’re spending their time today. 

Michael Mitchel: The, the current CEO or the 

Chris Younger: incoming 

Michael Mitchel: CEO, 

Chris Younger: uh, the current CEO. Okay. Right. When we’re, when we’re talking about, Hey, how do you bring somebody in? And a big piece of that is around. Understanding [00:23:00] of the time that they’re spending today, how much of that time is truly value added?

How much of that time is really something that they enjoy? How much of that time is stuff that they really, you know, are good at? And then starting to whittle away at that, and that helps the outgoing CEO, right? Or whoever’s gonna be. Delegating, um, that helps at least start this process of, Hey, we’re gonna start taking things off of your plate.

Mm-hmm. Um, if it’s a flash cut, particularly in your example of a family owned business and you’re bringing in an outside CEO, that’s particularly challenging if. That outgoing, CEO or the family member in a lot of cases, usually that that’s gonna be a second generation or third generation. Mm-hmm. CEO.

Right. Within that family, there’s a lot of ego and family baggage and. Just psychology for that particular person. And so, um, and if they haven’t resolved some of those issues, uh, it’s gonna be really, really [00:24:00] difficult to bring in an outside CEO and have them be effective or have them feel like I’ve got the autonomy to do what I need to do to make this business successful.

Mm-hmm. It’s a, it’s a big challenge. 

Michael Mitchel: Um, I wanna kind of talk a little bit about your pe, your private equity, uh, days when, when you ran a PE firm, uh, you, I think you mentioned you bought 10, 15 companies. When you were assessing the leadership team, as you were looking for the at, at the transaction, what were you looking for?

Chris Younger: What we were first and foremost is integrity. And I think Warren Buffet said, you, you’re never gonna make a good deal with a bad person, um, no matter how you structure the contract. And I, and he’s absolutely right, and his, his business partner, Charlie Munger, biggest piece of advice was don’t do business with turkeys.

Um, which I, you know, so that’s the first step is, hey, is this a, in our firm we call it the dinner test. Would we enjoy going to dinner with them and their spouse or significant other? Um, you know, and enjoy that evening. And, and, uh, and if. They fail that dinner test, you know, [00:25:00] it’s typically a no. Mm-hmm. Um, and I’m sure there are lots and lots of investment opportunities that we probably passed up just because hey, it wouldn’t be that much fun to work with that.

And we use the same principle here in terms of clients that we work with. They’re not gonna be fun to work with. We’re just not gonna do it. 

Michael Mitchel: But, but when you, I think I read a statistic, I don’t how data, this is when a PE firm, uh, buys a company with like a 85% chance some of the C-level executives are being.

Replaced. So when you look at the pro at at the business, you could just say, okay, well we’re gonna just get rid of the CEO anyway. But you’re like, no. Not so much. 

Chris Younger: Yeah. If you’re doing a turnaround, replacing the CEO makes a ton of sense. Mm-hmm. If you’re buying a business because you believe in the prospects of the business, which is usually based on how well the business has done in the past.

Yeah. You know, one of the riskiest things you can do is change that CEO out. Gotcha. Um, you know, if I’m, if I believe in the story of the business, a lot of that story has been. Created by that [00:26:00] CEO. And so, you know, if I, if I go into that with the plan that I’m gonna replace them, I must not feel that great about what they’ve already done.

Michael Mitchel: Hmm. Okay. Post-transaction, how do you decide who to retain and who to top grade? I mean, obviously you, let’s say in that, in the situation you just described, you keep the CEO, but the chief sales officer, the CLO. CFO. 

Chris Younger: Um, a lot of that is just gonna be based on, Hey, how’s the business doing? Um, as you, I’m sure you’re aware, businesses that hit certain milestones, as they’re growing, they’re gonna outgrow certain people.

And that becomes, you know, if you’re measuring the right things and you’re looking at the right, you know. Kind of trends in the business that’ll become painfully obvious, right? Uh, those are, those are fairly straightforward things to be looking at. Whether it’s a sales issue or a marketing issue, or an operations issue, or a client sat issue, it’s pretty clear, Hey, who’s responsible?

Um, you know, one of the phrases that Jim always had was coach, coach, coach, change. So, hey, you’re gonna give [00:27:00] them the opportunities and the rope to be able to try to go fix these issues you’ve identified. And hey, if, if they can’t do it in a certain number of tries, then hey, it’s time to make a change. Um, you always wanna do that respectfully and, and, um, make sure that, uh.

You can take care of ’em financially as best you can and, and make sure you can protect their pride as much as you can. Uh, that was one of the things at Expon, we had to do some layoffs, and one of the things that Jim taught me as well was if you can take care of somebody’s financial. You know, issues as much as you can, and you can protect their pride as much as you can.

It’ll probably be a, you know, that’s, that’s how you build a reputation as a firm, right. By how you exit people. So it was a, those were good lessons. 

Michael Mitchel: All right. Um, any advice to those who seek leadership roles in the middle market, PE companies? Nothing other than. 

Chris Younger: Uh, really try to understand, hey, where’s that business headed and what’s important for their growth plan?

And hey, how do you, how [00:28:00] is your role going to either help de-risk that business or make their growth plan more credible? Um, if you can kind of zero in on those two pieces, that’s what will drive value, which is really what the PE investor wants, right? Their, their ultimate goal is buy low and sell high.

Michael Mitchel: So you’ve been a, a corporate president, a PE buyer. M and a, you know, you’ve sold companies, so you’ve seen executives internally and outside looking in. Do you have any insights you’d like to share on these, on, on all this, uh, nice narrow question there. Yeah, 

Chris Younger: sure, sure. I think again, it, um, the best advice that I can give to, you know, an executive is probably, again, if you can, if you genuinely care about your team, if you can, uh, communicate effectively right where you’re headed.

If you can communicate effectively where you’ve got issues, I’m a huge believer in transparency as a CEO. It’s very difficult for the team to execute if they don’t know what the score is. And so, and I’ve found a lot of CEOs are, you know, [00:29:00] anxious to deliver bad news. They don’t wanna necessarily share bad news.

And what I found in my career is, uh, when we were at Expends, I would send an email out every week. ’cause we were going through a lot of change. We were integrating businesses, we were implementing this new system, which wasn’t going well. You know, we were dealing with the sales fall off because of nine 11 and the.com bust.

I just did this. And my dad advised me against it. My dad’s one of my other mentors. Uh, but I would send an email out to the entire company every Friday night and basically, and say, Hey, here’s where we are. Here are the issues that we’re experiencing. Uh, here are the problems that we’re having. Here’s what we’re doing as a senior team about them.

If you have any questions, let me know. And the first week that I sent that, yeah. I mean, I got five emails and I responded to all five, um, over the weekend, the next weekend it grew by, by the fourth or fifth weekend, I was getting four or 500 emails a weekend, but I responded to every single one of them.

Mm-hmm. Um, because I wanted to make sure that they knew. Hey, in spite of all the change and the challenges and the [00:30:00] adversity that we’re experiencing, we’re listening to you, right? We are, and we’re, and sometimes, right? The answer is, we know that’s an issue. Right now, we can’t do anything about it because it’s down on the priority list.

But thank you for, you know, alerting it to, it, alerting us about it. In a big organization, one of the things that I learned was you might have an account executive that’s having a big problem with one of our systems, so they tell. The sales manager about it, who tells the sales director, who tells the VP GM, who tells the regional president, by the time it gets to me, there’s no problem anymore.

Everything’s good. And so one of the things that that communication allowed me to do was to really hear here, here’s exactly what’s going on at the field level. And um, I, again, it was burdensome, right? ’cause you gotta answer a lot of emails, but it gave me a really good window into, alright, hey, here are the true problems that we’re experiencing.

How do we go get ’em fixed? 

Michael Mitchel: What advice would you share to the next CXL? 

Chris Younger: Uh, again, care for your team. Be transparent. Uh, set the example. Um, one of the things that [00:31:00] we acquired a business, um, from Cent, you know, big, it was a spin out from at and t and. Um, I always felt, hey, sometimes some of those managers felt like the higher they got in the organization, the less responsibility or that they had, right?

Hey, they, they could now delegate a lot more. And I’ve always felt that’s the opposite, right? The higher you go in an organization, the more responsibility, ’cause you have more families depending on you. And so. Take seriously that role as a CXO, which is, hey, you need to set the tone for the rest of the organization.

Again, be transparent, communicate a lot, um, you know, both good and bad, um, and, and take care of your team. 

Michael Mitchel: What’s the worst job you’ve ever had, and what positive influence do you still use today? 

Chris Younger: Uh. The, uh, the worst job after we sold, uh, expon, one of the companies that we made an investment in, uh, was a construction business.

And, uh, I never intended to have a job in the [00:32:00] construction business, but through a series of unfortunate events. Um, ended up basically having to run that business for a little while, and that was by far the worst job I’ve ever had. Uh, both the worst investment I’ve ever made, as well as the worst job I ever had.

I mean, talk about a hard industry and thankless and risky and, uh, just very little upside. Uh, I would never do that again. The best piece of life advice I got, I’m gonna revert back to Jim, but when we were out. We were dealing with all this change and we would, uh, we would do these road shows where we would go present to, uh, different regions.

And so we would go for a week and we try to get, you know, 10 to 15 regions that we could talk to and present where we are. And Jim, let me do all those presentations. And it was a particularly stressful time and I had gotten some bad news. I don’t remember what it was, some morning. And so, you know, I gave my presentation and it was the same presentation I’d given for the last five days.

Right. And I. I come off the stage, you know, we were asking questions and Jim said, if you [00:33:00] ever do that again, I’m gonna fire you. And I said, what Jim? And he said, now, now, now he’s got your attention. Oh yeah, no. Yeah, he had my attention. Uh, I said, what are you talking about? It’s the same presentation that, uh, I, I had given before, which was fine.

He said, no. He said, no, the content was fine. He said, but how you delivered it, your whole body language was you communicated to everyone in that room that they had something to be worried about. Versus. If you’re showing up with a level of confidence and a level of conviction about where we’re headed, he said, everybody, everybody shows up and they take their cues on how they should feel based on how they think the boss feels.

And so I’ve taken that with me and communicated that to folks that I’ve worked with, which is, Hey, when you show up, show up as the. Right. And yeah, you may have some concerns, but the moment that you betray that kind of stress or anxiety that’s gonna spread throughout the organization very, very quickly.

Michael Mitchel: Do, do you remember what the body language you were, you were doing? Was, do you, [00:34:00] were you, were you slouching? Were you I probably, uh, I, I probably 

Chris Younger: looked worried. Um, I probably was short. Uh, I probably, if I think about it, I mean it’s, it’s like, uh. Sometimes with your spouse, right? You can kind of tell when they’re stressed.

Yeah. Uh, and uh, and Jim clearly knew it, and I think the, and I think our team knew it. And, um, and it was well taken. I mean, and we sleep. Did 

Michael Mitchel: you the night before? No, 

Chris Younger: not, not, not very much. Not very 

Michael Mitchel: much. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. That, that’s really good. Yeah. I mean, like, again, cliches, you know, act as if.

Correct. Yeah. Well, and, 

Chris Younger: and I think as a leader, you may not have all the answers, but you do have to have been thoughtful enough and, and planned ahead enough to say, you know what, I may not have all the answers, but I know I’ve got, I know I’ve got the team. Mm-hmm. Or I have a plan. Yeah. Right. If you’ve got a plan, then there’s no reason, reason to be stressful, go execute the plan.

Right. Go, go get to work. I think there’s a lot [00:35:00] of value in just being in action. Right. And, um, that’ll, that’ll relieve a lot of stress. 

Michael Mitchel: Well, uh, Chris, I’ve really enjoyed the, the conversation. Uh, I’ve learned I’ve taken away a lot. Great on this. Hopefully everyone else has. Um, thank you for your time and, uh, listener.

I, I wanna thank all the listeners and if hopefully you enjoyed the interview as much as I do, give us five stars in iTunes and um, you can find me Michael Mitchell with one L on LinkedIn. I’m out here in Denver. I’d like to thank Jolan Crossland for allowing me to use your most amazing music on the show.

You’re the best banjo picker I’ve ever seen or heard. Thanks again for joining the podcast. Thanks everybody.