Interview with Adam Butler - Founder of Butler Bros

When Adam Butler started in business, his network was not comprised of decision makers. He said “if you stay in business long enough, the ecosystem of decision makers matures with you.”

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Guest - Adam Butler
Host - Carl Grant
Producer - Seth Grant

Transcript

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Carl Grant: 0:15

Welcome to Rainmakers. I'm Carl Grant. And I'm here with Adam Butler, founder of the Butler Brothers. Welcome, Adam.

Adam Butler: 0:22

Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

Carl Grant: 0:25

Adam, you are in the branding business, tell us a little bit about what you do.

Adam Butler: 0:30

We build brands for organizations that are focused on getting to what's next for them. Oftentimes, that's driven by external market forces that are causing them to pivot. Or they're a legacy brand that realizes that their offering has changed, and that their stories been outstripped by their internal changes, or their startup who has a big idea. And needs to create the story and the brand for it. So we work across all those different types of organizations and, and moments of inflection.

Carl Grant: 1:07

Now, I'm looking across your history here, you've really been a family oriented businessman, and which is unusual, right? Your your first nine years were spent as a student of your father, and then you're working with your brother, talking about the dynamic.

Adam Butler: 1:25

Wow, Carl, you picked up on, it's never been put to me that way. But yeah, my dad didn't run a painting company. And one of the things my brother and I talk about a lot is how much we learned about values from working for him. Because he was in his business, not just on his business, and it was, there was a painting company, there's a lot of customer service, they're managing different kinds of staff, managing customers expectations, and then just having to do do the job and do it well. So Marty, and I learned a lot about attention to detail, accepting responsibility for mistakes, managing people, we didn't really realize that that's other than just becoming good painters. That's what was happening to us. That was our first management training course. Then we found advertising. as we as we were leaving high school and going into college and kind of found that industry, Marty and I ended up being interns together at one of the Southwest's bigger shops called gsdm, advertising. They had Southwest Airlines, Land Rover, the US Air Force, big accounts, and that's Marty and I were able to be partners in that ecosystem. Creative partners, I was a writer, he was an art director. We did that for a little bit. We we the dynamic was that we needed to have other partners to learn and grow. And we did that. And then, after seven years of working in the industry, we came back together to found the other Bros. And that's when things kind of went full circle, what are the values that we learned of working for our dad, and we poured those into our business. And that's something else we can talk more about later. But I'd say the most important and valuable thing about working with family, if you have a healthy relationship is the trust that you can put in one another. I think that's the most valuable asset that it presents beyond everything else. Because being an entrepreneur is hard. And if you can't trust the people that you're working with. I think Pat lencioni says that's like, that's the baseline of all of all good businesses trust.

Carl Grant: 3:44

To keep this business going and thriving for 19 years, you've had to develop a number of relationships and client relationships and referrals. Talk a little bit about how you go about cultivating those relationships and keeping them alive.

Adam Butler: 3:58

Well, you know, people like to say, blank is a relationship business. All businesses are relationship businesses. When we started our business, we were 29 years old and 28 years old, I didn't realize that my network did not include a ton of decision makers. That just proves how naive I was. Now, what happens if you stay in business long enough is the ecosystem of decision makers matures with you, especially if you maintain relationships by doing the right thing. So I think it's there's probably a cool chart that you can put time over behavior. And at a certain point, the universe starts to actively conspire on your behalf. If you've been doing good work, your networks maturing and you've been behaving properly, all of a sudden the field of opportunities magnifies massively. So that's one thing I've seen, which I would which what I would say is almost a passive effect. But the act of effect is something, a story that hit me one day I was driving to work, I saw a guy with a cardboard sign that he made out in front of an oil change chain. So this was a person that worked for a chain, but he had a sign that said, we're ready to change your oil today. And he was just sitting there with a cup of coffee. And it inspired me to write a piece called Don't be afraid to ask, because it was a great reminder of, if you don't ask, if you're too proud to ask. Especially when you have like a really qualified lead or something that you know your firm, or that your service would be great for. Don't be too proud to ask. and express your interest people love being flattered by the Ask the nuances of how you do it isn't, isn't important. But if you never asked, you'd never, no one ever says yes to you. So I'd say it's that it's that you know, strategy of who to ask, not being afraid to ask. And then really monitoring your behavior and delivery over time. That's the flywheel. From my perspective,

Carl Grant: 6:28

now, in your business, is there a give to get type of approach? So when you say that, remember to ask, so yesterday I was meeting with an investor, yes, manages a large family office. And I was, you know, doing him favors sending him deals, talking about things I could do to help him. And then it dawned on me, as we were closing our our meeting to say, hey, I want to remind you, I work for a law firm. And if there's ever anything we can do for you. You know, please keep us in mind. And so, you know, I sometimes I'll go on and on, and then I'll leave that part out. Right? Yeah. Right. And people like me, because I do them favors, and you know, help them. But then, if it doesn't result in business for my firm, you know, there's no sense in me really being employed by my firm, right?

Adam Butler: 7:25

Oh, Carlyle, love that I, because what I found, I think that speaks to your personality. We haven't known each other that long. But in our first conversations, you know, we talked about a bunch of people, we both knew ideas, we were having deals we were doing. And what I think is fascinating is, what you did was position yourself at the end of that. And I do think that's important to advocate for yourself. That was something my mom was fond of saying, if you don't advocate for yourself, no one will. Connect, connecting that to an idea that was given to me by one of my best professors in college, Tom Campbell was a management professor at UT. He said, You know, you're always running your own business inside of whatever business you're in. And he was trying to impregnate us with an entrepreneurial mindset. But it was about positioning and just clearly stating, this is what I do. This is how I make money. I love sharing ideas with you. But these are the leads I need. And it's remembering it's business. There's nothing, there's nothing crass about saying that, and especially curl like you if you're giving to people they want to give back.

Carl Grant: 8:47

But sometimes I forget to ask. So I, you know,

Adam Butler: 8:51

I just think maybe maybe the thing that we're scratching on here is that is that it feels somehow inappropriate, or, you know, or grabby to do that. And I don't think it does, I think really articulating your positioning and what you're after as a business. Gently and repetitively is a good idea.

Carl Grant: 9:17

Yes. And then you also mentioned about the decision makers not being part of your network when you started out and I think about my world and I'm trying to relate it to your so when I started out, working with the venture capital community, I, I always gave equal attention to partners, principals and Associates, it's kind of and then analysts are below or below them, but they're not typically out in the market as much. And because I always gave the analysts attention, whereas others did not others would focus on the partners because they're the so called decision makers. Those analysts have gone on to run their own funds and and they, they respect those those relationships I have with them because I gave them attention back when nobody else did. And I took them seriously. And so if I'm introduced to somebody who's just entering the business, or the the kid of a partner who wants to do this and wants some advice, I always take time with those folks, because I plan to be at this for a long time. And and I know that it always comes back around to you in the long run.

Adam Butler: 10:24

Yeah, I would, I would, yes. And that with a parallel, which is if you if you are sponsored by a senior decision maker, we look at it in our business as our job to win their team. Like that the leader has positioned us with an opportunity, but we could be working with anywhere from five to 30 people after that, and every one of those individuals, to your point is someone that makes their own decision about you, how you treat them, how you respect their role, how you listen to them. So I 100% agree with that. And once you're in there, you know, through the grace of the decision makers trust in you, you do have the opportunity to to make a lot of new friends. And sometimes, you know, those relationships become the most fruitful, because the decision maker disappears from the equation.

Carl Grant: 11:17

Yeah. And I found even with somebody who's a scheduling assistant, or a secretary, sometimes those relationships are key too. And, and while some people who are focused on the end goal may blow them off, I always take the time to connect with somebody who's booking meetings for somebody, connect with them on LinkedIn and say it was nice to meet you. And well, you know, I give him just as much attention as I do the actual person I'm meeting with.

Adam Butler: 11:45

Well, I can tell you a great story about that. One of our Senior Vice President at Texas Children's Hospital, a woman by the name of Michelle Riley Brown said to me once Hey, Cassandra, her her assistant, her birthday is next week, she worked so hard. It was incredible. She She said, Hey, would you make time to recognize her, which I thought was incredible leadership by Michelle. But we then we did it and Cassandra was thrilled, but it was, but it was incredible, because it was driven by her leader in the business to do that. And just kind of makes me think of that when you talk about taking care of those who take care of getting you to the table.

Carl Grant: 12:32

Yeah, and I'm not, I'm not once again, not expecting anything out of it. I'm just trying to be nice, because, you know, you just never, you never know, you never know.

Adam Butler: 12:41

Its a hard job. I mean, you know, you think about them, and it's very transactional in that role. And when someone says, Thank you, it likes, it stops the record. I mean, it's like, Whoa, you know, I this is just my job. But I'm a person and I appreciate I appreciate being thanked. So I think it's, I think it's a human thing to do what you're describing. If it works out positively, from a business standpoint, all the better, but it's just a good way to go through the world, man, you're going to get that

Carl Grant: 13:13

it does. And also also, you know, if you're going in for a meeting in in, so you go on to client sites, and people are getting back to normal now. And yeah, when you go into visit that person, if the person you encounter isn't the person that set up the meeting, if you take the time to say, Hey, is, you know, Sue, or john here, you know, whoever set up the meeting, I, I'd like to, you know, shake their hand and and it goes a long way. Right? They remember that, and then the next time you're looking to get a meeting, when you reach out, they're gonna be more apt to help you get on the calendar than somebody blew off. Right?

Adam Butler: 13:50

That's right. They know where that secret hour is.

Carl Grant: 13:53

Yeah, exactly. So look, the time flies fast on these podcasts. I always like to leave time for advice for somebody who's looking to do what you do, right? We haven't done a deep dive into your branding, but maybe you can talk a little bit about that. And then recommendations you would have for somebody who's you know, young person listening, just thinking, I like it. I like what Adam does. I want to aspire to do that.

Unknown: 14:20

Yeah, I mean, let me think of the right place to start. I mean, I definitely my journey into business development. Really, I mean, started the day that we started our own business, right, it becomes imperative on that day. I was a part of the new business development cycles inside of a giant agency. In fact, Marty and I got our big break, working on the business development side of the business at gsdm. When gsdm pitched Mazda back in 1997. Marty and I's idea was used by the agency and Already was still an intern and I was, I was, I think I'd been a copywriter for a couple of months, I might have still been a Traffic Manager. But we got involved in the business development function. And that that can sometimes in our industry, especially back then it was really the wild west part of the business because it was a lot of speculative work, which meant there was a lot of opportunity to break through we we broke through, that's how we became partners was because we were in the new business part of the organization. And we came up with an idea that the agency thought could help when, and that that made us breach on the radar, it was like Who the hell are those guys? that got us more opportunities. So that that's one thing I'd say if you're in a company, you know, being helpful in the business development, part of the organization is a dynamic place to be in terms of my own business, I mean, we're looking for fit along a lot of vectors we, we have, if we get a cold lead, we have a set of questions that we ask that have been honed over the years to reveal financial fit cultural fit, timing, it's a very simple intake form that then, and some people don't want to fill it out. And that's fine. But it does create a much better first conversation, it gives me a sense of where that conversation needs to go or could go. And my mindset, then and that in those early moments are, this is either going to be a great opportunity for us or someone else. And until I determined that it's a great fit for us, I'm very open to either of those outcomes. And I'm committed to helping that person. And I talk about it that way. Because I don't we want mutual fit. We're also a part of an independent agency network, and there's people within that network that I can get business to, so that it's sort of, then it shifts from, I want this and I don't want anyone else to have it. And that's when that selling really starts. And then it's learning as much about the organization, its history, its people its story as possible. And starting to without giving Mark away for free to really define that challenge. More specifically, I think that's the that's usually the turning point is the client feeling the engagement, especially from a person whose name is on the door, and seeing the people behind me, the team that we have, and starting to feel like there's a process here, there's results associated with that process. And I feel these people. And what we do is risky. And everything I just described is about de risking the decision. So that's where I think it all comes down, I you know, to the decision that gets made by two people on a phone or a zoom call or in a boardroom of who to go with. And then if we don't get it, I really do want to know why we didn't. Because it's super valuable information. So being graceful in defeat, and asking smart follow up questions is something we try to do. Because again, Carl, to your point, one of the people on that call and that decision making group could have really wanted you to be the firm, and they didn't get their way this time, but they might next time.

Carl Grant: 18:41

Well, Adam Butler, that is great advice. Adam Butler, founder of the Butler Bros. I appreciate you doing the podcast today. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe, please rate the podcast and share it with your friends. Thanks, Adam.

Adam Butler: 18:54

Thank you, Carl. Have a great