Founders' Forum

How Kevin Connor Built a Thriving Business with His Sister and Acquired 10 Companies

• Marc Bernstein / Kevin Connor • Episode 87

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Today we're transforming our approach to motivation and goal-setting with insights from Mel Robbins and our special co-host, Michael Martin, author of "The Self-Fulfilling Formula." We're also joined by Kevin Connor of Swirling Silks and Modern Strategic Branding + Communications. We discuss how cultivating habits rather than just chasing after motivation can lead to sustainable success, both personally and professionally. Learn how to maintain steady progress by balancing the act of setting goals with developing the right habits.

Ever wondered how family dynamics influence entrepreneurship? Kevin reflects on his journey from finance to a flourishing career in marketing and media, sharing how those formative family dinner discussions on sales strategies became his training ground. We explore the unique balance of working with family, where intuition and complementary skills play a vital role. We also highlight the challenges of entrepreneurship, such as the initial eagerness to seize every opportunity, and the wisdom gained from learning to ask critical questions and surround yourself with people who fill your gaps.

Prepare to be captivated by tales of resilience and networking from Cadillac dealerships of the past to the challenges of the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The essence of genuine connections and knowing when to say no are key themes, offering insights into forming meaningful relationships. As we touch on hiring practices, we delve into assessing character over skills, inspired by the Carnegie Triangle study and the timeless wisdom of John Wooden. Discover the significance of character in building a vibrant company culture where attitude can often outweigh aptitude.

About Kevin Connor:
Kevin Connor has worked at the same company since May 16, 1988 and for past 25 years, has been an owner with his sister as business partner. Managing digital, print and creative services for their clients has presented them as poised, professional and profitable in their space. They’ve acquired 10 companies adding their clients to the roster, aiming to add #11 soon.

Connect:
Website modernsbc.com
swirlingsilks.com
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/kevinrconnor
linkedin.com/company/2131648
Instagram instagram.com/swirlingsilksinc

This episode is brought to you by TESCO – The Eastern Specialty Company; the forefront of electric utility innovation. Go to tescometering.com to learn more.

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Announcer:

The following programming is sponsored by Marc J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, author and financial consultant, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing entrepreneurial business owners create a vision for the future and follow through on their goals and intentions. Ang Onorato is a business growth strategist who blends psychology and business together to create conscious leaders and business owners who impact the world. Founders Forum is a radio show podcast sharing the real stories behind entrepreneurship as founders discover more about themselves, while providing valuable lessons and some fun and entertainment for you. Now here's Marc and Ang.

Marc Bernstein:

Good morning America. How are you? I say that every show and I say that because of that old song, good morning America. How are you? The city of New Orleans. That was made famous. It was written by a guy named Steve Goodman, but it was made famous by Arlo Guthrie, who's always I'm not a huge fan of his music, but for some reason I'm really a huge fan of Arlo Guthrie, who's always I'm not a huge fan of his music, but for some reason I'm really a huge fan of Arlo, so much so that I named my best friend in the world, my dog, arlo. So I always say good morning Arlo as well. So anyway, good morning everybody. It's always sunny in Philadelphia, although it's actually really rainy and kind of crappy out today, but we need the rain, so that's great. So welcome everybody to Founders Forum.

Marc Bernstein:

Got some interesting people here with me in the studio today. Got Michael Martin. Mike Martin is a business coach and author and TEDx speaker and he's got a book called the Self-Fulfilling Formula a blueprint for business growth, and he specializes in. He coaches business owners and market leaders and businesses, but his specialty is in technology how do you really grow your business and expand your business through the use of technology, which is something he and I are talking about, because I'm interested in that myself and I'll introduce our guest today in a moment.

Marc Bernstein:

But I wanted to start out with a little conversation about goal setting. So I've been a goal setter my whole life but I think I'm quitting goal setting, which is interesting because I'm doing my year-end planning and not really, but kind of and I think I mentioned this on a previous show, but I heard recently a podcast by Mel Robbins and she has a doctor called Dr K I don't remember his full name and it's about motivation and it talks about the fact that it's not a lack of motivation. Everybody's motivated to do something. You might be motivated to stay in bed, but you're motivated to do something. You're motivated to take some action. So they talk about management. You guys both manage people. You can't really motivate people. People have to decide for themselves what it is they want to do.

Marc Bernstein:

And what I realized is I would do these elaborate plans with a lot of goals and a lot of sub-goals and action steps, and it can become overwhelming At the end of the year. It's like and I'll look at it and I always made progress on most, if not all of the areas, but not all the progress I wanted to make. And I would say progress, not perfection, but still a little frustrating, because I had expectations and you don't meet them and after a while that gets a little tiresome. So what this was about is, if you want to be motivated, just take one step for whatever it is you want to do. And the example I used and I tell, I told these gentlemen the um, the story that I go to a strength uh studio, that I go to for strength conditioning and I do it reliably, and. But I just went through a period of not feeling that well and I decided um, and I do it reliably, but I just went through a period of not feeling that well and I decided and after hearing this podcast, you know there's times I think I really don't want to work out today and we've all had that feeling.

Marc Bernstein:

But what I decided is forget about working out when I get up in the morning, when I can think about that, think about getting in the car, because if I get in the car, I know where I'm driving to. It says it right in. You know my car tells me my schedule, it tells me you're going to the exercise coach is the place I go to, so I'm going to. Once I'm in the car, I'm going to drive there and, of course, if I get there, I'm going to work out. I'm not just going to sit there and look at the walls, right? So there's my motivation. My motivation is to get in the car. So it's an oversimplification. And of course, I'm not really going to stop goal setting as such, but it's a different way to approach it. So you guys are entrepreneurs and I'm sure you have goals. So, mike, I'm interested first in hearing what you have to say about that.

Michael Martin:

Yeah, absolutely. You're hitting a topic that I absolutely love and I work on a lot, and it's actually something I talk about in my book the Self-Fulfilling Formula. Right, the formula is three things mental fitness, social fitness and execution fitness. Did I tee you up or what? It's perfect, perfect. It's like we almost planned it. That's right, and we didn't. You are absolutely talking about execution fitness, and so my perspective on this is just what you're saying. Right, motivation can be fleeting, or it can change what you're motivated to do. What works, though, is consistency, and in my book, I talk about consistent, correct action. That's what I call this. That's the execution fitness part. How do you do that? You establish habits, habits, drive what you do consistently, and there's a great book called Many Habits. So do you do that? You establish habits, habits, drive what you do consistently, and there's a great book called Mini Habits. So what you're talking about get in the car, you want to go for a walk, make your benchmark, walk to the end of your driveway, atomic Habits also.

Michael Martin:

Atomic Habits similar concept, right, Mini Habits talks about you want to do pushups. Say you're going to got to do one pushup a day and I use this to write my book. Right, Become an author. How do you be an author? You got to write. You have to write a lot. So I made a goal write 500 words a day. I often wrote much more than that, but if it was like 1130 at night and I didn't hit the goal, I could easily sit down and write 500 words. So consistent, correct action and the secret for execution and doing that is also accountability. Have somebody who will hold you accountable, or, even better, hold yourself accountable to those many habits and you'll do exactly what you talked about.

Marc Bernstein:

Yeah, I've done accountability partners and I think that works. But I really think if you're motivated, if I'm motivated to get in the car, I don't need to be accountable. I'm just going to do it.

Michael Martin:

Well, you're accountable to yourself, right, and you're yeah you're just tripping the switch.

Marc Bernstein:

enough to get you in motion for action. Correct, kevin, we'll introduce you in a minute, but what's your thoughts on this?

Kevin Connor:

I'm not sure I'm going to add too much to this, although pick up on what Mike said and what you said, Marc as well. Habits seem to situation that you have, and I've just for myself, I've just replaced the word what was the word you just used?

Announcer:

Motivation With inspiration.

Kevin Connor:

I try to be more inspired in some capacity, because motivation always feels like something. Often I'm pushing myself to do something I don't necessarily want to do. So I try to figure out, reframe it in a way that gets me inspired and pulls me forward. Nice, a lot of the people. I will echo what you said, though. I go to a gym myself in the mornings and there's people ranging there from I have 18 to 85-year-olds, so the older people just pull me forward. If they can get there, I can get there. Nice, right, nice Love it.

Marc Bernstein:

By the way, I love your replacing words. I do that all the time. So think about this we're both an EO Entrepreneurs Organization and we have retreats. Right, we go on retreats. I'm planning one now for our forum group. I hate the word retreat. Think about that. Are you really retreating? You're going backwards, you're going forward, so I think you should call it an advance. As an example, there we go.

Michael Martin:

I love that, that's great.

Marc Bernstein:

Also in my book, the Fiscal Therapy Solution, which I don't talk a lot about on the show. I talk about retirement and you know, entrepreneurs, I think, have a hard time retiring, and with good reason, because we're always motivated to do something. You know people that have been a job that they really can't stand for 30, 40 years. You can understand why they want to retire. But instead of that I talk retirement. I replace that with refirement or aspirement, or retire, aspire, refire, whatever you want. Rewire there's a lot of things you could call it, but I don't like the word retire. What's that mean? That means getting old and dying to me. So anyway, that's the thing on words. So anyway, kevin Conner. Swirling Silks what is Swirling Silks?

Kevin Connor:

Swirling Silks is the company we bought, that we added to our lead brand Modern SBC.

Marc Bernstein:

I didn't know that. So Modern SBC is Modern Strategic Branding plus communications partner. Kevin worked at the same company since May 16th 1988. He's counting the days. That's not to retirement, is it? And for the past 25 years is an owner, with his sister as his business partner. They manage digital print and creative services for their clients, presenting them as poised, professional, profitable in their space. They've acquired this is really interesting 10 companies since they started adding their clients online to their roster and I guess Swirling Silks might be the latest, but they're aiming to add number 11 soon.

Kevin Connor:

So welcome, kevin. Great to have you here. Thank you very much, great.

Marc Bernstein:

We've talked about this for a while, so I'm glad we were able to do this today.

Kevin Connor:

I'm going to pick up on your term there about words earlier before. So, as Marc said, I've owned my company with my sister for the past 25 years. I worked there for 11 years before and when the previous owner came and said he wanted to sell.

Announcer:

I never really thought of myself as an entrepreneur.

Marc Bernstein:

And if anything, I consider myself a desperatepreneur.

Kevin Connor:

That's the situation I was in. We had just moved into a new house. Six weeks later I had no cash.

Kevin Connor:

I had a wife, not a working wife at home with three kids who liked to eat and breathe. And when he said I'm going to sell the company, I said oof, wow, I have no contract. So he made the offer. So, you know, I went out and visited somebody not too far out of Philadelphia and he was going to be the buyer and I remember driving back on the school call saying, man, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but maybe I can do what this guy's going to do. So I made an offer to the company, the owner, and he said sure. So here we are.

Marc Bernstein:

So thanks for that's what my question was How'd you get started? So why don't we go back before that? What were you doing prior to that?

Kevin Connor:

I'll say I was probably one of the worst finance majors at Temple University ever graduated. Loved the school, although I was in it for the wrong reasons. I took my first marketing class the second half of my senior year.

Kevin Connor:

I was all set to get out and I said, man, I'm not really liking that too much, but I am kind of liking this. And I went back to believe it or not. I watched a lot of TV as a kid and one of the shows I used to watch was Bewitched, and I'm not sure if you guys can remember what her husband did. He was advertising he was advertising.

Marc Bernstein:

He was basically a madman.

Kevin Connor:

Larry Tate his foil right, and they were basically madmen at the time, curious as to what they did. So advertising, and be careful what you watch, be careful what you let your kids watch. You never know what's going to happen down the road, wow.

Marc Bernstein:

Pretty cool, so that thought was planted.

Kevin Connor:

It was, I think, back all the time and I lean on that and just say, how did I ever get interested?

Marc Bernstein:

By the way, I always thought that was a really cool job too, yeah, well, so what do I do? So I have a lot of marketing today. You do a lot of media. Yeah, I do a lot of media, right? That's what you're doing yeah. So then you went out, you got those contracts, you started going out there, and what happened from there?

Kevin Connor:

Yes, I'd say one of the ways that we were very successful. We bought a company, so there was a bucket of clients already, a lot of them we had brought in over the past 11 years myself. But I just continued to do that with me and my partners. We were salespeople. Look, my father sold Cadillacs and Lincolns as a kid. So I'm one of seven children, so dinner every night was nine people at a table and it was often we were talking about sales strategy and how to take care of a customer. So me and my sister grew up with that. We're numbers four and five out of seven and we became partners.

Marc Bernstein:

Very nice. By the way, I just want to say to Mike, we became partners. Very nice. By the way. I just want to say to Mike chime in anytime you want, when Mike is looking at doing his own podcast as part of our little podcast network here himself, and so anytime if you have a question for Kevin.

Michael Martin:

Well, what comes up right there is how has it been working with family?

Kevin Connor:

That's the biggest question I get believe it or not. And I'll often tell people that and I watch their eyes go up to the left. I'll just kind of think I said I know what you're thinking. They'll say what I said you're thinking could I work with anybody one of my brother's sisters? Right? How'd you know that? I'm like. I've seen it 1,500 times, right? I tell people that. But me and my like, in our sales and our outlooks and our optimism that way, sometimes I wonder for too much alike. So that might be the downside of working. Sometimes we see things the both ways.

Kevin Connor:

Are your skills similar or are they complementary? Yes, complementary. She has a little bit more administrative and default oriented than I am, although I must say that I like being in business with my sister in a way, because there are certain times we'll go into a situation, we'll meet a couple of people and we'll go out and I might say, wow, that was really good. And she's like you know what. There's something I'm just not sure about there. So, having that women's intuition, I like having that extra set of ears and eyes.

Marc Bernstein:

I'm a big believer in that. I don't know if you even say that today. Women are different than men, but they are. I rely on my wife for that and I've always had people around me in business that I rely on that, because In my case, I'll say that you know I'm not going to make a blackened statement.

Kevin Connor:

This is what's been helpful to me.

Michael Martin:

Yeah Well. I think it's important to have complimentary skills and surround your people who have strengths that you don't have, and then you fit together like a nice puzzle right. You're kind of complimenting each other and, yeah, it just works out better when you know. If you know you have a blank spot or you're not strong in it, go find somebody who is strong in that and bring them on.

Kevin Connor:

Yeah, so you don't have to go learn it, just find somebody who's already got it. Yeah.

Marc Bernstein:

So we know that entrepreneurialism, even though you might not always, even though you're a desperate Desperatepreneur, that's true, that's hard to word.

Michael Martin:

That's motivating.

Marc Bernstein:

It's inspiring, right. But we know it's not a smooth ride in business and I know you've had some challenges along the way. Can you describe some of the challenges you've?

Kevin Connor:

met. We've had some much like everybody else right, just getting started, not wanting to necessarily be an entrepreneur. So the first couple of years you're just looking at everything, everything's a possibility, say yes to everything. So we've learned I will say this we've learned to say no more often or at least ask questions better questions up front that get them to no or yes quicker. I'll say it that way. So my sister and I, we had so you had to learn sales skills.

Kevin Connor:

And, I think, always learning that, still ironing those out, although we got a good foundation being at home around our father and our mother, looking back they were pretty good at navigating socially. I'll say it that way. Were they in sales? My father was, yes, what did he do? Cadillacs and Lincolns he was a car salesman Back in the 60s and 70s did very well. We're suited to it and tied together every day. His car had a. The dealership had a chandelier and it was a very nice place.

Kevin Connor:

Oh, wow so it was much different than it is today. I'll say, in the Philadelphia area, in the Philadelphia area Center City, cadillac right down broad and fair amount.

Marc Bernstein:

Oh, wow, yeah.

Kevin Connor:

Yeah, high-end car dealers back then. It just worked out for us is necessarily know the differences. Right, You've got to shave your head in a Cadillac.

Marc Bernstein:

What's the difference? Right, Just get me to the place where you're going to go. I have a Cadillac story.

Kevin Connor:

I'll tell you later. So we've gone through a bit much like everybody else. You faced the 2008 crisis and we had a partner that we separated ways. We bought him out and it was just time to move on. So we had different visions of what the future was going to be and everything was going very well. As I said, we've added a couple of companies. We've been very fortunate that way and then came COVID, so we can talk about that later.

Marc Bernstein:

It's a great time for a break, because I want to ask you more about some of the strengths that you had to handle those challenges and what your forward-looking vision is. So with that, let's take a quick commercial break and we'll be right back.

Announcer:

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Marc Bernstein:

Tested, trusted Tesco we are back on founders forum. Not sure what happened to my microphone there for a second, but anyway we're back with kevin connor and mike martin's in the studio with me today, and so we were talking about challenges, uh, pandemic and partners, and I've had all those myself over the years, so I understand what, um, what, what strengths did. Did you realize that you and your sister had to help you deal with those?

Kevin Connor:

Great yeah Again. Not alone. Everybody's had challenges, there's millions of stories out there, but he's got a different one right.

Kevin Connor:

So, we've found out that we're pretty good at talking with people and we fall back to our social skills, being able to talk to anybody. I always tell my kids look, neither of your parents were in the National Honor Society, so you better be able to go into a room and talk to people, and each of them I have three children and each of them. If I put them in a room with a bunch of new people, they're going to come out with some conversation.

Announcer:

Yeah, right.

Michael Martin:

So I've always learned that that is a skill I do a lot of speaking.

Kevin Connor:

They look push to social. You may want the technological there, but LinkedIn is only so good It'll get you so far, it's not there. It's not a bunch of likes, bring something to the party.

Michael Martin:

Yeah.

Kevin Connor:

So be able to converse and figure out an agenda for yourself.

Marc Bernstein:

Still about people. In the end it's part of the fun part. I mean, that's where the stories are, to me At least for now.

Michael Martin:

Yeah good, right, I tell you that's one skill I wish you know. I always thought about being genuine with people and I felt like you know you don't want to just push connections that aren't really genuine and I think in some ways I hurt myself because I didn't network as well as I should have when I was younger and realizing the importance of having strong people around you, a strong network, and you need others to succeed, right? You need others to help you and to work with you and want to work with you. So it's a huge component. I love that you said that and I also love what you said earlier about you have to say no sometimes, right, because you can do anything, but you cannot do everything. So saying no, I think, is a huge, huge skill.

Kevin Connor:

Good for you. I would say probably about 97 to 98% of, I feel, my networking has been. I'm kissing frogs, right it's not going to necessarily mean anything to me. However, I always look at people and I always put a number of 300 on their forehead and say you know what this person probably knows about 300 people. So that's part of the fun.

Marc Bernstein:

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, tell me about your company culture. You've got a great logo. It's very colorful and which I mean you're branding, so it makes a lot of sense. But I have a feeling there's a culture behind that logo in your company that you use in day-to-day basis.

Kevin Connor:

We've been very fortunate and for a creative services company we should at least have an interesting logo that promotes intrigue and kind of makes you want to ask a little bit more. So we've been very fortunate that way. People we've had as cliche as it's going to sound, look the people Me and my sister Diane we don't necessarily do what we do. We just go, get the work and bring it back and hand it out to the people that know what they're doing. That's more fun for me and, much like Mike said before, just get the people that can do it better. They're more detail-oriented than I am, diane's more so than me.

Kevin Connor:

So the fun part to me is going out and getting to work in advertising. What we're looking to do so what we're looking to do over the next three to five years is we're looking to build more of a media company or turn ourselves into that. Some of the projects we've gotten over the past two or three years ourselves into that. Some of the projects we've gotten over the past two or three years we've been developing books and magazines that we're helping people kind of bring to life. So that's part of the fun for us.

Marc Bernstein:

So the kind of people that you're looking for are skilled people, I guess, with certain skills.

Kevin Connor:

Yes.

Marc Bernstein:

Yep, that helps. So it's been a theme on the show recently. I've had many people, particularly in technology companies, digital marketing companies, things like that talking about you know, we can train them on almost anything. What we're looking for is character. We're looking for people that are. You know we're looking at the person first, before the skills. In your case, it's got to be some mix of those. But how would you characterize your priorities in terms of bringing people on?

Kevin Connor:

Great question and one we've thought up before. Look, we're not curing childhood cancer. You know it's not rocket science doing what we're doing. I can train you just about anything we do.

Kevin Connor:

I need the personality first, yes, and we've been very fortunate that way I don't have a particular hiring practice, but a lot of times it comes down to the gut Me and Diana will talk to the people and one of our best hires right now you know we knew in five minutes that she was the one had no experience in our industry, but just the way she carried herself in her outlook.

Michael Martin:

Hiring for attitude and aptitude way more important than skills and experience. Actually, the Carnegie Institute did a study right and they called the Carnegie Triangle. I teach this to my entrepreneurs that I work with. They found that only 15% of success is measured by the skills and knowledge. 85% is your attitude. And think of any highly successful athlete or entrepreneur. You know what defines them. They're motivated, they're disciplined, they go after it, they're aggressive, they have that self-control, they have good social skills, they have the right mindset, a growth mindset. These are all attitude, not skills and experience. You can go find the skills and experience with tools or, you know, go get training, but you can never replace attitude.

Kevin Connor:

One of the hardest things I learned is just what you said, mike is realize not everybody's built like me or thinks like me, and you just sometimes you want that as an expectation.

Marc Bernstein:

I'm a big attitude guy Really. I mean I work a lot on my own all the time and all that kind of thing. However, I'm going to challenge that a little bit because I use the word character and to me that's a little bit more all-inclusive than just because I think about our own company and not everybody. You know I think of attitude enthusiastic. You know I think of attitude enthusiastic. You know, go after the job, you know all these kind of things. Sales, that's certainly important, certain kind of roles, but administrative people is an example. We have people in our company that are best I can say is they're really solid, they're really ethical, they've got a lot of character. You wouldn't walk in the room and say, wow, what a great attitude. Necessarily you might some and sometimes room and say, wow, what a great attitude. Necessarily you might some and sometimes. But it's more about to me the character, because you can attitude, you can work on and develop.

Michael Martin:

Well, I think yeah, if it's not character's, not there.

Marc Bernstein:

It's hard, it's hard to replace.

Michael Martin:

Truthfully, we're talking about the same thing, right? Yeah, I mean it's semantics, but you're right, it's deeper and that, that famous quote, I think it was John Wooden right Deeper. And that famous quote, I think it was John Wooden right Character is what you do when nobody's looking Exactly. I love that quote Even when I say attitude, I mean the things you do when nobody's looking Again. Another thing that's why I said it's just a little broader than so how do you assess?

Kevin Connor:

and attract that. Then how do you kind of magnet? What's your radar saying, good or bad?

Marc Bernstein:

I think it goes back to what you said talking, you know conversation. You can find out a lot about people, about their character and conversation. On this show I find a lot about people's characters by having conversations, you know, and references and you know references. Checking is a big thing and hiring people, but I mean there's I think it's structuring how you interview people too.

Michael Martin:

If you're only asking questions about skills and experience, you're missing the boat, right so and you have. Everyone has to find this on their own, but think about what questions you can ask. That would help you to reveal the character, the attitude and the capability.

Marc Bernstein:

Great, that's good good deal. I knew a therapist who used to guide business owners and talk about she called it RIM R-I-M rearing independence and marriage. Now she was a family therapist, so that would make sense, that those would be things she would look for. But I found out I never like say, okay, rearing independence, marriage, I don't go through it like that. But to find out about like, how did you grow up, tell me about your family experience, your independence, what have you done on your own, what have you created on your own? Or what kind of things have you done? If marriage is a broad term today not everybody's married, but it could be relationships like what are your relationships like? There's certain things you can't get too personal in interviews, but in conversation you can find out a lot of things that I think tell you a lot about character. Absolutely, that's a great framework for structuring your interview. It's just something to keep in the back of your mind. So so, kevin, why are you making notes on that You're a Southpaw too.

Marc Bernstein:

I knew I liked you. I do want to ask you, because you mentioned a little bit about your future. We only have a few minutes left, but if we're looking out, three years from now so it's December of 2027, and you're looking back on the last three years and you mentioned a little bit about the business and where you're heading towards digital products and things like that but what would be deemed not just in your business, but in your business but in your life, if you'd like as well to be a successful three-year period when we're having that conversation, great questions.

Kevin Connor:

All I thought about things like everybody else Staying healthy. We talked about this being exercised, being part of your. To me, movement is medicine, right? Just kind of keep moving yourself, both mentally and physically, for the company. We're always looking for that. As I said, we're looking for that. Next, the 11th one to come on board, a couple conversations here and there. Some people do and don't, so it's a, it's a dance in terms of trying to attract people and let them know what's possible. The next project I think that we've got is always kind of the most interesting which most interesting projects. The next one's coming down the pipe. So we've got the conversation with people and just trying to build something that's a little bit different than them, helping them to see what's possible in terms of our world.

Marc Bernstein:

Nice. We don't have much time left. I do want to ask you a question that you wanted to be asked, which is if you were giving advice to your younger self, what advice would you give you?

Kevin Connor:

Something I didn't do well, we talked about here. Learn how to talk with people, learn how to carry a conversation, learn how to initiate a conversation and learn how to structure the conversation, so it's not always about you. I always find it helpful to give people some verbal or softballs that they can hit out of the park just to break that ice and get them going.

Marc Bernstein:

Do you have a formal guideline in mind for how to have a conversation? It's kind of interesting.

Kevin Connor:

Formal. Try to get it off me. Try to say you know what are you doing this summer. What would you normally be doing where it's a Wednesday morning? What would you normally be doing on a Wednesday morning if you weren't here?

Michael Martin:

Listen more than you talk.

Kevin Connor:

Yeah, it sounds so trite, right we? We've got one mouth and two ears and two eyes. So look, and listen.

Marc Bernstein:

That's right, something we're all trying to do. Lastly, real quickly, what book are you reading? I know you're a reader.

Kevin Connor:

You know what I've really kicked back on my business books and I read a lot more fiction for learning how to deal with people. That's where I find it a little bit more.

Marc Bernstein:

I'm going there a little bit myself. I always read nonfiction books. A little bit more, I'm going there a little bit myself. I always read nonfiction books.

Kevin Connor:

I'm starting to read more fiction. One of my mentors, he said the same thing. I stopped reading business books, I just read fiction. Now because I want to work with people.

Marc Bernstein:

Very interesting.

Kevin Connor:

Hey, it was great. Thanks for being here, Kevin. Thank you very much.

Michael Martin:

Thank you, Mike. Thanks for being here.

Marc Bernstein:

It was a great energetic talk, Loved. Thanks to all of you for listening and we look forward to speaking with you again next week on Founders Forum.

Announcer:

We hope you enjoyed your time with Founders Forum today and you found value to take with you throughout your day. No-transcript.

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