Welcome to the Online Success Journey Podcast, your opportunity to discover and learn from entrepreneurs like yourself. This is not your typical podcast, but a place where you can get the real story and find out how real people encounter speed bumps and detours, but journey through to find success. Now, here's your host for the Online Success Journey Podcast, Patience. Online success journey continues with episode 365. Every guest shares the path that took them to success. So you'll want to subscribe right now and ensure you'll never miss a journey. I post one journey each week and I would love for you to join me. Joining us today is Kurt Wilkin, co-founder at HiBeta and managing partners at BK Capital. He's had an opportunity to work with hundreds of entrepreneurs and CEOs, challenging and inspiring them to take their companies to the next level. Hello, Kurt. Hey, Patience. Thanks so much for having me.
Oh, thank you for coming. My audience are excited to hear your story. Just start by telling us one thing we are going to learn from you today that will take us to our next success. You know, the one thing that I would touch on is we're going to talk about playing to your strengths. What do you do best and what's your superpower? And maybe reduce the things which are your weaknesses that aren't your superpowers. I can't wait to hear more about that. Let's get started with the basics. Can you tell my audience a little bit about your background, what you did before your business? Yeah, you bet. So I...
Got an accounting degree in college, became a CPA, was fortunate enough to work for Ernst & Young, which is a big international accounting firm. And what I realized very shortly was I was not a very good accountant, which tends to limit your career in the accounting profession. So I left there to go do things outside of the CPA world. And lo and behold, after working for a dot-com in the late 90s, we were going out of business. And so I started doing consulting to make ends meet. I had a young baby and a new wife.
And so I happened to do some accounting work. And before you knew it, I had a burgeoning business with too much work and not enough people. So I partnered with some other folks and started really an accounting consulting firm. Thankfully, I had people smarter than me that did most of the work and I just did the business development. But we grew very rapidly to a $20 million business over a five-year period and ended up selling that successfully. And then I ended up buying HireBetter a few years later.
And the funny story there is, while I'm a pretty good business person and great working with clients as they overcome their own challenges, I'm not a very good recruiter. So you have a bad accountant starting an accounting consulting firm and a bad recruiter buying a recruiting firm. But thankfully, I was smart enough to partner with people smarter than me in those areas. Why a background? But why do you do what you do? You know, I love entrepreneurs. I think entrepreneurialism is a way to make the world a better place. I think capitalism is a way to make the world a better place. If we can make money while doing good, we can do some amazing things. And so I like to encourage other entrepreneurs to build their own businesses. And I really like working with good people. If you're a bad person or if I have a feeling that you're out for just the money, I probably won't choose to work with you very long.
How do I know if you generally are successful? That's a great question. I think success is an abstract thing, first of all, and success can mean so many things to so many people, which is why you're asking the question. I think if I'm doing what I love to do and I'm able to make money doing it, I'm successful, especially if I'm able to balance that with the things I like to do personally with my family and friends. So I think all of those things added together, if I'm able to do them successfully and have time and energy to be a good husband, father, friend, then I'm being successful.
That's how to use our superpowers in the entrepreneurial world. You know, this one's something I'm very passionate about because as I mentioned earlier, bad accountant, bad recruiter ended up being very successful. Probably learned the hard way, but I ultimately learned that I have some strengths which are around people and connections and seeing things people don't. And I learned that if I try to do the things that I struggle at or that I suck at, then I can spend too much time trying to improve my weaknesses and not be as successful as I could be. So I was smart enough to partner or employ people.
smarter than me in those other areas. So I would encourage your listeners, especially those who are entrepreneurs and they're trying to do everything themselves, find those things that they struggle with or that are lower. Other people can do even more successfully than you can and augment those things to them. So you do the things that you're really good at and only you can do. And you bring in somebody probably cheaper than you that could do those other things better. As you mentioned, you've been working with many companies and I presume you have met aspiring entrepreneurs and also entrepreneurs. But can anyone be an entrepreneur or are some people more cut out for it than others?
It's a trick question because the first question is, yes, anybody can be an entrepreneur. Now, the real question is, can anybody be a successful entrepreneur? I would say there are definitely people that are better suited for entrepreneurship than others. For example, if you're a rule follower and you like things a specific way, or if you like a nine to five job, or if you like to know what's going to happen during the day and be very specific, you're probably not cut out to be an entrepreneur. If you like a new challenge every day, if you like to slay dragons, if you like the unknown and adventure, and you're willing to put your heart and soul and passion into it, then you might be cut out to be an entrepreneur.
What have you learned from business as a whole? What have I learned from business as a whole? Man, I've learned that there are good people and bad people, just like any other walks of life. There are people who will take advantage of others and others who are servant leaders. And business is really a microcosm of life. And the good people who are building good companies and doing good things can, as I said before, change the world in a positive way. And bad people who are just out for themselves or just out for money, frankly, can be bad for society. So that's what I've learned. How can we support the bad ones? Yeah. So there's a couple of nuances to, I think, your question. For the ones that I work with directly,
So it's sometimes hard to know if you're a bad one until you start working with them. And my team understands that there might be time where we'll fire a client or fire a candidate because core values don't align with ours. So that part is still tricky because we don't know sometimes until we start working with them. Bigger picture, the question might be, how do we determine who we want to buy from if we want to buy a certain coffee or a certain athletic gear or go to a certain restaurant based on their values? That one's also tricky because I believe we have a filter on our...
media. And sometimes the media gives you the message that they want you to hear about specific brands. So it's hard to say, well, don't work with Nike because they use slave labor. Do we really know that they use slave labor? So my point is we can't always trust the information we're being fed, but we can make decisions on who we want to work with based on what our research tells us, whether they're good or bad for people.
What are you still doing in the way you work that you just know you have to stop doing? Oh, man, that's a great question. I have a problem with saying yes to too many things. And so I can tend to pack my schedule with things that don't fill me up and probably aren't the best use of my time. So I need to get better at saying no to things that either aren't things I'm passionate about or things that are just a waste of time, to be honest.
What is the most dangerous belief an entrepreneur can have? The most dangerous belief that an entrepreneur can have. I would say one belief that is dangerous is if you don't believe you have competition. Because whether we're the only product or service in our industry or whether we think we are, that can be dangerous because there's always something or someone who's got a competing product or service. So that's dangerous. The other dangerous thing is to think that you can do it all. We need a strong team around us in order to be truly successful. You mentioned that you have written a new book. Growing up, did you always want you to be an author?
You know, I always love to write, but I always thought I would write a children's book, something exciting and adventurous for, mainly for boys, because those are the books I read growing up. So yeah, I thought I would, I would write, you know, after college and starting a career and becoming a CPA and then, you know, going through all the entrepreneurial journey, I never thought it would be a reality. And so the answer is yes, but. What inspired you then? The thing that inspired me to actually write the book was as we went through COVID, I circled up a lot of entrepreneurs and tried to help them navigate the pandemic and not just survive it, but thrive throughout it and come out stronger on the back end. And that inspired me to get out and start doing podcasts and writing and really trying to encourage other entrepreneurs. And as that was going, I realized there's some stories here that need to be told. So that's what my book is, a collection of stories to inspire entrepreneurs, to help them. It's not your standard business book with a bunch of gobbledygook about business. It's more about...
stories of other entrepreneurs so that you can read what other folks have done in your situation to try to help you with your own situation. If you could rerun the first year of your business, what would you definitely not do? If I could rerun the first year of my business, what would I definitely not do? I think it's what I talked about before, trying to do too much myself. I would have brought in somebody smarter than me in a couple of areas that I didn't. How do you make yourself get back on track when something goes wrong? I try to look inward. And so I will meditate. I will try to get outside and go for long walks or hikes or get on the lake on a kayak or canoe. Just try to...
Get out in nature to try to help me reset because I've got too much turmoil going on internally. What is the most valuable thing you have ever given away? Well, I'm going to cheat a little bit. I heard one of your other guests give the same answer. But I think it's absolutely appropriate. And that is time. We all have a very limited amount of time. And the more we give it away, maybe the better for them. But it's definitely the most valuable thing you have to give away. What is one thing that has contributed to your success?
I'm going to say two things. One is I'm going to say season the opportunities, season the day. And what I mean by that is many of us are presented with opportunities to be an entrepreneur or be successful, but many of us are too afraid to take the leap. And so that's the biggest thing that's contributed to my success is taking that leap, even though I didn't have any idea what was on the other side of that jump. And the other thing that has contributed to my success, I'm going to say an abundance mindset, meaning I had several opportunities early on to partner with others and I could have demanded more.
like more than my share of the partnership because of what I was bringing. But it was the right thing to do to just say, you know what, let's go 50-50. And that mindset has really contributed to my success and frankly, my partner's success. So I think the more we think less about keeping everything for ourselves and more about partnering with the right people, I think we can have more success. What grounds you? Well, I've got a wife and three boys at home who ground me, not only to...
to be a better husband, father, friend, but also they keep me humble because we give each other a lot of grief at home. And so they definitely make sure I'm not too high, not too proud. That's for sure. In your business, do you have a mentor or a coach? I have quite a few. Yes, I think that's one of the biggest thing entrepreneurs can do is identify two or three people to go to for counsel, whether it's about life, whether it's about a specific challenge at work or just business in general. What is the most valuable thing your counsel has told you? I'm going to tell you, I'll start with a funny story. My dad, who was also a bad accountant.
But he would joke and say, if in doubt, take the deduction. Meaning if you're going to file your taxes, take the deduction. I always joke that that's the best business advice I ever got from my father. But the most valuable counsel I've ever gotten is, you know, it's going to maybe sound cheesy, but life is short. It goes fast. And so that's very, very true. So no matter how hard we're charging in business or how much we're trying to be successful, life is short and all the other parts of your life are speeding by just as fast. Your kids grow up fast. What is one thing no one knows about you? One thing no one knows about me. I would say...
tell people that I've run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, which is a super frightening. If you look at what happens on TV to those folks getting gored, I will say I did it the quote smart way, but it was still frightening. So yeah, that's one thing. Why do you go there? I thought it was dangerous. It is dangerous. I went with some friends. And like I said, there's a smart way to do it. And I'm happy to tell people if you want to go into a story about the smart way to do it. But it was still a little bit dangerous, but not nearly as bad as the part that you see on TV. The whole thing is about 500 yards, 500 meters. And the first half is all in cobblestones. The first third to a half is relatively straight with a couple of small turns. All the bulls are together.
That's the safest place where all the bulls are together and you can just be in the street with the bulls. As you go further, the bulls have to make these hard right and left turns on cobblestone streets with their hooves. So they tend to slip and slide and become spread out. That's where it becomes dangerous. And the stuff you see on TV with somebody messing with a bull in front of them, there's another bull right behind them. So that's where it gets dangerous and that's where the accidents tend to happen. I'm not saying that what I did was 100% safe, trust me, but they're safer than what you see on TV. Wow. Thank you for sharing.
Let's talk about your book. Tell us more about it. And how can this book help us? Yeah, it's called Who's Your Mic? And the subtitle is A No Bullshit Guide to the People You'll Meet on Your Entrepreneurial Journey. And it's really about the employees that you're going to have and you're going to meet. What I found over the years, over almost 30 years, there's a lot of consistency to what you see with the team that you have. For example, every entrepreneur's got employees that they have outgrown. They were very valuable in the early stages of your business. But as you grow, you might outgrow many of them, including ones who've been promoted to senior members of your team.
That's Mike. Mike is my title character. And that's one of your maybe best friends who is your CFO. And really, he's just a glorified bookkeeper, but that's his title. And so the question is, is Mike going to be able to take you to the next level? He's in over his head. He's swirling. He doesn't know where to turn or what to do. And I like to say, who's your Mike? Every entrepreneur out there either has had a Mike, does have a Mike, or will have a Mike. And so that first chapter is really, what do you do with your Mike? And there's other characters too. We can get into some of those if you'd like. Yes.
consistent one we see is we call him Pipeline Paul, but he's a big swinging, you know what, from the outside that comes in to tells you all the great contacts that he has. He plays golf with the CFO of your biggest pursuit. He's been in the best wedding of another guy or gal with one of your big pursuit companies. And he comes in talking about all these great clients that he's going to bring to you. And you're really smitten and you fall for it and you hire him and expect results. And a year later, you're still waiting for these results. He keeps promising that are in the pipeline. They're about to happen any day now and never seems to matriculate through the pipeline. So we call him Pipeline Paul because he's just full of, you know what?
We've got, let's see, another good one is Harry the Hustler. So Harry the Hustler is a great salesperson. He's able to, you know, was a big part of your success as you grew. But now that you're $10 million in revenue, you need to go beyond Harry. You need to bring in a VP of sales and build a sales team. Harry wants to be your VP of sales. So you promote him to a VP of sales. But a VP of sales, you need to manage people. You need to set strategy. You need to build systems and structure. That's not Harry. Harry's a sales guy. And so what we've done now by promoting Harry is now we have a bad manager. We've also lost our best salesperson. So it's just a, it's a conundrum that.
Almost every entrepreneur faces it as well. Those are just three examples. Wow. Thank you. So how can we get this book or how can we connect with you? Yeah, for sure. The best way is whosyourmic.com. That's where you can find the book as well as some articles we've written about the book writing process. And then we also have a fun quiz. If you think you might have a mic or a Paul or a Techno Tim or any of these other characters, it's at whosyourmic.com slash quiz. Those are probably the best ways to connect. And then if someone would want to join your firm?
Where can they find you? Yeah, hirebetter.com is if we're in the recruiting space and we are partners for our clients. I think the recruiting industry is broken, but there's some very good recruiters out there. And if you believe that in the power of people, we'd love to talk to you. Hirebetter.com. Thank you.
There will be more from Kat in a moment. If you're listening to this on a podcasting platform and you're encouraged by Kat's journey, please go to our website at onlinesuccessjourney.com. In addition to the amazing free content, you can work direct with me. Check out my course, Success, How to Set Goals and Double Your Productivity. A course for achieving success in work and life. When you visit onlinesuccessjourney.com. The site has a ton of audio clips from hundreds of successful entrepreneur guests' journeys all there to help you find the path to your own online success journey. Check it out. That's online success.
I would love for you to share more with my audience if you're up for it. Sure. Thank you. Do you watch movies or read books? I like to read books. Tell us what is your favorite book that has some relevance to being an entrepreneur? Let's see. Well, I thought you were going to say favorite book. My favorite book series of all time is Lord of the Rings. I've read it a hundred times. But as far as relevance to business, first of all, I hate most business books, which is why I wrote mine in such a different way. But the best ones that I read are the ones that are told in story form. So there's one called Built to Sell, which is about how you build a business that you can ultimately sell. And then there's one called Rocket Fuel.
which really tells the story of how people like me, who are not very good managers, but I'm really good at sales and people, the book calls them a visionary, how visionaries need an operating partner, someone who can manage the team and hold people accountable. The book calls it an integrator. So that was a really eye-opening book for me. Just the first three chapters is all you really need to read to determine, get the big meat of the book. If your business was down to its last $100, how would you invest it? My business was down to its last $100, how would I invest it? That's an interesting question, Patience. I try to bribe my best friend to come in and save my business for me with my $100. I'm not really sure. I was waiting for your dad's advice. Thank you. What is the reassurance or encouragement have you got for my audience who are not quite there yet? My encouragement is if you believe passionately in your vision, keep...
keep fighting. There are so many people that are going to tell you that you can't do it or that it can't be done. No one's ever done it. But if you have a strong belief in it, fight through the naysayers. If you are going to keep a note to yourself in your pocket every day, what would be written on it?
You know, I hadn't thought about that one, but let's say, I'm going to say, don't forget where you came from. Meaning your, your roots, your, your family of origin, your struggles, your, all these things that you've, that formed who you are. Don't forget where you came from. What is your next chapter? We are building at Hire Better. We're building a practice offering we're calling recruiting as a service. So if right now we can help you with one or two key hires and you would engage us like many recruiting firms in the future, we're going to be able to help you hire 10, 20, 30 people because it's our expertise and it's usually not the expertise of our, of our clients. So we're going to be able to help you in a much.
deeper fashion. So I'm really excited about that. I think we're all on the way. No one's, you never really reached the pinnacle. We're always, always a work in progress. That's why I love your podcast. It's really highlights that we're all, all on a journey and we're all a work in progress. I hope not. I hope not. Remind us how we can connect. Yeah. Who's your mic.com is a great way. And then hirebetter.com. You can also follow me on Twitter at Kurt Wilkin, K-U-R-T-W-I-L-K-I-N or on LinkedIn, Kurt Wilkin. Love to engage with you.
It's been great to have you here to share your honor and success journey with us. Patience, thank you so much. And I'm inspired by your journey from an eggplant farmer in Uganda to where you are today. So keep up the great work. You are welcome. Remember, success is a journey. Don't wait. Let's start the journey. Patience unpack.
This is not the end of the journey. We hope you've enjoyed listening to Patience and her guests and want you to know that there are hundreds of episodes available at OnlineSuccessJourney.com. Patience would like to thank you for listening to the podcast and she has a free gift for you on her website, including an audio compilation of her guests' best tips, uplifting stories, and even a bit of fun. Additionally, there are special clips of over 250 episodes that have never aired on the podcast and are only available to members of the Online Success Journey. Check the website and click on Join Now to get free and instant access.
One last thing. If you're feeling a bit lost or overwhelmed on your own journey, patience can help. Check out our coaching sessions on how to set goals and double your productivity while you're at the website. Working with patients is a great way to get back on the right path. On behalf of patients and until next time, thanks once more for listening. It is our hope that this podcast will guide you on your own online success journey.