Never Take Your Eye off the Ball: Interview with Dave Wescott, CEO of Transblue

I recently went one on one with Dave Wescott, CEO of Transblue.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth? 

Dave: I've been working in the construction industry for the last 25 years. I found that it was something that I liked to do when I was a teenager working for a general contractor. I saw the jobs he was doing, and I saw how he ran his business (and how sloppily he ran his business). I thought, “Man, I can do this so much better,” and I can make more money, I just kind of watched him and learned from him. Later on, I decided to open up my own construction company and that was what kind of what led me on that path. 

In terms of biggest failures or toughest things in my career, I would say the depression of 2008-2009. I had 115 guys at the time and 28 trucks on the road. We did a lot of construction work and when the construction dried up, I had to lay off almost the entire team. I had to file a reformation bankruptcy which just meant that I was reforming my business. I paid off all my debt and I learned a lot in that process. I learned about managing cashflow, I learned about focusing on knowing your numbers, estimating jobs, staff, employees, a lot of valuable lessons. That enabled me to build a business that was able to do about 60 million in sales. Then from there, I was able to be fortunate enough to be at a SIMA (snow and ice management association) conference, and I saw the struggle that all contractors went through, and I realized that wasn't alone. That enabled me to say, “Hey, you know, what? I figured out a better way to do business and build business,” and then I launched the Transblue franchise. So, all of those experiences from being successful to being very unsuccessful to being successful again enabled me to learn a lot of lessons. I think the benefit to franchising is that you get all of those lessons when you buy the franchise, and you don't have to experience them, you don't have to put in the 10-15 years of experience required to learn all those lessons, and learn what it really takes to be successful. You get a huge jump start on success. 

Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?

Dave: If you want to grow your business, you need to keep your people, and keep your customers. Those are the two number one things that you can do, and how do you do that? You deliver an incredible customer experience to your clients. That is a part of your culture, and your clients are not only the people that you do work for – but they're your employees, they're your stakeholders, they are the clients that you work with you, your customers, everybody that you come in contact with. Really being able to deliver an incredible customer experience to everybody that you're surrounded with is what enables you to scale and grow your business, in my opinion.

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?

Dave: A leader has to be human, right? You can't sit in the ivory tower, you've got to be out there, with your team, to understand what they're going through. I believe you lead from the front – if your team has a big project and working some long hours to get it done, you're right there with them to ensure that it happens. But the other qualities of a leader is they're working on culture, they're working on relationships with their staff members, they're being able to see what's happening before it happens, they're able to, on some level, predict the future. “Hey, this is what's going to happen in our industry, these are the changes that we're going to make, to make sure that we're successful,” You know, a good leader is transparent and honest, a good leader can say, “Hey, I failed at this, and this is what I'm going to do better. This is what we're doing to correct the situation”. A leader cares about their people. Compassion, I think is a is a key to that really caring for your people. 

Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Dave: I think you've always got to be learning. As a leader, you always have to work on leveling up. And I think that that comes in the form of having good mentors. You know, being a part of associations, like IFA, or whatnot. Where you can learn from other people who have grown and other people who have succeeded. Then, having a good platform group, like an Entrepreneurs Organization or YPO, (Young Presidents or organization) or a Vistage, a place where other business owners get together share ideas, and are interested in continuing to grow as a leader, and really tapping into some of those, resources that are available to them through third party leader networks. I think leaders make great leaders in the process. So, I think really tapping into that and really, owning that is a big part of making that happen.

Adam: Have you had any leader in your life who has helped you take your leadership skills to the next level that you can call out?

Dave: There’s been a couple of people along the way that I think have helped guide me down my business journey. I was very young in business and a gentleman by the name of Mike, I learned a lot from Mike. Mike had been in business for a long time, and he understood a lot of things that I didn't, and I learned from him that no matter what, you stand up for your people, you protect your people, your people come with you, you're not more important than your people. I learned a lot from him. And, another gentleman by the name of Paul, I learned a lot from him. He was much older than me, I was maybe 21 when I met him and he really took me under his wing and taught me things like active listening, and taught me about some qualities that it takes to be a leader. Always be honest and forthcoming with what's happening always vocalize where you're at, and what's going on. Don't shirk back from the truth, but attack it. And then I would say, the third would probably be my dad. And even to this day, if I've got something going on, I would call my dad and say, “Hey, Dad, what do you think about this?” and listen to that advice. And I would say those are the three people who really influenced my life the most

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders? 

Dave: Well, number one, I would say is build your own brand of crazy, and just, whatever your values are, whatever you believe in, build that brand based on your values, build the business based on what's in your heart, not on what you think other people want. And what you'll find is that people are attracted to that, people love that. People will come around you and help you achieve your dreams, because you can't do it alone. Tip number two is building your infrastructure. I think, you know, so many times we think we're going to build a business. And then as soon as we get the work, or we close the job, or we win the job, we'll hire the people. And oftentimes what happens is, you win the big jobs that you wanted, but you don't have the people to execute the work. Then you try to hire but then you're trying to hire and train they're not, you're rushing the process. So, building the infrastructure before the sales come, will enable us to be super successful. Number three would be knowing your numbers, understand the financials up, down all around, be involved in your finances, understand what's happening financially in your business, every single day.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams? 

Dave: You can't be all teams. You can't be all things to all people. So, build a great leadership team that can take the responsibility and the burden off your shoulders, really invest in people. Great accounting people, great operations people, great salespeople, great finance people, people that can come around you who have leadership skills that you can work with that you can manage, and they can help manage and mentor your secondary staff levels and this will ensure that you have a great leadership team and that way not one are not carrying all the burden. But an entire team of people is carrying the burden. And what you find is that you'll enjoy what you do, you'll have a good time doing what you're doing. And your people wont  feel like “Hey I'm doing all the work, and I'm working all the hours and this guy's getting rich, right?” It's really a team effort. Everyone caries the load.

Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing and branding? 

Dave: Always be selling. I think one of the things that I think is important about sales is that customers will always want it faster. We live in the Amazon Prime era of, “Hey, I saw it today, I want it right now. Oh, really, I can order that. And it'll be here this afternoon.” So, deliver that sales estimate fast. To your customer, they always want a higher quality service. So, give them the highest quality that you possibly can. That professionalism starts with the sales, the quality of the proposal, the quality of the knowledge of the salesperson, so on and so forth. And then you've got your price, always work to be the most competitive in the industry. That doesn't mean be the cheapest, but be competitive, know your numbers, know where you're at, and know what you need to close and win jobs. When it comes to marketing, I think that really having that social presence is important. I think identifying your key customer is super important to marketing, you can have really, really broad strokes in your marketing, but that's not going to go anywhere. So, I think that really identifying who that exact person is, that exact buyer is, and spending your marketing dollars directly delivering to that customer is what's going to set you apart and really take your business to the next level. And then when it comes to your brand, at all costs, protect your brand, develop a strong brand, develop the coloring, develop who you're at, develop what you are, and stick to it, and protect it, and work on growing it. Make sure everybody in your organization knows what your brand is, knows what you stand for, and make sure your values align. I think one of the biggest things for the success of a brand is strong values. So, you know, how do we go to business? How do we take care of our customers? What kind of experience do we deliver? I think those are the things that are important from a value standpoint. And you know, that's what I would look at if I was working on the brand.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Dave: Forget the past, it's a decaying memory.

I would say I learned this back in high school, but you know, business is full of failures. Life is full of failures. Life is full of disappointments. You know, you look at the news, you look at life, you look at relationships, you know, people are always going to let you down and disappoint you. But I think the key to happiness and the key to success is don't hold on to it, let it go. Let it roll off your back, forget the past, it's not staying with you. Don’t spend your time focusing on where you are, spend your time focusing on where you're going. You know, forget it fast, forgive easy. Be gentle. And what you'll find is that you're always focusing on the future, you're bettering yourself, you're empowering those around you and you're focusing on, the growth of your business, not what your business lost. And so that's why it's important. That's why it speaks to me.

Adam:  Is there anything else you would like to share?

Dave: The number one lesson that you can learn in businesses is never take your eye off the ball, never take your eye off your business. No matter how big you get, no matter where you're at in life. It's always good as the owner to have a pulse on as what's happening in the day-to-day operations. Don't let that wander you see great brands, brands like Sears brands, like Circuit City, brands like Blockbuster, and they took their eye off the ball at some point and they weren't there for the innovation and what was coming next. They were just happy with the status quo. They were happy with the growth that they had. And what happened was eventually they became nonexistent. I think, you know, as an owner, focusing on where your business is at and always working to take it to the next level was super important. I mean, when I started in this business 20 years ago, we didn't have cell phones, we weren't using cell phones like this. We had an office phone, you called on the office phone, you left a message when we were open. And that was it, right? There was nobody hitting you up with email at nine o'clock or text message or whatever. And you look at where we've come from, you know, now, you see the commercials on TV learning with TikTok. You know, there's over a billion people on TikTok. So, you know, really focusing on, you know, what's happening in the world in the industry, that way your business doesn't get left behind?


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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