Trust Your Experience: Interview with Jim Barr, CEO of Nautilus, Inc.
I recently went one on one with Jim Barr, CEO of Nautilus, Inc.
Adam: 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?
Jim: I had a great first role model in my Dad, who was a general manager at AT&T and later became the CEO of a public company. Business was often a topic of dinnertime conversation, and I learned a lot from my Dad’s experiences. So, from a young age I knew I wanted to run a business, that is, be some sort of general manager. At the time, I did not know if that would be my own company, a division of a big company, or as a CEO.
Early in my career, I collected experiences, including working at a CPA firm, in corporate finance/investment banking, and in strategy consulting. Twice, I decided to join clients because I wanted to dive into their challenges. I got my MBA at the University of Chicago while working full-time.
My career turned digital during 12 years as a general manager in Microsoft’s consumer internet businesses. I loved everything about it – the people, the insights, and the rapid pace of technology. I learned to manage business, people, and engineering, and from there, digital products and experiences became my career path.
I am grateful that I’ve spent most of my career where my passion lies, at the intersection of tech innovations and changing consumer needs. I’ve enjoyed helping good companies with strong assets that missed something: a trend, a change in value proposition, customer preference, or even technological disruption. I like identifying opportunities and supporting execution and recovery, leveraging a personal playbook I’ve honed through my experiences at Microsoft, at two major retailers, in industrial auctions, and now, in home fitness.
My very first transformation was more of a failure than a success – Encyclopedia Britannica. Some say they were the first casualty of the consumer internet, but I learned a lot. In particular, I learned how to spot flaws in strategy and to take a broad view of competitive substitutes. The other transformations since then have gone better!
All of my experiences have led me to become the CEO of Nautilus, Inc., a world leader in at-home fitness with our brands: Bowflex, Schwinn, and JRNY.
Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?
Jim: When I arrived at Nautilus in 2019, we had some assets I really liked – a mission that matters, some well-known brands, omnichannel go-to-market, and a strong culture. But we missed some big trends – we were going after the wrong target customer and running out of them, our products were dated, we had missed the connected fitness trend that made exercise way more entertaining and easier to stick with, and we were doing too many things for a company our size.
We created and executed a new “North Star” strategy that built on our strengths and addressed what we missed. It has five pillars:
Be consumer-led in all we do. We have a new target segment and let consumer needs lead our engineering capabilities.
Scale a differentiated connected fitness offering (our equipment made better with a digital experience).
Focus on only the essentials. We had to stop doing some things. We exited the commercial business to focus solely on home fitness and vastly reduced our SKU count, for example.
Turn our supply chain into a competitive advantage – this helped us a lot during the pandemic years.
Build the right organization and talent to do the above.
We also have an inspiring new mission, vision, and set of values. I am proud of both the strategy and its achievements so far, along with the team we have built. These are the things we need to have in place in order to grow.
The long-term opportunity in home fitness remains strong, but the business is still coming down from pandemic highs (our company executed well and more than doubled in revenue in the first fiscal year of the pandemic). Now we must navigate a tough macroeconomic environment as we keep executing for the long term.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
Jim:
Authenticity – be true to yourself and lead that way
Empathy – listen more than you talk, and see things through customers’ and employees’ eyes
Positivity – help elevate the energy
A strong desire to learn
The ability to broadly problem-solve
Inspire teamwork
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Jim:
Learn from every leader you come in contact with. I am a mosaic of the leaders I worked with and have met. I’ve studied and tried to emulate what I admired in each of them and I’ve made sure not to repeat what I thought did not work well. The same is true of learning from my own mistakes.
Excel in your area of expertise, but step up and solve problems that span other areas too. You will not only learn faster, but you will be more valuable to your company.
Practice CEO-like skills with every team you lead. These three key tasks do that: 1) set the direction; 2) ensure alignment (e.g., priorities and goals); and 3) get the right people in the right jobs.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Jim:
Push yourself at every stage to get outside your comfort zone – that is where the magic happens! I know a lot of people who played it safe and stayed in their comfort zone and regretted it later. I like the saying, “Regret for things we’ve done wanes over time; regret for the things we did not do is inconsolable.”
Early in your career, work on minimizing your weaknesses. Later in your career, understand your limitations and hire complementary people – those who are strong where you are weaker.
If you can, target functions and companies with a sustained tailwind. Growth is always more fun!
Have a plan and gain experiences versus following the money early. Once again, the magic happens outside your comfort zone!
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Jim: When building teams look for:
Team players – A “B” team player is better than an “A” player who is not a team player
Trustworthy people
No jerks
When leading and managing:
Determine whether teammates believe in the strategy; if they don’t, they need to move along
Encourage disagreement (in an agreeable way)
Set aggressive but achievable goals that are in alignment
Leverage each teammate’s strengths
Understand your directs’ longer-term personal and professional goals, and engage in a partnership to help them achieve these goals
Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing, and branding?
Jim:
When sales and marketing go well, make sure you know why so you can double down on what works.
Sales and marketing techniques should evolve with technology. For example, traditionally, Nautilus was ⅔ TV and ⅓ digital. Now it has flipped because it is more effective.
Brands really matter, but need to evolve. Be a steward of them, making them stronger. People know the Bowflex brand well, but we are working on modernizing the brand for new generations.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Jim: Good decisions are data-driven, but then you need to trust your experience. If you have to, be comfortable with making a decision with incomplete information – you may have only 60 to 70% of the data you would like, but it’s better to make a decision and quickly adjust to being wrong than to be paralyzed and make none, or one that is too late to matter.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is 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. 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. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, 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. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
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