Being in the pallet business is sort of like getting into the boxing ring, suggested Steve Mazza, president and owner of S&B Pallet in New Jersey. One of the keys to Mazza’s success has been finding the right business coach.
As the incoming president of the Western Pallet Association (WPA), Mazza invited his coach and mentor, Josh Klenoff, to speak at this year’s WPA annual meeting.
Josh Klenoff is the founder and CEO of HELM, a strategic CEO coaching company.
Klenoff uses an approach he calls “The System” to help business owners get out of the weeds and strengthen their leadership team to grow their company. After the WPA meeting, Mazza and Klenoff talked about their relationship and what it takes to succeed in business.
Pallet Enterprise: So, how is being in business sort of like being in the fighting ring?
Steve Mazza: I’ve been doing mixed martial arts before anybody even called it mixed martial arts. In business, every day you’ve got to be ready to be in the battle, and you can’t give up. You can’t walk away, man. You just got to stand there and figure out how to get through it.
Josh Klenoff: CEOs are fighters. They don’t give up easily. That part of persistence is great. The other part of their persistence isn’t so great. Most CEOs get stuck in the weeds and stay there too long, sometimes never finding the freedom that attracted them to entrepreneurship in the first place. They’re being controlled by their business instead of being in control of their business.
They go from fighting one fire to the next, stuck in perpetual firefighting. Instead, they could be doing far more valuable things like building big relationships, evangelizing their brand, innovating, and getting outside their four walls. Or they could spend more time with family, friends and traveling. To free themselves to do these things, they need a system for running their business, so things get done without requiring their constant involvement. CEOs are too often fighting the wrong fight.
Pallet Enterprise: Steve, can talk more about how this fighting analogy fits pallets and how Josh helped you?
Steve Mazza: As Mike Tyson said, ‘Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.’ The last year for the pallet industry has been fantastic. Everybody had a plan to expand and grow last year. Now, we are in 2023. Many are basing their plans on what happened last year. Some were thinking, ‘This runaway market is going to last forever.’ Then, all of a sudden, they get punched in the face. December 15th – in our market area, it was like the world shut down for the pallet recycling industry.
Cores are everywhere. Demand is down. Prices are dropping. Some are stuck with overpriced inventories. Now what? You can’t just give up and walk away. Nor can you stick to the original plan. You have to be able to react. And you can’t transfer your anxiety to your employees.
Looking at traps that CEOs can fall into, the biggest one that I see is that they aren’t able to let go of the small stuff, the hourly employee stuff. They want to keep their hands in everything. As a pallet company leader, you can’t be micro-managing dispatchers or repair lines. Too many leaders try to do everything except work on their businesses; you have to trust your leaders.
Pallet Enterprise: Ok, when you first met Josh, he said that you were in the wrong fight. Can you tell me a little bit about that story? How you met and why, and how he helped you out?
Steve Mazza: That’s a great story. I was working with some other pallet industry leaders to try to put together a pallet industry management system. It was called PIMS. I met Josh through some Wall Street types that were interested in the PIMS planning.
At the time, I was doing way too many things at once. I was working with a national broker; I had my own pallet recycling company, S&B Pallet. I owned a scrap metal and waste removal. I was running seven companies at the time. I was running myself ragged, and Josh helped me see that I needed to focus. I was an absentee owner here at S&B Pallet. Even though I have a good management team, they were not able to see the future like I was. And they needed my involvement and vision.
So, I brought in Josh’s team, and they gave us a ‘System’ to better run the day-to-day operations as well help key employees see the future. My managers started to become visionaries too for the future of the business. Josh’s system made sure that everybody was in the right seat, doing the right job as part of the team. And one of the biggest improvements is that they learned to say the things that usually go unsaid within a team.
Pallet Enterprise: Based on the conversations you had at the WPA meeting and the notes that were generated by the breakout groups, what do you think are some of the biggest problems that pallet companies are ignoring and need to address?
Josh Klenoff: The biggest challenge seemed to be that people were talking about what’s happening to them. As if it were traffic. Most people think traffic just happens to them. They don’t realize that they’re a part of it.
People have agency. Each of us shapes our future. And together, we can create a very different future. The pallet industry appears to have a big opportunity and some big threats. If people wanted to mobilize and coalesce around a worthy goal, the conversations would sound different. But not enough of the attendees were focused on this. They spoke about tactical and incremental changes in their business. If the industry remains highly fragmented without strong coordination, then the future may happen to them instead of being shaped by them.
Pallet Enterprise: What are lessons you have for the pallet industry? And what are some mistakes people make around goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)?
Josh Klenoff: The biggest problem with KPIs at most companies is that they don’t use them. There are plenty of companies that create goals and KPIs. Unfortunately, they don’t end up using them. Companies develop KPIs and forget them. Managers feel like they have done their part. Very few companies extract insights and problem solve to discover why workers are not meeting or exceeding their targets.
Another problem is the lack of true accountability. Every goal needs an employee who takes ownership for it. Because if we’re all accountable for something, no one’s accountable for something.
Pallet Enterprise: Your ‘System’ has five roots for business success, the 5 Ps. These are people, priorities, problem solving, processes and paradigms. Can you explain your system and why it is attractive to pallet companies?
Josh Klenoff: So, if a company wants to shift from spinning its wheels and fighting the same fires each day to solving its problems once and for all so it can move on to bigger and better opportunities, it needs to get to the root of its problems. One of those roots, for example, is people.
And just one of many ways to strengthen this People root is to designate someone as the Operator, or find an Operator, for the business, in order to free the business owner to do the things we mentioned earlier like focus on bigger relationships and not get pulled into the weeds.
But we guide companies on a bunch of things they can do to strengthen each root.
For more information on the ‘System,’ your readers should check out my book, “The System: How Companies Get Their Sh*t Together.” They can request a free copy by emailing support@helm.ceo.
Pallet Enterprise: Josh, you also run a staffing company. Probably the number one challenge for most pallet companies is to attract and retain the right people. What can the pallet industry do better to solve its labor woes?
Steve Mazza: You have to look in places where others don’t. I am always looking for good people every place I go, and when I meet one, I try to develop relationships and let them understand the culture at my company. I may not have an opening that fits right then. But I make a note and will have his/her contact information for the future.
Josh Klenoff: A founder of a business sets the culture. Steve, I have seen you, like a lightning rod, transmit what you stand for. Because you have a strong culture, the wrong kind of people are going to be repelled. They are going to find someplace else to work. The problem with most companies is that they’re mute when it comes to culture. They don’t know what their culture is. They think culture is fluff. And they usually reduce it to virtue signaling and buzz words. Culture is an incredibly powerful thing. When people see that you stand for something, the right people can join you and will sacrifice a great deal to be part of the right tribe.
Culture outflows from values or principle, and principles plainly put are the things that piss you off when you’re with someone in constant conflict with your principles. If you strive for going above and beyond, and someone you work with is always satisfied with ‘okay’ or ‘decent,’ that’s going to frustrate you. But if you hire, fire and cultivate around that principle of excellence, the right people will move mountains to be a part of that organization.
Steve Mazza: We established core values at S&B Pallet, and it changed the way my employees look at coming into work. One of our core values is, ‘On time is late.’ When people come into the company, that’s the first thing they see on our door. So, if people don’t fit, it repels them. It’s like bear spray.
Pallet Enterprise: Josh, one of the things I really liked about your book was the hindrances that affect companies. The things that people need freedom from. Can you explain how success in business is as much a mental game as a numbers game?
Josh Klenoff: Yeah, it’s said, the worst prison is the one you don’t even know you’re in. I’ve spent a lot of time not realizing how trapped I was…working with people who piss me off… bumping up against the ceiling not knowing how to break through to the next level…Stuck in perpetual chaos without clear processes and training around them, and so on.
I got lucky. I met people who helped me break out. And I’ve dedicated my life to helping business leaders free themselves to achieve their potential.
I guide them through implementing management tools and disciplines. For example. a lot of business leaders tend to experience perpetual anxiety. They’re trying to do everything. The discipline they need is ‘letting go.’ Simple, but not easy. This is actually the hardest thing for many leaders. If you’re focusing on everything, you’re focusing on nothing. I guide leaders on how to focus on the right things.
Steve Mazza: For years, I had all this negative stuff in me. I was anxious because I never reached my goals. One of the things that Josh’s colleague said to me really sticks out on this point. He said, ‘You’re climbing a mountain, you want to get to the top…right? But when climbers get to the top of Everest, they have only a few minutes to look around before they have to start climbing down the mountain.”
The point of the story is you that you had better enjoy the journey. It’s not about getting to the top. That damn little lesson just stuck in my brain. It’s probably one of the most important things that I’ve learned. I’m a goals guy. And when I create a new goal, I had better enjoy the journey because when I get to the top, I am going to have to come down and then create a new goal.
Editor's Note: Josh Klenoff just started a YouTube channel, The CEO Show, https://tinyurl.com/yvaapdcm. It’s intended to help business owners get tools, insights, and perspectives on how to achieve greater success and freedom in your work and beyond.
