Get Out of Your Own Way feat. Kevin Stoller

Christine Watts

[0:00:00]

Welcome to Impact Moments. Today we're joined by Kevin Stoler. Kevin is the founder of K12, a school furniture company. And he started that back in 2009. But what's really interesting is Kevin's story about why and how he founded the company. Going into schools and seeing how the right learning environment really impacted the students and the teachers and propelled their mission forward. He's now taken what he's done by starting running on eos, getting himself out of so many seats, able to actually scale his business and his time so that he started an actual operating system for schools called fasco. Fully Aligned Student Centered Organization. Really interesting podcast. Really interesting guy, Kevin, who's a member of Strategic Coach and eo. There's a lot to dig into, so let's get into it.

Christine Watts

[0:00:58]

Welcome to Impact Moments. I'm Christine.

Kris Snyder

[0:01:01]

I'm Kris.

Christine Watts

[0:01:01]

And we are going to be exploring those aha moments with leaders and entrepreneurs. We're so glad to have Kevin here with us today. Thank you for joining us.

Kevin Stoller

[0:01:09]

Thanks for having me.

Kris Snyder

[0:01:10]

Kevin, This is going to be a fun conversation. Like, you brought so much energy before you even got started, so I'm looking forward to it.

Kevin Stoller

[0:01:16]

All right. Yeah, I can't wait to see where you want to point this.

Christine Watts

[0:01:19]

Yeah, well, yeah, tell us a little bit about you first.

Kevin Stoller

[0:01:21]

Yeah, well, my background was video production. I thought in college I got to do an opportunity where I did a documentary on Michael Jordan, the commercialization of Michael Jordan. And I thought that's what I was going to do.

Kris Snyder

[0:01:35]

Do you mind giving us the year? Like what year was that?

Kevin Stoller

[0:01:37]

That was in 99. So at the end of the, the second three peat run and we got to go out to like Nike's headquarters and go to a bunch of the different companies that he was set up with. It was, it was awesome. And this was before ESPN was doing the 30 for 30, right?

Kris Snyder

[0:01:55]

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:01:55]

But that was like what I want. And I quickly realized I didn't get to do the projects that I wanted to in video production. So I went a totally different route after that.

Christine Watts

[0:02:08]

Yeah, so what route? Tell us where you started going after that.

Kevin Stoller

[0:02:11]

So I worked for a couple of Fortune 500 companies and figured if I ever wanted to do my own thing, I'd have to learn how to sell. I'm pretty naturally introverted, so I remember my father in law telling me later, he's like, when I heard you were going to like sales, they were worried. Exactly. Yeah. So, so I, I went through, learned a lot, made some good contacts and just learned how Organizations work and. But realized if I was going to do something on my own, I need to get out into this Fortune 500 and get into a smaller company. And. And that happened. I actually got recruited into a smaller company and brought one of my friends over that I met from previous company and said, hey, let's learn what they're doing here and let's see if this is something we can break off and do on our own. And that was the path.

Christine Watts

[0:03:00]

That's awesome. So you broke off on your own with a partner, it sounds like. And how long ago was that?

Kevin Stoller

[0:03:06]

That was in 2009.

Christine Watts

[0:03:08]

Okay, great.

Kevin Stoller

[0:03:08]

After that. So. Yeah. And yeah, a little over 16 years now.

Christine Watts

[0:03:12]

Yeah. And so you ended up finding EOS a few years into running your business.

Kevin Stoller

[0:03:17]

Yeah. So a couple years into running the business, I had business partner and I would look at each other and be like, we don't know what we're doing a business. We're like, there's gotta be other people that are in the same one. So we started trying to find out where are their different business groups, where. Where could we be around other business owners? And, and we got linked up with entrepreneurs organization, eo.

Kris Snyder

[0:03:38]

Eo? Yeah, there you go.

Kevin Stoller

[0:03:40]

I've been a member since and it's been a big part of my life. But that was. Yeah, 2012 was when got pulled into EO and EOS was making its round of. Of trying to. Yeah. Trying to explain what it was. And I would say for two years, I had probably read traction, heard the stories, saw some friends doing it, but didn't fully grasp what it really was. And then I had my, My aha. Moment.

Christine Watts

[0:04:11]

And what was that?

Kevin Stoller

[0:04:12]

It was in my conference room, sitting there alone. I had a. We had a team of six people at the time. And I was reading through it again on the accountability chart and I started writing it up on the. And visionary integrator, Sales, marketing, ops, finance.

Christine Watts

[0:04:29]

Yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:04:30]

And I'm like, okay, who's actually accountable for each one of these? And it was me, me, me, me, me. And that was a moment where I pulled everyone back into the conference room. Like, guys, I'm like, if we actually want this to turn into something, like, yeah, we need to do this. And I was amazed at that moment, people raising their hands and be like, well, I'll take that one, I'll take that one, I'll take that one. And that really started our whole journey.

Kris Snyder

[0:04:54]

And I only laughed because the fact that we hear that all the time, it is so common that, that, that impact moment where you're sitting there, you're figuring it out and you're like, I'm in all these seats. There's no way for us to scale. Right. Like, you can't get there. You can't get from here to there if you're in all those seats.

Kevin Stoller

[0:05:12]

Yeah. And it's amazing how much like the pride of the entrepreneur is. Is of like, I can do all of these things 100% and you need

Christine Watts

[0:05:19]

me to do all of them.

Kevin Stoller

[0:05:22]

And. And that was a moment. I'm like, oh man, this is really about me not doing this, about me getting out of the way.

Christine Watts

[0:05:28]

And your team was on board right away. It sounds like they.

Kevin Stoller

[0:05:31]

I mean, we went through it together. Like we, we actually self implemented. So we, we read the books together, we did our two day vision meetings, got our core values all together. So it was a really cool experience. And what was even better was There were about 25 or 30 other EO companies that we were all doing at the same time.

Kris Snyder

[0:05:51]

So you're. So you were self implementing with those other EO companies locally.

Kevin Stoller

[0:05:54]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. So would meet up every month or so. It'd just be like, what's working for you? What's not working for you?

Kris Snyder

[0:06:00]

So we have a Facebook group that's the EOS Self Implementers Unite.

Christine Watts

[0:06:05]

Right.

Kris Snyder

[0:06:05]

It's 5,000. 5,500 people.

Kevin Stoller

[0:06:08]

That's all.

Kris Snyder

[0:06:09]

And they're all doing it together.

Kevin Stoller

[0:06:10]

Right.

Kris Snyder

[0:06:11]

Which is one of those moments where you're like, yeah. Because you need to.

Kevin Stoller

[0:06:14]

Yeah.

Kris Snyder

[0:06:15]

Yes. You can hire a coach. You should if you can, but otherwise figure it out.

Kevin Stoller

[0:06:19]

Yeah. Something. If we had the resources and I felt more. I would have absolutely wanted to hire an implementer at the time, but it was more of like, we're a small company struggling, trying to figure out our way.

Christine Watts

[0:06:31]

Yeah. And leveraging each other.

Kevin Stoller

[0:06:32]

Yeah, yeah. Was pretty much our only option at the time.

Kris Snyder

[0:06:36]

Well, and it's 90% of the market, by the way. Like, like they will say EOS worldwide would say 90% of the market. Self implements. So. Yes.

Kevin Stoller

[0:06:45]

Yes.

Kris Snyder

[0:06:47]

It's awesome. Yeah.

Christine Watts

[0:06:48]

So how was it going through that initial phase of self implementing? You did the accountability chart, it sounds like. And then you really actually ran a whole two annual together.

Kevin Stoller

[0:06:57]

Yeah, we did Y. So we went through it, got our core values. It's really fun looking back at it now too. Just looking at the evolution of. Of where we had and looking at our vtos and how they've changed and.

Christine Watts

[0:07:07]

Yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:07:08]

And going through that. But our. For me, it gave, I always say, the selfish piece of this is the business which our business of K12, it's spelled weird of the K a Y dash 12 spelled out is that we were selling school furniture. We were selling stuff. I had zero connection to it. To me, it was literally like it did not matter what we were doing. And we were trying to sell it online in E commerce. And when we went through the process, we started actually figuring out what we care about and what our mission was. And it really, to me is what got me interested in and really growing the business is that we've. We found our mission. We found out we were like, this is not about selling stuff. And it really hit me when I walked into one of the schools in the community that I lived where a principal called me and said, hey, I have a teacher looking for a bunch of furniture. Can you sell it? And I'm like, sure, we can sell it. And then I came back three or four weeks after they'd been using it because it was different type of furniture than what we normally sold. And I walked into the lobby of the school and you just felt a certain energy coming from one wing at the school. And I went to check in and the principal who I became friends with came out and I'm like, like Dan, what. What is going on over there? And he just like smiled, had the smirk and you know, didn't want to tell me. He's like, just follow me. And as we get to the classroom and we're standing at the doorway, I'm watching this teacher just have kids like completely engaged in this like U shape around her, explaining what they're going to do for that lesson. And then she like claps like they're breaking a huddle in football. And again the groups of three or four, they all start talking. You see a couple kids break away when they need to like focus on their own teachers, like doing this dance through the classroom. At one point she gets everyone's attention and hands it off to. And this was a fourth grade class. Fourth grader just immediately does a presentation for the entire class, like just impromptu goes back and then by the end of the lesson they get back into their U shape and recap it. And I turned to Dan, who was the principal. I'm like, holy crap. Like I want to do this more. Like I just knew school of like straight rows, you put your head down and fall asleep, you know, Ferris Bueller model of school. And, and that really drove this mission that we brought into our, our two day planning session of like how do we actually make an impact? And that was really our big turning point.

Christine Watts

[0:09:50]

Wow. How do you feel like the team reacted to that, too?

Kevin Stoller

[0:09:54]

They immediately had energy to it. Like, it went from truly having a job of like, this is my job and I'm just going to go through the motions to now, like, being part of something. And it was really cool because, like, they truly were, like, they were building it with me. It wasn't like I was like, this is what we're going to do. I was getting as much energy from that.

Christine Watts

[0:10:16]

Right. So I'm. I'm curious about any of those, like, more difficult moments along the struggle, because this is 11 years ago that you started EOS.

Kevin Stoller

[0:10:24]

Right.

Christine Watts

[0:10:25]

And so, like, tell us about kind of like the evolution as you kept going.

Kevin Stoller

[0:10:28]

Yeah. I think a lot of entrepreneurs that sit in the visionary seat have had similar struggles with me as it's really hard to find the right integrating number two spot. Same way. I mean, we've been. I've struggled trying to get that right relationship, the right fit in there and for the right stage of growth of the company. Right. So that whole idea of GW seeing the roles and really going to it, that's like, there's so much to that. You know, when it started out and somebody came into that conference room and picked it, you know, she did a great job for what we needed at the time. But as we were growing and as we were evolving, those, you know, the demands and the needs start changing and. And as everyone got into their own seat, you start realizing where people are the right fit. So getting, Getting that integrator fit is just so important. I've had, you know, a handful of starts and stops on that.

Kris Snyder

[0:11:26]

Do you have like one to three things you would say to people who are like that moment right now trying to do it?

Kevin Stoller

[0:11:31]

You need to try it. I think the idea that you're going to find the perfect fit right away is.

Kris Snyder

[0:11:37]

Is just get over it.

Kevin Stoller

[0:11:39]

Yeah. You have to do something. Because the whole idea that you can sit in both seats, and I know a lot of people sit in even more than those two seats. You have to start doing it. The whole, again, EOS world of delegate and elevate. That is real. You gotta get into your unique ability. And I've struggled of when I've had to sit in both seats. Something has to give and, you know, and it's. Yeah. One of those two. I, I personally know that I'm a not a good integrator. I can do it if I have to, but it takes so much of my energy.

Christine Watts

[0:12:15]

Yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:12:16]

That when I find, you know, and right now we have somebody who's sitting there that is just like, that's their unique ability. They're so good at it.

Christine Watts

[0:12:22]

It's interesting too that you talked about the phases of growth associated with that too because I feel like a lot of people go into things thinking this is a forever decision. And if you go into it thinking what do we need right now? And hopefully that person grows with you. But if not, it's okay. And I know at 90 we leveraged like fractional leaders at a time where it's like we need to grow rapidly but we can't afford what we like a full time person at that caliber. So those kind of creative success.

Kevin Stoller

[0:12:46]

We've done that a lot too. Yeah. And we still have a few fractional leaders on the team right now.

Kris Snyder

[0:12:51]

I do want to give a shout out to Dan Sullivan right. When we start talking about unique ability. It's not an EOS thing. That's actually Dan's thing.

Kevin Stoller

[0:12:59]

You caught onto the terminology.

Kris Snyder

[0:13:01]

Oh yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:13:02]

That I'm throwing.

Kris Snyder

[0:13:02]

It has. It is. But I think it's true.

Kevin Stoller

[0:13:05]

Right.

Kris Snyder

[0:13:05]

Like I think that's what we're in pursuit of is to find that person who can do the thing they need to do different, special than you could ever do as a visionary.

Kevin Stoller

[0:13:14]

Yeah. And like.

Kris Snyder

[0:13:16]

And they will do it. And when you find it, you're like holy cow.

Kevin Stoller

[0:13:19]

Very much. And you know, strategic coach is something that I've been part of as well too because it is amazing the crossover that happens in all of these worlds that you get in there. But, but what I love about it is that it's not breaking EOs.

Kris Snyder

[0:13:33]

No.

Kevin Stoller

[0:13:33]

It's layering things on top of it.

Christine Watts

[0:13:35]

Right.

Kevin Stoller

[0:13:36]

That. So yeah. We've. We just finished a series last year of our leadership team going through 10x is easier than 2x. And it just because we have the EOS structure, because we have 90 already built into, into our workflow, it's so much easier to take those ideas to a different level.

Christine Watts

[0:13:55]

That's awesome. I'm. I'm curious about the other things that you've like layered on with EOS that you found valuable over the last few years.

Kevin Stoller

[0:14:03]

Sure. How.

Christine Watts

[0:14:05]

Yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:14:06]

You want me to go into some different, different ventures or.

Christine Watts

[0:14:09]

Yeah, let's see.

Kevin Stoller

[0:14:10]

So I like, I am one of those where like I geek out on eos. Like I, I love it. Like I am so there, there's a couple things that I've done. Like most of my things, like some fail, some get. Get a little bit. But I I've, I've implemented EOS into the startup mentality. So there's been a few companies that I've started that EOS was the foundation, which I think is pretty rare. Like, I feel like Most people find EOs it's because they've struggled in a business. They're trying in survival mode and they're like, how do I do this? And they find it.

Kris Snyder

[0:14:45]

It's about 10 employees typically.

Kevin Stoller

[0:14:47]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kris Snyder

[0:14:48]

If you're starting it, that's a little

Kevin Stoller

[0:14:51]

unusual, but it's definitely unusual. But it gave so much structure right away that I feel like doesn't, you know, most startups don't have that. Right. So that's really helped. Yeah. My brother and I had a podcast company that we, that we started using EOS from the beginning. I've actually done it with my son's friends who are seniors in high school. They wanted to start a business and I'm like, my guys, I'm like, I will meet with you every week and I'm just going to teach you this stuff.

Christine Watts

[0:15:18]

Fill out your vto.

Kevin Stoller

[0:15:21]

Yeah, we use Culture index too for you, like the figure out where their, their profiles are. And we did their accountability chart and got people into, that's. Into their, into their seeds. They started doing their weekly meetings and their scorecards and the rock. So that's really fun. But the one that, that I'm working on right now, that is to me like in alignment with my mission and my passion is that we started another organization called Education Leaders Organization that was meant to be support for school leaders during COVID And what happened is it evolved into these deeper discussions of like, how do you actually run your school? And when it came down to it, it was very much like what we hear in the business world. It's kind of by default, whatever was there, that's what they kind of picked up. Maybe they bring a new tool here and there. So we went through a book study going through of traction with them and I'm like, how does this relate to the school world?

Christine Watts

[0:16:26]

Right.

Kevin Stoller

[0:16:27]

And they came back and they're like, this sounds really interesting, but it's so different from like, we're not profit driven, like everything. All those like key aspects of it were just so different that they were like, well, maybe we can use a scorecard. Maybe we'll do kind of our, you know, our L10 weekly meeting in there. And they would take a little piece of it, but it didn't really make sense to them. Yeah. And the more we talked about it and the More that I was talking about it, I actually found a superintendent in, in Georgia that did implement EOS into his school district, made the modifications and he became my thought partner. And to us basically creating the EOS for school systems which we call fasco. So it's the fully aligned student centered organization. And we know that they're going to need tools like 90. So that's where we've been teaming up with 90 to build out the structure so that they do have that central alignment hub where they can use these tools and implement them throughout the organization.

Christine Watts

[0:17:34]

That's awesome. What's the uptake then from the people that you've been working with? Them seeing it and seeing the changes you make, how has that.

Kevin Stoller

[0:17:42]

Yeah, so we're early stages here working with school districts on that. So a lot of the feedback is still confusion. It's a lot of status quo. This is the way we've always done it. One of the biggest things that is eye opening, there's really two things, but we always start with the idea of the accountability component. And in our FASCO system the whole idea is that you're not profit driven, you are focused on student. So when we look at what we call our accountability circle where it's not the superintendent at the top or the school board at the top, it's really we're building an organization around the student. And so that's an eye opening moment for them to be like, man, like they've gotten so far away from that. They seem like these organizations are so top down driven that when you flip that mindset that opens things up. And then the second is where in EOS you have the scorecard and we call them the vitals. A lot of the times these schools are getting a lot of data, but it's reactionary data. They may get school, they may get test scores at the end of the year, but it is way too late to make any modifications during the school year. So what we look at in the vitals and that what we built out into the 90 system is that we are looking at those lead indicators. What are those things that they can look at on a weekly basis that we know are going to have a positive or negative impact, but we just want to catch it as soon as possible.

Kris Snyder

[0:19:18]

So many times I've seen a scorecard someone puts together and they're like, it's reporting, it's not leading, right? Like it's still lagging in that moment. I'm just trying to imagine the scorecard for a school and go, how is this Leading.

Kevin Stoller

[0:19:34]

Right.

Kris Snyder

[0:19:34]

Because you have to lead in the moment. Otherwise every week you're going to meet and like why would you do something different? You have to have something to do different. Right. Like let's just get better together and how we do it differently. And if you're just reporting, sure, maybe.

Kevin Stoller

[0:19:49]

Right.

Kris Snyder

[0:19:49]

But otherwise like you gotta get those leading indicators there.

Kevin Stoller

[0:19:52]

Yeah. And it's a fascinating seeing it in a school setting because I'm so used to it in the business setting you can look at it. It's similar things, you know, you're gonna wanna look at cash or maybe what your sales activity is or some of those leading indicators on the business side. But on the school side it is very different. It is things like, or the buses on time. Like we need to be looking at like the routes. Like, because, like what, like what are the reasons why. Because the biggest issue is if a, if a student doesn't show up, that's where they fall behind. So are they missing assignments are like times that you know, like they're asked there any type of discipline things that, if we can track those early on, maybe we can catch what those issues are early on. So we're not just looking at that test score at the end and being like oh great. Our school was.

Christine Watts

[0:20:47]

Yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:20:47]

Was not up to our standards or.

Christine Watts

[0:20:50]

Well. And it's really nice that you're providing people with this kind of base set of ideas for like. Yeah, maybe you would change some things about these KPIs or these measurables but like this is a good starting point. I feel like a lot of people just can't even get their brain to like go there and even take that first step of thinking about what a leading indicator could be.

Kevin Stoller

[0:21:09]

It's hard. Yeah, it's definitely. I mean we're all trained to probably looking more at the outcomes.

Christine Watts

[0:21:15]

Right.

Kevin Stoller

[0:21:15]

Like that's, that's. Yeah, that's where I feel like most people default look at.

Christine Watts

[0:21:19]

Yeah. Well, I'm. I'm curious to switch into a few rapid fire questions about you if that's okay before we wrap up. So I want to know what's something that you do that's not work related that makes you a better leader?

Kevin Stoller

[0:21:32]

So my morning routine, I have kind of a crazy stupid morning routine, but I swear it is like one of the most important things that I do. Typically it starts at 5:30am and I go to a park in my neighborhood that has a basketball court and I shoot 50 free throws and I do like four or five sets of those typically in a day. And I track it like I Google.

Christine Watts

[0:21:59]

So what's your percentage then track it.

Kevin Stoller

[0:22:03]

And I've gotten pretty good.

Christine Watts

[0:22:07]

I mean you're Gonna hit your 10,000 hours. So. Yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:22:11]

So I actually track like that's one of my goals that I write on my VTO is I want to make 25,000 shots every year.

Christine Watts

[0:22:16]

Nice.

Kevin Stoller

[0:22:17]

So but I've gotten to the point where I'm like high 80s percent that I'll make. But it's really has nothing to do about that with basketball. It's I listen to a podcast or book while I'm doing that and it sets my mind frame. Like it's this mix of medit, learning, physical activity, getting outside and I get in this like, you know, like 30 minute window to start my day and that like to me that's always like that is my super activity. That, that as long as I do that everything else will figure itself out.

Christine Watts

[0:22:52]

Well, that was going to be my next question is what do you feel like you're reading or listening to or watching that is like helping you grow right now.

Kevin Stoller

[0:23:00]

Yep. So I am. So I went from one of the people that would say like I'm gonna read and I say read but I listen to almost everything same. I'm just a very slow reader, but I can listen at like two or two and a half times the speed on things. I went from like I Wanna listen to 48 books this year and I would track that to the last few years. I have been listening to the same things on repeat a lot. So there's a handful of books that I've been listening to. You've already hit some of the topics of the strategic coach ones that are on repeat that 10x easier than 2x the gap and the gain, who not how. And then the science of scaling which has been Benjamin Hardy's follow up on there. And that's really been. That just repetitiveness has been so helpful and I think as a leader it keeps me focused on the right things where when I was listening to things all over the place I would have this tendency to want to bring that back to the team and have this, this type of whiplash of like I know we're doing eos, but I just learned about this.

Kris Snyder

[0:24:11]

The third time I do something, I do it better. So like in my, my bag over there I, I have 10x is easier than 2x right. And I'm through it again for another time.

Kevin Stoller

[0:24:22]

Okay.

Kris Snyder

[0:24:23]

And I'm just like making notes, thinking about it going there's a reflection point. But I was for years trying to get through 47 books versus going, oh, no, I'm just gonna go deeper into that one thing or two or three.

Kevin Stoller

[0:24:37]

What do you think of that? Doing it that way?

Kris Snyder

[0:24:38]

Oh, it's so much better for me. Like, it is because I was. The volume wasn't getting me there. Yeah, it was just volume. I was connecting the dots. I was taking it off. Right. But now it's like, what speaks to you and go, okay, where's the learning with what I need to do right now?

Christine Watts

[0:24:55]

Well, I think that's the biggest difference is situationally I'm dealing with these different things or like, trying to move something different forward. And so even repeating the concepts, I feel like is an interesting way to do it.

Kevin Stoller

[0:25:06]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, for. It's completely shit. I mean. And I'm at the point, of course, I have to listen to some of these. Like, some of them like 10 or 12 times. Like, I will be like.

Kris Snyder

[0:25:16]

Like, I'll.

Kevin Stoller

[0:25:16]

I'll refer to be like, oh, I really think we need to go back and look. Look at chapter six. Yeah, but it. But. But it really has helped me stay focused and go deeper into it because that is like the science of scaling that we're going through right now. We're trying to 10x our company here. It. Like, we need that. Like, we need that constant reminder because it is about getting. Removing things so that we just stay focused on the most important aspect.

Christine Watts

[0:25:46]

Well, my last question then is you're obviously a very, like, thoughtful and caring leader, and I'm curious to get back into the struggle and hear what's a biggest fuck up for you. Something went completely wrong and you had to recover.

Kevin Stoller

[0:26:00]

Where do we go? I have so many of these. So I have a story that I'm not. Do I tell it?

Christine Watts

[0:26:10]

Yeah, you do tell it.

Kevin Stoller

[0:26:11]

Yeah. Okay. So there was an era where marketing was kind of more like shock marketing. I don't know if you remember the Kmart commercials that they had this comedian and he would be in the store and he would talk about how they shipped his pants and that they shipped his bed.

Christine Watts

[0:26:30]

This is like at the start of YouTube, I feel like when there was like so many random things coming out and they were just doing videos on Facebook and stuff.

Kevin Stoller

[0:26:37]

Yeah, yeah, There were a lot of these just kind of like shock ones and got, you know, like, I think kind of like dollar Shave Club had their video that got like a ton of attention that basically grew it into from nothing to a billion dollar company. And I'm like, oh, we should do that. And this was prior to EOS world where we didn't really have a mission. So we had. We decided, you know, we. We sold furniture. We decided we were going to do this. This ad campaign called touch your butt where we would just go up to random people and ask them if we could touch their butt, get their reactions on camera.

Kris Snyder

[0:27:12]

And I have a reaction right now.

Kevin Stoller

[0:27:16]

And then. And then roll out a chair. Which chair that I like to put, as you can imagine, I went about as well.

Christine Watts

[0:27:25]

That's so great.

Kevin Stoller

[0:27:29]

So it's kind of this lingering joke of, like, how there's a lot of bad ideas and how I really need an integrator

Christine Watts

[0:27:39]

to filter them appropriately so

Kevin Stoller

[0:27:41]

that we don't go too far.

Christine Watts

[0:27:44]

So you really did it.

Kevin Stoller

[0:27:47]

Yes.

Christine Watts

[0:27:47]

I'm imagining a Billy on the street kind of thing. Guy with the microphone. Yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:27:53]

And it actually. The video was actually kind of funny.

Christine Watts

[0:27:55]

I'm sure it is. Yeah.

Kevin Stoller

[0:27:56]

But obviously did not. Did not help in our world of school furniture. Yeah.

Christine Watts

[0:28:05]

Oh, well, that's great. Well, I really appreciate you joining us today. Your curiosity and, like, drive to learn more is really inspiring. And I think if people want to connect with you or learn more About Kate Day 12 or anything else going on, how would they do that?

Kevin Stoller

[0:28:20]

LinkedIn is really the social media that I participate in. So this is Kevin Stoller on LinkedIn. And yeah, feel free to reach out.

Christine Watts

[0:28:28]

Cool. Thank you for joining us on Impact Moments. If you have any questions, reach out on our socials and go win the week.

Christine Watts

[0:28:40]

What a great conversation. I love Kevin's curiosity and his drive to take what he learned running his own business and apply it to a completely different world. I think the idea that schools could benefit from the same kind of structure and discipline, seeing the leading indicators, setting the goals that we use in business is really powerful. And I think the leaders listening to this will definitely connect with the journey of finding the right integrator. So if you want to connect with Kevin, you can find him on LinkedIn. KevinStoler. And as always, if you enjoyed the episode, share it with a fellow leader entrepreneur. If you reach out to us on socials, we'd love to see you next time on impact moments powered by 90. Go win the week.