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By Joe Basi and T. Virgil Parker
The willingness to hang steady on the sublime edge of experience is indeed what sets the industrialist apart from the merely industrious. Many CEO’s try to prove their prowess by flying a balloon around the world, or skiing to the North Pole. Now imagine somebody who bagged their first million by the age of 24 , smirking while he faxes his resume to The Apprentice. For someone who has made his mark by launching a few very successful corporations, this borders on bravado. What happens to the bottom line if you bottom out?
Sometimes you can define success by watching the exact way someone crashes and burns. This is never more true than when 11,000,000 people are watching. Josh Shaw managed to turn a very major, very public belly flop into a swan dive. This shouldn’t be surprising. You understand at once when talking with Josh that he is not your typical Apprentice candidate.
T. Virgil Parker: You came into The Apprentice as a successful entrepreneur. Why take the risk?
Josh Shaw: At the core of any entrepreneurial spirit is risk-taking. If you're a true entrepreneur, risk-taking is something very common to you, something you're comfortable with. You're comfortable with discomfort. For me the show was a number of opportunities, but if I were to boil it down, firstly, getting my company, Go Smile, on the map. Secondly, getting to know Mr. Trump. No matter how successful you are, to be able to rub elbows, and build a relationship with a self-made billionaire, anyone would agree that it would be a tremendous opportunity. Finally, I'm an athletic soul, I suppose. I love the challenge. The opportunity of competing with so many people to get onto the show was the first challenge, and then to take it to the next level on the show is challenge two. All in all, I feel lucky that I had the opportunity to go on there.
TVP: There's so much mythology about Donald Trump. Did you feel that
you were in the presence of greatness, or just an unusually good CEO?
JS: Both. I was in the presence of greatness, and an unusually good CEO.
I've come across many great CEOs. I've worked with and presented to
dozens of the best in the world, whether it's Michael Dell, or a Howard
Schultz, or John Scully. Mr. Trump is by far one of the best I've seen.
He's extremely bright, extremely articulate, has a tremendous presence
about him, and at the end of the day, has the ability to inspire others.
To me, that's the consummate entrepreneur and successful C.E.O.
TVP: Having already proven yourself in business, how good is The
Apprentice at representing the real business world?
JS: Phenomenal. I think in the context of television, and the further
context of reality television, you don't get much closer to a show that
can properly depict business. The art and the talent displayed by Mark
Burnett's production company and by Donald Trump, is of only the best
caliber. They have done an incredible job of setting up the environment,
very much like an entrepreneurial environment. Many tasks are similar to what we go through at Go Smile. A very intense, passionate environment of type A personalities, all rowing for a common purpose.
Not common in a startup environment like Go Smile is the whole 'If you
lose you're all in the boardroom, fighting it out, trying to kill each
other.' But- the task itself- is so akin to real world business, it's
frightening. From personalities that you have to deal with whether you
like it or not, to conditional restraints, to timelines, budgets, you
name it, it is a phenomenal microcosm of the real world.
TVP: Have you taken from the show a new understanding of consensus
building models as opposed to leadership models?
JS: Being an entrepreneur myself -having built three companies- a lot of
what is portrayed on the show is very similar to what occurs in my
company today. We lead many of our discussions by consensus, but
oftentimes leadership needs to be driven by a decision-making process.
There is not a black and white answer to your question. There are
general rules of thumb, but it's a case by case. Depending on the topic
at hand, you either lead by consensus, or you make decisions in a
singular motion.
TVP: What do you feel is the strongest attribute that you bring to the
table in the world of business.
JS: My strongest value is that I am, I believe, a very balanced leader.
I have a balanced approach to managing people, managing expectations,
and delivering results. I lead by example, not with fear. I lead more
with passion, and with practicing what I preach.
TVP: What's more important, inspiration, or organization?
You had to pick inspiration versus organization. I'm going to with
inspiration.
TVP: You signed on a number of the Apprentices, or are in the process of
doing so.
JS: Yeah, we hired Chris Faletta, former NFL Player gone entrepreneur.
And, I've got my Go Smile Direct Division, which is marketing direct to
consumers.
TVP: How much does friendship play a role in hiring and business in
general? Where does it end, and where does professionalism begin?
JS: I would say that friendship does not play a primary role in
business. However, DNA and chemistry is a primary factor. You have to
have the right DNA, the right chemistry in order to work productively
and cooperatively for success. That said, my follow-up comment is that
at this stage of my life I need to be friends with the people I'm in
business with, and also be in business with my friends. That's kind of
the stage I'm at from a qualification perspective. That said, business
is business, and it's nothing personal. I'd like to be friends with
everyone who works within the organization, the reality of that is that
if it's not working, that person that you're friendly with may need to
leave your company.
TVP: What advice would you give to a new business owner just staring
out.
JS: Passion. Have a lot of passion. Be very intimate with what you're
building. It really drives everything. Secondly, have a big vision and
keep your eye on the vision. Be organized and have a plan to reach your
vision.
TVP: Do you believe that you've learned certain things from seeing
Donald Trump in action, what key moves he plays?
JS: I've learned from everyone, but I've learned quite a few things from
Mr. Trump, in terms of psychological, personal, and interpersonal
skills. I've witnessed him in action and I've seen how he engages
people, his body language, his tone of voice, his vernacular- a host of
things. I think what's most important to me that I've learned is that if
you set your mind to it, and you don't let other people put you down,
you can achieve anything. He has literally proven again and again that
if you set your eyes on something, and you set your vision- you go for
it- and you don't let anyone try to pull you down- there's going to be
people trying to combat you or pull you back- you can do anything.
TVP: You attended University of Albany. What do you think about the
Upstate economy? Where do you feel improvements can be made? What are
the challenges?
JS: I think there's a host of areas where the economy can be improved,
beginning with real estate development and further development towards
Upstate. I haven't been back in Albany in quite some time, but I do
think that there's immense opportunity to develop more resources and
really build up the communities between New York City and Albany.
There's a lot of great opportunity up there with respect to courting
businesses to set up their headquarters. If you look at a place like
Dallas Texas, there's just a lot of open land, and not a lot to do.
There's places in Texas where they've courted business, and the J.C.
Penny headquarters opened up shop, the Frito Lays headquarters opened up
shop. You have a host of companies who have literally settled there.
They really created an economy overnight. If we're smart, we should be
capitalizing on the fact that New York City is in many ways the center
of the universe. To be an hour, two, three hours outside the city, is
enormously beneficial. The price of real estate Upstate is not expensive
to have that kind of access.
Joe Basi: Our Class, Professor Pat Dozario's Com. 406 Class is modeled
around The Apprentice and we've been watching you devotedly throughout
the semester here. I wanted to ask you how it felt to be the project
manager for what has become known as the biggest defeat in the history
of The Apprentice. I don't have an angle on that; I want to know your
true feelings about it, what you took out of it, what the intensity was
like in that boardroom.
JS: First and foremost I'll have to say that there's only one true
winner of the eighteen contestants, but there's going to be 17 winners,
that were selected out of the many who tried out. Second of all, I'm
going to say that if I'm going to go out, I'm going to go out in Trump
style. I'm going to go down in flames and be remembered. I'd rather go
out and be remembered than not be remembered at all.
JB: I can respect that.
JS: Third of all, I think if you go into this with the right attitude,
no matter how you're taken down, you still go out with your head held
high and you feel great about the experience. Everything is lemonade to
me. I don't let things hold me back. That's a very important thing for
entrepreneurs: Always keep a positive perspective. Think solution, not
just problem. The reality of that episode, the way they needed to edit it for general
public viewing, is that they have to do it in an way that keeps it
simple. To make it look like it was a straight sales task, and a
straight sales loss of that magnitude, is the easiest way for the
general viewer to understand. That isn't what actually occurs. I've had
a few interviews where the audience sitting or watching was educated,
astute enough to really lok at what occurred and watch the details and
acknowledge that it wasn't a true sales task. If you wanted a true sales
task to measure sales ability, you would have had both teams compete in
the same sport. Or, you would have had both teams compete on a different
sport, measuring the increase against the prior year, same day. The
minute they introduced the two conditions of showing an increase over
prior four weeks, and you have to have different sports, it became a
strategic task, not a sales task. That task was in April. Baseball
season has already started. All the likely consumers or purchasers of
baseball equipment have already purchased. Anyone buying golf equipment
is still buying, and it's on the way to the peak of the season. So the
person that picked golf, no matter what you did for baseball, was going
to win. When you peel it back and look at what happened- and this isn't
Josh the entrepreneur rationalizing a loss, this is me saying I own the
loss. I was PM. I'm going to go down in flames like Trump would, thank
you very much. But, let's call a spade a spade, I could've picked golf,
and the other team would have been stuck with baseball. I didn't. I
picked baseball first. When you think about the Delta of the loss, if
we tripled our sales that day, we still would've lost the call.
JB: I did think about that because the margin was so great.
JS: If I could go back to the boardroom and make my case, with time to
digest it without being emotionally bubbled up. I could sit there and
say that I'd like to challenge the task. Let our teams compete on the
same task. Our team, which was functional and worked fluidly together,
would blow away this dysfunctional team that not only had no sports
ability, but couldn't get along.
JB: I noticed that too.
JS: Mr. Trump has been very cool about it. He's been a sweetheart after
the show, he wrote the forward for my book, and he and I had a few
conversations recently. I had an interview on WB recently, 6:30 in the
morning, the crack of dawn; he called in for me. When they asked him why
he fired four people he could have easily gone with the party line, but
he didn't. He said he had to fire multiple people because we went from
sixteen shows to thirteen. And he had no choice but to let go of the
group, and that this was a great opportunity.
TVP: And it was excellent for the ratings.
JS: Yeah, all day long.
JB: We've really taken a lot of valuable knowledge from you and from the
show.
TVP: Given that you just acquired an unprecedented amount of publicity,
and the cross-fertilization and energy of the show, I'm going to guess
tat you have a big new project brewing, or are looking at other projects
in a new way.
JS: One thing the show absolutely does for the contestants- and the
viewers, really- is that it makes them realize how much opportunity is
out there, and how they probably didn't think big enough before. For me,
an entrepreneur, unlike most of the contestants, who weren't, it wasn't
that different than it was my whole life. I've always thought big, I've
always thought about my companies as having the potential to be billion
dollar enterprises. From me you won't hear from me that I'm going to do
something that I didn't think I could do before. I'm even more convinced
that Go Smile is a billion-dollar opportunity, and that Go Smile is the
next big idea, like Starbucks. There are a flood of opportunities that
come your way after being on the show, but it is more important that you
be smart about your time, and your investment of time. The biggest trap
that entrepreneurs fall into is confusing themselves by putting
themselves into too many places.
JB: I just wanted to thank you on behalf of the Comm 406 Class.
JS: Any time.
