SPEAKERS

Sid Meadows

Intro

Hey friend, and welcome to the trend report podcast. I'm glad you're joining me today for another conversation with just me and you. I'm Sid Meadows and I'm a business leader, coach, consultant and a long-time student of the office furniture industry, and in this podcast, we have powerful conversations with industry leaders, innovators and others that are making an impact in their business and our industry. My goal is simple to provide you with valuable insights and information, resources and tools to help you grow and to help your business grow. So let's dive into today's conversation.

Sid  I don't know how to say it. Welcome to season five. Wow, I really can't believe that we've made it to the fifth season of the trend report. Honestly, it just doesn't seem real that when I started this journey in 2020 that we would be here today. So I thought we'd spend a little bit of time together today and I would share with you how the podcast has impacted me, maybe take a look back at a few memorable moments over the past four years and then share with you what you could expect For season five and a little bit about the future.

So let's talk for a second about how the podcast has impacted me. First, it has allowed me the opportunity to meet some really amazing people. I just never would have imagined all the people that I would have met or have met along this journey. It also has allowed me to Do something that I didn't know that I wanted to do, which was tap into being a content creator. I mean, I didn't realize that a being a content creator was actually really a thing and, honestly, I didn't know that that's what I was doing. And I'll tell you, I'm still discovering what it actually means to be a content creator and how to use it. But it certainly has allowed me to tap into that and it gave me this Creative outlet again that I didn't know that I needed. I never really thought of myself as a creative person, but here I am creating content and coming up with ideas for the show and structures and Interviewing guests and without scripts and these kinds of things, and so it really gave me this ability to tap into something creative that I just didn't know that I needed. I'm also gonna tell you it gave me quite a bit of courage and strength just to move forward. I tell you, being a podcaster and I know sometimes it may seem a little bit of glamorous and maybe it looks all put together and the website looks good and everything looks organized. I just gotta tell you it's a labor of love. It is not always easy, but I just kept pushing forward. I just kept pushing through it to get to where we are. I mean, this episode is example.

I've probably spent four or five hours Coming up with the structure of this episode, writing notes about what I wanted to talk about, be able to share with all of you. So I'm definitely a labor love, but one that I really, really enjoy, and I and the last thing that I would say is that it's probably the most important of how it's impacted me is the trend report Gave me a voice. It gave me a voice that I didn't know that I had or or that I didn't know that our industry actually wanted or needed. I never really thought of myself as a thought leader. I never really thought of myself as someone who would stand up and take a position on something and share it with the world. And you know, that little decision to say, hey, I'm gonna start this podcast Put me in the position to have this voice. That now I really appreciate. I honor it, I honor you and our industry by sharing my voice and my opinions may not always be the opinions that you want to hear, but I'm certainly sharing my voice with you in a way that I hope is helping you and helping your business and, if nothing else, hopefully I'm helping you think a little bit differently. 

So this next little bit is gonna be a little bit different from things I've done before. So in just a second I'm gonna this what we're gonna do now is I'm going to kind of go over some memorable Highlights of the last four years and I'm gonna go season by season and we'll start with season one and then There'll be a clip that's gonna play. You're gonna hear a little snippet of that season and then I'm gonna talk about it. So, starting out in 2020 with season one, let's take a listen to a clip from episode number six our first ever CEO chat With Chris Evanstad, the CEO of Nevers industry. You know you came in and you saw some things that needed to be fixed and you really went on this path of investing in the company and yourself. So what is it that today? What sets you apart from your competition?

Chris: 

Yeah, I'd say it's. You know, we've got kind of a nimbleness and can do attitude but the ability to customize our products from in a quick time frame as well. But you know, I'd say 85, 90 percent of what we do is customize your modified standard type thing and I think we've built a built a solid reputation in the marketplace of being able to, you know, accommodate certain needs.

Sid:

So, as I just mentioned, this was the first CEO chat that really started the journey of interviewing some amazing CEOs in our industry, and the list I actually wrote out the list. The list is kind of long. The CEO chats have included Bryce Stuckensnider of Lawfowl, ozzie Nelson of Nelson Worldwide, rich Arnold of Broadview Product Development, phil Palsteck of Desk Makers, bruce Plassman, the now retired CEO of AIS, boaz Azernoski of Simply Augmented, david O'Comin of Nook, max Verkamp of Indiana Furniture, chris Benendike of 3H Byron, lynn Clare of Fluid Concepts, ryan Chow of Hello Ray, chris Smith of KFI Studios, randy Sussowitz of ReCy, jim Contis of Parcel and Sam Richardson of the Identity Group, and I've just I'm blown away by all these CEOs that have honored me with their time and come on to the show to share their voice with you, and that's honestly why I started the CEO chat.

I started the CEO chat first and foremost to give us, as people that work within our industry, more access to the leaders inside of our industry, because I do believe that it's important that we get to know them. I think it's important that we hear their stories and then we understand what it's like to lead and build a business within our industry. And, honestly, it's also about what sets them apart, what makes them different, and I hope that you have enjoyed the CEO chats as much as I have and I got to tell you in the clip from Chris, he talks about what sets them apart and I felt like this was so very important that we all need to understand what sets our businesses apart from our competition. And then how do we share that with our customers, with our influencers, with our specifiers, so they understand why we are a really good choice for them to work with.

And I also think, as a bit of a personal development junkie and a coach, all the same, I think it's important that, individually, we also know what sets us apart, what makes us different, what makes us tick, what makes us successful. So I hope that you've enjoyed the CEO chats, I hope you enjoyed that clip from Chris and stay tuned. We got a lot more of that planned. 

All right, so let's dive to season two. 2021 is when season two kicked off. This is a clip from one of the most powerful conversations I think I've ever had. It's episode number 76. And it's about the transition of the family business with Evan Logarilla of Trinity Furniture. So, evan, obviously your dad got sick, had some issues and fought a great battle, but it was at this point in time that you probably realized that your role in the company was changing and you were going to need to. So tell us a little bit about the beginning of the transition, maybe give us a little insight about what you and your dad did to get you ready to take the seat that you sit in today.

Evan:

My dad was a perfect bill of health. It's crazy. He rode his bike almost every day and there's a thing called the Mount to the Coast ride bicycle ride in North Carolina where the participants literally ride from one coast to the other to the mountains, and I mean seven days, 70 miles a day. It always blew my mind that he did it. So he was very healthy. The cancer was just a blind side. And I was at Fabric Company I referenced earlier when he first found out and when we knew what he had upcoming, he and I immediately knew that it would be helpful if I got involved in that, got back into the company at that point from where just the minimal stuff that I was doing when I was younger.

But from there he attempted a stem cell transplant and it didn't work. But after they tried a bone marrow transplant and I don't know how much your listeners are aware of bone marrow transplants, but it's really a crazy, crazy thing because he was born outside of the US. There's a national bone marrow bank Be the match is helpful in that is organization and they went to search through the bank to figure out if they could find one and he didn't have any matches. They looked at our family didn't have any matches. They looked at his immediate family didn't have any matches. So they had to go international and they found three that were a perfect 10 out of 10 match and because of that transplant it saved his life and got him another five to six years that we wouldn't have had the opportunity.

I can't be thankful enough for that and it just shows how fortunate we are that they were able to do that. And so, like I said, whenever he got the cancer is when I got involved he had multiple, my lima and I keep saying how fortunate he is in this conversation because my dad wouldn't have looked at it. He would have appreciated everything. He was so humble and he never wanted to say this is me, me, me. He would just put it off on everyone else because he didn't want to be the center of attention. He lived that way every single day, and so I know that he felt the same way about our employees here and he would always say that they're the reason why we're successful. It's not something that he did. I'm just extremely appreciative of how he set everything up there and I want to continue that thought process, okay.

Sid:

The story that Evan and I talk about and he shares about his dad and his dad prepping him for taking over the business after realizing that his cancer diagnosis needed more attention and he needed to step away from the business. And I will just tell you, this is one of the most powerful conversations I've ever had. It was my privilege to get to know Evan and George. Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to share George's story straight from George before his passing, but it is one of my favorite episodes and, again, my privilege to share the story and the legacy of George Logrilla and now how his son, Evan, is moving the business forward and taking it to the next level. And I've always been a fan of small businesses and through my podcast he gave me an even deeper love about sharing the story of the small family business and how they not only impact our industry but how they impact the communities they live in, they work in, where their factories are and, honestly, how small businesses are truly the heartbeat of the US economy and the American business platform. And I just. It's a privilege for me to be able to share those small business stories and especially this story of being an American immigrant all the way to building an amazing business that's now in its second generation of leadership. And the moment for me, the takeaway for me from this episode is that we me and you don't need to miss out on the special moments in life. Take advantage of what is right in front of you, take control of it. Take advantage of what's right in front of you. That's my big takeaway from that one. 

All right, so let's move on to season number three. This is 2022. This is from the momentous episode number 100. This is a clip from Trevor Block, with Indiel interviewed me for episode 100, which, hey, trevor, I appreciate you, man. And this is a clip about the beginning of the trend report from a very special episode, number 100.

Trevor:

But, Sid, let's just start off with something simple. Why did you get started with this podcast?

Sid:

So it's a really great question and I actually get asked this quite a bit. You know, April or March 2020 happened and the world started changing a little bit, and in the very beginning of all this, people started panicking just a little bit, and I found myself like a lot of solo prenures and a lot of entrepreneurs with a lot of free time on my hand. I had customers that said, hey, let's pause things for a couple of months. I had customers that said, hey, we're done, we don't know what's happening, and so I had a lot of time on my hand and there had been this thing called a podcast on my list to do in every day in my journal. One of the questions is what's one big project that you really want to do but you're not going to do today? You can put off till later. For a year it was podcast, and so I'm sitting in my office and I'm like, what am I going to do now? I got off this free time for a couple of months and it hit me I'm going to start a podcast. So I went to the University of YouTube and I typed in how do you start a podcast? And I spent a couple of days watching a whole bunch of videos and getting myself educated on how to create a podcast, I went and downloaded the software. I had a Silver Yeti mic, which is not the right kind of mic for podcasting, and so when I started after I figured it all out I was talking on my laptop through the speaker and I had an entire detailed script. Like episode one is totally scripted. If you go back and listen to it you'll probably tell I'm reading it and Trevor is really funny. I'm sitting here and all around my laptop this is where I have my monitors that I have now but all around my laptop I have pillows, and so I created this little cave because I thought, oh, that'll help the sound If I have pillows all around me. I do not have a picture of that. I wish to stay out a picture of that, but that's why I got started, because I had a lot of free time on my hand, and then I learned, and then me and the pillows took off to the races with the script in episode number one, a lot different than where we are today. All right, so you know I love that story, how I started it, the decision that I made. When I'm looking around with nothing to do. And thank you, university of YouTube, for teaching me how to start a podcast. You didn't teach me how to get better and to hone my craft Other people did that but you know this was a really great decision for me.

It was probably one of the best both personal and business decisions I think I've ever made in actually starting it, and I often think fondly back to those first few episodes. I've listened to a couple of them in prepping for this particular episode and then I've listened to some of the most recent ones and you know I'm really proud of how far I've come as a podcaster, as a content creator. I'm really proud of how far the show has come and how it has grown organically over the last four years. And you know it's my honor to be a voice in our industry, as I mentioned a couple of minutes ago. It's my honor to be able to share insights and information with you. You know my hope is that you have found the content, the interviews, the solo episodes beneficial and helpful for you and for your business.

All right, so let's go to 2023 and season four. Now this is straight from episode number 129, which was the last episode of 2023. This one is in this one's title. The OG furniture nerd shares her secrets with Diane Marotta, and while this is a great clip, take a listen.

Diana:

So it turns out I'm actually really creative in the space of problem solving. So it turns out that one of my superpowers, which I learned through the technical pieces of my daily job, I'm really really strong at problem solving, and whether that's problem solving of furniture or in a reconfiguration, or starting a business that is not a business and starting a business when back at the time when we started, we were using dial up internet, said dial up internet.

Sid:

Oh my gosh.

Diana:

So that is where my creativity comes out and becomes a real strength. And well, certainly, over the years, we've learned really quickly that there are hallmarks of dealer designers that are really, really important, and in certain types of dealer designers and that being a strong rule follower is one, and then being really detail oriented and being able to dive deep into a project or a topic those are really important things to look for in dealer, designers for sure.

Sid:

So I really appreciate the problem solving and tying that to creativity, because I think that's very, very important. And I remember gosh, probably six or seven years ago, asking someone that I had been working with because they tell you to do this right, like, ask the people that work for you or work with you, what do they see as your strengths and your weaknesses? And so I was having this conversation with somebody and this I never will forget this this guy I won't name his name, but he said one of your biggest strengths is creatively solving problems

Diana: 

And. I thought, I know right.

Sid:

But I thought to myself, I never actually thought about it that way, and now, as I sit back after somebody brought it to my attention. Now I see it Like I see it. When somebody puts a problem in front of me, regardless of what it is, I can in some way figure out a path to the other side. And it is tapping into my creative genius, if you will, because picking colors and finishes ain't one of my creative geniuses. Let's be clear.

Diana:

Right, right With you.

Sid:

But business, on the other hand, is.

Diana:

And I think, Sid, the creativity too is what I have experienced of you is that not only do you see a path forward, but I hear you talk about multiple paths forward, that there's options, we could do this, this or this. And I think that's also where the creativity comes from, because it's not for me anyway, running a business it's not a linear process. Or putting a team together that's a highly effective hyper-performing team. That is not a linear process. So the ability to see ultimately where you want to go down the road, but to see there's multiple ways to get there, One's not right, one's not wrong, and to test and try a direction and then to be able to redirect. I have seen you do that and I think that's also been really helpful in my career and in building a business. I think being open to multiplicity is that a word we just made up. Being open to multiple paths forward is really important.

Sid:

Well, I think the biggest takeaway there is it's life's not linear, your business is not linear and the world's not linear. So you need to be able to take the ability to ping pong, make little micro pivots and adjust as the world throws crap at you, because you're going to get things thrown at you. You know that chat with Diane was absolutely so much fun. We've actually never met in person, only on Zoom. We follow each other, connect with each other and she's a pretty amazing lady. And you know, one of my biggest takeaways from my conversation with her, especially that clip, is to really understand what is your zone of genius, with mine being creative problem solving, Diane's very much leaning into the same thing.

You know what is your zone of genius and how do you use it, how do you leverage it for your career and for your business. You know, for me this is not something I was actually taught. These are things that I've only learned later in life. To kind of dive into these things, most of you have heard me mention before that in my early career in business, professional development really wasn't a thing, and so I'm honored to be on this journey of learning and growing learning about myself and growing from those learnings, and you know, when you really think about it, when you're doing what you love and you're leveraging your strengths, you're really enjoying life a lot more Honestly, I wonder if you're actually even really working.

Here's my question for you what's your zone of genius? Where is it that you're in that state to flow, or the flow state as they call it? I think it's really interesting to try to go on this journey to discover it, and I'm going to give you a little insight to this season, season five.

If you don't know and you're curious about how you want to discover it, stay tuned. I've got a great episode already recorded. It will be episode number 131, so the one following this one with my guest and let's just say he and I explore zones of genius and maybe we might reveal a little more about me and my strengths during that conversation. And I just wanted, before we move on to the next section here,

I just want to take a minute and I want to say thank you to everyone that has been a guest on my show Gosh there, I mean, there's been such an amazing list of people roughly 115 people have given me the gift of their time and allowed me to interview them and each and every one of you are amazing, and it was so hard for me to pick just four memorable moments because, honestly, for me they're all memorable. And again, thank you to each and every guest for allowing me to share your story and giving me the opportunity to play a really small role in your journey. So thank you.

All right, so what can you expect from this season? This was a labor of love for me to figure out, because I have a word of the year and it's called reinvention and lots of different meanings to that word for me. But reinvention for the podcast means mixing it up a little bit, changing it, being a little bit different, standing out, trying to make sure we're reaching the right people and more people. So I actually hired a coach His name is Mark Ronick. Mark's an amazing coach podcaster. He's also a friend and hired Mark and we worked together to kind of come up with ways to change the show and improve it, and so hopefully, we've done that.

And so here's what you can expect from this season First and foremost, more amazing interviews with amazing people. We got some great guests lined up for this year, so I'm excited to share that we're going to continue with the CEO chat, bring you more voices of CEOs in our industry, and the solo episodes that I've done over the past few years I titled them professional development episodes right, those conversations that are like today just mean you. Those have been really popular, so thank you for tuning into those. We're going to do more of those. In fact, we're going to do at least one of those a month. So we're going to have, rather than two episodes, we're going to have a minimum of three episodes coming to you each month, starting in February, and then we're going to do something a little bit different.

Next, I'm going to have a roundtable discussion with a few industry friends and we're going to talk about some topics. We're going to share our thoughts on things in and around our industry and I'm really looking forward to bringing that to you. I believe there's going to be four of us total just kind of talking about things in our industry, hopefully to get your, get your thinking and get your creative Jesus flowing and so super excited about that. And then bring you a few Not sure how many yet, but a few. What I'm what I'm titling is impact interviews, and these are interviews. That will be me interviewing them a little bit, but them interviewing me a little bit. But these are interviews with some really special people in my life that have meant a lot to me, and so I'm excited to bring that component to you.

And then the last thing is this is going to be fun, and so I'm excited about this one. I think I'm excited about the whole whole season. Honestly, this is what I'm titling listener episodes. I have more to come on this, but I'm excited about this component of the season where I'm going to get some of you to come join me on the show. And so many of you have reached out to me over the years, whether it's sending me an email, a text message, a LinkedIn note telling me, stopping me in the hallway at Neocon or meeting me at some place I'm traveling to and told me about how much you enjoy the show and what the show has meant to you and done for you. And guess what? I'm going to ping a few of you and invite you to come join me and let's talk about that. Let's talk about the power of professional development, let's talk about our industry, let's talk about how podcasting can be beneficial to businesses and so much more.

Ok, so now let's talk a little bit about the future. I thought a lot about this. My friend Dominic said the other day. I heard him say this and you guys know who Tony Stark is from the movie, oh my gosh, he plays a Marvel character. I can't even remember what character he plays now. Iron man. There you go. Iron man, tony Stark. He said a quote that is part of the journey, is the end, and with that it is time for the trend report to come to incident. Just like every story, there's a beginning, there's a middle and there's an ending, and after five seasons it's time to close this chapter of the trend report. But I reserve the right to open this book again and to bring you another chapter or two or three and share more stories with you. But just because this chapter is closing doesn't mean you can't still tune in. There's a hundred and some odd episodes back and episode catalog for you to go listen to. So go check them out. But you know I thought a lot about this and this is not the end of my content creation. This is not the end of my podcast. He, by any means. I got a couple of ideas of some projects I'm considering working on, but it just feels right to me it's a little bit of emotional, I got to tell you, but it just feels right to me that now is the time to close this book. So in the final episode of the year, which will be at the end of December, I will take a look back on my journey of the last five years of being a podcaster with a few of my really close friends, so I hope that you'll come back and join me for that episode.

One last thing I want to say to you today, friend, is the most important thing that I want to share with you today Is my thanks and gratitude for you. Reach you, each and every one of you that have joined me on this journey. You will never, ever know how humble I am, how grateful I am and how honored I am that you gifted us your time put your earbuds in, or what's done, youtube and you gifted us your time to hear me talk about something I'm super passionate about and that I love, which is the office furniture industry. And some of you I know, some of you I don't know, but I'm keeping it together, I promise From the bottom of my heart. Thank you. Thank you for being part of my journey and so many of you have reached out to me over the years and shared all of your insights with me and how the show has helped you. And I guess that a minute ago, but again I will. I'm always be grateful for that. Be grateful for you and your impact on me and for letting me be part of your journey.

Outro:

All right, go out there and make today great. I'm really glad that you joined me today for this episode of the trend report. I hope that you found it beneficial. I hope you're excited about season five. I hope you will join us and stay with us along this journey. You can listen to her Every listen to your favorite podcast. You can always head over to SidMeadows.com forward slash podcast and check out the episodes there, as well as the show notes. So, with that, go out there and make today great and see you again soon. Take care everyone.