Bearcats Mean Business podcast

Grant Freking: (00:00)
What does real world success in business actually look like? Welcome to Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business, where inspiring career stories, honest lessons, and fresh business perspectives from the people building impact in the real world come together. Tune in for inspiration, practical business insights, and forward looking though leadership on how ambition turns into action. And now for today's episode.

Marianne Lewis: (00:31)
Adam, thank you for being here. It, it's always a pleasure to engage and to learn from you and we appreciate your time and interest.

Adam Symson: (00:38)
Oh, it's such a privilege to be here with you. I feel like

Marianne Lewis: (00:41)
This is becoming a pattern. You and I had the opportunity to do this recently at a Fifth Third Chamber event and I, I came away very inspired and was grateful for the opportunity to expand with our students and alumni and our partners more broadly through the podcast.

Adam Symson: (00:56)
Well, it's, it's wonderful to be here in this building. Um, there's so much light and air here and, and the vibrancy and seeing all the students walk around it, um, it's, it's really

Marianne Lewis: (01:07)
Heartening to me. I'm glad you got to see that as well. There, there's a reason why it's so much fun to be at a university. It just, it makes me feel always both young and old.

Adam Symson: (01:16)
I'm, I'm, I'm ready to go back. There

Marianne Lewis: (01:18)
You go. I love

Adam Symson: (01:18)
It.

Marianne Lewis: (01:18)
For sure. Well, I mean, I think that's a nice way to kind of get us started, Adam, is, is to think a little bit from even your own perspective looking backwards. I, I often find, especially when I'm, I'm talking to students and I bring someone like yourself in who has a, a remarkable career and is sitting here as CEO and people think I could never get there, but you didn't start here. I mean, you have, everybody has this windy road that you don't expect. And I, I wonder if we could take you back a l - to your more formative years. I mean, you've worked as a producer and an editor. You were at several, um, LA area TV stations. But when you think about those formative years, are, what sticks out at you that really helped shape the way you lead today?

Adam Symson: (02:05)
Well, I'm, I'm sort of an accidental CEO. Okay. Um, because I didn't set out to do this. Uh, I really just wanted to, uh, be a journalist, um, specifically a investigative journalist. Uh, and so my life, my career has been, um, full of serendipity and a willingness, I would say, to, um, take a path even when the course down the road is not quite clear. Um, so when I think back, uh, you know, I, I, you know, I wasn't a, a business major nor was I, um, an econ major when I graduated from, from college. Uh, I really wanted to focus on, on doing journalism as a, as a trade, as a craft. Um, and, and what I recognized, um, is the curiosity necessary to be a good journalist has so much application - Mm. In the business world. Uh, especially if you're in an industry where you've got to be curious to identify, you know, that which is gonna be next or how you're going to navigate these difficult times.

Adam Symson: (03:10)
So it's, um, it, you know, my, my career has been sort of a winding, twisting road and, uh, you know, I, today I just have the privilege of being able to sort of continue to be focused on journalism and media, but to do so from sort of a scaled position. I don't get to write stories anymore. I don't get to work on investigations, but what I get to do today is ideally operate a business in a pretty difficult environment that allows us to continue to do that on scale across the country and, um, bring my values and my perspectives, my ethics to the table as a journalist in order to, to ensure that our company continues to support that kind of work.

Marianne Lewis: (03:53)
You know, it, it, I, I, I so appreciate that. And you're, you're reminding me of a, a faculty member when I was dean in London and all of her work was around expert leaders. And that means the doctor who becomes the head of a, a medical profession. It, it's a journalist who becomes the head of scripts. It's a. And, and it, it is a real step change because you could also bring in someone who is truly a professional manager, right? And so you, you have both the legitimacy of walking in their shoes, but also the, the challenge and opportunity of seeing it differently. I'm wondering in that path if there was a, a particular point in time where, where you realized you were, you were making this step change.

Adam Symson: (04:35)
Well, it's so funny that we're here in a school of business or in, in, in a university because I think what was required of me was to be a lifelong learner. Mm. And to continue to be willing to, um, step outside of what I was tasked with doing or what I was doing and recognize what I didn't understand and what I didn't know and set about some sort of process to educate myself on it. Yeah. Whether that was formally or, or informally. Um, a moment in time? No, I, you know, I, um, I think I realized, um, at Scripps that if I was willing to raise my hand - Mm. And take on some risk associated with my own, you know, sort of career, um, and prove myself through my actions that I would have the luxury of learning while doing. And the same is true even when I became CEO.

Adam Symson: (05:34)
I mean, you, you, you really, you really can't be an experienced CEO unless you're an experienced CEO walking into your second - It is a

Marianne Lewis: (05:43)
Double bind, isn't it? Right.

Adam Symson: (05:45)
It is, it is. And it's, there's no. I, I've just found there's no job like it in that way. Uh, and so, um, even the first time the comp committee came to me and said, you know, "We'd like you to take on the role of, of successor, uh, for Rich Boehne, who was the then CEO." Mm-hmm. I mean, you know, my imposter syndrome was huge. And the, um, the recognition that I was gonna need to surround myself with people that were far better than I on a variety of different levels, I ju - I just knew that's what it was gonna take for me to gain confidence and to succeed. And even still today, while I recognize that I've grown in certain areas, um, I'm just really fortunate to be surrounded by, uh, a lot of senior leaders that are better than I am at what they do.

Marianne Lewis: (06:33)
I, I, I appreciate your, both your confidence and humility, and I, I find that great leaders have such a beautiful paradoxical blend of those two. Um, and in part to navigate s - the hard parts, the change. You and I have talked quite a bit about the crossroads. I mean, my, my higher ed is certainly in, journalism is, is certainly in, um, because there, there is so much change, but at the same time, you do need stability. I wonder how you think about that tension of kind of the, the core foundation that you need to be a bedrock, but also the ability to change.

Adam Symson: (07:14)
You know, I think it's so important to have conviction, but to have that conviction balanced with a high level of humility. Um, none of us really has all the answers, especially in this moment when things are just so dynamic and things are changing so rapidly. Um, and so when I think about how I approach the job, um, I have certain convictions about what's right, how we should treat our employees, where the market's moving, um, the things that we should be willing to sacrifice in order to reinvest. Um, I, I certainly, um, have a strong sense of, uh, a number of those factors, but I'm also willing to admit that, um, I have the right to be wrong and I'm willing to understand that if I actually knew the right answer or if the right, if there was a right answer - Yeah. In this environment, right?

Adam Symson: (08:12)
Mm-hmm. Um, uh, you know, uh, I, I think I'd be able to plow forward with far, um, less humility. Mm-hmm. But the, the truth is, I mean, I've made a lot of mistakes. Um, I've gotten some things right. I find that to be about the case with, with being, um, a CEO in an industry like this. Mm-hmm. Um, and as long as I speak to people recognizing that, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm along for this ride trying to figure this out just the same as you are, um, I'm doing so with certain immutable principles. Mm-hmm. Um, but I'm not gonna fool anybody into thinking that I absolutely 100% know exactly what's gonna happen. Yeah. So it's like that tension between the conviction necessary, I think, to lead, um, an organization with 5,000 people who feel very strongly about their mission - uh-huh. With the humility to recognize that there's all sorts of stuff that can disrupt where we are today and where we might need to go tomorrow.

Marianne Lewis: (09:14)
I, I mean, I think that is such a, a vital blend because you're gonna have to put stakes in the ground to make really hard decisions. But it's, it sounds to me like you're also good at what I think is particularly challenging for leaders, which is communicating through that uncertainty that while at the same time as you're saying, I have conviction and this is the plan, and I may have to, we may have to learn as we go. Yeah.

Adam Symson: (09:39)
Yeah. I mean, I, I - And we have to adapt. Yeah. And I think, um, you know, uh, authenticity has become sort of the new - uh-huh. Business buzzword. Um, I, I, I look at it as, um, sort of being who you are, um, relative to, you know, dealing with all of the change in the marketplace, if you are comfortable just being who you are and are willing to put that out there, then when things don't go your way or go your way, you know, I think employees give you, um, a little bit more latitude because you've been consistently that way from the beginning. Um, so I don't, I don't, um, I don't think there's any magic here. I just think, you know, you gotta be, um, willing to speak to people and give them the information they need in order to also make decisions about their lives.

Marianne Lewis: (10:36)
Could, could we look at a particular type of decision? And I'm, I'm thinking back to the, the, you know, the event that you and I were at with, uh, with Fifth Third and Chamber, I think was about mergers and acquisitions, and you've been both the acquirer and the target in various ways. That's a particular type of decision. I'm not asking you to say something maybe too specific here, because I don't wanna put you in a tricky spot, but at the same time, how do you make those calls?

Adam Symson: (11:03)
Well, you make those calls based on, um, h- hopefully having the best information you can in front of you at that moment. And you make the tough decisions with that same level of humility that helps you recognize that it, it could turn out that the information I have is flawed or it's only one-sided, you know, it could turn out that it's not and we're, we're right on track. Things could change down the road. So I think, again, it gets back to sort of describing the process as, you know, trying to make decisions, uh, in the best interests of all of your stakeholders, um, uh, in a true and honest fashion. Um, you know, the company Scripps has, uh, operates with a very, very high level of ethics and morals. Y- you know, it's a family controlled public company. I think it goes all the way back to, you know, 150 years and the formation of the, uh, of the business.

Adam Symson: (11:59)
And that's, I think, something that was drilled into me by my predecessor and, and, and his predecessor before him. And, you know, it's just, it, it makes it much easier to make the right decision, even if sometimes it's an unpopular decision. Um, you think about, um, uh, acquisitions, um, y- you know, part of what I find gets missed when we discuss acquisitions or mergers, divestitures, um, is, um, the company culture. So, um, acquisitions can be done in which they look fabulous on an Excel spreadsheet, and it appears that the proforma is a no-brainer, but the minute you close on the acquisition or the merger is complete, that's when things start to break down. Shareholders are often focused only on that near term scenario. Right. But if you look at the history of deal making, deals fall apart all the time after they close. Oh, yeah.

Adam Symson: (12:57)
Much more so. And that leaves new shareholders holding the bag. Mm-hmm. So when I think about the work that we try to do in navigating the company forward, it's not just about the proforma between two businesses. It's not just about try to, trying to identify whether the, the deal moves us in the right direction. Yeah. It's also trying to understand whether or not this is gonna be successful on day 30, 60, 90, and five years later. Right. And, and sometimes you're right, and sometimes you're not, and you have to make changes. But, but ultimately, keeping that in the back of your mind that this isn't just a binary decision - Mm-mm. That's, I think, key, because the real work starts after the business is, after the deal is closed. That's

Marianne Lewis: (13:36)
So true. Well, uh, y- you also make me think a bit about the, the, the value and challenges of, of failure. I mean, making the tough decisions that sometimes you have to, you have to backtrack on. Um, I heard a great line recently, in fact, I used it in a class the other day, that real transformational learning, and I certainly feel like this is true about leadership happens through three things, struggle, conflict, and failure kind of are the b - I mean, something that really gets you in your gut and you have to process, reflect on. I wonder if there's something you might draw upon that's in one of those tougher situations that, that's helped shape you as a leader, that crucible moment, as Warren Bennis would say.

Adam Symson: (14:18)
Yeah, I mean, um, I feel like, you know, I've been doing this for nearly a decade. Um, it's been, um, the greatest privilege and the greatest burden. Hmm. Um, I would say the struggles and the challenges have been nonstop. Mm-hmm. I like to describe being CEO as a series of gut punches over and over and over again with the occasional win. Every once in a while, something turns out right, but mostly you're dealing with, you know, difficult situations. Mm-hmm. Uh, so, you know, for, for us, you know, immediately after I became, um, CEO, we got embroiled in a proxy fight. We, we, we were victorious. We won that proxy fight, but, you know, I certainly didn't think that I would spend the first year and a half of my tenure as CEO fighting for our board. Um, and it was a, it's a huge undertaking when you're involved in a proxy fight.

Adam Symson: (15:21)
Mm. Uh, we had a number of different M&A deals, uh, some of which, you know, I was really, uh, um, uh, optimistic about that fell apart, some of which we succeeded with and then had to do all the work I described earlier of, you know, uh, of the cl - post-close transaction. Um, and then we had the pandemic, which, I mean, I would have never thought that any of us were gonna deal with those sorts of challenges. Um, since then, we've got, uh, such a complicated political dynamic in this country - uh-huh. Especially for a media business. Oh. Um, a, a, a really complicated regulatory environment - Right. For us to operate in a very complex macroeconomic situation. So, um - Throw in AI.

Marianne Lewis: (16:07)
Throw

Adam Symson: (16:07)
In what's happening with AI, the opportunity and the curse of - Absolutely. Of AI.You're right. Both. And I think, um - Certainly. Yeah, we're all navigating this just, um, complex time when the pace of change is just so much faster than it was. I, I keep waiting for a regular year - . Where we'll just have the chance to operate and succeed, and I'm yet to have the regular year.

Marianne Lewis: (16:32)
I would imagine you get into situations that I, I do sometimes where people say, "Could we just pause?" And I'm thinking, "Nothing's pausing around us." Right. Uh, from a, from a culture building standpoint, h- how do you, how do you manage that? Because you've got your foot on the gas, but you, there's strain. There is potential strain around change. And, and, and how do you build a culture that is both agile enough to change, but also feels calm?

Adam Symson: (16:58)
Yeah, and this is particularly relevant to us right now. We're in the midst of a pretty dramatic transformation at the company. Mm-hmm. Uh, we described back in February how we were going to improve the EBITDA of the business by $150 million. Um, uh, that's gonna be done on the back of, you know, dramatic transformation towards efficiency, um, you know, sort of corporate speak for some cost cutting - uh-huh. And transformation in the direction of where our consumer's going, along with new top line opportunity. And that was received, I think, um, really well inside by the c - by, by our employees. Um, we're, we're, we're operating a process that has given them tremendous agency. We've got hundreds of employees who are actually initiative owners responsible for driving that transformation. And when you and I met - Oh, I. Um, a couple of weeks ago, we were in the midst - You were in the heart of it.

Adam Symson: (17:52)
Yeah. We were in the heart of the rubber hitting the road - uh-huh. And our, our, our largest, um, ro- round of job eliminations. You know, you, you, you can describe how the company's gonna transform and save $150 million as we think about new ways to meet our consumers where they are. And then you can actually do it where you start making very difficult decisions about changing workflows, leaning into technology, um, upending processes that you have used for 50 years, and unfortunately, um, saying goodbye to really great employees - uh-huh. Who have done absolutely nothing wrong, and it's heartbreaking. It's really difficult. And my job is, um, to set aside my personal feelings to some extent, my emotions about this, especially as somebody who, who, who did this role, was a producer in the newsroom, and recognize that ultimately I have a responsibility to ensure that the company is able to perpetuate - Right.

Adam Symson: (18:58)
And that we're able to do so with enough margin to execute our mission. And I can clearly see what the alternatives are. Mm-hmm. I can see some of our peers executing those alternatives. I can see, um, the, uh, down the road with other industries, what happens if you sort of just wait out the alternatives. And to your point about pausing - Right. Pausing is not an option. It's not. Yeah. The world is not going to stop. Mm-mm. So, uh, you know, while I wish we could pause, and one day, um, my time as CEO will come to an end and I will personally - . Be able to pause - Right. And we'll enjoy that, um, the business will never pause. Mm-mm. Um, and in the old days, I think you could probably get away with that. The pace of change just wasn't that dramatic. Mm-hmm. But today, um, you know, it's almost like if you're not moving forward, you're actually moving backwards and you're moving backwards at a pretty good clip.

Marianne Lewis: (19:53)
You know, A- Adam, I, one of the pieces I, I'd just love to pick a little bit more, especially because you're a journalist and, and I already said, uh, just reiterate, I, I fervently believe one of the greatest challenges of leadership is communicating, is how do you actually explain, right? I mean, you've got it in your head, you've got it in your heart, and how do you talk about it? You're a writer, you're a. But I'd love to just hear h- how you process that and make it happen. Yeah,

Adam Symson: (20:20)
Man, we, we talk about this around the office all the time. I mean, people ask me, "What do you do all day?" You know, my kids ask me, like, "What, what, what, what, what do you spend your time on?" And I actually think, ultimately, I spend most of my time in some form or, or another of communication. Mm-hmm. Uh, communicating with shareholders, communicating with employees, communicating with, uh, our other stakeholders like our advertisers or our audiences, working with, um, the terrific professionals at Scripps in our communications department - Mm. D- developing those strategies and then ensuring they're consistent with the culture that we wanna, um, adhere to. Um, I think ultimately, for us, um, focusing on the why - uh-huh. Is really important. Um, you think you can, you, you think it's apparent what's going on in the media ecosystem. You think everybody is, um, paying attention to all the changes, and it must be obvious.

Adam Symson: (21:22)
But the truth is, especially when I think about, um, our internal stakeholders, our employees, there's a significant cognitive dissonance - uh-huh. That exists. So outside of work, they are media consumers like all of us are. They are watching, streaming, they are tuning in, um, less frequently to the news, they are using social media more and more where they just are sort of coming across information instead of intentionally seeking it. Now, of course, they're going to the search bar, they're putting in a question, and they're using AI as the return instead of clicking on recognizable brands. Outside of work, they're, they're doing all those things. Mm-hmm. And then they come to the station, they come to the newsroom, they, they, they come to the corporate office, they put on the, the, the, the, the journalist's jacket, so to speak, or the salesperson's jacket, and it's almost like they fail to recognize that the whole world is doing the same thing.

Adam Symson: (22:26)
And that has serious downstream implications on, um, our audience - Mm. And the time our audience spends with us, the other options our audience has. It has serious implications on, uh, our advertising revenue, and all of that has downstream implications on what it is we do. Yeah. So, you know, our most recent change has been about identifying how would we rebuild our processes were we to found this company today? Ah. We're calling it a refounding. Okay. And among the things we're looking at is the newscast, right? Today, um, most of our operations have a workflow that hasn't changed for 50 years, not since I was in the newsroom. And we're still very much operating, uh, with the intention of developing a product for the five, six, and 11, even though in reality, the consumer is not tuning into the five, six, and 11 like they used to.

Adam Symson: (23:25)
Yeah. Not even close. And instead, all day long, they're seeking that information, right? Mm-hmm. So we have to figure out how to, what I would characterize as reverse broadcast - Hmm. And to completely change our workflows. And we're leaning heavily into technology like automation and some AI, non-generative AI, in order to allow us to reallocate resources from workflows that used to serve that five and six and 11 o'clock news to now workflows that'll allow us to put more people in the field, better cover the communities where we operate, and publish constantly. Mm. Okay. And that's, that's what's led to some of those job eliminations. Mm-hmm. Uh, but that's a, that's just an incredibly difficult thing for people who, um, graduated from journalism school or from, you know, uh, a, a degree that, that they, they, they've, they've then been doing things the same way for 10 years, and you're asking them to completely stop down and try to think about things in a different way.

Adam Symson: (24:24)
Even though outside of the newsroom, they're all consuming media - Differently. Like the rest of the world. Mm-hmm. Right.

Marianne Lewis: (24:32)
My, my early career research was all around the tensions between incremental and radical innovation and, and how incredibly different they are. They take different processes, mindsets, and I mean, it's the innovator's dilemma. It's really hard to change in big ways. I mean, I love, I love your approach. Refounding?

Adam Symson: (24:51)
Refounding. Refounding.

Marianne Lewis: (24:53)
I mean, oftentimes I'll use the, let's start with the perfect world. Uh, but it's very hard to take off the blinders or, or just get out of the situation that you're in. I appreciate the way you're thinking about this. Uh, um, I wanna, as a, as a final question to kind of lean into a bit about the community, start talking about the community. I know you, you, you're in many, many communities, but this is your hometown. Right. This is your base. Absolutely. Um, I wonder if you could share a little bit about what that means to you, what it means to Scripps, and because I, I also, I, I always want our students to see y - there's the job, there's the organization, and there's this community. And I think you are such a, you personally, as well as the firm, are really good about thinking about it synergistically.

Marianne Lewis: (25:37)
But how do, how does it look in your own mind? Well,

Adam Symson: (25:40)
Th- this is an extraordinarily, extraordinary place. Um, you know, I'm, I'm from Los Angeles originally. And, um, what I've come to recognize is Los Angeles can certainly have everything, but in having everything, it's about nothing. It doesn't end up standing for much in that way. Whereas if you live in a place like this, and there's a lot of communities like Cincinnati, where, um, the business community can gather together once a month and actually make a change - Mm. That dramatically, that can dramatically improve the lives of the, the, the, the kids that go to the school district in that community. Um, you know, that can, um, that can get together and decide, you know, we wanna, we wanna, um, we wanna push, um, a local sports initiative. And so how are we gonna gather together in order to make sure that we're gonna, to, to get this funded and, and how do we support the local universities and how, you know, this, this is, um, this is what I think community and community connection are all about.

Adam Symson: (26:46)
It's actually what's influenced, I think, the change of our company's vision. We used to be a vision focused on information - Okay. Which has really become very commoditized. And, and relatively recently, we switched over to a vision, um, we create connection, recognizing that in this highly polarized world right now, what can we do to further enhance the connection people have to their communities? How do we, uh, ensure that people fully take advantage of that sense of place? Right. I have seen a lot of other communities in this country in which the business community does not necessarily band together to drive value. And ultimately, what ends up happening is they end up losing their big companies. Mm-hmm. They end up losing their international flights. They end up, um, losing the hub of innovation, and they begin to wither. Yeah. And here in Cincinnati, uh, you know, we're doing a good job.

Adam Symson: (27:48)
I think we can do a better job of ensuring that we get together with our other companies, our other, um, gr - you know, uh, local-based businesses and organizations, and further advantage ourselves - uh-huh. Over just spending our money agnostically with everybody else. You know, every time we make a decision to invest with one of our local businesses, we help support the community where all of our employees, or not all of our employees, but all of our corporate office employees live. Um, we, we in Cincinnati, we've gotta do a better job of that. Yeah. And I think there's further that we can go to do that. Um, I, I'm excited to, to try and identify ways that we can participate in that.

Marianne Lewis: (28:34)
But I am too. And, and I, it's possible because of you, because of Scripps, because of leaders and firms like, like you and Scripps and- And

Adam Symson: (28:44)
Institutions like this, for sure. Our universities -

Marianne Lewis: (28:47)
There's a public private - Absolutely. So much because it's through partnerships that we can do so much. Right. And you're right. I, I find it incredibly hopeful and energizing to see that we can make differences because sometimes you can get into these wicked problems and think it's never, you know, right? And get a little overly frustrated and even paralyzed. But we don't, we don't need to be there. Yeah. We have so much opportunity, especially together. And I, I'm grateful. Thank you. Thank you for your insights and your inspiration. I, I, I appreciate you very much, Adam. It's been a pleasure. Thank

Adam Symson: (29:18)
You. It's been a, it's been an absolute pr - pleasure. Thank you.

Grant Freking: (29:20)
Thank you for listening to this episode of Bearcats Mean Business. If today's episode sparked a new idea, challenge your thinking, or helped you see your path a little more clearly, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode with someone in your network. Thanks for being part of the conversation. And remember, real world success begins here at Lindner.

Grant Freking: (00:00)
What does real world success in business actually look like? Welcome to Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business, where inspiring career stories, honest lessons, and fresh business perspectives from the people building impact in the real world come together. Tune in for inspiration, practical business insights, and forward-looking though leadership on how ambition turns into action. And now for today's episode. All right, it's my pleasure today to welcome Jeff Birding, president and co - CEO of FC Cincinnati. Jeff, thanks for being here. Hi,

Jeff Berding: (00:36)
Grant. Great to be here. Jeff,

Grant Freking: (00:38)
You grew up with nine siblings and became the first person in your immediate family to attend college. What did that opportunity mean to you and how has it helped you approach the way you go about leadership and your entire career?

Jeff Berding: (00:52)
Well, coming from a large family on the West Side, it was a lot of fun, uh, and a lot of good friends who I'm still friends with, uh, to this day. Uh, our family didn't have a lot of money, so I played sports year round, spent summers at Ryan Park and, um, playing sports, swimming, and, um, very competitive. Hmm. Um, I had coaches and teachers, um, who, um, saw something in me that, uh, I never would have seen in myself. And, um, at St. Catherine's, they, they pushed me on to St. X High School where the Jesuits and the Men for Others, uh, life orientation sort of took hold. Um, and of course when you go to St. X, that means that you're going to go to college because to go to St. X is a pathway to, to college. And, um, those teachers and coaches really had me thinking bigger about my life in a way that was, uh, comfortable.

Jeff Berding: (01:53)
It made sense to me. Um, it wasn't something that all of, uh, my siblings, uh, did. So being the first birding and one of, uh, there's two of us, I have a sister that graduated from UD. Mm-hmm. . So, um,

Jeff Berding: (02:10)
It, it was, it was my path. It wasn't necessarily the, the, the family expectation. Yeah. For the record, my dad did take business classes at UC. Oh, great. Uh, and is a, and is a, um, a loyal, uh, Bearcat, uh, supporter on, and season ticket holder in football, basketball, and baseball. Love to hear

Grant Freking: (02:30)
It.

Jeff Berding: (02:30)
Yeah. So it, uh, it's, it's not that my family didn't have college - uh-huh. . But of the 10 of us, there's two that have, uh, have graduated.

Grant Freking: (02:39)
Right. And how did that kind of experience, we know you did, you personally didn't go to UC, but how did that sort of experience kind of cultivate your interests, maybe draw you to certain leadership topics, maybe, you know, pull out a few mentors, things like that?

Jeff Berding: (02:53)
Sure. Sure. Well, let me just first of all say, uh, I'm a UC fan because I'm a Cincinnati fan. Right. And this institution represents this city on a national and global stage. So the fact that I was never a student here, I came very close to being a UC law student. And there's a real backstory on why I was not, uh, uh, I am not a graduate of UC Law School. But at the end of the day, I want to just share. And of course, FC Cincinnati doesn't exist without UC. But I went to Miami University, uh, and, um, for me it was the perfect size. Um, I was an RA my sophomore year. I paid my way through college. Um, I worked in the dining hall my freshman year. Um, and then my junior and senior year I was in student government, which paid.

Jeff Berding: (03:39)
Um, you know, I worked, uh, in other jobs on campus and uptown, uh, was in a fraternity. Um, and, and as I noted in student government. So for me, my leadership voice really began at Miami University. When I was at St. X, you know, I was on the football team, I was on the track team, um, was involved on, on, uh, uh, at the high school, but never a leader. But, um, my freshman year I was, uh, the representative of our residence hall to sort of into campus affairs and then I became the RA and then ran for student government. And I remember I had a, um, uh, I still have a, a close friend, Leslie, uh, Haxby, who when I got elected to student government, I'm a sophomore heading into junior year, and it was literally, I was really good campaigning, but then I'm like, "Oh my goodness, I have no idea what I'm doing." And she just said, "Relax.

Jeff Berding: (04:34)
We're gonna be, you're gonna do great. I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna be walking by your side the whole time and, uh, you know, you're, you're not gonna do this alone." And that, um, gave me confidence, uh, to not only do well, but a, a real leadership principle for me is, um, and like in sports, you, you never walk in life alone, you never walk through challenges in life alone. Good leaders have good people around them, good leaders mentor other people to help them because most leaders never got to their position of success in life by themselves. They had their own mentors, they had their own, uh, people that were helping them. And, uh, now I try to pay that forward in the same way Leslie did with me when I first got elected to student government.

Grant Freking: (05:20)
Right. I wanna touch on that point because it's a good one in a second, but first I wanna go to the foundings of FC Cincinnati. In 2015, you left a director level position with the Bengals and to build what would become FC Cincinnati. And I think if the story goes, you started it on your kitchen table. What gave you the confidence to take that leap, what ended up being a major league leap?

Jeff Berding: (05:41)
Yeah. Well, let me say I was blessed to work at the Bengals for 20 years and, um, I'm a huge Bengals fan. I grew up watching, of course, the two Super Bowl teams, uh, and the opportunity to work for the Bengals, um, after the initiative to build, um, what became Paul Brown Stadium, uh, and Great American Ballpark, uh, was approved. The Bengals, Mike Brown offered me an opportunity to come work for the team. And, um, while I was there, in addition to opening the stadium and selling out the stadium and all the suites and the club seats and whatnot, um, Mike was very interested in being supportive of me and let me, when I was recruited to run for city council to be elected to three terms of city council, and his words always stuck with me, "Jeff, go make the city better because when the city's better, that's good for Procter & Gamble.

Jeff Berding: (06:28)
It's good for Kroger. It's good for the Cincinnati Bengals. And so go make the city better." Um, when I left City Council, I, after six years, I joined, I was recruited to join the board of my Kids Youth Soccer Club. Two of my three kids are, were pretty good soccer players. And so they played on a club select team and, and I was, uh, on the board. And before too long, I became the president of the board, drove a merger with another club, uh, and really got to experience the youth soccer scene, get to know a lot of the clubs, a lot of the presence of the clubs. And my kids were rooting for Manchester United, um, as their team in the way that I rooted for the Cincinnati Reds as a kid. And I wanted my kids to have a hometown team to root for.

Jeff Berding: (07:14)
And I had done some research just from my professional sports background to see the rise of Major League Soccer, the global currency of soccer, and I just though it was important for Cincinnati's future and for future generations of soccer fans to have a team here. So I wrote the plan, uh, and sh- shopped it to some folks. Uh, and really the first person that really bought into my plan was then President Santa Ono. He saw it, because I need a place to play. Right. Yeah. And I mean, you can't have a sports team without a place to play your games. And, uh, I had been striking out, uh, in that effort, but Santa believed in the plan and, um, correct, uh, connected me to Mike Bone, the, then athletic director. Mm-hmm. . And we worked through, um, what it would take. And then this was all in 2014, and then in 2015, Carl Lindner called me and said, "I heard about your plan and, um, w- w - had me over for lunch and he talked about his interest in bringing soccer to Cincinnati and, uh, maybe we should join forces." And so to your answer to your question, once Carl and I were connected that we were doing this together and all of the research and all of the plan, um, and some of my experience, I had political experience, I had professional sports experience, I had civic experience, and I didn't have entrepreneurial experience, but I had Carl Lindner with me.

Jeff Berding: (08:35)
Mm. Like I, I, I just felt very confident in the plan and that this was gonna work. And our first game, uh, 14,000 people showed up to Nippert Stadium and we've never looked back. Yeah,

Grant Freking: (08:44)
I was there. It was a crazy atmosphere. The first goal was quite the, the Shauna -

Jeff Berding: (08:48)
Yes, it was. Shauna Coley scissor kick.

Grant Freking: (08:50)
Yeah. Incredible. And you, you just re - kind of touched on this point, but big ideas rarely stay the work of, of one person. And the idea really became reality once you, as you mentioned, Carl III became, um, interested in. And then not only that, but invested in it as did, uh, other members of the ownership group. What did you, did you learn anything about, uh, inviting others into your vision, um, during that process? And, um, I'm guessing you never wanted to really carry it alone, um, but like, did it even expand further, further your vision of like how much help you may need or other, you know, people you may need to kind of bring into the fold?

Jeff Berding: (09:26)
Well, l- let me offer, I always knew that I would need a team because I didn't have the resources. I had a great plan with no resources. Right, right. Um, when we were going into the United Soccer League, the plan was, um, six million dollars is what I thought I would need to raise. And, uh, yes, uh, people like George Joseph and Steve Hightower and Jack Wyant, um, and others came in with Carl. The Lindner family, of course, were the, the overwhelming piece of it, but we did have some other folks who were very important early on to help us get this thing off the ground. And, um, you know, some of this is you want strategic owners. And so, you know, then Scott Farmer comes in and, you know, the success of the Farmer family with Cintas, it gives credibility, but then you have your partners out there representing the team, selling the brand, um, encouraging companies to buy tickets for their employees to come to the games.

Jeff Berding: (10:28)
I mean, it was all a very integral part of the plan. And of course, we were enormously successful. I joke we were the New York Yankees of minor league soccer, uh, for three years. Um, when we, in tw - after the end of the first year, we were invited to participate in MLS expansion and won the expansion bid, um, then in the beginning of 2018, um, clearly we knew we were gonna need a much larger ownership group because it, it wasn't gonna be, you know, a few million dollars, it was gonna be hundreds of millions of dollars. We knew we were gonna have to be, uh, to build our own stadium. So at that point, we had to get, uh, very inclusive and we put a broad invitation out there throughout the Cincinnati business community and a little bit more broadly because we have some partners from Michigan and Kentucky.

Jeff Berding: (11:21)
Um, and of course Meg Whitman, um, was coming at the time from California. So at that point, w- we were selling our vision and what the future would hold for soccer in this country, and Major League Soccer is a league, and we were successful in raising the dollars, um, and building a very special brand that, without question, would not have happened without investors willing to, uh, give us their s- support, their confidence, their patience, because this is a long-term play. But it's also legacy making. Like these are the owners that brought professional soccer to Cincinnati.

Grant Freking: (11:57)
Yeah. These, these, uh, owners and investors, um, get pitched all the time, I'm sure. What's some of the feedback that you got from them during these meetings about maybe some things they liked, some of their concerns, you know, things maybe their advisors had told them before the, before the meeting to kind of, "Hey, check in with Jeff on this." What was some of the feedback that you remember during those meetings?

Jeff Berding: (12:20)
Well, certainly, um, you know, I, I always joke if, if you're, um, interested in, um, making the biggest return on your dollars, you should buy Cintas or Great American Insurance stock, right? Like there's a lot of companies that are, that, whose, um, key people are a part of our ownership group where they would size up the investment, uh, uh, opportunity differently. Yeah,

Jeff Berding: (12:51)
Yeah. But we

Jeff Berding: (12:51)
Felt we had to be investment worthy, um, with the understanding that there was a patience required. Um, sports teams do appreciate in this country. Um, we don't have, uh, relegation in major league soccer. So it was only gonna go up. The question is how quickly it would go up. And certainly in our case, um, you know, we paid $150 million, um, e- expansion fee. We built our stadium and now we're worth nearly a billion dollars. So the appreciation has been there. But I think the most important thing to most of our investors, which the appreciation's enormously important, of course, um, but that we're building something that's special for Cincinnati, a brand that they can be proud of, that they represent, we represent them. Uh, we try to do things the right way. Um, I think our commitment to the community is noteworthy. I think people feel good about how we represent Cincinnati on a global stage and locally participate meaningfully in making this community better, to grow faster, um, uh, to represent, uh, belonging, that we're a club where people can find belonging.

Jeff Berding: (14:08)
And I think all of our investors, um, value that. I mean, you're gonna have the standard questions, of course, on liquidity, liquidity events, if people wanna sell. Um, I would say that those are sort of the straightforward legal and business questions that any investment in any team is gonna have. Sure. But I think for, for us, I think we're doing this in a way because we think it's important for Cincinnati. We think Cincinnati having a major league team and a global sport puts us on the map in a way that is helpful. Um, just the other day, uh, Saturday night I was in, uh, a suite with some folks from one of the biggest airlines, uh, in the world and, you know, they're talking about adding more routes and, you know, w- w - it's gonna happen, not because of FC Cincinnati, but I think we try to represent that this is a growing community and a community that business leaders can, from outside can look at us as we're on a, a, a growing trajectory and that that helps, um, sell this community.

Grant Freking: (15:12)
Right.

Grant Freking: (15:12)
You mentioned that community and the, the club's influence in it. And you were a driving force, as you mentioned, um, you mentioned TQL Stadium earlier, the new stadium that opened in 2021, right? And how do you, how do you and the club balance that growth with the responsibility of investing in the neighborhood where people live and work and mix their families and just hang out?

Jeff Berding: (15:33)
Well, um, you know, when we initially went through the MLS expansion process in December of 2017, we had to have a fully baked and legally committed stadium plan and we went. The, the plan that we can get over the finish line before we went up there in December was a, a, at a site in Oakley. And it's not that ne - that necessarily was the preferred site, but it was the site we could get over the finish line in time. I went up there and, uh, the commissioner said, "Well, where's the downtown site?" And he called it the Brooklyn of Cincinnati, and he was referring to Over the Rhine, but he was really alluding to the site that, where the current stadium is in the West End. And, um, he said, "That's where you need to build the stadium, and I'll give you four or five months to see if you can pull that off." And, um, we didn't have any, own any of the land, so we immediately had to start thinking about buying the land and get the site under control, uh, work with the Cincinnati Public School Board.

Jeff Berding: (16:29)
But the most meaningful thing was I went door to door in the neighborhood in the West End, uh, a neighborhood that had suffered serious neglect, disinvestment over a s - largely 75-year period, um, and, um, try to hear their stories and hear their hopes for the future. And, um, how could we be a catalyst for change? How could we build a better future for the neighborhood, for the people in the neighborhood together? Um, ultimately, that led to signing a community benefits agreement between FC Cincinnati and the West End Community Council, West End stakeholders. And, um, I'll always remember one of my mentors, David Mann at the time was the, uh, vice mayor, uh, former congressman, and David said, "You need to do the community benefits agreement, Jeff, because the folks in the West End have no reason to trust you." He says, "I trust you, but they've been betrayed so many times, Jeff, that this legally binding document gives you an opportunity to earn trust." And he goes, "I know you'll honor everything in it, and then you, that's how, that's how you start building." And so we signed it and we've exceeded everything that's in the agreement, uh, since we signed it.

Jeff Berding: (17:41)
Um, and that began a, a very close relationship with, uh, the residents of the West End. Many of them work in our stadium. People say, "Oh, your staff is so nice." And I said, "Well, because they're welcoming you to their neighborhood." Um, and, um, you know, we have the soccer program. We do all kinds of activities with Hayes Porter and Taft High School, two of the schools in the West End. When we did our vision for our mixed use development, we p - um, first did a vision, um, session with people from the West End where it was just dr - what does your dream for the neighborhood look like? Like literally look like p - cutting pictures out of news magazines and whatnot. Sure, yeah. Like what does it include? It's, you know, can we have a coffee shop in the neighborhood, maybe a place to buy, you know, some groceries?

Jeff Berding: (18:29)
Uh, can we have a place to, um, you know, listen to music, you know, some additional, uh, density in terms of apartments, um, that they wanted market rate. My point is we listened to them first, then the architects who sat through the session came back with some init- initial concepts, presented them to the neighborhood, the neighborhood reviewed, gave some tweaks, went back to the, came back again a second time with the architects and it's like, yes, this is what we want for the neighborhood. And that became our, uh, our mixed use plan, was literally from the residents. And just so you know, we were working with City Hall a little bit at the time and they wanted us to come in and present what we're thinking. And we said, no, we're not gonna do that until we're in the, uh, uh, we've, we've gone through and got the neighborhood on board.

Jeff Berding: (19:14)
Well, that commitment to listening and being a part of the neighborhood paid off because then we got a unanimous vote from the West End Community Council, got a unanimous vote at City Hall, we got an unanimous vote with the planning commission. All those things that you've seen have been very controversial in other neighborhoods. Um, for us, it wasn't because we did things the right way, we listened and we built dreams together for what the future of the neighborhood should be. Yeah.

Grant Freking: (19:39)
Does that dovetail. I think that might dovetail into my next question. You've mentioned your, your previous positions, five years on Cincinnati City Council, two decades with the Bengals, and as, as you noted, uh, I think all fair, you know, just so almost exactly 11 years with FC Cincinnati, a range of leadership positions along the way. What are the principles that remain constant for you crossing over these positions and, and working with stakeholders, working with people above you, that sort of thing?

Jeff Berding: (20:08)
Well, number one is you have to have a growth mindset. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable. Growth comes from being uncomfortable, rarely from being comfortable. And I think sometimes in our city, people get very comfortable. This is a wonderful place to live, but sometimes that feeling of pride and, and satisfaction leads to just being comfortable and accepting things as they are. And, you know, other cities were far below us in the 50s and the 60s and they've raced past us in terms of population and economic growth and building more housing and, um, attracting new companies, uh, here, attracting startups. Cities have passed us by because they were a- ambitiously, um, building with a growth mindset. And I think we were sort of just comfortable. And so I'm never wanting to be comfortable because the minute you're getting comfortable, um, uh, others are passing you by.

Jeff Berding: (21:10)
And I mean that as an individual, like I have to have a growth mindset and how I live my life, what am I reading, my relationships, spirituality, all these things. Am I growing as a person? Is our company growing? FC Cincinnati? Do we have a growth mindset? Do the people that work for us have a growth mindset? And does our city have a growth mindset? And our city has to have, and the leaders of the city, not just elected, but civic leaders, we have to be willing to be uncomfortable and push through this malaise of being satisfied. We're, we should not be satisfied. And with FC Cincinnati, I'm never satisfied. And sometimes maybe that makes people uncomfortable, but that's the whole point - uh-huh. Uh, is, is to grow. The other part is I believe in, uh, inclusivity. Uh, I believe that inviting people, creating a sense of belonging, um, are, are, are, are very i- important.

Jeff Berding: (22:02)
I think that we're stronger when we have a lot of people working together with different ideas, with different experiences, willing to challenge your thinking - Mm. To challenge my thinking. Um, I welcome that, um, because a- again, it, it helps me grow. Um, I have my lived experience, people, uh, with different lived experiences and different education are gonna come at things differently. And I think that ultimately, um, the, the, the whole is better than just the sum of each individual part and each individual person. And so, um, I think that we're better as a community. And one of the things I love about Cincinnati is we're, we, we're big enough to have all those amenities of a big city, uh, without all, of course, a lot of the big city hassles. But even more so, you're c - the opportunity for you to move this city forward, to, uh, help this city change, to help the city grow, people have their own big ideas.

Jeff Berding: (22:59)
This is a city where that you can get to influential stakeholders and make your big ideas happen.

Grant Freking: (23:05)
Yeah. And building, building off that answer, when you are leading an effort that crosses over business, civic leadership, pol - needs political support, you touched on communicating your vision to, to the neighborhood, the we - the West End Council. Um, how do you communicate that vision to, I guess, everyday people or even influential stakeholders when you're trying to communicate a vision that's gonna affect the entire ecosystem, so to speak?

Jeff Berding: (23:30)
Well, you obviously have to find the intersection of how you are connecting to the right stakeholders, the right decision makers to advance your vision and understanding and developing a plan to do that of, of course, is, is very important. I'm gonna call that at a, at a micro level. Mm-hmm. But there's also the, the macro part, the public piece, which is, do you have the, the people on board with your vision? Have you sold your vision in the West End? I literally went door to door. Like, I, you know, I was a city council member asking for votes, only I wasn't asking for their vote. I was listening to what, uh, what their concerns were so that I could address them. And there'd been a lot of misinformation working, people working against us by frankly being annor - dishonest, uh, uh, in a way that, um, was really just political and ideological.

Jeff Berding: (24:30)
But you do have to have the public on board at some point with your vision. So whether that's going in the news media, TV, radio, podcasts, um, uh, working with, uh, elected officials and other influencers who have their own public, um, uh, uh, stake out there in terms of, um, communicating to, uh, the broader population, those are all important aspects of a plan because at some point, you're gonna need to bring people on board with you, both those micro level, uh, influencers, decision makers, I should say - uh-huh. Elected officials. And that is easier if there is broader public support. And I think with FC Cincinnati, we've always taken the position that we're not gonna ask for any help that's, for FC Cincinnati, that's not good for Cincinnati. Mm. And also, if it's good for Cincinnati, FC Cincinnati can be counted on to try to be a part of the solution.

Jeff Berding: (25:31)
Yeah.

Grant Freking: (25:32)
If someone wanted to shape the future of Cincinnati, but kind of didn't know to re - where to begin, given your experience, you also have the love for the city, you're fifth generation Cincinnatian, where would you tell them to start?

Jeff Berding: (25:44)
Well, s - first of all, get involved. Um, because through b- being involved as a civic leader, having a, a, a civic stakeholder, you're gonna make the relationships that are gonna allow, allow you to help advance your idea. We have so many institutions in this town. I mean, whether it's the Chamber of Commerce has tons of committees, including for younger professionals, um, whether it's things like the United Way. When I moved back to Cincinnati after college, I joined the United Way, was a volunteer for 10 years on the basic needs field of service, met a ton of people who are still friends and important to me to this day. Um, you know, the art museum has a young professionals, um, group there. Um, I'm on the art museum board. Um, you know, are there alumni chapters from your university here? Um, but certainly some of it is just starting to get involved because that involvement builds relationships.

Jeff Berding: (26:43)
And it also gives you a little bit of civic capital that people see you in a way where you're trying to help the community, to serve the community, to make this community better. And it gives you, I think, an easier pathway then to advance your idea. Obviously, there are people who you would need to sell your idea if it's a business idea. Obviously, we have centrifuge and other startup. There's obviously a huge startup community here on the University of Cincinnati's campus. So I would say there's the stakeholders are selling a business idea that are, I, I believe readily available in this town, which also brings connection to fundraising and financing and mentors to help you develop your plan and the like. But if it's an idea about making the city better, I, I, again, I personally think that there's every opportunity to get involved. Um, our elected officials are not hard to get ahold of.

Jeff Berding: (27:41)
You could literally make an appointment, I think nearly any city council member to show up and talk about your idea. You could show up at a city council meeting that you give you two minutes to sit in front of city council and the mayor and make your case for your idea. If it's a good idea, some council member's gonna walk down from the DS after, um, the public comments section and say, "Hey, let's talk more about it." So again, I think this city, that, those avenues to advance your idea is just much more accessible than in a lot of, a lot of cities in the US.

Grant Freking: (28:13)
Jeff Berding, appreciate you being here today. Thank you for being on Bearcats Mean Business. You're

Jeff Berding: (28:16)
Welcome, Grant. Thank you. It's been great to be here back where FC Cincinnati began 10 years ago. That's

Grant Freking: (28:22)
Right. Love to hear it. Thank you for listening to this episode of Bearcats Mean Business. If today's episode sparked a new idea, challenge your thinking, or helped you see your path a little more clearly, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode with someone in your network. Thanks for being part of the conversation. And remember, real world success begins here at Lindner.

Grant Freking: (00:01)
What does real world success in business actually look like? Welcome to Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business, where inspiring career stories, honest lessons, and fresh business perspectives from the people building impact in the real world come together. Tune in for inspiration, practical business insights, and forward-looking thought leadership on how ambition turns into action. And now for today's episode. It's my distinct pleasure today to welcome Ann Sojka, Assistant Professor of Marketing and the Academic Director for the Grau Center for Professional Selling, and welcome. Thanks for being here.

Ann Sojka: (00:41)
Thanks, Grant. So good to be here.

Grant Freking: (00:42)
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. Um, your career is really interesting to me. You've made your way through industry, through coaching, and now you're in higher education. I also kind of dabbled in that before you became full-time here. Mm-hmm. And this is all before you, before becoming academic director of the sales center, the Grau Center for Professional Selling about a year ago. How ha - how have those experiences shaped the way you prepare students for business and sales roles?

Ann Sojka: (01:09)
Yeah. One of my guiding principles, uh, in my approach as an educator is to remind students that no experience is wasted. This is something my parents told me over and over again as I was a student. Yeah. And I, as I talk to students every single day, either one-on-one or in a group, they have a lot of pressure to figure out what they wanna do and find their dream job. And so I use myself as an example to show that it doesn't m - your first job won't be your dream job, probably. Mm. And you have a responsibility to be able to take some transferable skills and, and strengths that you have developed in whatever job you have and be able to talk, tell a story about how those contribute to you being successful in the next job. So I think about myself. I got into sales education as a student.

Ann Sojka: (02:01)
How'd that happen? I walked by a banner as an undergraduate that said over 50% of business majors get their first job in sales. Like our students, I was highly motivated to get a job. So I though, if that's where the jobs are, I'm gonna join the sales organization. Even after joining a sales organization and taking a sales class, my internships that I did during college and my first two jobs out of college were in retail operations. They weren't in sales. So I didn't get my first sales job until I was 25. And yet I was able to talk about what I learned from those other jobs. And also, I learned what I didn't like. I really didn't like - Vital. Yeah, exactly. I, I, I'm analytical by nature. I like numbers. But what I don't like is staring at numbers all day on a spreadsheet.

Ann Sojka: (02:49)
I need to talk to people. So I combined all those strengths for my sales job. Um, and I really also, you know, I lean on my academic experience to make sure my students understand sales theory, marketing theory. That's the basis for what they then implement when we start practicing and, and doing sales role plays and things. So no experience wasted. And, um, even my sales experience gave me skills that helped me be a good teacher. Yeah. So everything comes together in the end and, and who knows where I'll go from here. Right.

Grant Freking: (03:23)
Let's dovetail into, back into your career, your earlier career. Was there a moment when you realized that selling wasn't just about convincing people, it was about understanding them, that forming that bond, that relationship?

Ann Sojka: (03:35)
Yeah. I was really fortunate as a student to learn a consultative selling approach, which is what, what we still teach right now in our, uh, confident selling courses. And that is that selling is about asking questions and the salespeople should talk about half as much as their, as their customers do. So they can understand the customer challenges and then deliver benefits in terms of values. Solve problems for their customers. So I knew that as a student. And then I can think of a specific, um, example and a time that I'm really proud of from my sales career when I was an enterprise outside ex - sales executive selling to big customers. Yeah. Um, my customer and I were selling, celebrating a big project that we got done. And he said, "Ann I really like working with you because you actually care about me. You don't just care about me, you know, as an employee and making sure my project gets done successfully, but you want me to be successful.

Ann Sojka: (04:29)
You wanna help me get promoted. And you're not just trying to, you know, take me out on the golf course or entertain me or push a product on me. You made it work for me. And that's why I like working for you." And, and that means a lot to me. And when I tell my students about that perspective, it excites them because they don't wanna be slimy and pushy. Yeah. Most of our students.

Grant Freking: (04:48)
Right. Yeah. And my follow up to that was gonna be does, do you feel like that clicks with students when you, when you, they hear that because they can maybe relate it to their own experiences and they're like, "Okay, sales is something different than maybe what I've read about or seen on, seen on TV, et cetera."

Ann Sojka: (05:02)
Absolutely. Absolutely. We have this representation in the media, I think a lot of times that sales is Wolf of Wall Street, sell me this pen. You know, people who are a little devious and very charismatic maybe, but don't have the best interests of their customers in mind. Yeah. And I, I remind students too, "Hey, you're a seller, but you are a customer too. How do you wanna be, how do you wanna interact with a salesperson? We wanna be treated like people and everybody has their own needs. Um, and it's a responsibility of, of a good salesperson in a complex business to business, long-term relationship sale to get to know the customer, how they make decisions, and then help them solve their problems. That is huge. And that draws, that's what draws so many students to our sales classes is this, um, this reframe that we have in our program.

Ann Sojka: (05:52)
That's why, you know, we have almost 400 students every semester enrolled in our sales classes. Yeah.

Grant Freking: (05:57)
Let's talk a little bit about that program.m. I wanna review some of the gui - the guiding principles for Lindner sales education. Mm-hmm. First one that comes up to mind for me is sellers aren't born, they're made. Why do you think some people still believe, and we've kind of touched around this a little bit, why do you think some people still believe that great salespeople are simply born with it, that it can't be learned?

Ann Sojka: (06:17)
I, I think there are two reasons. The first, like I mentioned, the media. Yeah. We see representations of salespeople as slimy, pushy, extroverts, charismatic, and, and that's what we see in the media. The second is, I think it's a lack of exposure in real life to professional selling. So I'll speak to myself, for myself as a student. Yeah. I didn't have anybody in my family who was in sales, especially not like B2B complex selling. Right, right. So I think our students, unless they have a family member who's in sales, they don't really know what sales is about. So that's, that's what we are here to do as educators is to expand our students' understanding about what skills are required, um, for a specific job. And in our program, it's wonderful. We have, um, so many corporate partners who want to interact with our students. They want to hire our students.

Ann Sojka: (07:12)
And they come to our classrooms and they talk to students about what's a day in the life. What are the, the exciting parts about sales? 'Cause it's really fun, it's lucrative. Um, you're not sitting at a desk usually eights to five. You have to entertain customers. Super fun. Make a lot of money. We like that. And it's challenging too. Yeah. There, there are lots of challenges. And so our students get exposure across different industries, across different sales roles. Not everybody wants to be a hunter sales role. I personally love cold calling, but I don't want to be a hunter. I'm a vegetarian. So part of it is a, it's, it's the reframing the, the verbiage that's used. Yeah. And showing our students a lot of different types of people can be successful in sales, not the stereotype that is presented in the media.

Grant Freking: (08:01)
Right. No, I, I, no, I love that. Let's go, let's go to another pillar. Mm-hmm. Sales skills are life skills is my favorite one. Mm-hmm. What's an example of a sales skill that every student, whether they're going into finance, accounting, entrepreneurship, fashion, business - uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Should develop?

Ann Sojka: (08:19)
There's so many. I, I, I can. But, but I wanna give one specific one that I think really helps. Yeah. And I, in my classes, to relate to students because we, our, our, our, our s - program is inclusive to any student in any major in Lindner, which makes our, our conversations really robust and interesting in our classrooms. Yeah. And I recognize that not everybody's gonna go into professional sales, formal sales. But I like to compare sales to interpersonal relationships, you know, dating, family relationships. And so I think one skill every student learns in a sales course is how to adapt to your listener or your audience. Being adaptable. So we teach, um, adaptive selling, which helps students identify based on conversations and doing research with their customers, how those people make decisions.

Ann Sojka: (09:12)
I am an expressive. You may notice I use my hands a lot. I, my face is very expressive. I lean in. My voice gets really loud. And I can make decisions really quickly. I'm kind of impulsive. But most of my customers when I was in tech sales were not like me. Yeah. You know? They wanted data points. They didn't tr - just trust a salesperson because she was friendly and nice. They needed to take time, um, and run the data on their own. And they might take longer to make decisions. So as a good seller, uh, and a good person in a relationship, understanding how the other person p - receives information and makes decisions smooths out that, the decision making process. Um, and it really, I always say marketing and sales as a function of marketing, it makes you more empathetic because this is, this is a, um, throwback to when I was a student.

Ann Sojka: (10:09)
Mm. My professor, my sales professor, Dick Canada, always said, "We, sellers follow the platinum rule. Not the golden rule. Don't treat pe - don't treat people how you wanna be treated. Treat people how they want to be treated." And so that's a skill that our students learn in our sales classes. Give people information the way they want to receive it.

Grant Freking: (10:29)
How do the students, what's the feedback from students when they either, either maybe don't understand how they can do that or when they finally do pick it up and like the light bulb kind of, the proverbial light bulb sort of clicks on for that, what's the feedback from them on that?

Ann Sojka: (10:44)
Well, we start with having them figure out what type they are. Okay. Because everybody loves to know more about themselves. Yeah. So we have students take a quiz. Okay, w- what are you? And then I have the students talk to one another. Okay, let, when, when you are gonna buy, make a big purchasing decision, like where to rent an apartment or buy a car. And we go group by group. And they're usually, there are a lot of expressives in the group, people like me, but there are also a lot of people who, um, amiables, those people like, like to build a consensus. So we, we always have at least one person represented from the four, the four types of people. And it is fun. You see people's eyes light up and I go, "Do you know anybody else like this? It's, that is not like you." And they go, "Oh, that's my dad." Or, "Yep, that's my sister."

Grant Freking: (11:31)
Comes to them immediately, yeah.

Ann Sojka: (11:31)
It, it really does. And, and we give characteristics and examples. And so then right away, students, I get the feedback of, you know, I never thought to, to talk to my family member this way, and it made all the difference. Made it so much easier. And I also give, give concrete examples. Like I talk about a family vacation. Most people can relate to that, planning family vacation. Yeah.

Grant Freking: (11:55)
Or surviving it. But

Ann Sojka: (11:56)
Yeah, living through it. Uh, so how, how does each person in your family, h - what's their role and how, how do they make a decision? And so students, they like seeing the application, which is why sales and, you know, marketing is a function of, or sales as a function of marketing - uh-huh. Is fun to teach because it is so cross-functional. It, it applies in every area of our students' lives.

Grant Freking: (12:19)
Yeah. And we've, we've talked about this last thing I wanna touch on a little bit already. Um, sales as a problem solving, helping profession. Yeah. What are some of like, what are some of the clear or concrete examples that you provide to your students that really click with them, whether it's from like your own experience or maybe you adapt what you're telling to, if you're talking to an individual student who maybe is in your sales class, but is maybe if you're like trying to go into like finance. How do you - uh-huh. What are some of like the clear adaptive examples you give to them?

Ann Sojka: (12:45)
Well, salespeople change. They, they act in different ways throughout a sales cycle. So I talked to that about, to, to students about that. Mm. But it really starts, and I, I make the analogy of salespeople like a doctor. A doctor wouldn't give you a prescription without knowing what your symptoms are, without asking some questions about how long these have, you've been experiencing them and what do you wanna feel like? What's your outcome? So the same thing is true in sales. We need to ask questions, good questions, and make sure that these, that whatever solution we're providing is gonna add value to our customers. And that's the problem solving mindset. Great news for us and Lindner is our students are oriented toward problem solving. Yep. So that comes really naturally to them. And I think it excites a lot of students who think sales, again, is just about being persuasive.

Ann Sojka: (13:37)
It's really not. Yeah. You only maintain a long-term relationship with future opportunities to sell if you take care of your customers by helping them and problem solving for them. Yeah. Um, and you get to make a lot of money too, right? Like, so if you pro - solve your customer's problems, you get commission. And then you have future opportunities to continue to grow the business with that customer.

Grant Freking: (14:00)
Yeah, just keep maintaining and expanding that relationship. Exactly. Yeah. Well, the Grau Center has earned national recognition for producing, uh, outstanding sales talent. What experiences, let's talk specifics, do students have with the center that they simply cannot get in a traditional classroom?

Ann Sojka: (14:18)
This is one of the other things I love about sales. You can't learn it in a book. Right. Sales is learned by doing. And so we have a couple different ways that our students get good experience. We have student organizations that are co-curricular. Um, they, they're inclusive to everybody. So we have the sales leadership club. Um, we have a women in sales club and medical sales club. So these are for students who have an interest in sales and it allows them to network with each other. Really important. And we also have our partners who come. Um, people in the field who've done sales. So students can get an idea of different types of sales roles. That's really important. And then they can get the help in their resumes. Um, networking in a more organic fashion. Also, we have state-of-the-art sales labs. We're really fortunate. So, um, these are either single use rooms, one-on-one, or we have a couple of larger conference rooms that every single one of our 400 students enrolled in a sales class each, each semester, use to conduct a sales simulation.

Ann Sojka: (15:23)
So they practice all semester long, and we have corporate partners who act as a buyer, and students do a sales role play. Those are recorded, um, so the students can watch back and iterate. And a lot of the times, the tweaks are little. It might be things like how to have more confident body language or reduce filler words. But it gives students instant feedback. And then those are local, but on a national scale, we have a varsity sales team, which I'm really proud of this team. Um, and these students are typically around 25 to 35 students each year, um, who try out. And then specific students travel nationally to about six to eight competitions per semester where they, once again, compete in sales simulations with other students from top sales universities. And our students are known for excelling in these, um, in these competitions. Yeah.

Ann Sojka: (16:21)
In fact, we have students who, you know, get in, earn the top five positions out of hundreds of students. So it's good for our program. People recognize that the Grau Center for Professional Selling creates really strong sellers. Yeah. And for our students, they've been known to get job offers on the spot because it's a different way to show off skills than say like, uh, applying for a job online with your resume says, "I can do a sales role play." No, these shoo - these students show it in action. They demonstrate their competence. Uh, and so students walk away from, from being on those varsity sales team competitions, one with a lot of confidence, because they've gotten a lot of repetitions. They get great feedback. And two, more exposure to partners for job opportunities.

Grant Freking: (17:08)
Right. And I, I wanna circle back to the sales app re quick. Mm-hmm. And we're of course thankful to Jim Grau and all the support and other partners I've given to make that a reality. How has the lab changed, um, the way students practice and build confidence before they enter the workforce? Maybe beyond even sort of the one-on-one recordings or, um, and maybe even, uh, as a, as a follow-up to my question that which I haven't finished asking yet. Um, how do you break through stu - to students who may be intimidated by, by the sales lab too and kind of like coach them into like how this could be beneficial to them?

Ann Sojka: (17:41)
Mm-hmm. Those are my favorite experiences with students. Okay. Because back to our, our discussion about a misperceptions about sales, I have a lot of students who I think have a lot of potential, but they come to me and say, "I'm scared of public speaking. I don't think I could be in sales." I say, "Sales is not public speaking. It's one-on-one." Yeah. You know, so introverts tend to be actually really good in one-on-one conversations - Okay. Because they pause and listen. I'll speak for myself as an extrovert. I'm usually waiting for my turn to talk and then I talk and go, "Huh, I said that." You know, I don't really. I have to, I have to be, um, particular to try to slow down and think before I speak. So it's common for students to be really intimidated and fearful. What we do prior leading up to the final sales role play, which is in lieu of a, a, an exam.

Ann Sojka: (18:31)
Mm-hmm. We teach students a couple of skills to develop resilience. And this is where students, they, they learn these strategies at the beginning of the semester, and they have to write papers throughout the semester as challenges or disappointments or failures come up and report back on which resilience strategy they used and how it worked. So we're getting students right away to get comfortable with failing and bouncing back quickly. So we're, we're leading up to the sales role play. Mm. They already have some confidence under their belt that, you know, things have gone sideways already in the semester, and I know that I'm gonna live through it. Um, the fact is, the students, uh, that are most fearful a lot of times, they, they prepare the most. So a lot of times, almost always, students are shocked by how well they do. Uh, and we have our partners who act as buyers and always we get.

Ann Sojka: (19:27)
I, I'm so proud of the feedback we get because even the buyers say, "I can't believe these students can do this." You know, it is intimidating. Yeah. It is intimidating.

Grant Freking: (19:37)
I'm sure I get intimidated

Ann Sojka: (19:38)
Under that. Yeah. Absolutely. And, and yet students learn, "I did it." Whether they wanna go into sales or not, maybe they face their biggest fear and they overcame it. And that is beyond anything that I could hope for making an impact on students.

Grant Freking: (19:52)
Yeah. And they gained, as we say, a transferable skill.

Ann Sojka: (19:54)
Exactly. Yep.

Grant Freking: (19:55)
Um, well, we can't talk about anything in academia these, these days without talking about AI. Mm-hmm. So let's talk about how AI is changing, um, sales education. What parts of selling are becoming more automated in your experience and, and your research? And what human skills are becoming even more valuable?

Ann Sojka: (20:14)
Mm-hmm. Good news for sales educators. AI is taking away a lot of the operational tasks that salespeople don't wanna do anyway. Mm-hmm. They're not really that good at, maybe. So things like, um, coming up with lists for leads. Mm-hmm. That's a great tool for AI to do. They can easily find contacts for, for cold calling. Doing preparation and research ahead of a sales call. You know, still need to fact check it, but that, that's a great use for AI. Even transcribing conversations, super helpful as a seller, so you can be more present. You don't have to worry about taking notes. Let the AI do that for you. Mm-hmm. And building proposals, you know, starting to build proposals, those are great uses of AI, and they help sellers spend more time on what's more important, which is building relationships, having that adaptability to customers, that emotional intelligence to understand how customers are receiving information, what their challenges are.

Ann Sojka: (21:14)
Right. Um, and then delivering value in the terms of benefits. So solving a problem, um, with a specific tool - Yeah. Based on the customer's needs. Right. Those just get more important.

Grant Freking: (21:27)
Yeah. Let's wrap with. I'm gonna ask you for two different sales pitches.

Ann Sojka: (21:30)
Okay.

Grant Freking: (21:31)
One for students, how they can get involved, and maybe more importantly, why they should get involved. Yeah. And then for partners, um, not making it too much of a, of a, you know, a sales pitch, I guess, about what are the benefits and what are the, some of the previous experiences you've had with partners and the, um, positives and the overall good vibes they can, they can get out of that.

Ann Sojka: (21:52)
Yeah. For students, I would highly encourage students to take at least marketing 3000, confident selling. There are no prerequisites. And a lot of students love this class. First of all, for the format, there's usually one exam. The rest is all papers and it's all experiential learning and doing a sales role play. Also, if you wanna get a job, take a sales course. Uh, it gives you access to the sales expo, which we usually have almost 50 partners who want to come - Yeah, it's always.

Grant Freking: (22:22)
Hierarchies. It's always bumping. Yeah. It

Ann Sojka: (22:24)
Is. It is. And these students, they practice the skills required to ha - to feel really confident when they go up to recruiters. You know, how to deliver an elevator introduction to introduce yourself. Yep. How to start a conversation with somebody. Even if you, you don't wanna go into sales, do you wanna get, go on a date ever? Take a sales class. Um, the other thing is, w - every, all the sales skills that our students learn help them prepare for interviews too. So career-oriented students should take a sales course. They're, they're definitely gonna build confidence, confidence and skills. And they can prove it by saying, "I've done a sales role play." Not just saying, "I know, I read a book about it." Right. Exactly. So that's one reason for students. For partners, our partners love working with our students because they're highly motivated. You know, our students, they're really excited about selling.

Ann Sojka: (23:17)
They, um, most of the time have work experience already or, and they're really involved in student organizations. So what sales recruiters look for are people who are self-starters, who, uh, like to be active, who have resilient skills, and we teach those in our classes. The other thing that our recruiters and our partners really love about our students is, again, they didn't just read about sales in a book. They've all done a sales role play. So they know a sales process, and they also know, you know, some of the transferable skills, like how to identify what type of customer you're dealing with, and how to develop really good questions so that you can solve customers' problems.

Grant Freking: (24:01)
Yeah. Well, Ann, thank you for being here. This is great content. All about Lindner's sales education, Grau Center for Professional Selling. Really excited to see what the new academic year brings with all the work you guys are doing. So again, thanks for being

Ann Sojka: (24:14)
Here. Thanks, Grant. It's been great talking to you.

Grant Freking: (24:17)
Thank you for listening to this episode of Bearcats Mean Business. If today's episode sparked a new idea, challenged your thinking, or helped you see your path a little more clearly, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode with someone in your network. Thanks for being part of the conversation. And remember, real world success begins here at Lindner.