Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Up until that point, a lot of folks were under the illusion that only sales, marketing, and customer service dealt with the customer and the pilots as well. But the truth of the matter is, no matter what company you work for, everybody touches the customer in some shape, form, or fashion.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Welcome to Hangar X Studios, where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation.
Our guests include aviation experts, pilots, financiers, military leaders, and innovators of all types.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Buckle up for another episode of Hangar X.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Welcome to the Hangar X podcast, where we explore insights on the future of aviation innovations and vertical takeoff and landing. And we'd love for you to subscribe on the button below so you get notified of any new issues. Or if you're on itunes or audio, please subscribe because we want to make sure that you're part of incredible episodes that are coming up. And speaking of amazing episodes, we have Stephanie Chung on the podcast today. Stephanie, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to be here, John.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and we just had lunch, and I got to hear your whole story, so. So, from very humble beginnings, started out as a baggage handler on the ramp as a young woman at Piedmont Airplanes and rose to become the first African American woman who was CEO of a private jet aviation company.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Well, so, yes, I'll correct you a little bit. The first black person. So male or female, don't take that from me.
To run and lead a major private aviation company. Correct.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Yep. And that was Jetsuite.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: That was.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: And before that, you were at flexjet.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: And then you became the chief Growth officer at Wheels Up.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Which I'm sure everybody listening is familiar with all these names.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Then you became a coach and consultant during that period of time and transformed a number of organizations.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Which led you to get into really having a message on your heart to share around trust and leadership. And you wrote a book called Ally Leadership, and that led you to all of us meeting.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: That's right. Exactly. So very well done. You're 100% right. All of those steps led to where we are today. I'm super proud of the book, which I know we'll talk about later. But more importantly, I do have a heart for leaders and, you know, want to do my part to do whatever I can to help leaders to really be able to excel and accelerate really quickly. Because this thing called leadership is fun, but it's a huge responsibility. And so a lot of times, we don't necessarily know exactly how to do it. So I want to lend my voice and hopefully help people be able to do it simpler, easier, faster.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Well, that. Simpler, easier, faster. I'm also excited to announce that you've decided to join our advisory board here at XTI Aircraft, as we are building the Trifan 600 and really just jumping into a whole new category of aircraft. So having your expertise on not only sales, but operations is critical and so exciting, and it's great to meet you.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: Thank you. It's nice to meet you as well. Thank you.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: The perspective you have, though, starting from the bottom, going all the way up, getting into sales, not only crushing sales, but then getting into operations to go, oh, my goodness, building an aircraft company, a fleet. We had a lot of conversations about pilots was such a great perspective, and we're going to be digging into a lot of those things today on the podcast that I think are going to be so important to anybody out there. Whether you're in aviation or not, your focus is aviation. It's going to be great. But could you please bring us all the way back to the beginning and what prompted a young woman to want to go work on the ramp at an airline and throw bags around?
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I know, right? It's kind of interesting. So I always love to start at the beginning, which is my dad was a master sergeant in the US Air Force, so I literally grew up hearing planes take off and land my entire life. And so as a little girl, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in aviation. And so I was that kid that moved around every two years of my life just because of what my dad did. And. And so when I thought about aviation, I. The challenge that I had, John, was when I was little, I would see if, you know, whenever I looked at aviators depicted in TV or film or magazines or anything like that, I would see if you were a man, you were a pilot, and if you were a woman, you were a flight attendant. So that's what I grew up seeing. Now, none of those, though, pictures ever looked like me. And so though I knew I wanted to be in aviation, I honestly didn't know what was accessible to me because I'd never seen a person of color depicted as an aviator in any of the media types of outlets. And so that said, I started off at the very, very bottom, parking planes, loading luggage at the Boston Logan Airport, and I was one of only.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: I bet you were the best aircraft marshaller on that ramp, weren't you?
[00:05:00] Speaker A: You know it, John.
I absolutely loved working down There it was one of my favorite jobs, actually. And. And because I grew up, you know, a child of a soldier, I grew up around men all the time. So being a woman back in the 80s, working on the ramp, there wasn't that many of us working on the ramp. But I felt very comfortable because I had grown up around men.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Now, from then until now, this has been a passion because you've stayed in aviation.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: You kept that job and then what fueled that passion all the way through. Because I want you to bring back. Because you were sitting there and you had actually tried to work some extra shifts because you needed some money. So you go up to the counter where all the cranky customers are, especially when there's cancellations and somebody noticed you one day.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Could you tell that story and also maybe talk about how that fed into why this became a career?
[00:05:51] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm so fortunate and blessed because what happened was the airline that I worked for, we were cross trained. And so in my case, I worked, you know, on the ramp, but I was also cross trained to be able to work upstairs in customer service, checking customers in for their flights or boarding flights, etcetera, at the gates. And so when I worked for this particular airline, we had a pretty strong presence in the city of Boston. And so what would happen is a lot of our executives would fly in and out of the city all the time, because. For meetings and whatnot. So I knew who they were because they were the executives. Right. And they were the leaders, if you will. But I didn't know that they knew who I was. And so on this particular day, I was working upstairs doing customer service because to your point, I needed extra money. So anytime I could do overtime, I was all about it. And I remember this particular VP of sales, his name was Jim. And Jim came over to me and he said, stephen, every time I see you, whenever I come to this airport, I see you checking customers in with a smile on your face. I think you should be in sales. And so I didn't know anything about sales, but I trusted and respected Jim. And so from there, I looked into it and started to interview. And they gave me an opportunity. And So I was 25 years old, they moved me into the sales department. So I sold for the airlines. And at 25 years old, they gave me a quota for $25 million, though I'd never sold a thing. And so did that.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: What was your first thought when you saw that number?
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
Fix it. Jesus. Fix it right.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: This is gonna be the shortest Part of my whole career right here.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Boom. Exactly. I think Jim needs to lower his standards. Right.
But that was the very first thing, and I did that job. I loved that job. Now, it certainly had its bucket bumps and bruises because I had to learn how to sell. And I didn't know I didn't have that as a background. But the first year crushed my number and then really got a hang of the whole sales situation and have loved it ever since and never looked back. But then I eventually ended up selling for the airlines, went to a different airline, a competitive airline, sold there as well, and then got recruited into private aviation.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Is that where you got recruited into flexjet?
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Into Bombardier?
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Bombardier and Bombardier owned flexjet at the time.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: They did, yeah. And so. But when I first got recruited into Bombardier, it wasn't for the flexjet division, it was for a different division. I was actually at Bombardier for about 15 years. So Flexjet was part of that time. I was there, but I was there for working in other divisions as well.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Right. Because. So flexjet is fractional ownership.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: And you started in a place that was more booking charters, charter operations, and then there was another whole division about aircraft ownership.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: And then you got pulled over to flexjet, and I loved. You look almost even backwards and kind put your sales coach hat on, because at flexjet, with all the challenges, ups and downs, the economies, you grew that sales, the revenue and the sales to close to a billion.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: So looking back on that, what lessons did you learn from that that you could share of all of us? We're trying to grow our company. Everybody listening has a company. Everybody's trying to grow, sell, get market share. We all say customer first, but there's methodologies and ways to do that. And you were sharing some at lunch, but I'd love for you to share some of your wisdom in that.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, you know, FlexJed, at the time it was owned by Bombardier. Now it's obviously owned by one Directional. It's a great company. Absolutely. Great company, great service, great people. And I was blessed to have spent some time working there. And at the time when I was on the leadership team at flexjet, when Bombardier owned it, you're right. We were selling just shy of a billion dollars as a sales team. And we really worked hard on making sure that the customer was the center. And I know that that may sound like, oh, we all do it, but we really, really focused in on it. So we took our entire organization and kind of rebuilt it from scratch to make sure that the customer was the center and the focal point.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: What are some things you did as you rebuilt it so that. That would be the outcome?
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, so one of the. I remember one specific time we were coming out of, you know, I think the 2008, when the market had really crashed. And so we were in a. In a state of trying to refigure out. How are we going to make ourselves different as we come out of this recession? And so for us, it was all about the customer and. And renewal business and so on and so forth. But one of the things that we did is we. The very first thing, and I think that every company should do, this is the very first thing we did is we. We did a customer ribbon. And, you know, I was on the leadership team, but there was actually another leader that really had the mandate for this, and it was fantastic. The customer ribbon. What we did is we had every single touch point in the organization, so every department, and we mapped out the customer's journey when dealing with us. And by the time we were done with that, that entire mapping out took up an entire conference room. When we put the whole thing on the, you know, just on the walls and kind of plastered it in there. Every employee was interviewed. Every single department was interviewed. And what we were trying to figure out is the customer's journey. Because up until that point, a lot of folks were under the illusion that only sales, marketing, and customer service dealt with the customer and the pilots as well. But the truth of the matter is, no matter what company you work for, everybody touches the customer in some shape, form, or fashion. And so what you want to make sure is that the customer experience is excellent. And so for us, we had to take every single touch point and to really figure out where are the areas or the gaps that we could start to fill in. And so I'll give you an example back in the day we had where if you were a customer of ours or an owner of ours, you may have five different touch points at any given moment. That's too much, right? You may talk to a certain person for billing, a different person for booking your trip, a different person if you needed a car rental, a different person if you know, the day of, if the flight took a mechanical, a different person. It was just too many people. And that's a lot for a customer because every time you have to talk to all those new people, it's like your customer is training the person each time because they got to start.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Well, we all hate that because you got to tell the story over and over.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: And so that was A big deal. And so what we decided to do as a leadership team was let's make it so the customer has one, maybe worst case scenario, two touch points. And so what that meant was now all of a sudden, if we're going to do it like that, then the billing, the person who normally would just book the trip, well now we're going to have you. Since you're booking the trip, you're going to handle the billing because you know exactly what you just booked, right. So you handle the billing and you handle the catering and the car rental. Like you now become that one touch point for the customer's travel.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: So you kind of broke down some silos too.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Broke down some silos. It was a great customer experience.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: But now you re. But you also re engineered how people work, what they were hired to do. That's right, how they think, challenged old mindsets. What were your biggest challenges as a leader in that?
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah, well, whenever you're trying to lead and trying to do change, right. The biggest challenge usually for any leader is just the mentality because people resist change, their brain resists change. Change, right. Tries to protect itself and people want to stick to the way we've always done it, which is a death sentence for any business. And so, you know, as leaders we have to over communicate so that the people who are having to go through the change understand the reason why. And that if you can at least get them to understand the reason why we're doing it for this reason, here's what the desired outcome is and here's what the benefit will be to both the customer, the company and you. And then usually people can get on board. But you know, as leaders, sometimes we struggle with explaining all of the details which are, you know, every single person that's going to be subjected to this change deserves to know the details. So anyways, we did it that way and it was so fantastic because that then helped us because we were really focused on how do we also retain customers, right. How do we renew them and give them the type of experience that we felt like they deserved. But how do we streamline this? And so you're right, that meant some people had to re interview for their jobs, right. The person who's handling billing, who's maybe behind the scenes deals with, you know, all the finance and the paper and the dollars and cents, may not necessarily be the person that you put on the front line dealing with the customer and booking trips and so on and so forth. So we really had to go through and have people re interview for Their job so we can get the best person in based on their gifts and talents, put them in the right place. That was a huge deal. But we got the right people in the right place, and it actually worked out great. But, yeah, going through change can be difficult for anybody.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, going through change, you know, when people understand the vision behind it and the why, and then you're setting, you know, priorities and objectives so they can actually say, okay, I can understand. I don't want to go through this change. But I see how that makes something gooder. Right. More money, better customer experience. And they also want to know how it impacts them 100%.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: And I'm guessing this customer ribbon exercise, because I think it's so important we do this in the military, when you can map every single person, whether I'm sitting in accounting and I'm doing bookkeeping, and I have no idea how this relates to the stuff we do. Yes, but now you connected everybody's almost work to the mission, to what the company does. What did you notice as you went through this process just on your team?
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Oh, it was so good. I remember one particular meeting, and this was executives. So it wasn't even like we had all the employees this particular meeting. First the executives, we all got to see it, but before we were gonna, you know, share it with our. With our teams. And I remember in this meeting, one of the executives who was from the maintenance team, I remember him getting a little annoyed, and I remember him saying, the customer, you know, what the customer. How they. How they see an excellent trip is that it take off and lands on time. That's what the customer cares about. And so, you know, of course, those of us who are customer facing, we're pushing back, going, yeah, the customer expects that we're going to take off and land on time. Right. That's a low bar. But there's so much more.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: It's like assuming, well, the airplane should be safe, right. There's gonna be no fires or doors pop off.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Exactly. And it became a really lively discussion. And I remember the reason it sticks in my head is because there was an opportunity there for all of us as leaders to really think about this customer ribbon. Because what I shared with that gentleman, I said, let's just. Let's just take for an example an ML. Right. So you're thinking as maintenance, okay, yeah, the cup holder is broke, but the plane can still fly safely. So let's go. Right. As a salesperson, I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, the cup holder is broken. And so that's going to interfere with the customer's experience when they're on board the aircraft.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: And so who paid a premium to be there?
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Who paid a premium to be there? And they don't want to hold their hot cup of coffee the whole trip. Right. And so. And then how that shows up when you're selling and you're trying to renew the customer, you know what the customer's talking about, the damn cup holder. That wasn't. That was broken. Right. And so that was a good example of how everybody needed and people have.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: Left and signed a contract with another competitor for probably even smaller details.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: 100%.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Because it's about the whole experience.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: It's about the whole experience.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: And it's not just about selling service as you were. I think that's every company.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Every company has to.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Every touch point.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Every single touch point. I just gave a speech earlier today at a different company, and I shared with them there's a study out, and it's really talking about what it is that customers want from the companies that they're doing business with this year in 2025. And the three pieces that study stuck out to me is they want transparency in pricing. They want transparency in how we're collecting, using, and securing their data.
And the third piece that really jumped out at me was they want personalized experience.
Every touch point. Right. So every single touch point that they're dealing with your company, they want a personalized experience. And so really, what I just described of what we, you know, and this.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Wasn'T an aviation company. This is, if I understand, it's basically, it's a manufacturer that has a large sales force that's selling into the food industry.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Exactly. The people that I spoke to this morning. Absolutely. And my whole point.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: So this is kind of ubiquitous. These are principles.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: This is principles. And, you know, as professional speakers, you know, we are in aviation, but we speak to all types of industries. And so this is so important for anyone that runs a business or leads in a business that this is what today's buyer, consumer is looking for it. Today's customer has high expectations. And the companies that will survive and thrive are the ones that can meet them where they're at.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Love that. Now transitioning into this role as president. So you've been in sales, crushing it in sales, doing the do.
Working with your team, manage your team. That's right. Now you move into a much bigger role where sales is now one department.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Operations scheduling, pilots training, probably so many others, I don't even know how many direct reports you had? What were some of the biggest things you learned about yourself as you made that transition into a leadership role at that level?
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a really interesting time. I'm so glad that I did it. I learned a ton. But what I probably learned most about myself is, you know, you first have your ah, ah, like oh, moment. Right. Because up until that point, oh boy.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Did I out kick my coverage.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: What did I do exactly? Because I had always been overseeing sales, marketing, customer service, like customer interfacing. Now all of a sudden I'm overseeing things like, you know, finance department or legal department, HR department and operations and pilots and maintenance, and, you know, the whole gamut. Right. And so I would say what I learned about myself in that process is, well, one, I'm teachable so that, that, you know, that I knew. But when you, when everything's relying on you making a decision and you may not know all the answers, I also knew one thing I knew about myself for sure is that I knew how to surround myself with really good people. And so that a lot of times is the ticket as well. Because so often leaders get trapped into thinking they have to know everything. I'm not a pilot. I don't know how to fly a plane. Right. But if I can get.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: You flew once and it didn't go well.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: I flew once and got sick and never flew again. Exactly. But, but surrounded myself with people who were just so much, they were so excellent and they were so much better than me so that they could give the type of excellence that we desire. Now my job, of course, was to have a vision and make sure we can bring this whole thing together. But it's the, it's the, it's the people that you surround yourself that can really help as well. What I learned about myself during that time is yes, I'm teachable and coachable. Yes, I actually can do a really good job creating and thinking about a vision of where the company needs to go. And when you're in a sales and marketing kind of role, it's actually really helpful because you're always selling to customers and you're trying to sell about the future. Right. And so being able to now lead a company where I had to sell the future, but the customer was my employees. It wasn't the customer that's buying the product. And so that was something that was a shift that I needed to focus in on as well is how do I actually use the same type of skills that got me here, but use that with a different customer and the customer being my employees, my board, my shareholders, that type of thing.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: So question for you. I think of, you know, your ability to dominate in the market almost from a military term of fighting power.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: And one of the. And there's two things that detract from our fighting power, external friction and internal friction. So now think about your group. Right? There's natural friction, let's say, between sales and operations. Yeah, I'm gonna promise something. They're like you promised what? There's natural friction, let's say between pilots and maintenance. We were talking about. There's just natural frictions between accounting and, you know, billing and everybody.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Accounting and everybody.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: But how did you create unity? And I know a lot of this led into the book that you wrote, but how did you actually create that unity in those trusted relationships that allowed conflict to happen, but it turned into conversations that were productive versus maybe reinforcing either mindsets or silos or some tribal behaviors that we see in basically every company.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's such a great question. And one of the ways that was really helpful when I became the president of the company, one of the things that there was a lot of silos. Right. And so the very first thing that I did is something that we used to do when I was in the Bombardier side as well is created walk a miles. And so really what that meant was every single department needed to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. So that meant that if you're a pilot, when you came in for your recurrent training, I wanted to make sure that the pilots then went and trained with customer service or they spent time with, you know, the flight planners or you know, people that they wouldn't know.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: So this was actually a like a defined program. And you would measure this like, yep, John, you're a pilot. Have you walked a mile here, here and here. And this was going to be happening throughout the year.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: 100%. 100%.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: And you also get to know people in addition to learning the job.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: That's right. And you get to see what it takes to actually, if you're a pilot, let's say as an example, you get to see all the things that are going on behind the scenes, scenes that help you to be able to have an on time departure. And so then what was really great about that, John, not only did people learn and expand because I really wanted everyone to understand the business. Right. What business are we actually in? And what tends to happen is people know they're part of the business, but they don't necessarily know the business that we're in. And so Wacca Miles really help with that because now you're being trained and you're only spending a few hours. Right? So it's not like I expect a pilot to now know how to book a trip, you know, know like a customer service person would. But I do need you to understand the basics and to see what the customer service person's doing, because then that as a pilot, you can see like, oh, okay, now I understand when I'm looking for them to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, why I may not get it in the same type of timeframe I'm looking for. Because they've got to do this, this, this, this, and this to give me blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And so it really just helps expand everybody's understanding of the business overall and how it works. And yes, also what happens is people start building friendships now, Right. Because it's easy to have an enemy when you don't really know what they do. Right. You just think that they're there to make your life miserable. But when you start to understand what it is that they do and how they're really trying to help what you're doing, there becomes a new sensitivity to that. And so relationships were better. Morale certainly was much better. And then we could still get the job done.
And that helps, obviously, the business overall. So very first thing I would tell anybody is make sure that your people, the left hand, knows what the right hand's doing. And I know when we were. When I was at Bombardi, we did a really interesting exercise when I was overseeing the sales team, which I asked the team, like, hey, how do we make money? And the team was like, you know, we don't make money. You know, we make money when we sell something. Right.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Pretty simple. Steph, why are you asking?
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And though that's a correct answer. But the truth of the matter was there was other ways that the business made money as well. They made money when we brought in new aircraft and sold old aircraft out into the market. We made money on fuel. We made money on, you know, pilot insurance. We made. There's a lot of different ways to make money which was different and separate than the salesperson hitting their quota. Now, once they understand all that, then, you know, now when the salesperson has to negotiate, well, they're not. They're much more knowledgeable because they Joe blow. Customer may want X percentage, and the salesperson may think it's fairly reasonable to give that percentage of a discount for whatever reason. But once you understand how that you give away that and that impacts the entire operation that still needs to be paid for. And so it made the salespeople much more sophisticated business people, not just salespeople. And so I am a big fan of the left hand has to know what the right hand's doing. And if you're running a company, the, the one thing I would tell you is do a walk a mile as much as you possibly can. Not only does it build the relationships and build the morale and gets the company culture where you want it to be, but you really start to have a really educated workforce.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I've never seen in my life a high performing team that didn't have not only high trust, but high relationship skills too, which is something you need to develop in people and then also that high technical competence. But those three come together. So I'm always trying to move everybody up in the right. If I kind of map that out on a quadrant.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Yeah, and one of the things too, John, you know, I remember going back into the sales arena. One of the things that would happen is when you're working, you know, on a big rfp, let's say, well, when you're working on a big deal like an rfp, it doesn't fit beautifully into the square peg. Right. And so you're trying to force something that, yes, we know, on the sales process, it should be, you know, step one, two, three and four. But if you're working on a big company that's coming in and they've got, you know, millions of dollars, they may want steps 1, 3, 5. Like, you know, it just doesn't fit the nice little square that we've got. And so I remember what would happen is my, my salespeople would get frustrated because they would come, they'd get this great opportunity, and then they'd come back into the office and say, okay, you know, Ops, can you do this? Which may be a little bit different than Operations would normally do, or finance, can we do this? And they kept getting no, no, no. Everyone was, it was easy to say no because it didn't fit the square peg. And so I remember talking to my colleagues going, okay, this is crazy, guys. I'm going to create an RFP team. And I want from each one of you somebody on your team that has the authority to say yes and or no. Right. But because now when the salesperson brings us a big rfp, our job as the RFP team. So we've got representation from pilots, operations, finance, legal. Every department had a representation. We now go into and to support the salesperson, we go into that RFP and say, okay, everybody here is authorized to make a decision Based on you, Mr. Customer, what it is that you need. Because we know that your needs are a little unique because this is such a big, you know, unique deal. And so we created this RFP team and while we had the RFP team, it was 100% close ratio, which is fantastic. But that's because you got people out of the office who normally just sit back and say, no, we can't do it that way. This is how it's done. To go, no, no, we're going to bring you in with the customer. The customer is asking, can you make this little tweak? And now if it's no, you tell that person no. Right. It's easy to tell the story, but.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: You also know why you're telling them no versus cuz just because mom said.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. This is not how it works. It's not how we do things. Right.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: So it was, you know, again, I encourage people to get everybody involved in that process and then they'll end up in, as you say, in that right corner.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Right, that's right.
Now you transition now from that to the chief growth officer at Wheels up, which has been an incredible success story.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: Can you talk about your time at Wheels up and what you learned there?
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Absolutely loved my time at Wheels Up. It's such a great company. I'm so proud of the work that they continue to do and they're always shaking up the industry and being innovative.
So with my woes up time, you know, I was the chief growth officer and really what my job was to do was to find business in unlikely places. And really what that meant is, you know, I say I love our industry, but we've got, you know, our industry, I always say we suffer from pms. We are pale, male and stale. Okay. And so. And that also, that also ripples over into the customer side of the house as well. And so, you know, from a talent and labor perspective, we certainly are all I know we say our industry trying to do better, trying to bring in more diverse types of labor and talent, but there is still a great opportunity for. When we think about also driving new revenue and looking for business in unusual places. And so for what's an example of that? So I'll give you a great one. When you think about, based on what, you know, I just heard an executive speak from Citi and what she was saying is over the next several years, it's going to be a 50% wealth transfer and women are going to start to have 50% of the wealth throughout the world. And so companies are starting to prepare for that. Now if you think about private aviation, how many private companies actually market to women?
[00:30:13] Speaker B: I would say it's a small percentage.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. And so because you don't think of.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: That as your typical, you just don't.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Think of it that way. Right. And even when you think about in marketing. So for an example, one of the very things I was super proud of when I was with Wells up, as we did the first diversity focused photo shoot. So I remember telling the team, listen, I don't want to because if you look at any kind of private jet marketing, it tends to have the woman is, she's never in the lead passenger seat. She's there and you don't know, is she the assistant? Is she the. Like, who is she? Like, you just don't know. She's not in a, in a, in a dominating space, if you will. And she's always with somebody else. So usually they kind of portray her as either she's the flight attendant or, or she's the assistant.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Is that the front right seat? Is that the one you're talking about?
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Yeah, you always see the man in the lead passenger seat. Right. And so when you think about marketing and visuals and campaigns, well, how great would it be just to have. How about we just had. And this, we did this in our photo shoot. How about we just have a woman traveling by herself, like, dressed like you.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Front right seat, looking out the window.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Yeah. You know why? Because she's running her business. She's a boss, she's making things happen. She doesn't always have to be on the plane because she's the assistant. She could be on the plane because she's the boss.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: She owns the plane.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Exactly right. So that's where, you know, for us and I, and I'm so grateful for at the time, our CEO Kenny Dichter caught into the vision that I had. And it's like, let's change the narrative, let's change this.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: What was the outcome of that? Did you see all of a sudden like, wow, that. Yeah, that was business in unusual places business.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: And so it was women, it was people of color. We were also going for. And so we were going and literally marketing towards those areas that nobody else was marketing. So we still marketed towards, you know, the, the high net worth white gentleman. Right. But we also expanded it because if you look at, if you just look at our World. The world is changing. Right. If you look at the country that we live, the demographics are changing and so wealth is, is transferring as well. And so it makes sense if you're just running a business. You know, having diverse marketing plans and trying to draw diverse customers is simply good business because there's money to be had there and whoever can get there first is going to be able to see and have an unfair advantage, if you will. So, yeah, so the time that we spent there with woes up, we had literally, I would say 2,250%,230% increase in just diverse business. Those are real dollars, real dollars and cents focusing in on women and people of color.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Boy, if I can take 5 or 10 or 8% of my, my balance sheet and double it.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: And you got a whole bunch of great new clients to work with.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: A hundred percent. And so, and these are clients that are already traveling anyway. It's just nobody's marketing to them. So they're kind of dispersed all over the place. Our focus was, well, let's just actually let them know this is a place that you're welcome here. And, and people started to respond to that, which was great. But it first started with having to have a marketing campaign and have marketing assets out there that sent the message that you're welcome on board our aircraft.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Now with that perspective, let's kind of look ahead. Let's say it's five years out from now.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Right. We're looking back. You're five years older.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Do I still look this good?
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Oh, you look even better. You look fabulous.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: That's what I need to hear.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: That's right. You continue to look fabulous.
Now here's the cool thing. Getting to know you. Right. You know, the FAA is reaching out to you. Some of the top companies in the world are reaching out to you. When you moved into coaching and consulting role, and that's why we're so excited to be able to work with you. Every company you worked with, and most people can say that had increased results, measurable increase in results. So you've seen the inner workings of what works and what doesn't work.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: So if you're looking at the aviation companies, there's so much exciting things happening right now. An EVTOL VTOL powered lift, even in traditional commercial aircraft. What do you think are going to be the. If we're looking back five years, especially in the economy, the marketplace, the society as we see it now, what are going to be some of those distinguishing, you think, characteristics of those companies? That allowed them to become the new household name or rise to the top.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: So let me just make sure I'm answering the question that you're asking me. When we think about all the new and exciting things that are happening in this space space, whether it's, you know, evitals or whatnot, what is going to be different about them? Is that what you're asking?
[00:34:39] Speaker B: What's going to be different about that company that actually breaks through and becomes the new market leader? How's that?
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, first of all, I agree with you. It's so exciting what's going on in the industry. There's so many new aircraft coming, and I think that's fantastic. Where I think we as an industry can continue to expand. Right. Is, and I say this as a person who speaks to all different types of industries. Some industries are light years ahead. Some industries are, you know, right where we are. Our technology as far as aircraft is technically advanced are. Where we're not technically advanced or advanced, in my opinion, is workforce and labor. We're just not. And so the companies that are going to grab hold of this and really be successful five years from now will not just have really cool aircraft, but they'll also have a workforce that is unique and different and has a lot of different perspectives because that's going to give you the competitive edge. Right. And so people that think differently.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: So maybe contrast that, you know, five years from some of the companies you say that are doing well today. What would. When you say workforce and labor.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: How would I know that? Hey, I'm actually doing the things are going to help me get ahead the best, the fastest.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So what I would say is if you just look at your go to. And I do this to leaders all the time. If you're in a meeting, just literally don't overcomplicate it. Look at the meeting that you're in and take notice of the people that are in the room. Does everybody have the same background, the same thought process, the same experience? If that's the case, which I would challenge to say is usually the case in aviation, then there's a huge disadvantage there because we're all thinking the same, acting the same, have the same background. But if you can start pulling in people that think differently, have a different perspective, have a different communication style, then that natural tension that you had mentioned earlier starts to come to the surface. And that natural tension is a good thing. It really is. People, people shy away from healthy confrontation, but healthy confrontation is the game changer. For any business that's truly trying to accelerate. And so those companies that can look and say, you know what, when I look at my entire leadership team or I look at the meetings that I'm in, there is such diversity of thought here. And therefore I'm grabbing the best of the best as far as where we can go, where we should go, where we're doing it right, where we're missing the mark, those types of things. So I think having the diversity of thought, and usually when we think about diversity nowadays, cause it's such a hot topic, people tend to just narrow it down to race and gender. And that's a part of it.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: You're talking about expanding that definition significantly.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: 100%. 100%. Right. And so as leaders, and I agree.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: With you on this one big time.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: As leaders, we have to look at diversity in all of its tone, totality. And so if you have a room full of people that, that literally feel safe enough to be able to have healthy confrontation and, and challenge each other, that's an unstoppable team. Right. Because they're going to go, well, yeah, we could do it this way, but I think if we tried it this way, it might be better. And here's why. And somebody else will say, well, I'm not really sure that makes sense to me. I think it's this. And you let those conversations flow because at the end, when you're going to get the best of the best of the best ideas and that's your competitive advantage from the companies that are like, everybody looks the same, acts the same, thinks the same, and came from the same school. Right.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: It does remind me of that book on Abraham Lincoln called the Team of Rivals. He put together one of the most diverse cabinets of thinkers that people were like, you can't have him there. He doesn't agree with us.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: But that was. That's what made it work.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: That's what make. And that's always what makes it work. And if we could just grab hold of this and the businesses that get it, get it, and we can see it in their results. Right. And so that's what I would love to see for our industry. You know, again, we've got the planes. Fantastic. All the things that we're doing with the technology, fantastic. Where we still need to level up is really how we look at our current workforce. What's the pipeline to growing the leadership within our workforce? And then how are we looking for talent? And are we looking for talent in different places, different areas, et cetera? That's going to be the company that decides to do that. There will be the ones that will be on the cutting edge. And so five years from now, it's going to look really different. I'm super proud, though. I will say I'm super proud of the evitals, for an example, that are coming out. Because if you look at their leadership team or their workforce, it's actually much more diverse than it is for the traditional, let's say, business aviation.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: No, I agree. And you know, to put a highlight on that, I was just part of a panel looking at Gen Z and hiring Gen Z that are coming to the workforce. And there's a huge. And everybody here is an employee understands it because of the turnover or their engagement or getting them to onboard or there's so many challenges around that. And I know companies that won't even hire somebody under a certain age right now because they're like, I'm not dealing with it anymore.
The opportunity, though, for I think, our generation as leaders, though, is this transfer of wisdom. It's mentorship, discipleship, whatever you want to call it. And you know what? They're seeking it. They're seeking it, but they're also looking for a culture where they're like, you know what? I'm valued. Yes, I know the mission, but it's a meritocracy also.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: And let's just say I love working for you, but I just saw Martin get mistreated by his boss.
I might look at that and go, well, that's why I'm leaving, even though I like my boss. So it's not. People say they don't leave a company, they leave a person that has expanded now.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: And if we want to build a company with a stable employee base that's growing from 50 to 100 to 1,000 people and keep our best people.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: There are some things we have to do. And you write about this in your book, Ally Leadership about how to do this.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: So as we kind of land the plane here, I'd love for you to just wrap up with some thoughts on that. Cause it's also part of what you do as a keynote speaker. And I can't wait to come hear you speak.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Oh, well, thank you so much. And so, hey, you and I are kindred souls on this whole thing. Because here's what people have to realize. Right now, we have six generations working. That's unheard of. And when we think about just that. Right. Let me just stop there for a second. As you just mentioned, a boomer Thinks differently than a zoomer. Right. And millennials think differently than Gen X. And so all these different generations, sometimes from a leadership perspective, can be hard to lead because they have different wants, desires.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: Military. I do a lot of consulting to the military. They are really struggling with this right now.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, big time. It's an issue for all of us. Right. And so it's the elephant in the room. So one, you've got six generations working, so that's a lot. The second thing is that we have women are the majority of the population. So that changes the dynamics of the workforce because women think differently, they communicate differently, et cetera. And they have different needs and wants. And then you look at the ethnic demographics that are changing. Right. So the ethnic races are growing, non ethnic race shrinking. That changes the dynamics. Not to mention people with different neurodiversities or different ability abled folks or lgbtq. I mean the list goes on and on and on. So today's modern workforce is a lot of people who are not like each other and they're also not like usually the leader. And so it's all hands on deck right now. Right.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: But when you're president of a company or you're running a division, or even you're a newly promoted team lead, your job.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Is to bring a team together in alignment, make them highly productive.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: And to the best. You can help them develop a friend at work even.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: That's the number one question in the Gallup Q12 is, Do you have a friend at work?
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: And that's the one question that the CEO hates. That question, by the way of Gallup.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:42:08] Speaker B: And he wanted him to take it out of the Q12, but they showed him all the statistical data that says if you have a friend at work.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: The chances of you leaving employment at that work and not being engaged or productive are extremely low. Interesting, isn't it?
[00:42:22] Speaker A: It's so interesting. Preach, my brother. Because that is so, so good. And when I wrote the book, you know, I've always had a passion for this. But when I wrote the book and Ally, by the way, so the name of the book is called Ally Leadership. Ally stands for ask, listen, learn and you take action. So it's an acronym in regards to how leaders have to lead in today's modern workforce. So they need to ask, listen, learn, and then take action.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: Wait, I have to take action?
[00:42:48] Speaker A: You do have to take action.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: I mean, I gotta take responsibility.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:42:50] Speaker B: Like what, I'm gonna opt out.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I can't just sit there and, you know, shoot out orders. Yeah, it's a contact sport, John. Leadership. Right?
So, so that's important. But in order to create. Because one of the reasons why I wrote the book honestly is because I come from a male dominated, you know, I come from an industry that people didn't necessarily look like me, right. Or think like me or, or have the same background, et cetera. And yet I was able to, you know, reach the highest levels within the industry. And so I wrote the book as a tool to say, hey, here's how I did it, in hopes that this information may be helpful for you as well so that you can, you know, accelerate your success and maybe not also go through some of the bumps and bruises that I went through. And so, but the reason why this is important is because leaders have to take action. If you don't take action, then you're not an ally. You don't have the right to self anoint yourself. Right. People will call you an ally when they see you take action. If they see no action, why then would they call you an ally? And what tends to happen, especially when I'm speaking and keynoting, people will say, oh, I love this. This is great stuff. I'm an ally. I have, you know, let's say if it's a man coming up to me saying, you know, I'm married, I've got, you know, two, four daughters. I am like pro women, like, let's go. And then I was go, that's awesome. Love that. Tell me, what have you done this week to show your allyship?
Crickets, John.
Right. There's like zero examples to tell me. And so really what, that, what I, what I, you know, I started to.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: It just reminds me of like a football game and he's, this is the guy who's in the stands going, yeah. And then you're like, well, you want to get on the field and play? Oh, no, I might get hurt.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Exactly. And that's what, that's, that's why I wrote the book. Because at the end of the day, you can't just call yourself an ally with no receipts to back it up. And in today's, you know, modern workforce, back to why people are leaving, people's BS monitors are high, and so they don't want to hear you tell them like, you know, about your company culture and have these beautiful posters on the wall and yet nothing lines up in the company that lines up with the posters on the wall. Right. And so, so we just have to get, you know, as Leaders, we have to get. Roll up our sleeves and just get much more practical and to own our stuff. And so when I think about leadership, I always say, you have to earn the title. And EARN is an acronym as well, John. EARN stands for you have to. The E is you have to establish an environment where everybody feels seen, appreciated, and psychologically safe. You then have to. The A stands for you have to assure alignment. So the left hand has to know what the right hand's doing. That's where walk a miles become really, really helpful. The R stands for rally the troops. Because if you get a group of people who they feel like they can voice their opinion, whether they agree or disagree, right, and they understand what we're doing, what we're doing, what the business is, why we're here, what role I play, how it plays into the bigger picture. If they understand all that, rallying the troops is easy because now they're, like, focused. And you got the same people on the same bus going in the same direction. They're unstoppable. And then the end, you know, is obviously people. In aviation stands for navigate, right? You've got to navigate the narrows because you have to know, as we do in aviation, when a plane takes off, we gotta know where we're going, right? Where are we going? When are we getting there, right?
[00:46:12] Speaker B: It's usually a good. It's usually a good thing to define, right?
[00:46:17] Speaker A: So you need to be able to navigate that. And so in business, the N stands for you gotta navigate the narrows. You have to know, where are we going by when, how are we gonna get there, et cetera. So you have to earn the ability to be an ally leader. And that's different than allyship, right? It's the ally leader. And again, you have to really ask, listen, learn, and you take action. And people will line up behind you when they see you take action. Just because you're talking a good game doesn't mean anything. And I'm going to tell people right now, if you see me at a keynote and you come up to me and tell me you're an ally, just know I'm going to ask you for some receipts.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: Well, you know, I'll end with this story and then I'll get your final thoughts. But I'll never forget I was in my first fighter squadron, and my commanding officer was a guy named Darth for Darth Vader. And you did not want to be on his bad side. Anybody who served with him was out there listening. You know exactly what I'm talking about. And he was the most demanding boss I've ever had, but also a person that I had fierce loyalty to. Because he did all this.
[00:47:17] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: But I'll never forget, I went up to him and I said, hey, Darth, one day I want to be the. I was new in the squadron, just full of myself.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: You know, And I said, I want to be the commanding officer of a fighter squadron someday. He goes, I said, what advice would you have for me? He goes, you know what? Nobody's ever asked me that question. He goes, everybody's trying to do something big and flashy and showy to get noticed or to get written up or to get ranked. Or he goes, don't be that guy. He goes. Every day you go find somebody in this squadron who's junior to you or senior officer enlisted in your department or not, and you find a way to do something that serves them and serves their division and serves the squadron. And if you do that consistently and nobody ever recognizes you, trust me, when we get together and talk, it's those officers that lead like that that are going to be the admiral someday, 100%. And that became then my. You know what? And I was so respected him that that became my leadership philosophy now my whole life.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I love that. That's so good, John. That's so good. You should write a book about that.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: You know, I did.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Did you?
[00:48:15] Speaker B: It's called On Purpose, With Purpose. I'll get you a copy.
[00:48:18] Speaker A: Yeah, please do.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: But, you know, here's a great call to action for everybody listening is, you know, what's something we could do for your team? Somebody in your company, somebody you haven't. You don't even know very well. Maybe you're building an aircraft, working on an engine or wherever you are, you're in finance. But what's one thing you could do to just take a small action to serve somebody else, but that serves them forward, but also serves the mission of your organization? And you know what? If you do that, we would love to hear about it, right?
[00:48:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Because Steph's gonna ask you about it if you see her at a conference anyway, so might as well get.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:48:46] Speaker B: Get ahead of it.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: Get in that habit. Right. Get in the habit of knowing your people's names. I mean, that may sound so basic, but I'm always surprised if you got, you know, some. Some leaders don't necessarily know. They're all the people that work on their teams. That's first thing. Second thing is also, you know, one of the things I used to do is I would also, whenever I would go visit one of my sales directors, let's say, I would then invite their significant other to dinner. Because you really get to know about the person when you're around their spouse, right?
[00:49:11] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:49:12] Speaker A: And so, you know, and then all of a sudden, I start to become a part of the family, if you will, because the spouse knows me, the person who works on my team knows me. It got to the point where the kids knew me, you know, and. And now all of a sudden going back to, you know, a friend at work, I'm not their friend necessarily. My job is to obviously grow them, develop them, and get them prepared for their next level. And yes, hopefully we can get a friendship out of that. But that's not the job. Right. The job is to really grow them to their next. Develop them to the next level. And so what I would say in regards to leadership is simple things that leaders can do is like, for me, I actually talk about this in the book. One of the things that I'll do is people who maybe used to work for me, but they don't work for me anymore because it's many years or what have you. I'll send them a simple text. Hey, thinking about you. Hope you're doing fantastic. Is there anything I can help you with? Now, nine times out of ten, there's nothing that, that they need help with me on, but they know that I'm there if I do, if they. If they need something. But more importantly, it also reinforces to me that this thing called ally and allyship is not a fad. It's a lifestyle. Right. And so if I'm constantly checking in to figure out, hey, how can I, you know, you do something that's going to bless somebody else, going back to what Darth Vader told you, it's always about the other person. So those kind of little tips are really huge and helpful. But I think a lot of times as leaders, we're so busy and people are running around like their hair is on fire because there is a lot to do. But we've got to get back to the basics. And the basic job of leadership is to develop and birth other leaders. That's the job. And so we can't do that if we're too busy running around like the house is on fire. And we haven't really taken the time to figure out what's important to you. You know, a person who works on my team and how can I help you get that?
[00:50:54] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's as we wrap up here, a good friend of mine. He's been a great mentor as a Marine. And the mission of the Marines is not to fight and win. The mission of the Marines is to make Marines.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: Ooh, I love that.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: When we make Marines, we can fight and win.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: There you go. There you go. See, I love that. It's funny. My dad was Air Force, so I got to throw Air Force plug in here, right? But I remember when.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: I know I got to call it right there because I was Navy. No, go ahead.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: I knew I wanted to slide it in real quick.
But when I first got my very first leadership, I went to my father, who, as you know, was a master sergeant, and I was like, dad, I've got my first leadership job, and I really want to do a good job. And what would you recommend? And he said two things. And I still. I still lead this way to this day. He said, steph, always remember, there's two sides to every story. And the second thing he told me was, always protect your team.
And I. And I lead that way, right? So if somebody. If there's a problem on the team and somebody comes into my office to, you know, complain about somebody else, they actually. They all knew, like, don't go to Stephanie's office. You got a problem with your brother over there.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: Talk to your brother before you go talk to Stephanie.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: Exactly. And the two. You can come in if you can't figure it out. Right? But that was important because that continues to build trust and then always protect your team. You know, there's. The mistakes are going to happen, things are going to happen. But most people come to work with the desire to do a good job. And so if mistake happens, okay, let's figure it out, let's fix it, let's learn from it, and let's make sure we don't do that same mistake over again. But it's. You know, protecting your team is so important as leaders because that's. That's, again, that's part of what we're called to do, right?
[00:52:24] Speaker B: It is. Well, Stephanie, thank you for what you're doing, for the work you're doing. I'm excited about our next conversation and getting to do some more work with you as this industry and this company continues to take off. So, you know what? God bless and fair winds and following seas.
[00:52:39] Speaker A: Oh, awesome.
[00:52:40] Speaker B: Gotta throw a Navy at you.
[00:52:42] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: All right, have a great one, Stephanie.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: You too. Thank you.
