Ear To Ear Podcast | EPISODE 9: HR & Finance

Transcript:

 

 

Introduction (00:00):

Welcome to Ear to Ear by Altaworx, A podcast for all things telecom.

 

Keith (00:06):

Welcome to the Altaworx Ear to Ear podcast, where we talk all things telecom. My name is Keith Singler. I'm the Executive Vice President of

Revenue Operations at Altaworx. Today we have a special guest, Noah Whittington, the controller of Altaworx is with us today. Welcome, Noah.

 

Noah (00:20):

Hey, Keith. Thanks for having me.

 

Keith (00:21):

Awesome, Noah. Let's give the audience a little glimpse into who you are and what role you play here.

 

Noah (00:26):

Sure. so I am a 2020 graduate of the University of Mobile. Grew up kind of in the south part of Alabama. Most of my life. Grew up in a really small town called Ury. Most people don't know of it, but if you do, it's probably cuz you have relatives up that way. Or if you like hunting, there's plenty of good hunting land. But I grew up in a little small town came down to mobile for college, played golf there, loved every minute of it. It's fantastic school. Loved my experience playing golf all the time. Kind of got spoiled to it cuz now I gotta go to work and make a few dollars. So so yeah, so I started out with a math degree from the University of Mobile. Wasn't really sure for a while where I wanted to go with it.

(01:13):

Knew I wanted to take some of that problem solving analysis, critical thinking that I really learned in college and put it into a practical application. And so that led me to finance and accounting. Later on in my college years around junior year, I realized, Hey, maybe let's give a accounting finance a trial. You know, so I took a few classes that really piqued my interest, that kind of pushed me off in that direction. Then when I graduated in 2020 I had interned with a financial services company outta mobile. And that was also kind of during covid. Things were kind of crazy. So I had an opportunity there, went ahead and jumped in and learned some really great things, but figured out that sales was not for me. Finance was. So that pointed me kind of in the financial analyst direction, looking more towards that kind of stuff. And that led me to Altaworx about a year after I graduated. And it just happened to come across it on LinkedIn. And that's kind of where the ball got rolling and led me to where I am today.

 

Keith (02:16):

And it's been downhill ever since. Right, Noah <laugh>. Absolutely.

 

Noah (02:21):

It's been a lot of fun. So

 

Keith (02:22):

I tell people all the time, I'm just a nerd. So, you know, your background, very similar to mine, finance, accounting, and I, I tell my daughters, and I have two of 'em all the time, I said don't marry the quarterback, cuz the nerd's gonna be their boss when they're older. So there you go. Love, love the fact that you are such an intellect and a math degree. What, what made you choose a math degree?

 

Noah (02:45):

Well, initially I was really interested in it because I wanted to teach. And I still really like you know, teaching in that iu I get to help people learn things, you know, see the light bulb go off, help someone understand something new. But I actually took an intro education class when I was in college and realized, okay, education is not where my heart is. But I still really just love the problem solving, the critical thinking that I got from math. I mean, yeah, I'm stereotypical nerd when it comes to that kind of stuff. I got a lot of funny looks in college when I wanted to do math, but I enjoyed it. I think I learned a lot of valuable things from that that, you know, I could take and, and apply it to the real world. And I think one of the biggest things I learned from that, you, math is kind of a generic degree. Yeah, you can teach, but there's a lot of things that you learn in that, that you can take and apply to the, to the real world, especially in business. So thankfully I got an opportunity to do that and kind of ran with it.

 

Keith (03:45):

Interesting fact about Noah is, he's my first hire here at Altaworx. My very first one when I came in, I was the vice president of finance and I needed to fill out a team. I found Noah. We linked on LinkedIn, came in for an interview and Noah showed up to the interview in a full suit and tie. And it's interesting, he's, he's applying for a finance job. All he can, all he knows about the company is what he sees on the web. He sees my profile. I've got a college shirt on, and my profile on LinkedIn, Noah walks in with a full suit. And my first words to Noah wear, don't ever wear that in here again. <Laugh>. Yep. So Noah came dressed to the nines. And I think that at that point I was probably in some shorts and a polo or Yeah, maybe even some flip flops on. Yeah. and it, what's cool about Altaworx is, is still a pro environment, but but we're in Fairhope, Alabama, and then when it's warm outside, oftentimes you'll find people in shorts and flip flops, which is fantastic.

 

Noah (04:49):

Yeah. You don't see too many suits in, in Fairhope, especially with the warm weather down here. But I was so used to wearing professional clothes, you know, for financial services. I mean, I was wearing a, a button down and a coat or a button down and a tie every day to work. And so I just kind of, you know, I kind of had that in my mind. If this is what you wear to an interview, didn't really know Altaworx was, I mean, we're still very professional, but also more casual work environment. You know, Keith, Keith was definitely wearing probably shorts and shorts and, and you know, Burkes or something like that. <Laugh> on that, on that first interview. So and then, and then the funny thing was I still, I came back for a second interview with some of the other executive team and wore another suit. So I was like, well, I guess I just better impress. And then once I, once I got the job, I was like, I don't have to do that anymore. Thankfully don't

 

Keith (05:38):

Have to do that anymore.

 

Noah (05:39):

I can wear my polo shirts.

 

Keith (05:40):

So you wear the suit to church and get to wear your golf shirts to, to work. So we run our business with core values in mind. We hire and fire based on core values. It was evident that you were a core value fit from the first interview. You were chosen partly because you didn't want the job that you were being hired for as your landing spot for a long time. You wanted to be able to grow and evolve, which is one of our main core values. So talk to me about that. You're a great example of that. So I want to hear about your progress here at Altaworx. How have you taken that core value and really elevated yourself and climb the ladder, which has been two years? I think your hire date is two years next week. Yep. So just in two years, give the audience an idea of what you've done, how you were hired, and then mentored, and then where you are now.

 

Noah (06:35):

Yeah. Well Keith, I think you set a great precedent with, you know, you wanted to hire somebody who wasn't just gonna be a data pusher for the next five, 10 years, but you wanted to hire somebody who's gonna grow and that enables you to grow as well. And so I mean, that, that was something that really fit what I wanted to do long term. I, I'm very, very motivated to, you know, to succeed, to be excellent at what I do. And I didn't want to just, you know, sit and sit and do basic AP for the next, you know, several years. I wanted opportunities to grow, to learn something new. Cause obviously if you do the same thing every day for, you know, several years, it can get pretty boring. You can check out mentally I wanted something that was gonna be engaging, that involves learning, learning new stuff.

(07:25):

And that really fits in with growing Evolve. I didn't really know that that was a big part of the core values, but that's always kind of been part of my personality. Just wanna do the best at what I got, what I can, you know, take advantage of opportunities to learn and take on new things. So started out doing basic AP and then that led to some more responsibilities not too far down the road. Some, you know, one of, one of the funniest experiences, I came and asked you for more responsibilities after my first 90 days. And that led to some things I wasn't necessarily expecting, but some great learning opportunities nonetheless.

 

Keith (07:58):

Yeah. So Noah, you came to me, I think it was just after three months after you had busted your 90 day mark to where we couldn't get rid of you, you know? Yeah. You, you'd proven yourself at that point in time. You were outside of your 90 day probationary period. So I'll never forget you walked in and you said, Hey, I'm ready for more. And which was music to my ear is because as a manager, one of the things that I try to do when I'm hiring for a new position is hire that person to be able to replace me if they're working on my direct team. And I certainly saw those qualities in you early on, but after 90 days you come in asking for more, it just solidified that your adherence to that grown evolv core value hit was impressive. So what did I give you after 90 days? I gave you HR and payroll, which totally outside of the comfort zone, you never done anything like that before. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So talk to, talk to me about that. How was that progression of trying to tackle something that you had very little background in and then taking it and basically owning that from the time that I gave it to you? Until I transitioned into my role and out to finance and hr?

 

Noah (09:15):

Yeah. that was a little, I guess at first a little unexpected, but I realized, hey, I asked for more responsibility, so let's tackle something new. Let's learn something. And I went into it with the mindset that this isn't necessarily what I thought I would take on responsibility wise, but it's something that can really benefit me down the road. At the very least, it's a resume builder, but it's also a great opportunity to learn something, you know, learn something different. Be able to provide va additional value to the, to the company. Not just doing my regular finance stuff, but being able to do things like HR benefits helping with onboarding, things like that really provides value to, to, you know, the company as a whole. And, you know, something like that. I was very grateful early on. I mean, you trusted me enough to, to take the lead on some stuff with that, cuz it's obviously that you're dealing with sensitive information, especially payroll is one of the first things I took on.

(10:16):

You know, you had a lot of trust in me to, to tackle that and to, to be professional about it. To be you know, to, to keep things under wraps and not, not, you know, not share things that were, you know, needed to be kept in HR or just keep things really on a professional level there. And so I learned a lot with that about, you know, when, when's the, what things are sensitive, what things, you know, do I need to talk to Keith about. Just how learning how to handle different situations. I mean, there were some, some HR conversations I had the chance to sit in on not too long after I started doing that. And just to kind of see how you handled conversations with different people that, that impacted me on just how do I, you know, how do you, how do I relate to people that impacted me, you know, thinking now as a manager that you know, I remember those conversations and how you interact with people differently and that, that influences how I, you know, gauge my conversations with other people.

(11:18):

So yeah, it's, it was it was definitely a good a good challenge I would say that really kind of stretched me to do something that I wasn't necessarily expecting, but something that definitely benefits me long term.

 

Keith (11:32):

Yeah. As a manager, it's important to be able to delegate and elevate. Yeah. One of the things that we do from a, a business standpoint is we run on the EOS management platform Delegate and Elevate as a principle of that platform. What that allowed me to do is it freed up more of my time to work on more m and a stuff looking for businesses to buy and that type of thing. So for us, you being able to take off that responsibility for me made the company better cuz then we could focus on an area where we needed to have somebody with more resources and more time. Also, that growing Evolve principle is really interesting because what it does is it, it forces you to learn, but it also gives you insights into the business as a whole to where when you are continuing to climb the ladder, so to speak, you have a better idea of how the business is run as a more holistic organization.

(12:25):

And each one of those experiences is just gonna help you along the way. So you did a great job on that. Now, fast forward a year and a half later. January 1st, 2023, you moved from AP clerk from your your first initial spot. You moved to Financial analyst one, then you were a financial analyst. Two, I took on a different role, which means that hiring my replacement just happened to move. That transition was pretty quick. It was less than two years. You jump into that controller spot. So talk to me about your major responsibilities on that. You were able to grow and evolve along the way. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you had some folks that were mentoring you. You had some great experience even though you were still green. So now as a, a young controller, talk to me about your responsibilities there. What are you doing day to day? What do you, this is your first opportunity to manage people, so I want you to tell me a little bit about that.

 

Noah (13:18):

It's a bit of oversight, but also day to day it's kind of a balance being a controller where there's some aspects where I'm in the day to day but it's still maybe more in depth analysis that I can train my team on at some point. But it's also oversight and, you know, the buck stops with me on some things. One of the biggest things that I'll do is controller is closing the books at the end of the month. That was something that, that, you know, Keith, when you were VP of finance, you had the final responsibility, you know, the, the team us as a team would provide analysis and and things like that to you. But then, you know, you make the final, the final entries, the final closings and the commentary. And so that, that now comes to me. So there's definitely more responsibility of managing the financial operations as a whole and not just doing, you know, a certain part of the finance strategy.

(14:14):

I, I guess you could say. But it was you know, the opportunity to be a controller was, was really cool. I wasn't necessarily expecting it just cuz I, you know, I had prepared myself. I said, all right, it's gonna be a few years because, you know, I'm fresh. I was fresh outta college, only had one year of experience when I started here. And thankfully had, you know, quickly progressed to be an analyst too, and just taken on more responsibilities. But I knew that being a controller, you just, it just takes some time and experience to learn more about the business and how to you know, how to think more strategically. And I mean, you guys, me with the opportunity only a year and a half in which I'm, I'm grateful for, it's been a fantastic learning experience.

(14:58):

Learning how to lead a team, learning how to hire somebody, train somebody new, how to delegate responsibilities. And, and in a way that the whole team feels like they're con contributing in a meaningful way. And it's not just, you know, we talk about delegate and elevate with, with eos and it's one of the most impactful tools for somebody in leadership. But it's not a way to just get stuff off your plate. It's, it's more strategic of all right, what, how can I add to somebody's role to help them contribute in a meaningful way? Helps them grow as a professional. And at the same time, it's gonna free me up to be more strategic, be more involved with things the leadership team is working on.

 

Keith (15:41):

Yeah, it's, I'll give you a little insight into the conversations that, that happen. When the transition of me moving outta finance and into revenue operations, one of the conversations was, how can we help Noah succeed? Oftentimes when businesses are looking for a controller or a VP of finance level type person a CFO type person, if that seat comes open, and it wasn't from a natural transition from that person taking another role inside the company, either, either that company's, you know, ha is in tough financial situations and that person sees they're riding on the wall and they jump, they retire or they're fired. Cuz something was wrong and you got a mess. Do you inherit, we, we talked about that at length. We wanted to support you. And one of the interesting ways that we're able to support you in that role being so young and green was that the previous VP of finance is still on board me.

(16:35):

And then Forrest was the previous VP of finance before I came on board and one of his previous roles. So making sure that we gave you an environment to succeed was important for us. And we felt like we trusted you. And it was an interesting it was an interesting decision and I can tell you that we didn't hesitate cuz we knew that you had that support. So you've done a great job. So you're now managing a team. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you've had managers throughout your career, several, you've been able to pick up good and bad things, things that you wanted to do and incorporate, and clearly, especially you work for me. So I'm sure you picked up some things that you didn't want to do. Talk to me about that. How has it been, how's, how's the challenge with people? Oftentimes it said business is easy, people are difficult. So what have you found with managing people?

 

Noah (17:23):

Yeah, I mean, that phrase is, is very accurate. It's easy to sit and, you know, analyze financial statements all day. I say easy comparatively speaking versus you know, dealing with different personalities on a team. I mean that's, and and then along with that, when I first became controller, my task was, okay, you know, we need four on the finance team, now there's three. So let's go find somebody to, you know, to replace me to to fill that seat as an analyst on the team. And I think getting, getting to know the personalities that were already on our team, but then also the personalities or the personality of, you know, the new hire that we brought in. I think that's been a really good challenge to just to learn how to get to know people on a more personal level.

(18:15):

And you know, yeah, there's an aspect you have to, you have to be somebody's manager. But I've also worked with these people on the same level. And so it's like, all right, we work together as coworkers, let's continue. We have a good working relationship. So I think the, the, one of the biggest things that I've learned from you from previous managers is just good communication and making sure that communication is clear, that it's, it's frequent. Oftentimes when I can tell that there's strained between a manager and employee, it's, there's a lack of communication there. Somebody is not giving clear expectations not giving feedback in a timely manner. It's important to be honest as a manager. And one, one of the, one of the things that I really try to make sure I practice is, and it may, it may be a little bit of a cliche phrase, but criticizing private praise and public I wanna make sure, you know, everyone on my team knows that they're, that when they do a good job, they're gonna get, they're gonna get recognized for it.

(19:21):

I'm gonna make mention of it, whether it's in front of somebody else, whether it's in front of the team. I want them to know, Hey, you, you did a good job with this. You know, thank you for doing that. And then if there's something that we need to talk about, it's like, Hey, let's talk about it one-on-one. Let's figure out how to, how to make this better. I learned that from you. I learned that from my manager and, and financial services. You know, if there's a a problem we need to talk about, Hey, let's, let's talk about it one on one. Let's not make a big deal about about it and let's learn from it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Keith (19:51):

Yeah, EOS helps quite a bit with those things too. The cadence, the meeting schedules the tools and things like that. They just help you be a better manager. It's been a huge win for me in my career to find organizations that use that platform. How have you found eos benefits you as a manager with your team and your responsibilities as, you know, a controller? How have you found that EOS has played a a part in that?

 

Noah (20:20):

It gives really good structure. So obviously the structure's already built out with how we run our, our meetings, but it also provides, you know, open and honest communication. It provides accountability. It, it provides standards of excellence that we're all, you know, individually trying to achieve, but also as a team. And there's so many good tools in there too that provides, you know, a way for us to focus as a team. I mean, one that we did recently was a eight cla eight cashflow drivers. And that was a really good brainstorming activity that we did as a, as a whole team, just kind of whiteboarded it. How, how are things you know, affecting cash flow? What are some different things to look at? It gets us thinking strategically and thinking as a team, how can we make things better for the company? So there's so much to EOS that has really impacted the, the, the flow of communication. The ease of communication. I think it makes managing a team easier too. Even where I was previously, it was a really good culture. We didn't have eos, but there was a, there was a good accountability system in place. And I think EOS just takes that to a new level

 

Keith (21:39):

That's super important. What Enneagram number are you,

 

Noah (21:42):

Number one.

 

Keith (21:44):

How does that affect the way that you naturally think about letting go of the vine and having people underneath you do tasks that you would normally want to take on? That's a big principle in eos, is letting go of that vine and letting somebody else grow and evolve with that particular task. So what challenges have you seen there being in that part of the Enneagram spectrum?

 

Noah (22:15):

That's absolutely one of the hardest things, if not the hardest that I've faced since becoming a manager. And Forrest gave me a heads up early on. He said Noah, you look, you seem a lot like me when I was your age. Just the want, want to do everything myself. But one of the earliest advices I, you know, I got from you and from Forrest was take intentional time to think about how you want to help your team grow. And that involves letting go of the vine. Yeah, big Enneagram one, that's kind of the, the perfectionist personality. I, I'm the oldest of, of three, got the perfectionist kind of type a personality. I could be a bit particular, sometimes my wife would certainly attest to that, but you, I can't I can't be, I can't fully embrace that perfectionist nature as a manager.

(23:08):

I have to be willing to step back, teach somebody something new, let them own a responsibility, let them learn something and not, I mean, cuz if you're trying to be a perfectionist as a manager, you'll end up micromanaging people and running, running your team off or hurting the company or whatever. And that's certainly not, not the goal here. So I think that's, that's certainly been probably the biggest challenge because and thankfully my team gives me good feedback and I ask them often, Hey, how are you feeling with your responsibilities? Is there something that, that you would like to learn? And I'm constantly thinking about that with what I'm doing too. Is there something that would make more sense for somebody on my team to learn and own that rather than cuz me as, you know, kind of the stereotypical Enneagram one, I want to do things, kind of do things my way. I kind of have a set method for when I tackle something and, you know, I own that for a little bit and then if I want to give it to somebody else, I have to step back and say, okay, they're, they may do it a little bit differently and that's okay. I have to help them learn and make sure they're doing it correctly. But there's more than one way to get it done. And that's, that's one of the biggest things that I've learned.

 

Keith (24:23):

Absolutely. I've been blessed in my career to have wonderful mentors and managers. There's a difference there, right? There's, there's managers that hold me accountable, that steer me towards goals that are gonna affect change in the business to help us reach our company-wide goals. And then there's managers that mentor and those mentors have helped me climb the ladder and, and progress and become better both personally and professionally along the way. How old are you, Noah?

 

Noah (24:55):

25.

 

Keith (24:56):

25. How has being transitioning into managing people and now where you are in a position to where you can mentor peers on an age group level, they're the same, but now you're mentoring them because you now have a responsibility to make sure that they're not only making company goals, but you're helping them meet their personal goals when you're meeting with them, when they're one-on-ones and you're doing your annual planning and you're doing your reviews, you're talking about where they want to be and you are trying to mentor them and help them get there. Have you found any challenges with now transitioning from being mentored solely to now have been having that responsibility to be a mentor?

 

Noah (25:40):

It has been a little different. Cuz when I first started, I, I kind of wanted to hold on thing, hold onto things or not pass things along to my team in that, well, I just didn't want to come across as being bossy, but they, they, they kind of reminded me, Hey Noah, you're, we trust you, you're in charge for a reason. You know, it's not gonna, it's not gonna upset the apple cart if you pass something off for us to do or, or want us to tackle something for you. I mean, that's, that's why you guys trusted me with that responsibility. And it's been, it's been really good to have some just good conversations with my team. Okay. What do you got, what do you wanna accomplish individually? You know, we, we have the cadence with our, with our regular EOS finance meetings of looking at our rocks for the quarter, looking at our to-dos. That kind of reflects what we wanna do as a company, but it's also, you know, talking to 'em one on one. Hey, what do you wanna, where do you wanna be in the next few years?

 

Keith (26:38):

Yeah, those are, how can I, those are some of my favorite conversations. Yeah. I, somebody that works for me now that came to me recently and said, Hey, I wanna be at this level at this certain time. And I love the fact that she did that. And I love the fact that she had a well thought out plan that said, Hey, here's where I'm at now. I'd love to be here. And all we had to do was fill in the blank. They would said, okay, in order to get there, here's the, here's the 10 or 12 steps that we need to do, and then we'll accomplish our goal. Being a mentor is, is the greatest challenge, but it's also super rewarding when you see that what you're doing with these people is helping them be happier, helping them reach their, their potential, helping them get to that next step.

(27:26):

And along the way you can ask them to do very hard things and you see them grow and evolve and because they understand what the plan is and you're working towards that together, interestingly enough, being a manager being much different than being a mentor. Sometimes being a mentor means that you are helping them reach a goal that is oftentimes counterintuitive to what you think that you would want them to do. But you have to give them the freedom to search out those goals for themselves. And helping them get there oftentimes produces better results than what you had originally thought that they needed to do personally. So, mm-hmm. <Affirmative> it's, it's one of the most rewarding parts of being a manager and I'm happy to see that you've taken the and and accepted that as being part of what you do, cuz you can really affect some positive change in people's lives. I'm gonna transition to the telecom industry a little bit. Let's talk about what your experience with telecom was before you were hired and what you've learned over the last two years about the telecom industry.

 

Noah (28:30):

I knew absolutely nothing when I came here. <Laugh>,

 

Keith (28:34):

That makes two of us. Yeah.

 

Noah (28:36):

About the extent of my telecom knowledge was my parents had been at and t customers since it was BellSouth or something like that, you know, 20 some odd years ago. But thankfully Keith and, and the leadership team, you know, when they're bringing somebody on you, sometimes having prior industry experience is a plus, but for, at least for doing finance with what you were looking for, you're just looking for somebody that's coachable, maybe had a little bit of background in, in finance or accounting, and then just, alright, let's, let's roll from there. You'll learn the industry knowledge as you go. And I think that's, I've learned a ton just by being in it every day. There's so many acronyms and mm-hmm. <Affirmative> phrases you hear in telecom and there's, there's several. I still would like con contextually I know what it means, but I, I couldn't, you know, explain it to the average Joe on the street.

 

Keith (29:30):

Yeah. I laugh when I was first hired, I was like, oh man, it's gonna be so hard for me to figure out what all these things mean because I have to report on them. How, how do they affect us financially? Somebody dug up an acronym sheet that we had on our employee alternate and it is like four pages long. Double columns, yeah. Definitions, 10 point font. And I was like, man, I studied that thing for weeks and just decided, hey, as I come across these things, I'm just gonna raise my hand and say somebody, please explain that. My first few level tens, I was fairly quiet, but when I did speak up, it was, Hey, I don't know what that means. Can somebody explain that? And it's been great. The people in the organization are super helpful when it comes to trying to have somebody understand exactly what telecom is, what does it mean from a product standpoint, service standpoint. You know, it's just, it's been a lot of fun. But learning the new industry is that it, it's been a challenge. Certainly it's been a challenge, but but you've done, well first two years, you know, you've picked it up. Being exposed to the financial side of it has helped. I'm sure being exposed to the product side, it's gonna help even more.

 

Noah (30:43):

Yeah, absolutely. I got more exposed to the finance side originally being in AP and doing some month end stuff. And now as controller, I get a little bit more big picture, a little bit more on the product side in addition to all the finance stuff. So I have maybe more involved with conversations with operations or with rev ops and it helps me to understand not only more big picture of the company and what we're trying to accomplish, but how the, the products, you know, play into all that. And some of those funky acronyms or words that I had no idea what they were two years ago.

 

Keith (31:17):

Yeah, it's a feather in our cap that we can onboard 99% of our employees that haven't had telecom experience and teach 'em the industry as they go, because we've got good processes, we've got good managers and mentors that help, you know, and those people get brought along along the way. So a lot of that is finding the right person we hire and fire based on core values. We could teach a telecom. It's complicated and it can be super complicated. We found great success in hiring a fire by core values, which has helped a lot. Let's get into your personal life a little bit. All right. Your college golfer, your teammates with a, a young fella that's on our team, on the sales team both play college golf, huge difference between you two, both from, you know, rural communities, but night and day from a individual standpoint. Talk to me about how sports and your background in sports, your love for sports. I know you love all things sports, not just golf, you know, you're a football fan, you're a baseball fan. How does sports translate into business for you?

 

Noah (32:28):

Yeah, so I've been around sports pretty much my whole life. Played golf. I played some other sports as a kid, but mostly golf and like you said, played that all the way through college. Wade and I go quite a ways playing golf tournaments as kids and we both have very different personalities, different ways of going about it on the golf course, you know, and in life too. But I mean, kind of the old cliche on the golf course, you know, you just gotta get the ball in the hole. You know, it doesn't really matter how it gets there. And so I I I love some of the things that golf teaches you and it really applies to, to the business world and to your personal life. I mean, I had an instance in high school where I, I don't really know where I stood at the time, but it was the one year I made state championship and I was probably in the lead or tied for the lead, something like that.

(33:18):

I wasn't playing with the guy who ended up winning. So I don't know where he was at the time, but it was the second day of the state championship and 12th hole out at Magnolia Grove and Mobile. And I had moved my coin on the green so somebody could put, and then I forgot to move it back and it was a two stroke penalty and I had to call it on myself cuz nobody else in the group saw it. They weren't paying attention. But as soon as I hit my putt, I knew it and then it ended up being a two stroke penalty and I lost the state championship cuz not necessarily because of that, I lost by like three shots and that was a two shot penalty. But it was one of those things that had I not mentioned it, it would've eaten me up on the inside cuz I knew it was the right thing to do.

(33:59):

But I was like, golly, nobody said anything about it. In the back of my mind, I like for a split second, I'm like, should I say anything? Nobody else noticed it, but I'm like, no, I gotta call that because I was like, that's the right thing to do. I mean, golf is one of those, you know, it's one of the biggest sports for, you know, integrity and honesty. I mean that there's a lot of times you're by yourself where you may be over on a part of the course where you know you can do something to your golf ball or change the condition of the course where, you know, it's kind of up to you to do it the right way and to follow the rules and nobody else may be right there next to you to see it. It's very different for the pros on TV obviously, cuz they have fans and cameras all around. But, you know, that, that's one of the, the biggest lessons I've learned is just, you know have integrity and Callie Golf will teach you some patience or it'll test your patience. I know that golf, golf

 

Keith (34:56):

Translates pretty well into finance as well, especially accounting, you know, there you've, you've got the, you got the keys to the car when you're managing the books, you find an error instead of raising your hand and saying, Hey, there's an error somewhere. And you know, oftentimes you have the ability to fix it on your own which oftentimes is the wrong move. You could do that most like golf. You could have not said a word about it and just let it ride. You could see something in the financial statements that's wrong and just let it ride. Because, you know, it'd avoids some type of tough conversation or some type of inquiry. Yeah. What the best thing to do is always to say, Hey, I, I'm, I didn't move my coin back in finance. Same thing. Hey, there was a mistake made. We need to figure out how we can fix that regardless of the consequence.

(35:42):

One of the reasons why I was so intrigued in you as a potential employee was the fact that you shared that story with me in an interview. I knew right away that if the bank wreck was off by a penny, that you were gonna go find it. Oh yeah. Which is the ultimate test of patience, right? Hey, I spent two hours on this banker, I'm trying to figure it out, but it, it could be off by a penny or a dollar or whatever, a hundred bucks, whatever it is. Looking at the material amount of money that you're looking for versus how much time you spend, oftentimes it's better to go spend the time on it to figure out what it is. Cuz it could be a combination of multiple transactions that makes you off by that little amount and not just one little mistake or a 10 key error like we used to say, but sports, it, it's a wonderful teacher when it comes to those things. Yeah. And that's a wonderful character trait that you have that I think translates well into business. Would you consider yourself a competitive person?

 

Noah (36:35):

Yeah, I, I, it's kind of funny, I, I'm definitely competitive. I love to win, but I'm not necessarily like gonna show that I'm competitive, but like, I hate losing, and you and I were talking earlier, I'm playing in a golf tournament next weekend, so like, I still, I'm, yeah, mid twenties now, but I'm still trying to compete just, you know, on the occasion, you know, play in a, a charity event or play in a local tournament just to like, I just like competition, like competing. I like the chance to win. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, if there's a chance to win, you know, I'm here for it.

 

Keith (37:05):

On a scale of one to a hundred, how competitive are you?

 

Noah (37:09):

I don't know, man. It's hard to match up to your competitiveness sometimes. I, I <laugh> So where did you put

 

Keith (37:13):

Me? Where did you put me on that

 

Noah (37:14):

Scale one to Keith Eric

 

Keith (37:16):

<Laugh>. If I would say I'm probably like a hundred.

 

Noah (37:20):

Yeah, you're, you're like all gas, no breaks. Yeah, I'm probably, I'm probably up at the, up there in like the 80 range. Like, I'm, I'm pretty competitive, but I'm not, like, I'm not, I'm not quite Keith level and I'm okay with that. I'm not like,

 

Keith (37:31):

Oh, I like to win at everything. Oh, I

 

Noah (37:33):

Do like to win. I agree with you.

 

Keith (37:34):

I, I tell, I tell the story all the time. There was a running spades game at my parents' house between my father and I used to team up versus my wife and my mom. And those games get pretty heated. I'm not gonna say the table was flipped or anything like that, but, you know, my wife and I don't play games much anymore because of how competitive I am. I hate to lose too. I, I enjoy losing for one reason and one reason only is for the opportunity to learn everything else about losing is horrible. I'd much rather learn experiences while I'm winning. Yeah. Rather than doing it as, as losing some type of competition. But I mean, it keeps the blades sharp. It's fun. I mean, I know there's some competition, internal competition between departments and, and the company and how we, we pit each other against each other oftentimes, but it keeps things fun, which is another one of our core values. Yeah. talk to me about your faith a little bit. You're, you're a man of faith. I wanna understand you personally. How do you use that in business? Do your personal beliefs help steer you to make certain decisions in certain ways in business, good or bad? You know, what is your, what have your experiences been with that?

 

Noah (38:47):

Yeah, absolutely. We, you, we just talked about some of the lessons that I've learned from golf, but some of that also comes from my faith. I mean, as a Christian, you know, I know that you, I know there's, there's right and wrong, you know, right and wrong is black and white. I mean, nowadays just, you know, generally speaking in the culture of right and wrong is very gray. It's kind of, you know, decide right and wrong for yourself. But, you know, thankfully they're, you know, we have a God given conscience that that can give us direction. And I mean, especially with finance, that's, that's one of those things you really have to, you have to be a person of integrity. I think that that ultimately comes from my faith. You knowing that, you know, ultimately I'll have to answer to God for, for what I do.

(39:31):

Yeah. So I hope that you know, hopefully I can, you know, do the do the best I can. Not, not say doing, doing everything right or wrong, you know, get you any merit before God. But I think that you know, just really just doing, doing the right thing, knowing that you follow the example that Jesus gave. Treating people well, having compassion and doing the right thing especially when nobody's looking when nobody's gonna notice or say anything about it. And that's very applicable to, to finance with what I do. You know, and it's not like I overs spiritualized financial statements or anything, right. <Laugh>, but I mean, you know, like you talked about with the bank recs or with, you know, financial statements. If something's off or something looks a little weird, I need to say something about it. You know, I need to make sure that we do things as a team and me personally in an honest way that, you know, that doesn't run us into any sort of trouble, whether it's, you know, legality or it's just, you know, ethics. Like, hey, you know, we know what the right thing to do is, or what's the honest thing to do, even if it doesn't work out in our favor. So let's, let's do the right thing.

 

Keith (40:39):

Yeah. You said two words that I think are really interesting. You said integrity and ethics. What's cool about Altaworx is from the top down, I mean from the CEO to the president on, on down, one of the things that we do is constantly look to make a positive impact, whether it's for the employees or we even talk about it from a vendor standpoint up and downstream, we talk about that. What positive impact can we have on the people that we're actually using to affect our business, our vendors, our customers are a huge thing. Do the right thing for them, even if that means that it costs us sales or some profit, we're gonna do the right thing. It's, it's refreshing to be working at a place where you never have to question what the motives are. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I think that really helps.

(41:25):

And it never gets crossed with my own personal beliefs or my own personal faith. So I've been prayerful at times. I've been trusting at times. I've been, I've, I've had good conversations about those, those topics with people that I work with, and I have to felt afraid about it. So it's, it's been a, it's been a breath of fresh air to work at an organization that operates in such a way. Yeah. One of wanna kind of jump around a little bit on a personal note, ask you some, some kind of high topic questions. Sure. All right. If you could be any one person for a day, who would it be and why?

 

Noah (42:06):

So you and I were talking before, I kind of have my, my prepared answer, and then I also have like, answer one B. So go back to you know, if you wanna look for a little bit of golf history Francis we met is he was a career amateur golfer. He won the 1913 US Open being a little bit of a golf nerd here, but he beat the two greatest golfers of, of that generation. Harry Varden and Ted Ray and Disney made a movie about it probably 15 years ago with Shilah Buff. And it's honestly probably my favorite movie. I loved it when I was a kid. It was one of those like, really inspirational stories. Like this kid kind of came from, nothing wasn't amateur, wasn't even a professional, beats the two greatest guys in the world.

(42:56):

It was just really one of those like, if I ever need some motivation, I'm gonna go read that story or watch that movie. So if I could be him on that day when he won, that would be incredible. But also, if you watched sports recently, Michael Block was a teaching professional and he competed on the PGA tour last week in a, in a major, like, this guy just teaches lessons for a living, but he played well enough and finished top 15 in, in a major with all the best players in the world, beat the number one guy in the world. I mean, absolutely incredible. So like, to to see or to experience what he experienced last Sunday would've been absolutely incredible.

 

Keith (43:35):

It's like the, the Rudy story for Yeah, it really

 

Noah (43:37):

Is. For golf <laugh>. Yeah, I think, yeah, no, I don't know if the Michael Block story's gonna last quite as long as Rudy though, but yeah. <Laugh>, it kinda was.

 

Keith (43:46):

Everybody likes an underdog.

 

Noah (43:47):

Oh, absolutely.

 

Keith (43:49):

I cheer for the underdog often times. I'd love to see people rise up to, to the occasion. I love to see the establishment oftentimes get overthrown by something le a little bit less you know, mainstream. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, I love to see, I'd love to see that, that, that underdog story. Let's play a little bit of word association. I'm gonna say a word or a phrase. Give me your first reaction in a word or just a couple words. Telecom

 

Noah (44:21):

Complex. That's that's definitely sum it up in one word. Yeah.

 

Keith (44:26):

Complex. Complex golf,

 

Noah (44:30):

Fun and frustrating.

 

Keith (44:33):

Sewing, hate and discontent.

 

Noah (44:37):

The master himself, Keith Singler <laugh>. You, you can't talk about sewing hate and discontent without bringing Keith up. I mean, you've basically made that the seventh core value.

 

Keith (44:46):

It, it's, it's how I instill fun in the office. I, I had, I think my last podcast that we were on here, I did a little segment on it and then everybody knows me for it. It's been a lot of fun, you know, pitting people against each other and walking away and seeing what happens. But doing it in, in that the spirit of fun has been, yeah, been pretty cool in the office. Hr,

 

Noah (45:10):

I would say, helping others you know, it kind of sounds like your, your friendly neighborhood, spider-Man kind of thing, you know, I'm just here to help, but really that's what HR is. Yeah. There's hard stuff you have to do and hard conversations, but at the end of the day, you're, you're trying to help people out, make their lives better as employees.

 

Keith (45:27):

Momentum.

 

Noah (45:30):

Well, we just talked about Michael Block. That's, that's the first thing that comes to mind. I don't know if I've ever seen anybody ride momentum like that. Ride the momentum of thousands of people around you cheering for you. That's, that's one of the, the coolest experiences I've ever seen where you, you just, you get on that roll and it's just, you're destined because you are, you are riding that momentum and it just keeps going. So, Michael Block, that's my answer to that one.

 

Keith (45:57):

Jennifer Winnington

 

Noah (45:59):

Darn beautiful wife. I'll tell you that. <Laugh>

 

Keith (46:03):

Had to give a little personal plug in here for

 

Noah (46:04):

It. Yeah, absolutely. Been married just over two years, so

 

Keith (46:07):

That's outstanding. Fantastic. Let's talk about where you want to see Altaworx go in the next three to five years. Where do you think we could go and what part will you play in that?

 

Noah (46:22):

Well, I hope I'm here for some of the biggest growth we've ever seen. Some of the, the things that you talked about, not only since you've been in rev ops, but also when you were in finance, you did a really good job of letting keep kind of giving us an insight into some of the dreams, some of the things y'all are working on. I mean, I hope that we can, you know, shoot, I hope we double in size in the next few years. I hope we do some big things.

 

Keith (46:48):

Me too.

 

Noah (46:50):

I mean, I, I wanna be here for, you know, not just slowly trending up, but like trending up so much that it's making waves and and, and even with, from what you guys tell me with conferences, like, we're already making ways, but let's, I hope it, I hope it's bigger and bigger. So yeah, I want, I wanna see it's double in size in the next few years. And hopefully I'm a, I'm a part of that with helping, helping from the finance side, whether it's, you know, m and a strategy, financial strategy, whatever the case may be, I'm here for it.

 

Keith (47:18):

Yeah. I think we've talked about momentum a little bit at 2023 for Altaworx and AMOP has been a year of momentum. Yeah. The speed at

which we're running now is much, much, much faster than it was in 2022. And we had a great 2022, we had a great 2021. We were, we even grew during Covid. 2023 is about us getting that momentum riding, and it, it's been a wonderful wave to ride. It's been a lot of fun. We've got the right people in the right seats. Sales Momentum is out there. We've got a tool that's a disruptor. And it's been, it's been a lot of fun and I can't wait to see where it goes. I have the same goals. I wanna, I wanna double, I wanna triple size. Yep. So, I'm, I'm happy you're part of the team. Really, really excited to see where your career goes in the next three to five years. It's been a pleasure to, to work alongside you and be, be a colleague. So I really appreciate you joining the podcast today.

 

Noah (48:10):

Yeah. It's been fun. Not only being here today, but working with Altaworx, learning from guys like you. It's been really cool.

 

Keith (48:16):

Awesome. Thanks a lot. Thanks for being here. Take care. Thanks.