Jason Williford - Guest Speaker

The Making of a Serial Entrepreneur: The first grade class at Booker T. Washington Elementary school was ripe for the picking. As a student, Jason realized his first market opportunity by taking the art lesson industry by storm. After sitting through an art class, he proudly went home and announced the launch of his first business: art lessons at recess. His sell (and maybe draw a little) launched an opening day revenue (1 client) of 50 cents. Day 2, 300% growth and word was spreading fast. Day 3, the same administration that allowed the business to be born shut it down. Evidently, complaints from a mother that her child had willingly fasted for lunch after giving over his lunch money to some student for art lessons exposed the unintended consequences of capitalism in pure form. The progression of ventures went to an after school football league (right after “the man” shut down his first company), leaf raking, farming, mowing, landscaping, outdoor living and now trusted advisor as a culture expert to CEOs.

Focus: Jason is living his dream. He is blessed to be married to his best friend, Betsy. Beautiful, hard working and willing to put up with his ‘adult onset a.d.d.’ and love affair with entrepreneurial endeavors. Together they have three wonderful children; 14 year old son, Cody, who is tender hearted, goofy and intelligent. Ryder, their 8 year old son, is the adorable jokester, and Taya Hope, their 6 year old daughter, who is a spit fire and already knows that she runs the show.

Jason’s goal: To help others mitigate ‘stupid human decisions’ from the growing business process. Understanding the goals of shareholders ranging from wanting to fire themselves as CEO, disruptive top and bottom line growth and sustainability via right people right seats is our discipline.

Having worked as an Owner and Manager, Jason has had the privilege of making several great people decisions, a few good people decisions and tons of poor people decisions. The poor decisions included horrible hires (despite a great interview—or so he thought), really stupid promotions (ever take your best employee and promote only to destroy both positions in one move?) and just pure uneducated autocratic management.

His personal experiences ingrained the need for an in-house process that eliminates the subjectivity of managing employees. Understanding the needs of your specific culture and enabling your employees to drive it straight to the bottom line takes a mathematical approach to driving objective decisions. The Culture Index Program is an in house program that allows you and your managers to make all people decisions with objectivity.

One client put it best: “All these years we have been hiring people for WHAT they are (education, resume, references)…only to fire them for WHO they are.” This program allows ownership accountability systems for all management levels with every employee decision. The process includes great hires, promotions, lower turnover, more productivity and a truly healthy working culture. The net-net is this: more R.O.I. on your payroll expense by making accurate human decisions with an objective in-house program.