Caring Takes Real Courage — feat. Marcel Schwantes (EP. 65)

Cullen Talley has spent nearly nine years building Exit Momentum, a coaching firm that now works with 75 companies and over $1.5 billion in combined client revenue, and he thinks most business operating systems are missing three things: financial rigor, leadership development, and real strategy. Mark Abbott and Cullen trace his path from payments and the first mobile banking company (acquired by Qualcomm) to a COO seat where EOS first clicked, and then into a coaching model that rejects the five-sessions-a-year template in favor of on-demand advisory, CEO events, and second-level facilitation for department heads. They get into why nearly all of Cullen's clients share revenue and margins with their teams, how to define an ideal client by who they are not, and why a brand promise matters more than being unique. Mark lays out his five stages of development and argues that strategy is about winning the stage you are in. The conversation closes on where coaching goes next as platforms like Ninety and AI absorb the mechanics, and why the light bulb moments in a room full of humans are the part that cannot be automated. Key topics The three gaps in most operating systems: financial rigor, leadership development, and strategy Replacing the five-sessions-a-year model with on-demand advisory, CEO events, and second-level facilitation Open-book finances: why most of Cullen's clients share revenue and margins with their teams Ideal client, brand promise, and differentiated activities, starting with who your client is not Mark's five stages of development and strategy as winning the current stage Where coaching goes as AI and platforms commoditize the mechanics About Cullen Talley Cullen Talley is the founder and head coach of Exit Momentum, an Inc. 5000 business coaching and leadership development firm based in Baton Rouge. Before coaching, he spent 15 years in payments and fintech, including the angel team at Firethorn, the first mobile banking provider, which Qualcomm acquired for $220 million, followed by a COO role at a family-owned group of companies. His firm now coaches 75 companies representing over $1.5 billion in revenue and runs twice-yearly CEO and second-in-command events for its clients. Exit Momentum · Follow Cullen on LinkedIn Mentioned in this episode "Scaling Up" by Verne Harnish Exit Planning Institute (CEPA certification) Business Enterprise Institute (BEI) exit planning certification Great Place to Work certification How Exit Momentum runs on Ninety (case study) Mark's forthcoming book on exits (in progress, not yet available) ResourcesSubscribe to Mark's Founder's Framework Newsletter Subscribe to Ninety's EOS Newsletter Try Ninety free Follow Mark on LinkedIn Follow Cole on LinkedIn Follow Cullen on LinkedInSubscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Marcel Schwantes learned what bad leadership costs the hard way: a command-and-control workplace left him collapsed on his bathroom floor, paralyzed from the waist down, and facing six months of recovery. The servant leader he worked for next became the model for everything that followed, from his coaching practice to his Inc. column and his podcast. Mark Abbott and Marcel dig into what Mark calls high care versus high performance, and Marcel makes the case that one actually produces the other when caring leaders set clear expectations and hold people accountable. They get into the country club leader who can't deliver results, why caring leaders need the courage to have hard conversations early, and the CEO who answered damning exit interview data by demanding the names of everyone who left. Mark shares why he prefers psychological courage to psychological safety, and how Ninety's "succeed or escalate" principle keeps problems from sinking the ship. They close on what love actually means at work: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness, backed by action that produces results. Key topics Surviving a toxic workplace, and the servant leader who changed Marcel's career High care versus high performance, and why one leads to the other Relationships and results: why the smallest word on Marcel's slide matters most Leadership courage and the hard conversations most managers avoid Why narcissists rise to the top, and how a high care, high performance culture stops them Love in action: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness About Marcel Schwantes Marcel Schwantes is a leadership coach, speaker, and writer who spent 20 to 25 years in corporate HR, organizational development, and talent management before starting his own practice in 2013. Inc. Magazine brought him on as a columnist, and in 2018 he launched his podcast, originally called Love in Action and now The Marcel Podcast, which has passed 300 episodes with guests including Ken Blanchard, Amy Edmondson, and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. His work, including his book Humane Leadership, is built on a human-centered model of servant leadership and five principles: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness. Follow Marcel on LinkedIn Mentioned in this episode "Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss" by Marcel Schwantes "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It)" by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic "Good to Great" by Jim Collins "Built to Last" by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell W. Edwards Deming's work on management and quality, and Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety Mark on The Marcel Podcast: How Great Leaders Build Cultures That Scale Connect Mark Abbott on LinkedIn Cole Abbott on LinkedIn Ninety's EOS NewsletterSubscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Ten years in, Mark Abbott sits down with Ninety co-founder Kris Snyder to talk honestly about what they built, what they would do differently, and what still is not solved. They get into why Ninety reached roughly $40M in ARR without a single salesperson, an idea Kris carried over from his first job out of college at McMaster-Carr, and why they eventually conceded that the "we don't sell, we serve" era had to end. Kris walks through the Math of Trust, the three-part model the two of them developed around 2020 that treats character as binary, competency as a score, and connection as a percentage, and shares what happened when a leadership team rated a colleague's character at zero. They also cover the Five Stages of Development, why nearly the entire EOS world is stuck in stage three, and why leadership development almost never happens by osmosis. The most candid stretch is about what they got wrong: going fully remote across 36 states, holding onto fractional leaders long past their usefulness, and the trap of covering for a direct report instead of replacing them.Key topics:* The Math of Trust: character times competency times connection, and why a zero on character ends the equation* Reaching $40M ARR with no sales team, and knowing when that model has run out* The Five Stages of Development, and why most EOS companies are stuck at stage three* Why leadership development rarely happens on its own, and what to do about it* The difference between coaching, mentoring, and judging, and why leaders conflate all three* Going fully remote as the "non-gift" of the pandemicAbout Kris Snyder:Kris Snyder is a co-founder of Ninety and an EOS implementer who has been building companies since the dot com era. His first job out of college was at McMaster-Carr, the multi-billion dollar, century-old distributor that famously operates without any salespeople, an experience that directly shaped Ninety's early go-to-market approach. He spent 13 years in Entrepreneurs' Organization, including board service running its mentorship program, and he made his first investment in Ninety in December 2019, following it with a six-figure check in the opening weeks of the pandemic.→ Follow Kris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krissnyder/Mentioned in this episode:- "The Creative Act: A Way of Being" by Rick Rubin: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886- "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756- "You Can Negotiate Anything" by Herb Cohen, who ran negotiation training at Mark's early bank: https://www.amazon.com/You-Negotiate-Anything-Herb-Cohen/dp/0806541229- Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Jane Loevinger's stages of ego development, referenced as the intellectual roots of Ninety's Five Stages frameworkResources:→ Subscribe to Mark's Founder's Framework Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3JiAaXT→ Subscribe to Ninety's EOS Newsletter: https://www.ninety.io/impact-moments→ Try Ninety free: https://www.ninety.io/?utm_source=you…Connect:→ Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott→ Follow Cole on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ColeAbbott→ Follow Kris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krissnyder/Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction01:58 - AI as agency, and what Claude changes about hard problems06:26 - Are we solving complexity, or creating it?07:58 - Ideas are worthless without someone who owns them10:22 - Humans are at the edge of creativity11:02 - Creativity as a process, and Rick Rubin's "The Creative Act"13:15 - McMaster-Carr and the origin of "we don't sell, we serve"16:02 - Why Ninety never had incentive plans20:34 - COVID as a gift, and the EOS Worldwide breakthrough23:20 - Writing a six-figure check in the first weeks of the pandemic23:58 - From Maslow to the Five Stages of Development28:07 - Why most of the EOS world is stuck at stage three35:25 - Leadership development does not happen by osmosis37:42 - Finding a mentor, and what mentorship actually requires41:03 - Coaching versus judging45:55 - The Math of Trust53:42 - What a genuinely healthy team looks like55:24 - The CEO who fired his COO the next day56:18 - Ego, empathy, and covering for people you should replace1:01:42 - The "non-gift" of a fully remote team1:05:28 - Fractional leadership, and holding on too long1:09:01 - What each of them is most proud ofSubscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Most people meet a family business with a raised eyebrow, assuming nepotism, dysfunction, and the kind of dinner-table drama that makes for good television. Mark Abbott sits down with family business expert Sara Stern to make the opposite case: family businesses are among the most enduring and value-creating institutions on the planet, and the very thing critics mock is often the reason they last. Sara walks through the three-circle model of family, business, and ownership, the underrated role of the "chief emotional officer" who protects a family's traditions, and why holding relatives to the same standard is an act of love rather than favoritism. Mark connects it to his own work on rituals, artifacts, and the long game, including a simple framework for the four kinds of conversations every leader has and why mixing them up is where things break down. It adds up to a wide-ranging talk about culture, leadership, and playing a hundred-year game in a world obsessed with the next quarter. Key topics: Why family businesses endure, and why the stigma gets it backwards The three-circle model and the "chief emotional officer" Rituals, traditions, and artifacts as the real fabric of culture Holding family members to the same standard as everyone else The four types of conversations: coaching, managing, training, and social Playing the long game: 100-year thinking and legacy About Sara Stern: Sara Stern is a family business expert and EOS Implementer who has built her career helping family enterprises thrive. Before becoming an implementer she spent roughly a decade with a family business institute, and she is known in the EOS community as the person who champions family businesses rather than groaning about them. Find her at sarahbstern.com and on LinkedIn. Mentioned in this episode: The Three Circle Model of the Family Business System (Tagiuri & Davis, Harvard, 1978): johndavis.com Elliott Jaques, time span of discretion, from "Requisite Organization": Amazon The Drama Triangle (victim, persecutor, rescuer) and The Empowerment Dynamic (creator, challenger, coach), from "The Power of TED*" by David Emerald: Amazon Radio Flyer (a multi-generational family business example) LVMH and Warren Buffett (durable, enduring-asset examples) Connect: Follow Mark on LinkedIn Follow Sara on LinkedIn Sara's website: sarahbstern.comSubscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

When Mark Abbott posted a Craigslist ad for a part-time assistant back in 2015, he had no idea he was hiring one of the people who would help define the soul of Ninety. In this special episode, Mark sits down with Michelle Rose to retrace more than a decade of building the company from a one-person coaching practice and a rotating cast of assistants into a platform that helped thousands of organizations survive and grow through COVID. They talk candidly about the messy early years of fractional leadership and outsourced engineering, the farm outside Atlanta where every quarterly planning session ended around a six-hundred-pound cast-iron fire pit, and the hard-won lesson that culture is built by the people who care enough to solve the problem behind the problem. At the center of it all is a simple idea Mark keeps coming back to: your job is never just to do your job, it is to help the team win. Key topics: The Craigslist hire and the earliest, scrappiest days of building Ninety (90) Why fractional leadership and a "different company every six months" are so hard to scale Building a culture of service that was never written into the core values "Your job is to help the team win": the mindset that separates who thrives from who struggles COVID as the turning point that made both the platform and the relationships matter more than ever Mission versus job, and the real cost of a founder stepping out of every interview About Michelle Rose:Michelle Rose is one of Ninety's longest-tenured team members, joining Mark Abbott as a part-time assistant more than a decade ago and growing alongside the company into a leader across its implementer and client relationships. She is known internally for a deep commitment to service, relationship-building, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to help the team win. Mentioned in this episode:Kolbe A Index (the assessment Mark references in the hiring process): https://www.kolbe.com Connect: Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott Follow Michelle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleeroseSubscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Ninety almost didn't get to build the software that now runs thousands of companies. Mark Abbott marks the company's 10-year anniversary with Christine Watts, Ninety's first full-time employee, tracing the journey from a $500-a-month marketing budget and two college-age engineers to a platform used by roughly 4,000 organizations. They get honest about the years when every feature and every blog post needed EOS Worldwide's approval, the "beautiful mess" of bringing technology into a world that resisted it, and the ultimatum that pushed Ninety to build its own Plan B. Christine explains how customer experience became the company's north star without anyone ever formally deciding it, why COVID turned into the unexpected tipping point behind nearly 200% growth, and what a decade of constant role changes taught her about ambiguity, humility, and herself. In this episode: The early years: product-market fit inside the EOS implementer community with almost no marketing Building product under EOS Worldwide's approval, and the tension that came with it COVID 2020 as the tipping point that finally proved the product Customer experience as a core value no one ever formally decided on The "Plan B" ultimatum and navigating the license fight without burning bridges What 10 years and constant role changes taught Christine about leadership and ambiguity About Christine Watts: Christine Watts is Ninety's first full-time employee, joining in January 2017. Over nearly a decade she has led marketing, client success, and product, served as chief of staff, and now serves as Ninety's Head of Professional Services. Connect with Christine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wattschristine/ Mentioned in this episode: "Traction" by Gino Wickman "The Discipline of Market Leaders" by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema Try Ninety free: https://www.ninety.io/Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Every leadership team thinks they're aligned. David Meyer, founder of Spoke Marketing, has run alignment exercises with over a hundred companies across 17 years, and not once have two leaders written the same answer when asked their company's single most important message. That discovery led David to develop what he calls "thresholds of change": the inflection points where a company's old story stops matching reality, whether driven by new technology, shifting buyer behavior, leadership transitions, or market disruption. In this conversation, Mark and David unpack why alignment breaks down, why emotion (not logic) is the true driver of change, and how founders can use a simple "now, next, later, never" framework to keep their teams pointed in the same direction during turbulent times.Key topics:Why 100% of leadership teams fail the alignment testThresholds of change: recognizing when your brand story no longer fitsThe "now, next, later, never" framework for prioritizationWhy founders get emotionally attached to what got them thereHow throwing more tactics at misalignment makes it worseAbout David Meyer:David Meyer is the founder of Spoke Marketing, a brand strategy and positioning agency he started nearly 18 years ago. With some team members who've worked together for over 30 years, Spoke helps companies figure out not what they want to say, but what their customers want to hear. Their mantra: "You haven't told your story until someone else can tell it."Website: spokemarketing.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/admeyer/Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

What does it take to build a good life, not just a successful company?In this episode of Founder's Framework, Mark Abbott sits down with Charles Lee, founder of Ideation and author of Design Your Good Life. Charles shares how growing up as the child of immigrant entrepreneurs shaped the way he thinks about work, creativity, and what really matters.In this episode:Why your greatest strength may be the thing you take for grantedHow curiosity helps people move through transitionWhy competence and confidence are not the same thingWhat Kobe Bryant taught Charles about success and familyHow to stay connected to what matters while building something meaningfulIf you're building a company and trying to build a life you're proud of, this conversation is worth your time.Resources:Get Design Your Good Life by Charles Lee: https://www.charlestlee.com/design-your-good-life-book-landing-page#preorder-the-bookSubscribe to Mark's Founder's Framework Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3JiAaXTTry Ninety free: https://www.ninety.io/?utm_source=youtubeConnect:Follow Charles on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlestlee/Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbottSubscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Mark and Cole unpack a simple but uncomfortable truth: if your weekly meetings aren’t working, your company probably isn’t either.This conversation breaks down why so many teams dread meetings, what’s actually going wrong beneath the surface, and how those patterns reflect deeper issues with alignment, leadership, and discipline.They walk through real scenarios inside leadership teams, from visionaries disrupting focus mid-quarter to teams avoiding the hard conversations that actually move the business forward.At the center of it all is one idea: the weekly meeting is not just a meeting. It’s a signal. And if you learn how to read it, it will tell you exactly what’s working and what’s not inside your company.You’ll Learn:Why most meetings feel like a waste of timeHow misalignment shows up in weekly meetingsThe role of the visionary in breaking or strengthening focusWhy teams avoid the issues that matter mostHow great meetings create clarity, accountability, and momentumHow are your meetings? Take the Rate Our Meetings Quiz to find outDo you like this content? Get our latest book, Meetings Kinda Suck Resources→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter → Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter → Try Ninety free:  https://www.ninety.io/?utm_source=you…Connect:→ Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott→ Follow Cole on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ColeAbbottSubscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Growth creates options, but it also creates complexity.In this Founder’s Framework episode, Mark Abbott and Cole Abbott unpack why so many companies get stuck doing more instead of doing what matters most. What starts as experimentation, ambition, or a flood of good ideas can quietly turn into friction, confusion, and wasted effort across the business.This conversation is about discipline. It’s about keeping the main thing the main thing, resisting the pull of novelty, and building organizations that value fewer, finer, better decisions over constant motion.You’ll hear:Why too many ideas create drag across teamsHow founders accidentally add complexity to the businessWhy “fewer and finer” is a better operating principleThe difference between projects and programs as companies growIf your company feels busy but not clear, this episode will help you rethink what’s actually moving the business forward.Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.Resources→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!→ Stages of Development QuizConnect:→ Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott→ Follow Cole on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ColeAbbottSubscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter→ Subscribe to Ninety’s EOS Newsletter  → Try Ninety free for 30 days!