Beyond Satisfaction: The Power of Customer Delight

Speaker A: When companies talk about customers, they often talk about customer satisfaction. Maybe if they're a little bit more advanced, they talk about Net promoter score. But here's the cool, here's the. Here's the hard raves view on satisfied customers don't do anything. They're in stasis.

Speaker B: On this episode of Executive Edge, Greg is joined by David Hargraves, a supply

Speaker A: chain management expert and CEO of Pharmalogistics. If you strive only for customer satisfaction, you're striving for mediocrity. If I'm satisfied, I won't call your competitor and try to resource the business right? But I also won't call my best friend and tell him how happy I am with you.

Speaker B: David shares focused insights on leadership, customer experience, and the philosophy behind delighting customers.

Speaker A: Every interaction you have, think to yourself, is there something extra I can do? So when this customer hangs up the phone or finish this interaction, they're delighted, not just satisfied.

Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to this episode of Tenzing's Executive Edge podcast. Our guest today is a former colleague of mine and a professional friend, Mr. David Hargraves. David is the CEO of Pharmalogistics, where his team is leading the next phase of growth in pharmaceutical reverse distribution services. David joined Pharmalogistics in January of 2024, following more than 25 years in supply chain leadership, including executive roles in hospital operations Sat Premier and UPMC. His professional experience includes building resilient and efficient healthcare supply chains, lowering costs while improving patient care, and developing innovative partnerships that drive operational and data science improvements across, uh, healthcare providers and manufacturers. David is also a veteran. Thank you for your service, having served in the US Navy as a biomedical equipment equipment technician. David, thank you for joining us on what is a very special day. Before I forget it, I want to say happy birthday to you, my friend.

Speaker A: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. If we get a chance in this podcast, you have to explain to me what's a professional friend, because I don't remember you ever paying me for it. So

Speaker B: I could have called you an industrial acquaintance.

Speaker A: That's true too. I'll take either one. It's good to know. Greg Anderson, thanks again, though, for letting me be on.

Speaker B: Yeah, so, David, today, uh, you know, the theme we're gonna, we'll cover, uh, you know, as we move through the podcast, is talking about delighting customers. But, uh, you know, before we jump into that, just want to go back and, uh, maybe start with your Navy service and walk through some of your career, hitting on a few highlights you had a few pivots, uh, like many of us do in your career. And, uh, I think it's an interesting. That will give people a good, good sense of your background. So, so let's. Let's start with the Navy.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think one of the first things, Greg, it's important to know, and since next week is Veterans day here in 2025, uh, every male in my family has been a veteran. Everyone going back generations. It's an interesting thing. I won't say it was an expectation, but certainly there was enough familiarity there that it wasn't a big leap for me. But, um, but the real interesting thing is, like, so many kids, and I've got three kids now, all in university. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was working at a garage this post high school graduation. The garage offered to send me to school to become an ase certified mechanic. Went home all excited. Told my parents my dad was. No, my dad was a lifetime bricklayer. Never went to college. My wife m. My wife, My mother was a secretary. Never went to college. Wasn't an expectation. But he said, look, I want you to do something better. I want you to go to college. You know, I'd like you to just. Just do something. Don't work with your hands if you can. If you can help it. I did it my whole life. Ruined my body. So I took that mantle up and subsequently went to and dropped out of two colleges. So, yeah, I don't know whether I nailed exactly. I tried what he was asked me to do, but, uh, but it didn't work out for me. I didn't have the discipline. I couldn't stay in class. I got bored. So I just stopped going. I just stopped showing up and on. And around that time, recruiters had been calling me all along because in high school I did really well in the ASVAB test. The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, which, I don't know, there still is, was a requirement when I was in high school. Anyway, so finally one of them called me and they said, hey, listen, you join up for this long enlistment, um, but most of it's going to be reserve duty. We'll send you to a civilian college. And so I went then to Penn State, got a degree in the biomedical equipment technician. And, uh, and that's how I really entered into the Navy because I couldn't do it on my own, the college. But then going through boot camp and going through my A school, uh, in there, it taught me the discipline that I needed. To do it. So it's one of the very core things that I learned is the discipline and also the service mentality. And both of those have carried through the entire career. So I'm very happy for the time that I served and I, it's for any young person who might listen to this, probably low probability, but if they do listen to this one, I'd absolutely encourage it. It's a real and viable option, as are the trades. Um, to it. Yeah, but, yeah, but that, well, service.

Speaker B: I, I, I've always known you to have discipline. So uh, I, because I met you after you maybe.

Speaker A: Uh, that's right. You didn't know me in those other years.

Speaker B: I didn't know you in your footloose and fancy free days, but that's really great. And then you came out of the Navy and uh, tell us about your first job, first professional job.

Speaker A: Well, it's an interesting one. I won't my, I'm old, right? So the career is too long to go through everyone. But I think it's an interesting story about delighting customers that, that'll tie into my first real job, if you will. So my first real job was a company called Dynatech Nevada. We made capital equipment test equipment for biomed technicians. But here's the quick story. I think it's kind of interesting. Hopefully your listeners do too. So, uh, I'm at Penn State. I'm working weekends, uh, and nights at a Walmart that we had created there. And I'm also completing at the end of my education including uh, what was a 400 hour internship at the VA Medical center in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. So in Wilkes Barre, at the VA, working, I'm in school and I'm at uh, Walmart. Guy comes in, I worked in the electronics department back uh, there. Guy comes in and he's up and down this one aisle and he's up and down the aisle. And so I finally walk over to him and I say, hey, can I help you? And he sort of blew me off. He's like, nah, it's, it's technical. Um, I'm working on something. Well, what are you doing? He's like, well, I got a brand new house that I built. He's like, I'm running cable television across the thing. I'm looking for the parts for that. So I immediately said, well, let me ask you a couple questions. What's the longest distance you're going to run? How many devices are you running overall? You know, if you go more than X feet, you're going to have an attenuation and a loss in the signal, so you're probably going to want an amplifier. And he stops for a second and he turns around to me and he says, Walmart. I'm just, you know, I don't know, 525 an hour, you know. And he's like, yeah, how do you know that? I'm like, well, I'm just finishing my degree at Penn State Electronics, so. And so anyway, great customer interaction. We go over to the cash register for me to check him out with his now larger than he expected purchase, um, that we have. So we get to the counter, I look at his shirt and he's got a logo on and it says Dynatech Nevada. And I go, how would I know that, uh, logo? And he's like, yeah, you wouldn't. We're a small manufacturer, very niche. I go, no, no, no, I really know it. And I go, no, no, you guys make the Med, uh, Tester 5000, you know. And he's like, how would you know what that is? So I tell him the story about him finish my internship. He goes with the wow, small world, what do you know? But I didn't let it drop. So as I check him out, I said, hey, listen, not for nothing, I am graduating. Uh, you have any jobs? He said, well, I do. And I said, all right, I'm in, I'd like to have it. He said, well, it's in Carson City, Nevada and we're here in Wilkes Barre, Penn. I go, I don't care, I'm single. I moved to Nevada. He's like, wow, it's 40, 50% travel, including international travel. I'm like, again, I'm single, I'm good, I need a job. Can I go work there? And that is how I took the job. Gentle's name is Mike Irwine, still friends today. And that is how I wound up with it. And so the obvious connection in that particular one is, you know, you go a little extra to engage with customers in this sort of point. You never know where it's going to wind up. In that case, it was my first full time job. I uh, I want to say it was 24, maybe $26,000 a year, which seemed like a fortune in uh, in about 1991 I think that was.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's great.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Hey, fortune favors the bold. So uh, good for you to uh, to, to reach out like that with uh, directly to that customer and delight him. Hopefully his cable, uh, project turned out really well in his new home.

Speaker A: Sure it did.

Speaker B: So then let's, let's maybe, uh, just make a few stops along the way. Tell me where you went next or what happened after that.

Speaker A: So keeping that theme, working with there gave me sales experience, gave me technical experience around the inside sales department for them. I was good. I lived out in Nevada, lived out in California. Um, and then job, uh, opportunity came up was with Newark Electronics, which at the Time was a $7 billion distributor of electronic components. Not the things you buy, but the relays and resistors and things like this that are used in electronics manufacturing. So I reached out to them, they said, hey, uh, we'd like to give you a job. You've been in sales. You know, electronics sounds good. Uh, here's seven states and locations you could choose from. Where would you like to go? I picked Pittsburgh because it was close enough to where I had grown up in New Jersey, but not so close that I was going to get uninvited guests just stopping by. So went over then to Newark Electronics, worked in that all commercial field sales, inside sales, sales leadership, uh, for work for there, and, uh, left there though as a market develop manager, uh, for semiconductors, trying to grow our sales with manufacturers like Motorola. So now you got 10 years or so of that electronics experience. This is where, for the listeners, where I met Greg Anderson now. So I literally, it's 1999. I'm responding to a newspaper ad because that's how people used to get jobs. And I see a newspaper ad for this company, Free Markets, and it says, hey, we want somebody who knows electronics, knows specifically the components, knows how they go to market, how they're sold, things like this. I applied for the job there at, uh, Free Markets and. Which became Ariba and is now either SAP or Accenture. And Greg, as you know, that's where you and I, uh, got a good chance to interface and work on that. For folks who don't know the company itself at the time, this was reverse auctions, lowering cost for industrial clients, for the most part in my area, for whatever their direct or indirect materials were. And Greg, I'm sure you've covered that maybe in a past episode, but, uh.

Speaker B: Well, we've talked. Jacob, uh, Gorm, Larson, we talked about reverse auctions. A lot of talk about free markets in that episode. But I do remember meeting you, and I'll never forget when you, you told me once that, uh, I think you said you were afraid of me. Folks, you physically, David, could kick my tail in a battle. But yeah, uh, apparently he, uh, he. I don't know why, but you Thought, uh, you were, you feared me or whatever. When, when you first met me at Freedom. Yeah.

Speaker A: In a respectful way. Yeah. More than a physical way. But no, Greg Anderson listeners ran a very tight operations and everyone knew. Don't just casually walk into the mock the market operations center that Greg ran. Don't uh, just walk in there. Don't come up with some idle chit chat. Greg was intense. He had work to do. He delivered incredibly well. That's why that company was so successful. And so, uh, yeah, that's where it came from. But at the same time, Greg, you learn something from everybody you can. I learned some of that intensity and that, hey, look, if you have a job that's incredibly responsible, you need to shut down outside interferences sometimes to ensure that you do it well. Yeah. Um, and then again, I don't know your listeners is the journey through the, uh, careers. But, but you know, that was a phenomenal place that accelerated my knowledge of supply chain. Sure, I'd worked in distribution and I've done repair of the equipment with the Navy, but that really then taught me. I mean you. It's over said, but it was a graduate level in supply chain, getting to work with the customers that I had at that time. Compaq, uh, which was a computer manufacturer, Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, United Technologies. And working directly with, we were subject matter experts on how to make markets and run auctions and lower their cost. But These guys were 20, 30 year veterans of supply chain management. And I soaked it all into the best that I could and made friends with them, learned about them again in the sincere. This was interesting. I told you I had no idea what I wanted to do, which is why I dropped out of those first couple colleges. Now I was looking, saying, you know, this is actually interesting to me. I've got a passion for this. Uh, I'd like to learn more. Um, and so, Greg, I know I wasn't the only one. We just had a 30th reunion, uh, recently, which was a big success. It's great to see how many folks took that opportunity to learn and to grow and really become masters in supply chain.

Speaker B: Yes, it propelled a lot of people's careers and it was, it was really good to see you and, and uh, the whole gang, uh, you know, folks that came into town for that reunion recently. That's awesome. So after free markets, I think you, I don't know if you stayed through the Arriba acquisition, but you ended up for a hot minute at Alcoa. I remember this.

Speaker A: Yeah, hot Minute Alcove. And uh, it's, there's a story there if you will. Hopefully I'll drop names in here. Hopefully he won't mind. So, so, uh, um, at Free Markets we're doing all this great work. One of our clients was Alcoa and so I worked with then I don't know what his title was, but I'm going to say like VP of the coe, the Centers of Excellence. Uh, was a guy, his name is Jim Zelagi. Um, great guy. So basically I'm giving a presentation. I think we were at the breakers in West Palm. Jim was in the audience and he came up to me afterwards and said hey, we're doing a multi year, hundred million dollar plus I want to say was supply chain transformation with IBM. They had it for consultant time. We're uh, going to be hiring some positions. One of the things I want to build out is how do we get better intelligence around what we're going to do in our supply chain department. Department. So we're going to create a market intelligence department. Uh, are you interested to come over, uh, you know, be a member of that department? Uh, I've seen the work you do. I've seen some of the stuff you guys right here at Free Markets. Would uh, you like to come over? So that was it. So I was like, yeah, absolutely. Seems logical. Next step up, public company, Dow 30. You know, this is uh, great to do it. And I was there. You said a hot minute. I'll take offense. I think it was nine or ten months pregnancy there. Maybe a pregnancy, maybe only short stint in my entire career. But here's why folks don't know the backstory. I think it's interesting. So my boss, this guy Jim, he hired me. To be fair, he was my boss's boss at Alcoa. Uh, he comes over me one day, said, hey, can I pull you in a conference room? And immediately I'm like, um, oh man, we're having a riff. Something I did something wrong, what could it be? And he pulled me aside and he said, hey look, I'm going to be leaving, I'm going to go over to the newly created position of chief supply chain officer for upmc. Um, he's like, and I want to know if you're interested, I'd like you to come over as my first hire as I go over there and I again, I'm much better now. That's 20 years ago. I laughed out loud and I said jim, we're at Alcoa, we're a Dow 30 company. We are the leaders in aluminum manufacturing and automotive wire harnesses and any number of things. Why would you want to go to health care supply chain? Health care supply chain is near the bottom of the barrel. I said it's not well respected in the world of supply chain and alcohol is. Why would I want to go over there? And he said because I think we can change that. I think there's no good reason that healthcare supply chain should be viewed the way it's viewed today. Again that's 20 years ago. It's just simply they haven't applied critical thought and invested money and chose to be at a greater thing. So I'd like you to come over with me and join do it. Well if those of you on a video, big hook in my lip pulled me over, I'm a sucker for a mission, you know, whether that's the Navy days or not. And so I said fantastic. So then nine year career there, big supply chain transformation, won some national awards, got a lot of recognition, complimented by other health systems. Would fly in to see what we were doing and what was the secret sauce in there. So Jim was my boss, ah at Alcoa, uh, he was my boss at uh, UPMC in all the years that I was there. Um, and then if I can just jump into the Premier which is that next big nine year chunk. So then Premier um, had a great organization, group purchasing organization, another public company, really great. $81 billion under spend management um there and for those folks don't know UPMC, I uh, think about 30 billion now, net patient revenue, about 40 hospitals. So another big organization. But what they said they lacked, what their need was is they said we need someone who's actually been in the chair at a big healthcare system running strategic sourcing, running contracting. We have folks, lots of talented folks but none of them have ever been in that seat. And when we're interfacing with our customers they want to interface with someone just like them who really understands their needs. So Premier recruited me over for expressly that purpose. And if you go backwards here, they probably wouldn't have known who I was if we hadn't won those national awards, which they wouldn't, we wouldn't have won if Jim hadn't recruited me from Alcoa, which wouldn't happen if he wasn't a customer at Free Market. So it is a long chain and none of these, only the free markets one that I ever see an ad and respond to it uh, from there and so premiere it was great and there's lots through there UPMC then became a customer later on. So now I had Jim as the customer, still my boss, um, from this. So it's a really good journey we're taking. That's some 20 years to do it. I'd like to say in hindsight it was intentional but really I think the key all along there was being service focused, choosing to, and we'll talk about it later, delight the customers, not just satisfy the customers. Do a little extra, maybe do it a little bit differently and we can tease through any of those sorts of things, but not with the goal. I never had that goal, that one of these days I'm going to be X. Greg, you know this. I've been. I think everybody is motivated by money, power or ego. None of those is, I don't mean any of that, uh, um, and any negative connotation. It's just that we're all factors of those. Mine was always money oriented but you know, got a fantastic wife, three kids, they all went to private Christian school, they're all in college that cost a lot of money. So I was, what do I need to do to afford the lifestyle that I want? And that has been really the fuel. And along the way have fun and make the customers happy, make your co workers happy and be service oriented more about the others than you are yourself, wherever possible.

Speaker B: Um, awesome.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, so that was it. And then final stage was coming over here. But I don't know whether you want to talk about that or not.

Speaker B: Oh, we're going to talk about that for sure. But uh, before we do, I want to also mention that Pittsburgh being a small world and uh, supply chain and procurement being a small world. I also uh, had the great uh, opportunity to work with Jim Zelagi for a short period of time on a venture called Pensiamo out of upmc. And uh, you know, I saw what you saw. Jim was a great leader and uh, he's retired now and I, I hope he's happy uh, with, with uh, with his life down in Florida. But uh, yeah, no, great guy and, and uh, you were wise to, to go with him. I, I think on that journey he took you on. Um, but yeah, so your time at Premier's up. I remember you called me, said hey, I'm looking to do my next thing. I'm considering a few things out there. Uh, you actually came and visited me here.

Speaker A: Uh, that's right.

Speaker B: David and I both have sort of country places that we uh, we get away to from time to time and uh, we talked about uh, what was next and then uh, one of the opportunities uh, with pharma logistics. So let's get into pharma logistics a little bit uh, about that because um, a lot of people don't know what logistics are let alone reverse logistics. So maybe explain the business model and what pharmalogistics provides because it's a very important service, it's a critical mission critical service. Uh, but I think very few people know about that. So this is your chance to talk about um, what is reverse logistics? Why is it a critical element of the pharma supply chain?

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm more than happy to, I am and it's a great company. I'm happy for the uh, for the opportunity, just maybe for the listeners that uh, that gap. I was nine years at Premier and I had a uh, social contract Greg with my boss Mike Alkire, CEO, another very influential leader and he had told me when he was offering me the big job I left as senior vice president. You know the segment, he said hey listen, I'm going to give you the job but this job's incredibly tough to hire for. Don't ever leave me hanging, don't leave the members hanging. He's like when you decide to go or I decide it's time for you to go, luckily why don't be my choice. Um, he said give me six months notice, tell me well ahead of time. And it was in that time period Greg that then you and I talked uh, to do it. But one of the things I said, this is one of the few times when I was being intentional about my career was all right look, I've been doing supply chain for 25 years. I have a big network, I know really a lot about healthcare supply chain. So I'd like to not just walk away from that network, you could try something brand new. I'd like to not walk away from that one. But at the same time upmc, massive organization, uh Premier, we had thousands of hospitals and national uh, coverage so a lot of work there and named executive officer public company, a high profile sort of stuff. And we for the listeners had also just gone through the pandemic which for a healthcare gpo, tremendous, tremendous just fundamental time uh, of service trying to help the country uh from here. So anyway I said you know it'd be perfect would be if I could find uh, a small privately owned uh company where maybe I could be CEO still in healthcare but a lot, a lot smaller, just different sort of exposure that I have today. I'm sort of tired of it after a while be something Different. And, uh, so I thought on it, I prayed on it. I met with friends with Greg to talk about those things. And sure enough, in a matter of time, I got an external call from recruiter telling me about the position with Pharmalogistics. Here's the part that I think is interesting. The recruiter call went like this. Hey, David, not sure if you remember me. Uh, I'm Chris Dancy. And as soon as he said the name M, like, of course I remember you, Chris. We worked together at free markets 20 plus years ago. And he said, yeah, absolutely. He's like, well, I've been doing executive recruiting ever since then. I work with this private equity company. They're only in healthcare. Uh, they asked me to help them find a CEO candidate for what they hope is going to be their next acquisition. Soon as they told me the position description, I thought of you and wanted to have this quick phone call. Now, we all know how that works. I'm sure Chris also talked to 20 other people. Um, and the same thing. That's what professional recruiters do or they don't eat. But the neat part there is we must have had a positive interaction 20 some years ago. Right. There must have been some intentionality, maybe in keeping together on LinkedIn and stuff for it to be someone that he would think about quickly. So I just thought, it's again, interesting for the listeners as we finish that whole career trajectory, that if you're a good person and you do good things for other people and you care more about them than you do yourself, sometimes it pays dividends. Sometimes when you don't even expect it. That's the, the part.

Speaker B: Well, that's a valuable lesson our listeners should learn. Right. Um, you never know when investments, uh, you make in relationships, uh, and doing good things are going to pay off for you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and it's, it's kind of a delight when it happens. So I'm sure that you were, you were really, uh, encouraged by that interaction and how that came together.

Speaker A: And unexpected delights are the best kind.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: You think if we get a chance, we should talk about that. But. All right. Pharmalogistics. So I never heard of it either, I got to be honest with you. And I'll tell you, there's a funny, awkward, uh, situation. I come, I go for the interview. I meet with Michael Zakaro, another influential person, my life founder. Started it in his garage 30 years ago. Now build it up to an incredible company. Um, but when I came in, I met with the coo. I said, yeah, this is really great. I'm learning a lot about your company. I really wasn't familiar with him before and he sort of tilted his head and looked at me sideways. He said, well, David, you signed our contract at Premier. How can you not be familiar with our company? And I, whoops. So you know, I said, hey, listen, I signed thousands of contracts, you know, don't feel special. Sorry I missed out on that one. But I, but a good lesson. I could have done a little bit more diligence there maybe, but before flying out. All right, so, so let's talk about though it is, uh, I am always fascinated by finding niches that you weren't aware of and then you realize how incredibly complex it is. So here is for every listener. Pharmaceutical reverse distribution. What is it? Why does it exist? Here's a simple way to understand it. No pharmacy is allowed to have expired medications on the shelf. The reason should be obvious, but we are all users of health care. You don't want to go to your local pharmacy, wherever you get your prescriptions filled and receive expired meds. Right? So they're not allowed to do it. So since they're not allowed to do it, every pharmacy has adopted their own set of policies regarding inventory management and when they're going to pull those items from the shelves. 30 days before they expire, 90 days, six months. And every one of those is customer specific. But they've got to go and pull those meds. That's number one. Uh, that's what drives it first. Second, you can't throw them away. These are sometimes controlled substances, substance that have active pharmaceutical ingredients. You cannot just dispose of those by throwing them out in your normal waste stream. To do it, there are regulations, dea, epa, state regulations. It is very. Medical waste is highly regulated and within that subsets controlled substances and incredibly important. It's important for the environment that it's disposed of correctly. Um, it's easily found if you want to see some of the fines that can be paid are in the tens of millions of dollars that a healthcare system might have to pay if they are found to, uh, dispose of their waste improperly. Second one is socially drug diversion. Drug academics. Drug addictions are a very big problem for our country. If you aren't controlling chain of custody, disposing of those short dated and expired meds in a proper way, you run the risk of drug diversion. So those are the causes of it first, that's why the industry needs to exist. But because it's so heavily regulated and complex, um, almost no customer does it themselves. I used to say no customer, but I actually found one. But other than no one does it themselves, they rely on pharmaceutical reverse distributors. Two service them, do it in a professional way, but mostly keep them compliant. They want a supplier to know all the regs, all the rules, all of that one, and then take care of them. And so that's where the industry itself exists. Um, I won't bore, uh, listeners with all the sort of dynamics of the market, but it's relatively consolidated now, um, because of the fact that there's big barriers to entry because of the regulatory. But here's how it shows up. Anybody who's listening to the podcast or watching it, you've got your healthcare system in your local area, that your healthcare system has pharmacies. Uh, my company, for any big health systems, uh, we send field service representatives in, they come on site, they go into the pharmacies, they work with the technicians and the director of pharmacy to identify what are those short, dated and expired meds. We gather them, we ship them in a compliant way to a fulfillment center in the Chicagoland area. There we go through those. And what you're really trying to do is consider it mining if you will. You're trying to extract value from these because some manufacturers for some drugs will give a, uh, credit, they'll return cash to the hospital or health system for that unused drug. But not all of them, not every manufacturer, not every drug. And it has to be in certain conditions. It has. So we have developed a big content management system and a highly automated fulfillment center with where we bring in literally tens of millions of individual packages of these pharmaceuticals every year, process those, try to find the ones that have commercial value, then pursue that commercial value for the hospitals and pull a small service fee out of it. That's the revenue model. And turn around and deliver all of that cash back to the health system. For a good size health system, it is millions if not north of $10 million a year of value that can be reclaimed to do it. So customers pay me, but not really, not in direct invoice. We just have to take it, uh, uh, from what we process, but more so we give them the compliance that they need. We get rid of product that they have to get rid of and in return I pay them for it. If you think about it, Greg, for your house or mine, I put out my recycling. That's a lie. My wife puts out our recycling every week because I'm typically in Chicago, but you know, and we pay for that right through your taxes. You pay for it. Ours Basically the same thing is instead imagine a recycling guy came to my house, took it out for me, and then every month, every quarter, sent me a check. That's really the parallel if you think, uh, about it in this way. So that's the, that's what it is and why it's required.

Speaker B: Uh, now you mentioned, uh, health systems and large hospitals as customers, but do you, do you also serve, um, you know, Walgreens or the, you know, the retail pharmacies, the mom and pop individuals?

Speaker A: That's a fantastic question. There's six market segments and today we serve three of them. Um, hospitals and health systems, independent retail pharmacies. This is another things, Greg, that every industry is infinitely interesting to me once you start to dig it out. I had no idea. There are literally more than 20,000 independent sort of mom and pop drugstores that still exist all over the country. Uh, so since they're dispensing pharmacies, they have the same issue with short date expired. And then there is the government, um, the U.S. the federal government, state governments, local governments. So we serve, we have a sole source with the Department of Defense. We actually do the same service, but we do it in foreign countries. We do it in Korea, we do it in Germany. We do it for them and bring those items, uh, in here to the U.S. we do it for VA medical centers, uh, Indian Health Services, Department of Prisons, um, if you will, bureau prisons, uh, for that one. So yeah, anywhere that there is a dispensing pharmacy, they typically have this need. But you mentioned, if you will, um, sort of big box retail. That's not what we do today. Um, uh, in there also the drug manufacturers themselves. Uh, today we choose to align with the pharmacies themselves because mission is incredibly important to me and it makes it really easy to lead. So I'm there, we're there. The team at pharmalogistics is there really to fight for the pharmacists and the pharmacies to get back as much money as we can for them. Because honestly, uh, health care providers just in general run on very, very thin margins and they can use all the health that they can get.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. That's great, great explanation of the, uh, the business, the value proposition. Uh, I think compliance is massively important. Um, let's talk a little bit before I get into customer delay, because that's where I really want to go next. But talk to me about. You went in there, you know, you had some familiarity maybe with, uh, with

Speaker A: this, or at least I should have.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you should have you signed a contract, as Matt pointed, uh, out to you. Matt pointed out to you. Um, but, uh, you know, how do you, how did you approach your role there, going in as a new leader? And how do you work today to get the, get the most out of your team? Uh, you know, tell me about your leadership style.

Speaker A: I was afraid you were going to use that phrase. That's like one of the hardest interview questions that folks just ask. You know, I, I, I mean, not to say I won't say, I never ask it, but that is a tough one to, how do you summarize that all here? Um, let me give you a couple of thoughts. Um, first off, it was already I mentioned Michael Zakaro before, and you mentioned Matthew Clousing. They had already built a really, really tremendous company. Tight processes, good on compliance, nice, documented work instructions, really, really good. Michael has only in his own words said, here's the only thing we really haven't figured out. Then we figured out how to sell to health systems and hospitals. And it is a challenge. They're big, they're complex. Sometimes they can be intimidating like you were back when we worked at free markets. Um, and so that was really the one thing. So it was fairly easy, if you will, in that our problem to solve was a commercial problem, not an operational one. And after having solved a lot of operational problems for decades before, it was a welcome, welcome, uh, relief. But, but you still have a situation where you're a stranger, you're coming into an established organization that was in existence for 28 years. Right. You can have, how are you going to have, not have institutional rejection, uh, of the new leader. So, Greg, what's my leadership style? I believe in a couple things. If you go for the leader, one of the most important ones is for the leader to set the tone and culture. And you'll see that manifest itself in our new and now registered trademark uh, tagline that delighting customers is our passion, compliance is our priority. We'll save that for a second. We can explain what that means, but that's, that is how do you take what we are all about and summarize it in the fewest words possible? And that's the, that's the answer. Second thing I believe is teams make better, better decisions than individuals. Teams make better decisions. It doesn't mean individuals make bad decisions, but you can take that. You bring it in. So Matthew actually had an idea of how do we summarize what David, what you're trying to do in the organization? So he actually came up with the first draft, then we as a team all sort of, uh, took it. We, you know, ideated and we massaged a bit and that's how we came up with that new tagline which really is the essence of our company. So third is, um, you got to have a clear strategy. So about five months after I started, I pulled together the leadership team. We went to an off site really to say, what do we do, where will we grow and what will we say no to? And that's just as important as knowing what you will do is know what you won't do in any situation. And that's similarly comes through in our tagline. But so we had that strategy session. So you have to have a clear strategy and maybe just two more. Then every member of the leadership team needs to know what is their role and responsibility vis a vis that strategy. Everybody knows their job duties and responsibilities for your job description. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about we have a strategy. I agree and I'm aligned to the strategy because I helped build it. That's the leadership team. Great. And my role inside that strategy. Here's the part that I do, I believe that's incredibly important for a high performing team. And then the last one, easily said, harder to do. Now you actually have to hold every one of those people accountable to it. You know the strategy, you know what, we're here, we know why we're going out to the customers. You know what your role is inside it. Now let's be specific. And that's one of the things that I learned. Pharmalogistics, uh, was really good about that. Individual accountability, KPIs and metrics and specific okrs and deliverables and starting and ending meetings on time and holding folks accountable. So it's a real easy one to fold into that organization because they are already of that culture, uh, and the mindset. And if you do all that with trust and respect and graciousness, I have found it, I've been subject to it, which I've always appreciated. And now in our situation I try to reflect that outwards. You wind up with a high performing team that can do just about anything. And I'm really, really happy to say I'm solid. I feel great about there. We continue to grow. Getting ready to open up a few more positions right now, uh, and it appears to be working, um, for it right now.

Speaker B: Fantastic. Okay, now we're going where, uh, I said we'd go from the beginning. I want to talk about customer delight, cross Compliance. Yeah, but when we, when we spoke before, you differentiated customer, uh, delight from customer satisfaction. Please explain that for our listeners.

Speaker A: All right, let's, let's do this in. I'm happy to do it, and it is what I'm passionate about. I'm going to try real hard not to curse, though, during this one. This. We've got a, you know, all ages audience out here, so here's.

Speaker B: Yes, this is a PGA PG13 podcast. Think about it that way.

Speaker A: Look, voice of the customer is incredibly important. Important. None of us would be here if it weren't for our customers. You and your role, Greg. Me and my role. It's, it's always about customers. But when companies talk about customers, they often talk about customer sat. What's my customer satisfaction? Maybe if they're a little bit more advanced, they talk about Net promoter score, which is better than just customer satisfaction. But here's the cool, here's the, here's the Hargraves view on it. Satisfied customers don't do anything. They're in stasis. Okay, that's not a bad thing, but it's not a positive, it's a neutral. If I'm satisfied, I won't call your competitor and try to resource the business. Right? But I also won't call my best friend and tell him how happy I am with you. So if you strive only for customer satisfaction, you're striving for mediocrity, you're striving for the middle ground, you're striving for stasis. Now it's, uh, incredibly obvious. You don't want to go unsatisfied customers, never acceptable, never anything to be going for, and everything to prevent that. Right? But it's about setting the goal higher than satisfied. So here's the difference. Use any situation in your life. You get your car serviced, you go to a restaurant, you have any interaction with a supplier, a vendor, someone you're transacting with, and they go above and beyond or they surprise you. They do something that wasn't expected, they go out of their way, they give a little bit more, and often it only has to be a little bit more. But they did something that the average person in their role would not do. Average, satisfied, above average. Differentiated, small, unexpected kindnesses and service things and stuff like this. You get delighted. You come home going, you tell Margaret, you tell whomever you interface with. Man, I just got to share with you. I, I was just at. Fill in the blank, service provider, retailer, whatever it is, and never guess what happened. You tell the story and you tell it again, and then that person might tell it again when the situation where it calls it for this one and you have now propagated and you've put forth this ripple in the pond that a delighted customer puts that story out there and it echoes and it reverberates and it goes on. And if you have a whole organization who gets that and who does that whenever there's a fork in the road, whenever you could take a shortcut or you could pause and actually go one extra step, if you do that all the time, repeatedly and sincerely with authenticity, because you know it's the right thing to do, I believe it can make a good, strong organization, a tremendous organization, an organization that grows and that people like working at or they like dealing with. Like, there's that other part about culture and the teams are like, yeah, it actually feels good. I'm not constantly trying to shortcut something. I actually have authority from my CEO, from the board, to say I ought to go a little extra step and make that customer as happy as I possibly can. And so that's in that first sentence, Greg, where we say, delighting customers isn't our goal, it's not our mission, it's our passion. I, uh, want everybody to feel that passion. Every interaction you have, think to yourself, is there something extra I can do? So when this customer hangs up the phone or finish this interaction, they're delighted, not just satisfied. That's really at the core of it. It's at the core of my personal leadership beliefs on, on how to run a great company.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's what sets people apart. Right. Because, uh, at the end of the day, it's, uh, why do something? Why do it now? And why Pharma logistics or insert your company's name here. And that, that last why, I think, is very often a function of how the end customer feels about your business vis a vis everybody else that they could choose.

Speaker A: Yeah, right. I completely agree.

Speaker B: All else being equal, I want to work with these guys because they seem to go the extra mile. And, you know, I had a really great experience. Right. And so I assume you're giving some license to your employees to, to be the purveyors of the light, if you will, with your customers.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: How does that come to life for a customer?

Speaker A: It's interesting. First off, it actually takes a while. And I can give a, uh, few examples. It takes a while for folks to get it. Like, are you really serious? If I went and did this thing, am I going to get in trouble? So you've got to have, uh, repeated, consistent, small successes, uh, that lead to folks actually believing it. The one that came up the most, uh, Greg, is because you can't just give free license, that we all have budgets, we all have goals, we all have to have financial governance and constraints and things like this. You got to have some controls around it. But if you overburden it with controls, now you've taken away from the ability to delight, right, to do the right thing. Use your best judgment in every situation. So here's the one that came to light, though. The one that is immovable, unstoppable. We will never change this. The actual full tagline is delighting customers is our passion. Compliance is our priority. So every employee knows I want to do everything they can to delight the customer in every interaction. And if doing that ever puts us or the customer at risk or compliance, you're not allowed to do it full hard stop. Because before I took the job, I called a bunch of chief pharmacy officer friends and I said, hey, thinking about taking a job. Reverse logistics, reverse pharmacy. What do you value in that thing? And one of them, I won't drop the name, but one of the ones now, a customer, too, said, uh, it goes like this. If you're making a list, write this down. Compliance, compliance, compliance. Space, bar space, bar space, bar. Everything else. They said, listen, you know, even though reverse distribution generates millions of dollars, tens of million dollars for this, I spend billions of dollars on drugs. Your job is to keep me out of hot water. Your job to keep me compliant. Your job is to keep me safe. That's your job. And then be priced competitively and delivered to me as much, uh, of the, you know, rebates back that I could possibly get. So we took it to heart. So everybody has to understand that there is no scenario or delighting a customer can beat compliance. That is the trump card, if you will. It has got to be that. Because that's what the customers are trusting us to do. And so we take it incredibly serious. We have an absolutely near flawless record over 30 years in a very complex regulatory environment. Um, and so, yeah, so that's the answer. Saturday, with guidelines. And then we have ones in between. You know, you'll get a call for a given day. Hey, David, I was just wondering, uh, you know, I've got a customer. The shipment got lost. It wasn't us. It got lost. That's fine. No, this is not an open invitation to our pharma logistics employee to run this play on me. Let me give that a Disclaimer. But he said, I said, yeah, look, we can go and we'll pursue the recovery with the carrier. We'll just put it that way with the carrier. So, but in the meantime, let's look up the average order value for that customer over the last six months. Just, just cut them a check, just pay them while we figure it out. That doesn't need to be on them. We'll figure it out. We'll recoup our money from the carrier. You know, it'll be fine in there. So that's an example, an isolated one, but you don't have to. The same thing. You could go back to the customer, explain, oh, it wasn't my fault, you see, it was the carrier's fault. What you need to do now, it's those small ones repeated regularly. That doesn't feel good. I wouldn't feel good if it was me making the phone call. Here's what I want. I called you. Fix me first, call, first time, make me delighted, and do it as quickly and as efficiently you can. That's the sort of, uh, the sort of culture, the sort of vibe, the sort of direction we're doing. And, and folks, you still have other controls, again for financial and governance to make sure that your folks aren't running amok with that sincere desire, uh, to delight.

Speaker B: Right, right. Well, yeah, and I think, uh, I think it's, it's a, I think your tagline certainly, uh, shows, uh, a lot of thought and, uh, and, you know, consideration because, yeah, you know, you, you, you, you don't want to cross that hard line. You're snapping a really hard line there at compliance. Because that is, you know, ultimately, as your, uh, as your example, the person that you're talking about told you that's the most important thing. You cannot violate that, um, in the, uh, you know, in an effort to delight them too much. So, um, that's great.

Speaker A: If. At the risk of running a little bit long on this one, but something I think is important for the listeners. Just share another thing I'm passionate about. Yes, everybody makes mistakes. We make mistakes. As a company, I make mistakes. As a person. Person, lots of them. Ask my wife. But, but what most people tend to do when they catch a mistake is they couch it some. They caveat it. Greg, I'm really sorry I was late, but the traffic was heavy, but I couldn't find my wallet. But a lot of folks do that. One of the other things, it's subtle that I say is as soon as you do that, it cheapens your Apology, it cheapens it.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: Dale Carnegie, 100 years ago said, when you're wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically and move on. And in my version, that is. And don't, don't shake that thing. You're letting yourself off the hook. Don't just make it sincere. And so saying, I screwed up, it shouldn't have happened. You have my commitment. It won't happen again, period. And I just say it goes in with that delighting of customers. Because think about how you feel as a consumer, right. When someone does that, if they hear, I, I'm sorry, but no, no, no, no, but I'm sorry, and it won't happen again. So that's just another way is trying to reinforce that delighting customers, it's okay that you make mistakes. It's not okay that you try to weasel out of it by not taking full responsibility. It's further not okay if we don't. Now go take a look. What was the process that led to that error? What do we do to change the process to make sure that it doesn't happen again? Just another small one. But it's related culturally to how you delight customers.

Speaker B: Right? Right. And, uh, do you find your team is, is energized by this? Uh, David?

Speaker A: I say at first they were. At first they were a little scared. I will just say that it just. I don't want to say it was different. Like they didn't delight customers where they did, but it's the difference between an A and an A. It's the difference between satisfaction and delight or something. So a little of them seemed a little maybe, uh, outlandish. Wait a second. We all know we screwed up, but do you want to just tell the customer we screwed up? Yes, I do. I do. Because transparency builds trust. It's another one I believe firmly. So it's better because everybody knows it. If you're trying to tell me you've never, ever had an error, I know you're lying to me. Of course you did. We all do. We all make mistakes. But own it. Be transparent, be collaborative. Work on it together. So, yeah, that just took. It didn't take long, but it took one or two examples to like, you sure you're not going to chew me out? You know? No, I will chew you out if you hide it from me. And if you were to not tell the customer the truth. Heck, yeah. But no, never. It's the, you know, it's okay to make mistakes. It's not okay not to learn to them or own them.

Speaker B: I think I know the answer to this question just knowing you, but, um, do you find moments to celebrate when people, um, you know, make the right

Speaker A: move to customer and you. You. You know how to poke a guy, don't you? It is, uh, my greatest weakness. It is. It's my greatest weakness. Um, one of the leaders I mentioned before, you say is, like, well, Hargraves, I'll ask you the question because you can find the black and almost anything, you know? So I don't know whether it's from growing up in South Jersey or what it is. I recognize I don't take enough time to celebrate. But back to the teen things I tell all of my, uh, leaders that I say, hey, guys, listen, this is a weakness of mine. I know them. We could. When you see me exhibiting it, full license, raise your hand and say, hey, David, you're doing that thing again. We just had a great win, and you just immediately told me the next three things that are broken we have to fix. Could we pause for a second and actually celebrate it? So I give them full license to do that and any number of my other weaknesses to do it. But, yes, we do. Not nearly enough and not often enough led by me. Um, but I'm aware of it, and I'm trying to get better. I'm, um, just constantly, relentlessly focused on what is the next awesome thing we can do for the customers. And sometimes you forget to reflect on the one great one you just did this morning.

Speaker B: Well, that's why it takes a team. Right? No leader is, uh, complete. I don't. I don't believe any leader has every facet polished just right. And, uh, I, uh, always look for people that can kind of fill in the gaps that I have in my style as well. I think you do as well.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Uh, that goes back to the teams make better decisions, Right? Yep. It's that collective expertise. There's also, you know, people hire people like themselves, and it's another conscious thing you have to do to fight that. No, what you. I know that you do, because we've talked about it, is no. I want to hire somebody who complements my skills. I don't need three people the exact same skills. That's terrible. It's groupthink. You know, you need that diversity of thought, diversity of experiences. Um, yeah, it's incredibly important in building a team.

Speaker B: I used to tell my teams, I said, like, when you all agree with me, nothing scares me more. Right. Some agreement's obvious. Right? Yeah. That's the right thing to do. Let's Go do it. Sometimes I'm like, nah, come on, somebody's got to debate me on this one. Right? I, I want to, uh, create, uh, not a team of rivals per se, but, you know, I think it's, it's good to have those contrarian opinions and it's good to have those people around that are going to call, call, uh, on you. Right? And, and you have to be willing to accept that as a leader as well. Right. When you, when you came up with that tagline, that wasn't just a tagline. That's a way, that's a philosophy, that's ethos of your business. That is.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: And you got to live with what that brings. Right. You've got to, you've got to lead that charge, but you also got to, you got to operate in that kind of environment. And uh, so, yeah, you got to make the full commitment, no half measures.

Speaker A: That's exactly right. And even you ask about, like, the organizational acceptance of some new ideas. I can remember in early days. I'm like, hey guys, look, it's too quiet right now. Someone come at me, you know, in a nice way. Let's do it. We'll just do it as a role play because that's always a safe place to. Let's pretend we're going to role play. I want you to take the negative position to this idea and let's just go banter it back and forth. Sometimes you have to draw that out and tell them it's a safe space, you're not in trouble, no one's going to judge you. We're role playing now, right? And you can set it aside and that, uh, that's a way sometimes to unveil them.

Speaker B: And the other, the other, uh, I guess lesson I learned early on. Back when I was at ppg, there was a VP and he said, as leaders, we have the duty of candor.

Speaker A: We have the duty of candid, very articulate.

Speaker B: You have to say it, uh, and you know that it may not be popular what you're going to say, but let's be very direct and so that there's no ambiguity about the message I'm delivering. Um, and you know, and you know, you may disagree with what I have to say, but, um, it's my job to say it and be very clear about that with you, about how I feel. Right. I was put in a leadership position to do this, and that's part of the duty of a leader. But they're hard. These are hard things to overcome. And I talked to a lot of young leaders. And I said, you just have to find it, um, and you'll find that once you are, uh, more candid with people, things just start to happen in a better way and things are done faster. You get through things quicker. Right? So, uh, uh, you know, you just have to be willing to accept it and sort of be egoless as a leader. Um, and, and be willing to. If you ask for other people's opinions, you better be ready for them and, yeah. Willing to accept them when they come.

Speaker A: We've probably all seen that. I asked for your opinion, then I immediately dismissed it. Now, you can't do that.

Speaker B: No, no, no, no.

Speaker A: Your comment on candor is important too. The only thing I might add to that person who said that is but sometimes people, um, have disrespectful, but they try to hide it as candor. Right? They're like, well, I'm just telling it like it is. No, you're being rude and disrespectful to the individual. I don't like that. I don't put up with it. You can be candid, you can have candor, you can be plain spoken. But that's not an excuse to be disrespectful. Um, not that you've ever done it, but, but sometimes you see leaders like that and they, they become a bully and they, they wrap it in the, uh. Well, I'm just telling it like it is.

Speaker B: Yes. No, no, it's a shield for them, right? Yeah. No, there's ways to deliver messages. Uh, we've seen people do it a lot of times. Comes down to the style of the leader. Um, and you know, you can deliver the same message in a very, uh, professional way. Uh, and you don't need to be a jerk about it to just put a, put a point on it. So that's great. No, not to take away. Listen, uh, I think customer delight is, is something that every business can get better at that I think most businesses aspire to, but maybe fail in execution. And sometimes it's some metrics we put in place about customer sat. Right versus customer delight. What does it mean? I think you said it best. A, uh, net promoter gets you a little closer to that. But it's really just, uh, I think when you get the feedback mechanism that you know what, your person went the extra mile. They did this for us. There's, uh, nothing a leader likes to hear better than that, than to know that their teams out there actually executing on, on the strategy of the business and living up to the, to the uh, to the ethos and the passion. I guess it's your passion, right?

Speaker A: Um, and Greg, you actually just reminded me of something that I was remiss to not have mentioned as. How do you do that?

Speaker B: That's why I'm here, man.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I'm here to help you, help you with the tough spots, David.

Speaker A: Ah, so, so there is a. It was long standing before I ever got there, but it's really great. So you, you take that desire to delight customers. Well, how do you recognize it? And you said, how do you then celebrate it? And I told you about my weakness. But here's the thing we do. That's really great. So we are pharma logistics. P H A R M A. All of our employees are known as farmers. M. So we have a Farmer of the Month. Leadership doesn't do it. Peers recommend their co workers for someone who then exhibited the core values, someone who did something to delight the customer. Every month we do that. And then there is a Farmer of the Year, and there are monetary awards, there are PTO awards, there's recognition. But that's just another way to reinforce it, is brag about. These are all the folks who are nominated this month. And there's usually a large number. This is the one who was exceptional. Look what they did. And now you're tying in a monthly and then annually recognition of the employees of the farmers that they're demonstrating those core values that you, the leadership team, see said is important. And by the way, leaders aren't eligible for that. This is all for the employees.

Speaker B: Awesome. Ah, that is, that is great. Well, look, um, we're coming up to the end of the program, and I, I usually do something, uh, toward the end of these podcasts because I think as we, you know, move, move into the late stages of our careers. You're a little bit younger than me, but you'll catch up eventually. Um, you know, and happy birthday again. But, you know, uh, I like to, to, to, uh, give people a chance to express gratitude on this podcast. And you've had a very successful career. Um, I don't know if anybody would have given you the shot at where you are today, uh, back when you were dropping out of college twice. I didn't know that.

Speaker A: Guaranteed they would not.

Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't know that. And I, I don't, I, I, I might not invite, uh, you back on the podcast after.

Speaker A: Who?

Speaker B: No, I'm kidding. But, Nani, you have had a very great, uh, career. Uh, you're always a funny and upbeat guy, a happy guy. So I think you really handle yourself very well, David. Um, uh, but you know, that's a function of people that maybe helped you take the right steps along the way. So is there anybody that you'd like to acknowledge, uh, throughout your career for helping you grow as a leader? I know it's tough to pick out one person you can talk about a couple people, but this is your chance to maybe thank some people, uh, that helps you become who you are today.

Speaker A: Yeah, I appreciate it, Greg. I'll tell you the, um, I mentioned a couple of names during the podcast. If you missed them, go back and rewind it. Listen again. Um, a couple that I didn't mention I will is. And I just start with this one first. Um, I don't mean it to be cliche and I don't not ram anything to my throat, but, uh, faith is important to me and my family and in particular within our faith, service is a core aspect of that. And so I would say one of the first things is, you know, influential for my parents, for, you know, having me in church every Sunday, putting me into the scouts. We did the same thing with our children and I do think it makes a great foundation for servant based leadership by following, uh, by following faith. So I'll start with that if you will. Um, the second thing though is if you go into every interaction instead of trying to put forth your ideas first. Again, the cliche is seek first to understand, then be understood. But it means something, right? If you go into those interactions every time thinking, I could probably learn something from this person rather than I'm smarter than this person and I can't wait till they stop talking to make my point, which unfortunately so many folks do. If you do that, you learn something from everybody. You really do. But so the folks that I mentioned earlier in here, Jim Zelaji from UPMC and Alcoa and also, um, you know, as a customer of Premier, learned a lot about him as Pychain, um, when we were at um, free markets and then Ariba. Ah, John Starr, who I just saw last night, tremendous leader, had uh, a tremendous career as well. Learned a lot about him. Him one of the best things to learn about was he had an aggressive way about going after every problem. Not a plodding, methodical, linear sort of fashion. He literally focused this when we had a nice office space, he would run across the office sometimes between meetings, like full on run when he had a meeting on one side of the office to the other. Because his whole point was, was well, why waste any time? So I learned some of that speed of execution and aggressiveness and things like this. Just all through my career, Greg, there's been, folks, you and I, tremendous interactions. I talked about your operational excellence, uh, in the mock when we were at free markets, and then even now I've only been here a little bit less than two years. But the entrepreneurial. I'm always impressed with entrepreneurs like Michael Zakaro that started, um, um, started pharma logistics and from his basement, ran it today. And then our private equity backers, I mean, these are incredibly smart guys. These are MIT and Wharton grads. And the math that they can do and the way that they can buy companies and grow those and bring extra value. Again, it's a tremendously long list because I'm old. Thanks for pointing that out. Um, but I try to approach every interaction with, uh, you talk. Let me then ask you a few questions. I know there's something here that I can learn and it'll make me better able then to serve the customers or the employees that I have been, uh, blessed with the opportunity to serve.

Speaker B: That's, that's fantastic. Thank you for acknowledging, uh, those people. And also pointed out something that, that I like to coach people on as well, is to, to listen with an intent to understand.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Not with an intent to respond.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: Right. That is so important. Um, and, and, and that's how you will learn and you keep an open mind. Uh, yeah, I, I, uh. The day I stopped learning is the day I stopped walking this earth. I think. I just, I think there's so much, uh, you can pick up from other people and their experiences and their lens on the world that, uh, you know, we need to have that open mind and, and, and really, uh, you know, not, not be the smartest guy in the room, as you said. Although it's probably difficult, uh, you know,

Speaker A: for you, it's incredibly easy for me. Incredibly, incredibly easy. It's never a contest.

Speaker B: I tried to give you a compliment on your birthday.

Speaker A: Doesn't work.

Speaker B: So. Hey, man, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you for being here, uh, with me today on your birthday. Happy birthday. Hope you have a fine time this evening. Uh, it is a Friday, so hopefully you have a nice weekend planned for that. And, uh, if there's any last comments you'd like to make, uh, I'll give it to you here and we'll wrap it up.

Speaker A: No, Greg, I'm appreciative. Um, you know, if there is a last comment, I just say this one. Um, if there's a key to success along here. It's delighting the customers. But a lot of it is really just having that service based attitude and then do something different. Right. If you do the same thing that everyone else does, you will be stuck in the middle all the time. Whatever it is disruptive, differentiated, unexpected. And it doesn't have to be big. It's tiny little things. Holding the door open for somebody is great. Holding door open then smiling, asking them a question or greeting them different. You just gave them a glow. So sort of be infectious. Do something small, do something different. Uh, it really. And don't do it because it pays dividends, even though it does just do it because it feels good. It's the right thing to do. So that's, that's really been part of my philosophy the whole time.

Speaker B: Awesome. Great, positive, uh, ending there. Well, thank you. Until the next time, I will say goodbye. And uh, it's been great talking with you again, David. Thank you.

Speaker A: Thank you very much, Greg. Thank you for listening.

Speaker B: Got it.