Why Execution Beats Perfect Planning with Pete Meyer

Entrepreneur, founder, author and financial advisor, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. At March Forward, Marc and his partners and associates think out of the box to partner with their clients in regards to their visions for their lives, their businesses and their legacies. And through his innovative work with the Forward Focus Forums, Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that help to fuel their success. Founders’ Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the stories behind their successes, and the lessons they’ve learned.

Join Marc and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights, and a bit of fun! Now, let’s dive in... If you're listening to the radio now, you hopefully know what day it is. Anyway, it happens to be Arlo's birthday today.

That's my dog, and he's five years old today. And I think of him always on the show because I always say good morning, America, and that's not from the movies, it's not from the TV show, it's from Good Morning America. How are you? The um train they call City of New Orleans, which is sung by Arlo Guthrie, for whom my dog is named because I thought it was a really cool name.

Anyway, I can't believe, you know, it's like a kid. I can't believe he's five already. So it's amazing. Uh also, um, we've got a song I want to play you real quickly, and um, there's a reason I'm playing it, and it has to do with our thought for the day.

It's a song by the Beatles. Here we go. There are places I remember on the line. So I'm playing this because if I weren't here right now, I'd be at a funeral for a friend uh who just suddenly passed away last week.

His name is Richard Di Maria. Some of you around Philadelphia may know his name. Uh he was well known as had a great physical therapy practice and became known as an advocate for physical therapy for cancer patients. So he changed a lot of people's lives and he changed mine.

I played that song because he introduced me to my wife, Susan. And because of I gave him the honor at the wedding of being our kind of MC, and we had a big wedding party, and everyone had different roles. And if you look at the video from it, this was a song in my life was playing behind that. Now, at that young age, I looked around and saw people that were already gone from our lives and things like that.

And now here we are, this is 37 years later, and a lot more people are gone from our lives, including my friend Richard. He was um a very spirited guy. He had a positive impact on so many people that he met. He was an outdoors guy, he was a skier, he liked to, we rode a lot of bicycles together, played a lot of golf together.

We uh he was a very influential guy, played some music together. He loved to play guitar with me. I'm a little bit more the experienced musician, but he we used to play together at parties and things like that. And uh we were, you know, I like to be real and we were a little bit um disconnected over the last few years for different reasons, some things we didn't agree on, but recently had reconnected and it was on a good trend.

And um I actually, when I heard the news, it was minutes before I was ready to call him to get together in the next couple of weeks. It's a sad, sad kind of thing that happened, but I have really great memories of him, and so do all the people that are gathering this morning to remember him, and so I just wanted to make a little tribute to him since I can't be there this morning, and this is one of the things I would say is he was at times one of the closest people in my life and uh had had a great influence, was very positive, uh had a lot of uh power, powerful, I'll say, um, connection and powerful presence.

And um so my guest today is Pete, and Pete, not to start on a downer, but um you probably have lost people in your life. How is what kind of impact has that on you, and what are the lessons to be gotten as an entrepreneur from that? I have a thought, but I'd like to hear what you have to say. Well, first thank you very much for having me.

My pleasure being here. I'm very sorry for your loss. Thank you, I appreciate it. Um I I have been lucky in many regards in that the people I have lost, like my father, immensely important to me, but it was in a stage in life where I was expecting it.

Um I haven't had someone close to me that just out of the blue I lost. Um I do think you're right that it it relates well into the entrepreneurial world because we have all sorts of losses that we don't expect. Not of that tragic uh impact, but it's definitely part of the lifestyle. And he was a great entrepreneur too, by the way.

He he he had many locations of one-time physical therapy practice. And I think he would say the same thing, which is um, you know, take a moment, you know, and be remember those that we lost, but you know, move forward in their spirit and move forward. That's that's one of the, you know, my company that was announced at the beginning of the show is called March Forward, and that's sort of my motto. And when I lost my dad, he was also an entrepreneur, and it was, you know, we took we it was a celebration because we were, you know, it was kind of expected at that point also, but it was sad, but it was let's move forward in his memory.

So um to Richard DiMaria's family and friends, I would just say, may his memory always be a blessing, maybe always be with us, and let's uh move forward. So uh Pete Meyer is my guest today, and he's founder and CEO of Cause Connect Inc. Inc. And sorry about that.

And Pete is a seasoned entrepreneur with nearly 30 years of experience building and scaling businesses. He's generated over $100 million in revenue across multiple ventures, and he brings deep experience in performance marketing, growth strategy, and consumer behavior. Pete's vision for Cause Connect is rooted in one belief. If brands can grow by giving, everyone wins.

That's why I'd love to have you on the show because this is about entrepreneurship, it's about business, but it's about giving back. Absolutely. Which is really cool. So um so Pete is based in the DC, Maryland area, but I think you have some roots in New Jersey.

No, I we are we are both uh alumni of the great PW. Oh, that's right. That's right. I forgot about that.

That's right. I'm glad you reminded me. Plymouth White Marsh High School, right? Yeah.

The Colonials. So that's right. So um you have a New Jersey phone number, that's what confuses me. Yes.

So I lived in Princeton for eight years. Right. And uh I just haven't. That was 16 years ago, but I haven't changed the phone number.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And as happens with the show a lot, Pete and I talked a couple months ago, so it's coming back to me now. Sounds great. So listen, so you spent even in your nearly your whole career in entrepreneurship, I know that.

Yes. So tell me how that started, your background and how that got going. So from Plymouth White Marshall, and tell us what what happened. Yeah.

So I I don't know if it's a curse, it's a gift, but I don't think there was another path for me. I uh to to show my age a little bit, right out of college, I worked for the Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages. Now my kids have no idea what that is. Right.

But um, Bell Atlantic or the Yellow Pages, right? Exactly, exactly. Uh so I was there for about a year. You know, I I like to, I enjoy um, you know, I see sales as solving people's problems.

Um I also see entrepreneurship as solving problems. So I saw a correlation in it. Um but pretty soon after that, I got the entrepreneurial bug. I mean, I started out helping like local pizza places.

I one of my first jobs, I was helping a local brewery. I actually had moved to Minneapolis. And I helped them. Uh this was in '95, which is sort of the birth of the internet, and I was just out of college, so I thought this was all exciting.

So anyway, I helped them do some grass marketing in return for free beer. Which at 22 was that's a good deal. Yeah. Excellent.

Yeah. Um, and then so I started my first real company in the dot-com boom. It kind of ended up like most dot-com companies. We grew fast, we raised money, um, the whole world sort of fell apart.

But like a big lesson I had there was we were spending the whole time writing business plans. It was okay, this is the plan. Wait a minute, the world has changed, now we have to update the plan. Um and after that closed, I worked for a neighbor in the sort of the little complex we were, neighbor company for a little bit, and then I started my own company again.

And I think I noted was that BCM Direct? Yeah it was, yeah. So BCM Direct, which is still around today, um has been good to me. Uh, but it it it's in decline.

It's probably it's in the residual, it'll probably be gone in a year or two. Uh but my goal then was to not plan but to do. Um and to figure out what was right in front of me, what opportunity was there, what was the greatest way to leverage that opportunity. And uh that's something I probably continue to this day.

So let's go back to the dot-com company. Um, I'm sure you there were some lessons learned there, right? Um anything that you took with you that helped you build the next company? You know, I I think a lot of it was negative lessons.

Um I'd say the positive lesson was I got to interact with uh a number of people who I'd seen on you know the covers of magazines. And it was very helpful to realize that these were just people. Um I could hold my own with them, I could I could interact with them. There was nothing to be intimidated about.

Um but I think in the first company, like I said, at that point it was too much into plans, it was too much into um not what was right in front of me, but in the long run, and I I still have a weakness that I try to be too clever. And I discovered then because what I saw people who were successful and I saw people who weren't successful, it wasn't their cleverness, it was their ability to get things done. Um and I've realized from ever since then that one of my great weaknesses I have to be careful of is I don't don't make something more tricky or clever or interesting, just solve the problem in front of you.

So lessons of what not to do are just as powerful, if not poor more powerful than lessons of what to do, right? So that's a good thing. By the way, the cleverness thing, whenever I try that on the golf course to be clever, it never works. Exactly.

Exactly. They say golf is somewhat of a metaphor for life, and it I find it to be true. Yeah. It's kind of interesting.

Yeah. So BCM Direct. So that I know you grew that to a pretty large business and it's still around, but it's kind of scaling down at this point. Yes.

It's it's basically a legacy business at this point. It was it was a lot of fun in that it sort of tracked the internet. So we would have a business model, and that business model would be dead in three years because the internet had changed and we had to come up with a new solution. So that was one of your challenges there.

Yes. So I guess one of the one of one of the things you learned there was how to pivot, I would imagine. Yes. And something I've learned about my life is I'm a much better problem solver than problem preventer.

Gotcha. So it's good so it's good for me to be aware of that and focus on where that is to my advantage. So you're kind of like a an explorer that if you're hiking and you'll go anywhere, but if you slip, you're you're you you you gotta figure out how to get back up again. Yeah.

No, I read a I think it was a magazine article way back when, and it said for entrepreneurs, there was the jungle, the dirt road, the paved road, the highway. I am a jungle dirt road. Paved road is when I have to find someone else to hand it over to. That's fine.

That's interesting. Because we when you see you, you you seem like kind of a conservative guy, kind of like I wouldn't I wouldn't guess you for the jungle guy. Right. But looks looks can be the same.

Exactly. There you go. Your demeanor doesn't exhibit that, but I got you. Actually, I think demeanor works because when the house is burning down, I stay calm.

Right. So that is that's a good balance, it sounds like to me. And by the way, everyone's got their unique abilities, and everybody can't be good at everything. Exactly.

Right? So so that's you just find somebody that's good on the pavement, you know. That's right. You know, right?

Exactly. So that's there are people out there that love what you don't love to do. Right. So so with BCM Direct, the challenges were you know, you had to pivot, you had to find solutions.

Did you um uh well let's so you've moved on to Cause Connect. So let's talk about that. We have about a minute before the break. Let's talk about that a little bit.

Sure. So Cause Connect, the the goal of Cause Connect is to take every company has an acquisition budget. And we're trying to take a portion of that acquisition, customer acquisition budget, and have it channeled towards a charity so that you acquire a customer for the same cost, but you do some good in the process. And since it's part of cost acquisition, I would imagine that um and sales is a is a solution to problems, as you talked about, right?

So I would imagine as you market this and you present it to potential clients that you're looking at um doing good is also a way to get their name out there. Yes, right. Yes. I try to position to them as do this for your business's benefit, not for the altruistic reasons.

Which is interesting, right? Because most people say um, you know, be good to do good and all that, you know, start with that and whatever comes afterwards. But you're you're marketing this as a business proposition. Exactly.

Which is a little bit different, which is very interesting, and I want to get more into that. Uh we have a break coming up, so let's why don't we take that break right now and we come back? We're gonna get a lot more into Quause Connect. Great.

Okay. The Satell Institute is the leading CEO member organization dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility. Under the vision and leadership of its founder - entrepreneur and philanthropist Ed Satell - the Institute brings together CEOs in Philadelphia and other cities to support the Nonprofit organizations that do heroic work in our communities. The Satell Institute believes that “community is every leader’s business.

” SI’s members-only meetings and private CEO conferences give members the opportunity to hear from world-class thought leaders on crucial topics like AI, education, corporate philanthropy and more. In addition, CEO members get the opportunity to share ideas and experiences with their peers - like-minded CEOs who believe in the importance of giving back to the community and who understand the benefits companies get from embracing Corporate Social Responsibility. The Satell Institute charges no dues or fees - in order to join, member companies simply make a long-term commitment to the nonprofit of their choice.

To find out more about membership, - and why so many leading companies are now part of the Satell Institute - visit the organization’s web site at satellinstitute.org. As Ed Satell says, “Think WE, not just me.” We are back on Founders Forum with my guest today, Pete Meyer.

So Pete, again, good to have you here. Great to be here. Uh we um I want to back up just a minute. So Cause Connect, what caused you?

You have a big philanthropic bent with this company, but it's for for-profit. What what had you want to do that? So we actually, there's two components of us. We have a 501c3 charity, nonprofit, right, and we have a for-profit company.

Gotcha. Um so the the genesis of it is like I mentioned, it's from the business side of things. Um in I had a previous company called Healthy Finds, it went out of business. Uh when after that close, I started work talking to a number of the companies in the space.

And the space is sort of the natural health, so natural foods, natural products. And these are entrepreneurs who want to make the world a better place, who want to create the the best product in their niche as well as benefit the planet. And one of the big challenges that they have is getting customers to try their product initially. And for good or for worse, my brain just lives outside of the box, which has a lot of challenges that people don't realize.

Right. But um and I wanted to get you in the jungle sometimes. Exactly, exactly. And you get lost, you know which way you're going.

But um I wanted to think of a new way for them to get customers to try their product. And one common way is like a cashback marketplace, which is a huge, everyone's credit card has one. There's multi-billion dollar companies that do it. But I wanted to set one up where instead of the cash going back to the consumer, it goes to a charity.

And the genesis for this was actually a support that I did for my local PTA, where we set up a page where people could buy products on Amazon from companies I knew and the money went to the PTA. I'm like, well, I guess I'm not sure. Yeah, that's actually that's no more. That went away like a few years ago.

Oh, is that right? Yep. Okay. So I mean, essentially, this is a a marketplace where when a customer says if you buy this product, X number of meals will be donated to a food bank, for example.

Um now the challenge is as a marketplace, is you have to hit a certain amount of scale to make it effective. In order to get customers, you need to have product. In order to have product, you need to have customers. Um and that is the obstacle we're working on overcoming right now.

We believe we have a way through that through Google actually has a great ad grant program and through different organizations that like to find out about ways to give back. Gotcha. So tell tell tell tell us so is it's active now, correct? Yeah, yes, you have customers.

So can you give us an example or illustrate how the process works? So how do people first hear about this? How does it work? They make a transaction, how's the money get to charity, et cetera?

Sure. So I mean so it's interesting. We work with a Google Ad Grant. Basically, Google will donate its unused advertising inventory to nonprofits if you qualify.

Oh, interesting. So we will do ads, just awareness ads, and we'll create articles about um oolong tea or dandelion tea. We identify products that appeal to altruistic females, because that's our primary demographic. And we identify someone who's interested in dandelion tea, just because I never knew there was such a thing as dandelion tea.

Um and then we follow up with them with an ad saying, hey, if you're interested in buying dandelion tea, why wouldn't you like to be able to feed a few families while you do it? They respond to that ad. Um they can either go through Amazon or we have a way where you can go directly and buy it through Cause Connect, but through through a company Shopify. And when they do that, they'll see how many meals are donated to Feeding America or the charity that we're working with at that time.

And that's all software that you've built, I imagine, a program that that lets them know that. Yes. Now my my business partner, Justin, Justin Lutz, he built it. I I don't know.

You're not the tech guy. I am not the tech guy. Right. I got that.

So we were talking about that earlier. So you um That's a great example. I happen to know dandelion tea. I'm a tea guy.

I don't drink coffee. Oh, there you go. I had matcha this time. I didn't know.

I knew matcha, I knew Ulan with dandelion, like those are those things that grew in my yard. And I um, you know, my my wife says I'm a guy's guy who has feminine instincts. Because I do. I kind of kind of see both sides of everything.

Sure. But the um the so give an example so some more examples of products. Are there any household names you can mention that? No.

So we're early on. So the the challenge is is we need to build scale. And part of my mistake in in starting this was I explained the concept to founders of larger companies. They love the concept, but we're not we can't fulfill that concept yet.

Right. Until we have hundreds of thousands of dollars going through that the system, the larger brands aren't going to be interested. That's one of the reasons we're focusing on tease, which is not a brand heavy category. Right.

So that's where you're starting. Yeah. So I I like that. So I'm gonna take keep an eye out for that as I'm looking at tease online.

But the um so so what do you have to do next to get to get to that next stage? So our first goal right now is to build some volume of customers coming in. Right. Um then we work with higher level charities.

So right now we're talking to a number of smaller nationally focused charities because we depend on cross promotion from the charities. So that we come to them and say, look, we have this great new revenue building tool for you. You have, let's say, you may have uh donors who haven't donated in a while or never donated, they're just volunteers. This is another way for them to generate revenue for you, promote it.

Your base. In return, we will promote it and bring in customers for you. So we're building those cross promotions with the charities, and then we're also building the partnerships with the a little bit larger brand, a little bit larger brand. So given the way you look at uh the tease, I imagine you're going to try to match companies with the audience and the charities that are kind of out that are uh synergistic together, I would think.

Yeah. So in the beginning, we're focused on food just because of the large um appeal and because it's transactional. It's easy to say when you do this, we'll generate 10 meals. That's a little bit easier than you do this, we'll donate six dollars to you know help solve cancer.

Sure. We want to build to that, but the the transactional is the better fit. Got it. Um and I and uh the financial structure, the way I I think you explained it to me is most of the revenue that comes in goes to the charity.

Yes. Yes. Okay. So we have through your nonprofit.

Yeah, so we have two areas. We'll have and we we actually found out we needed this from the larger companies. So the larger companies can't give they can only give X amount of money to charity. So in order for this to go into their budget, they need to pay it to a commercial organization.

Then the commercial organization pays the money to the charity. But it's it's fixed amounts. So the brand will know exactly how much money is going to charities from what they donate. And it's fully transparent so they can track it all the way through.

Interesting. So and um and that it's working on a small level so far, I guess. It is, it is. Um and one of the nice things about it is it's something that people like to tell their friends.

Right. And is it have you seen that happening? We have word of mouth. We're starting, and that's something that we're relying on.

And does that generate business when that happens? That's great. So how do you find that out? So I mean we build we build incentives and and platforms to post this on your social media, refer this to your friends, we track it back.

We allow the consumer to see that, okay, because I've generated this many friends, I've you know, that in and of itself created 200 meals for people in need. Trevor Burrus, Jr. One last thing I want to ask you about well, two last things. One is I know um we when we talked before, you mentioned um you have a unique way and operating philosophy, which is focusing on one key milestone at a time.

Yes. And you had mentioned conversion rates. Are you still on that one? Or are you Yes.

So we are our focus is a hundred percent on what our acquisition cost is for getting that customer in the door. Gotcha. Let me ask you one of the popular questions on the show is if we're talking three years from now, it's May 20th, 2029, and you were looking back on the last three years, Pete, what would have to happen for you to feel that that was a successful three-year period? Aaron Powell Business-wise, I would say we would want to have an established model in this space.

I mean, our goal is to create an entirely new mechanism for companies to be able to give back as part of their marketing budget. Not to put aside a separate area for for charity, but to use their marketing dollars to achieve their goals and do good. Integrate it into the focus of the business. Exactly.

Yeah, it's great. And you I you mentioned business-wise, so tell me about your personal focus for the next three years as well. So um my wife and I have five kids between us, four of them, one of them hers. Uh and so yeah, three years from now, it my biggest goals in life is where they'll be in life.

I have two that will be launching their careers. I've got three that will then be in college, and it'll be exciting to see what that looks like. So that leads us to legacy, because I know a lot of what you're doing in a sense is about legacy. What what what do you think about when you think about your legacy?

I mean, uh honestly, ultimately, like my legacy is what is what my grandkids think of me. Right. And that well, obviously that would be making an impact, a great impact if you did that. Both in terms of how people do business, but also in terms of, you know, obviously the charities and ph philanthropic causes that they support.

Exactly. Uh one last question, we only have a very short amount of time for it, but if you could speak to your younger self, what advice would you give young Pete? Oh God. Uh so many things.

I would say um trust yourself, think big, and um focus on the problem in front of you. That's wonderful. Well, guess what? I told you 28 minutes goes quick.

It does pretty quick. We're just about there. Pete Meyer, thanks so much for being here. It's been a pleasure.

It's been really an interesting talk. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks to all of you for being here with us today on Founders Forum. And uh look for us on social media, and we'll look to talk to you again very soon, back next week.

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