Oddly enough, Les didn’t originally come from a business background. Instead, he worked for 28 years as an airline pilot, spending eight years in the U.S. Air Force and another 20 flying commercial planes for Eastern Airlines. After getting out of the piloting business, he started a remodeling company, and while he was working in that industry, the spark that would soon become Business Networks ignited. recalls. “... One day I was reading a magazine called Pro Remodeler, which was the first magazine in the remodeling industry. I saw some names in there [of other remodeling companies I admired], so I called them up and said, ‘Look, I’d like you to come to my place of business in Miami. I’ll show you my finances, you can meet my people and interview my people, and I want you to tell me how to get better.’ They said, ‘That’s great; what’s it going to cost?’ and I said, ‘What it’s going to cost you is giving me the same opportunity at your companies.’” Making those calls and asking another company to take a leap of faith and offer full transparency was daring. But even more surprising than Les’ bold move was the response he got from those whom some might have considered his competitors. “They came down, they gave me the list of things that needed to be done, and they said, ‘Okay, we expect this done and we’re going to hold you accountable. And we’re going to hold you accountable to the point that if you agree to these things and then don’t do them, we’ll throw you out of the group,’” Les recalls. “That has become the mantra for Business Networks.” Today, Business Networks brings together groups of 10–12 business owners who share an industry but operate in different “Within five years, I took my remodeling company from zero to $5 million,” Les
markets and asks them to open up their books, facilities, and stores of knowledge and experience to each other. This practice has proven both enlightening and motivating — not only does Business Networks encourage entrepreneurs to share best practices, but it also ignites their competitive sides by revealing each business’s key indicators to the group, going so far as to rank the companies from best performing to worst. “There has to be no competition geographically between the businesses, and we sign a very rigorous noncompete and nondisclosure, so what’s said in the room stays in the room,” Les says. “Nothing goes outside of that network. For example, you can give away your numbers to anyone you want, but you can’t give the numbers of other participants out without their specific written permission.” These numbers are produced by Business Networks’ proprietary system, which is tailor-made to run business-to-business comparisons of key data. After businesses
submit their data to the group database, the Business Networks system gets to work “slicing and dicing” the numbers to produce clear-cut metrics. Les has found that laying things out in black and white this way circumvents the bravado and chest-pounding that often dominates when entrepreneurs get together. It also provides a level of accountability that’s hard for entrepreneurs to find elsewhere, even in a spouse or partner. With the truth out there for everyone to see, it’s easier for participants to get down to the nitty-gritty details of improving their businesses, whether that’s proving additional sales and leadership training to their staff (which is where Sandler comes in), getting a better understanding of the impact of taxes on their bottom line, or reevaluating their pricing model. In the end, Les says it all comes down to numbers. “They say you can run but you can’t hide,” he says. “Not only will these numbers rank you by who’s the best, but they’ll show
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