Leading with a Golf Swing – Tom Gibbons' Vision

Welcome. Dear listeners, to the speak and flow podcast where we dive into unique stories and experiences to help you and your team achieve maximum potential and flow even in high stakes situations. Today I have the honor of introducing a phenomenal CEO entrepreneur, father, he does so much for our communities, especially around business development relationship Building. His name is Tom Gibbons.

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Melinda Lee: founder of 2 companies, and CEO. 2 companies darts only golf and access. Cre, Hi, Tom, how are you doing.

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Tom Gibbons: Doing. Great, Linda. Thanks for having me today.

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Melinda Lee: I'm so excited to dive into our conversation, and before we get in, can you share with the audience your backstory a bit about how you started these companies and what you're passionate about. It.

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Tom Gibbons: Absolutely so. About 2 years ago I was laid off from my, you know, stable corporate job that a lot of us have.

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Tom Gibbons: and was put in a position with my family that I really want to kind of take control of my my financial life and and stability. So with that, I always had a passion for real estate. Been doing that for 25 years.

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Tom Gibbons: and I love golf and charity work. I do sit on the board of a foundation in Los Angeles called the Barlow Foundation, which is a nonprofit respiratory hospital, and with that I started putting on golf tournaments. So it was a natural progression for me to start a golf company which focused on business networking and charity efforts for a lot of these groups.

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Tom Gibbons: At the same time I had a very deep bench strength of clients in the real estate world that were chasing me to continue to consult for them. So then I launched accessory which focuses on commercial real estate consulting from an asset management perspective.

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Tom Gibbons: So with those 2 companies combined, it kind of create a lot of synergies with my client base in real estate, into hosting and engaging in the golf world, where you can build your skills on the golf course network and have a great time while you're doing it. So.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Tom Gibbons: Now we're here, and we run 2 successful companies 2 years in, you know, still, still a big grind and upward battle. But it's it's moving in a very good direction.

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Melinda Lee: I love that I mean, you see, it sounds like you have a real clear vision of what you want to do with both of these companies.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah. And I think that is, if anybody starting a company is, you always start with a vision. And 2 years later that vision is morphed, based on how we've developed and learned the market. Right? So I think the real estate's a little bit more linear and pretty straightforward, but the golf company kind of morphed into what it is today. It took a slow progression. We listened to the market in our in our member base and our clients, and we really honed it in to provide a like high touch, high service, environment.

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Melinda Lee: I love that. And what did it start off with in terms of when you yeah, the vision.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah, the the vision was more just to get people playing more golf together and trying to make it more accessible, because golf is very expensive.

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Tom Gibbons: Some of us, you know, can have the luxury of the Country club lifestyle, while others are, you know, focused on the Muni courses. We call it the low end, cheaper courses. So we want to kind of marry those, marry those together where you could experience the upper echelon world of golf and meet people. And that's where you tend to meet people at country clubs. And you build those relationships. So we married that together. And now we have a full integrated member app

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Tom Gibbons: and full vertical tournament production business for high end charity groups. So without those 2 platforms intermingling, you know, there's just a lot of touch points where you can grow your network.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah, and tell us, what charities you've done the high end ones. That is pretty phenomenal.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah, we we've done events for Cedar cyanide Medical group Providence, Saint Joe's. We're working on 2 military events, one for the Us. Navy Seal Foundation, one for the Air Force eod, which is the explosive or ordnance disposal group. So we're the guys we call it the hurt locker guys where they go out on the you know front lines, and you know, you know, deal with explosive devices.

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Tom Gibbons: So one of my silent investment partners in darts is my one of my best friends. He was the best man in my wedding. He's still active Air Force cod. So we put that on for his his foundation. So you know. And the list goes on. There's a lot of local charity groups for domestic violence victims, for you know, underprivileged families and youth. So we we help every group we can, and we've expanded it out. Now we're doing some events on the East coast. So those are coming this year. We're still finalizing the details. But

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Tom Gibbons: you know, American Heart Association Cancer Institute, we really strive to help every group we can.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, that's phenomenal! And going back to what I was saying. So the vision! It wasn't like you. It was very clear. It started to roll in and develop as you kept on. Taking one step forward, one step forward, and we're gonna get into how you did that. And maybe some tactics on how you do that. But before you actually do that, tell us, like the opposite, what are some leaders that you see? That, you know the poor leadership skills, people that are leaders that are not able to execute on this vision.

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Melinda Lee: What do you see and what? How's what's the impact of that to teams. Do you think.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah, I think you know, I've I've been a lot of jobs over my life and and seen a lot of other entrepreneurs, you know, and it's it's tough all around. So you always want to give people, Grace, that it's easy to judge from afar. You don't ever know what somebody's dealing with, but you know, in essence it comes down to, you know, communication of the vision, and how you execute it. I think a lot of poor leaders.

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Tom Gibbons: They they get, they get siloed into their thought process what their vision is, and they don't communicate it effectively. They become more of just a almost a dictator level approach to how they, you know, try to lead, and they have good intentions. But I think that doesn't translate. Well, when you're building a team, and you need a team to execute the vision, because it's very hard to do everything by yourself. So, having somebody who doesn't effectively communicate, provide guidance.

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Tom Gibbons: Bring the team's brainpower into the decision. As well be collaborative. They want to take too much control that tends to be where you lose

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Tom Gibbons: division. You lose the execution, and the the goals become a little harder to achieve.

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Melinda Lee: yeah, it's almost like a dictatorship style. Why do you think they end up doing that they have the control, they want the control, yeah.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah, I think, being an entrepreneur nobody, you never believe anybody will respect your baby as much as you have, because you build it right. And that's just human nature. I think that that you become protective. You know that animalistic instinct. So I think that is a driving factor behind a lot of that. So again, I think that everybody has a lot of good intention. People that are building things. It's very, very hard work.

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Tom Gibbons: and people don't realize how hard it really is and the sacrifices you have to make. So I think that's a lot of driving factor behind people. Wanna hold it close. I'm guilty of it in certain ways as well, and I always try to be better about that. And thankfully I have a good team who will call me on that when I'm being too Con, you know.

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Tom Gibbons: in my own head, if you will

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah. So I think that's a big part of it. Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: So as a leader. Right? What is the repercussion or the consequence, that if if we were to do that, continue to do that for our teams I continue to

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Melinda Lee: control and take over. What do you think? How's it impact the team.

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Tom Gibbons: It. It implodes it. I think if people want to be part of the vision, they most likely join because they believed in what you were doing, and and what you're pitching them and and your passion but if people don't feel like they're contributing and bringing their skills.

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Tom Gibbons: then they tend to get more reserved and or start looking for other opportunities where they can feel value, too. You know, there's there's some mindsets, you know. I've dealt with over the years where and this is not probably not the best way to to say it. But there's like a W. 2 mentality, and there's an entrepreneur mentality, and there's nothing wrong with either of those.

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Tom Gibbons: you know. So if you're an entrepreneur and you start a company, and you have the W. 2 associates on your team. People want that. They want to work hard. They want to help build something. They want to be part of a vision and a goal. So if you don't incorporate them in that every day in your business.

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Tom Gibbons: then you isolate them. They feel like they're on island, and then like, Well, what am I doing here? Because I'm I don't feel the value personally. A lot of people want the personal, you know. You know, they want to feel that value that they're bringing, and if they don't, then they just kind of check out, and they'll just kind of do the, they would say, silent, quitting where they're doing the bare minimum. But they're maybe out there pursuing other opportunities.

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Melinda Lee: Right? Yeah. The silence, the silent. What did you? What did they call it? Silent?

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Tom Gibbons: Time of quitting or ago.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, right? Right? Right? They're looking at other opportunities or doing the bare minimum.

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Tom Gibbons: Right.

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Melinda Lee: They don't really feel valued. They don't know how they're contributing, because things if they try to do something it doesn't. It's not appreciative.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. And then it just perpetuates. Because then you, as a business owner, feel like you're not getting the value you're paying for.

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Tom Gibbons: Look like they're getting the value. So it becomes this, you know, silent conflict that nobody really talks about. So.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, how does how do we know as a leader what to

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Melinda Lee: allow people to do on their own and give them autonomy?

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Melinda Lee: Versus?

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, I just do it myself.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah, it's look, it's a it's a really good question. And it's something I struggle with, too, because.

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Tom Gibbons: you know, I think where I've been successful is I. I define clear roles, you know, and set expectations, and then any like anything else. There's a check and balance

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Tom Gibbons: where it's the over communication. We meet a lot. We talk in person. We come into the office once a week, you know, we

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Tom Gibbons: go over what we set as the goal. So if we have, hey, due dates here, okay, check in progress. And then you're able to to stop any. You basically, you give, protect the downside of any issues that could arise because you're constantly communicating. You know, you're not

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Tom Gibbons: doing it in a micromanaging way. You're doing it in a collaborative team mentality where you know. Now I've got to the point where I trust my team, and that took a while about a year and a half.

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Tom Gibbons: but now I know my team knows what to do. They know also how I manage and my expectations. And that's another key thing to build. But when I have a meeting. If we're on a zoom call with a client. I know my my one director.

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Tom Gibbons: It's taking notes. He's gonna send a follow up. He's gonna everything I promised. I'll do. He still put in writing to an email like, Hey, Tom, here's everything you said to the client, because he knows I go a thousand miles an hour, because I have all this business happening, and he knows I'll execute on it. But he helps me stay on track, too, so it's just as good to have them help me as I help them.

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Melinda Lee: And how did you transition, and what was it like before when you didn't trust them? What was it that you didn't trust versus now.

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Tom Gibbons: Well, I think through the couple of years I've had people on the team that are no longer here that have. Maybe that caused me to be more conservative because I trusted them. And then I basically got, you know, lackluster results. So then it was more

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Tom Gibbons: finding the right people being.

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Melinda Lee: Bye.

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Tom Gibbons: Extremely careful on who I bring in when you're small and you're new, and you know I'm not sitting on millions of dollars. I'm generating revenue every month to cover payroll, to make sure they have a stable job, have their benefits, and I think when you give people what they need to be successful and you communicate with them. You include them in the decisions. They became way, more aggressive, and how much they do

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Tom Gibbons: to support our goal because they are feel extremely valued, and they feel part of the conversation. So once I went to not hiring the friends and the family and things like that, which was another early mistake.

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Tom Gibbons: You know you wanna you know you're starting something new. You want to bring your closest circle with you.

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Tom Gibbons: But you realize the the human nature of people it. It's it's scary, and it can be nasty, and they don't always align with what you're trying to achieve.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Tom Gibbons: You know, and all the other human natures that go into that jealousy, and you know, frustration and all that, you know, it became finding the right people that have the skills we need that are

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Tom Gibbons: moldable and trainable that want to grow. That was where I really spent a lot more time vetting the people coming in. And once I really did that along with the communication structures, we talked about it organically just happened way faster than I thought it would have.

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Melinda Lee: No.

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Tom Gibbons: And I think then adding on the back end those checks and balances, and you know all those different things. It becomes pretty seamless, very limited mistakes. If people do make mistakes, they they tell me before I find out, because they want to get it fixed. And that's an environment which is like exciting to see kind of develop on its own.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, well, congratulations like, what do you think are gonna be the impacts and outcomes in the next couple of years? What do you hope.

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Tom Gibbons: We? We have grandiose plans, you know. i i i'm a i'm a i'm a believer, and I'm exciting. I get excited about what we're doing. I know we're we're gonna we have a really good brand, you know. We have very lofty goals to grow this business, you know, across the nation to all major markets. It's already starting to happen, and you know bits of pieces without any marketing or anything. It's just all been word of mouth which is super exciting to see.

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Tom Gibbons: So yeah, I I feel like we'll have branches in most major markets, and this will be a business that could be handled off to my family one day, and all my kids will be part of. And it's such a unique business golf. Because, yeah, golf around the course, having fun. But we're doing charity work. We're doing marketing, we're doing branding and merchandising. We have accounting. We have social media. We have all the different components that go into it.

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Tom Gibbons: and the connections we make with this business, with running big, charitable groups, big corporate charity events, you know, myself and my kids and my family and our employees are are really exposed to a lot of great connections. And that was the basis of why I started the social club. So it's amazing to see how it's more so, so fast. And I think that

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Tom Gibbons: was really rooted in.

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Tom Gibbons: I had a passion. What I was doing when I talk about it, I think people resonate with it, and they they see the value, and they believe, and they want to be part of it. So it's close.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, that's exciting! I'm excited for you. And how did darts? Only golf? Where is that? What does that name? The backstory? The name.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah. So the the name, you know. If you if you play a lot of golf, one of the slang terms on the golf court is throwing darts, which means throwing a really good shot like just like a dark, or you hit Bull's eye. So, getting very close to the PIN, you know the hole on the golf course.

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Tom Gibbons: and

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Tom Gibbons: it really started from, hey, let's just make some hats that say darts like I'm wearing now. That was like people always wanted to buy them. So we were selling hats, and then it turned into a social club, and then it turned into a tournament business, and it just progressed.

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Tom Gibbons: You know, once I kind of saw the opportunity and people. The market actually told me we were out, and people were asking us for more. So hey, can you do more? Hey? What can we do? More events? Can we? Can we have social outings?

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Tom Gibbons: So now we do all that we do golf clinics. We do so just social events where we go to indoor simulator places. We've negotiated over a hundred, you know, golf discount, you know items for our member base. So trying to make the game more accessible again, you know. So because everything we we wanted to just service our members so they could really enjoy the game and then grow their network. Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: That is fun. I really see this as a movement. Right? It's not. Yeah, it is golf. Yeah. Surrounding yourself with people that enjoy golf, but it's also all the connections and the people and the charity work and giving back. It's a great, and I love that your kids play it to your whole family's involved

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Melinda Lee: the same.

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Tom Gibbons: We all love it, and my sons will be out hoping at some of the events, you know. So they get exposed, and my, our 12 year old. We we have him sit at registration sometimes because we're trying to build up his confidence. I'm like, Hey, you have to talk to every person coming up afternoon try to sell them a raffle ticket or things of that nature. So we're trying to teach them those early skills that I didn't have when I was young.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, I know right. And so how's he been with that? Does he? To get him more comfortable.

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Tom Gibbons: Oh, yeah, he loves it. And we we were at one event, and it was a entertainment golf tournament, and he got to meet Snoop doll and a couple of the rappers and things like that. So you know. And then we do a lot of work with Nfl alumni, too. So we, you know.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, my! Gosh!

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Tom Gibbons: You know. So he's got to meet a lot of football players and things like that. So yeah, we're doing one coming up here in June. We're doing one for the saddle. Seattle Seahawks.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, my God!

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Tom Gibbons: Here in here, in Southern California. Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, my gosh, how exciting! That's great! That's great, wonderful! I'm so happy for you, and would you? We'll we'll close off. Oh, and I trust that the audience have gotten what they needed in terms of building teams and execution on vision. I'm just curious. What is that one golden takeaway that you want the audience to remember when it comes to leading.

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Tom Gibbons: I think the one thing that always comes to my mind is, you know.

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Tom Gibbons: lead by example. I know that's pretty generic, and not a not a overly obscure thought. But it's easy to get lost in your role as a as a you know whether it's CEO or executive, whatever it is.

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Tom Gibbons: it's you gotta stay connected to the boots on the ground, and you have to immerse yourself in that, too, like I do not put myself just in the office, just leading people, directing people. I'm out there doing it. I'm out there, they see me, you know, lifting up the equipment and putting it in the truck and and showing up early. You know they they know I'm part of the team. I don't look as anybody as Hey, this is your role. That's all you do. And this is what I do. No, we're all team like the business will not succeed

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Tom Gibbons: unless you really show you're invested in it.

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Tom Gibbons: and it's easy to be lost in the administrative portion trying to drum up new business. That's extremely important to keep everybody, you know, paid and and stable, but in the end, especially early on you have to really be on the grind, be, you know, on the ground, and showing them that you understand what their role really entails, and they will expect you more, and they will give you more.

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Melinda Lee: No, seriously, yeah, be the be the change be the role model that you wanna be yeah

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Melinda Lee: and yeah demonstrate that through behaviors through actions through communication.

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Tom Gibbons: Yeah. And it's no different than being a father. Everything I do. And I approach it the same way. Business as a father

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Tom Gibbons: that my kids see what I do. They see how I react. They see how I interact with their mother. You know, they they, you know, they see, I have stressful moments, and I have moments of anger, and you know all the different variables that come to be an entrepreneur. But I stem that I talk through it, and then

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Tom Gibbons: they learn how to then navigate their emotions. So it becomes very critical in all aspects of your life.

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Melinda Lee: Isn't that interesting cause? You think that all the feedback that we give them? Oh, do this, do. This is the most effective. But it's actually not. It's actually what we're doing. They're watching, they imitate us. It's like, Oh, my gosh! That's me! Right there. It's all the other things our behaviors and our actions, and how we communicate with others that is actually the most powerful, and translates back to them. So true.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: I love that, Tom, thank you so much for sharing and for your time. And I learned a lot. Had a really fun time with our conversation today.

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Tom Gibbons: Absolutely thank you for having me again.

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Melinda Lee: Thank you, Tom, and thank you. Audience, for being here. If you love this episode, don't forget to share it. To like it. Also reach out to Tom darts only golf and access. Cre, we'll drop all of his information in the show notes, and until next time, remember anytime you have a chance to communicate. You also have a chance to connect and inspire and make a bigger difference in this world until next time. Much love. Take care!

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Melinda Lee: Bye-bye, bye, Tom.

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Tom Gibbons: Bye. Thank you.