We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dallin Cooper. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dallin below.

Hi Dallin, thanks for joining us today. Any advice for creating a more inclusive workplace?

Inclusivity has developed a reputation over the years, and that has led to no end of media and online attention on the topic. But perhaps one of the biggest problems I see in my clients’ workplaces aren’t inclusivity when it comes to race, gender, or age, but inclusivity of belief and opinion. Research has shown that diverse teams work more productively, but it is the diversity of thought that is useful, not the diversity of appearance.

I’ve had several experiences where certain ways of thinking became part of the culture of a company, and any differing opinion or process was criticized as “not being the way we do things”. But challenging those norms and experimenting with new options is what leads to innovation and success.

So when you’re thinking about inclusivity, don’t make it exclusively about including people who look different. You should also be creating an environment where people who think and believe differently are all able to work and communicate collaboratively.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been a lot of things! The journey started with founding a marketing agency way back in college. My wife and I sold that agency to a larger media company and worked there for a while before taking a foray into the world of manufacturing, where we produced all-natural, zero-waste dog chews. After selling that company, I started speaking and consulting.

While I do, of course, speak and consult on marketing and entrepreneurship because of my background, my first love is interpersonal skills. So now my work is mostly in the area of communication and conflict resolution, helping organizations and individuals work with those they disagree with and might not even like. It’s quite lovely. I get to see inside the culture of a lot of companies and identify what’s working and what isn’t.

Whether it’s Fortune 500 companies or a regional contractor, the fundamental problems and solutions are shockingly similar. When I’m not on the road speaking, I’m writing books and making what I hope are reasonably entertaining videos for the internet.

Conversations about M&A are often focused on multibillion dollar transactions – but M&A can be an important part of a small or medium business owner’s journey. We’d love to hear about your experience with selling businesses.

I’ve sold two businesses, but the first one is the better story. My wife and I were young, fairly recently married, and doing quite well with our little marketing agency. We specialized in Search Engine Optimization, and primarily worked with clients in more rural states. We were not looking to sell, but our philosophy was that we would always be open to offers.

We had worked very closely with a larger media company based in the same town we were living in. We shared office space, we traded work, there was a natural synergy. The President approached me at some point and floated the idea, saying something like “I don’t know if you’d be interested, but we’ve worked so well together, maybe there would be an opportunity to merge”, and I simply told him that I would always entertain offers.

We ended up working out a very strange deal. It wasn’t the usual “entrepreneur exit” where we walked away with a giant pile of cash. Instead, we ended up with very lucrative salaries at the new company, ownership shares, and a place on the board with voting rights. That was compatible with our goals, and worked with what they were trying to accomplish. Long-term, those shares will make us many times what we could have sold our company for outright, and we were young, so we had the time for that investment to mature.

When it comes to selling a business, I’d share two lessons. The first is just passing along advice I received which was:

Before you sign anything, be really picky. Overanalyze wording, talk through details, request changes, etc. Make sure it is perfect. Then once you sign, be really chill. Be easy to work with, and don’t get hung up on tiny details. That was great advice, especially since we were forming a long-standing relationship with our purchaser.

The second piece of advice is to simply stay open-minded and creative. We had offers on our business that we rejected, but it didn’t hurt us to give them a look. And we’re so happy with the weird buyout/merger route we took. It pays and will continue to pay us dividends. But we wouldn’t have found that deal if we had said no to anything that wasn’t X amount of dollars up front.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Within the speaking industry, I’ve seen significant growth from not being the same as everyone else. And I tried to at the beginning. I put on a suit and made a generic blue and white corporate looking website that talked about how good I’d be at these cool corporate training things.

It didn’t get me far.

But when I dialed in my message and stopped hiding the parts of myself that didn’t “fit the mold”, my reputation exploded. I come from central Wyoming, and still live in Wyoming, which isn’t really a hub for professional speakers. But my background working in agricultural and rural areas led me to audiences that I never would have expected. Meta hired me to train their construction managers who were leading teams building data centers in more remote places. I’ve had the chance to work with countless organizations who are directly and indirectly involved in ag, construction, and other skilled trades. And those opportunities led to more opportunities that weren’t directly related to those fields. I didn’t have to put myself in a box of being “corporate” or “blue collar” or any other label. Once I was just me, I attracted clients and attention that appreciated various aspects of my skills and background.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dallincooper.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dallinfcooper/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dallincooper/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DallinCooper

Image Credits

Marilou Costa