100: Team Love Redeems Founder

For Love of Team™ | Winston Faircloth

This week, we wrap up Season 2 with a significant milestone - our 100th episode! To celebrate, we're having fan favorite Mark Ross return to interview Winston about his entrepreneurial journey to creating, For Love of Team.
“You know the term “For love of the Game”?
I was on a walk one day, and somehow, it just came to my mind that for love of team was what I was missing as the CEO of a very successful multi-million dollar company.
I had started a business because I had an idea of how I could help other people with a product and a service that I loved. When that was established, I moved to loving the client. I wanted to give them the ultimate experience that was just as good or not better than the product itself. I knew that if they had a great experience with what we were offering it would help us win more business.
But I only kept my focus right there.
Instead of looking at my team as the foundation of our success, I saw them as an impediment to being more creative and serving our clients.
More often than I should have I took the side of the client. Even though our team had a good process, had good boundaries, and good guardrails, they were to blame if client expectations were not met.
My team was looking for how we could protect the quality of the service, they were looking for ways to protect and scale how we could do it. And I would inevitably take the side of the client and I put our team under tremendous pressure.
That works for maybe a short season, but if that's constantly the culture that you're creating - it's a toxic work culture. That was a reflection of me as a toxic leader back then.
Now I see our work here at ‘For Love of Team’ as a redemption story. Helping founders and leaders avoid the mistakes I made and instead multiplying their impact and income by…
Doing work you love, in a business you love, with a team you love.”
- Winston