Disclaimer: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Filler words were removed, sentence structure improved, and formatting adjusted while preserving the original meaning and conversational tone.
Henry Harrison:
Well, hello, Don.
Don Williams:
Hey, Henry. How are you?
Henry Harrison:
Fantastic. This is Don Williams. Thank you for coming on Entrepreneurs, Business and Finance.
Don and I have been friends—I’m trying to remember now—I think it’s been eight years or so. Maybe nine.
Don Williams:
Seems like yesterday, Henry.
Henry Harrison:
It seems like yesterday. Time flies.
We met through mutual friends in Entrepreneurs’ Organization, where Don has been a leader and I’ve also been a leader. Don does keynote speaking and consulting. He’s a published author. He’s a repeat entrepreneur with a—he doesn’t look that old, but he puts it on his LinkedIn—38-year-old business that he started very young.
Don Williams:
I was only seven, Henry.
Henry Harrison:
Okay, there you go.
Don Williams:
That’s the only untruth I’ll tell today.
Henry Harrison:
And then there’s Don Williams Global, which is performance-based sales consulting, and the Proven Entrepreneur podcast. Don is helping a lot of people.
He’s also brought a lot of speakers in. Through EO, he hired me to speak back when I was doing more speaking. He expanded it way beyond anything I ever did.
Let’s go back. You’ve had amazing accomplishments and success. I see your posts—you’re traveling all over the world consulting, helping businesses.
Describe what you do. I know there are some unique features about how you help business owners.
Don Williams:
I’d probably describe it as helping, but that doesn’t sound very sophisticated. If I put my sophisticated head on, I’d say I’m a consultant.
I help people ring the cash register—make more money. I don’t really care what product or service they sell. I can help them sell more of it, easier and faster, without a doubt.
And I’ll put my money behind my mouth. If they’re reluctant, I’ll bet with them.
I don’t think people have relationships with companies, and companies don’t have relationships with companies. People and companies have relationships with people.
My superpower would be words. I speak and I write and I podcast. I love words.
After 38 years and a bunch of different companies, I can help in a lot of ways, but I prefer helping on the cash register side. If a client needs more, I’ll bring in specialists.
It’s not that I can’t help—it’s just more fun to run the cash register.
Henry Harrison:
I know you’re good at that. When you were a kid, were you entrepreneurial? Were you hustling around? Or did something click later?
Don Williams:
My father was an engineer. My mother was a stay-at-home mom and a bookkeeper. My grandparents on both sides were wheat farmers—North Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma.
I grew up knowing hard work. If you ate today, thank a farmer somewhere.
My first job was driving a John Deere tractor behind the combines during wheat harvest. I learned two things: what hard work was—and that I didn’t want to be a farmer.
I became an entrepreneur out of an aversion to authority. That’s more common than people admit. Non-entrepreneurs think entrepreneurs do it for profit—money, travel, cool cars. Some of that exists, sure.
But for many people, it’s more about not wanting to be controlled. I used to say I’d be a really good follower if I could just find a good leader—and I couldn’t.
I helped the man I worked for go from two offices to eleven. I worked into partnership through sweat equity—not dollars, effort.
Then he didn’t pay me as agreed. So I became his competitor. I was horribly ill-prepared. I didn’t know what a P&L was. I didn’t know what a balance sheet was.
But I did know how to bring money in the door. I knew how to ring the cash register.
And if you only know one thing when you start, that’s the thing to know.
Everybody starts a little ugly. If you wait until it’s all pretty and you know everything, you’ll never start.
Start where you are. If that means mowing lawns to make 500 bucks this week, start there. Just start.
Henry Harrison:
That always makes up for other issues. If you bring in revenue and cash flow, you can solve other problems.
Don Williams:
Absolutely. Even if there are big problems, you can hire experts to fix them. You don’t have to be an expert at everything.
Selling the right way is natural and easy. People don’t want to be sold. They want permission to buy.
When you do it the wrong way, it’s brutally hard. I just show people the next steps to do it the right way.
Henry Harrison:
My first job out of college was construction supervision and then sales for a big home builder. The feedback I got was, “He didn’t sell me.”
At first I worried, because I was “sales.” My boss educated me: people don’t want to be sold—they want to be helped and educated.
That connects to you—you’ve been on the front end your whole career.
Don Williams:
I don’t know too many people like that either. But it hasn’t all been roses and victory lane. There have been trials.
Since I’ve known you, I recognized my mission. I think mission is in you. You don’t invent it in a meeting. It’s already there—you may just ignore it.
It’s always been in me to help other people. I’m a servant.
My mission is to help others help others. I love helping people, but I especially love helping people who help other people, because it’s a bigger ripple.
All my business missions feed into my personal mission. At the beginning of the day, I’m Don. I’m not entrepreneur, owner, CEO—that doesn’t define me. Those are things I do.
That clarity makes it easy to decide where to spend my time. We all get 86,400 seconds a day.
My core values are “YOU and ME.” The Y stands for You first. I’ll always put you first.
The O is Outstanding effort. I’ll give you my very best—especially in helping ring the cash register. If you need finance expertise, I’ll connect you with someone like Henry.
The U is Understanding. The more I understand, the more you understand, the better we do.
The M is Mission oriented. If we don’t have a mission or goal, I can’t work in a vacuum.
The E is Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm doesn’t mean loud. It comes from two Greek words—“God within”—what you’re passionate about. You can be quiet and still have real enthusiasm.
And the last four letters are IASM: “I am sold myself.” If you want to influence people, you have to be sold.
After 38 years, there have been dark days and shining years. Entrepreneurship isn’t all victory lane.
Henry Harrison:
I remember those lunches. It was around 2016. We were both in a period of looking for something new. You had your company for a long time, it was running itself, but you wanted to do more.
There are turning points. For me, I knew it was time to move on from home building when I realized I didn’t care what color paint was going on the wall. I needed to care again.
Don Williams:
I still love that business, and I love that they don’t need me much.
In the last three weeks I’ve been in Singapore, Wichita, Charlotte, and Baltimore. I got home at 2 a.m. today after weather issues in Dallas.
I’m not complaining. I live my life in gratitude. If you fly enough, you know there will be a couple days like that each year.
Here’s advice I heard for startup founders: don’t build a job—build a company. You’ll do everything early on, and that’s fine. Just don’t make it the plan forever.
If you build a job, you’ll have a job.
Henry Harrison:
A lot of your work is confidential, but could you share a success story or two?
Don Williams:
Sure. One is a solopreneur—an EOS implementer, like a business coach.
He came to me with four clients, charging $4,000 a day. I asked him why he wasn’t charging $10,000 a day. He said that’s not how it’s done.
I said: who invented that? If what you do is valuable, it’s worth $10,000. If it doesn’t work, it’s not worth $4,000.
We built him to about 28 clients. I got a text later: he’d done his 500th day, he was in the top 7% of his peers worldwide, and he signed his first $10,000-a-day client.
That’s mission for me—helping him help others. And the ripple effect is real.
Second example: a larger company—about 2,100 employees—with a B2B division that was underperforming. I asked to talk to everyone involved and do four meetings.
Mostly it came down to stopping the stupid—removing “sales prevention” inside their process. We doubled that division’s sales in eight weeks. No more leads, no more advertising. Just better process and better execution.
If you’re a buyer, you want what you want, when you want it, how you want it. If the seller gives that, there’s no arm wrestling.
See things from the other person’s point of view. Most people try to convince others to see it their way. It’s easier to see it through the other person’s glasses.
In Baltimore recently, we talked about value proposition. Everybody has one, but few can articulate it.
Value proposition means the value you provide relative to the money exchanged. Value is the delta—the gap between what it costs and what it’s worth.
Your value proposition should be so extraordinary that the prospect hates their money and wants to throw it at you. If it’s not that strong, there’s work to do.
When you do that, you can charge anything you want.
Henry Harrison:
That’s a fantastic answer. Those stories are motivating, and it’s great to see you enjoying what you do—helping people and fulfilling your mission.
Don Williams:
Thank you. I’m not griping about the airport. I’m grateful.
Remember: if you sleep in a bed tonight, about 60% of people on Earth will sleep on the ground. If you can flip a light switch and have clean water, you won the lottery.
If you were born in the developed world, you won the lottery. If you were educated, you won the lottery. Go help somebody.
Here’s a filter I learned in EO: run your plans through this—Is it good for my customer? Is it good for my staff? Is it good for my company? Is it good for my vendors? Is it good for the organization? Is it good for the world?
If you run plans through that filter, you’ll make better decisions.
And it’s good business to do good.
Henry Harrison:
That’s a good one to end on. If someone wants to reach out, should they go through Don Williams Global?
Don Williams:
Yes. You can go to Don Williams Global, or email me directly: don@donwilliamsglobal.com
. That’s my personal email. It might take a minute, but I will follow up.
Henry Harrison:
There you go. Thank you for coming on today—sharing wisdom and being a good guy.
Don Williams:
Henry, thank you. I’m grateful to be a guest on your show. You know I love you and your wife, and I can’t wait to see you.
Henry Harrison:
Back at you. See you soon. Thanks.
