(upbeat music) - PNC is proud to support Business Forward, where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in Central Illinois.

(dramatic music) - Welcome to Business Forward, I'm your host, Matt George.

Tonight's topic is a great one, so I want to get right down to it.

Joining me tonight, John Wieland.

John is the CEO of MH Equipment, but also an author, which we're gonna talk about this awesome book here very soon.

Welcome, John.

- Hey, thank you, Matt, for having me.

- Well, I mean, so, let's just start with you.

I've known you for a few years, and always an interesting story.

Are you from this area?

- I'm from around, St. Louis on the Illinois side.

- [Matt] Okay.

- Went to Western.

Met my wife there.

She's from Peoria.

- [Matt] Okay.

- I wanted to marry her a lot more than she wanted to marry me.

(Matt laughs) - So I had to move to Peoria to get that done.

And so I moved to Peoria in '82.

- [Matt] '82 - So I've been to here for a long time.

- We've been here a while then.

So, CEO of MH Equipment.

Just talk about that company, and then we're gonna go right into the book.

What is MH Equipment?

- It's a material handling dealership.

Take care of material handling equipment, like forklift trucks, personnel carriers, scrubbers and sweepers, and things like that.

In 1994, when I bought the company, they were virtually bankrupt.

They had about 50 people.

They had three branches.

Prior to that, I was actually a auditor for a public accounting firm where I audited MH Equipment.

- [Matt] Oh okay.

- When it was virtually bankrupt.

And I always thought, if that business was properly capitalized, and management was a little more engaged, it could be successful.

- [Matt] Interesting.

- So in 1994, Hyster was finally ready to pull the trigger because they were gonna have to write off a lot of money, so they really decided who bought it.

I was 35 years old.

I had no entrepreneurial experience.

I can't even change my own oil in my car, so I have no mechanical skills.

(Matt laughs) And for some reason, they said, "Let's go with this guy."

And so I always tell people, right place, right time, God was sovereign and they said, "Go for it."

And during that first five years, when I was making a bunch of mistakes, probably, it was a great economy, and a great economy covers a multitude of sins.

And so I didn't have to pay for my learning experience.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- And then, you know, from 1994, we've gone from 50 people to over 900 and over 30 branches.

- [Matt] Gees.

- And it's been a fun journey.

- Yeah, and so what do you think the Hyster group saw in somebody that was 35?

There had to be something.

- I really don't know.

I seriously.

- [Matt] Isn't that interesting though?

- I think, I think it was just a timing because there's like six other people who actually went and tried to buy it and Hyster rejected all of them.

- [Matt] That's amazing.

- And so, I really think it's just timing and God's blessing on me and Julie and my family, and they said yes.

And I, you know, I mean, hindsight, it kind of worked out for them as well.

- [Matt] Yeah, yeah.

You know, we've done pretty well for them.

- Right.

- [John] So.

- Just a little side story.

So I grew up in Danville, Illinois, and Hyster had a huge plant there.

Matter of fact, playing Little League growing up, we played at Hyster Park and all of that.

But when I was reading about your company, and I knew a lot about it anyway, you support a lot of great organizations throughout central Illinois.

But when I saw the Hyster connection, it just brought back a lot of memories for me.

So I thought that was pretty cool.

- Yeah, they still have a parks depot in Danville.

- Yeah, it's just, it's a lot smaller than - Yes it is.

- what it was.

I mean, that area lost a lot so.

All right, so, you know, you're a big people person.

You care about your team.

You want to see your team win and succeed in whatever, and it means different things for different people, but you know, you become an employer of choice.

And what's interesting about that is, you just said it, you go from 50 employees to 900 employees.

It's more than money.

It's not even that it really, it has to be culture or something that you're doing.

That secret sauce with people.

Am I correct?

- Absolutely, the secret sauce at MH Equipment is our culture.

- [Matt] Okay.

- Our value statements.

We had a lady who had done strategic planning for Fortune 100 companies, the Army, the Navy, and she spent three days with us, and at the end of the three days, she said that she had never experienced a company whose written value statements were so closely aligned to reality.

- [Matt] Wow.

- And that is, so when we make a decision with our employees, our value statement for our employees is that we'll provide a safe and encouraging environment that recognizes integrity, inspires passion and enables personal growth.

And so when we make a decision about employees, what are the filters that we're using?

We're using those filters.

And so, yeah, the culture of MH Equipment, look, we haven't arrived, we still have bad days.

Okay?

But every day we wake up in the leadership team, we always want to do the next right thing.

- Yeah, I mean, when I, when I was studying, there's a lot of great companies that have been on this show.

And, you know, I just, I love talking to businessmen and women about how they've navigated through, you know, through their business.

But after reading everything that you do, after reading your book, I want to work with you.

You know, I want to work for you.

Yeah, it's interesting that, when you get on your website, I mean, it said employer of choice, trustworthy, ethical, your mission is people matter.

That's the first thing it says, people matter.

And I think a lot of times, and especially lately this past couple of years, cause all you do is hear griping about, oh, we have so many open positions and we have this, and I'm one of them.

And then as I was reading everything and rehashing, because I read your book probably a couple months ago, and then I'm sitting here going, you know what, here I was just griping about something that I'm the leader that should be fixing this anyway.

And as I was reading every, it's just passion inspires.

- Yeah, well one thing that we did, like last year during COVID, between April, May and June, business really did kind of tank a little bit.

It was a period of time and the leadership team of MH Equipment, we decided, we're not laying anybody off.

We're not laying anybody off.

And so we sent our technicians who work on the equipment to food banks, not for profits.

- [Matt] Yeah, yeah.

And over that three month period, we gave over 11,000 hours of charity each time to our communities.

And I will say that sometimes you have opportunities in life to demonstrate whether your values are true.

And at least last year during April, May and June, we kind of hit the ball in the head there for our employees.

- Well, I, and I think that says a lot about you as a leader.

If you think about it, because you're not a guy who wants that pat on the back.

You're not that guy at all, and that's one thing I know about you, but as you dig deep, and you talk to your employees, and you see the things that you did, I know what you did.

You had people all throughout the community.

That's a statement and that's not just a garbage statement or just a, hey, we're doing this to look good.

You have that in your heart.

- Well, Matt, I mean, it's logical.

Okay, so we thought about this.

It's like we've been successful and the leadership team decided, doesn't it make common sense to take some of our equity and invest it into the people who created the equity in the first place?

I mean, it logically, it's like.

- [Matt] It's logical.

- Yeah, and so it was not a, it was not a difficult decision.

We did it thinking that we could even lose money last year.

And we said, that's okay, we're gonna do that.

But it turned out, we didn't get a dime from the government because of our size.

Last year was our most profitable year ever.

Now figure that out.

- [Matt] Well, I, you say it's logical, but it may be logical for you and your team under your leadership, but it's not logical for a lot of businesses, and I think that's what maybe pinched some of these businesses, and why they're struggling right now with many things, including employee retention, open positions, all these different things.

So anyway, very interesting.

I could talk probably just about that leadership philosophy all day, but let's talk community.

- [John] Okay.

- What does community mean to you?

- Oh boy, it's just who we do life with.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- It's our neighbors.

You know, there's a chapter in the book about who's your neighbor?

And I do believe that that community was created by God.

It's the essence of a society is a communal living.

And when a society takes care of the least and the lost of the community, I think we have God's blessing.

- Yeah, I, you know, I, I just recently gave a speech and I said, it's everyone's job in this room to take care of the community, whether you believe it or not, because that's my belief.

And that is what has, that's what we need right now.

There's not enough love so to speak.

And people don't like using that word, but there's not.

There's so much carelessness, so much violence, so much silliness sometimes that this is refreshing.

So I'm gonna show your book here, "Uncommon Threads".

This is a number one bestseller on Amazon.

It is a great read.

How did this project, you know, to write a book, it's a commitment.

How did this project even come about?

- I had a bone marrow transplant about two and a half years ago.

I had myelodysplastic syndrome, it was a blood cancer, but it wasn't a cancer that was trying to kill you.

it just had something that was broken.

And so the idea was to take out the broken machine, my bone marrow, put in somebody else's, you know, a new machine.

And if my body accepted it, I was kind of fixed.

And so it worked that way.

And so afterwards it was like, you know, where do I go from here?

And some of my closest friends kept telling me, you look, you really should write a book.

Talk about the way that you try to weave business and family and faith, because everything just kind of weaves together.

- [Matt] Leadership.

- Leadership.

And so I decided that I have a chief operating officer in the company now that's kind of running the show, which gives me a lot more time, and so I wanted to go ahead and follow through and do that.

And people have asked me, because the book is relatively transparent and it's raw.

- [Matt] Oh, it's raw.

Yeah, I like that word.

- It's raw.

and they asked, "John, why did you put in all that stuff?"

And I said, the book is not about a celebration of John Wieland.

It's about a celebration of humanity.

And in the book you will see the best of humanity, and you'll see the worst of humanity.

And unfortunately I've been center stage or both.

And so, the goal is, I just want, I want people to read the book, and whether or not it's a segment about family or faith or business, I want the reader to have movement in their life where they go to point A to point B.

And one of the reasons why I'm very honest in the book, is if I want you to look in the mirror as the reader, it makes sense for me to be looking in the mirror of my own life in the book.

And then I create some freedom for people to say, That's pretty stupid what he did.

(Matt laughs) but you know, hey, you know, maybe, maybe I need to be thinking about some of the things I'm doing.

- Right, well, I mean, I wrote, I read the book and I wrote, it's a foundation for both business, life, and leadership.

- [John] Thank you.

Thank you.

- In business, it's a foundation.

I mean, that, so in your book, what's really interesting about this is you talk a lot about failures and do we not, as people, talk about our failures enough?

Because you taught, you learn from them, right?

I thought that was an interesting thread throughout the book.

- Yeah, I mean, I just feel like when a leader is honest with their failures, people will say, I can follow that guy.

The guy or the girl that they have problems following is when they act like they walk on water.

- [Matt] Right.

- And, you know, there's only one person that walked on water - [Matt] Right.

- and it's not me and it's not you.

- [Matt] Right.

- And so I think when leaders are honest about things they've done well, and honest about where they swung and missed, it creates a culture of openness for everybody.

- Yeah, one of the great quotes on Amazon, when someone was critiquing the book, it said, "This book is unique, interesting, sad, and funny."

- [John] Yeah.

- I thought that was awesome.

- So my ultimate goal, I want people to read it.

I do want them to laugh.

I want them to get choked up.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- I want them to be inspired, to be the best version of themselves that they can be.

I want them to tell people to read the book.

And when they say, "Well, who wrote the book?"

I want them to say, "I don't remember."

(Matt chuckles) Because it's not about the messenger.

- [Matt] Right.

- It's really about the message.

- [Matt] The message.

It's the message.

- And so, it's really important that the message is communicated and the messenger kind of fades away in the background.

- So with 900 employees did, 'cause you don't want to have an employee come up and go, "Hey, I just bought your book."

I mean, that doesn't make you feel good, right?

- Mm-mm.

- Did you get the employees all a copy of the book?

- They will all, anybody who wants a copy will get a free book and all that type of stuff.

It's being produced by Versa Press next week, and yeah, I kind of feel like, when they gave me the first 500 copies, I was at Versa Press and Matt, the salesperson says, "Isn't this exciting for you?"

And I said, no, it's not.

(Matt laughs) It's just books.

- Right.

- I said, this is when I'll be excited.

When I get a letter from somebody.

- [Matt] Right.

- And they said, "It impacted me."

- [Matt] Yeah.

- And, "It has helped me."

I said, that, I'll have a smile on my face.

To sell a book or to have books, it just really doesn't do anything.

- I, you know, I've written a book and after reading this and talking to you, I thought to myself, you know, I need to write another one.

And the next one is going to be, because I talk about all the time, being in nonprofit, my whole life, I always say, it's our job to change lives and save lives.

That's what we do.

Change lives and save lives.

And so after reading this, I thought, you know, I could go a little softer tone here and kind of take this avenue that you took it, to my own, you know, personal way, because that's how good I think this book is.

I'm gonna show it again.

John is not the guy that wants the pat on the back.

You just said it, but you will do the pats on the back if it helps somebody.

- [John] Oh, absolutely.

- [Matt] And that's what is cool about this.

- [John] Yeah.

- When they say it's sad, what do they mean by that?

- Ooh, there is just some, there's just some raw moments, I can, you know, one of the chapters is four adoptions and abortion.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- I talk about the experience of having a girl have an abortion when they're in high school.

I wasn't making political position on it.

I was sharing a story.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- But it is so raw.

And then just some of the humanity in the book in regards to meeting people at just raw moments.

I remember, you know, in one of the chapters is talks about a mature Christian, which I was supposed to be, and a drunk teenager.

And it's a story about my 20th high school reunion.

I go to it, and some lady who kind of was on the outer skirts of high school, she was looking for me, and I kept trying to say, hey, I don't want to talk to her, you know, my wife is here.

She's going to probably say something crazy.

And I did that three times, and I just denied her.

And, you know, I was, I was supposed to be a Christian and, you know.

- [Matt] Right.

- I don't want to, you know.

- [Matt] Right, yeah.

- And so she finally found me and said, "John, I've been waiting 20 years to tell you something."

I said, hey, what's that?

She goes, "I just want to say, thank you.

You were only popular kid who treated me like a real person."

- [Matt] Yeah.

- Now, I was devastated.

- [Matt] That you ignored her.

- That I ignored her.

- Right.

- And I was like, I reflected the love of Jesus Christ more as a drunk, you know, teenager.

- [Matt] Right.

Then I did that night.

- [Matt] Isn't that amazing?

- And so I talk about how did that happen?

And so, the book is just kinda, it kinda just, we're willing to go any place in the book for people to think about things.

- Yeah.

It makes you really think about, I mean, the title is "Uncommon Threads", but it does make you think about the threads throughout each one of your own lives, right?

I mean, that's one of the purposes of this book is to kind of reflect and think inside of the good things and the bad things that you've done and the areas you can improve.

So, "Uncommon Threads", this is an awesome book.

So let's talk about charity for a second, all right.

'Cause I, you know I love this.

So, His First Foundation, so you establish the foundation, to, and this is what I love, to support your employee's passions, not yours.

So explain how, how did that even come about?

- Okay so, in 2000, I bought two companies that tripled the size of MH Equipment.

I had a big head.

I thought like I was a genius.

(Matt laughs) The market turned.

In January of 2001, we lost $100,000 and I was like, uh-oh.

And so, being the great leader that I am, my response was, I hope that doesn't happen again.

(Matt laughs) It didn't.

In February, we lost 200,000.

- [Matt] Okay.

- And so, through the first six months of 2001, we lost $700,000.

We finally figured out that I probably should lead and make some decisions.

And we thought that the second half of the year would be a positive.

We all want to make a difference in our communities, but writing a check for $100 or $200 here and here is, that really making a difference?

- [Matt] Right.

- And so we decided to set up a foundation called His First Foundation, where we support and give 10% of our net income, budget or actual, whichever is greater, to this foundation to come alongside our employees' passions.

And.

- [Matt] 10% is a lot.

- 10%.

And we support three areas of our employees.

We do support faith-based organizations whose mission it is to share the love of Jesus Christ or to meet the physical needs of people in his name.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

I believe that a community with a thriving faith community that supports the least of it, is good for our cities, okay?

- [Matt] Yeah.

- But, not, we want anybody of any faith or no faith to love MH Equipment, so we will support any secular good works.

We'll also support just acts of kindness.

And so we have about 500 requests every year from employees and we just asked them, what is it?

And tell us how you put in a little skin in the game yourself.

Are you writing a check or are you giving volunteer hours, et cetera, et cetera.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- And since 1994, 2001, July, when we set this up, that was the high water mark of this company.

- [Matt] Wow.

- If I had to pick one thing that was different, that was a watershed moment, it was that day when we decided we were going to start the foundation, not at the beginning of the following year, but right after we lost 700,000, going forward.

And that pretty cool.

- You know what's cool about that is I was just recently at a leadership conference with one of my favorite authors is John Maxwell.

And so I was three days with this guy and it was just one of the most empowering times in my life, really.

And he speaks about this on a daily basis.

He talks about, there were many times where he lost money and it was about the money.

And then it changed when it wasn't about the money and then his faith and his, he's a good businessman too, really guided him for the next 30 years and has come back a thousand fold, which he's been able to do the same thing in what you're saying, give back into the communities that are in need.

And what's even, what's really cool about this is the employee piece, because then you're also getting more buy-in too.

And I know that's not necessarily the whole purpose of the foundation, but it that's a big piece of culture.

- Well, we want people of passion - [Matt] Right, there you go.

- Okay?

A passion outside yourself because when you wake up every day, thinking life is about you, that's a pretty heavy load, but when you wake up and you realize that there are hurting people in this world, whatever it is, and you grab hold of that and you have a passion for it, you end up being a better person.

You're a better spouse.

You're a better parent.

You're a better friend.

You're a better worker because life is more balanced when you understand, I, the world does not revolve around me.

It doesn't, you know, and what part do I play to make this a healthy planet?

You know?

- Yeah, and it, and I think that is kind of the theme that runs through this whole book.

So, well, I love the foundation, His First Foundation, and I'm sure you're always hiring too.

So if you want to work for a good man and a good company, MH Equipment is the company.

And they do a lot of great things for our community.

John does a lot of great things, doesn't want the credit.

"Uncommon Threads" because there are pieces in here that are actually life changing.

And I truly mean that.

And I read a book a week and this is something that's pretty cool.

So we appreciate everything that you do for this community.

And it means a lot.

Thank you, John, for coming on.

- We appreciate what you do, too.

- Well, thank you.

I'm Matt George and this is another episode of Business Forward.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - PNC is proud to support Business Forward, where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in Central Illinois.