"The secret to being a successful CEO is to be patient, flexible, and hear both your employees and customers out."
Meet Harrison Tanner Baron, CEO & Founder of Growth Generators.
Harrison has been a small business owner for four years and has worked with small business owners for the last 12+ years. Harrison has been growing online communities for several years now. He has built an impressive following through various media outlets and wants to share his expertise with any entrepreneur who needs help. His passions have led him to want help to encourage others to pursue theirs.
He is well-versed in social media platforms, podcasting, YouTube, and so much more. Additionally, he has his own podcast, Brutally Honest with Harrison Tanner Baron.
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Table of Contents
Welcome to your ValiantCEO exclusive interview! Let’s start with a little introduction. Tell us about yourself.
Harrison Tanner Baron: I am the CEO and founder of Growth Generators. My business has been running for 4 years. I used to work for a tech company but quit when I found that many of the companies we were referring our clients to had not been doing anything for them. Since then I found my own company where I help entrepreneurs grow their business through social media. Additionally I have a podcast called Brutally Honest with Harrison Baron.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get to where you are today? Give us some lessons you learned along the way.
Harrison Tanner Baron: When I was a child I wanted to be a fireman. In fact I have become a volunteer firefighter. But, as I grew into my teens, I realized I had a niche for technology and marketing. Therefore I learned that you can still act on your childhood passions while making a career out of qualities you realized you have as you get older.
Tell us about your business, what does the company do? What is unique about the company?
Harrison Tanner Baron: Growth Generators is a company that helps entrepreneurs grow their business through social media. We do this through SEO implementation, back linking, web design, and inbound marketing. Our company is unique in that, unlike other marketing companies, we focus more on online marketing, including how to use Linkedin.
How to become a CEO? Some will focus on qualities, others on degrees, how would you answer that question?
Harrison Tanner Baron: I would say that, in order to become a CEO, you need to focus on your passion. Then you need to think about how you can make a career out of it and how you can effectively run a business on it.
What are the secrets to becoming a successful CEO? Who inspires you, who are your role models and why? Illustrate your choices.
Harrison Tanner Baron: The secret to being a successful CEO is to be patient, flexible, and hear both your employees and customers out. The CEO that inspireD me and helped me illustrate my choices is Bill Gates. He is my role model as he has helped keep businesses stay up and running in poor countries through his company, Gavi. He has also used his fortune to help create many philanthropic foundations that have raised $49.8 billion dollars.
Many CEOs fall into the trap of being all over the place. What are the top activities a CEO should focus on to be the best leader the company needs? Explain.
Harrison Tanner Baron: The top activity CEOS should do to focus on being the best leader the company needs is to utilize calendars, task notes, google sheets, etc. By using these various things to remind you of your responsibilities you’ll be less likely to forget things. Then you’ll be able to keep on top of everything.
The Covid-19 Pandemic put the leadership skills of many to the test, what were some of the most difficult challenges that you faced as a CEO/Leader in the past year? Please list and explain in detail.
Harrison Tanner Baron: The most difficult challenges that I faced as a CEO/Leader was being able to keep clients and employees. Many of my clients went out of business during the pandemic and I was afraid I might lose many of my employees as well. What I ended up having to do was get rid of my physical office and implement a 25%-50% pay cut. By doing this I was able to keep my business going without paying for office space but I was also able to still pay my employees without losing them.
What are some of the greatest mistakes you’ve noticed some business leaders made during these unprecedented times? What are the takeaways you gleaned from those mistakes?
Harrison Tanner Baron: The greatest mistake I have found business leaders make during these unprecedented times is that they try to run business as normal. They try to keep their physical offices and they try to pay their employees what they were able to beforehand. This hasn’t helped but rather hindered them and their businesses have closed down. Therefore the biggest takeaway I have gleaned from those mistakes is to find ways to keep my business running in a way that was cheap but kept everyone satisfied.
In your opinion, what changes played the most critical role in enabling your business to survive/remain profitable, or maybe even thrive? What lessons did all this teach you?
Harrison Tanner Baron: The biggest change was changing from a physical office to a remote workspace. This played the most critical role as, for one thing, I was able to afford more for other aspects of my business without having to pay an office building to keep it up and running. This helped keep my business profitable even during the pandemic. The lesson this taught me was that I didn’t need an office building to have a business; just running everything from home saved me money and kept my business up and running.
What is the #1 most pressing challenge you’re trying to solve in your business right now?
Harrison Tanner Baron: Keeping and finding new clients. Businesses are still being affected by the pandemic so it’s hard to keep clients. And, if my clients’ businesses shut down, it’s hard to sometimes find new clients.
You already shared a lot of insights with our readers and we thank you for your generosity. Normally, leaders are asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is the most useless skill you have learned, at school or during your career?
Harrison Tanner Baron: The most useless skill I have learned is to blindly trust people. In my old job I was referring our clients to other marketing companies and trusting that they were helping them. However I found that they weren’t doing anything for them. Therefore I decided to start my own online marketing department. By doing this I made my clients more successful than ever before.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. We will select these answers for our ValiantCEO Award 2021 edition. The best answers will be selected to challenge the award.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make, this past year 2021, for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Harrison Tanner Baron: The most difficult decision I had to make was whether or not I needed to implement an employee pay cut. I didn’t want to; I wanted to keep paying my employees what I promised them. However I realized I just couldn’t afford it at the time. So I had no choice but to implement the pay cut and, thankfully, they were okay with it. Not only were they okay with it but it has benefited them positively as they are still able to afford living expenses by working with my company and they are still motivated to get the job done.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Harrison Tanner Baron for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Harrison Tanner Baron or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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