Intro And Sponsor

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Check this out. So get the linked online from the volunteer death. Javonka and her chest discuss everything from live to love and business with the Tennessee to the time. Always relatable, always relevant, and always a good time. It's talking Tennessee. And now your host, Yavonka.

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This episode is brought to you by the Landis Team, your go-to real estate family in East Tennessee. If you are looking to buy or sell, we are the ones you should call. Give us a call at 865-660-1186 or check out our website at yavonka salesrealestate.com. That's Yavonka Y V-O-N-N-C-A Sales Real Estate.com.

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Welcome back

Why Randy Boyd Matters

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to Talking Tennessee with Yavonka. I'm your host where real conversations meet real leadership. And I am so excited to show you the guest that I have on Talking Tennessee. He is a legend in a lot of things he does, but his heart is so humble. He walks with grace and humility. And I am so proud to say Randy Boyd is on Talking, Tennessee. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Howard, I had to uh hesitate for a minute when you said I used the word legend. Legend usually means you're old, but then I thought about it for a second. You know, if you are, you might as well own it. But you're not I think I think I've actually earned that that that's that status of being an older older gentleman now.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Yes, you have done so much in Tennessee, viewer viewers and listeners. Randy Boyd is a staple in our community and he never stops. The biggest thing I would like to tell you is this has been a conversation that has been in the brew brewing for two years that we would see each other out. I'd ask him to come on the podcast, and it just was not the right time. And I didn't want to waste his time. So I waited for God to tell me when, and it's now. Randy Boyd, you are a legend because you never stop. You never stop believing in your in your community. What makes you? Let's take it all the way back. What made you? I would ask, who's Randy Boyd and what made you?

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Well, that's a a big question. Let me try to be trying to highlight a

Humble Beginnings And Scout Rule

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couple of things. So I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, humble beginnings. Uh dad always made me work for everything I had at 11 years old. He said, Brandy, you're old enough now to pay for your own clothes. My mom says it made her cry, but gave me a work ethic at a very early age. So I always appreciated the what my parents poured into me. Product of New Hopeville Elementary School, Doyle High School, and then the University of Tennessee, always gone to public schools. Um and so I owe a lot to all my teachers that that helped me get to where I am. But I'll I'll highlight Boy Scouts. I'm a Boy Scout. I was a Boy Scout as a youth, and I was a Boy Scout master at uh for 17 years, started a pack and then a troop. And uh one of the things as a scout that you learn and as a Boy Scout master that you teach is to leave every trail better than you found it. Yes. And literally what we're talking about is the trail itself. Like if you walk down a trail and you see a gum wrapper, it doesn't matter that you didn't drop it. You pick it up. You want to leave everything better than you found it. And for 17 years, I'm trying to uh explain to the boys that this is also a metaphor for life. Everywhere you go, you want to leave it better than you found it. And so if you're gonna preach it, you need to learn to or live it. And so I've always tried to do live by that example of making sure everywhere I've been, it's a little better uh than than you found it. And second thing I'll just say is that, and we you and I have talked about this before, but Jenny and I have been very blessed. We've worked work hard, but God's blessed us. We have so much to be thankful for and more than we'll need. And uh so we're spending the rest of our life trying to give back and paying back the debt that we owe. And um, we believe if we spent the rest of our life giving back, trying to pay down that debt, we'll never we'll still die in in debt. We'll never be able to pay it all back. So that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to do it in a smart way, too. Uh you can get there's many ways in which you you can get back. Um one of the things we believe in is education. Yes, education is the inflection point of everything. So I've been working at the University of Tennessee for eight years now, free of charge. It's been I feel like this is a place I can make the biggest impact, make the biggest difference. Free of charge.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

No, no, that you no, it was right where I needed it. So free of charge. So you decide, okay, I want to do this, but I'm gonna take you back a little bit.

College Discipline And Early Leadership

SPEAKER_02 4:42

The young Randy, when you went to college and you got on the campus, what what was your experience in college?

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Well, I was probably uh one of those that didn't have a whole lot of fun. I had a great experience and I enjoyed it, but I look back now at the students that go to spring break and are in fraternities and go to football games. So confession, I was in and out in three years. I started at age 16, graduated at age 19, worked uh 24 hours every weekend. I I did a uh this uh brand injection molding machines for my dad's factory. I'd start at 7 p.m. on a Saturday night, finish at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning, and then do it again Sunday morning to Monday. And by doing that, and then I took, if there was a spring semester, I took an online three-hour credit course. I studied through the summers. Um so I I was very disciplined, but I still had some great experiences. I was in Air Force RTC for the couple first couple of years. So I had a great experience uh in that, made a lot of friendships in that, but but I was in and out quickly. So I uh yeah, some kids talk about you know all the things they do at the at the parties and the football game. I went to half of one football game. Mostly football annoyed me because I I I tried to go to the library on Saturday and I couldn't find a place apart. I said, this is this is this is this is unfair. I need to get to the library, and I can't find a place apart. But but I had a great experience. I learned a lot. I think paying my way through has also taught me uh discipline and and uh I was happy that I was able to graduate in three years, pay my way through with zero debt at the end.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

My daughter uh is doing the same thing. She has not taken out one loan, she's paid all she has paid all of her uh fees, everything. She hasn't asked us for anything. That's she's literally and she said, I want to be able to say that I did it on my own. And I I respect that.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

That's a lot of pride in that.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

It really is. Tell me one thing. Uh when you were young, was there anybody that just really stuck out put their self in a place to help you that really helped shape you?

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Yeah, I'll s I I'll say two things. Both one one, my father, he was always by uh an example. You know, I I've been an entrepreneur all my life. My dad's an entrepreneur. My friends say if you look in the dictionary under the word entrepreneur, there's a picture of my dad. He's c he's constantly coming up with a new idea every day. He's 88 years old now. This past weekend they showed him. Uh his wife sent a picture of him in a uh backhoe with some new device that he had invented to cut out cattails in a pond. And he's going to patent it. And said, Well, Dad, you're 88 years old. You're inventing new products. But so my dad was always a great example, and he's always an example of um determination. He's had a lot of obstacles, a lot of times it was very difficult, and he would never give up. And so anytime I would be in a bad situation, I could use him as uh as an example of, you know, if you don't want to quit, nobody could make you quit. Right. And my dad dad taught me that. I think the other person I think about in my youth would have been my scoutmaster, uh uh Scoutmaster Gillenwater, who uh empowered me to be a leader. So one of the things they like to say in scouting is that it's a safe place to fail. So um we come to the meetings and he put me in charge of the meeting. I was a senior patrol leader. I was in charge of organizing the meeting. If we're gonna go on a camping trip, uh hiking trip, um, it was myself and the other boys' job to organize it, find out who our transportation was, pick the trail, pick our food, do do do the whole thing. And uh so we had a few misadventures. We had the park rangers have to come come find us on on one occasion. But you got lost. I think so. Well, actually I did not get lost. I was just in a spot where I didn't need to be in January on a turtle that was frozen in the middle of the night. But there's a whole long story that's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Seems like that's a different story.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

But uh but you know, I think everybody studies leadership. That's something I like to tell uh share with people that you can read books, you can watch uh videos, you can you watch leadership attempts on YouTube, you can go to classes, all these things. But leadership is like shooting free throws. You can read about the books, you can you can study it as much as you want, but at some point you have to toe the line and just take some shots. That's the truth. To be a good leader, you just gotta practice. You have to practice. Boy Scouts for me was a great place to start my leadership journey, just practicing being a leader.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

That's funny that you say that, because on the way here, me and my husband was talking about, you know, throughout our career, you know, there's some things that we tried, didn't make it, but there's things that we tried that did make it. And I said, but if you never try anything, because I grew up, my grandfather was the very first black principal in Harriman, Tennessee. And so he really and truly taught a lot of Rome County. And so they just honored him. Uh, they re-uh did a building in his park, a new building for the community. And I spoke about that and I said, you know, my grandfather always said, never be scared to try. He said, the biggest thing that you should fear is never trying. He said, if you try something and it just doesn't work, at least you can say you tried it, and then you can move on. But if you never try anything, you'll never know if you can accomplish.

PetSafe Origin And Customer Listening

SPEAKER_02 9:52

So let's talk about business. Well, let me first let me say, my invisible fits is from your company. I've got invisible fits at my house. Tell me about Pet Safe. Where did that come from?

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Well, that PetSafe was my third company. I started my first company at age 23, which fell uh quickly and mercifully within six months. So that's a whole nother story. Started it in Desperation uh distributing company that bought and resold electric fencing for cattle and horses, driving a Dodge Maxi van with no air and no radio all over Georgia, Florida, and uh in Alabama, calling on little feed stores, 10 stores a day, sleeping at $18 hotels at a every night. I mentioned I didn't have air conditioning and radio in the van. Air conditioning I didn't have because I'm cheap that used up too much gas. I didn't want to spend my money on just trying to make myself comfortable. Okay. But I didn't have a radio on purpose because I wanted to make sure that I was focusing on my customers. I didn't want somebody to distract my thoughts. And I rem always would say, if you listen to your customers long enough, they'll tell you what you need to hear. And about 1989, my customers started asking me for this product called the Invisible Fence. They said the kind of thing every salesman likes to hear. Doesn't matter how much it costs, we'll buy as many as you get. Um I called up the company, they had a patent that was getting ready to expire, and they also only sold through franchise dealerships. To make a long story short, we bet everything we owned, which wasn't that much. I think after six years of selling electric fencing out of the back of this van, staying at cheap hotels, my total net worth was on paper, $26,000. Oh, wow. I met uh an engineer that said he could design a invisible fence-like product for me for $30,000. So I wouldn't be here if you didn't know the other part of the story. I bet we bet everything we owned the first five years, but there's a lot of trials and tribulations. By we started the company in 91. By 96, we'd grown it from a million dollars to almost uh eight 18 million dollars in sales. Oh, wow. So we were losing money. Um so it was a lot of a lot of trials and tribulations in those first five years. But another longer story, we turned the we turned the corner in 96. We went from 18 million and losing money to 24 million and making money, and we never turned back. But that was the origin. It was just listening to my customers. And if I want to brag, I'll say I've got 19 patents. But the truth is, wow, of the 19 patents, 18 were total abject failures. One of them was pretty good, but the rest were failures. And what I learned through that process was every time I think I have a really brilliant idea, I design have the engineers design it, and then I announce it to the world, it usually fails. However, if I go to the customers and ask them what they want and listen really carefully and give them exactly what they asked for, it does usually does pretty well. That's good advice. Listen to your customers. And you know, now now I'm in that it applies for people, you don't have to be a dog fence salesman to use that advice. If you're a University of Tennessee president, um, you need to ask your customers, talk to the state legislature, talk to the families of Tennessee, talk to the students, what do they want and deliver the programs and the services and the support that they're asking

Community Giving And Tennessee Achieves

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for?

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So being a businessman, you're a businessman, you're a leader, public service, what made you say, I want to help the community? Because you already had a successful business. You were on your way. And all you talked about the trials and tribulations that you and your wife endured trying to build your business. But what made you say, okay, I have this business, but at the same time, I want to do things for my community? What led you go to go into public service?

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Well, there's the, I would say maybe the philosophical point we've kind of touched on earlier, and that is that you know it was the community that helped us be successful. It was the public schools that helped teach us, it was the local community uh leaders that provided mentorship. It was a local engineer that helped design the first product. Some of the initial early investors were from the local area, and many invested not because they thought I had a good idea, but just because they wanted to support local the local somebody local in the community. So there's everything that we became was as a result of the community that supported us. So when we were in a position to give back, it just made sense to give back to the community. But it was a slippery slope. So it started off something very uh natural. So we're in the pet business, and I was at a a conference somewhere in Phoenix, and someone said, um, we're making animal welfare better all across the country, except in certain places, certain backwaters of the in the country, like Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. And I was insulted and offended. It turned out they were right. We weren't taking care of our animals as well as we should, especially our dogs and cats. And I'm kind of a believer in something called big hairy audacious goals. Another tech term that I made up. A guy named Jim uh Collins coined the term, but B Hags. Big hairy audacious goals. So coming back, I said, you know, we don't want to just be a little better. Let's make Knoxville the most pet-friendly city in America. And so that kind of started it as a community effort that brought a lot of people together. We put money into it. Now we have more dog parks than any other uh per capita city in America. I take my dog to your park. Thank you. I do. That was And he loves it. It was it was an insult that that helped inspire that first initiative. Within that, I had to ask the county mayor to help donate some land or provide the land that I would then build the park on. And uh we made a deal with the county mayor on the condition that I would help him with his dream of making sure every kid in Knox County could go to a technical college or community college free of charge. We called it Knox Achieves at the time. Today it's now Tennessee Achieves, and we've sent 133,000 kids to college for community college free of tuition and fees.

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136,000.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

133,000. 33,000. By the time we're recording this, it's probably 136. I have that the white my number was as of about a month ago. That's something that we're incredibly proud of. Yes. It was it was all very serendipitous. You know, I I'm asking for one project, he asked me to help him with his, and that was kind of the beginning of the of the the uh public service. Of the public service. From that, Governor Haslem said, Hey, this is a really good idea. Come work for me in the state in higher education. I volunteered to do it for a year. Always give, sometimes at commencements, I'll give some students this advice, which is probably the worst and useless, most useless advice that anybody ever gives them. It's amazing in the kind of jobs you can get if you're willing to work for free. So, how does a dog fed salesman come the uh uh special advisor on higher education? I volunteer for free, did that for a year, came back and was commissioner of economic and community.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

And you learned a lot.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

And I learned a ton. I learned a ton through both those.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

I I've got a 16-year-old son, and I try to tell him, I said, Yes, I understand you want to be paid for everything. I said, but you know what? There's something about offering your time for free. It you will get paid one day, and you always have to know that it's about purpose and it's about making a difference, and God will make sure that you get paid. God will make sure that you uh that you're taken care of, but you have to do things genuinely and it being in your heart. So let's shift a little bit.

Governor Campaign Lessons And Loss

SPEAKER_02 16:35

You talked about Governor Haslam. So you ran for governor.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Let's talk about it. Tell me what made you think about running for governor, uh, what it was like being on the trail, and then what was it like not winning?

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Okay. Yeah, that's a great question. So um, I was Commissioner of Economic and Community Development working for Governor House, and actually prior to that, special advisor on higher education. As the special advisor, we created this mission called the Drive to 55 to get 55% of our population with some kind of certificate or degree. So that was in the process. As commissioner of economic and community development, we had 21 rural counties that were called distressed. I wanted to get that to zero. We were making progress for that. There was a multiple other initiative, and I was at this campaign to help try to mitigate the ravages of substance abuse, in particular opioid in our rural counties. So I had a lot of initiatives that I was working on with the governor when I was commissioner. And it occurred to me around 2017, Governor Hasm only had two years left, and we're not going to get all this done. And so I had that choice. I could stick around for the next two years and help him get as much toward done toward the goal as possible, or I could step back for two years, run for governor, and then add eight more years on to our mission. So I remember when I first ran for governor, or started the first couple of months, I would tell people uh it's not about being governor. I just I just want to complete the mission. Until about two months in, then my campaign manager said, You've got to stop saying that. You gotta tell people you want the jobs. Yes. Okay. So we pivoted and did that. But at the end of the day, it was about um wanting to wanting to achieve the mission. I'll come back to what it was like at the end when we lost. But I'll say that the good and the bad of the of the campaigns, it's hard work, you're gone all the time. It's 16 hours a day, every single day. Everybody is judging you. You know, in most life people, we just have a conversation and we're told not to judge. When you're running, everybody from the from those the the window washer to the uh your priests, your friends of church, everybody's judging you and trying to make a decision about you. So being that that's kind of in the public act. That's kind of a lot. And uh and then the and just the nature of campaigning in the last few weeks, the the ads turned very, very negative. And I would literally have people in church look at me like, did you really do that? So you've known me all my life. No, I did not do that. So that that part's not good, but the the part that was really good through that process, I went to every single county at least four four times. I got to know people in every walk of life in every corner of the state, and I made friends that I'll have the rest of my life. I got to know people that um were in need. I get to learn about their challenges, and we became very, very good uh friends and really strong relationships. So um that was that was benefit a benefit. After the campaign when I lost, I knew I was gonna lose nine days before the election. I couldn't tell anybody that uh we had the polling data. We knew it was going the wrong direction. So the election wasn't a surprise. The hardest part of the campaign was those last few days when you know you're gonna lose. And I had my sister come down from Wisconsin to be with me when we win, and she's trying to cheer me up and hey, or just say, hey, you're gonna win, and you're trying to be and you have to say you're gonna have to be pretend that yes, we're gonna do it, knowing that you're not. Because you can't really say no or we we quit. Right. But you know. So that was really, really hard. But once it was over, it was a relief. And then it was I got my team together and said, okay, it was really always about the mission. Let's just figure out another way to complete the mission. Unfortunately for me, not really unfortunately, they they really wanted a job in state government. So they all fanned off and did other things, and rightly so.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

But um, but did it feel like a crash and burn field? No, not at all.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

It was just I've so I'm the goal was completing the mission. This was a way to do it. There's another way. I had plans. I was gonna buy up little local newspapers. We were gonna advert uh advocate for some of the issues that we wanted. I was gonna I have a political action campaign that would or committee that would uh donate money to the uh uh the General Assembly and members that that were wanting to support the things we cared about. I had a whole range of ways in which we could get we could still get the job done.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Did you ever have any sadness from it?

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Like I was I was sad uh a week before the election when I knew that I wasn't gonna win. That was that was that was pretty crushing uh after working so so hard for it. But as I told my team, hey, here's the I think this is true about running an election or winning or losing an election or losing anything. Um as I told my team, we shouldn't feel sad, we shouldn't feel bad, we left everything on the field. We did everything we could possibly. We raised penny. We worked we couldn't have worked harder, and it just wasn't right. But if we if we had lost knowing that we held back, that we didn't give it our all, that would that would feel bad. But if you lose that you gave it everything you had, it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

I agree. And I think that when your heart is right and in the right place, yes, we're human. Loss is loss. But it hits different when you know that you gave it your all and you know that you can keep working. Because the biggest thing I want people to realize is, and the reason why I asked you this question, because in life, so many people feel like that when they lose something that defines who they are. And after everything you've done, okay, you had a loss, but you you dusted yourself off and you kept moving. So that's why I asked you that question because I want the viewers to realize is you have to dust yourself off and you have to keep going, and you cannot. Let it define who you are. It can shape you to go harder for what you believe in. But I think that a loss is not the thing that God says, okay, you will never make it because you lost something. I think it's uh a stepping stone. Do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_03 22:16

A thousand percent. So I sometimes share convincements, but I've studied successful people all my life. I've I've read books about them. I've been on boards to be around s other successful people. I've had I've had my own board that that was always full of successful people. And the I was always looking for the magic formula. What is the what is the str the particular philosophy or the strategy, uh, the set of uh ethics that you need to follow? And it turns out there's nothing that they all have in common. Everybody's different, everybody does it a different way. I found one thing and only one thing that every single successful person I've ever met had in common, and it was what you just said, is persistence. Everybody gets knocked down. Everybody loses the difference in the successful people and the unsuccessful people, the successful people just get back up and and keep going. You gotta dish yourself off. And for me, um and we've talked about it. I think I would say that God usually has a better always has a better plan for you than you do for yourself. So a week

Persistence And The UT Opportunity

SPEAKER_03 23:20

after the election, I'm thinking, okay, coming up with all these ideas on how I'm gonna be able to do what I needed to do. And the four the the president of the University of Tennessee called up and asked me if I want to come for lunch. And then at lunch he says, hey, but at the end of lunch, he says, um, by the way, I'm gonna step down in a couple of months. And I was talking to the governor and the chair, they thought you would be a good one to be the interim for the next for the first six months until we can find somebody that's actually qualified to do the job. I thought, sure, I'll do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Only as long as I I can come in and make some transformational change. If you want somebody to put their feet on the desk and just kick back, pick somebody else. But if I can come in and really try to make some changes and make a difference, I'll do it. And within six months, two things happened. One, um, we did make some significant changes. And two, I realized that if you want to make a difference in the lives of the people of Tennessee, there's no better place than the University of Tennessee.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

I agree, I agree. And I'll tell you this, I ran for an election in a in our real estate uh world industry, and I lost that election. And I will tell you, um, did it hurt? Yeah, because I knew what I could do, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me because when you were talking about in God's timing, it is so true because honest to goodness, the path I'm on right now, I would not have been on this path if I would have won that election. So it was like something I lost, but I gained so much from it. And part of it is University of

Part Two Tease And Farewell

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Tennessee. Hey guys, I am having a great conversation with Randy Boyd. Tune in next Friday because part two will be here.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Thanks for listening to Talk in Tennessee with Yavonka. Watch out for our weekly episodes from the first family of real estate and check us out on the web, www.yavonka stylesrealestate.com. See our videos on Yavonka's YouTube channel or find us on Facebook under Yavonka Landed and Twitter at Yavonka Landed. And don't forget to tell a friend about us. Till next time, Yavonka signing off.