Truitt Rogers
Tony Ford, a serial entrepreneur who’s built several companies and is a cheerleader for entrepreneurship in Fort Worth, is Fort Worth Inc.’s 2020 Entrepreneur of Excellence Supporter of Entrepreneurship honoree, chosen by the magazine ownership and staff. Ford was the magazine’s EOE program manager for two years. He won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for support of entrepreneurship in 1997 for starting the Fort Worth Business Assistance Center. Today, he is CEO of Success Fort Worth, a coaching firm. Ford sat down with Fort Worth Inc. for a Q&A.
Inc.: Where do you think you got your entrepreneurial start?
Ford: I started out with Steak & Ale with Norman Brinker. He taught us how to replicate things. My undergraduate degree is in hotel and restaurant. So, I would run a restaurant for them, and then they’d move me someplace else, and I’d build a new one. I learned how to multiply things.
Inc.: What do your coaching clients have in common?
Ford: They’re lonely. I believe loneliness is the signature characteristic of entrepreneurship.
Inc.: Why is that?
Ford: Because of what I call the big lie. The big lie is that independence is the final stop, that we’re made that way. But everything I’ve read, especially when I read the Bible, is that we are built to be interdependent. So, when we stop at independence, it’s like arrested development. We flame out.
Inc.: You have clients who lie to you?
Ford: Well, that’s a good question. Fear. They have fear, they want to look good, they want to look good to me, and I call BS on it.
Inc.: But they’ve already admitted something to themselves by seeking you out in the first place.
Ford: Mm-hmm. It’s levels though, it’s levels.
Inc.: You get fan mail, right?
Ford: I get a lot of fan mail from wives. I do. I do. One instance that I can share: I coached this individual three times, and he shoved an envelope across the table to me. I looked at it, and I said, “Hey, you don’t have to pay me now. I’ll invoice you at the end of the month. I do the work first, and then you pay me.” He goes, “It’s not a check.” I said, “Well, what is it?” He said, “Well, I don’t know.” I said, “Well, you’re handing it to me.” He says, “No, it’s from my wife.” I said, “Oh, okay.” It said, “Dear Mr. Ford” — I’m going to call him Bill — it said, “Thank you so much for coaching Bill. He’s become a totally different husband and father. If he ever decides to not have you as his executive coach, this is my cell number. Please call me immediately. Sue.”
Inc.: That’s funny.
Ford: Coaching opens up the door to people understanding themselves better, and they learn to relax. In our companies — we’ve had seven companies besides the coaching company — there were three things we always set out to do: Honor God, take care of our people, and make the world a better place. When I say our people, I don’t mean just our employees and our customers. I mean our vendors and the community, all four constituencies. That was important to us. Fortunately, we were able to do that. Some companies made more money than others; some companies didn’t make any money at all. But, we never failed at doing those three things.
Inc.: You’ve talked a lot about wanting to make Fort Worth an entrepreneurial center of Texas. Let’s talk about our entrepreneurial infrastructure. What have we got here?
Ford: Short of Kansas City, I have not seen an on-point infrastructure that I would call coordinated.
Inc.: Tell me about Kansas City.
Ford: Well, Kansas City has got the Kauffman Foundation there, right? You’ve got a $3 billion foundation that’s willing to pour that kind of money, $100 million, $150 million a year, into creating entrepreneurship. They have mapped the city literally for entrepreneurial opportunity. We don’t have that. We’ve got pieces of it. You have to understand the construct of entrepreneurship. Fifteen years ago, entrepreneurship wasn’t cool. I remember I was at a person’s party; it was Thanksgiving. One of the daughters of the people that were hosting party, her husband was asked, what do you do? He said, “Well, I’m an entrepreneur.” The brother-in-law looks across the table and says, “Well, send me your resume. I think I can help you get a job.”
Inc.: Kansas City mapped the city for entrepreneurship. What does that mean?
Ford: They have an organization that their job identifies all the different entrepreneurial resources so that somebody looking for something can find it. You can go online and say, “I need this kind of entrepreneur who writes business plans. What banks are more entrepreneur friendly? What kind of training is available, loan programs, all this other stuff?” So, it’s kind of out there.
Inc.: I know people ask you all the time what you read. What books do you read?
Ford: I’ve got a library of business books. I can tell you Who Moved My Cheese, I can tell you what seat on the bus to sit in, I can tell you all that stuff. Best business book I’ve ever read and read every day is the Bible and, in particular, Proverbs.
Inc.: Why is that?
Ford: Because it gives us all the tools we need to be successful entrepreneurs. If I had one book of Proverbs on a deserted island, it would be Chapter 3. It teaches you about wisdom, understanding, knowledge, discernment, discretion, faith, and on and on and on. It’s really handy that there’s 31 chapters. So, I read a Proverb, whatever day it is. Today’s the 14th; I read the 14th. Just go Proverbs, you can have it in 27 different versions, but just read it and say, am I being wise or am I being foolish?
Inc.: What are the tenets of your coaching approach?
Ford: I coach about three things, the big three: fear, anger, and procrastination. Those are the three stooges. One way or another, everybody I work with, those three are the big things that pop up. They’re interacting, and they’re interconnected.
Inc.: How do you know if a person’s ready for a coach?
Ford: I’ll look at them and say, “Okay, now I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to answer honestly. Don’t overthink it; just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. Has there ever been or is it now that you hate your own company?” They go, “Yeah, I hate my company.” Okay, you need coaching.
Inc.: So, you get that answer quite a lot?
Ford: 100% of the time. I have never met a business owner that’s been in business for more than two or three years, that hasn’t at some moment just hated their own company. It’s controlling them. It’s hurting them. It’s taking way too much out of them. It’s like they grab hold of the snake, and they can’t let it go. They’re just afraid every moment that it’s going to bite them and kill them. When you have a coach, it might be the only place you can go every week and be totally honest, because coaching is not about judgment. I don’t judge. I help my people figure it out. The only two things I need: my client’s trust and cooperation. You should write that down.
Tony Ford’s Entrepreneurial Journey
Founding CEO, Success Fort Worth Executive Coaching
Founding CEO, RIDE Television Network, Fort Worth-based horse lifestyle network
Founding executive director, Fort Worth Business Assistance Center
Senior partner, Kasper & Associates, Fort Worth M&A firm
Founder and CEO, Salon Support, national distributor of tanning lotion products and equipment
Founding partner, Sidelights, Inc., reflectors for American trucks and rail cars
Founding vice president, Flash Foto, chain of eight one-hour-photo finishing labs
Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Supporter of Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneur-In-Residence, Kauffman Foundation
Exporter of the Year, U.S. Small Business Administration
Certified Associate Professional Coach, International Coach Federation
Biblical Counseling Certificate, Southwestern Theological Seminary
