TeleTracking, Michael Gallup employ a long view to shape building blocks of change

“You might see the big house, you might see what the house is supposed to look like, but what are the blocks that are going to build that house?” Gallup asks. “Those little pieces are what’s going to get people behind it versus, ‘Here’s the house. Everybody get excited.’”
It’s also important to balance your existing core business along with the new products. There’s an ebb and flow, and that’s where the long view can be helpful, he says.
“In a given year, did we focus enough on the core and enough on new? I don’t know in a given year,” he says. “Over the next three to five years are we going to invest appropriately in both areas? Yes, we will.”
TeleTracking is well on its way with three or four new innovative products, which helps account for its 30 percent growth.
“Depending on your view and how you look at business, I think you can get caught up in this was or wasn’t successful, and then you’re starting to kill things in 90 days that should’ve taken two or three years to build,” he says.
You have to look at how value is created over time, rather than just the here and now.

“Building value is different than earnings per share on a quarterly basis,” Gallup says. “So as long as you’re looking at how you build value over the long term, I think you’re going to have a very solid and great company, and TeleTracking is because of that view.”

Takeaways:

  • Building new products takes time; don’t kill them too early.
  • Put little pieces in place first for a long-term strategy.
  • There’s no silver bullet, so use multiple levers to affect change.

 

The Gallup File:

Name: Michael Gallup
Title: President
Company: TeleTracking Technologies Inc.
Born: Rexburg, Idaho
Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics from Brigham Young University, MBA focused in finance from University of Georgia.
What was your first job and what did you learn from it? I tried to start my own company. I went on a mission trip to Africa and I started my own company where we shipped sugar and shoes, as a matter of fact, over to East Africa, and learned very quickly, at that age, two things:

  • I had a lot to learn about business. We did pretty well, and then ended up losing our money, so I learned from that.
  • That you should never take ‘no’ from a person who doesn’t have the power to say ‘yes.’

How old were you when you started this company? Twenty-one. We did that for about three, four years. It worked and then it didn’t work because a bigger company outsmarted us; so it taught me a valuable lesson.
If you could go back to the beginning of your business career, what would you advise yourself? I would advise myself to slow down and realize that the talented people you surround yourself with are the most important thing. The strategy is good. Being smart is great. But having talented people around you and taking care of them is the best.
If you could speak with anyone from the present or past, with whom would you want to speak with? Abraham Lincoln. I’d like to figure out how he did what he did, just because of what we’re going through in this country right now — how divided it was and how divided it is now.
There are lots of things that this country needs to fix. How do you come together to do that? It’s a big problem, so I’d love to talk to him about it.