What if the secret to scaling your business isn't about selling harder, but about serving better? On this episode, Matt Wolfe and Sarah Pattisall sit down with Dusty Holcomb, CEO of The Arcqus Group, to unpack a career built on one deceptively simple idea: leadership isn't about you. Dusty shares how a 23-year-old version of himself learned that lesson the hard way, why he reframes "sales" as "service," and how the ability to say no to the wrong clients is often what protects your ability to scale the right way. Along the way, they dig into brand story as a culture catalyst, the leadership operating system Dusty built from decades of hard-won lessons, and why clarity is where real growth begins.
0:32 — Welcome and Teaser
2:57 — Meet Dusty Holcomb
3:20 — Cowboy Dreams Origins
6:11 — Service First Leadership
10:40 — Inspiration and Agency
14:47 — Story as Culture Catalyst
20:03 — Exceptional Service Framework
26:47 — Scaling Service Through Leaders
31:31 — Leadership Operating System
34:32 — Clarity Lesson: Hard Truth
36:29 — Values Meet Actions
37:51 — Coaching And Blind Spots
39:08 — Brand Story Drives Scale
41:20 — Saying No To Grow
44:57 — Marketing With Discipline
47:47 — Sales As Service
52:10 — Relational Value Flywheel
56:35 — Behind The Brand Quiz
1:00:59 — Success Definition And Farewell
There's a tension every leader of a B2B service has to navigate: How do you scale without compromising the quality of your services - or the values that drive them? The CEO's Heart for Service is where accomplished B2B leaders share hard-won insights on walking that tightrope.
The CEO’s Heart for Service is a production of Brand3. If you’re a B2B service provider who delivers exceptional service but struggles to get your marketing to connect with the right people, find us at brand3.net. And sign up for our Brand3 Newsletter that only sends marketing insights worthy of your inbox - genuinely helpful stuff for the road ahead.
The CEO’s Heart for Service is also supported by Forge Podcast Company, a turnkey production solution for using podcasts to reach a wider audience, win new clients, and grow. Find them at forgepodcast.co
Matt Wolfe: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the CEO's Heart for Service. My gosh, I'm so excited about today's conversation - what you're about to hear. But real quick, I'm Matt Wolfe, a partner at Brand3, and this is Sarah Pattisall, one of our brilliant brand strategists at Brand3. Hi, Sarah.
Sarah Pattisall: Hello everybody. I am also thrilled about this conversation you all are about to listen to. I've been trying to think about what to say about it, because there is so much I could say, but I keep coming back to this idea of selfless selling, which sounds like a complete oxymoron until you hear Dusty Holcomb speak, and then you can see how you can bring this sense of selflessness and humbleness to growing and scaling a company that will completely transform your approach to leadership. That's mind-blowing.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah, it's really true, Sarah. The idea of service just resonates in his DNA. We're talking today to Dusty Holcomb, the CEO of The Arcqus Group. The idea of service leads everything he does, even down to something else that really struck me — how much he talked about listening and asking questions. He asks himself all the time, "Am I saying something that sounds smart, or something that helps the person I'm working with?" He's so focused on discovering what people truly need instead of falling into the trap of being prescriptive, or leaning on formulas and things that feel safe and tried and true. Dusty's not afraid to jump in and see where the journey takes him with people, and it's clearly far more effective.
Sarah Pattisall: And I'm just thrilled for anybody listening to this podcast, because I promise you that you are going to walk away from it feeling lighter, more hopeful, energized, and inspired — and that last word is an important one. You'll learn why.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah, that's right. I mean, this is how he makes his clients feel. I feel like we were his clients.
Sarah Pattisall: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Matt Wolfe: We left feeling better off. So stick around — if you're a leader looking for guidance, make sure you listen to this conversation. Let's go there now and introduce you to Dusty Holcomb.
Matt Wolfe: Okay, here we are. Dusty, I'm so glad that you're here with us today. I had so much fun meeting you the other day. I've been looking forward to this. Welcome to the show.
Dusty Holcomb: I'm delighted to be here, and I cannot wait to see where this conversation goes. And, uh, if it's half as good as the conversation we had the other day, I know I'm in for a fun ride.
Matt Wolfe: Agreed. I'm right there with you.
Matt Wolfe: Okay, so here's where we like to start. This is just a fun question, but we're going to talk a lot about scaling services. We work with B2B services — what I call high-stakes, high-trust. Finance, tech. People are being asked to entrust a service provider with a critical, deeply important part of their business and who they are, and the only way we truly bridge that is by meeting the human behind the brand.
We know that we sell these things through relationships and trust. What we try to do is create those moments of relationship, trust, and human connection earlier in the process and in the marketing journey. All of that to say, we like to get to know the human behind the brand just as much as we talk about business on this podcast.
So, first things first, Dusty — you're the CEO of The Arcqus Group, leading this incredible leadership consulting and training practice. This is probably not where you saw yourself landing when you were growing up. So when you were a kid, what did you want to be? Where did you think life was going to take you?
Dusty Holcomb: Well, if I'm being really transparent and honest, my dreams at nine years old were either to be a cowboy or a game warden. I don't think I'm doing either of those things, but I don't think I've drifted that far. When you start talking about leading other humans, getting things to go in the right direction, and aligning everybody to the vision — it's the same thing as getting cows to go the right way, and the same thing as making sure nobody's breaking game laws.
Maybe the parallel isn't that far apart. I wanted to be a cowboy, I wanted to be a game warden. I wanted to be out on a horse doing something fun. And actually, I think I get to do that every day, and I love it.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah, that's awesome.
Sarah Pattisall: I can see that.
Dusty Holcomb: Well, with a name like Dusty, like it was predestined that I was gonna be, you know, a cowboy of some sort.
Sarah Pattisall: See, I grew up on a farm so we got some things in common there.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah. You were given the cowboy blessing from the get-go.
Dusty Holcomb: I was.
Matt Wolfe: That's amazing. And in the space you're in, we're way past herding cows — we're herding cats. This is a whole different world. But to be in the space that you're in, with a new book you're working on, new partnerships, new things you're rolling out — there's a Wild West sense to what you're doing, right? You're still exploring. It's just a different frontier. You could've worn the cowboy hat if you wanted.
Dusty Holcomb: You know, I've got one, but I'll leave it off for now. It covers up my good hair.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah, you and me both.
Sarah Pattisall: I'll take your cowboy hats.
Matt Wolfe: Dusty, I'd like to give the audience a sense of your background. What's a little different today, just for the audience's sake, is that a lot of times we're talking to someone whose career has been largely focused on one business. In your case, you're now running The Arcqus Group, a leadership consulting firm. But before that, you have incredible experience as a CEO leading other organizations through scaling, growth, and change.
For anyone new here, what we explore on this podcast is this theme: as you scale any company, if you have a heart for service and genuinely care about the people you serve, you're going to be concerned about how to continue taking good care of them as you grow. You're going to be haunted by the question — how do I maintain the same quality of service, the core values, everything that makes us special?
It's really meaningful that we get to explore that theme through your life experience today. But I'll stop talking. I'd love for you to share a little bit of your journey and how you got here.
Dusty Holcomb: Thank you for that. One of the things I loved so much from our very first conversation is that we're not just talking about growing businesses and scaling. We're talking about the more principled and purposeful meaning of what we do. Growing a business, scaling a business, those are vehicles to creating impact and legacy. Having a heart for service is really the embodiment of that. So kudos to you for bringing that message out there.
Honestly, that has been my purpose and passion my entire career. I had the very distinct privilege of being taken under the wing of a retired colonel at age 20, when I was promoted into a call center third shift supervisor role. I was responsible for 12 other people, 11 PM to 8 AM. I was desperate for growth, desperate to do more. What I didn't realize, and what Greg helped me understand, was that leadership wasn't about me. That is the most important leadership lesson I have ever learned, and it has shaped everything I know and think about serving others. It's not about me.
When you have a heart for service, you are first and foremost saying: it isn't about me. I'm not going to be someone who seeks to extract maximum value from everyone around me. Instead, I'm going to contribute and create value for those around me. And what I found so exciting about this work is that when you do that, you create a compound effect. You have people receiving value, who then go create value, who then do it again and again. Extracting value is a linear equation. Creating value is an exponential one.
That moment of being taught that leadership is not about me has framed everything I've done since. I've gotten to do some really remarkable things. My first real experience as an executive came at 23 years old, when I was hired to relocate a call center to a small town 400 miles from the corporate office. I had to hire everybody, instill the culture, and build the organization from scratch, with 350 people. There's no getting around the fact that the people who hired me were either very brave or very optimistic, because they handed that to a 23-year-old. But it was so exciting, because it was an opportunity to create a service-oriented culture in a 24/7, 365 emergency response call center, an environment where we could really focus on doing the right thing.
That's me. My heart has always been in serving others. What I have done as a vehicle for that has been leadership roles: president, CEO, CMO, scaling businesses, startup work. But it has always been about achieving my personal mission statement, which is to enable and empower the success of others. Because when we do that, we create a massive compound effect with exponential capability.
Sarah Pattisall: I have a follow-up question for you, Dusty. Everything you said was eloquent and genuinely incredible to hear. I'm sure Matt feels the same way I do right now, because it resonates so deeply with what we're about. My follow-up question is this: in the context of leadership, I know you are really big on inspiring people.
Dusty Holcomb: Hmm.
Sarah Pattisall: And the role of inspiration. Given that you have worked in different industries and places and with different styles of teams, how does your leadership, how you inspire people, and your approach to a heart for service change, if ever, based on the industry or the team? And how do you make those calls?
Dusty Holcomb: For me, I have to step back and ask what the first principle belief is here. And the first principle belief I hold is that leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. John Maxwell said that. When we talk about inspiration, what we're really talking about is helping people see what hasn't been created yet and what isn't yet possible. Sometimes that's personal inspiration, sometimes it's team inspiration, and sometimes it's simply the ability to connect the dots from where we are to where we want to be.
What I have found in my work with leaders and leadership teams is that we have to make sure the people we serve have a clear vision. Because once they do, they can connect the dots themselves. And they don't always have that. We don't always walk into a room already knowing where we're going, how it matters, and how we fit into it. So we have to ask questions.
For me personally, my job is not to tell people what to do. My job is to be a person of influence. And how I create that influence is by asking the right questions, listening deeply, and genuinely caring to understand who someone is so I can connect the dots for them to where we're going as an organization. I think that is one of the most powerful and yet most underdone leadership traits out there.
I have a five-question framework I use with the CEOs I work with, and the fourth question in that framework is: where do I fit in? That is the leader's job to answer. So when we talk about inspiration at its simplest, what we're really talking about is the ability to connect the dots from where a person is to where they want to be.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah, I can see how that would completely change the perspective of a team. From "Hey, I'm telling you to get this task done," to "Hey, here is the big picture we are all working towards, the magic we're going to make together, and here's what we need to do to make it happen."
Dusty Holcomb: Yeah. And then you get to do that next thing, which is asking: what do you think? How do you fit into this? How can you contribute? What am I missing?
I think there are inspirational speakers and rah-rah moments, and that's good, but what we're really talking about is getting someone to behave differently when the leader is not in the room. That's when inspiration has truly landed. That's when people make choices.
I'm a huge believer in the power of choice and the power of agency. And maybe I'm a little biased, because right now I'm rereading my favorite book. Every summer I reread Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and I do it as a reminder to myself of the power of agency.
Inspiration is not something we do to people. It's something we unlock within people. And that's just a different mindset of how we show up as a leader.
Matt Wolfe: What I hear in what you're saying is that you're actually taking people beyond inspiration to ownership. Another way to say agency, I suppose, but you're helping them own their part of it. And I think you're right; that's the biggest thing that gets missed. People need to know why they're doing a thing.
Clients need to know why we're doing a thing and how it's going to help them. And the team needs to know why they're being asked to do a thing. Once they do, they can truly own it and carry a real sense of mission.
Matt Wolfe: That's what we see from the viewpoint of story. We talk a lot about this: a strong brand story is about telling the right story to the right people. It's the story of a relationship between who the business is and who their ideal client is. It focuses marketing and makes it more effective, but it doesn't stop there. It also helps the sales team tell a more powerful story, tell the same story as marketing, and accelerate the sales process. It helps anyone involved in client experience...
Sarah Pattisall: Connecting all the dots.
Matt Wolfe: Connecting all the dots. It helps the client experience team connect the dots to: this is the story we tell, so how do we make that real? How do we live into that promise and elevate what we're doing? Ultimately, it wraps the whole thing together. It's a catalyst for us, a catalyst for culture. And the way I explain it to people is this: if you have a great brand story, it helps everyone in your organization understand who you serve, the difference you make for them, and why you're doing what you're doing. It is a source of inspiration.
Dusty Holcomb: Yes, and I want to jump in there because it's not only a source of inspiration. I love that you focus on story, because story is so powerful. It translates words into behaviors. People are actors against a defined behavioral outcome, and when we tell great stories, we help people understand what beautiful looks like, what great looks like. And then they get to go do that.
We need everyone working together. We need the presence of the leader to be felt even when they're not in the room. And what I love about story is that when we get everyone engaged in it, whether it's for the customer, the internal team, or wherever it may be, what we're really doing is giving the person with the most context about the problem, the customer, or the opportunity, the information they need to make the best possible decision in alignment with the goals of the organization.
And when that happens, what we unlock is discretionary effort. We move people from being transactional providers of an outcome to personally invested conveyors of value. I like to think of it as moving people from mercenaries hired to do a task to missionaries out to evangelize a mission. Story is what brings that to life.
Matt Wolfe: That's so good. And I love that idea of mercenary to missionary. What story does is help people see themselves as part of something, right? They are part of a narrative, and that is so different from simply giving them information.
I'm a preacher's kid. I was raised in a Methodist church. My dad was a pastor for 37 years. I heard a lot of sermons. I also had a brief stint in ministry myself, so I heard a lot more after that. And I've been in theater my whole life. I've been a storyteller. And one of the most important things I learned is this: you can let a pastor go, you can let a CEO go, and have them talk for half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, whatever they want to do. But the thing people will remember and hold onto is the story, the narrative. It sinks into their hearts and lives there in a way that no mission statement can. Mission statements, value statements, all of those things matter. But story fuels a sense of purpose, belonging, and mission in a way that nothing else can.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah, it's interesting how it all comes back to the stories we tell, the ones we hear about ourselves, the ones we use to inspire others. It all comes back to how those stories make you feel. What does being part of that story make you feel? And if it makes you feel part of the mission...
Matt Wolfe: It's funny you said that word, mission. We've actually started doing this internally on our kickoffs for new projects. The first thing we do now is talk about what the mission is for this project.
I did one the other day, and it's a great example. The mission was twofold for this new client. They have a legacy transition happening, from father to son and daughter, and we've stepped into their lives to help make that successful. So I told our team: these people have 17 years under their belt, and they want a lot more. They want to make a successful exit and leave a legacy for their family. We're here to back them up.
At the same time, this client has a mission where, to make a long story short, they literally have the capacity to help prevent smaller universities and colleges from closing, which is becoming an epidemic. So we can back them up in reaching more schools and making sure all the people whose livelihoods and futures depend on those institutions succeed.
We start there. We make sure our team knows what story they're a part of, and then we go from there.
Sarah Pattisall: And just hearing you say it again, I'm more excited again about the account. I'm like, "Yes, I can't wait to help this client and serve them the best I can."
Dusty Holcomb: It has meaning beyond the transaction. No, it has meaning beyond that transaction, and then people are, they're signing up for something, not just here to provide a transactional element.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah.
Matt Wolfe: Okay, so back to the work you've done, Dusty. This is a question we like to ask, and you've seen it from a lot of different perspectives. When we talk about a heart for service, service is at the heart of everything you're describing. What does it mean to deliver exceptional service in the environment you're in now? At The Arcqus Group, where you are today, what does that look like to you?
Dusty Holcomb: It ultimately comes down to understanding how you create value. I love that you used the word mission a moment ago, because oftentimes we think of mission statements as this ethereal, vague promise of what we're trying to create. I like to think of mission as the embodiment of the promise I'm making to my customer about the value I'm going to deliver.
When I think about the work I do today at a mission level, what it means for me is that I need to show up in a way that serves each leader in achieving their mission. My mission is to ensure they are successful. The mission of our work is to ensure that leaders have greater clarity so they can align their teams and execute at a higher level.
I show up with this mindset of how can I create value. One of my favorite models, and I am a model thinker; I am always putting ideas into frameworks, is the cost-price-value triangle. We are always trying to push value as far away from the cost line as possible, to create more opportunity for growth for the person we are serving. And in doing so, we create more margin for our own business. But we have to be constantly seeking new ways to create more value. That can be as simple as asking the right question, one that is entirely about them, to unlock something. Or it can be a challenging statement.
When I work with CEOs and executive teams, sometimes what they need is a tough question, delivered from a place of genuine service, that helps them see what they cannot otherwise see because they are too close to the problem.
Here is a story. I was working with a CEO and her leadership team. I typically work with leaders at inflection points of growth, when they are trying to get from where they are to where they want to be. And we are not talking about 10% growth. We are talking about a three-year vision to double the business. My job is to help them see what is holding them back and getting in the way. I am not there to create massive value by telling people what to do. I am there to help them distill and focus on the most important thing.
Before I speak, I often ask myself: is what I am about to say about proving something about who I am, or is it about unlocking who they could be? It goes back to that power of choice and agency. In between a stimulus and a response, we have choice. So I catch myself asking: am I saying something to sound smart, or am I saying something that helps them act and show up more effectively?
This particular leadership team was working through significant growth opportunities in a high-growth business. They were looking to 10X over the next few years, and it was all possible. But not the way they were thinking about it. They were stuck in the mindset of linearly stacking things on top of what they already had. What we needed to do was step back and ask them: what about the way you or anyone on this team is showing up right now could be hindering your ability to get there?
We started talking about symptoms of behavior that could be slowing them down, and we were not throwing rocks at each other. We were throwing rocks at the problem. That conversation allowed them to move from a ten-year plan to a three-year plan to achieve that same 10X vision. We simply attacked the actual blockers. And again, it was not about me being smart. I did not do anything. I just asked the right question at the right time.
Matt Wolfe: I love that. I don't want to miss the really important theme running through everything you're saying: asking questions first, seeking the real story of what's going on before anything else. It's so easy, especially in the service provider and consulting space, to be prescriptive instead of collaborative. To jump in with solutions instead of taking the approach you're describing.
Dusty Holcomb: And I want to jump in there because I think that's so empowering, especially in thought leadership and service-oriented businesses. You are the expert at what you do. But the customer is the expert at their own problem, and you're there to help them solve that part of their business. That means you have to be genuinely curious about what they're trying to solve so you can make sure your solution actually fits their problem. At least that's my experience. What I know isn't universally true in every situation, so I need to ask good questions to understand how it applies for that particular customer and what they actually need.
Matt Wolfe: I'm right there with you, and I would argue it applies in far more situations than we give ourselves credit for. Finance is a good example. A CPA, a wealth manager, a financial advisor, M&A, whatever it is. They come in and say, "Well, this is how it works." But does it, for this specific company, given what they know, what they're trying to accomplish, and what they bring to the table? Same with tech. "This is how we should approach tech for a business like yours." Well, that depends entirely on the context.
I wrote something down really fast when you said it earlier: am I saying something that sounds smart, or something that helps them? I'm going to put that on a big Post-it somewhere in my office.
Sarah Pattisall: I need that as well in my life.
Dusty Holcomb: Well, I may have arrived at that pearl of wisdom because I smashed my head into the wall of danger a few times getting there
Matt Wolfe: Yeah, all of these things are, you know, these are hard-won lessons, right, that we get to.
Matt Wolfe: As long as we're talking about hard-won lessons. The theme of this podcast is: how do we scale a service-based business for people who have a heart for service and care deeply about the people they serve? How do we do that and maintain the quality of service? I'd love to capture some stories from your experience, either through The Arcqus Group or from your own journey, where you've seen the real challenge of trying to hold onto who you are and how you serve as you grow.
Dusty Holcomb: Yeah, I have. Let me pick a story from earlier in my career. I was working in automotive repair. When you have just a few locations, you can personally invest in every person. I could visit all the stores when we had four locations, knew everybody by name, and talked to them about how we were showing up as a business and what we cared about.
But as we grew and added more and more locations, my personal ability to influence the behavior of the person closest to the customer diminished. So I had to ask myself: who are the people I can influence and impact who have that same capability of influence? When I could visit every location and know every person, I didn't need a ring of influence beyond the front line. But as organizations scale, leaders have to shift the time and energy they were investing in front-line behavior toward the people who carry that same degree of influence. And that's the leadership cadre.
The bigger the organization gets, the more time you need to spend with mid-level managers and front-line leaders, making sure they understand how their work connects the dots. Because it's their job to make sure the person standing in front of the customer knows how much the company cares, how much the leader cares, and what they stand for.
I personally experienced that growth challenge. I had been in very large organizations, like the call center I mentioned earlier. But it was still hard. Going from 40 people and four locations to 40 locations and 400 people, how do you create cultural continuity? How do you maintain service quality?
What I did was spend more and more time with my leadership team talking about what great looked like, capturing people doing the right thing, and celebrating more. I needed the stories to be bigger and bolder. And when I did get out in the field, I made a personal commitment to swing by and say something like, "Hey, Matt, you may not believe this, but last week I heard about what you did for Ms. Smith when she came in with her car. That blew me away." Now here is a person in an organization of 400 or 4,000 thinking, how does the CEO know about this? Because we had built a culture of listening for those stories, capturing them, and reinforcing them over and over again.
I also ran into a wall a few times along the way. One of the most important lessons, which actually came from Greg early in my career, is to never delegate hiring your leaders. As you grow and scale, your effort and energy have to go into hiring the leaders and making sure they know what great looks like. I took my eye off that ball for a while. I stopped personally getting involved in the interview process. And I realized that was a mistake.
So it became this: I didn't always make the final hiring decision, but I made sure every incoming leader got 45 minutes with me first. A culture and values injection of what great looked like in our organization before they came on board.
I would personally tell every leader: this is what we believe, this is how we show up. If this is who you are, and you are all in on caring for people and caring about customer service, you will succeed here. But if you're not, I want you to know before you take this job that you're going to run into a buzz saw, and it is not going to work.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah,
Sarah Pattisall: So I'm really curious about this. You seem like someone who has had all of these experiences that have taught you so much about leadership and how to coach others in it. And I'm assuming that so much of what you have learned has become the foundation for the leadership operating system. I'm wondering if you could share a bit more about that and the lessons that informed what you have built for others.
Dusty Holcomb: Sure. In leadership and management, what we often do is focus on execution gaps. We are good at seeing where what we want accomplished isn't getting done, and then we try to fix it. We say, this isn't meeting my expectations; I need to do something differently.
What I have learned, and what I would argue, is that leaders need to do a better job of stepping back and asking: have we actually created clarity? Are we truly clear on where we are going, what great looks like, and how to get there? Many times when I work with leaders, that clarity isn't there. They think they know what they want. But if you think you know what you want and you're expecting someone else to read your mind and execute it that way, you don't have clarity. You need to have such a clear picture that you can communicate it, cast it out, and then align people to it.
So when I think about a leadership operating system, the first place I go is not execution. Execution is an outcome of the inputs that come before it: the creation of clarity, clarity of expectations, and the alignment of effort and thinking. How do we create clarity, build alignment, and enable execution? That is what produces results.
The leadership operating system is the place and space to step back, make sure you know what good looks like, and then build and align your teams around why it matters. Yes, I have had a lot of experience doing that. But this process of thinking is what allows you to scale, allows you to grow, allows you to make those 10X jumps. You have to be crystal clear first. You have to build alignment with your people. And when you do that well, and you do it as a virtuous, renewing cycle, what you get is extraordinary results.
Matt Wolfe: We are speaking to the same problem from different angles. In terms of brand story, marketing, and clarity, it all connects. And it is almost impossible to get clear from the inside without an outside perspective to come in and help you figure out how to tell the story of who you serve and the difference you make, in a way that your audience can actually hear it and that speaks their language. Starting with the language of story, and then getting into the specifics of the context. It is so important to grow from every front.
Sarah Pattisall: In bringing up clarity, I'm curious about the moment in your life that made you realize how important it really was. What happened that made clarity such a defining lesson for you?
Dusty Holcomb: The first thing that comes to mind was when I was 23, and a team member had the courage and the stamina to walk up to me after a Monday morning staff meeting and say, "Hey, Dusty, you're a real piece of work. Would you like to know more?"
I was running the call center at the time, and fortunately, I had enough sense to say, "That's really interesting. Tell me more."
The epiphany he brought to me was this: I was so driven, so focused on results and process, that I was running a 7:30 AM Monday morning staff meeting for my leadership team, and at 7:31 I locked the door, and we went straight into reports and numbers. I cared deeply about people. But I had no real understanding of how my behaviors were impacting others. And this person had the courage to say, here's what you need to know, and here's why.
It gave me clarity that I was demonstrating behaviors that were completely inconsistent with my beliefs. I needed to step back and understand what was actually happening. That conversation was also where I started learning about behavioral assessments like DiSC. I am a high D, and what I came to understand is that not everyone wants to absorb information the way I do or engage with it at the pace I was pushing.
Dusty Holcomb: Some people wanted to have a conversation first. How was your weekend? What did you do? I wanted to get straight to numbers and decisions. That experience started giving me clarity that it isn't about me. I needed to think more carefully about this. I needed self-awareness.
That was probably the very first moment. Someone hit me in the face with a message I needed to hear, and it allowed me to create clarity in my leadership so I could align my actions to my beliefs.
And honestly, that is a lot of what we do today with executives and executive teams. We walk them through a process of getting really clear on their own leadership playbook, their own leadership values, so they can communicate those to their teams and their teams can operate more effectively. We can get into that, but that was my first one. Fortunately, someone was very courageous, and I was smart enough not to react poorly.
Sarah Pattisall: I, I, really like how you told that story, and one thing that you said that I think really stands out is that your actions were inconsistent with your values.
Dusty Holcomb: Hmm.
Sarah Pattisall: When it came to leadership and how you treat others. And I think it can be easy for people to fall into that trap, especially when we're so passionate about what we do. But that is really important in creating clarity as a leader.
Dusty Holcomb: Yeah, it, it, it's tremendously important.
Dusty Holcomb: I always tell people: you cannot read the label from inside the jar. You cannot see your own blind spots. You cannot see the issues. You need people to help you navigate that. Sometimes you just need someone who is courageous enough to help you step back and see what you cannot see on your own. That is when you get those moments of clarity. That is when you get the epiphanies.
I have had the benefit of working with an executive coach for over 20 years, and I still have a coach today. Actually, I have two. Maybe I need a lot of help. But it comes back to that idea: you simply cannot read the label from inside the jar.
You just can't see it. You, you really can't see it for yourself
Matt Wolfe: I don't think I've ever heard of an approach that was equally aggressive and respectful at the same time, like, like what that fella did, you know? "You're a real jack, you know what. Would you like to know more?" I just lo- that's my favorite part of that.
Dusty Holcomb: They were very smart
Matt Wolfe: Well, I'm, I'm tucking it away in case I can get away with it with a client.
Sarah Pattisall: Yep.
Dusty Holcomb: They did a good job of inviting me into that conversation
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah. I'll, I'll tell you why if, if you wanna know, or you can just settle with knowing that I think this.
Dusty Holcomb: It was a Gift
Matt Wolfe: It is a gift. It, it's a genuine gift, for sure.
Matt Wolfe: I wanna shift gears here a little bit. So, you know, we also like to think about this idea of scaling and growth through the lens of the client journey. So, you know,
Dusty Holcomb: Mm-hmm.
Matt Wolfe: I touched on this a little earlier. If you have a brand story, it is going to empower your marketing, your sales, your client experience, and even your culture. All of those elements are essential to master when it comes to relational marketing and growth for any relationship-based service firm. So the first thing I want to ask you is this: from a brand story perspective, from having a core narrative for a company, is there a story that comes to mind from your experience where you saw that story being essential to someone's growth, or where a shift in how they told their story was essential to their scaling?
Dusty Holcomb: When I joined my last company, it was an e-commerce logistics company that had grown incredibly fast. It doubled during COVID, as so many e-commerce companies did. And it had outgrown its systems, processes, and capabilities. It had started to wobble a little bit, like a toddler moving faster than its legs could carry it.
That was the state of the organization when I arrived. We were growing so fast that we had outgrown some fundamental things. And we were working hard to help our team understand that not all growth is good growth. We needed to be much more disciplined and intentional, because if we kept taking on every client that came our way, we were setting ourselves up for failure.
We had to spend real time getting focused on the right questions. What are our core competencies? What are we best in the world at? How are we going to create value for the client? And what are we going to do to make sure that promise is never violated?
Dusty Holcomb: One of the stories that comes to mind is a prospect we were working with who was in love with our brand promise. They had talked to some of our other clients and said, we want to do business with you. I remember talking to him vividly to this day. His name was Jonathan. He said, this is what I need. You are my guy. Here is my evaluation matrix; here is everyone else I am comparing you to. You are not the cheapest, but let me show you how I have compared you. You are who I want to do business with because I believe in what you are doing, and I know you will be the best for our business.
As the CEO, I would get involved in conversations with our larger prospects. And what I had to tell Jonathan was: I would love to take your business, but I cannot. Because if we take on your business, which is not what we are optimally designed to do, here is what I know will happen. I will disappoint you because we are not built to do exactly what you need. Or I will dilute all of our other capabilities because we are trying to pivot and serve you well at the same time. So we are going to have to say no.
I tell that story because I remember my team's reaction. Are we turning down a really large client opportunity? But it was the right call. We were going to fail Jonathan. We were going to fail our organization. And we were going to send the wrong message to our team about what actually mattered.
Sometimes scaling and crossing the chasms in front of you is not about saying yes to everything. It is about saying yes to the things you are exceptionally good at, the things that will create the most value for the customer you are designed to serve. And being disciplined enough to say no to the rest. That is a really hard thing to do. I remember wrestling with that decision. But it was the right one.
The process of navigating growth and scale is anchored in your ability to be very clear about the value you create and very clear about what you will and will not do for a customer. If you have that clarity, those decisions do not necessarily become easier, but they become much simpler. Because you have already decided in advance who you are going to be, how you are going to show up, and what you are going to create.
Matt Wolfe: That is exactly right. It is never easy, but it is essential. We talk about this through the language of the ideal client. We spend a lot of time challenging our clients to get really specific about who their ideal client truly is, for every reason you just articulated. From a marketing standpoint, it is about clarity. If you try to speak to everyone and be all things to all people, you will never be clear to any of them. That is step one.
But what we know behind the scenes is everything you just described. Defining your ideal client, the people you will say yes to and actively pursue, is also going to define the success of your business. Those are the people who will get the best results, and your business will thrive with them. We are taking that long view into the same world you work in with leaders. But it all comes down to story. Whose story are you going to tell, from our vantage point, to invite the right people into that journey? And hopefully you end up having fewer of those hard conversations down the road.
Sarah Pattisall: With the world Matt and I are in, I am wondering whether everything you have learned has changed how you talk about marketing with your clients. Do you ever find yourself in a position where you are telling someone: you are trying to get your message everywhere, and you are diluting yourself? How do you approach those conversations?
Dusty Holcomb: Yeah, it is interesting. I love the way you asked that. As a former CMO, every marketer thinks they are a marketing expert. And I try to avoid that trap. I tell people I am not a marketing expert, but here is what I do know. When you distill it down to the essence of great marketing, it is making sure you have the right and relevant message in front of the right and relevant customer, at the right time, with the right offer, that creates enough value for them that they think: I cannot imagine a world without engaging with this business.
That means doing the hard work of understanding exactly who your customer is, exactly what problem they are trying to solve, and exactly why you are the best in the world at helping them navigate that pain point or create the value they are after. Then you figure out where they congregate. How do you get your message in front of them? How do you lead them down a path that creates real value?
And so often I talk with clients who are in spray-and-pray mode. Testing a lot of things, seeing what works. And I ask: to what end? What is the plan? In my mind, marketing is the ultimate scientific method. You have the warm and the fuzzy and the story, but you test, you learn, you get better, and you do it with applied discipline.
I hear it from CEOs constantly. I was on a call with one just this morning. I asked: Who is your target audience? What are they really trying to solve? And they were just selling features and benefits. Not talking to the customer at all about the transformation they would experience by working with them. That is the story they need people to understand.
From where I sit, great marketing is about making sure your story and your customer's story intersect in a way that makes them successful. Because that is why they are buying from you. Not to serve you, but to become successful themselves.
I tend to oversimplify things, but leadership and marketing are really the same challenge. Make sure everyone understands where we are going and how they fit in. The same dot connecting. And when I think about truly great marketing, it is those organizations that make it entirely about the buyer and figure out how to make themselves impossible to live without.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Matt Wolfe: What about on the sales front? When we think about that piece of the client journey, is there a story that comes to mind where someone who was scaling had to change their approach to sales, and some adjustment unlocked them?
Dusty Holcomb: I will tell a personal story. When I show up to sales calls, first off, I do not like calling it sales. I like calling it service. Sales is something we do to people; at least that is how the language feels. So I do not have sales calls. I have service calls, and then we figure out if there is an opportunity for mutual value creation.
I am thinking of a very specific instance. A CEO reached out who was trying to navigate some really big challenges. They needed a catalyst, which is really what I am: a catalyst for change. They said, I really want to work with you. And I said, that is great, but what are you trying to achieve? Why does it matter to you? What do you want to do?
They said: I just want you to tell me what I need to do.
And I said: I am not going to do that.
They were surprised. I explained: You have to own the solution. You are the CEO of this organization. I work with people who are hungry, humble, and smart. People who are ready, willing, and able to look inward first so they can make the changes needed for themselves and their teams. If you are just looking for a pat answer, it may or may not work, and whether it works will depend entirely on your ability to execute and implement it.
From a sales perspective, I do not show up to sell anyone anything. It is about education, understanding, connecting the dots, and honestly assessing whether what I do is actually going to create value for this person. Sometimes the most important sales conversation is not asking, would you like to buy from me? It is saying, I can see there is a real opportunity here, but I am probably not the best person for you. And then pointing them to someone who is.
That genuinely conveys a service mindset, a value creation mindset. And I have had clients come back around later and say, I am ready now. Maybe it was not the right season before. Maybe they were not in the right space. But when I think about sales, the question is always the same: what value am I going to create? How do I serve this person? How do I educate them? It is not about extracting value from people. It is about creating value for people, and it has to be mutually beneficial.
Matt Wolfe: I love that. The most powerful reframes are the simplest ones. Changing sales to service is one of them. That understanding is what made it fun for me. I am someone who did not want to do sales, did not enjoy sales, and was honestly fearful of it early on. Until something shifted, and I realized: I just have to show up and help people.
Dusty Holcomb: Exactly. I had a gentleman on my podcast a few months ago who has an incredible sales system. And the beauty of it is that it is not really a sales system. It is a service system that just happens to create sales. The idea is simple: pick up the phone, call people, ask how things are going, ask if there is anything they are struggling with, see if you can create value. When you get into that mindset- that service is selling, and sales is an outcome of great service- it becomes a flywheel that really spins.
And you are right, the simple reframes are the powerful ones. Honestly, I have to remind myself of this every day. You can catch yourself thinking: I have a sales call, I need to prepare, I need to ask for the close. And then you come back to: I just need to show up and create real value.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah.
Sarah Pattisall: That leads me into another follow-up question. You have clearly learned so many remarkable lessons over the course of your career, ones you apply to your own professional life and to the work you do with others. From those lessons and those reframes, what kind of opportunities have been created, either for yourself or for the people you work with?
Dusty Holcomb: There are a lot. And the one that immediately comes to mind is what happens when you move past transactional thinking and start asking how to create relational value. I have friends, colleagues, and contacts I have never sold anything to. But I have introduced them to someone else, who introduced them to someone else, and we create this affinity. People want to help people who have helped them.
The first thing I will often ask when I meet someone is: who do I know that could help you? What is the challenge you are trying to solve? What is the biggest issue? Oh, I know someone. Would it be useful if I made an introduction? And then I pick up the phone and do it. I call someone and say, " Hey, I have a friend who is working on something. Would you be willing to spend 20 minutes with them? And they do it.
The opportunities that have been unlocked in my life have come through the intentional curation of relationships and the ability to connect people to create value. And if they never do business with me directly, that is completely fine.
I mentioned earlier that I am working on a book right now, a book on how leaders can be more impactful in the age of AI. There is so much noise around AI at the moment, and the question everyone seems to be asking is: are people going to lose their jobs?
Sarah Pattisall: I want to read that book
Dusty Holcomb: My editor asked me the other day: what does smashing success look like for you? I said: smashing success is if someone reads this book and makes a change in their leadership behavior because of it. They do not have to do business with me. They do not have to throw a nickel my way. I do not care. If they change how they show up for another person, that is success. I will never know it, and I am completely at peace with that.
When you approach life from that place of value creation and relational thinking, what you create is a center of gravity. People want to do business with you because you served them. I can think of a dozen relationships right now that are either clients or have introduced me to clients, simply because I showed up and did something for them without expecting anything in return.
Matt Wolfe: Dusty, this has been so good. When you finish the book, you have to come back. We would love to celebrate that with you, and Sarah will have plenty to say about AI. I wish we had another hour. I feel like we could just keep going.
I cannot imagine a better guest for a podcast called The CEO's Heart for Service. You clearly have that in spades. Anyone who seeks you out is going to be very fortunate to work with you. I will also say, you have been quite humble about some of the organizations you have worked with, but your experience is remarkable. I would encourage people to look that up.
The last thing we like to do, and as we said at the start, if you are going to market in the B2B services space, in high-stakes, high-trust services, you are going to have to do it in a relational way, not a traditional one. You are going to have to focus on creating real human connections with the right audience.
Moments like this one, where people can meet you, hear you, and discover what a genuine and trustworthy presence you are. Whether that happens through a podcast, a networking event, a keynote, or wherever human connection can be created, that is where we focus. And all of that is to say, we always want to make sure people get a chance to meet the human behind the brand.
Matt Wolfe: So we have a fun little questionnaire here at the end that we like to go through, the behind the brand questionnaire. Quick, mostly painless. Are you ready?
Dusty Holcomb: I am ready for Mostly Painless
Sarah Pattisall: All right, I'm gonna kick it off. This is my favorite question. What is your go-to karaoke song?
Dusty Holcomb: My go-to karaoke song is Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash
Sarah Pattisall: Love it. And also, I feel like you've got kind of the Southern accent to really pull that off
Dusty Holcomb: I can turn it on, uh, uh, especially with the help of, uh, a little bourbon
Matt Wolfe: The deep voice too. You've got it, yeah.
Sarah Pattisall: Right?
I can hear it.
Matt Wolfe: Dusty, next time we get a chance to talk, we'll talk about Million Dollar Quartet, a musical that I was part of developing early on. It's a story of Sun Records in Memphis,
Dusty Holcomb: Oh, wow
Matt Wolfe: Johnny Cash is a character, and I got to play Sam Phillips in my past life. I didn't...
Now I'm totally out of context. Um,
Dusty Holcomb: I can't wait to hear this story
Matt Wolfe: For anyone listening. Yeah. Okay, what's the last thing that made you laugh out loud?
Dusty Holcomb: My nine-year-old did what nine-year-old boys do, which involves body sounds, laughter, and general nonsense. He caught me completely off guard with something that only a nine-year-old boy could find funny, and it just made me laugh.
I will spare everyone the sound effects because I am not good at those. But if you have ever been around a nine-year-old boy, you know that body functions are apparently the funniest thing in the world, and they will get you every time.
Sarah Pattisall: Hmm. All right, next question. What is your favorite way to get away from it all?
Dusty Holcomb: My favorite way to get away from it all is to find the biggest, most open space possible, either with a fly rod in hand or on the back of a horse, hunting or fishing out in the backcountry somewhere where cell phones do not work and no one can reach me. Just a giant open space and one very small, insignificant me.
Matt Wolfe: Yeah.
Sarah Pattisall: That sounds wonderful.
Matt Wolfe: That cowboy game warden vision will not go away.
Dusty Holcomb: I- it's, it's a truism
Matt Wolfe: Next question. I like this one. What smell reminds you of a specific place or time?
Dusty Holcomb: I have this love affair with Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday. It sits in that season between the fall harvest and Christmas, before things get chaotic, and everybody just pauses. It is the smell of a Thanksgiving feast. I love to cook, so it starts for me on Sunday of that week and carries all the way through. It brings back so many fond memories from growing up, and it is something I try to carry forward for our family now.
Matt Wolfe: That's wonderful.
Sarah Pattisall: What is one day in your life that you would like to relive?
Dusty Holcomb: I know it is a cliché, but I would love to relive my wedding day. We did it perfectly and peacefully, with no stress and no mess. My wife and I eloped to a little vineyard. I remember sitting quietly with a coffee at a cafe that morning, and I would just love to go back to that moment and live it again.
Sarah Pattisall: Sounds wonderful. My fiancé and I are planning on eloping because of not wanting to deal with the stress, and that has me even more excited.d
Dusty Holcomb: I'm 100% in favor of that idea
Sarah Pattisall: Mm-hmm.
Matt Wolfe: Well, now you have a, uh, you have an elopement consultant you can go to, Sarah, and ask
Sarah Pattisall: I might, I might have to hit you up.
Dusty Holcomb: Go for it. Keep it simple. That's the rule
Sarah Pattisall: Yes. Yes. Yep
Matt Wolfe: Two more questions.
The next one is, what three words would your loved ones use to describe you?
Dusty Holcomb: Intentional, intense, and relentless
Sarah Pattisall: That's good. If you wanted to make it thr, is for alliteration's sake, I think you could get away with inspiring if you ever wanted to add that. Just saying
Dusty Holcomb: Thank you. Uh, you know, that's actually good. I didn't even think about that. Maybe I'll come back around
Sarah Pattisall: All right, last question.
Sarah Pattisall: What would it mean to have truly succeeded in your work? And not just any companies that you've worked for, but for you personally
Dusty Holcomb: I have given a lot of thought to this question and come back to it often. To have been successful in my work means that people I have never met will have made a different decision, a better decision, for themselves or their families, because I existed. Because I had an influence on someone, who then influenced them.
I will never know if that happened. And that is the beauty of it. I have surrendered the need to know the answer and simply focus on creating the possibility for it. That is enough for me.
Sarah Pattisall: I really, really love that.
Matt Wolfe: It's fantastic
Sarah Pattisall: That's like, deeply philosophical actually, to really think about. I'm gonna spend some time thinking on your answer.r
Dusty Holcomb: I put a lot of thought into that one, you know, late at night and early in the morning
Sarah Pattisall: That's amazing. Mm-hmm
Matt Wolfe: One of the great joys of the spaces we work in is this idea that we get to help people who help people. We get to create ripples of impact and influence that, as you said, we may never see, but we know are out there. We know you set out to inspire people every day, and I feel genuinely inspired having had the joy of meeting you, getting to know you, and spending this time together. I feel well-served and ready for what's ahead. Thank you, Dusty.
Dusty Holcomb: You are very welcome.
Matt Wolfe: I want to make sure people know how to find you. And I know you have a really compelling offer on the table right now that you can point people toward.
Dusty Holcomb: I would love that. I love having conversations, so the best place to find me is LinkedIn. Just search Dusty Holcomb. There are not many of us on there. You can also visit our website at arcqusgroup.com, A-R-C-Q-U-S-group.com. Lots of resources there: downloads, podcast content, and more.
The thing I am deeply passionate about is helping leaders create clarity so they can lead their teams more effectively. About 20 years ago, I developed a practice of creating my own leadership rules of engagement, a personal playbook that I could hand to the people I lead and serve and say: here is a decoder ring. Here is how I think, so you can work with me more effectively and be more successful. It is not something I do for myself. It is something I do for the people around me.
What I have found in working with leaders over the years is that when someone takes the time to get clear about what is important to them, who they are, and how they want to show up, and then shares that with their team, things move a lot faster. You remove friction and wasted energy because people are not guessing about what matters.
If you go to myrulesofengagement.com, you can download a free PDF playbook and build your own leadership rules of engagement guide. I also include the DiSC behavioral assessment in that guide, the same one that unlocked my own blind spots back when I was 23. It is a paid assessment that I use with my executive clients, but I include it as part of this at no cost. If even one person unlocks that capability for themselves, it is completely worth it.
Matt Wolfe: That is fantastic. I have already made a mental note to check that out.
Dusty Holcomb: Please do.
Matt Wolfe: So this has been Dusty Holcomb from The Arcqus Group. I am Matt Wolfe, and this is Sarah Pattisall from Brand3. If you are a B2B service provider who has struggled with marketing and found yourself relying on referrals and warm introductions to get by, but you have hit a growth ceiling, we will show you a path that most people in your position have never been shown: how to make marketing work for your specific kind of business.
A relational kind of marketing that honors the trust and relationship you need to earn from your clients. That program is called Scale Beyond Referrals, and you can learn about the workshop at scalebeyondreferrals.com. Dusty, thank you so much for spending this time with us today.
Dusty Holcomb: It has been an absolute delight. Thank you for the opportunity.
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