Driving Growth Through Leadership Resiliency With Mike Lepper

 

Leadership resiliency isn’t built in comfort—it’s forged through failure, change, and the relentless pursuit of growth. Mike Lepper, CEO of Impact Networking, shares how his rise from entry-level sales to the C-suite was fueled by grit, adaptability, and a shift from a “driver” mindset to a “multiplier” approach that empowers others to succeed. In this conversation with Adam Markel, Mike unpacks the challenges of promoting great performers into leadership, the role of managers in retention, why culture thrives on transparency and trust, and how embracing change with clear communication builds both personal and organizational strength.

Show Notes:

• 02:37 – From Sales Driver To Multiplier
• 06:15 – Navigating Leadership Challenges
• 09:33 – Unlocking Hidden Employee Potential
• 14:12 – Mastering Organizational Reorganization
• 22:29 – The Art Of Constructive Feedback
• 28:17 – Building Team Resilience
• 30:48 – Mike’s Personal Resilience Journey
• 37:38 Cultivating Organizational Resilience

 

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Driving Growth Through Leadership Resiliency With Mike Lepper

Welcome back to another episode of Change Proof. I am your host, Adam Markel. I absolutely love the conversation that I’m about to have with Mike Lepper. Mike Lepper is the CEO of Impact Networking. He started his journey at Impact in 2010 as an entry-level sales representative, rising through the ranks to reach the top. Over the years, he has consistently displayed a strong work ethic, a deep understanding of sales strategies, and a relentless drive for success.

With this dedication, Mike was made a partner at Impact in August 2016. His passion for nurturing and motivating teams highlights his belief in the power of collaboration and mentorship to drive success. He was then promoted to CEO in January 2025 and is excited to lead Impact into its next chapter, focused on advancing the company’s vision and fostering a culture of excellence. I know this guy. He is an amazing leader, a great human being, and a fun person as well, so you’re going to enjoy my conversation. Sit back and enjoy.

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Mike, you have an extensive bio and a great CV. I love your not so much rags-to-riches story, but starting at the lower level in an organization and then moving your way up to the top spot. That is a journey. It’s a hero’s journey. It’s an epic journey. I know we got a lot to talk about potentially in connection with that. I wrote a book called Pivot, so there are probably pivots in there that you can share with us. At the beginning, I want to ask you this. What is one thing that is not part of your bio, that beautiful, great history of your work life, that you would like for people to know about you? One thing that’s not in the CV that you’d like people to know.

I have a relentless work ethic. I want to be the best. I don’t think it’s exactly explicit in there, but you alluded to it. I started my journey in 2010 as an entry-level salesperson. The success piece, the hunger, the grit, I am excited to do what we do. I love to be surrounded by people because people are what it’s all about. What drives me every single day is coming in here and making a difference in an organization and watching people grow. There’s nothing better than it.

It’s a common thread when I speak to people who are at your leadership level. I hear something similar in a conversation I had the other day. This wonderful woman was describing the difference between being a driver because she’s a self-made person, very self-composed, self-motivated, a go-getter, gritty, and all that stuff you’re alluding to there. She said, “When I got in the role of CEO, what I realized is that instead of being a driver, which is how I’ve been successful in my life, I needed to be a multiplier.” I’m curious what you think about that phrase. You were saying something similar to that.

I’ve had individuals say that to me over the past. They’ve said it in somewhat of a different way, but it connects. It is to plant your seed in many different areas and allow multiple divisions of the company to grow and multiply in different areas. Just because you’re maybe on the sales side, the service side, the admin side, or wherever you sit, doesn’t mean you should stay there in that area. Go plant that seed across the organization, multiply, and make great people all over the place.

From Sales Driver To Multiplier

In my role, I get to see this, so perhaps I have a different perspective than you, but do you think salespeople in particular who continue their journey up into senior-level leadership roles have a harder time moving from that driver mentality to that multiplier mindset?

I would say absolutely. I’m coming up on fifteen years, my first job out of college, and I met with a ton of CEOs. A majority of your CEOs out there were sales professionals early on in their careers. That’s not an uncommon thing. The hard thing about being a leader, in general, is allowing your people to fail and fail forward because you want to jump in and do that for them. When you say that, you want to drive things because you’ve been driving things for probably the majority of your career.

A hard thing about being a leader is allowing your people to fail, and fail forward. Share on X

What I’ve realized, especially over the years, as I’ve climbed into different higher-level sales positions, is that you can’t do everything. It’s not sustainable. It doesn’t allow your company to grow if you’re going to try to be that jack-of-all-trades because you master none in a lot of ways. You need to allow your people, as I said, to fail forward and grow, coach, develop, and train. That’s what true leadership is.

I’ve never asked anybody this question, but I’m inspired to ask you this. Is there a particular kind of failure that is the worst type of failure for you? As you’re looking at people, you’re taking care of them. I’m a CEO. I’ve been in that role for many years. I don’t want to say this in a condescending way because I don’t mean this at all. I mean this in a loving way. They’re like my family, like my kids.

When I was a lifeguard, they were the people in the water. You’re on the lifeguards. They’re in your water to be taken care of if they need it. If they’re struggling in any way, you want to care for them. I’m curious if, in that vein of things, there’s a particular type of failure that, when you observe it or the habit of it, that’s less of a thing that you invite or create a learning opportunity in those moments? Is there something you have that is triggered for you when I ask that?

Yes, absolutely. The first thing that comes to my mind is that companies grow. We’ve had ten-X growth since I joined the organization several years ago, which means a lot of opportunity for individuals. The challenging part is when you put an individual who was maybe in an individual contributor role into a leadership role. Maybe a leadership role isn’t for them, but you don’t know until you try. To me, that’s a hard thing when it doesn’t work out because you want what’s best for them, but sometimes, people aren’t cut out to do that.

It’s trying to figure out, “They’re a great asset for the organization. Let’s get them in the right seat on the bus.” Anytime, potentially, it’s a step back. It’s looked at as a demotion. I don’t see it that way, but I can understand why the employee would. That’s a challenging piece for me. It is working through those changes because it’s that team interaction. You’ve built up a great rapport. You’ve built up a great relationship, but you also, as a leader, have to do what’s best for the organization. It’s not the right thing. You need to make the adjustment, but you feel like you’ve failed that individual. Being able to work through those things can definitely be a challenge.

Navigating Leadership Challenges

I’m going to come back to the question I asked you in a second, but I want to follow that thread for a moment. We all probably are aware of the statistics. They’re pretty stark. Our company, WORKWELL, is all about how to create healthier places to work. We have to get under the hood and look at what’s going on in order to be able to make or suggest changes there. One of the things that we routinely hear, and all the statistics bear this out, is that people leave more often when they have a manager who doesn’t work for them. They can’t get along with their manager. They don’t feel supported by their manager. Even some people feel oppressed by their manager.

It’s such an incredibly important level of leadership. It’s in the middle of an org chart, typically. Often, that middle level doesn’t get a lot of resources. There’s not a lot of training devoted to them. Usually, it’s somebody who is a great performer in their individual area, whether it’s sales or some other place. They go, “Great, you perform well in that area. Go ahead and lead other people. Manage other people.” They’ve never been trained for that. Are there things that you see when somebody doesn’t succeed in that role that are the typical telltales that it’s not a right fit, as you say, that they’re in the wrong seat on the bus?

Yes, absolutely. Some think that in leadership, you have to be the smartest person. To me, you have to be able to motivate people to want to get behind you and go make a difference. That’s a common thing that’s missed. It’s like, “They were a high performer in their job,” which is all great things to have because then you want high performers to work for you. You carry on that mentality, but if you can’t motivate people to go out, do a great job, and get them excited about what they’re doing every day, because you look at all the statistics out there or any of the reports. They say that people don’t leave their jobs. They leave their manager in a lot of cases.

 

How can you get the most out of these individuals? How can you keep them highly motivated to go out, make a difference, and do a great job? We have very ambitious goals here at Impact and DOT Security. We want great people. We want great talent. We talk about it all the time. We want high performers. I’ve been fortunate to take some professional education classes to further what I’ve been doing in my leadership roles.

What I’ve learned a lot at Kellogg, specifically, from many different CEOs that have led organizations and now are teaching in the classroom, too, which is an amazing experience, is not getting too siloed with a specific service. It’s about cascading people. If you could do a great job in this area, put them in other areas to help grow and develop them so they don’t have to stay in this one division of the organization. If they’re great motivators and great leaders, they could pick things up. These skills get built. I didn’t read a book on how to become a CEO. You listen to a lot of things. You read a lot. Don’t get me wrong, but you learn a lot of this stuff as you get into it or from your other experiences.

Unlocking Hidden Employee Potential

There’s a question that we sometimes will use as a prompt. I want to see if this question resonates with you. Maybe you even use it with your folks, which is to ask those people when you see that they’ve got potential, “Are there areas that you’re great at, things that you’re great at, or things that you love even that we’re not making use of?” There are a lot of instances where those employees are siloed to the point that you made earlier, not getting a well-rounded experience, and are not actually utilizing skills that they know themselves they’ve got. Their manager, who they report to or inside of that particular framework, those talents aren’t being tapped. Do you guys ever ask that question of them? What’s our blind spot as to your talents is what I’m asking.

A mess is that most managers manage teams. There’s definitely a component to this, but let me explain. I have always led by understanding the individual on a professional and personal level. What makes you tick, Adam, is different than what potentially makes Mike Lepper tick. We need to know how to get the best performance out of you on a day-to-day basis. Your personal life may impact your professional life. I’m going to treat people fairly, not equally, which is what I talk about a lot.

You need to understand each individual on your team and then how that comes together as one team. We have a one-team mentality here at Impact, but every individual has different skillsets. They come from different walks of life. They have different potential that’s out there. They have different knowledge and expertise. Some are motivated by a higher level of education. Some people, that’s not for them. You need to understand what gets them excited, what gets the fire in their belly, how they get up every single day, and how they show up. Are they the best version of themselves? You need to get to know people. We’re big on culture here at Impact. Culture is our staple.

 

A lot of companies talk about it, but I don’t think they’re about it. It’s, “We have a great culture, and we promote this.” From a leadership level, we want to get to know our people. We want to know what drives them. We want to get the most out of them because it’s all about them, their families, their growth, and taking care of our customers at the end of the day. That is what it’s all about.

I got to see that firsthand. I had the great honor of being a keynote presenter at your annual conference, which was in Mexico. I got to see both that fun. Fun is an aspect of the culture at Impact. You guys have fun with the best of them, I would say.

A big part of our strategic plan is going through the core values of the organization, living that out, and making sure that that’s aligned with what you’re carrying out day in and day out. Have a great time. Have fun at work. Be honest, egoless, innovative. We’re disruptors in the industry from a tech perspective. It’s all about that and then bringing the one team mentality together and all going out and winning together.

I absolutely love this. It’s the first time I’ve ever done this. I’ve delivered hundreds of those presentations, but to read the values out loud with your team, and I don’t know if you remember that part of it, that was not canned. I wasn’t planning on doing that, but there was so much energy in the room and alignment. I didn’t feel like we were on a football field. It wasn’t a pump-up or whatever, but it felt so right to read those things and say them aloud in that moment. I don’t know how it landed with your people, but I loved it. I’ll say.

Thank you for calling that out. We believe that energy is contagious. We feel that. It’s not just a show that was put on. Definitely, we have struggles like any other organization does, but we band together and live out that one team mentality. Let’s work with each other. Let’s help each other. Let’s not put each other down. How can we get the most out of our people to give them the best opportunity for their success and growth?

Mastering Organizational Reorganization

I want to say this, too. It’s not like you’re skating on thin air. Whatever the phrase would be, you’re living in the real world. The real world is filled with challenges and uncertainty, as everybody knows right now in the marketplace, etc. You are no different. You’ve been reconfiguring some things at Impact. Before we started, before we hit record, I said, “How’s it going? Have you stuck the landing and all that kind of thing?” I thought it would be neat to explore that, especially for the leaders who are reading this who are in the process right now themselves in that ‘exercise’ at the moment. What’s it been like for you? What can you tell us about that?

Here’s what I can tell you. Sticking the landing means a lot of different things. It’s what we were talking about. Our biggest thing is, how do we get this into an MVP, minimal viable product mode, and get it out in the hands of our people? We’ve spent a ton of time. Here’s one perfect example. We launched, on January 1st of 2025, a sales reorganization. Our business has changed quite a bit from a very transactional hardware, commodity-based organization to a true managed services consulting type of business, which is a massive transformation for any type of organization.

What we tried to hone in on was what we call the bowtie. It’s the bowtie model. You have the left end, which is the customer acquisition and the experience that they take. Getting the contract signed is right in the middle. The right end of the bowtie is how you take care of your customer through that journey. It’s not just about plugging in a switch, a firewall, an access point, or something from a tech perspective and a set-and-forget-it. It’s how you take care of the customer day in and day out. For us, it was important with that reorganization to get our people to define what we call swim lanes.

Focus is a big challenge that I see for a lot of organizations. We wanted to dial in our focus for our people. Overall, it has gone well. We have learned things. From things that we have launched on January 1st, I’ve adjusted and tweaked a few areas. When you actually get into it and the customers are experiencing it, this all goes to customer communication. How are you speaking to your customers? Are you educating them? People generally react and respond in a much better fashion when they’re aware of something that’s going on. “We’re going to be making this change in the way that we deliver your service. We want you to understand.” You lay it out for them. If there’s any service disruption, you know where to come. We’ll explain all that.

People react and respond better when they're aware of what's going on. Share on X

If you do that on the front end, it’s a much better situation when challenges do arise because they know what’s going on. If you hide from that, then to them, they’re caught off guard. Most people don’t like surprises in this world. Going back to your question, have we stuck the landing? I would say overall, it’s very well. We’ve learned things. We’re continuously fine-tuning, but the reorg is in place. We’re seeing the results that are already coming in. We’re excited for the many other projects that we have ahead of us in the coming 12 to 18 months.

In your experience, what’s the hardest thing about change management? Agnostic to what the change is, change is the constant thing. What’s difficult about managing change from your perspective?

When I look at most organizations’ biggest challenge, it’s around communication.

I want to raise my hand to say yes. More than people are willing to acknowledge, but I want to get your take on that.

I am all about clarity and as much transparency as possible regarding what’s coming and what you can be prepared for. I alluded to the external customer and prepping them. It’s no different than prepping your internal people even more and making sure that they understand what is going on because the human brain and the human body are set up for what we can call survival mode. How do we survive on a day-to-day basis? Making change like this for the better is not the way that the brain normally works. When you can have the people understand and get buy-in from the top down, everybody is singing the same song, and we’re all aligned. Alignment is the key piece. There are so many things that you could talk about within that.

The CEO all the way on down has to believe in the mission, convey that to the people, lead from the front, and make sure that all of the people within the organization understand why we’re doing it. I’m not saying that they’re going to be happy about it, but they understand why we’re doing it. They’re over-communicated on why we’re going to do it, why it’s going to be better for them individually and internally, for our internal customers, our external customers, and then how that helps Impact and DOT Security overall for us to grow into the future, to continue to provide opportunity for our employees.

 

To me, the way the brain works, as you said, it’s prehistoric and it’s wiring. When we don’t know something, we try to figure out what it is we don’t know. That means we’re making up a story or we’re creating a structure to replace the unknowns or to fill in the blanks, so it’s not as scary. Often, that story is wrong. It’s flat out not accurate. It’s not accurate as to motive, intention, or something that’s even more tangible around what’s happening, but certainly as to the why, it can be misunderstood.

To provide the narrative, to take the opportunity as a leader to lead in that, from that place and own that, is a big deal. What I observe is avoidance. Sometimes, in cultures in organizations we speak with, they’ll say, “We’ve got a politeness problem.” We’re like, “People are too polite? That’s amazing. They emptied out the church. Everybody is right there. Everybody is so polite. It’s amazing.” I took that early on, “I’m super curious, and I want to meet some of these polite people.”

They weren’t any more polite than anybody else that I’ve known, not really. It wasn’t politeness at all. It was avoidance. The culture there was one that avoided conflict. It avoided difficult conversations and talking about things where you didn’t have all the answers, even. It is a tough thing for a CEO because you’re hired on the premise that you have all the answers. I know from being in that role that’s one of the toughest parts of the crown to wear because you don’t have all the answers all the time.

I love that you said avoidance, because I see that the most when organizations try to bite off too much or have too many things going on. Most employees say, “This is going to blow over in a week.” You’re going to detail it out, communicate the plan, execute on the plan, move it forward, and fine-tune where you need to fine-tune. There are a lot of ideas. I love ideas. I don’t want to suppress anything that’s coming from our employees because some of the best ideas for our organization we’re coming up on have come from the employees, which is a great thing. It is a “don’t bite off more than you can chew“ type of mentality because then, that avoidance comes in of where, “I’m going to avoid this for a little bit of time, let it blow over, and wait till the next thing comes.”

The Art Of Constructive Feedback

Do you think your folks have difficulty with feedback? If you’re assessing organization-wide, is that an area for improvement for the folks at Impact?

I love that you brought that up. We have been doing a ton in the last few months. We started this transition. It went to the new executive suite, the current executive suite, and moved into board-level positions in September of 2024. It was official in January. You were out in Mexico and saw the whole show. It was an amazing experience. We started to implement that in the fourth quarter of 2024, feedback loops. We call it a one-up and one-forward.

We’ve started it with our executive team. Myself, Jeff Miller, and Anthony Cucco are the CEO, COO, and CFO. We’re considered the executive leadership team. We have a senior leadership team underneath us, all C-suite members who are helping us run the business. I say all that because this team has become very close. We have a ton of tenure. You probably heard that at the Mexico Oil Company. The average tenure is fourteen. Six people, first job out of college. It’s exciting that we’ve had a lot of growth and opportunity. One thing you don’t do a lot is give feedback.

What we implemented that we learned from one of our executive coaches that we use is to give a positive in an area for improvement, that one-forward. “You’re doing an excellent job on this, this, and this. One area that I could see or like to see you improve would be this.” We do that with a group of ten of us. It’s amazing how close it’s brought us together. I’m starting to see that cascade down throughout the business. It’s creating much stronger relationships in the trust piece.

If I go back to one of those core values of honesty, and I understand honesty, sometimes, you’ve got to have thick gloves around that. I get that. That feedback is so important because most people want it. It’s a tough thing to ask, or it’s a hard thing to give. If you get to that relationship we were talking about earlier, understand, knowing your people, having great relationships, and even giving your boss feedback. That is taboo. We don’t do that.

We’ve tried to open that up from a communication perspective. Just because you’re in this position doesn’t mean you know every single thing. We’re not those types of people. We don’t carry that ego that maybe potentially most do. One of our core values is egolessness. Let’s live this out. If we’re going to build out a strategic plan, embody all of those things, and carry it. Live them out.

That trust piece is so important. I don’t imagine any team or any group of people that are committed to an aligned goal, whether it’s a military group or a group of people that are supporting each other in business, on a playing field in sports, or something, where you don’t look to the right, look to the left, look in front, look back, and trust that those people have your back. One of the through lines that I was trying to bring to life during my talk for your folks was that whole idea of how we have each other’s backs. What does it look like to have each other’s backs?

Working on being comfortable in giving feedback and receiving feedback is something that so many people are doing. It’s not because we inherently have a problem with hearing the feedback or giving it, even. It’s that some ridiculous percentage of folks, I would say well into the 90%, learned early on in childhood. The groove in the record, the programming, and the habit have been to see that feedback as threatening, as an actual threat. As you say, to the survival mind, that is a threat to survival. When someone says, “Would it be all right if I give you some feedback?” It’s like, “I’d rather drink a glass of something that’s going to make me sick.”

It is sour milk.

To break that, to reconstruct that, develop greater trust so that people know that they can take risks. To go back to that question of, if I were asked, what’s the one form of failure that I have the hardest time with in my own organization, in ones I see, I would say unforced errors. The reason behind unforced errors, which I’ve given some thought to and looked into a bit, is when people are not being fully committed in the present. They make unforced errors. The reason that they’re not fully committed in the present often has to do with the fact that they’re exhausted, they’re depleted, or they’re running in deficit. From a resilience standpoint, their resilience bank account is in deficit, not in surplus.

Building Team Resilience

They’re multitasking, thinking somehow or another they’re going to be great, like you said, doing six things simultaneously. They’re going to be fully present and at their best in all six of those things, and then they make a mistake. It doesn’t matter to me the size of the mistake, but if it’s an unforced error that’s caused by that, that’s an area that we need to work on. I’m curious when it comes to your folks, where would you say they are the strongest in their resiliency? Where are they weakest in their resiliency? How does that reflect their leader, you?

Our group is diverse in the best ways. I would say that we have a lot of great people who are excellent executors. We have a lot of great ideas in individuals. I don’t think that you can necessarily be the best at both. I haven’t exactly seen it. Maybe there are individuals out there, but if you’re asking me about my group specifically, what we do a good job of is we have great collaboration. It’s making sure that you can get the right people teamed up together to say, “Let’s get this idea. Let’s not spend two years trying to get this fully baked and make it perfect because it’ll probably change within three months,” and then a team saying, “It’s time to get this in that MVP mode,” like I was talking to you about, “and get that execution done. Let’s fine-tune when it’s in place.”

I would say that it’s a healthy mix of those two things. If I’ve learned anything, one of the things that came up in that Kellogg class that came from a professor who ran a $10 billion organization, he had said that it’s 10% strategy and 90% execution. I’m sure that could be argued in many different ways. When I’ve seen what we’ve pulled off, it’s hard for me to argue that. You could have the best strategy in the world. You could spend an ample amount of time trying to build out this strategy and thinking about it. If you don’t execute on it, it’s for no good. It’s a strategy that’s sitting there. It’s getting everybody aligned in their positions. That was one thing that maybe we struggled with years or months ago..

You were trying to make things perfect.

Yes, 100%. How can we perfect this as much as possible to then get it out there? We’re in a day and age where things are changing every second. You’ve got to be willing to adapt, evolve, and be change agents, which is what we consider ourselves.

Mike’s Personal Resilience Journey

In your journey from starting in sales at an entry level, right out of college, to where you are right now, you’ve had to be resilient. Where have you been the strongest from a resilience standpoint, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually? Where have you been the most resilient, would you say?

I would say definitely in difficult times. There has been a ton of change in the business. There have been economic changes in our world. I came out of college, like I had mentioned, in May of 2010. We were coming out of the 2008-2009 recession and all those things. I didn’t feel it until I got about six months on the job and understood the organization I’m coming out of, then COVID hit ten years later. There’s been a lot of those things. For me, it’s a never-give-up mentality. You’re going to have tough days. I try to do my best not to take anything personally. I allow things to roll off my back and say, “At the end of the day, it’s business.” I go out there and do my best every single day, but don’t take it so personally. It doesn’t have to completely drag you down.

Did you have that habit of taking things personally earlier on in life?

Yes, for sure. I definitely think that, taking things too critically, and not that it’s hard, because then people are like, “You don’t think it’s important.” It’s a balance of what sales taught me. Especially when I started, we were a transactional hardware-based organization. I would knock on 60 doors a day. I would hear 55 to 58 nos or get the door slammed in my face. You want to talk about building resiliency and understanding that if you take that no and compound it with another no, you have to be wired a little bit differently upstairs in a lot of ways to be able to take those shots every single time.

You have to allow for those 3 to 5 yeses that you would get on a day to take over all of those nos. That was my mindset. It was a game. It was a competition against my peers of “How many appointments did you set? How many yeses did you get? How many contracts did you sign?” You make it competitive. That’s what we’ve carried out within the organization. How do we push each other to be better? The way I look at it, 3 or 5 yeses is better than zero yeses. That’s 3 or 5 more than I had the day after.

You allow those things to compound. You build a pipeline over time. When that person slams your door in the face a month later, you laugh. It becomes almost a competition then with the prospective client of “I’m going to be back. I’m going to be back with a smile on my face because I know that I can help you. I wouldn’t be here and wasting my time or your time if I didn’t think that our technology can put your business in a better position to be successful.” You have to think about it from their seat. I always try to put myself in the other individual’s seat.

They’re getting that 10 or 15 times a day from all different types of salespeople. It has to be exhausting. On top of it, they’re trying to run a business. It is taking all those things into account and understanding that it’s a timing thing. Most salespeople, the stats out there are staggering. After a no, it’s over 80% that they’re not going to be back to hear a second no because they can’t handle it. I have to work against those numbers. We have a path for success here.

We have all the activity numbers and metrics built out. You have to continue to work those things and put in quality work. The success will balance itself out, which has been the most exciting. Going back to your question, “What’s created your resiliency?” I’ve tried to take a positive attitude every single day that I come in. One thing that I’ve lived out is that I’m trying to be the best version of myself every day that I show up. I want to take one thing and get better.

Is there an area that you would say you’ve been the weakest in? You may have even spoken to some of it, but is there an area you’d say, “In my own resiliency, this would be the area that I have worked on the most?”

Absolutely. You definitely lose more than you win. If I think anything of all of the losses, and it’s been tens of thousands right over the last several years, and maybe thousands, hundreds, whatever the number, it’s a big number, I wish I had done a better job. One thing that we’re trying to work on as an organization is doing debriefs and understanding, “Where did we miss steps, so we don’t make the same mistake moving forward?” As I was talking about, allow the brain to move on.

Yes, you absolutely want to do that, but what did I learn? I’m making sure that I’m not doing the same thing. If you could cascade that down throughout your organization and have salespeople do a debrief, “Where did we miss? How are we going to be better in the future?” That 15 or 20 minutes are worth all of the effort that you put into the prospecting on the front end.

If you cascade throughout your organization to have salespeople truly debrief — where did we miss and how will we be better next time — those 15 or 20 minutes are worth all the effort you put into prospecting. Share on X

That aligns quite well with a number of the things that we’ve found through research, that grit is important. You mentioned it earlier, and yet, it needs an asterisk on it because it’s grit plus. Grit by itself isn’t going to win the day any more than Rocky Balboa standing in front of Apollo Creed in the movie Rocky, getting punched over and over again, hitting the floor again and again, and getting back up. You go, “What a gritty guy. What a resilient guy.” If you haven’t learned anything and if you’re not able to get back up, move forward, do something differently, and do it better, hopefully as well or more effectively, then you’re just a punching dummy. The goal isn’t to imply that the way to success is being a punching dummy.

I have one comment for you. I’ve never told you this, but you may have seen him in the crowd because I was fortunate that my son was there as we transitioned everything. My son’s name is Rocky. There are many reasons behind that. A lot of that is what you said. It is building out resilience. That’s what I try to embody with my family, too, but I love that you called that.

Cultivating Organizational Resilience

That’s beautiful. I’ll ask the same question. It’s the last question as we wrap up here. In your organization, where would you say the organization itself is working on its resiliency? Do you see anything there that you’re being intentional about?

Yes, absolutely. I talked about our sales reorg. We’re doing a service reorg. We have two organizations. I mentioned Impact Networking and DOT Security. DOT Security is our cybersecurity standalone organization. That’s a much more simplified business as far as putting in systems and change process because they only do cyber at Impact. It’s the managed IT business. It’s the AI business. It’s the managed marketing business. It’s also the managed print services business.

There’s a lot of complexity to Impact, a little bit more than DOT. DOT was the first one that we had stood up. That was January of 2025. We put in a new professional services, PSA, tool in Halo, which is a service delivery tool to allow for better reporting and customer service delivery. We also put in the new ERP system to go hand in hand. We’re on that journey to do that with Impact for both of those systems.

When you talk about building resiliency, that’s what we’re working on. We’re making a ton of changes to sales reorg, service delivery reorg, and major core systems. Change, not upgrades, but changes in the systems that we’re using and we’ve been using for 25 years. The resiliency comes right there to make sure that we have the right people in the right seat to execute on what we need to do to deliver a world-class experience, which is the mission that we’re on.

 

You are embracing change and leveraging change as a catalyst for growth.

That’s the biggest thing. We talk about all the products and services that we sell to our customers. We use them in one way, shape, or form at Impact. It’s a good way to get out in front of it and say that we’re our own best case study to a certain extent. Where else are you doing this? Obviously, plenty of other customers, but we’re utilizing it internally. These are the ways that we’re doing it. It’s building in. We say embrace that climb because we’re on a journey. We’re on a mission to grow this company leaps and bounds from where it is right now.

I have zero doubt that that is in the near future for you all for a variety of reasons, including the fact that you’re at the helm, my friend. I’ve so enjoyed the conversation. If you’ve got questions that you want to put to Mike or to me, you can go to AdamMarkel.com/Podcast and leave a question there. For now, I want to thank you, brother, for being a part of the show. To our community, thank you for being there as well. If you know somebody, another leader, a friend, a colleague, a family member, even, who would benefit from hearing some of the insights that Mike shared with us, please share this episode with those folks as well.

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As promised, that conversation with Mike was filled with insights and tangible looks into the inner workings of an organization that has been rising. It’s more than twenty years in existence, and it is coming into fruition, even more so now. Mike is new in this role as CEO, but he’s not new to the company, having started as a sales representative back in 2010. This guy has made his way up the ranks. I loved his discussion of what it was like for him to do that, what it took, where he succeeded, where he’s been resilient, where he’s failed, how he feels about failure, and where he can and is still working on developing greater resiliency, both for himself as well as inside the organization.

It was a very transparent conversation, which I know is something that he values as well. We talked about so many things that are so foundational to great leadership, great team building, and great success overall. If this is an episode that you enjoyed as well, please leave a review. Five stars are terrific. That always helps. The algorithm helps us to have more people consume this content, so we appreciate it if you take a moment or two to do that. I can’t thank you enough for doing that.

Also, share the episode with a friend, a colleague, a family member, or anybody who might benefit from the insights that were shared as well. Let us know your feedback because we want to know from you how this is serving your interests in business and as a leader yourself. For now, I want to say once again, thank you so much for being a part of this ever-expanding community, expanding in size and numbers and all that, but also expanding in consciousness, which is even more important. For now, I would say ciao. Thank you again.

 

Important Links

• Impact Networking
• Mike Lepper on LinkedIn
• Pivot
• WORKWELL
• DOT Security
• Adam Markel Podcast

 

About Mike Lepper

Mike Lepper is the CEO of Impact Networking. He started his journey at Impact in 2010 as an entry-level sales representative, rising through the ranks to reach the top. Over the years, he has consistently displayed a strong work ethic, a deep understanding of sales strategies, and a relentless drive for success. With this dedication, Mike was made a partner at Impact in August 2016. Mike’s passion for nurturing and motivating teams highlights his belief in the power of collaboration and mentorship to drive success. He was promoted to CEO in January 2025 and is excited to lead Impact into its next chapter, focused on advancing the company’s vision and fostering a culture of excellence.