Transcript

 
Michael (00:59.563)

Welcome everybody to the Family Biz Show. I'm your host Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And today we have Marc Lacona from Simcona Electronics and Rochester Jazz Fest with us today. Welcome, Marc. Thank 

 

Marc (01:14.292)

Thank you , glad to be here 

 

Michael (01:15.327)

This is, we're doing episode 100 of this show right now. And I can't tell you, I couldn't have a better guess for this. 

 

Michael (01:26.222)

how iconic the Rochester Jazz Fest is, and you're a multi-generation family business. So, wicked cool, I'm very excited about the show today. One of the traditions that we have on the show is just talking about how did you end up in the family business? What was the journey? Because it's different for everybody. 

 

Marc (01:47.882)

Yeah, my journey was pretty, I want to call it seamless. The opportunity was there, but I was never 

 

Marc (01:56.35)

Told you need to come into the family business my father and his partner got together My dad was actually Lu Iacono was calling on a gentleman Simon Breitman That's how you come up with the name Simcona Simon and Kona and he was calling on him at Bausch and Lam my father was electrical guy electric electronics guy Simon was a an engineer at Bausch and Lam both have Really awesome stories personally of how they got to where they are. That's a totally different chapter, but 

 

Marc (02:25.166)

They don't make them like these guys anymore. One was a concentration camp survivor. My father was a depression survivor and homeless as a young age. So that that those two getting together, starting that business in 62 grew and being around that business the whole time and seeing it evolve as a young kid. I never really thought about going in the business. I wanted to do other things. I kind of wanted to go into entertainment acting. 

 

Marc (02:52.46)

However, know, his fate would have it in the book is written, you know, for you a little bit. You control some of the chapters. was got involved at Xerox Corporation, went to RIT and then ended up working at Xerox for a little bit and coming back and forth. And then actually, late, late eighties, early nineties, got back to Simcona and working there and working there is in all the different departments, never really thinking that I was going to stay there. 

 

Marc (03:21.678)

But then a family starts and then the rest of the chapter is written, next chapter is written. Nice, nice, nice. So talk about, if you would, what is Simcona, what do they do? And when they started the business, what was it like when they started the business versus today? Historically, from 62 to about, let's just call it 2006, 2007, Simcona was straight ahead what we call electronics distributor. 

 

Marc (03:49.344)

So for manufacturing, so anybody that was making a product and we would sell electromechanical products, wiring, cable connectors, relays, fans, terminal blocks, power supplies, connectors, relays, different things like that for many, many years. And what we call it, we revolved around the circuit board. So all the, the, the product that really wasn't integrated circuits, we were having, selling the products that supported that on a circuit board and the media that came out of it, whether it was power or data. 

 

Marc (04:17.293)

And historically I've been a straight ahead distributor to manufacturing and contractors. the, um, around 2011, 12 ish, I had an idea, uh, when I bought the company, I actually bought the company, uh, twice. So, so, um, the second time I bought the company, I'll get back, go back to that. I had a desire to get into manufacturing that revolved around what we were products that we were supplying. So control panel systems, power management systems. 

 

Marc (04:44.428)

And we've been growing in that ever since. So maintaining the distribution, sales, development, and customer base, as well as growing a contract manufacturing control panel building service that now we're growing that business. going back to working at Simcona, never really thinking that I was going to stay there. I always kind of wanted to go do some different things. But as opportunity led to it with my dad's partner's daughter, 

 

Marc (05:13.282)

Blanche as well as my brother-in-law Angelo in August of 99 We purchased the company from them and it was a really smooth transition really nice transition We had been running the company for about ten years for them. So the suppliers the customers there was confidence that was there It wasn't a cold turkey, you know new ownership coming in so that that when I say that streamlined, you know Kind of transition was was really good and received well. We ran the business for about ten years together 

 

Marc (05:41.61)

And then in 2011, I purchased 100 % of the shares. bought out Blanche and Angelo. And again, it was another nice transition for that. then once that happened, some of the things I wanted to do, I was able to kind of pursue without having to, because you always have to have everybody on the same page, right? Convince them, like, look, I want to try this. It's a risk. could put the company in jeopardy. The decision was mine. 

 

Marc (06:10.712)

pressure was on myself. Fortunately, I have a great team that's around me. 

 

Michael (06:15.604)

walk me through the players' rope again. So you got your father and his partner, Yeah. Okay. And then you come in, who else are family members? Who are the connections there? 

 

Marc (06:27.779)

Yeah, so the family members on, my dad's partner, Simon's, Brightman's daughter, Blanche, she was in the business and she was involved in purchasing. My brother-in-law, Angelo, sister was 

Marc (06:40.098)

had a finance, he became eventually the CFO. And then when we bought the company the first time from Tsai and Lou, I was the president, he was a CEO, we split out responsibilities. I took all sales and marketing development and he took all finance and operations. And I used to say, it's my job to grow the business and it's Angela's job to make sure I don't put us out of business. perfect. 

 

Michael
Okay. No, that helps to paint the picture. So the three of you were working together. When was that? When did that start?

 

Marc (07:09.102)

Well, we had been working together, you know, since the early 90s. We were all there in different capacities. Mine was, I came back from Xerox and I really wanted to keep pursuing what I learned at Xerox to implement some proactive sales development from what I learned at Xerox and some of the marketing. And then, like I said before, Angelo had all operations, Blanche was involved in purchasing. So that was all the way through until 2011 when I bought the two of them out

 

Michael (07:38.284)

Talk about the transition from, you know, your father and his partner through the three of you. did, how did that transition happen? What were the conversations like as you were putting those pieces together? Michael (07:54.057)

 

Marc
Yeah, I think, you know, they see opposites attract. And so Simon and my dad were a kindred spirit, both coming from nothing and suffering a lot. So that motivation 

 

Marc (08:07.33)

didn't even need to be there for these guys to think that they could achieve anything. But they were opposites. Simon, I have more of the entrepreneurial DNA in him from a development standpoint. I have my father's DNA and entrepreneurship from respecting people and treating people the way you want to be treated. So that combination of the two of them. they really came from humble beginnings. 

Marc (08:36.056)

didn't have a lot to build off of when they started. So what they really did is everything. And it's a cool story because when they started, they would obviously do everything. There was Simon, his uncle, my dad and my mom. And my brother and sister are eight and 10 years older than me. So they were a little bit older. I was conceived in 62 when they started the business and board in 63. So that was a little bit of a surprise for them. However, 

 

Marc (09:05.038)

What they would do is they would pursue new lines and they would go to manufacturers and say, we'd like to represent and stock your line. And they would say, well, how many people do you have in sales? They weren't lying. They said four. How many do you have in purchasing? Four. How many have it in site sales? Four. Right. How much do you have? Four. So, oh, you have 16 to 20, you know, 22 people, right. Or 24 people. And, um, 

 

Marc (09:31.042)

They weren't lying because they did everything. They did everything. And they would go buy from their competition locally here. And they would stock the product when other distributors locally wouldn't do that. So eventually they built up the sales and then they pursued the lines and now one thing led to another. And then they grew, they were down on Joseph Avenue. And then my father found the facility or the property out on Mount Rea Boulevard, the industrial park there. 

 

Marc (09:53.774)

And was right off an expressway in the old adage, location, location, location. Back in the day, it was appropriate. Now today's day with, with, technology. Right. I think locations only if you're a resort or your amusement park, that type of thing, or a bar with a entertainment. So, um, they were very, very, um, direct on what they wanted to do. There were other distributors that were starting back in the day that are now multi-billion dollar distributors that grew by acquisitions. 

 

Marc (10:20.172)

because they were in semiconductors and circuit boards and different things like that. They decided to stay at the electromechanical level and they could have grown just like them, but they were happy with what they had and what they felt could be stable. So a multi-million dollar business stayed at multi-million dollars, but didn't quadruple the way some of the other distributors, the Arrows, the Avinets of the world, that event were originally some other names, right? 

 

Mark (10:47.884)

So it was profitable, but what was key to them is that as they were successful, they made sure that they were taking care of the employees to the best that they could. And that's something that's obviously instilled in myself. 

 

Michael

So when you got involved in the business the first time, you had spent some time at Xerox before coming into the business or? 

 

I worked at the business in the summers, did everything from cleaning toilets to working with components, putting things away, learning a little bit. And then I really wanted to. 

 

Mark (11:14.562)

get into sales, talking directly to people. And there really wasn't an opportunity. And I didn't have a plan B. So I walked in one day and said, look, I've got an opportunity at another company. And I figured that my father would say, well, I don't want my son to leave. And my father said, I just signed your paycheck. You don't report to me. And I went to the general manager and he said, well, you do what you got to do because we really don't have a position. And whether it was pride or no plan, you know, to come back and say whatever, I left and took the job. And it was the best thing that ever happened. 

 

Mark (11:43.822)

I worked with some great people back in the, you know, the early nineties and hey days and, and, learned a lot and brought some of that back. that training brought some of that back to some code and implemented some things. So I am glad the way it happened. I sat with my dad at first, but then I, it's the best thing he could ever do is let me leave. 

 

Michael

So you were on the sales side at Xerox. Yeah. 

 

Michael (12:08.044)

Yeah. So you went to Leesburg and you've got all the sales track. was, 

 

Mark

I actually here it was started. started in, in East Rochester selling supplies and then we got into low and mid volume, in some of the new, products. Cause we had, we had windows and we had PC network before anybody did. So I was out in Henrietta there and then moved downtown. then I moved over into finance and term lease and really, you know, learned how, how we didn't make a lot of money by, know, 

 

Mark (12:35.286)

leasing equipment and buying out other people's leases in terms of the competitor. So it was all around really good education for me to see how big companies work. And I did have a taste by working at Simcona, what small business was, right? But when I came back, it was as if I went and got my doctorate somewhere, the same people were treating me different because I left and now supposedly I'm a lot smarter, which was, you know, it's just funny, but I realized it and didn't... 

 

Mark (13:04.5)

I didn't break anybody's stones about it to say I'm the same person and now all of a sudden you're treating me different, not as the owner's son anymore or as the kid, somebody that's got experience. And a little bit of it, they were intimidated because of the knowledge that I had in the way I carried myself in a more confident way. And what I always remember is what my father said is never put yourself above anybody. So I could have really, you know, played the game. 

 

Mark (13:31.252)

And, and, and made their lives miserable because they made my life miserable. Right. Trying to discourage me in a very passive, aggressive way. And that's just not who I am. So, I think I am still here doing what I'm doing because of that mindset. Okay. now you're, you're in the business. There's five of you, you know, two owners, Blanche and Angelo. 

 

Michael (14:00.526)

How is it working through communication and trust and all of the things about making decisions within the business and then talk about that a little bit. But then again, I'm really curious about the succession plan. What were those conversations like when Simon was bought out and your dad was bought out? How did those things go? 

 

Mark

Those are great questions because I don't believe there's any family business that's immune. 

 

Mark (14:28.814)

to any of the challenges that are there. And egos have a lot to do with it. And I think egos are important. I think if you don't have an ego, it's a healthy element if you can manage it, right? So, know, communities are built on egos, companies are built on egos, relationships are built on egos if you learn how to manage them and when to give and take. And that was a little bit of a challenge because I'm more direct. 

 

Mark (14:56.79)

not difficult to figure out where I'm coming from, how I'm feeling. However, some of that with the second generation, it was tough for me because I hit things head on, but I grew a lot because you learn as you become a leader, there are some things that you just keep suppressed. I'm not talking about issues that are bothering you, just suppressed to be patient and let things develop. 

 

Mark (15:25.966)

Sure. But I was like a horse in the stable before the race. Right. And I was like, let me out. Let's go. And I had some learning there. But at the same time, if you're going to grow a business, you can't should all over yourself. I learned a long time ago, should we do this, should we this? And there were times where we went with my decision. 

 

Mark (15:54.392)

but collectively it should have been a supported one. So it was more of, okay, well, we're going to do this. Just remember it was your decision. that's, that wasn't to me, that wasn't healthy. And I, I, I would just get frustrated, right? However, I was respectful. And, like I said, not planning on me, the last person standing in terms of being at in the business. Once I was there, then even though you're nervous, you're the only one making the decision. 

 

Mark (16:24.992)

It was liberating to say, I may be wrong, but I'm making this decision and I'm not going to shit all over myself. You have to be prepared. What are those things? Murphy's law and the different things financially that could happen. But, know, there's, there's risk in everything always, you know? So, you know, a little bit of that in terms of that working together. I will say that the two owners had, even though they were opposites, had the utmost trust and respect for each other. 

 

Mark (16:54.146)

My dad, a more low key guy, Simon's kind of guy that, you and I don't blame him. Look, he was, watched people murdered in front of him. he hit on their dead bodies when, when, when forces were coming through. So no matter what happened in life for him, we're going to, he's going to win, right? It's a win already by, by, so that was something I always admired about him. but the two of them worked really well. There were times that I'm sure that my father was frustrated from a financial standpoint of certain things, but they work things out all the time. 

 

Mark (17:25.0)

when it came time to the transition, it was, you know, I think Simon would have worked till he was a hundred. you know, if, if, if he was able to, and it was my father finally saying, look at, you know, the boys want to do something. And I would say to my dad, look at it. No problem. We don't have a non-compete. Right. So if we want to go and do what we want to do, do whatever we want to do, sell the company, sell the company or, or I need to go do something where. 

 

Mark (17:54.466)

where we feel it's something we're taking the reins and doing something with. And I think finally my dad's saying to Simon, they're gonna leave. They're going in a very nice professional way. They're gonna leave. And that kind of started the little pebble off the mountain, turned into the big snowball, let's go. And it was nice the way they did it. These guys, and I told my father, said, you know could sell this company for double right now. And that's the selfless. 

 

Mark (18:24.364)

this in both of them. They, they are already made it and they, you know, the valuation that was done in my opinion was one of the most major discounts that you could get. Cause I knew they could have sold it for double at the time, especially at the time, you know, in financial terms, you know, a little bit of a down stroke for them, but the rest they held the note and they subordinated themselves to the bank because they want us to have the, get, get it going with the bank. 

 

Mark (18:51.564)

watching some of those conversations when you see two guys that come from nothing and in conversations talk to a bank to basically say, don't need you. We're doing this for them to do that. So if you're going to keep putting these kinds of things in place, we'll finance the whole thing for them type of thing. Right. We don't need to get the down stroke and sitting back and seeing those conversations, although I have great relationships with the banking systems here and everything. You have to, that was 

 

Mark (19:21.57)

really cool to watch somebody that had been in it for so long still say, that's, took something that you're not going to take something I built here, put all this pressure on these guys out of the gate. So that transition was really, really nice, easy for my father. He basically said, here's the keys, write me the check. And if you need my advice, great. I'm here. Otherwise have at it. 

 

Mark (19:47.722)

Simon got arrested. So my father's 90, 80 still, still, still, still with us. Simon is passed on and again, a great human being. he had a little bit difficult time letting go and that you talk about egos, right? So I'm walking around with a president card and he's still handing out his president card. Right. And you know, I had a conversation with a mentor and mentor said, look at, know, what's going on. Your customers know what's going on. These guys have been great to you. Let it go. 

 

Mark (20:17.89)

Not worth it. So, but it, and then when I looked at it that way, said, wow, that's like having a kid. This, company was his kid and it's, it's hard to say goodbye and hard, hard, hard to let it go. And that, kind of woke me up a little bit to say, look at, you know what? Let it, let it be.

 

Michael

It's interesting because you're just talking about, didn't exist when you guys were doing this first transition, but today everybody talks about business exit planning. Yeah. 

 

Michael (20:44.334)

Michael (20:44.614)

And, and so you're, you're hit a few things. just want to make, make people aware of, you know, during a transition, it's okay. You know, one, am I okay financially? So they looked at it said they could reduce the sale of the, the price, whether they reduced it or just gave a sweetheart deal to you guys. And you can do that for family, but they were taken care of. They knew that they were financially. Okay. Yes. Your dad was mentally prepared. Right. Simon was not. Right. And so, you know, one of the things. 

 

Michael (21:13.612)

you know, I like to do with an owner is to help them think through and say, what are you going to retire to? Because this has been your baby. And so what is, you know, what is your third act? Your first act was getting your kids out of the house and making them responsible, good adults, right? Second act is doing it with your business, you know, that's so don't you say legacy ones, your kids like to choose the business. So what's your third legacy going to be? And, and there's a whole process. 

 

Michael (21:43.374)

thinking through those things. 

 

Mark

Uh, that's spot on. I'm in a, uh, I'm in a CEO group here, a chapter here locally. And we had a, we're very, very tight, very, tight. Exactly what you just talked about that person now, partner have to, um, make a decision on what's, what's chapter in life. Yeah. We're going to do now, is it, is it travel? Is it a joy family? Is it, is it learn something new? 

 

Mark (22:13.304)

You know, it's definitely not start a new business because where they're at and their age and they're going to be continued to mentor because it's a second gen coming into the business. But all those conversations, what you just said are spot on because I think if you just do a cold turkey thing, that's where people, know, this brain, this brain is a muscle. And if you don't feel relevant, 

 

Mark (22:39.886)

I think that's the biggest challenge that entrepreneurs have as they segue out of the existing business that they either started or took over in terms of sense of relevance. 

 

Michael

I'll throw this one out to you. One of my solutions for that is if they have grandchildren that are under the age of 18, we start something called the Grandparent Grandchild Philanthropy Project. And we have found that philanthropy is 

 

Michael (23:09.416)

a sandbox for entrepreneurship and leadership. so by, the one of my mentors told me, you know, taught me that the grandparents and the children are the common enemies of the parents. Grandparents want more time with the kids, right? And the children don't want to listen to them. So by pairing those two together, you know, the friend of my friend, the friend of my enemy is my friend. 

 

Mark

I'm looking forward to that because I have a granddaughter that was born in June and I said, 

 

Mark (23:37.922)

Here's my opportunity very covertly. 

Michael

Yeah. And so one of my clients ran with this. And so with her grandkids, she was just showing me some things that they did where, you know, she makes them right, you know, at eight years old and six years old, they, when they started this and they're still doing it now, they made them right. She did it, made them write it in crayon. Why do they want to give to this charity? What is important about that? What do you know about them? And so got them doing critical thinking. 

 

Michael (24:07.534)

And, you know, they've been doing that for three years already now, and they're going to continue doing that. But what happens is as the children get older, now you put them into groups and you make them do some teamwork and then you make them do family presentations, you know, so that now they have to present to the whole family. What are you teaching them? You're teaching them, you know, oral skills and, you know, and how to present. You're talking to them about critical thinking. 

 

Mark

Especially today's day and age with this thing. 

 

Michael (24:36.854)

Yes. When you've got the electronics and everybody's doing that. I have kids that can't pick up the phone when they come to me. They're like, they get nervous to pick up the phone because the only thing they've ever done is texted or emailed somebody or Facebook or so really cool stuff. When the three of you are now running the business and doing your thing and everything's going great for you. Okay. Talk about when, you know, 

 

Michael (25:05.358)

What was the decision for you to buy everything? You know, the partners out, how long were you in business? How many employees to talk about that a little bit? 

 

Mark

all interesting questions. My brother in LA Angelo, who's, uh, I'm a year older than Blanche and he's eight years older than myself. And this was back in, let's just call it 2005. Okay. Uh, we went into the conference room and he goes, I want to talk to you guys. He says, I'm done in five years. Okay. 

 

Mark (25:35.33)

He says, I'm just letting you know, so just want to plan for it. He made a conscious decision. He just was, I'm done. So I got with him and I said, okay, what is, you we finished and then I'm like, obviously we're brother-in-law's, it's, know, and I said, okay, what's going on? I wanted to know first something with his health. It really wasn't, he was like, look, I think again, you know, when you're an individual that comes into a family business through marriage, 

 

Mark (26:03.136)

I think unless you were in the industry from the beginning, which he kind of was, but he comes from the finance background or if it was part of the, I think there's a different passion. And I think he was like, I've been doing this. did this kind of for the family type of thing. this is just my opinion. And he was done. He wanted to do some stuff. He, I think he's doing, he really did what he wanted to do with my sister is travel the world, which, which they've been doing. 

 

Mark (26:31.278)

And he got involved helping his kids and some businesses that they're in. So I got with him. said, so we went in and goes, what do you want to do? said, well, do we want to look for buyer? You know, just test the waters type of thing. And we didn't go through a firm or anybody, you know, equity based or banking system or consultants kind of tested the waters. And we had, we had one really big fish and 

 

Mark (26:59.37)

We started doing that right when we finished the note. Basically the note was done with silent and, one thing led to another and it just didn't, it didn't work out. Okay. So, it's interesting because at that point in time I was like, then do I want to get out type of thing? do we want to definitely now professionally go pursue someone? And I just took a step back because I've been involved in the festival at this. 

 

Mark (27:27.918)

point in time and everybody thought when I got involved in the festival, Mark's not going to be for long at Simconum, which from a financial standpoint, they made no sense at all because I had already signed back in 2000, you know, or in 1999, my life away in terms of the note that we were obligated to. So if I would have walked, I would have actually, you know, at the time when the festival started in 2002, I would have owed money. A lot of money, right? So I kind of pursued both. 

 

Mark (27:56.504)

But as we got into it, people thought I was probably gonna be gone. You know, there was a time, and I have to it to my wife, know, because I contemplated, said, is this what I really wanna be doing, or do I really wanna be doing this other thing? At a time would have been a step, kind of a step back, but really starting a brand new business. My wife said to me, what's your last name? I said, what you talking about? 

 

Mark (28:23.608)

You know the intelligence from somebody so close to you that you take for granted right that you live right and I said well, know my life she goes Yeah, what's your last name? It's in the name of that company. Do you really want to leave? the company and I just looked at her because she said, know, what would your dad think? My father never told me what he thought because he never wanted to be held accountable for influencing me to stay or to leave however 

 

Mark (28:52.716)

deep down inside. know to this day he's very, very happy that I stayed because he doesn't, he's not a kind of guy that likes conflict and his partner was still alive, that type of thing. So he wanted to always be naturally the way it happened. So I said, okay, I guess I'm, I'm to buy you or we're going to buy you. And he blanched myself. The, whether it's my own opinion or delusional opinion, I believe that 

 

Mark (29:20.718)

Um, my former partner, Angela had a conversation with Blanche who I respect a lot saying Mark runs at a different speed. Are you sure you want to stay and deal with that? Because there were times we were like, like this a little bit, right? Doesn't mean I don't respect the person as a human being. It's just, I'm, it was running at a different speed. Um, and I think she probably contemplated like, yeah, I I don't know if I want to, you know, 

 

Mark (29:48.94)

Maybe there is a little crazy or whatever, like that kind of thing. So that's what led to the valuation. It was a very, fair. I didn't even really negotiate. I said, because Sian Liu gave this business away to us, my opinion, we did the valuation based on it. A multiple that I think was, fair. and, consummated that, in March, but was retroactive January of 2011. again, another nice, you know, 

 

Mark (30:17.95)

down strokes, holding a paper, they're paid off. But they're still debt with the company now because I'm growing, growing the business, right? But it could have been very frustrating, uncomfortable, egos could have gotten in the way, different things. And it just didn't happen because I think the way we were raised, I really think it's the way we were raised in the same way No Angel wasn't in the family, the way he was raised, I think was more of, you you value. 

 

Mark (30:47.34)

people that you've been working with, whether there's differences or not, and as a transition is happening, you're only hurting yourself if you don't help with the transition, right? And one of things he always said is, I want to make sure that don't worry about if we have to be subordinate to rather be subordinate and finally get my money versus pressure on you to have to keep up with payments based on what happens in the economy, and then we all lose. So 

 

Mark (31:14.914)

That to me was insightful that, and it was sincere. It wasn't just words when he would say, look at, we're subordinating ourselves because we want to make sure that you're able to grow this company. 

 

Michael

Yeah. It's interesting that as you're talking about that, one of the things that popped up, one of my mentors, we read a lot of buy sell agreements and help people to think through, do they have everything covered? Nowadays, you know, 

 

Michael (31:39.47)

They weren't there when I started, but nowadays we put, you know, have the attorney put in things like seller protection clauses. And so that way it's like, you know, Mark can't go trying to triple the size of the business, bring on $40 million a debt until, you know, unless we give them the okay, which is really nice. 

 

Mark

And we had that. Yeah. Okay. Even capital equipment, anything over $50,000 in purchase. had to bring it back. It didn't have to be unanimous though, which was good. So if I got 

 

Mark (32:07.86)

Angelo or Blanche is yes. That's, that's all versus, but yeah. And, and that is, that is smart because what if I wanted to start making, you know, rocket ships, you know, things like that. so no, really those things were in place and I didn't have a problem with it because I knew it was to protect myself too. 

 

Michael

So let's talk about the Rochester gas festival a little bit in terms of, know, 

 

Michael (32:34.85)

What was the Genesis with Jazz Fest for you? I think you alluded earlier, like, I wanted to be in the entertainment business when you were younger. But more importantly, they're two totally separate businesses. They are both a boatload of work. How do you do that? And how do you juggle the different teams and making all those things come together? 

 

Mark

Well, first of all, I was around music, had some scholarships, helped some people produce some CDs. 

 

Mark (33:04.302)

Um, in the, in the 19, you know, 1990s, because education was really important to me and my father and mom and dad instilled in me, you know, never always give back. So I had some things going with Jeff Tyzak here, uh, with us, some of the jazz musicians when it came to the scholarship that I wanted to have. But John Nugent brought the concept to Rochester for a jazz festival. And, um, in the first year, um, 

 

Mark (33:33.238)

I was approached to be a sponsor, not by John, by some other organization. And through some of that, I was really impressed and I'll leave it at that. but I get along with everybody. So I said to myself, I'm going to call the guy and I picked up the phone and I said, it's the last time I think he ever called me Mr. Icona. It was weird. It's just cause we're like brothers from another mother. And I said, look at, I want to meet you. I want to talk about. 

 

Mark (34:02.606)

You know what you're doing on stage as well. got it. I got this commercial shoot. I gotta do this. I said, I don't care. Why don't you come to my house? He says, come to your house. And I said, yeah, it's right around the corner from where you're going. So, um, my wife has always been great with, know, when I had customers or suppliers come in from out of town, I would say, you know, don't go sit in your hotel room. Let's go out to dinner or come over, come over the house type of thing. And she would cook up, but I would always give her at least like a week's notice that somebody was coming. I gave her like less than 24 hours. I thought she was going to kill me, but we had a. 

 

Mark (34:32.494)

We had a couple of bowls of pasta, a couple of bottles of wine, and I asked him a ton of questions about what his concept was, what he saw, what it was, and different things like that. You know, and I contemplated on it, and I said, well, look, listen, I'm interested in this thing. If it has legs, I wanna own it with you. He goes, what you talking about? I said, well, I'd like to own 50 % of it. He said, I know there's no really value to it. 

 

Mark (35:01.198)

Probably in this first year is not going to do well, but, intrinsically let's, let's agree on a, on a number. And we did, most people would think I'm crazy. definitely didn't tell anybody. Okay. My wife was the only one that knew what I was doing. And I said, look, there's going to be some crazy hours. Cause I got some Kona, we'd doing stuff at night, all this stuff. and you know, trust is everything. I'm pretty good at reading. And after, you know, a couple of months, I said to John, you know, 

 

Mark (35:31.534)

stay at my house and displaced my son. was like, he wanted to sleep on the floor in our room anyway, all the time. And, um, really got to know each other's, you know, kind of learned about the upbringing and stuff. And, know, he's from Newfoundland, Canada and family is important. And he had not exactly the easiest upbringing in terms of that, but, really knew the industry had some great mentors himself. And, uh, we, 

 

Mark (35:58.294)

just to get year by year and that watershed year after, you know, year five is when we really knew we had arrived and how, what are we going to do to invest in order to keep this thing growing? you know, John, being the artistic director, we collaborate a lot on the headliners, but the club pass series that we have this, you know, we call it's not who you know, it's who you don't know. My part of the, was to build the, the operational side of it. You know, going drive the 

 

Mark (36:24.494)

the sponsor base. And I think the story was a strong one because here I am an entrepreneur here in Rochester, from Rochester, going to people and saying, I support this thing. This is where I'm involved. Really would appreciate if you wanted to get involved as a sponsor and it has to mean something to them. So the confidence that they started to see that it was, you know, eventually John moved to Rochester, raised a family. So to me, 

 

Mark (36:52.536)

An event like ours, you have to be part of the community if you really want to. You don't have to, but it's tough if you're not part of that community and they can't put a three-dimensional touching on the person versus somebody coming in and blowing into town and blowing out of town and running an event and not being part of a community. Now know I just said that all in one five-minute thing. There's a lot more that goes on there. We have a great team all the way from the sponsor base to the team that we work with and outsource to many companies here that 

 

Mark (37:22.04)

really look forward to this every year because it's part of their annual revenue stream. We're proud of that. What happens there from an economic standpoint, between $8 $10 million worth of positive economic impact that the Festival brings at Rochester Research has done the research for us through the surveys, not us doing them, to the team that we work with on the educational aspect and giving back, scholarship that we just study, scholarship that we have. 

 

Mark (37:50.562)

So, I mean, it's really been an event that has touched lives, changed lives, know, enhanced our community during those nine days from an artistic standpoint. And it's a, it's really a good feeling inside knowing that this has been an organic evolution of this 20 years of what's happened here. I mean, it's an amazing story when you think about the success of the Rochester Jazz Fest and what you've done with it. So congratulations. Yeah, no, thank you. 

 

Michael (38:20.366)

How do you manage those? You're an entrepreneur at heart. You've got two different companies going out at the same time. How is that, you a lot of, a lot of entrepreneurs, you've been in CEO groups, they're sitting there with one company and you're running two different organizations. How do you, how do you do that? What's the secret? 

 

Mark

You don't count the hours. Okay. You focus on what the result is that you want. You acknowledge and appreciate the people involved. 

 

Mark (38:50.798)

And you also have to have leadership in place. So it's Simcoe and I have a know, a senior team and I always say, you know, I'm not perfect You can find a better CEO than me. I can find better players but When there's desire and there's trust It makes things More fluid to happen, especially when things go wrong. So the team that is surrounding myself with players come and go but has afforded me to be able to 

 

Mark (39:19.796)

spend time and give the attention to the festival that it needs along with my partner, John. So, and at the same time, the people we outsource, the logistics coordinator that we have, the transportation coordinator that we have, all the PR team that we have, all the way from the beverages director that we have and merchandise, having those people looking forward to this and knowing that they're part of it makes it, I don't want to say easier, 

 

Mark (39:49.154)

but makes it fluid and obtainable so that you don't lose your mind. There's a lot of stress on both of them. But I don't look at stress as a bad thing unless you can't manage it. And there have been times over there where you just sit back and whether it's anxiety, you're like, what am I doing and why am I doing this? Is it for only my ego? It isn't about the money. If you focus on doing the right thing, the compensation will fall into place where you want it to. However, I... 

 

Mark (40:19.406)

I do it just because I want to make a positive difference in people's lives. And if that's the one thing that can be said about me is that I was involved and I was genuine, authentic, not perfect, far from perfect, but really genuinely doing these things to make a positive difference. And that's all I'll need here. You know what I mean? Yeah. 

 

Michael

So when you looked at both organizations, 

 

Michael (40:49.026)

You go back 20 years when you started that. How many employees at Simcona at the time? And it's just you and John for the most part, as you're starting the Jazz Fest versus where you are today. What does that look like? Yeah. 

 

Mark

So Simcona had always fluctuated between, let's just call it 35 and 60 employees. Right. And when I say fluctuated based on what we were in and part of the business, 

 

Mark (41:18.902)

In the past eight, let's call it five to eight years, we were trending to go over a hundred because of the manufacturing services that we get, the contract manufacturing. So obviously, you you've got your operational teams, sales teams, we also have direct labor. And what we're building is not just like taking a screw and screwing it into a, into a terminal block. These people that we have, men and women that we have building the control panels. 

 

Mark (41:48.314)

It's the next level of what you have to be able to read a print, look at it, you're populating an enclosure. So anytime you see any kind of gray panel with a handle on it, near a big piece of equipment or something, whether it's a conveyor system or it's a power distribution, that's loaded with components in there that just you don't throw in. So there's time and it's consuming. And so the individuals that we had started to hire and when we had contracts come and go, hard to find. 

 

Mark (42:18.382)

Right. There's they're out there, but you know, it's, it's, just don't like, go like this and you get 17 people. Right. So we're, we're around the 75 80 right now. And I see us growing as the business, as the business grows. Um, we're in the industrial park, but I, as we grew the manufacturing, couldn't really kick tenants out. That's not my style. Um, so I'm literally, uh, um, leasing a 30, about 30,000 square foot building. 

 

Mark (42:46.208)

out at mile crossing from, from, Andy cleanest company. and it's a very, you know, state of the art manufacturing facility in terms of when you walk in, you don't really have to go. What are you doing here? Like the confidence level is there because we have an engineering community that's there. We have direct labor and we have the operational team that is specific to the contract manufacturing services that we have. Nice. Yeah. 

 

Micahel

And at the jazz Fest, when you, know, 20 years ago, how many. 

 

Michael (43:15.576)

people versus how many people are involved today to make it happen. 

 

Mark

So, know, in the beginning, you know, started with a media company PR outsourced it. and you know, John and I were the ones looking the envelopes and sending the passes out and doing all the different stuff like that and writing the thank yous. so we have a one direct employee right now, but a lot of what we do comes together that 90 days out and it's like clockwork and the people expect. And, and I gotta tell you, 

 

Mark (43:44.174)

We're blessed because a lot of the companies we're dealing with now are the same companies because they want to do the business. People have come and gone from a health standpoint, which is really the last three years, has really took a toll on some many companies. But with us, you know, we've lost some key people due to the illness and it's a bummer almost actually to this point in the last couple of weeks. And one of our major outsourced production companies, Audio Images, Sebastian Marino. 

 

Mark (44:13.59)

The first day of the new year last this year passed away and that was a big unknown for us because the deal that we have with audio images is an organic homegrown even though they're huge now. Any other places the relationships wouldn't be there like this. Unfortunately for us, the individuals that were helping Sebastian out during COVID, two class act gentlemen, as well as the people that they have working for them locally here. And it was like, 

 

Mark (44:42.438)

seamless, there was no issues to be concerned. So that's really important. So really it is the three of us. My daughter's involved in the business a little bit with a sponsor, sponsor relations and some other things that she's learning. with that, that team that we outsource to those, those companies that we work with, it's like our family. 

Michael (45:10.83)

You just said your daughter's been involved in the business. What's that like for you having her involved? 

 

Mark (45:11.13)

It's good. It's nice. I have to refrain from what I really think her sweet spot is of what she could be doing. I know it agitates her, but she's a natural around children. And she has her master's in childhood education from Florida and went to Syracuse and got her a marketing degree as well when she was there. So she's talented and smart individual. And it's hard for me to 

 

Mark (45:40.142)

not say what I really, you know, but it's got to be your father digging it out. Yeah. And it's, um, I don't know, sometimes, sometimes because I see it and it's, it's hard because when you're not the individual, it's, know, sometimes it's unfair to do that. So I have to let her, so I enjoy working with her. She's doing stuff with me, like I said, with the sponsors and things she's at Simcona doing some marketing things for us. Um, looking to start a family. So, um, 

 

Mark (46:09.014)

And like I said, my other two children are in medicine, so they're there to take care of my wife and I make it older. 

 

Michael

Perfect. you mentioned being part of a CEO group. What are some of the best things that you learned through the years to be a better CEO and to manage the organizations better through the groups like that? 

 

Mark

Humility, also that it's a built in advisory board, board of directors that are there. and that if 

 

Mark (46:38.368)

It's only as good as you allow it to be. Humility, being humble, realizing that also being a sole proprietor, there are other people that are sole proprietors and their other family businesses there. And knowing, okay, I'm human being, I'm normal because you had the same problems I had when I was, but I, believe that it's only as good as you allow it to be. 

 

Mark (47:02.656)

having these individuals, whether they have seven employees or 7,000 employees, and it's a pretty diverse group, but financial challenges, strategic challenges, human being challenges, all the way from leadership to the youngest family member. To me, I think it's imperative that as an entrepreneur, you're involved in something like that. I do think it's very important that you have somebody financially 

 

Mark (47:31.822)

working with you as well, especially if you're a sole proprietor. Even if you're a financial person that thinks you know everything, that outside looking in effect is so essential and beneficial to an entrepreneur having some firm like yours that is, that's the core competency. So yours is family wealth, but at the same time you do touch on what's going on with the business because at some point time, 

 

Mark (47:59.746)

What's going on with the business is going to affect the future like we talked about. So I think having this team, we've become like a family. It's very confidential. Once you really figure out and it's opening up the Komoda, it's not just on the business. It's, on the personal sand stamp side. And I think once you realize there's other human beings going through what you're going through, you let the guard down a little bit. Confidentially is huge. in once you get that. 

 

Mark (48:28.162)

confidence level that the confidentiality is really there. You are a nit pack group is when the value of being in this or, you know, group is, is, is priceless. 

 

Michael

That's great. Yeah. I think it's, know, being a CEO is lonely at the end of the day. You know, if you're doing it all by yourself, you might talk to your buddies at the country club or whatever your organizations are. It's not the same as being a part of a group, having an advisory. 

 

Mark (48:57.27)

And I will tell you this, I'm fortunate to have my father around all these years right now, his health from standpoint has started to fail, his body, his brain is all there. But even there were times I felt more comfortable talking to him about problems when he was the owner. But as he's gotten older and he's asked about the business and what's going on, very reluctant to share with him the challenges because I didn't want him to worry. 

 

Mark (49:25.012)

So you would think, you can go to your father if he was in the, you can, but at the same time I'm built differently, not because I want to do it on my own, because I'll take help from anybody. But I also am aware of when I walk out that door, what stress did I just put on a person that just doesn't need that stress right now? Right. so having this group doesn't make me feel uncomfortable not to tell him anything other than. 

 

Mark (49:54.52)

You know, here's what I'm doing. This is what one that, know, but never really give them the whole thing because I don't need him worrying about his kid. 

 

Michael

Right. Right. My father, I think we talked about this. I talked about it on the show for sure, but you know, I bought my practice, half of the practice, my father's practice, the family owned businesses, cause that was my favorite part, which is why I ended up doing the business coaching side things as well as wealth management because they just. 

 

Michael (50:21.494)

You couldn't do one without the other in our opinion. How do you do in a succession plan without understanding core cultures and core purpose and values and building a strong development team, leadership team. We were together over the holidays, obviously, and it was nice to give him the highlights without giving him any of the stress. We had enough stresses of his own as you're aging and you're through things and life is changing. Exactly. 

 

Michael (50:51.182)

So talk about your leadership team for just the, you for a couple of minutes, what would you say, you know, what are the core elements that make your leadership team click and make it work for you surrounding yourself with the players that you have on your team today? Um, first of all, I had them with coach with a coach. 

 

Mark

Um, not my coach. you have a coach and you're part of a CEO group and then your, your lieutenants are okay. And I wanted them to all have the same coach. 

 

Mark (51:21.644)

Because having multiple coaches within an organization, unless those coaches are all talking to each other all the time, puts them at a deficit. Because if I'm confiding in you and giving you a lowdown, and yet there's another coach working with my, how does the triangle work in order to help things happen? It also gave this coach the opportunity over last 10 years to learn the DNA of my company. 

 

Mark (51:50.604)

whether people come and go in my leadership team or not. We also have her with middle managers too. And learning the DNA and understanding the business, she's able to call out the BS. Didn't happen overnight. And a couple of them were like, well, why do we only have this one culture? I said, because there's a method to my madness. If I want this person to understand what's going on with all of you, they have to understand our business too. 

 

Mark (52:18.562)

And they're going to learn, this person's going to learn from the interaction that they have with you in regards to your particular responsibilities. So it was interesting, but now they all get it. And it's actually to their advantage having someone that understands a business and understands the interaction between the different managers. So I have our warehouse manager, my VPS sales, my CFO, the purchasing manager, the insight sales manager. 

 

Mark (52:47.668)

all players that are working with her on a regular basis. Smart. Yeah. And that's really, I forgot the second part of the question, but. 

 

Michael

I think it was just your interaction with them and knowing, you know, like what is your cadence and how do you, what level of decisions do they get to make? 

 

Mark

well, part of my, when we do the, 

 

Mark (53:17.046)

strategic planning for each year. is as a CEO is focused on what are we doing for training and what are we doing for empowerment? And that needs to be focused on because you can just say it. If you don't do it, things can get out of hand, right? So empowerment's really big and allowing them to make some decisions to make sure that they don't put us out of business as well. And how do you manage that and monitor that? And then training is really important. Well, 

 

Mark (53:47.05)

So, you know, we have an HR manager that we, we've started with an HR manager over 10 years ago, because I want that person to know the DNA of my company and, working that angle, the coaches, and then with myself, the director reports to me, we do one-to-ones, we do our L 10 meetings that we meet. expect them to do their management L time, but there's a CEO one that we do every Monday. 

 

Mark (54:16.034)

because it's really important for me to understand what's going on, even though I do know, I wanna see how and what's going on as well from in their eyes. 

 

Michael

For those who don't know, an L10 meeting is a level 10 meeting and it's at the end of the meeting, what are people supposed to do? 

 

Mark

Well, there's smart goals and there's different things that we have, we really look at it, we kind of put it in a nutshell in terms of... 

 

Mark (54:40.942)

what progress has been made this past week, what challenges are we having, what opportunities are there, what concerns are there, and then the smart goals that we have. And accountability. So it's really about accountability publicly stated as well as strategically stated. Because if we're not, if there's no closing on something, it's not closing an order, it's closing the activity of what's pushing our company forward. 

 

Michael

Yeah, and if you're having meetings just to have meetings, then you're not, 

 

Michael (55:10.072)

building that culture of accountability. And if you don't have smart goals on them, you know, and those that don't know what a smart goal is, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound, right? There it is. And, it's so important, you know, it's just, it's blocking and tackling. Yeah.

 

Mark

And I think consistency is the toughest thing. You know, it's so easy to have the right desire and, outlook starting of a year. 

 

Mark (55:40.212)

and you get everybody and we're ready to go. by the time it's March, staying consistent is the most inconsistent thing sometimes. But if you hold to that, this what's great about these meetings. turns into like working out and like, can we just do a different arm exercise? Can we do it there? Sure, we can tweak it, but we're not gonna get away from the regiment of working out and working out the body parts, right? So consistency to me is I think where things fall off. 

 

Mark (56:09.326)

And that's the biggest challenge. Nobody's immune to it. It's because stuff either gets mundane or we had a tough week. had a three, nine, ones this week. I couldn't get there without. So we, didn't do anything. That's something worth talking about. so I think that knowing that there's a core consistency of it as a cadence, like you mentioned before, that has to just stay in place. If it doesn't, that's where the free-fall starts to happen. That's where stuff is left out. 

 

Michael

There's a saying that I've heard. 

 

Michael (56:38.538)

many times, and I'm totally guilty of this, is that it works so well that we stop doing it. 

 

Mark

Yeah. And, and, you think someone else is taking care of it or someone else is taking care of that responsibility. No, it's, it's our job. Right. 

 

Michael

And keeping those function accountabilities in check. Super important. Talk about as we're, you know, wrapping up here, but talk about 

 

Michael (57:03.074)

What books or you you mentioned the CEO group was instrumental to a lot of your success and you know, just having that sounding board and whatnot, but any books or any other things that you looked at to say they inspired you. 

 

Mark

Well, I know this has been a sound cliche, but I read the Bible every morning. Okay. And it's just my faith. I don't, I don't push my faith unless somebody wants to talk about that type of thing. But there's, there, there is a, there is a, a directness. 

 

Mark (57:33.678)

in the word that is not only humbling, but it's a direction in life that I chose to be sold out on. And that's basically what keeps me from an accountability, not only in business, but as a person. And it keeps that conscious there that convicts you in terms of that as a leader, especially. And there's books like, you you can go back to, can look at it. Good to Great is something that I look at. It's an older book. Some of those companies are out of business, but when they were running the business the way they were running it, 

 

Mark (58:03.904)

are really good. And then I start reading some different, I try to sample from all different economists and in looking at more things change, they stay the same or they repeat themselves. So all the way from guys like Ray Dalio to even your, I try to sample the Warren Buffett types of personalities and look at, and ITR is a company that 

 

Mark (58:32.248)

What I like about the bullios is that they have a book that that's out as well, predicting what's going to happen in the thirties in terms of that. But if you're, if you're ready financially, whether it's in business or personally, you should be able to weather the storm on some of these things. and the reason I like the bullios is they date data. They don't give their opinion. Here's the data. This is what it reads. This is what it's showing. And here's what it looks like for the outlook from a manufacturing to service and things like that. 

 

Mark (58:59.924)

So the one thing I've been lazy on is reading from me. To just read from me. know, being around music and entertainment, I like to read about the greats, whether it's Dizzy or Miles or Monk, those guys, because they just, to me, they were the pioneers of tweaking music that was traditionally all the way. 

 

Mark (59:25.966)

A lot of these guys were classically trained too. So if you look at that, it gives it a validity that they've classically trained way back into hundreds of years ago, but then took their own personality, their own articulation and modified music to the point where it was, whether you call it bebop or not, is their articulation of where the music could go. And now you see what other younger people have done with music, right? I always try to keep an open mind and read. 

 

Mark (59:54.19)

things of articles on what's going on with the development of music just because I'm in that business, right? 

 

Michael

I love it. Thanks everybody for joining us. Mark Lacona from Simcona Electronics and the Rochester Jazz Festival. Really appreciate you being here today. My name is Michael Palumbos. I'm with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. Thank you everybody and... 

 

Michael (01:00:20.076)

Really appreciate you listening to episode 100 and we look forward to doing another 100 in front of you. Talk to you soon everybody, take care.