How I Made It: Kaci King, CEO of West Ohio Tool

West Ohio Tool CEO and second-generation owner Kaci King spent two decades as her father’s right-hand woman. She handled finances as the company grew, developing an understanding of what made the shop tick, and what decisions would be best for its longevity. When her father began stepping down in 2019, Kaci knew that the shop’s future success wouldn’t only depend on her — but on every person at the shop taking responsibility for their role.

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My mom and dad fully believed in taking care of your people and putting them first and really making the business about them, not us.

It's about processes and people and data and numbers. But at the end of the day, I feel like the two biggest pieces of the pie are people and processes. When those things fall into place, and those are right, the rest takes care of itself.

There’s this book called Traction by Gino Whitman, and in all the years my dad and I were co-owners I had never read a book so full of tools that I felt like I could open the toolbox and get out the hammer and get out the screwdriver and be able to start using and implementing them. Traction really kind of starts around developing your core values and really recognizing, from our perspective, is that what the business was built on? Is that still what it is today?

We're really focusing on it from a perspective of implementing the toolbox, having a really great customer experience and having a really phenomenal company culture that people want to join. And for the first time ever, we have a growing list of people on the outside asking to come in.

The first thing we had to do as a team was to establish the core values. Then we had to establish if people on the leadership team were already representative of that. It became a process of what they call RPRS: right person, right seat. So for example, if you have the right person, do they align with this culture? Do they share the same core values or behaviors?

There's another thing: GWC. Do they get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it? So do they understand what their job is? Do they want to do that job? Do they have the training and skills to be able to do the job? So it was as if we had almost like we purchased a business and stepped in. We had to reevaluate the entire foundation from scratch.

When the wrong person is in the wrong seat, or the right person is in the wrong seat, people argue and there are problems. It's amazing when you get the wrong person out of the wrong seat and into the right seat.

Focus on the wins because if you if you focus on all the issues that becomes too heavy.

Follow your gut always. It's never failed us, no matter what, whether it's been running a business or being a parent. I think we all have this intuition. Sometimes we're not always good at listening to it. But at the end of the day, when it's quiet and you gain clarity, it's never wrong.