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Chad T. Jenkins talks with Jason Barnard about the VCR Formula™.
The VCR Formula™! Chad T. Jenkins—visionary entrepreneur, bestselling author, and founder of SeedSpark CoLAB—reveals the game-changing framework that transforms solo operators into strategic collaborators. Known as the “Vision Alchemist,” Chad breaks down his proven methodology for unlocking exponential growth through the power of collaboration over competition.
Get ready for a deep dive on:
– The VCR Formula™: Vision + Capability × Reach = Exponential Success (and why most entrepreneurs are missing the “R”)
– How to solve the universal “WHO deficiency” that’s limiting every entrepreneur’s growth potential
– The three types of friction every business faces—and how to turn “Premium Friction” into your competitive advantage
– Why collaboration beats partnership every time: “We don’t just do something together—we become something together”
– The “Just Add A Zero™” strategy: How to leverage existing trust relationships to multiply your reach without spending a dime
– Hero Target alignment: Identifying the three types of customers every business needs to serve
– The collaboration currency concept: How to tap into networks where your ideal clients already have their credit cards on file
This episode delivers no-fluff, actionable frameworks for entrepreneurs ready to shift from incremental gains to exponential outcomes through the art of strategic collaboration.
#VCRFormula #BusinessCollaboration #EntrepreneurGrowth #JustAddAZero #FounderStories #BusinessStrategy #ExponentialGrowth #FastlaneFounders #ChadTJenkins #CollaborationOverCompetition #BusinessScaling #EntrepreneurTips #VisionAlchemist #StartupGrowth #BusinessPartnerships
What you’ll learn from Chad T. Jenkins
This episode was recorded live on video August 12th 2025
Links to pieces of content relevant to this topic:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chadtjenkins_monday-in-toronto-marked-a-milestone-moment-activity-7341118071689945093-Si6i?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAFh7QhMBvycJqpyuc3RpnULnK6i1KU7U65Y
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chadtjenkins_chicago-you-delivered-the-moment-i-walked-activity-7340757724122566656-TkR7?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAFh7QhMBvycJqpyuc3RpnULnK6i1KU7U65Y
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chadtjenkins_i-drew-a-triangle-on-a-napkin-it-unlocked-activity-7340392971231518724-Ueq9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAFh7QhMBvycJqpyuc3RpnULnK6i1KU7U65Y
Chad T. Jenkins
Transcript from Chad T. Jenkins with Jason Barnard on Fastlane Founders And Legacy. The VCR Formula™
[00:00:00] Chad T. Jenkins: Now I understand. Unlimited amount of vision for value creation is when I came up with these new ideas, no matter how many companies I owned, there was no room in the end. All of my teams wanted my ideas to sleep in the manger, and that was quite frustrating. When I began to look around, I also noticed that many entrepreneurs around the entire planet, I’m very fortunate to talk to ’em every day now, they all had a WHO-deficiency. And I define WHO as With the Help of Others. It was a collaboration. So empowering entrepreneurs with that awareness and also with the building blocks of how to grow like no other, you’re probably starting to see it’s a combination. Be very attentive to friction. These ideas that come to you, write them down. And through the art of collaboration is the only way everything, anything ever becomes real and also recurs.
So now, you have the building blocks to reach whatever level of success that you really want.
[00:00:59] Narrator: Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. Each week, Jason sits down with successful entrepreneurs, CEOs, and executives, and get them to share how they mastered the delicate balance between rapid growth and enduring success in the business world.
How can we quickly build a profitable business that stands the test of time and becomes our legacy? A legacy we’re proud of. Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard.
[00:01:28] Jason Barnard: Hello, everybody, and welcome to another Fastlane Founders and Legacy. I’m Jason Barnard. And I’m here with… a quick hello and we’re good to go.
Welcome to the show, Chad T. Jenkins.
[00:01:41] Chad T. Jenkins: Jason, it’s a pleasure being with you.
[00:01:43] Jason Barnard: Absolutely delightful. We’re gonna be talking about collaboration in business and growing. And we’ve got a VCR framework and one with zero in it, Just Add A Zero™. Oh, I’d like to add a zero to our revenue, and I think that’s probably the point, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Before we jump into that, I always Google my guest’s name, and here we have Chad, who’s a baseball player. This is a super duper big problem that people don’t really realize. When you show your name is somebody famous, you kind of get lost in the Google results. So I added a T.
[00:02:16] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes, sir.
[00:02:16] Jason Barnard: And I got you.
[00:02:18] Chad T. Jenkins: There it is.
[00:02:18] Jason Barnard: You look lovely there with your two books. Then I thought, let’s look at Google AI mode that’s come out, which is the AI summarizing the search results. And then we get the baseball player and you, and that’s where the future is. Rather than just showing just you or just the baseball player, we get a choice and we get a description of both.
[00:02:38] Chad T. Jenkins: Lovely.
[00:02:38] Jason Barnard: ChatGPT seems to really like you because it doesn’t even mention the baseball player. How does that feel?
[00:02:45] Chad T. Jenkins: Who likes baseball anyway?
[00:02:48] Jason Barnard: You are in Toronto.
[00:02:50] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:02:50] Jason Barnard: But you are American. Is that correct?
[00:02:52] Chad T. Jenkins: That is correct. I’m in southeast of the US but I spent a good bit of time in Toronto and a couple other cities.
[00:02:58] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. Wonderful. Well, welcome to the show.
[00:03:00] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:03:01] Jason Barnard: I hope you have found the beginning interesting. And I am sure I’m gonna find the rest interesting.
[00:03:05] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:03:07] Jason Barnard: So the whole idea of your work is collaboration.
[00:03:12] Chad T. Jenkins: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:13] Jason Barnard: And I kind of thought, well, I’ve got a team, so I’m collaborating. I’ve got partners so I’m collaborating. We get data from Authoritas, we work with Wordlift. And I suspect I’m not doing as much collaborating as I could.
[00:03:27] Chad T. Jenkins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. The difference, so collaboration and partnerships, a lot of times is reference is that I’ve distinctly defined the difference between the two. If we’re gonna be partners, we’re going to do something together.
If we’re gonna collaborate, we’re gonna become something together just by combining you and me together. It creates something new and magical. And a lot of folks don’t see it yet that way, which is a lot of the work that I do, is to help entrepreneurs begin their journey of a mindset shift to leveraging the art of collaboration.
Because it, I would argue, is part of the fundamentals of humanity. When we decided as a human race that we do not want to be part of the food chain, I realized that if I would buddy up with Jason, the lions and tigers did, could not eat me. ’cause if you think about it, we as humans are not that fast. We’re also not that strong.
How in the heck do we rule the world? Collaboration.
[00:04:31] Jason Barnard: Right? Yeah. I was watching something on YouTube the other day about that idea of the fact that humans aren’t necessarily as strong and as intelligent and as fast as we think. We just learned to collaborate.
[00:04:43] Chad T. Jenkins: That’s correct. Yes, sir. Yeah.
[00:04:45] Jason Barnard: He didn’t say quite like that, but that’s how you frame it.
It makes a lot of sense. But you talked about your farm childhoods, where you bring two things together. I like that.
[00:04:55] Chad T. Jenkins: Yeah. And I really lined this out in that Just Add A Zero™ book, but at around eight years old, which is just after you exit theta state, like from a brainwave activity, so you become fully conscious.
And I would argue that that is when we all receive what I classify as our constant question. This is a question that you apply to each and every environment person that you interact with. But your question is different than mine. And later on I’ll share my question. But around eight, I can’t recall if it was just school children that were sharing that their father made more than mine did, but something piqued my curiosity. And I probably came up with the number that I presumed that my father may ’cause of course it was more than anyone else in school. And I thought, how in the world am I ever gonna make that? And then coinciding at this exact same time, I believe I got exposed to Manhattan from a far. To the credit, I didn’t go to Manhattan until I was about 40 years old. Probably been 50 times now. I’ve been to a lot of places on the planet, but Manhattan wasn’t one of ’em. But at eight years old, I got exposed to it and I remember being on the farm putting up barbed wire fence or mowing pastures. And I continued to think, how in the heck am I ever gonna get outta here? ’cause then I’m not sure if you know about that in France. But then, South Carolina gets quite hot and extremely humid. And if you’re outside working all day, it’s very much unpleasant. So I wanted to be outta there and I felt at the time that I had nothing. I was eight years old. It was completely not true. And it seemed like there was someone turned the lights on and I began to see the world.
I would argue in it’s most authentic expression. So things, I see what they can be used for, not what somebody labels them as. And I’m curious to do so because the driven curiosity is how can I combine them to create something new and unique? And I’ve been doing that since I was about eight years old.
It turns out, it pays pretty well.
[00:06:59] Jason Barnard: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s two things there. Number one is I was brought up on a farm as well.
[00:07:03] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:07:03] Jason Barnard: But in the North of England, and I had exactly this. I thought, how am I gonna get out of here?
[00:07:07] Chad T. Jenkins: I gotta get outta here. Yes.
[00:07:08] Jason Barnard: My answer was very different to yours. But that’s a different question.
[00:07:11] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:07:11] Jason Barnard: And the second is that by combining two different things, you’ve ended up creating, you said 50 companies. So…
[00:07:17] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes, sir.
[00:07:18] Jason Barnard: Number one, it’s you have a new idea using two things that exist.
[00:07:25] Chad T. Jenkins: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:26] Jason Barnard: Using them for a different outcome. So the new idea is two existing things used for something new. So it’s kind of a new idea, but kind of not. Is that fair?
[00:07:36] Chad T. Jenkins: Yeah. I was, to compliment where did these ideas come from? I recognize along the way, this is after quite a few businesses because when you start that young, it’s not like you worked in an industry for 10 years, figured out a better mouse trap, took a leap of faith and created your own company.
I didn’t have that luxury. I started pretty early as we talked about. But what I am drawn to and what I realized is picking up on friction. And I really outlined three different types of friction in a book that I launched, maybe last year. Friction Fuel is the book’s name, and in that particular book I talk about the three types of friction.
One, just like you pull up to a petrol station or a gas station in the US, you have regular friction.
[00:08:19] Jason Barnard: Sorry, I’m just going to, the people who were listening to the audio, there was a slight pause from Chad ’cause he was surprised because I just brought up the Google search result for him. And it shows both his book Just Add A Zero™ and his Friction Fuel book.
And I was just suddenly curious if I’ve remembered correctly.
[00:08:35] Chad T. Jenkins: Yeah, thank you for doing that.
[00:08:37] Jason Barnard: Carry on.
[00:08:37] Chad T. Jenkins: So, in Friction Fuel, I talk about the three types of friction that I’m very keenly aware of. And the first type is very normal. It’s regular friction, just like in a regular gas station. So the cheap gas, that’s a friction that you are going to respond to.
You ran outta money, your sales guy just left. Interest rates just doubled. Things of this nature, you don’t have any control over. You have to react. There’s a train coming, and if you don’t get off the track, you’re gonna get ran over. You tend to respond pretty quickly. The next type of friction is just similar to that gas station, it’s called plus friction or mid-grade. That empowers you to outpace the competition by manyfold if you would simply create a system that lets you capture it. When you received it, you’d change your product or service, and whoever buys your product or service continues to pay you money. A lot of times those are masked as complaints as a conventional reference.
[00:09:37] Jason Barnard: Right.
[00:09:37] Chad T. Jenkins: And then the friction that I get really excited about is I classify it as premium friction. That’s the type of friction no one is having an immediate behavioral response to, but perhaps you would solve for that friction. Once you validate depth of market, you’re the only game in town. You get to grow like no one else because you’re solving something no one had really picked up on yet. And now you are the only game in town. You have no competition.
[00:10:04] Jason Barnard: Which, sorry, that really sparks my interest because that third one, it’s a real struggle to sell something to somebody they don’t know they need.
[00:10:13] Chad T. Jenkins: Correct.
[00:10:13] Jason Barnard: How do you solve that problem?
[00:10:16] Chad T. Jenkins: First you validate depth of market. So when I talked about being able to pick up on their friction that no one’s having an immediate behavioral reaction, they’re not complaining.
[00:10:25] Jason Barnard: Yeah.
[00:10:26] Chad T. Jenkins: But in your research and your awareness, I would argue as awareness, you’re recognizing patterns where this could be better. I would dare say, everyone who’s listening to this currently, they’ve had an idea of how something could be better. And sometimes, it’s not because somebody complained.
[00:10:42] Jason Barnard: So we were talking about a problem that people don’t know they have. There’s no friction. But if there’s depth of market, there isn’t a problem as long as you can educate people.
[00:10:51] Chad T. Jenkins: That is correct. And it’s the education is just the positioning of the value creation. So two things exist already. You’re combining them to create new and argue sometimes, magical value creation, but you’re doing that based upon your awareness of something could be better.
So oftentimes, a lot of us go throughout our day recognizing these things, but we don’t take any action. And the reason that we don’t take action most oftentimes, and I’ll speak specifically about entrepreneurs, is ’cause I’ve recognized it’s the reason of what I do today, that the validating depth of market around this concept was unanimous.
All entrepreneurs have a WHO-deficiency. So that was a friction that not only did I become aware of, I also lived it. And you mentioned earlier in our conversation the amount of organizations that I’d started. Well, I started using that exact framework and I called the framework, remove the film, which it talks about a course, in both of those books, both Just Add A Zero™ and also Friction Fuel. So film, just like you would have a brand new iPhone or, and maybe a new car and the GPS screen has a film over it, or perhaps a new TV. And the screen looks nice ’cause it is brand new, but when you remove the film you’re like, wow, that’s a lot better.
That’s the way I see existing industries and specifically, other entrepreneurs businesses. But the friction that I recognize in creating those businesses and also having an unlimited, now I understand, unlimited amount of vision for value creation is when I came up with these new ideas, no matter how many companies I owned, there was no room in the end.
All of my teams wanted my ideas to sleep in the manger, and that was quite frustrating. When I began to look around, I also noticed that many entrepreneurs around the entire planet, I’m very fortunate to talk to ’em every day now, they all had a WHO-deficiency and I define WHO as With the Help of Others.
[00:13:02] Jason Barnard: Right.
[00:13:02] Chad T. Jenkins: So that led me to confirming that which is conversating with, I mentioned, I told you lots of entrepreneurs around the world and it was unanimous. Every one of them had more ideas than they were taking action upon. And that’s, I further dug deeper to say, okay, I think I’m also recognizing another pattern.
Everything that I see between you and I right now, the internet that’s connecting us. This iPad that I’m using, the microphone that is taking what I say and transferring it to you. It all started as an idea in someone’s imagination. And as I dug deeper, that person who had the idea, they did not make it real, nor did they make it recur.
It was always a collaboration. Now, some did it very proactively and some did it very reactively, but just the same as the McDonald’s brothers. Without Ray Kroc, there would not be thousands upon thousands of McDonald’s everywhere. It feels like on every street corner of this planet. It was a collaboration. So empowering entrepreneurs with that awareness and also with the building blocks of how to grow like no other, you’re probably starting to see as a combination, be very attentive to friction. These ideas that come to you, write ’em down. And through the art of collaboration is the only way everything, anything ever becomes real and also recurs. So now, you have the building blocks to reach whatever level of success that you really want.
[00:14:38] Jason Barnard: Which makes absolutely total sense. And the premium thing that people don’t know they need is exactly what we’ve got at Kalicube®, which is how do I show up in Google and AI when somebody search for me or searching my industry for leading experts.
[00:14:56] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:14:56] Jason Barnard: People don’t really realize it’s a problem or most people don’t realize it. And so we do have that question of how do we get the message out to people that A, that there’s a problem and B, you can solve the problem.
[00:15:07] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:15:08] Jason Barnard: Collaboration is the answer.
[00:15:09] Chad T. Jenkins: Collaboration’s the answer.
[00:15:11] Jason Barnard: Well, there’s the piece of advice you can give me then is who should I be collaborating with if I want to get the message out? I’ve got the machine, I’ve got the service. I just can’t get the message out. Who are the kind of people I should be looking to collaborate with?
[00:15:22] Chad T. Jenkins: Yeah. A little bit earlier you mentioned the VCR Formula™.
[00:15:26] Jason Barnard: Yes. Although I’ve got no idea what it is, to be very frank.
[00:15:29] Chad T. Jenkins: That’s wonderful. At both of our ages, we probably had something known as a VCR, way back when we were kids. That’s certainly not what I’m talking about, but the reference is hopefully anchored for everyone who also had a VCR.
[00:15:42] Jason Barnard: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:43] Chad T. Jenkins: VCR stands for vision, capability and reach. And being naturally curious as you mentioned, that you are as well. And begin to really pick up on, all success is driven by Vision plus Capability multiplied times Reach. That’ll give proper consideration. The VCR Formula™ as it is now called, is actually developed by a good friend of mine by the name of Dean Jackson.
[00:16:12] Jason Barnard: Wow.
[00:16:13] Chad T. Jenkins: Dean Jackson is known as the Marketing Buddha, very easy to find online. And Dean was presenting at an event that I was attending, and a gentleman asked for me to meet with him just before. We hit it off immediately because he has words to describe the way in which I see the world. So Dean created the VCR Formula™.
I made it real and recur. We have a new book coming, The VCR Formula™, out in October at an event I’m holding. But when you really unpack what is vision, capability, and reach and how does it apply to the success that we see in the world? It is Vision plus Capability multiply times Reach equals Success.
So just earlier you mentioned that you have the capability, which you do at Kalicube®.
[00:17:00] Jason Barnard: I was actually, sorry. Just gonna come in there and say…
[00:17:02] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes, please.
[00:17:03] Jason Barnard: I had the vision in 2012, I started. Then 2015, I built Kalicube Pro™ and started Kalicube®. So I had the capability and I’ve had the capability for 10 years.
[00:17:13] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:17:13] Jason Barnard: But at no point have I managed to multiply it by reach.
[00:17:17] Chad T. Jenkins: Not yet, but maybe today’s the day. So somewhere around 2020, 2021, I began to really realize, you know what, this is a lot of work. But if you really think about it, it is 2020 at that time, we’ll just pick that right before COVID.
Every client that I want, for any business that I currently own, somebody has their credit card number on file already. That being a true statement. Now I can do the normal thing. Like we all have done and I did for many, many years. I can go get someone to know me. Boy, that’s expensive. Then after a period of time they like me, that’s optimistic.
And then, before too long, if I maintain integrity, they will trust me and ultimately, they’ll do business with me. What a runway. And that is currently the convention. Or I could take this new realization that there’s a very high probability that every client I ever want, somebody already has their credit card number on file.
Perhaps I would collaborate with them and they would use their collaboration currency, that trust relationship that we just referenced, with all those credit card numbers on file to be in collaboration with me. Perhaps I am worth my salt. And literally, truly delivering value with my product or service.
I’ll just split the outcome with them. But you know what? Now that I think about it, this one person that I just figured out, they probably have a lot of their clients that I want already in a trust relationship, credit card number on file as I referenced. Maybe I don’t do it one time. Maybe I start spending my time and identify someone else who already has a bulk of my, what I classify as hero targets.
So who do you want your business to be a hero to? Which is what I learned from Mr. Dan Sullivan, the strategic coach, as a reference. Many of us talk about ideal client profile. ICP is an acronym I hear a lot.
[00:19:23] Jason Barnard: Yeah.
[00:19:23] Chad T. Jenkins: But I think there’s a lot more intelligence around hero target because if you think about it, and I’ve definitely given this some thought.
Every business has at least three hero targets. And to be successful, we need to properly consider them all because they’re all ambassadors for us when empowered. You have your clients, which we’re very familiar with, you also have your vendors and suppliers. A lot of folks don’t think about them as much as being a vital asset to the way they deliver their product and service.
But then you also have your team. All of those are classifications of hero targets. So I reference them then that’s what I’m talking about. But going back to the awareness that somebody likely already has a trust relationship, built with who I want to do business with. I can do it conventionally and spend time, spend marketing dollars and have them know me over time, like me and ultimately, trust me and then do business.
Or perhaps I can just engage with Joey who has a lot of ’em on file and combine a product or service that I have with a product or service that they have, combine them, bundle. Like we’ve seen bundles from very large organizations over the last 10 years. There was a time, I’d assume this is the same where you are.
We used to buy our security system from one vendor, our telephones from another vendor, our wireless service.
[00:20:38] Jason Barnard: Yeah.
[00:20:38] Chad T. Jenkins: And then perhaps our internet from another. But now, you buy them all together.
[00:20:43] Jason Barnard: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:44] Chad T. Jenkins: Well, if you really go back and look at that structure, those used to be three companies and they first started collaborating. And the minute that they collaborated, I recognized that all three of them, and we’ll just pick three as being a magic number, all three of them tripled their sales force. All three of them tripled their marketing dollars. All three of them tripled their reach. How much money did they spend? They spent nothing.
[00:21:07] Jason Barnard: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:07] Chad T. Jenkins: They understood that their collaboration currency were the trust relationships that they already had. And if all three companies had hero target alignment, they could come together, create, you remember I mentioned, take two existing things, combine them together and create something new. But you’re doing it with the benefit of driving value to the hero target. Because now they didn’t need to go to three different companies to buy three different things. They could go to one company and get three things, but perhaps, you leverage the art of collaboration even at Kalicube®, and you combine your product or service with somebody who already has a plethora of your hero targets and a trust relationship.
Perhaps they have the credit card number on file. You go from zero to hero. And you can do that multiple times in a day. So it is a different approach, and it is a mindset journey, of course, to begin to see the world this way. But we’ve shared the formula, VCR. You have vision, all entrepreneurs have unlimited vision. What they don’t have is they don’t have the WHOs that they need. And I’m saying, yes, the convention as we go buy, we go and hire WHOs, and hopefully we get that right. And then after six weeks or six months, we might get them properly onboarded. Or perhaps, we would use this unlimited network of entrepreneurs who have scaled capabilities to help me accomplish my objectives, to take my idea and help me make it real.
And then I might also look at another swath of entrepreneurs who have trust relationships with the same exact hero target that I have for my product or service. And I’ll just combine with them. So in my world, you hear a lot about 1X, 2X, 10X, about rate of growth. And a very good friend of mine that I mentioned Mr. Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy launched a book 10X is easier than 2X. They’re wildly successful. That’s a very good indication to, we’re all not thinking big enough, which was the drive in me writing Just Add A Zero™. The only reason we’re not doing that now is ’cause we don’t have the building blocks to make it true.
And what I’ve shared today is a lot of those to help you catapult your growth and your success by some, I would argue, very authentic and natural fundamentals.
[00:23:30] Jason Barnard: Yeah. Which is absolutely brilliant. So it’s great advice. And when you talk about VCR, brilliant, that really makes sense. We are missing the R and I know where to go now and what to do. And I really love the WHO aspect, purely because I will always remember it because now I have a cartoon elephant in my head with a little flower in its trunk.
[00:23:52] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:23:52] Jason Barnard: Horton hears a WHO. Thank you so much, Chad. You’ve made my day. ’cause Horton hears a WHO is now completely stuck in my head.
[00:23:59] Chad T. Jenkins: Just stuck forever.
[00:24:00] Jason Barnard: Thank you everyone for watching. That was brilliant.
[00:24:02] Chad T. Jenkins: Yes.
[00:24:02] Jason Barnard: And you get the outro song.
[00:24:04] Chad T. Jenkins: Awesome.
[00:24:05] Jason Barnard: A quick goodbye to end the show. Thank you, Chad.
[00:24:12] Chad T. Jenkins: Awesome. Thank you very much, Jason.
[00:24:13] Jason Barnard: Brilliant, Chad. Thank you.
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