Bonus - MRM Leadership Circles

0:02 Welcome back to another episode of the MRM Podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business, life, and legacy. It's business time. Hey man, let's talk a little bit about this MRM Leadership Circle concept and event that we're going to be starting this year. Yeah, that sounds good. We've been working on this a long time. I'm really excited to get it out in the wild, make it available to people. You know, and I think the part that can be hard about some of these conversations is you get so ramped up about wanting to convey everything that we've talked about, that we've researched, that we've heard from other professionals in the industry, from our clients.

0:43 And it's like... You could probably spend hours and hours rapping about all the things and the what-ifs. But I think let's just go through the foundations of it, the structure of it, get some real clear descriptions on what this resource is going to be for folks. And then I think it is important that we just take a few minutes though to unpack some of the why behind it, some of the things that have been fueling it, some of the things that make us most excited about it. So the structure. So the idea here is that we feel like For all intents and purposes, we've been told in our questioning and spending time interacting with folks, information is not on short supply. It's a very information-driven world.

1:25 Our industry is starting to be supported by and having a lot more information available to it. Lots of folks doing things like we do. And so we're not short on the information. Tons of content out there. Tons of content. And it's good. It's good content. There are some really... amazing people doing stuff in our industry that we just really respect and admire. And as Chris likes to say, what we're seeing though, and what we heard most often was this lack of being able to get momentum with it, right? To get execution happening, to get this rhythm, consistent rhythm where we take that information and do something. And I think too, there's a layer of need and desire that I think most people are coming in really understanding and developing culture and leadership.

2:15 Culture and leadership just keeps coming up at every turn. And that's caused us to shift our focus a little bit and say, okay, how do we make sure that that's a really primary part of the leadership circle as well? You're right, man. It has been. And it's something that we've witnessed a lot, right? As these teams out here are growing, as the industry is expanding, we keep watching very closely, qualified individuals at a tactical, tactical level be advanced through the ranks. We've all done it. But then we just see this struggle that happens because that individual who was just so gifted in the field, that was so gifted at the technical aspects of large loss, mastery.

2:55 Then we ask them now to lead people. We ask them to run our mitigation teams. We ask them to run our service department, whatever, depending on your industry or your service line. And then they really flounder. And then we get frustrated because we're not seeing the same, in quotes, result. that we were seeing before. Or maybe they get apprehensive because now they're in this space that they're not as technically competent in. And we see them stutter a step a little bit and then that creates... So anyways, not only is it leadership that needs this constant state of development for us as key leaders, but then there's got to be some ways that we as a team at Floodlight can help folks provide additional layers of leadership development for their own people For a lot of reasons, right?

3:42 We talk about bench depth. We talk about all these reasons. That's important. So yeah. And again, it comes down to accountability and execution because you're And we talk about it. And those people who are listening to our podcast, they've heard us reference at their podcast that we really benefit from. And we pass these things along lots and lots and lots of books. And it really does come to changing our behaviors, like leveling up our behaviors. And in a lot of that case, it's discipline. It's just making the choice to repeatedly change. invest in these other behaviors that maybe have just been secondary, not priority.

4:23 Because let's face it, there's a lot of winning you can do out of just pure charisma and hustle. Yeah. And we've seen a lot of very successful people, but at some point that becomes the bottleneck. Yeah. Because if you're the person with the most hustle, perseverance, and charisma in the room, then your business is dependent on you being in play. That's right. And of course, I don't think many of us, particularly probably people who are listening to a podcast, we're not going to be able to do that. their end goal is to be running the day-to-day operations of a restoration company for... Until they die. Yeah. Right? We're all wanting at some point to level up beyond that. Yeah. Or the be the one doing absolutely everything, right? Yeah. Right. It's like key clients are dependent on you.

5:05 Key relationships are dependent on you. Key functions of the business are all dependent on all those things. Okay. Yeah. So we'll get into it here. What is it? So again, this is the MRM or for most of you are starting to get an idea where that comes from. But for those of us that are new to this, so it's the MIT Resto Mastery. So MRM Leadership Circles. And essentially what these are is they're mastermind groups. They're a mastermind group specifically designed for our industry. And it is designed for owners and key leaders. And one of the things that we're going to talk about a little bit later is the importance of we really are trying to create a platform where a key leader, a business owner, could bring in their right hand, bring in an up-and-coming leader that they're developing for key position within the organization.

5:54 So it's a mastermind group. And we're going to limit the number of participants. So you want to lay down some of the details around what these will look like. Yeah. So a couple of practical bits here. It's going to be 10 to 12 participants in each leadership circle. It's going to be geographically exclusionary, meaning you're not going to have other people in your market that you're competing with. So there's an element of safety. That's going to be part of our vetting process is making sure that we're putting together groups where there's no concern about sharing trade secrets or business practices with a competitor in your market. It's going to be a twice a month gathering.

6:37 There are going to be expectations on attendance. Yep. Right. And that is not, that is really for the purpose of creating a community and cultural environment where, you know, there's trust, there's reliability, right? Because if we've got one or two people missing, it really changes the dynamic of the experience. It changes the value of it. Right. So there's going to be some expectations in terms of attendance, um, And there's going to be two different sessions. So there's going to be an accountability check-in component that's rigorous, both sessions. So every two weeks, the leadership circles will meet. And it's going to be a structured, guided process that the floodlight team is going to facilitate.

7:21 But there's going to be a little bit different focus between these two. You want to talk about that A, B? Yeah. So as you alluded to, this check-in component is the theme every time. So no matter what, that's the first priority. And that's to get together as a team and walk through our accountability process. And that accountability process, just to get it out of the way, is going to be looking at financials, at our P&Ls. It's going to look at those critical performance indicators that we've established in our businesses that we use to guide us on our decision making and to see how we're doing as a team. And then also, we're going to be taking a look at some key objectives or goals that you had committed to be working on.

8:02 And again, we're not creating those initiatives. Those initiatives will be custom based on whatever that business is focused on at the time. Now, you may very well be getting information from peers to help shape that. But at the end of the day, you're going to determine some of the things that you're focused on as a team that are critical to you and your mission. And then the peers and the floodlight team will help hold you accountable to making gains in those between meetings. So our reporting phase will always look similar to that. And then the A-B schedule. So we're going to have one meeting. What we're going to do is we're going to be diving into one of our peers or one of our leadership circle members' current challenges. Right? Right. And so we'll do a round robin.

8:43 The team will talk about some of the different things that are facing their business right now. And we're going to hone in on that one that's like, Oh, wow, that's a big, hairy issue. Let's tackle that as a group. So peers and floodlight consultants will be participating in that problem-solving session and helping equip that business then to overcome that challenge. And then the B schedule, if you will, will be a training session. So out of our two meetings every month, we're always going through the accountability process. That's the most mission critical. We're going to be having a problem-solving session together as a group. And then we'll be having a training session. And what's interesting about the training session is that...

9:23 you and I determined that we are going to hone our time on leadership, leadership skills, leadership concepts development. And we just, again, talking to lots of people, having ongoing conversations with our existing clients, things of that. It just seemed like that's the weak point. That is the place we can all just continue to develop. And so we're not saying that other more technical, tactical aspects will be brought up. But what we believe is the majority of those kinds of items and concepts are really going to be brought up and delivered by the peers. If we do our job right, we create these cohorts the way that we envision them...

10:05 you're going to have people with different degrees of competency in their businesses. Some businesses will be larger. They'll be farther down the road than you are. And so technical, tactical expertise, my gut says the group will be chock full of it. And so we're really going to be bringing in industry partners. We're going to be bringing in even target market segment leaders. We're going to be bringing in folks to help us work through our leadership competency to elevate our game. So that's what that main schedule will look like. Yeah. And I think in that teaching component, one of the things you and I are really excited about, it's really creating experiences in that B schedule training module that's really catered to that particular leadership circle.

10:49 And so the membership of that leadership circle will definitely drive the themes because inevitably there's going to be different interests, different needs, different direction that's going to come based on the members of it. For example... You and I have a real deep belief as leaders that we need to address the whole person. We can be really tactically savvy. We can be really great with the financials of our business. Some of us are really great at mentoring and that piece, which is awesome. But our health... our anxiety, our stress level, our capacity to bring that same intentionality that we apply to our business to our home life and our relationships at home suffers and is broken or fragmented.

11:32 And so depending on the makeup of the group, those other themes that are mission critical to being a whole leader are going to come up. And so there may be a component where we bring in outside people to talk about stuff more fundamental to our personal health and wellness. Yeah. To really speak to those things and help drive accountability to us making shifts and changes in those more personal parts of our leadership, right? Because you and I have felt that. We've experienced the difference that wholeness and focus on those areas of life, how that can spill over back into our leadership and our business, you know? So, but the nature of the group is... and what it needs, that's going to drive a lot of that.

12:15 I do want to say something though about... You've talked about customer segment leaders. Yeah. I guess now we're starting to get into the nuts and bolts and the why and some of the detail. But yeah. This was something that we were really intentional about in our own business leadership experience of bringing in outside voices outside of the restoration industry to understand what other companies were doing, what other industries were doing. And one aspect of this is really understanding our target customer segments. Really developing a deep awareness of their business model. their decision-making process, how they think, what are their pain points. And so we're really excited about that aspect is putting customer segment leaders like hotel executives, like senior living executives.

13:04 You and I have been really fortunate to build some pretty deep relationships with these people through our own business dealings and our own... Many of them are clients that we still have long-term intent. I was just meeting with one of my hotel executives yesterday on a Zoom call, catching up. And they have their own set of pain points and struggles and understanding them at sort of a peer level can really help us mentor and direct and guide our teams. Yep, sure. Interfacing with those verticals. So that's one creative thing that I'm really excited about bringing to the leadership circles. And now some of you are probably already thinking through this and I want to bring it up early. There is a fee structure, right?

13:46 This obviously is going to cost you and your team money to participate. But here's what I think is really important to this. As Chris and I were looking through the fee structure and we went out, we got counseling from folks that we trust and really understand that are committed to our industry and supporting it in a really fair way. And we just really thought through this and said, look, we want this to be an approachable investment because we want anyone who's focused on developing a really competent and successful organization to be able to participate in a community like this. But we also wanted to establish enough of an expense so that...

14:27 a window shopper is not participating. That's not really fair to the community members. This needs to be a significant or a serious investment, I guess. Yeah, and frankly, it's part of the value. Yeah. The cost to be involved in a leadership circle is actually part of the value. And let me explain, because I've had some personal experience with this. Not only in mastermind groups, but about 10 years ago, I was leaving the insurance business and I was moving into consulting and ultimately ended up entering the restoration industry. And I was in that transition point. And I was looking for conferences or workshops just to kind of... Whatever. Kind of help me figure out what the path forward looked like.

15:08 And Seth Godin published an ad on Facebook. It was called School for Startups. And it was a three-day workshop that he was putting on. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with Seth Godin, you should check him out. Lots and lots of great wisdom in his books. New York Times bestseller, all that stuff. And he was going to do a workshop on starting a company. And I thought, wow, I've always wanted to meet Seth Godin. And so I'm sitting in bed reading this on my iPhone. My wife's reading a book next to me. And I said, wow, Seth Godin's got a workshop going. She said, okay, when is it? And how much is it? I said, well, it's six weeks from now and it's $5,000. She said, for how long is it? Is it like a month? I said, no, it's three days.

15:48 Yeah. Now, here's my point in all this. And this was a big lesson for me. And I've actually applied this lesson many times. This was almost 10 years ago. Many times. When I showed up, I basically paid that money to see Seth Godin. It was a celebrity effect. But when I got there, I realized what I was really paying for. I was paying to be in the room with other people that had spent $5,000 for three days to learn something. I mean, these people were serious about what they showed up to talk about and learn. And not only that, but the caliber of individuals. I mean, because that's a substantial investment.

16:31 I don't care who you are or what it is. Spending five grand for three days is a big investment. And ultimately, it was worth far more than that because I'm sitting in the room with the head of digital at HBO. I'm sitting in the room with the literary agent for Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code. Yeah. 20 million books sold. So I'm in the room with a high caliber of people that is very intent on learning and growing. And I'm still in contact. One of them became a business partner on a startup that I worked on. The relationships that formed in a very short period of time because we all had a shared objective. We also all had shared challenges, shared fears.

17:14 There was just this rich peer environment and level of commitment. And so I think that is most definitely part of the value of exclusive private groups like Leadership Circle. And part of what we're trying to create is, hey, the ante is high enough... that it really strips out the looky-loos, the people that might or might not show up, that take it lightly. Because I think all of us have seen the proliferation of different mastermind groups in other industries and creative circles. It's like, hey, $99 a month and we have this private Facebook group. And it's like, well, I'm looking for something that's a bit more intense, a bit more intentional. Yeah. and requires a higher level of commitment.

17:55 And I think a lot of people, that's certainly the crowd that we create a leadership circle for. Yeah. No, I love that. And I think you bring up some really powerful points there. And the biggest piece here is our job as facilitators of a team like this or of a group like this is literally to do everything in our power to ensure that the peers sitting at the table with one another, virtually and otherwise, are, are that. They're like-minded. They're passionate. They've got a clear vision for where they want to go. Even if the details haven't been lined out yet, because that could very well be something that we work on together. But just this idea of bigger, better, of understanding that our businesses are platforms, that there's lives that we're responsible for as leadership teams and as stewards.

18:40 And I think creating this really supportive yet challenging team of people around you to help you see those things to fruition is going to be super powerful. And fees definitely plays a role in that. Now, the other thing to be cognizant of is that, again, earlier we said, we really want this to be a thing where owners and leaders can bring in their up-and-comers, that they can bring in their leadership staff and participate. And so we have priced it in such a way that... It's like once you get that initial seat for your team, after that, it's really affordable for you to add leaders to be participating. And so that is something to consider as well. So let's go... Okay, I think we've covered the nuts and bolts.

19:21 It's really a mastermind group. This is a private group of people that you'll be paired up with and interacting with on a monthly basis. The time commitment is enough to make it valuable. But at the same time, it's very cognizant of the fact that none of us have a ton of extra time. So that's where we're going. That's the nuts and bolts of this. This is a passion project, though. And this is coming from a lot of experience of being in leadership teams where we were developing our own people, developing our own leaders, doing succession planning and preparation. working with clients. Again, like we said, working with peers in our industry. So there's a lot of fuel and passion behind this project that sometimes is hard to put into words.

20:02 But I think one of the things that for me that gets me so excited about this is that I'm a military guy. I spent eight years in the military. And of that, I had about four years where I was part of the 82nd Airborne Division. And there's this beautiful level of camaraderie and trust that is built between people who share in obstacles and challenges. They share in this real intimate understanding of the real life impact of their decisions. When us as soldiers would make comments or share experiences and hardship, we just knew it. We understood it, right?

20:42 Because we face those things together. And there's this very unique bond of we are stronger together than apart. that I love, that I witnessed, that I experienced firsthand. And quite honestly, I've spent a great deal of my life at times being surrounded in that environment again. And I've also had many years where I was unable to recreate that kind of environment for whatever reason. And so I think that is a major aspect that created the vision behind these mastermind groups behind the leadership circle was... I very personally wanted to be able to create an environment where operators, where business owners and leaders could be surrounded by men and women who understand at an intimate level the challenges that they're facing.

21:29 They understand the ramifications at a very deep level of the decisions we're making as restorers. They get it. when we're facing certain rungs on the ladder as we're trying to climb up and make changes and move through transitions. And so, again, this powerful community that we're creating, that you're surrounding yourself with people who have invested in themselves, they are driven by a higher purpose, and they want you to be accountable in that. They want to see you successful in making those changes and vice versa. And so really, that's probably one of the most powerful things that people will get from this group. And I want people to understand what you're spending money on is not another training kit.

22:14 It is to be part of a group that can surround you, support you and push you in a way that you're likely not getting right now. That last one. I think all of those are really great. And whenever I hear you talk about your military background, I'm a little bit jealous. I know there's a lot of reasons not to be jealous. Like there's a lot of hard stuff, right? That comes with that, but... It took a long time for me to find an environment like that. So I understand the value and I wish I'd had it even sooner in life. But that last piece of pushing has been probably the greatest force multiplier in my life and my career, both personally and professionally. The more I've surrounded myself, and you're one of these people, the more I've surrounded myself with people...

23:01 that will push and poke at me at my assumptions, that are willing to criticize really clearly my work product, to criticize and enter into a feedback conversation about the quality of my performance and my presence with my people and to give me that clear and severe feedback is just so immensely valuable. Yeah. Yeah. On every level. And I have certain people in my life that really do that for me with physical fitness. And it's gotten me to a place where I'm in really great physical health, which I found has spilled over to other areas of my performance.

23:44 And certainly in leadership, that has been the primary tool for my development is that... critical feedback. And I think as an owner and leader, and I've been both, just as you've been both, we spend so much of our time, effort and energy, I think if we're focused on the right things, developing our people and providing that critical, that clear and severe feedback to our downline. But who's giving that to us on a consistent basis? Yeah, that's very true. And that's one of the things when I was just doing executive coaching one-on-one with people, that was a really big part of the value proposition. I think that's what you and I are trying to build into this is not just providing that as a rhythm, but also developing that as a culture within these leadership circles, this clear and severe feedback.

24:32 Yeah. Because the support, yes, that has to be part of it. That's part of creating a safe environment where people feel like they can give it. But that's where the magic happens. It is. Because when people feel safe to say what they're really thinking and what they're really seeing, oh man, there's this... Well, like what the Bible says, right? Iron sharpening iron. Yeah. Right. There's violence to that. Yeah. And I think that's when the change happens. The sparks fly. Right. But that is what really changes the shape of our leadership, you know? So, and I think kind of maybe one last area that you and I talk about a lot that gets us jazzed is, is we've always viewed our roles as leaders, our roles as business owners or whatever the case may be.

25:20 we have to address the whole person. We really need to be clear about the fact that we can't compartmentalize. We really are a whole system. And what's happening at home, what's happening in our sphere of influence, our relationships, those are all interacting with who we are professionally, who we are as a boss, who we are whatever. And so again, another element or just part of what we want to pull out in these groups is having the opportunity as leaders to really look at ourselves and develop tools and the resources that we need to be fueled, to be exceptional, to be able to continue to make progress. And so a real holistic approach, I think, with how this accountability and how this personal development shapes us.

26:05 specifically within our industry, surrounded by peers that understand where we're at. So that's in a nutshell. That's where we're going. You can learn more, jump on the Floodlight site. So go to floodlightgrp.com, click on the MRM Leadership Circles tab, Walk through that a little bit. We're going to add more to the show notes. So we'll have appropriate links and things like that listed there. Go do yourself a benefit though. Take a look at the content that there is there. See if there's any remaining questions. And if there is, guys, just click. on the join a circle button. It's going to fill out a basically a real quick sheet. That's going to notify us. Chris or myself are going to reach out to you.

26:45 We're going to have a little chat. Let's get on the same page. Is this the right fit for you? We can answer whatever questions you might have hanging. And let's make some progress towards totally changing our business next year. Yeah. I mean, this is real. Like you and I, this is what you can expect. This is the kind of tone I think you can expect from these meetings. Like this is a sample, right? So if you're into this, what we've just described and talked about and the why behind it... then yeah, sign up for it and let's have a one-on-one conversation and let's confirm, right? Let's make sure that it really is what you want. We can get into the minutiae of it a little bit to make sure it's a great fit. But yeah, let's chat.

27:26 Yeah, let's get it. It's rock and roll. So again, check out the show notes. You'll have a link there. And then worst case scenario, just jump on the Floodlight GRP website and take a look at the MRM Leadership Circles and let's get you going. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the MRM podcast. And if you got something out of it, share it with a friend, hit subscribe, hit follow, leave us a five-star review. Thanks a lot.