Ep 30 - "Do It For Them" With Blue Collar Boys

0:07 Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. I don't know. What'd you think? I don't know. It was kind of serious. Should we laugh? Chris, we got a rad guest. Yeah, we do. Actually doubles. Yeah. A pair of guests this time. Eric Sprague and Larry Wilburton of Blue Collar Nation. Yeah, Blue Collar Nation podcast. And then of course, the Morning Tech Meeting, which is probably where a lot of people have started rub elbows, if you will, with this dynamic pair. Yeah, I feel like I really got turned on to it through Ryan Strickland over in North Carolina.

0:48 I know he's used Morning Tech Meeting, really has seen a great benefit from it. And he kind of introduced me to the idea. And then of course, we met Eric and Larry, I don't know, a few months ago. Yeah. Like personally, I mean, we'd heard about him, seen him around. But I got to tell you, man, I'm really enamored with this Morning Tech Meeting product that they've created. Yeah, I'm digging it. I'm just digging these guys. I mean, honestly, we have a really fun show together. It was very much the whole sitting in somebody's living room, chatting about life and work and employees. It was... These guys are just down to earth, super approachable. I really like their hearts. They're really candid in the show. I mean, we get into the good, the bad, and the ugly of owning a restoration company. Their experience is coming up in the industry and what it's been like to transition into being a service provider in the industry.

1:33 I think one of the things I think listeners will pick up on too is These guys have a lot of time in the trenches together as business partners. And very different guys, very different people, different natural wiring, different temperament, all that. Oh yeah, man. And you see it. But at the same time, it's this really respectful, mutual respect and value placed on those differences. And you're going to see how that has influenced their business, how they interact with their employees. These guys are solid. They're genuine. It's a good chat and it's a fun show. Yeah, it is. All right, let's get into it. Hey guys, we just want to thank you for taking the time to hang out with us. We're really excited to dive into a conversation with you and really looking forward to hearing far more about these two guys repping the blue collar nation out in the world and specifically in our industry.

2:17 So it's going to be fun to kind of get a little bit more behind the scenes with you guys. So thanks again for joining us. We're excited. Thanks for having us. Pleasure to be here, gentlemen. Well, I think one of the things I appreciate about you two is you have that experience operating in the field. You guys have done it. You built it. You've struggled through it. I was telling Eric just before we jumped on that I found this old webinar that you guys must have done early in COVID, like a sales webinar, kind of sharing. And you were sharing your backstory with Shamrock and how you two met. And also sharing about some of the struggles you had as operators of a restoration and cleaning business early on. And that was really the genesis for the work you guys are doing now was having to figure it out. Get through having techs and hiring 5 techs and then 10 and 50s.

3:00 All the struggles that come with running a restoration company. Brandon and I, for a long time, have been big believers that in order for people to lead effectively, they have to lead themselves first. And I'm curious if you could just share some of your own individual... Whoever wants to go first can go first. But just what does that mean to you to lead yourself? And what does that look like in your own personal leadership journey prior to Blue Collar Nation? And then now, where do you see that now? What are you doing to lead yourself? You're opening up with the nuclear bomb. We just dive right into the deep end of the pool, right? I think I can speak for Larry and I. This has been the biggest challenge and the most work we've ever had to do, to be honest.

3:43 You talked about what we like to think is quite transparent about all of our struggles. I think too few people are transparent. They like to come off like they've been the expert out of the womb. And most of us aren't. And Larry and I certainly weren't. And we went through a lot of trials and tribulations, not even just not having maybe the requisite business experience, but just not being able to lead ourselves at all. I'd like Larry's perspective on that as well. Yeah, no, we're not taught how to lead necessarily in our formal schooling and everything else. And we're always talking about that. Leadership skills aren't something that is addressed in schools, obviously in the high schools and grammar schools and middle schools. but not as much even in college as well.

4:26 And you've got to learn these things. What I took out of it, that Eric got the leadership skills a lot in sports because he was on a team. So that just happens naturally, which was really cool. We learned that and we would look for that in the people that we hired. But that's just, you just learn it as you go along. You don't know you're learning it. And then Eric went to John Maxwell and got trained that way. And we did a lot of coaching to learn leadership skills, what to do and what not to do. And that helped shape how we conducted ourselves But to take a step back from that, I mean, Larry's skipping to the part where we're fixing it. We went a long time being really dysfunctional. We would lose technicians and sets because, you know, we'd get like three or four in the early days. And then we didn't know how to lead ourselves or them.

5:08 So we'd burn through them and say, those guys suck. And then get new guys. And then we'd burn through them. And then, oh, those guys suck too. And then, you know, eventually you're like, wait a minute. We're the only common denominator here. I was at an event recently and I saw one of our guys from years ago. He's with another restoration company. I bump into him and I said, dude, we failed so bad with you and that group of people you're with. It was horrible. And he started laughing and we started joking back and forth. And we had a very calm, cool conversation. It was really neat. I pointed out all these things that we didn't do very well. And he's like, oh, I think I do those things myself. Because he was in a similar position to his younger kid. And it was a really genuine conversation that I think he benefited more.

5:50 I just got off my chest. I felt better. Yeah. The thing that changed Larry and I, that changed everything, even though we still weren't good leaders as the years started to go on, you know, a few years, we went and got coaching several different types, but we joined Howard Partridge's group and we had Dr. Robert Rome visit the convention and he did disc training. And Larry and I are very polar opposite personalities. So a lot of the problems we had is that Larry and I couldn't agree on anything. And, you know, if you have a very small company, which we did at the time, they see you arguing, they see you disagreeing. There's no getting around that. And, you know, all of a sudden, we're learning disc real time while he's talking.

6:33 And at the end, Larry and I just sat at the table, exhausted and looked at each other and went, sorry, man. Literally, that was the moment it all changed for us. Because now we said, oh, now that I know who you are and you know who I am and we understand the four basic personalities, we can actually get to work about learning how to lead everybody and doing it in a way that is palatable for them. And that's when things started to change. You agree with that, Larry? Yeah, it was the self-awareness that we learned from Dr. Rohn with the disc lessons. And it was so interesting because we went to Howard Partridge and we were at Joe Polish conference and we saw Richard Branson.

7:13 Oh, yeah, Sir Richard. We saw Maxwell, Gerber, Darren Hardy. We saw all these guys that were so cool. And all of a sudden, we got this guy, Dr. Rohn. We're like, who's this guy? And all of a sudden, he had the most impact dramatically. Mm-hmm. past what these other guys did just by becoming self-aware. And it wasn't just business, it was family, friends, how to conduct ourselves to forgive people constantly because we realized, oh, this is just who they are. They're not trying to do that to me. It was all of a sudden the personal was taken out of everything. Larry and I had very separate problems. Our problems were really different. That's because Eric's always wrong. It's because he's the opposite of me. That would be wrong right there.

7:54 Where we ran into trouble was Larry was really good with the clients and really good with referral sources and he was not great with our team. I was the opposite. I was really good with our team. I was terrible with the clients and everybody else. So we had to recognize that, okay, Larry needs to not be at the shop very much because he's going to go into micromanager mode and leave it to me. And I need to build out systems to make sure that customers are happy so that I don't have to actually be the person to go do the service because I'm probably not going to be great at it. And it's not like we fixed that overnight, but we at least recognized what our problems were. The thing that I'm kind of overwhelmed with a little bit as you guys are telling this story is just the maturity that it required for you to look at those experiences even and go, okay, how do I take this on and apply it?

8:44 Because I think we're all faced, especially now, with access to so much. But it just seems like it's very difficult for the average person to listen to the kind of content that you guys were exposed to and actually go, oh, well, I have a responsibility in this. I need to do something with this information versus being offended or whatever. You know what I mean? Brandon, we were in enough pain to listen. Yeah, exactly. If we had been not in as much pain, I don't think we would have listened. We were in acute pain and we wanted that pain to stop and we were willing to do anything to make it stop. I'm curious about that pain because I certainly understand my own story. How did that spill over into your personal and family life, the struggle you guys were in?

9:25 Well, I got divorced. You're blaming the company on that? You just get 100% focused in minutiae. That's true. And you're not seeing anything else. The blinders. I even told my ex-wife, I said, listen, if I knew DISC and I was self-aware and remarried, it might have been a different story. And I came to her very seriously. For me, it was different. It was tough. I commuted every week from Utah to LA to work. And then my family was gone. So I would only be home basically Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. I don't think it affected my personal life as much because I was just all work all week. And then I on that plane ride home, I could kind of try to let it go.

10:07 I mean, it's not like it's perfect, but I think it affected Larry more because he was right in town. The shop was a mile from his office. Like it bled into his personal life much more than mine. But also our personalities, I compartmentalize, I think, more things than Larry does. I can let things go like that. No, he can't. He holds things against me all the time. Some of that is totally natural too, the way you guys are wired. We were talking just briefly, Larry, before you jumped on. Chris is more of the, let's say, outgoing sales-directed individual by nature. He's just more capable of stepping into that position that affects just about everything in his life.

10:48 And we're pretty opposite. And so for me, he and I both talk about this a lot. It's like, our inability to compartmentalize. We're technically, even though we're so different, at the end of the day, we're just not very good at compartmentalizing. We tend to carry it. It's hard for us to separate this work from personal life or if personal life is kind of a crap circus, it's very difficult for me to feel like I'm winning at work and vice versa. You not being able to compartmentalize as much, give me some examples of that. So if I'm listening to the show, where can I see that showing up on a day-to-day basis? Yeah, it just bleeds into your life. I mean, I would be taking my kids, helping me out at work and have them vacuum and stuff like that before a carpet job.

11:28 And then they want to hang out afterwards. But I'd be so wound up thinking about the stuff that I have to do when phone calls would coming in and they'd be frustrated. And I'd be at work The wife, when I was married, would be calling me, you know, you got to do this, you got to do that. And there was no borders. There was no differentiation between what was this way. It should have been more carminalization. That would have made things a lot easier. But there wasn't. That's a problem. It was a problem for me. And then I learned, after I learned the disc and I was more aware, I would say, okay, this person needs this. This person needs this. And I need to give the best that I could being self-aware with myself, who was making things much easier. There were some boundaries. Boundaries. That's the word I was losing. Hmm. And I was learning to make boundaries, being self-aware, I was able to do it much easier than just flying by the seat of my pants.

12:14 Can I answer for Larry? Uh-oh, here we go. No, no, I've said this before. This is so fun. Brandon and I need some popcorn. We're college roommates, by the way. I don't know if you guys knew that. I heard that. Yeah. Just last year then you guys met, huh? Yeah, yeah. I still feel that way. 36th anniversary of last year. I'll give you an example where it would bleed for Larry in a different way. Like I viewed the business as an entity outside of myself. It's a chess game. I'm moving parts. I'm doing this. I didn't bleed shamrock green. Like I didn't think that way. For Larry, there was no delineation between personal and the business. So if something went wrong, it was a personal affront to Larry.

12:54 So let me give you an example. There was a big Target near our shop and we would go in there to buy stuff with our shirts on. And a lot of our clients would be in there. So it'd be very common to see a client at the Target. So if a client walked up and said, Hey, Larry, you guys came and I'm going to be honest, it wasn't great. Then it would be like DEF CON 5, him calling me, flipping out, let's fire everybody. The whole company's screwed. And, you know, where if the same thing happened to me, I wouldn't have been happy about it. But I would have said, okay, there's work to do. I got to make a better system. I got to do a little more training. Literally two minutes later, I wouldn't even be thinking about that person again. Do you agree with that, Larry? I know you don't because I can see your face on the screen.

13:36 No, no, no, no, no, I agree. Totally. Totally. Because I had a hard time. My identity was built into the business. And after we sold, that was a hurdle that I didn't realize I had to get over. My identity was kind of lost at that point. And it was a bit of a challenge. It didn't hit me after a while. I'm like, oh, that's what it is. Because it was just something wrong, missing. I don't know how to explain it. See, because I didn't feel that way. Once we sold, I was just move on. You're like, I'm out. Awesome. Yeah, I'm out. Done. Didn't even think about the place again. Eric would be at Target, and he'd be wearing his shirt and his colors. Oh, here we go. Like I would. And he'd be mad at the checker that's going too slow, and he'd start yelling at her and telling her how to do her job better, and he'd tell me afterwards.

14:18 And I'm like, hey, wait a minute. Were you wearing his Cam Rock shirt? shirt. Oh, yeah. Oh, good move. He's like, and my hat and my jacket. Oh, and I am not proud of those moments. The problem was there's way too many. I just feel compelled to fix things. And I'm impatient by nature. I would like get up there and be like, you know, 14 people in the next line went faster than you. Like you need to do this and you need to do that. So target experiences were a little bit different. Yeah, that's still a work in progress. My self-awareness. I'm aware of it more now, but it doesn't mean I can always... Well, let's...

14:59 This is great. Larry, I can relate to a lot of your mojo. I can. I can. I can think back to when I had some customer debacles and I would call Brandon just freaking out like, How could this happen? And I think this is very common to salespeople, people that grew up in the business on the sales side. Certainly, there's an ego thing. There was definitely an ego thing for me, like an identity attachment to my work. And I think you spend so much of your career cultivating relationships. When something goes haywire, it's destabilizing as a relationship guy. And it's all of a sudden, it's the only thing you can think about until that relationship is whole again.

15:41 Oh my gosh. So I can totally relate to that. I always understood that too, because you could spend two years trying to get a referral source. I understood it. It's just that every home service business has these problems. You're able to be more pragmatic in the moment. Well, again, you can hear it. It's that separation of identity. Whereas Larry's like, no, this is me. It's not a company. This is me. Where it sounds like you've always been a little bit more clear and, well, this is an entity. I'm responsible for it. But... I think, Brandon, that comes from playing sports. Because when the game's over, the game's over. We did everything we could in that X amount of time or X amount of innings. And when the game's over, I'm going to go out to have pizza with my friends.

16:23 And then we're going to give it hell tomorrow. But there's nothing I can do about it today. It's healthy. No, it's good. I think what I'm admitting is I've had some unhealthy view of it in the past. Sounds like Larry and I can do this around that. You and Larry need to start a mastermind. That's right. Those skills to create the relationships that we would become so attached to would come with the identity. If you didn't carry that in there, you wouldn't be as trustworthy. It's true. You wouldn't be able to create the relationship as tight as you could. And that might not have happened if I was cold hearted like you when I had to be warm hearted. I think, Larry, if you were to do it again, you would just have to have a system of self-care to unwind that or something.

17:08 Did two industry guys just say system of self-care? System of self-care. Yeah. Holy crap. I have one for myself. Okay. Well, now you're going to tell us all about it. Well, Larry has one too. You said it. I love it. This is the second part of our podcast. Do you guys have any herbal teas or scented candles that you recommend for us at all? Yeah. Actually. Now that you mention it. No, seriously, man, you got to tell me more about this. Lay it on us. What is yours? Well, at least the parts you can tell us. I mean, my, yeah. Well, I mean, mine's different now than it was when we had the restoration company to a degree. This was part of the journey of managing oneself because I'm a highly strong individual.

17:54 I have very little patience. I only have two emotions, pure joy and pure anger. There's nothing in between. I'm not sure. The problem is, as we know, when you have our service business, anger is like 98% of the time and joy is like 2% when you get that $300,000 loss or whatever. This is why we sent him to John Maxwell. Yeah, exactly. Right. So I had to learn and I'm super competitive and I'm driven and all these things. And that was causing me a lot of health problems. So it was either I learned to create a system for myself to take care of myself better, or I was going to die young. I mean, Larry's carted me to the emergency room thinking I'm not coming back out at a very young age.

18:36 It's not good. And I don't think that's that uncommon. I just think people don't talk about it. Yeah. So for me now, I have this thing where I was always like, I'll sleep when I'm dead. We're in the restoration industry. We don't need sleep. That's for weak people or whatever. You know, the problem was is that if I continue to do it, I would be dead. Right. So Larry, for a Christmas present, bought me an aura ring. I don't have it on, but it tracks your sleep with an app. Everything measured improves, right? Larry had gotten one for himself because he wasn't a good sleeper either. And as soon as I started sleeping seven or eight hours a day because I'm measuring it, all of a sudden I feel better. I'm happier. I'm not angry as much.

19:17 I feel well rested. I'm not getting sick as often. So for me, everything rises and falls on how much sleep I got to a degree. And then the other thing is, I'm not a morning person at all. Never have been. Even as a kid, just to get up and go to school was hard on me. So after we sold, I was like, I'm not getting up early and going to work anymore. I have a whole routine where I wake up, I visualize, I meditate. I'm not on my phone immediately checking LinkedIn. Then I get up and I eat breakfast and then I go train, work out. And then I come back and I start easing myself into my day, which for me now, I'll work to midnight.

19:57 That's no problem. But I don't want to be working at 8 a.m. I just don't. We did it forever. So those are the big things. And for me, my diet changed and it's basically working out and meditating and getting sleep. Those are my three big things. If I don't do those, I'm not nice to be around. Even to the point where it's like, if I'm getting wound, Larry would call me and be like, dude, even when we had the restoration company, when we had Shamrock and I was turning into an a-hole, he'd say, just stop everything. Go grab your bike. Take an hour bike ride. Come back. I guarantee you, everybody will appreciate that. But sure enough, I'd go for an hour. I had burned off that angst and I was all good again.

20:40 Mood follows action. Say that again. Mood follows action. I heard that on a Tim Ferriss podcast once. And I'm like, that is great. From Rich Roll. He said it again. I heard it the other day and I was like, mood follows action. Wonderful way. Yeah. You know, and the thing was, I mean, I can only speak for me, but like the idea for me to just tell myself I'm going to leave my desk and go for a bike ride because that would be beneficial to everybody. No chance I'm doing that. I would never give myself the permission to do that, especially early on. It took Larry to say, could you please go ride? It wasn't me. It was our staff that would send me a text. Yeah, yeah. The girls in the office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you get Eric out of here?

21:21 Yeah. But now I think I've evolved enough that I would be like, hey, I'm getting really wound up or I'm not getting anything done. Because look, at the end of the day, we don't get paid by our activity. We get paid by our accomplishment. So I need to do whatever I have to do to make sure that we're going to accomplish. How do you see that carrying over? You had mentioned this earlier. It's just like this new push, right? Or a lot of people say this new lift, this new business, or this new focus on what you guys are doing now. It probably took a little bit different skill set than running restoration companies. What are you doing with that? Honestly, I'm not even asking this for our listeners. I'm straight up asking this for me. This is where we are now, right? What you're saying is you struggle because you're changing hats.

22:03 You're really good at something. And then you're like, okay, I can be good at something and helping people do something. We got coaches, again, in this world that are helping us market, connect, get business coming in, how to deal with the business that's coming in because it's a different beast coaching. You guys are coaching individuals, which we are too, but we're coaching technicians, which is like something that doesn't happen. we kind of have to establish the market in a way as well. We have like two steps. You just have to be creative. You have to sit and chill a whole lot more. At least that's what's been working for me. And then you got to talk to these coaches. I'm just asking ideas and you're getting along. You're asking so many people. Plus COVID coming along and you're really, all you can do is communicate like we're doing now.

22:46 The whole world had to deal with the last two years. It's not even going away. And we all have to be creative. The world's pivoting and we're pivoting, you guys and us, in our careers. The coaching thing, it always comes back to the coaching. Somebody that knows what they're doing, you want to replicate what they're doing. So you said it's kind of hypocritical for us to not have a coach if we're coaching. That doesn't make any sense. We're telling people they need a coach, but we don't have a coach. Yeah, but you're too good for one. Nobody's too good. Yeah, no one's too good. What are you guys doing starting next week, by the way? I just wanted to set up a coaching invitation. So Larry, one of the things you said was, you just kind of chill for a minute. Are you saying they're spending more time in thought, proactively thinking through what you guys are doing, where you're headed, what you want with your business?

23:34 Is that what you're talking about? Well, I think because we did the restoration for so long, you became good at doing it. You just followed a lot of patterns that you created and the ones that you were successfully kept with. And it wasn't as difficult because we did it for years. So now we're starting out again as if we're in the beginning again. And I was trying to remember, what did we do then when we didn't know what to do? We found a coach. We found Joe Polish at that point. Now I'm just reaching out to the coaches and listening to them, sitting and chilling. Usually I'm used to action because I'm the marketing guy. I'm making things happen. Boom, boom, boom. I'm making calls. But now I'm like, okay, if I'm going to make a call, I got to know what to say because people don't always want to hear about coaching their technicians right now. They're like, well, what do you mean? Like, well, no, you need to have technicians.

24:16 You want to keep the ones that you've got and you want to make them happy and you want to get new ones. You need to create an amazing culture at the same time. And people are like, oh, really? They're not as receptive as if they have a water damage. They're going to call you. They're going to want you to come in. They need their carpets clean. They're going to want you to come in. It's a very simple connection. This is a new connection that we've got to explain to people how important it is. And as soon as you get with somebody, they get it. They're like, oh, yeah, I need to invest in my guys because if my guys are good, I'm going to be good. And I'm like, yeah. And once that light bulb goes on, all of a sudden, like most of our clients, all of our clients, because we have minimal turnover, which is amazing, their lives get better. It's just for making better.

24:56 The big thing for us too was, like any service company, you build a local service company, right? You become well into the community, you're going to chambers, you're shaking hands and kissing babies and keeping your trucks clean, and it's very hands-on. And then all of a sudden you start a digital business, for lack of a better term. None of our skill sets apply. And not only that, most service businesses are a good part of your time and energy is reactive. Yeah. But in this kind of business, it's almost all proactive. Like, what is the next move? It's like a chess game. We've had to really learn just how to operate. It's completely different. Let's actually stay in that thread, but go back.

25:37 So when you first started working with Joe Polish and you guys started going to like the Grant Cardone stuff, and you're really, you're seeking out new input and wisdom because you're in a not desirable spot. You guys are both struggling in different ways. Yeah. What did it look like as you guys started to turn the corner? And what were some of the focus points? As you started to come out of that early phase of struggle, things started to click. What were those things that you changed in your behavior set or within the business that really started to make a difference? We recognize that the majority of our problems came from the field. So they're a field technician driven and very few of them were technical.

26:17 They were human problems. It's not that they didn't know how to cut drywall. It's not that they didn't know how to, set de-hues and place air movers or anything like that. It was, guy drove across my lawn, they left a mess, they didn't tell me they were going to lunch and then they never came back, all that stuff, right? So we recognized that they didn't even know how to do these things. We were teaching them all technical stuff. And they were good at that. And they were comfortable there. They liked that. But that's not what the customer judged us on. Customer judged us on communication, how nice they were, how good they smelled, how clean they were, being on time. We started tracking, like, where are all the sticky points for us?

26:59 Like, what are the problems? And it just kept coming back the same thing over and over. I kind of looked at a couple of our mitigation managers and cleaning managers. I'm like, look, I need you guys to pick up some of the slack for me. I need to go on full training mode. I went, got John Maxwell certified. That wasn't easy either. So I came back all excited. I'm going to fix everybody. You know, it's going to be great. And I started doing the lessons like straight out of the book. Oh my God. It was horrible. It was horrible. We were doing goal setting, big goal setting with the guys. What are your dreams? And then our manager, mid manager came in with, he goes, can you guys just stop this?

27:39 This is just crap. We want nothing to do with this. And we're like, whoa, you need goals. We all need goals. No, no, no, no. Not every day. Stop. He was so serious. You're freaking all the guys out. And this was a guy that he did not come to us very often and say something against us. No, it was a kind of a quiet comp, but he was like dead on. And we're like, oh, this is what we're hanging our heart on. What are you talking about? Yeah. And so Larry and I had decided that this was the turning point for us. This is how we were going to build the culture and get everybody trained. I was crestfallen. I just literally went home that night and I think just sat in my chair, probably cried or something, you know.

28:20 And as I sat there, I remember this vividly. I was like, wait a minute. I'm them. I'm a technician at heart. I'm the guy that was doing all the same stuff they were on the site. So all I got to do is take the Maxwell stuff and similar things. I need to break it into really small pieces and then give them a lesson in their language, in their vernacular every day, but making the point that I want to get through the book stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I know you guys did a battle rhythm podcast. And Larry and I, that's basically one of the things we implemented is just having a rhythm to the day. We started having a manager's meeting every day. So while the manager's meeting was going on, all the people in the office were getting all the stuff ready to hand out for production.

29:07 And all the guys were getting their trucks lined out for lineup. And then we started having this morning meeting. 10 to 15 minutes. Once a week, we'd go maybe 30 to 45. Like Monday, we'd go longer just to get everybody excited with a longer lesson. And that's when everything changed. Culture changed. Turnover went way down. All this stuff happened. And I'm not going to say it was easy, but it was simple. It was just invest in them, train them on the things that you're not going to get in an IICRC class. And We started killing it. They loved it because what are we saying? You're important. We're going to invest in you every single day. And teamwork, like you guys talked about, you can't put a dollar...

29:48 This is the problem. This is the problem Larry and I do have in our business. People always want a dollar amount on everything. What's my return? It's like, I don't know what your return is going to be. I know for us what ours was. And meeting in person is so much more powerful than whatever you spent on that meeting. You'll 10x that. It was a system. The thing is, in a business, you have to have systems. And this became a system where every morning we had a meeting and the meeting was a system. We'd go over the daily jobs for the day, the production jobs, and then we'd go over a lesson. If the lesson was the core values of the business or the lesson was what to do and what not to do in the house, or if it was a disc lesson, whatever it was, everybody knew they were going to get it.

30:30 And they knew that it would last a certain amount of time and they'd be ready to go out in the field. But it became a point where everybody was kind of looking forward to the meeting in the morning. They knew what it was. And the technicians want consistency. The technicians are S's in general. They don't want anything thrown to them. It's kind of sideways. They don't want anything weird. They like things the way they are. Steady. Yeah, steady. Exactly. So when they know a meeting's coming in the morning, they were good, happy to come to work. It was steady. Every once in a while, we didn't have a meeting. We get a big loss. We'd come in at 7 o'clock in the morning, and it was like everybody's running out. And the day's rhythm would be all jacked up, and that was a problem. It took us a while to realize the value of this system of having these meetings and the consistency and the rhythm.

31:14 Well, what I started doing on that big loss is I'd get in my truck and drive over there and say, everybody, we're going to take five, 10 minutes and go get on the tailgate. We're going to do it. We'll do something. You know, it might not be our normal lesson, but we're still having a lesson today, even though it's me just reading out of a book or something, whatever. And the thing was, I think that was the most powerful, though. I think you guys know this and the listeners know this. A lot of the people that come to us as entry-level technician types didn't like school, probably didn't excel at school. A lot of them come from... single parent homes, broken homes, no parental guidance, not great neighborhoods. Nobody's invested in them a lot of times.

31:56 And that was certainly our case. And to all of a sudden having someone invest in you every single day, you're not leaving for that dollar an hour more. You're not. You're just not going to. We'd have guys say, look, I can go to XYZ Restoration and make $2 an hour more, but I'm not going because I know they don't care about me. And the other thing is, think about this. Like how many of us, you're sending two guys in a van or four guys in a couple vans to a million dollar house where the husband's a lawyer, the wife's a doctor, and I've got four 22-year-olds that come from not the greatest background showing up. How am I supposed to serve that client if I'm not training those four young, usually men, on how to interact with that client, how to answer questions, how to hold their own when there's objections, how to behave in a home?

32:47 You can't do it. You can't expect them just by osmosis to just pick that up. It has to be trained. Yeah, there's this huge gap between expectations and reality. The sad part is I have to admit that I was often in that camp. Probably more times than not, I was in this... Yeah, we were as well. Everybody is, yeah. Yeah, you're like, oh, well, it's common sense. It's all the things, right? We have 15 reasons why all these people should have all these skill sets. You had mentioned this early, Eric. I think the first time we actually talked to you and you made the comment, we built this for the tax... And I remember that honestly stopping me in my tracks because it was the first time I was hearing something. We say this a lot. I love our industry, but it feels like we knock on it all the time. But it had been a long time.

33:28 And it's rare that I hear somebody say that what they were doing was specifically for the technician. And I remember it being so refreshing. I'm kind of sad that that's rare. But what was that turning point? What did you see? What did you hear where all of a sudden it's like, man, I've got to do this and I've got to do this for them, not just for the benefit of the company? Or did that ever happen? I don't know if it happened, but look, I had a lot of entry-level jobs when I was coming up in various amount of trades where I got yelled at, screamed at, wrenches thrown at me, you name it, right? Lots of guys have the same story. And I just always remember thinking to myself, and I had that with coaches growing up as well.

34:08 And I never responded well to that. I would have done much better if somebody had just been nice to me and trained me. And I was perpetuating what I had learned, to be honest. I thought that's how you led. I didn't know. Like, that's all I knew. Shut up and go figure it out. I was the guy who would tell my manager when we got a new guy, all right, the first thing I want you to do is take him to that crawl space, sewage lost, throw him in PPE and shove him under that crawl space. And let's see if he survives till five o'clock. Like, let's haze the shit out of this guy. If so, he's a keeper. Yeah, see if he's a keeper, right? Opposed to training him. I always say him because most of our employees anyway were male, but it doesn't matter what gender.

34:50 Get them in there for a month to start to like it first. Then throw them in the crawl space. Get a little buy-in. But nobody had ever done that for me. So when I... flip the switch in my own head to start really investing in the team, then I think my natural inclination is I am a technician at heart. And I just feel like you said, Brandon, that not enough people care about them. And if more people did, a lot of owners would be a heck of a lot happier every night when they go home. So they're kicking the dog. People don't understand. I have coaching, consulting people that I've worked with over the last three years since we sold. And I just shake my head because they're just like, these people are ruining my life.

35:31 And I'm just sitting there thinking, if you just invested in them, it would be the complete opposite of that. It's all on you, dude. It's so much on you. So our mission is to start with the technician, to train that technician to go feel like they're comfortable when they ring that doorbell. I've got this. Too many people go to the door not really knowing what to do other than technically. And they're scared to go ring the doorbell, especially in higher end neighborhoods. They don't feel well equipped. So if I, myself and Larry can get the technician feeling confident, the client wins. And then by virtue of that, the company and the owner win. Everybody wins, but nobody wants to train the tech.

36:13 It's just like nobody wants to train the CSR. These are the two most critical things in your business. I mean, look at any service business. You've got a normal restoration company, 20 people. At least 12 or 14 of them are technicians. You got to go back. You just said something. And I was trying to jot down the note. I'm like, sizzle reel. What did you say when the technician's confident, the customer's happy, and the business is happy? What did you say? It works uphill at that point. When the technician is confident that they know what they're doing when they go ring the doorbell, and they know how to please a client, then of course the customer is much happier because they're getting what they really wanted and the only thing that they know how to judge us on.

36:58 And then by virtue of that, the company and the owner are much happier because the whole thing's flowing better. All right, let's take a minute to recognize and thank our Mitresto Mastery sponsor, Accelerate Restoration Software. And I'm fully aware, by the way, that when I say those last two words, restoration software, that that instantly creates heartburn for some of you out there, right? Because we probably all fall into one of two camps when it comes to software. We've either cobbled together kind of a version of free website tools and spreadsheets just to make our business work, Or we're in the camp where we've adopted one of these existing restoration platforms, you know, one that has all the bells and whistles and supposedly does it all.

37:45 But we can't get our team to consistently adopt it and input information to it. Yeah, and that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's simple, right? It's intuitive, and it focuses on the most mission-critical information, i.e., guys, your team will actually use it. Let's talk about sales, right? After years of leading sales and marketing teams, the biggest trick is getting them to consistently update notes about their interactions with referral partners and clients. And the essential piece there is there's got to be a mobile app experience. And in our experience... the solutions that were previously out there were just too cumbersome and tricky to use.

38:29 Yeah. Imagine guys, how your business would change if your entire team was actually consistently using the system. Do yourself a favor, go check these guys out at xlrestorationsoftware.com forward slash MRM and check out the special offers they're providing to MRM listeners. All right, let's talk about actionable insights. Owners, GMs, you can't be your business's expert on all things estimating. You might've been three years ago when you were writing sheets in the field, but the industry's always changing and so are the tools. If you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to Xactimate and Matterport, how does that scale? You're the bottleneck.

39:10 I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is where actionable insights comes in. They're a technical partner that can equip your team with the latest bleeding edge information and best practices and then update them with webinars and training resources when the game inevitably changes again. For this reason, we recommend actual insights to all of our clients. Yeah, three of the kind of big things that stuck out to me when being introduced to AI and their team. First off is this consistently updated training. I mean, at the end of the day, these guys are the experts. They're out front all the time. They're constantly learning new trade secrets and ensuring that your team's got access to those things. A 3,700 plus page database of Xactimate templates.

39:53 I don't know what else to say here other than don't reinvent the wheel. It's already available. Download it, copy it, use it, bam. database of commonly missed items. I think this is huge. So many of us can change the numbers by just moving the needle a couple points and those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world. So go check them out at value.getinsights.org backslash FCG. You really gave a zinger there. And what you said is we don't invest in the technicians. You also mentioned the CSR. So the CSR can mean different things from business to business.

40:33 For us, in the business we've operated, they're the receptionists. They're the first on phones. Well, we had that realization, I don't know, a couple of years into us working together. We were getting ready to hire a new receptionist and We were looking at that entry-level price range. And we were interviewing a lot of receptions who were somewhat timid and quiet and shy. And I said, I think in a lot of ways, this receptionist needs to be one of our most sophisticated admin roles. They're the one that's going to be getting the job and almost selling the job in the first initial conversation. They're the very first experience that somebody has, whether it's an adjuster, an insurance agent, or whoever's calling that line.

41:13 It's the very first experience with our brands. And of course, likewise, the same exact thing is true of technicians. In fact, in some cases, the technician is the only part of our brand that customer or that person is going to experience. Totally. It's funny, right? How we sabotage our own best efforts because we're prioritizing the wrong thing sometimes, right? What makes us do that? Think about this, and Larry and I are super guilty of this as well. So the owner is going to go get all kinds of training. like five trainings a year or something. I haven't been in the field in seven years, but I'm going to go get my master water restorer or whatever. And there's technicians sitting there that are out there every day that don't know what they're doing.

41:56 So yeah, It's just flipping the switch and going, well, it's math. Where are the potential most problems or the best fixes? Same thing, right? Just a reverse mentality. Where can I make the biggest outcome? Because look, this is how Larry and I started looking at it. And this changed everything for our company. It's all of our competitors have business development reps. All of our competitors have dehumidifiers and fans and vans and whatever. So what's the only thing different? How well we can service the client. How few problems we can have so that people want to use us. Because we all know this in our industry, and it goes for any industry in home services.

42:37 If Larry goes for three years to the same insurance agent and they have somebody they like, It's only a matter of time before that guy screws up royally. And who's there? Larry with his pineapple. So now the only thing I have to compete is to make sure that we go as long as humanly possible without screwing up so we can keep that referral source a long, long time. Which is all predicated on the quality and experience and confidence of your technicians. Yeah. Even if you back out even further, the liability of a service company sending people in your vehicles into people's homes... and you don't train them 100% on how to do everything when you're out there, they never see the owner.

43:22 And if something goes wrong, anything that goes wrong from the second they punch that clock when they come in to the second they come out, and they're unsupervised. It was retail. You can see your people right there. If it was a school, you got people right there. We send people into the field unsupervised. So why aren't we training these people that are unsupervised dramatically? We're so liable. The liability is huge from that aspect as well. Think about this. So Larry and I, we were not the best technicians at all. Like we were okay, but we weren't like the best. We had people that were way better technically than we ever dreamed of being. Took us forever to realize that. Yeah, that might have taken a little while.

44:03 The thing was, is that we had very few, if ever, problems with clients, right? Why is that? Because Larry and I were a little more worldly. We've been to college. We had other careers before we started in restoration. We could talk to people. We could communicate with them. And we knew enough to build containment and put down property protection and not walk across their lawn 50 times and all these things. And it took us a long time to realize, because we would be like, why do these guys keep getting callbacks? It was people stuff. And nobody had ever taught. them. As they would learn, they were like sponges. It wasn't like they were fighting us. They were just like, oh, I didn't even know that walking across their lawn made them angry.

44:43 So you didn't really feel much pushback when you guys were like, okay, we're going to reshape the training. It's not John Maxwell's smart goal setting, but it's dialed more into this everyday application. They were in. No, not immediately. Okay, tell us about that. Well, you have to get the person with the most influence within the ranks to buy in. So for us, that was one of our mitigation managers. He was the guy. Everybody looked up to him. He was a young guy, but he was super driven. And he didn't buy into the beginning either. He used to sit there with arms crossed, just like, you've got to be kidding me. Can I just go, please, can I just go get work done? And then after a little while, and I think now that I've been doing it longer, it could be quicker.

45:25 But all of a sudden, I think it's not just him, but all of them, they're starting to see what I'm talking about in the lesson, in the field. And go, hmm. Eric talked about that yesterday. And this lady's doing that to me right now. So you got to keep dripping on them. And all of a sudden they start seeing it. But some people buy in quickly. Some people it takes a little while and some people are going to cross their arms for a long time. And some people are never going to make it. And what happened for us was as more and more percentage of the team bought in, we always say technicians, but all of our admin team were in these meetings. It was everybody's in these meetings. They're pushing out the people who don't buy in. They're coming to us saying, you got to get rid of Timmy and Susie because they're not one of us anymore.

46:08 They're not part of where we're going. Do you feel like you had to lay out that vision for the team? Like, was there like an explainer, if you will, a program launch? I mean, what that initiation process looked like? I would love to tell you I did that. No, well, no, actually it came out of, we had this trouble with property managers and technicians saying the wrong things to the tenants. And they would say things to the tenants that the property managers would be getting me about. They'd say, your property manager should be doing this. And I'm like, listen, dude, we got to tell them this. And we can't just tell them once. We got to tell them once every two months. We got to go over it again because new guys come in and guys forget. And they've got to learn the same lessons over and over, just like the rest of us, but in their world.

46:51 Okay, you guys don't park in front of the driveway. Wear your booties. Oh, yeah, no problem. I got it. I got it. But if you don't tell them again in a month or two, they're going to slack off and it's going to be a problem. So I said, Eric, we have to hit on these lessons. on a specific schedule so that we don't have these same problems. Because I was getting so angry. These property managers would call me, and these were the relationships that I created. I was so angry. I'm like, tell these guys to shut up. Be quiet. Don't talk to the tenants. That was part of it. You had to have a system with it, too. By the way, I never told the guys to shut up. I was not the tech listener. Just so we're clear. That's not a lesson. It is a good segue though. I wish we'd met and found you guys even sooner.

47:34 We would have absolutely benefited when we were operating the field with a program like you guys offer. I mean, you can tell, like Brandon and I are bought in. We get it. Thank you. For the audience that isn't familiar with Morning Tech Meeting, can you give us just an idea of what some of the topics are that you guys cover and just what that looks like on a day-by-day basis? So it's like Larry and I talked about systems. It's a system. So every week is the same. It's like your battle rhythm podcast. I'll tell you what we did in our company, and then I'll tell you it's slightly tweaked for our product. So in the company, we used to do mission statement Monday. So we would go over our mission statement and what it meant every Monday so that everybody was very clear. We're just hammering mission.

48:15 And for us, it was SHAMROC. It was an acronym. Service, honesty, accuracy, management, revenue, opportunity, cleanliness, and knowledge. We made it easy so that Okay, today we're going to talk about the S, the service component. So that was Monday. Tuesday, in-home behavior. Wednesday, disc training. Thursday, in-home sales, add-on sales. But you see, the sales lessons are almost identical for service because we're not teaching tips and tricks and closing. It's more process-driven on how to get that person to like you, trust you, and then allowing that person to want to buy from you. But service is really the same thing.

48:56 We go over all the lessons from the week and they take a five question quiz. So the only difference now in MorningTechMeeting.com, we do personal development on Monday and then inhale behavior, disk, sales, recap and quiz. What's an example of that personal development content? Oh, it's everything. There's a lot of Maxwell stuff. And then I tweak it for the technicians. I'll give you an example of one that I just did recently. We have a six-location plumbing company that uses our stuff every day and the owner actually called me and thanked me for this one lesson, like out of the blue. I talked about frequency, that we all have a frequency that when we walk into a room, people can feel that frequency, whether it's a high frequency and you're happy and you're excited to be there and you're engaged, or that frequency is super low and you're bringing the whole room down and upset.

49:47 So I do lessons like that. We do a lot of stuff on planning your day through a 24-hour cycle. So when does tomorrow start? The second you clock out today. Because the decisions that you make this evening are going to affect tomorrow. So are you going to go home and drink a 12-pack and play Halo to three in the morning and then get two hours sleep and then roll in in dirty clothes and no shower, no food, no water, Marlboro Reds and monsters? Or are you going to... You just explained almost my... Well, never mind. Yeah, yeah. You act like you're alone. How do you think I know this? Actually, a lot of the lessons, I mean, they're all lessons that we see all the time, but it's more the why.

50:28 Eric will explain why you don't stay up all night and what happens to your day. And then he explains a story of himself or one of our guys. So you get the why and you get an example and you get what to do. And that connects. That's where the tech whispering connects because you don't stop and tell your guys why. Okay. You don't do this. Don't talk to the tenant. Don't do this. Don't say anything about the property manager. And then you'd walk away. And that's what I would do. But Eric would say, okay, listen, this is why you can't talk to the tenant because the tenant gets mad at the property manager and then caused problems with Larry. And he can't, Say that to the tenant, even if it's a good property manager, bad property manager, this is how we need to have a business relationship.

51:09 And he'd stop and express that to them. And all of a sudden, they're like, bingo. And then it would work. So it was when you're dealing with somebody, explain why something's important. It resonates and it connects. And then also like, oh, and there's buy-in. But once you get buy-in, it's winning. I try to do that because I know when I was a young employee, I didn't like to be talked down to and ordered around. Like, Brandon, I know you were in the military. That would not have been a good fit for me because I hate authority, right? But if somebody tells me why we're doing something, I'm usually on board. As long as I know the why, I'm good. So in these lessons and the videos, they're purposely kind of low quality. We're not using super fancy cameras.

51:51 I'm certainly not using fancy language. They're five minutes long. I really am one of them. I'm really speaking in a lot of ways to my younger self. I'm trying to give the lesson that I wish somebody had given to me that I could have benefited from. And I hope that carries through. I don't know if you guys had a chance or not to listen to the episode that Clint Pulver is on just talking about that mentor management. Did you guys have a chance to... I haven't listened to that one yet. Dude, I'm telling you, everything that you guys are saying, these are real life, tactical, tangible ways that we can live out what Clint talks a lot about. And that's just developing a relationship with people where they know that you care.

52:33 And part of the way that you guys are doing that is that you're living out respect. You're saying, okay, this is a person. They have perspective and real life experiences. They're smart enough to understand a why. It's like once you present the why to them, they're like, I can get on board with that. Yeah, he was saying that every employee we have, they want to hear that they have potential and they have value right now. They have value right now and they have this potential. And he also said another comment. This just feeds into everything that you guys are talking about. He was differentiating mentorship from leadership. And he said this, he said, In order for a mentor to have a mentee, they have to have the mentee's permission.

53:13 They have to be given permission to that person's heart, which feels really sort of foo-foo and lovey-dovey for our industry. But it feels also very true, right? You can't lead somebody who hasn't given you permission. And I feel like what you guys are doing... is showing that value and potential and creating a foundation for a leader to actually be able to mentor versus the management, the command and control thing that most of us do. Yeah, it's a system to create that relationship because many of us, we didn't know what to do when we were younger. Like, well, how am I supposed to be a mentor? But then we create this forum of these meetings. Oh, OK, I can latch on to this and this.

53:55 And there's connection time every morning for five minutes, five, 10 minutes. You find tiny ways to connect. You can develop those mentoring skills. Because it works both ways. Once the young owner, the business owner, a young old, whatever, they, oh, maybe I need to do this. I shouldn't throw a wrench. I should try and talk to my guys. Like, this is what's going on. And you're like, oh, okay, that works. The other thing is, we all know this. You almost can't lead and manage at the same time. Because the manager, it's, I'm going to tell you where to go and you go. A leader saying, hey, let's go together, right? So they're almost competing mindsets in a way. And I'm not trying to make this some like pitch for our product, but it lets me kind of lead them.

54:38 That way the owner, if it's a smaller company or the manager, can just go about their business and manage. Where I'm saying, hey guys, this is why we should be doing these things. Come with me and let's go on this journey about becoming the greatest technician that ever walked the face of the earth, a super tech. Don't be a tech, be a super tech. That's our mission. Or it's almost like you're the uncle. You're the uncle that's speaking to the boy that can't quite hear the lesson from his father, but the uncle can come in and they're just more receptive because it's the uncle and it's not dad who's always telling me what to do or that kind of thing. We get phone calls about that. We get owners calling us or they see us at a trade show and they're like, you guys, they listen to every word Eric says.

55:18 I've been telling them the same stuff for years and they've never listened to me before. Now all of a sudden they're telling me what a great idea it is. And you're like, and you're welcome. I take that as the ultimate compliment. When they're upset about it, I say, look, the only difference is they don't know my bad habits. Oh, right. They haven't seen me. You know, it's easier to take it from an outside source because they don't work with me every day. Yeah, there's no baggage. Yeah. None. No, I don't listen to them at all because we're together all the time. You got all the baggage. Yeah. That's well proven. Well, guys, this is shaped up to be an incredible show. I want to make sure that people know what is the latest iteration of Blue Collar Nation. I hear you guys have some refresh that you've done, some new things on the horizon.

56:00 Do you want to kind of give us the lowdown on how people can engage with you? Well, we're right in the middle of a full rebrand. Larry and I realized as part of the thing that our name has a ton of friction with it. Owners generally don't like mornings because they're stressful. They have, at best, an iffy relationship with their technicians, and the word meeting sends them into orbit. So our name alone drives people crazy. So Larry and I would say, hey, we're with Morning Tech Meeting, and you could see a wall go up immediately. You just said the M word twice. Yeah. So we're rebranding. Do you know Derek and Katie at Spot on Solutions? Yeah.

56:41 A little bit. A long time ago. Yeah. They're a restoration marketing company, but they're helping us with our full rebrand. We've known Derek for 15 years or something. He's one of our first mentors. We went to mature. Yeah. He was a mentor to us. So we're rebranding. By the time this comes out, we should be done or very close. So we renamed our company Super Tech University. And we've got a new logo with a guy almost with a diploma hat with a wrench, almost like a superhero. And we have new stuff coming out where we're going to start training.

57:23 tough thing. So we're going to start having packages where they can get help for that person who they want to move into maybe an entry-level management role in the field. Because as we know, that's a big jump, especially when it comes to soft skills. So we're going to do a bunch of stuff like that. And then we've got a bunch of other cool stuff coming out. So Super Tech University should be live, what Larry, about 1st of February? Yeah, we'll do our best to make it that time. It's a lot of work, but we're making it happen. Larry's going to make it happen. It's all on you, Larry. Your flagship product, though, is the Super Tech University videos. Yes. Lessons, videos, morning meetings. Yeah. So it's Super Tech U, the letter U, supertechu.com.

58:06 And so that's where listeners can go if they want to check out this service for their team. Yes. That's live right now? Okay, awesome. What if they just want to talk to you first? They're not ready to jump in and make some kind of digital commitment. How do they get ahold of you guys to connect with you? They always talk to Larry first. They talk to me. There's a phone number on the website. Usually people just want to email larryatmorningtechmeeting.com It'll be Larry at supertechu.com. I got to get that all set up. And then we have an 800 number. Always eludes me because we don't use it as much as we should. I'm bringing it up right now. It's 800-371-9412.

58:46 We'll add a bunch of stuff to our show notes too. And then they can always, if they want to feel like they get to know us a little better, they can always check out our podcast, bluecollarnation.com. And I also want to make it clear, we've talked all about restoration because you guys are mainly a restoration podcast as well. And I know you're pivoting from that, but ours is for anybody that has people go to ring a doorbell. Heating and air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, landscaping, pest control, maid service. We even have auto body shops using our stuff. Love it. Makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. I just have to tell you guys, I'm bummed that we didn't meet you before. I'm really excited we have an opportunity to cross paths. I'm really looking forward to doing more with you guys and being a proponent of what you guys are building because...

59:31 I'm really moved by the fact that this is a game changer for the technician at the technician level. This is a really profound way to look at our workforce and see them in a different set of lenses that business owners in general have really struggled with. And honestly, it's been one of these things that we perpetuate it in groups. It's like you get business owners together and it can very quickly turn into this sewing circle or whatever where we're just sitting around bitching and complaining about our people. And it becomes really difficult for us to not dehumanize them, right? They just become this thing that's a giant pain in the ass. They're just constantly getting in the way. I'm not designed that way naturally, but I do that.

1:00:12 I have also fallen into that position more times than I want to admit. And it's not really in my heart. That's not how I feel about people by nature. So I just really respect what you guys are doing. And I hope that people that are listening today are getting a sense of the value that a tool like this can bring to their business. Because here's the reality. A lot of business owners, business leaders have great intentions, but they're just trying to spin all the plates at the same time. And at the end of the day, it's overwhelming and it's hard to do all things well. And if this is something that you could adopt and bring into your system and have two guys that are doing it and doing it well, and that can become a resource for the benefit of everyone, it just seems silly not to do it.

1:00:56 Don't let your ego get in the way. You don't have to be the answer. Let a program like this be used and get the benefit from it. Let your team develop from it. Let it be a resource that expands your capacity as a business leader and... I don't know. I don't know why I feel led to say that, but I can just see a lot of people going, well, I'm the owner. I should be able to handle that too. And don't be stupid. Just because you're the owner doesn't mean that this is even within your skill set. Right. Yeah. And it usually isn't. Usually they're much better at strategy and numbers and production and technical stuff. Look, most people that's, you know, anybody that's read the E-Myth knows that Michael Gerber breaks it into three pieces, entrepreneur, manager, and technician types.

1:01:36 And most of the people that do what we do start as technician types, myself included. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. For anybody who is going to Howard Partridge's conference, February 8th through 10th in Houston, Larry and I are going to be there. I think we're probably going to be speaking. We'll be at Flow Expo, which is a plumbing show for PHCC in Los Angeles, March 12th. I'm speaking with R&R on their panel at Nexus, March 29th. And then we have a booth at The Experience in April. And I'll be speaking there as well. Just got a busy first couple quarters of the year. Be nice to run into you guys there as well. We'll just come and hang out in your booth. Yeah. Are you going to any of the shows to visit or walk them?

1:02:18 We are negotiating that at the moment. It's all been a crash course for us, kind of getting into the circuit. I get it. We really want to just come do some live stuff. We just think it would be a blast to come meet up with you guys, meet up with Michelle and some of the other crew and just kind of get caught up in what's going on around us and bring people some kind of live perspective on the happenings. That'd be fun. Yeah, if you're there, we'll do a podcast. Ed Cross was there last time. He was bouncing around. I know you guys had Ed on the show. He was quite entertaining. Yeah. Well, do you guys know Jared Steyer and John Isaacson? Yeah. All of us will be at Nexus because Jared's got a podcast booth there. So if you guys can find your way down to Vegas, we'll all be there.

1:03:00 Man, that would be super fun. Yeah. That would be super fun. Jared's got kind of a travel setup, so we can all sit down and talk and stuff. It's pretty cool. Right on. Okay. Well, until next time. That's been a lot of fun, guys. Yeah, I hope we can hang again, guys. Thanks so much for spending time with us. All right, everybody. Heath, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart & Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow. Formally known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.