Ep 97 - Joey Coleman, Live at CORE Collective 2023

0:00 Before we get rolling, I want to just kind of talk through a couple of our premier sponsors, the folks that help us feed the machine so that we can continue to do this. AnswerForce. Guys, probably the last couple episodes, you're like, who is this AnswerForce team that is now hopping up on the radar? And we're really excited about that partnership. They are actually, their regional office is here in the Pacific Northwest. So that's always kind of fun. But essentially, it's a call-taking partner. I'm sure they have a better way to say that. But in my mind, this is how it works, right? Is what happens storm season, cat events, lunches, after hours calls, right? There's just this rhythm of we have an opportunity to wow our customer when they first make contact with us.

0:42 A lot of times we try to control all of that in-house. And sometimes we do that really well. And at times we get stressed. The system gets strained because of real world events. And then we struggle sometimes. to keep that experience consistent. With AnswerForce, they literally are going to customize it. They're designed specifically to be working within our industry. They understand how to partner with restoration companies. They customize the call-taking, the questions. They can even go as far as integrating in our CRMs. There's some details behind that that AnswerForce is more equipped to talk about. The point is, these guys are a bolt-on partner and it's pay as needed. Pay as you use it. There's not a more flexible option to create that consistency.

1:24 And one of the ways that I thought about this is, if there are things that burn our team's commitment out, like after-hours calls, or whatever, we just get inundated with flow, call flow, and our teams then begin losing some administratively productivity or administrative production... Guys, partner with these guys. Use them as needed. Flex to your needs. And these guys can be a really powerful partner to help you take those calls in and really get that client started on the right foot. That wasn't shorter, but it was really good. I know, but it was really good. No, no, no. You get excited to talk about it. That's okay. They're new. So we're going to kind of unpack it for a little while. Liftify.com. God, you know how much we love these guys.

2:06 You need Google Review. for your business. Like period. It's not even a discussion. And Brandon and I have yet to see a team. Actually, there's one team that was doing pretty rad at Google reviews. But here's a way to think about it of how good you're doing and whether you need Liftify or not. Let's say you do a thousand jobs a year. Some of you are like, we do 3,000. Okay, whatever. You do a thousand jobs a year. If you are doing it well, you should be adding 200 plus reviews, Google reviews every year to your Google business profile. 100%. If that's not what you're doing, then you should hire Liftify because they will help get you to that standard really fast. And we've seen it over and over and over and over again.

2:48 They're targeting 20 to 25% conversion. And you'll hear if you listen to Zach in previous podcasts that he's serious about that. Like if they're not seeing that in a particular account, they bring it up at a weekly meeting, kind of like our production meetings. That's right. And they're like, hey, what's the deal? Conversion is not what we want to see it be. And they troubleshoot. It's really, really cool. So Google reviews, Liftify, liftify.com, forward slash floodlight. There's some kind of deal there that sweetens the pot. That's right. And then finally, CNR. CNR Magazine, Michelle and her team, they have all the industry content. They get all the scoops of all the most interesting latest stories. I've mentioned this before. I was somebody who just glanced on. I wasn't paying attention to the CNR platform.

3:30 And then once we met Michelle, I just got turned on to who she was and what she was trying to do with the company. And I started opening the CNR emails. And I'm like, there's a lot of value that's free. So subscribe to the site, get the emails, actually open the emails. They are worthwhile. Michelle doesn't waste your time. They're content pros. Anyway, that's all I have to say. If you're not following CNR, you should be. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead.

4:14 Man, I love this industry. All right. Bingo. We're live here with Collective by Core. Welcome to the Core Media Pod here with Joey Coleman. Just had his first keynote, opened up the conference. It was awesome. And so now we get to chat a little bit. It's kind of debrief from the talk a little bit. Where do we want to go? Well, okay. So the first thing that comes to mind for me is, and again, this is a little bit, I think, a little fanboy, but dude, you do a fantastic job of connecting the dots to the audience. And here's what I mean by that. Like, okay, granted, you have some civilian experience with water losses and damage, right? In general, but it's not your trade.

4:55 This is not your industry. No, not at all. But man, you were keyed in and you were connecting the dots. That's true. You're using the language. You become a student of the industries that you're going to be partnering with and speaking to. I'd be honest with that. That's not an easy task to do. And we respect the hell out of that. There's a question here. The other thing though is, is it, to me, it's a living example of how you do, like you do what it is that you've written about. Not only in, you know, how to not lose a client and how to never lose a client again, but now, obviously, and you didn't talk about it much yet, but how to never lose an employee again, the next phase of that journey, but you live it. And the audience today had an opportunity to see you living that, connecting the dots and integrating yourself and your audience.

5:41 How in the heck you do that? Because how many podcasts have you been on in the last several months? How many different kinds of groups? You gave us a number. Do you do that every single time? If you're speaking to a group of realtors, or you're speaking to a dance studio instructor, we talked about that. What's that process? So first of all, thank you so much for the kind words, Brandon. I really appreciate that because that is definitely an underlying goal of mine, is to have an audience feel like I've worked in their industry for years. Yeah. as opposed to, oh, this is another one of those keynote speakers who shows up and gives the same speech he gives everywhere, or gives the same speech she gives everywhere, and they'll leave as soon as their speech is over and get on a plane and fly out of here, and we'll forget that they ever even spoke to this association or this organization, right?

6:28 And that is the piece of the speaking industry that drives me insane. I understand the practical realities that sometimes you have a speech that you have to leave for. You can't hang out with the crowd as much as you like. I get how that happens. And what I know about humans is if it feels personal and if it feels emotional... your connection to the message, your likelihood of acting on the message increases dramatically. So one of the things I always try to do is in our pre-event calls, I try to connect with the client and learn the lingo. Even if something as simple as, do you call them customers or clients? Yeah. Like that, I was speaking two weeks ago to a bunch of law firm owners.

7:11 If I say, I'm going to teach you how to never lose a customer again. Oh, yeah. They're like, oh, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. But when I say, I'm going to teach you how to never lose a client again, they're like, oh, he kind of knows. And then I dive in and I happen to be a recovering attorney. So I can go real deep on some of these topics. But you're right. In the restoration industry, it's not something that I have. I have a modicum of personal experience, but I haven't been in the industry before. And so I try to do things of talking to the client. I try to talk to people that are in the space as part of the homework I do before I ever go on stage. I was thrilled to be a guest on this show and talk with you guys about it. And we had the time when we were talking recording, but we also had time when we weren't recording where I'm asking you guys, so what is this like and what are the problems that you do?

7:55 And all along while that's happening, I'm taking notes on that. And I'm paying attention to that. And so as part of my... We were talking before we started recording about rituals around speaking. One of my rituals is the morning of the speech. Usually my speeches are in the morning, kickoff, keynote, that type of thing. While I'm showering and shaving and brushing my teeth and doing all those things, I'm playing recordings and reading through the notes that I took on the background. Unbelievable. So that I have everything. And then I'm handwriting out... on a card key phrases. Like for example, in this industry, people that are outside of it know it as, oh, you're helping me with my flood.

8:37 Yeah. Well, it's water loss, not a flood. Right. If you're in the industry. But the lay people call it a flood. So I'm going to mention flood and make a joke about that on stage to let people know, I empathize with you. Your customers don't call it the same thing you call it. Yeah. But let's also acknowledge that they're using completely different terminology and we want to be aware of that. Yeah. And how do we navigate it? So those are some of the things I try to do behind the scenes to make it happen. I will tell you one of my favorite compliments of 2023. I spoke in an event that was in a franchise space. Okay. And I came off stage and somebody walked up and they said, how long have you been a franchisee? They're like, nailed it.

9:18 And I was like, my work is done here. And the person was incredulous. I was like, actually, I don't own a franchise. And he's like, no, you have to own a franchise. The way you spoke about our industry and what we deal with, you have to... And I was like... I'm thrilled that that was your experience in the audience. And I'm sorry if I'm deflating a balloon right now. But part of my job is to present the information in a way that you're going to see, oh, I can apply this in my day-to-day work. Yeah. And so here's the dot connection too, right? Because some people are like, well, cool, but I'm not like practicing to training up to be a public speaker. The point is, is that in those moments, right, the audience that you're being paid to come and speak to, they are the client.

10:02 And so I think, again, what stands out to me is the practicing of what we preach. And I think what's so impressive is that that doesn't necessarily seem like a huge deal, but is the equivalent of like what Chris often talks about with clients and people we have to understand them. We need to understand what's important to them because if we don't speak their language, we could potentially have some amazing things that we're offering in terms of solutions, but they don't know how to receive it because we're not speaking their language. Well, and I think too, if you don't take the time to learn the language, the common parlance within that industry, people don't feel connected to you. Right? Exactly. It's like one simple, when we talk about senior living, it's a big customer segment in this business.

10:44 Well, they don't refer to them as nursing homes. Yeah, right. They don't refer to them as retirement homes. They're communities. And so if I roll in as a sales rep and I'm talking about, so who do you guys use for your retirement home for roofing? They're like, this guy's an outsider. Yeah. Right. Right out of the box. No, yeah. Words matter, right? They really do. We hear things, it changes. They really do. And I'll take it one step further. It also matters the words we're using when we describe our industry. Oh, yeah. Many industry professionals, regardless of your industry, I run into this with chiropractors, I run into it with doctors, with lawyers, with biologists, you name it, the audiences that I've spoken to.

11:25 They're so excited about the work they do that they want to explain it in excruciating detail. Oh, yeah. Right. Okay? Now, and we'll avoid showing my total ignorance around the industry, but I am sure there are industry standards and there's equipment that you use, for example, drying a basement that everybody would know. We could mention some vendors, we could mention some of the blowers, some of the tools, the things you use. Yeah. If you show up at a customer's house and you're like, we're using the P47 Maxx or, you know, it's a do-do-do-do, I know you're excited about that. Yeah, and they're like, we don't care. But they're like, I don't even care. Is it going to be dry? Am I going to have mold? Yeah, yeah.

12:05 We sometimes get overly excited about explaining in detail what we're going to do when what we should be doing is having more empathy to the situation and saying, what are the things you actually need to know? Be more curious. Exactly. If I'm having surgery, I don't need to know which scalpel you're going to use. It might be useful to know that you are going to use a scalpel. Like, hey, guess what? You're going to have a scar after this. Thank you. That was useful. But how many stitches I'm going to have, probably not as big of an issue. And you're probably going to freak me out. So how are you navigating the amount of information you're sharing with the people you serve? I want to connect some dots on something. So something that Chris and I learned eons ago, I can't even tell you who it was the first time that presented this idea.

12:50 And it was this idea of when we show up to an opportunity, a client's loss, right? Business, home, we basically have bought into this concept that somehow our actions, our team's actions, our process, how we deliver that service... We've got about 30 seconds at the very beginning, like when we're first making an introduction of our brand ourselves to the client of answering three questions. I want to see how they land with you and then how you connect it to your eight phases of onboarding a customer. So three questions that we feel like we have the obligation to answer is, one, do you care about me? Essentially, can I trust you? And then the third is, can you help me? Right? Do you care about me? Can I trust you?

13:30 And can you help me? And so what we've taught teams over the years, mainly our own, was how do we behave, communicate? How do we introduce ourselves in such a way that somehow through our actions, we're saying yes to those three questions just as quickly as we can. As I think about that in the back of my mind, as I've talked to you, obviously, today from the stage, talking about those eight phases of our client's onboarding experience, but what's Joey's perspective on the three questions, how it relates, right? Yeah, I love that. At the end of the day, care, trust, and help are fundamental experiences that humans seek. Especially when they're dealing with an outside vendor, sorry to use the V word, but somebody who's coming into their home.

14:16 And when you add on top of it, the high emotional stress of a catastrophic event, it takes that thing that they care about to start with and exponentially increases it. Yeah. What I think is interesting is when we talk about something like trust, when I say, you can trust me, that doesn't necessarily create huge feelings of trust. In fact, most people who say you can trust me are actually the ones who you can't trust, right? You shouldn't trust. But what are things you can do to show trust? I was at my house the other day and I had somebody coming to do repair on a dryer, a clothes dryer. And... there's a, the doorbell rings and I go and I open the door and the person has take, who's come to service the dryer is not standing at the door.

15:03 They're standing about five feet away from the door. Creating that space created trust. Because I was like, oh, this isn't me opening the door and somebody's, oh, I'm right up in your face, right up in your business. And with my door, it's a solid door that does not have a peephole in it. And it's a frosted, opaque window next to it. So I knew because of when they were coming that that's who it was. But they don't know who's coming to the door. They don't see me coming to the door. They're going to be startled. I'm going to say, they just took a couple steps back. Something as simple as that sends a very subconscious message of, I can be trusted. I understand that you might have fear opening this door, not knowing who's at the door.

15:44 I'm going to respect that by stepping back. Another thing we can do is say, hi, I'm Brandon from Floodlight. I'm here to look at your basement. Announcing yourself, saying your name, even though it's a scheduled appointment. You've never met. Doing a handshake, asking, may I come into the house? Oh, more trust, more care. And as soon as you step into the house saying, with your permission... I'd like to put on these booties so that if I've gotten any dirt walking from my car to your house, I don't track at your house. Would that be okay if I do that? Who isn't going to say yes to that? Right. But now you're building give and take.

16:26 You've asked a question. Anybody knows anything about sales. You ask them a question that they give an affirmative answer to. that is in their best interest supporting them. You're now priming the pump for later when you say, so these are the options, which one feels like it's going to be the best fit or best solution for you. You've already got them saying, this is someone I can trust. This is somebody who cares about me. Oh, the help is the last one because it's like, Are you showing me that you have the expertise, the knowledge, the commitment, the care, and the trust to actually get me the result I need, which is what I really need is help. I want trust. Yeah. I want care. Yeah. I need help. Yeah. I can't solve this problem myself.

17:07 Yeah. And even if you fall a little lower on the trust and care, if you help, I might overlook a little bit of the trust and care. Now, that's not permission for anybody listening or watching to say, oh, we all got to just care about what we help. But recognize that different customers, you can throttle some of these things back a little bit as long as you're over delivering on the other ones. I love that. So good. I actually wanted to dive into the Never Lose an Employee. Sure. Because the book just came out. Just came out. Okay. I was one of the early recipients. You were. I appreciate you being an early adopter. And it's awesome. And what was fun is, as I was listening to your talk about Never Lose a Customer Again, there's so many awesome parallels.

17:50 And I think one of the things that's so applicable to me is in order to deliver, in order to move through these eight stages and to get your team on board with that, you really have to... I think model those behaviors for your team first. So in many ways, you almost could have written this second book first in order to prepare companies to properly execute on the customer experience. Because unless we're modeling and allowing our people to experience what great care looks like, they don't have a context for it. You are absolutely right. It is a little bit of a chicken or an egg scenario, right? Like, do you care about your employees first or your customers first? Well, the answer is yes.

18:31 Right? It's not an either or, it's a yes and. And you're absolutely right. We need to show our people what we mean by a remarkable experience. Let's look at the typical person working in the restoration industry. Typical crew member, typical team member. I say this from a place of respect, not a place of judgment. Yeah. What is their life experience with Remarkable? Have they eaten dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant? Have they flown first class? Have they stayed at the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton? I don't say that from a place of judgment. But years ago, I was doing a presentation for a guy. Quick story. He said, I want you to teach my people how to deliver first class Ritz-Carlton white glove service.

19:14 I said, okay. He said, no, it's really important, Joey. That's our mantra. Ritz-Carlton, first class, white glove services. I said, okay, great. So I show up at the event. I'm going to do a day-long workshop with these people. These folks are in the commercial property management space. So managing big office buildings, office complex, lots of janitorial staff, lots of maintenance teams, everything you can imagine. And I said, great, super excited to be here today. I'm going to open with three questions. Question number one. How many of you have ever spent the night at a Ritz-Carlton? And I look across the room of 300 people, and the CEO proudly raises his hand. The head of sales raises her hand.

19:55 And no one else raises their hand. I said, okay, how many of you have ever flown first class? Again, the CEO raises his hand. The head of sales raises her hand. The CFO starts to raise his hand and then puts it back down and goes, do you know how much first class tickets cost? I said, okay. I'm not admitting. No one else raises their hand. Exactly. I said, last question. How many of you have ever eaten a meal where the waiter brought your food wearing white gloves? Not even the CEO or the head of sales raised their hand. And I said, it is impossible to ask our people to deliver an experience for which they have no context. Now one of those...

20:35 This is how you opened. This is how I opened, right? So the crowd is... And I said, and the CEO is looking at me like, seriously? And I said, so here's what we're going to do. One of the rules I make whenever I do private consulting engagements with clients is I say... I need your trust and permission that if in the moment I feel that I need to suggest we start making a change within the organization, that I can announce that without your approval. I will then help you with the implementation, figuring out how to do it. But I need to be able to respond to what happens in the moment. And when I'm looking across the room, I said, so here's the new program we're going to be adopting. On your one-year anniversary of being an employee of this organization, here we go, you and your spouse or significant other are going to get two nights at the Ritz-Carlton.

21:19 Guys, people started cheering. We're two minutes into the speech and the staff and the team is cheering. They're thrilled. The CFO is looking at me like, who agreed to let this idiot on the stage? The CEO is turning red and he's like, I know we agreed to this, but I didn't expect that. Yeah. I said, but here's the thing. You get to go stay at the Ritz. The Monday after your stay, you have to do a 10-minute presentation to your department on what you observed, how you felt, what you saw. And now I see the CEO going, okay, I get how this is going to work. And then I said, and on your three-year anniversary, we're going to implement that you get two first-class tickets anywhere in the United States.

22:05 You can take them for your vacation with your family, whatever you're doing. You can take them for a special getaway with your significant other. And when you come back from your trip, you have to do a 10-minute presentation to your department, to your team, about what you experienced in first class that you don't experience in coach. Everybody's like, oh, they're clapping their chair. And I said, And last but not least, let me spend some more money. I said, next year, we're going to have an annual meeting. And at the annual meeting, we're going to have an annual dinner. And that dinner is going to be served by waitstaff with white gloves. And what I want you to do is think about how you feel.

22:47 Think about what that experience is. And now everyone's signed. They're getting it. They're going, oh my gosh. Yes, I can see how if I have this context, if I have these experiences, I'll be able to deliver Ritz-Carlton first class white glove service in our class A office building when dealing with our tenants. Yeah. I mean, it was hella brassy. Let's just call it what it is, right? Well, this is probably why I asked to be paid in full before I take the stage. Just to make it real easy to, you know, he can say whatever he wants. CFO is like, how much do we pay this guy to come in and spend a quarter million bucks in 10 minutes? Totally. But I think it's also like a testament to just getting aggressive about making that a priority.

23:30 You know what I mean? So I think for some of us with smaller businesses, just thinking about, okay, what are the kind of steps that we could take that feel radical, even if they don't necessarily have a radical price tag associated with it? And so what can we do? I mean, even from your perspective, you've talked to companies that run the gambit. If you're just kind of thinking about it from your perspective, how do we give someone context that's in a small business? Like in our industry, it's service sector. So what's that look like? I think the secret is to look at what would be meaningful to your people. and not get caught up in my Ritz-Carlton first class white glove service example.

24:12 Okay, that's an example. But that may not be the example in the restoration space. Let me give an example of an experience I had on a construction site years ago. Visiting this construction site, it's a client's construction site, and I'm just kind of there to observe and what's happening. And they're like, oh, we're trying to make it a great experience for when our employees come and work here. It's a corporate office building. And there are some workers there. And I noticed that one of the guys who's swinging a hammer, His boots, his work boots, they're not the best. He's overdue. He's overdue for a new pair of boots. And if you know anything, obviously a lot of your listeners do about working in those type of environments, you can lose toes if you're not wearing the proper footwear and foot care.

24:55 And so I went up to him and I said, hey, just out of curiosity, what's up with the boots? And he said, I'm saving up. I know I'm long overdue on these and I'm just trying to put the money aside because steel-toed work boots, not the cheapest thing you can buy. And there's actually this pair I have my eye on that are actually really comfortable to wear. It's weird. I tried them on in the place and they were so nice, but they're a lot more expensive than these ones I'm wearing. So I'm on track to be able to get them in about three months. Three months. Three months. The foreman of that team, construction team, the CEO of that construction company, when they get the team together, when they go on site, they should be looking at everybody's boots and going, you know what?

25:39 You need some new boots. Let's get that taken care of. I mean, so many folks in the trades, you have to come with the tools. And part of the job is acquiring and learning the tools. Let me get this right. You're asking me to come. And we see this in corporate America too. Oh, great. You just joined our company. You'll be using your laptop, right? Wait a second. I'm going to use my laptop that I paid for to do work for you How does this work? I'm confused. In a retail scenario, would we ask someone to bring their own cash register to the store? No, that'd be insane. But we think nothing of asking someone to bring their own laptop or bring their own hammer to work on our site. I'm not saying... And some of the people are freaking out right now because they're like, Oh my gosh, Joey, you just raised my budget.

26:21 I'm feeling convicted. Right? But here's the thing. I'm not saying you have to do it for everyone. But what would it be like if you became known in your town, in your community that like, hey, you swing a hammer, don't worry. You can swing our hammer. Yeah. You need some boots to wear, don't worry. If you've already got a pair that you love and are broken in, awesome. You can wear those. You're getting to the point where you need a new pair, we got you. Yeah. You're making an investment in your people that will pay incredible dividends and And the fear we always get is, well, Joey, what if I buy them the work boots and then like two weeks later they quit? Yeah, yeah. Are they going to keep wearing those boots? Probably. Every time they put those boots on... Where'd you get those?

27:02 Where'd you get those boots? Actually, my last employer got me these boots. No kidding, dude. I've never had somebody pay for my work boots. Yeah. Actually, they did a lot of things right there. It wasn't so bad. Your advocates, your business changes, I think, when it comes to your employee experience, when you realize that you can have W-2 or 1099 employee advocates who are on payroll, who are getting money from you. You can also have alumni advocates, people who worked for you a year ago, two years ago, 10 years ago that are still singing your praises. But we have a tendency to get so offended when an employee leaves. Like, oh, they left us. They went somewhere else. It's like, why are you burning that bridge? Did you enjoy when they were working for you and they were doing great things?

27:44 Why aren't you trying to maintain a relationship with them? Yeah. not only they could become a boomerang employee, that's an employee who comes back to work for you. And we all know boomerang employees in many ways are the best because they go out and learn new skills and then they come back and they work for us. We don't have to spend as much time re-upping them. And then they're like hardcore advocates after that. Yeah, they're huge advocates. They're totally bought in. They're like, oh, I went and I thought the grass was greener on the other side. It's actually brown. I want to be back and work with you. And if we're big enough And when I say big enough, I don't mean our egos are big enough. I mean that our hearts are big enough, that our empathy is big enough to say, yeah, it's all good. You left on good terms. We'd love to have you back. You were a great worker. You stay in touch with these people. Now you're having an entirely different conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. So it's funny because I feel like we don't often do a good job of thinking about those things more as an employee engagement benefit.

28:33 versus just a product of cost versus revenue or whatever the case may be. And again, I get caught up in this too. We have a small business essentially as a team. And so it's easy for me even to get caught up in this. But there is something... Basically, to a certain extent, you're almost talking about the opportunity cost. It's like it's doing better, right? It's saying, okay, this is 300 bucks for these boots or whatever the number is. And or though, what happens when a guy like that gets hurt? We don't think about claim. We don't think about the ramifications. Loss of productivity, finding someone else to come in and do the job. I mean, we've got all the financial impact. We've got the emotional impact of the other guys going, geez, Jerry got hurt on the job.

29:16 What if I get hurt on the job tomorrow? Maybe I shouldn't be doing this job. Yeah. And then you've got all the downtime of going to the other folks on the team and saying, hey, we're going to need you to work harder because Jerry's down. And so the morale implication of all of this that could have been solved for a $300 pair of boots at some point, and I appreciate, Brandon, that you mentioned $300. The research shows that the average American, the average American when faced with a $300 unexpected expense has to consider bankruptcy. Wow. I'm going to repeat that because most people who are listening don't necessarily fall into this demographic because you're business owners. Yeah. Most business owners, respectfully, are walking around with 300 in cash in their pocket.

30:00 Yeah. The average employee of yours, a $300 unexpected expense pushes them to the brink of bankruptcy. One of my favorite quick and easy employee experience things that will cost you zero hard dollars and will do more to move the retention and the experience of your people than anything else, create an employee emergency fund. Here's how the fund works. Okay. At any time, an employee can come to someone in your organization. Maybe it's a CEO. Maybe it's a team manager. You identify a single person. And you say, you can go to that person and say, I need to tap the emergency fund. And you can tell them however much money you need, up to $500.

30:43 And that money is deposited in your bank account that day. You don't have to explain for what, why, how, when, etc. The next day, when you come into work, that person, that team manager, whoever you talk to comes and confirms, you good? You got the money? Yeah, great. Sometime in the next two weeks, I would like to have a conversation with you about the repayment schedule. Not today. Not today. Not the day you asked for the money, but sometime in the next two weeks while it's fresh and it's in both of our minds. That can be flat out repayment. That can be a deduction of your future wages or commissions. We can build that out over the next pay period or we can build that out over the next six months pay period.

31:30 Interesting. We're here to make sure you're okay. And if you want to share what you needed that money for, to see if there are other ways we can as an organization support you, we're happy to do that, but you don't have to. That wasn't contingent on you got to tell me what it's for. Even knowing that that financial insurance policy exists is going to reduce the stress level of so many of your people, so many of your employees. Interesting. And it costs you nothing until you actually put the money out. Yeah. And then it costs you if they don't pay it back. I can see the people going, well, Joey, what if I give them the $500 and they quit and they don't pay it back? Okay. So you get burned by that one. What about all the other people who come to work with a spring in their step because they know their employer's got them covered and that if it does hit the fan, they've got a resource they can go to that will provide an interest-free...

32:22 no time limit loan that they'll work with them to figure it out. That's how you transition from saying, oh, we treat our employees like family. It's huge. To actually treating them like people we care about. There's something in place. Exactly. All right, Head, Heart & Boots listeners. Want to stop here just a moment and thank our underwriting sponsor, Bloodlight Consulting Group. As all of you know, right, you know, Brandon and I, this is our passion project, Head Heart in Boots is. But it's also a way more and more that our consulting clients find us. And in effect, they interview us, right? Those of you who've been listening to the show for a while, you get to know who we are, right? What we're about. So if Head Heart in Boots is valuable to you, one of the best things you can do is share it with your friends.

33:05 And it's been incredible to watch. just the audience grow and we still get text messages from many of you about shows that you really like and impacted you. So that's number one. And please keep doing that. Many of you have been huge advocates of the show. We also just want to remind you too, if you're a restoration company owner and you're interested in a partner in your growth, you want some help building out systems, developing your leadership teams, helping set up the infrastructure for you to scale and grow into the company that you're trying to build, That's what we do. That's what we do is we come alongside restoration company leaders. We help equip them and we help support them in that growth trajectory. So if you're looking for that, go to floodlightgrp.com.

33:47 Potentially, we could be a great match for each other. Another way that we really do serve our client base and our sphere of influence is through our premier partners. We work really hard to vet those folks that we believe bring a level of value to the industry, that it can really be leveraged in a way to have a sincere, positive impact on your business. We take that very seriously. The folks that we create those kind of ongoing partnerships, that's not a check-the-box kind of scenario. It's we really see strategic alignment in the value that they bring. We see value in the way that their leadership teams and their partners are developed. And we've done very sincere work of ensuring that these folks that we introduce our clients and our sphere to can actually create vetted value. So go check out floodlightgrp.com forward slash premier slash partners and see if there's some folks on there that you can connect with and begin developing some other resources to support your growth and your business.

34:41 I feel like that's tapping into is we're considering how our people feel. Yes. You know, and we talk about this with customers, right? We all do the nuts and bolts work of restoration, sucking water off carpet and so forth, but how we make people feel in the process. And we talk about the Ritz-Carlton experience, but it's like, we never actually get into what does that feel like to have the Ritz-Carlton experience? And then how do we produce that with our people, you know? Having that backup, like my wife, it's funny, my wife, we just took the kids to the dentist here this last week. And we were- A place that is known for surprise bills that are unexpected. Yeah. My favorite. Yeah.

35:21 Yeah. She texted me. She's like, yeah, so I just had the dentist and we don't have dental insurance. We have major medical, you know, whatever, but- Most people don't have dental insurance. Of course. Yeah. It makes perfect sense. And it was 400 bucks. Now in our world- We can handle 400 bucks. It was, all of a sudden life was not stressed out, right? But what you're talking about, how often do families with children have dental bills? Yeah. Multiple times per year, potentially? Yeah. And like you're talking about a $400 bill. Now all of a sudden that could be, gosh, how are we going to take the family vacation we've been planning for six months? And then we get a choice. Do we take the family vacation or do we let that cavity ride? Yeah.

36:02 Let's not fill the cavity because we don't have the money to fill the cavity because then we can't go on the family vacation. So you know what? We'll deal with that later. And then it becomes a root canal and it's $2,500. A hundred percent or an infection that turns into now your child's in the hospital and the bills are running. To your point about feeling, I think most humans could stand to spend a little more time practicing their empathy of seeing the world from other people's shoes. Like what is actually going on in their life? What are things that to me would be nothing, but to them would be everything? That's the other crazy thing for so many business owners and leaders is... Things that would in many ways cost you nothing are life-changing, game-changing experiences for your people.

36:51 And it just requires a little bit of thought, a little bit of consideration, a little bit of consciousness. The smartest employers in the world, the employers that are the employers of choice in every industry... pay attention to what happens in their people's lives between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. as much as they pay attention to what happens between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. When you start thinking about what is my employee's home life like, what are they dealing with in their personal life, aging parents, sick children, graduations, anniversaries, baptisms, births, childcare. We were talking before we started recording about my good buddy, John Rulon at Giftology.

37:32 John has one of the most brilliant employee benefits I've come across. If you work for John's company, you get unlimited babysitting. Really? As an employee perk. And here's how it works. You decide you want to go out with your partner, your significant other. You book a babysitter. You go out and then you submit the receipt for reimbursement. Now, the reason he has you submit the receipt is because two things. Number one, he wants you to pick the sitter. So it's not, oh, our company's... It's not some program. Yeah, yeah. No TPA for babysitting. A hundred percent. And let's be candid. If you have kids or if you've even been around kids or parents, they're particular about who watches their kids.

38:14 So you pick and you pay for it. Because in the beginning, some of his employee benefits, he was giving people the cash and saying, this is to pay for babysitting. And they wouldn't spend it on babysitting. They'd spend it to pay down debt. They'd put it in this life happens accounts. And so they're missing the point. And what John has realized, and what I think anybody who's been married for any appreciable amount of time knows, is investments in your relationship with your partner, whether you're married, it's your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whoever it is, are investments that pay dividends during the workday. Because you feel good at home and you don't have issues at home and you've been able to connect with the other adult in your life instead of only managing the kids.

38:56 Cost to him, minuscule in comparison to the benefit he gets. It really is brilliant. I think the interesting thing too is a lot of this stuff does come across as very respectful. Yes. Right? And I think you were kind of alluding to this with what you said, but I think we see this when I'm susceptible to this, like if I'm honest. And it is, you know, often I look at my blue-collar staff over the years, and I've been at some pace different than them. I'm a little farther in my career. I have whatever, education. I knew this person, and so it helped me move a little bit faster into this role, or I came onto the company at the right time. So I got this, you know... whatever the case may be, but it's very easy.

39:38 Even though the reality of it is, is not everything I'm experiencing that's positive was because of my awesome discipline or my initiative or my doing. I'm also very fortunate. So long story short of this, you get to a certain tier and it does seem as if I can stay in this category of, man, you're fortunate to know me. You're fortunate to have me supporting you this way. And I'm not saying it, but it's these subconscious ties. But if you're thinking it and you're feeling it, guess what? You're acting that way. And they're picking up on that. 100%. Exactly. I have two boys. They're seven and 10. And one of the things I've tried to impress on them is there will always be someone on the playground that's bigger than you.

40:20 There will always be someone on the playground that's smaller than you. There will always be someone in the classroom who's smarter than you. There will always be someone in the classroom who's not as smart as you. There will always be someone in the car pickup line who their family has more money than our family. There will always be someone in the car pickup line who their family has less money than our family. When you stop seeing yourself as being on the parameters, when you stop seeing the edges, when you stop seeing yourself as being better than or further along than. I'm further along in my speaking career because I've been doing it longer. But there are a thousand things that I am behind other people on that I haven't been doing because I've been speaking.

41:03 And so when we appreciate that in SharePoint, Brandon, when we respect that, it changes the conversation. Yeah. That's because we see others just like ourselves. A hundred percent. Like leadership and self-deception, they talk about this idea of being in the Bobby Arbinger. This idea that when we're in the box, it's when we cease to see others as people just like ourselves, same hopes, fears, dreams, desires, anxieties, and so forth. When we get out of the box, we realize, okay, that technician who's 22 years old, has the same fears, ambitions than I do. May it sound and look a little bit different, but the core of it, right, is they're just like me or just like I was at 22.

41:44 Yeah. Same concerns, same dreams, same vision. I want to be bettering themselves and so forth. It humanizes. Whereas I think we can. We can fall into this place of seeing people as objects. Our direct reports. Yeah. Our people that do those things in that department. Our staff. Our staff. A staff is a stick. It's not a person. Okay. Stop calling them our staff. You don't have a room full of sticks. Okay. You have humans. I totally agree with you. And I think the opportunity we have is to build in regular moments of reflection to check our own assumptions and where we're taking things for granted.

42:24 So because I spend a lot of time on airplanes, I log somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 actual miles in the air every year. Hmm. I fly first class. Now, I don't say that from a place of ego, but I'm six foot two. I'm coming to present. I need to be well rested. I need to be ready to go. I'm performing at the events I'm going to. But on a semi-regular basis, at least once every six months on my return flight, I will intentionally book the last row, middle seat next to the bathroom on the plane, otherwise known as the worst seat. on the airplane.

43:04 Literally, there is no seat on the airplane that is bad as back row that doesn't recline next to the toilet, middle seat. That's right. Okay. On a good lengthy flight. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You get a nice little three and a half hour one there. You are going to have visions of end of days. Okay. But I do that to remind myself that when I get on the plane and sit in row two, it is privilege. It is something I should be grateful for, something I should be thankful for. Years ago, I was at a Tony Robbins event and he was talking about how irritated people get when a flight is delayed. And you just watch people and they lose their minds that the flight is being delayed. And he said, what would the Pharaoh have given to fly like a bird?

43:49 In that era, all the riches, all the riches of Egypt, they would have happily given away to be able to soar through the skies like a bird. Something that we're like, oh, my ticket was $350 to go from one side of the country to the other. And I didn't get to choose my seat. I get it. I understand. As somebody who likes to get from point A to point B quickly and efficiently and ideally in some mode of comfort, we want that. But let's also not take it for granted. And I think that's the rub though. That's the difficult to do is to not allow the context of your current situation reshape the way that you think about what you've previously experienced or what could happen again in the future.

44:31 But dude, it is so hard to do that. I mean, I like- And that's why I say it has to be part of a practice and a ritual. I do this on flights. Once a year, I sleep on the floor. Why do I sleep on the floor? Because I'm really lucky to have a bed. And you know how I'm going to remember that I'm lucky to have a bed? To sleep on the floor once a year. I mean, these are things that if you build them into your nervous system and build them into your life experience, you have a context. I can remember the last time I slept on the floor. I can remember the last time I slept on a couch. I can remember the last time I sat in the back row middle seat. I can remember the last time I went to a restaurant and I wanted to order appetizer and entree and dessert and instead just ordered the entree.

45:17 So that I could be like, what would it be like if I couldn't order both of these? And then what could it be like if I didn't get to go to this restaurant that is just my regular restaurant I like to go to for lunch? It's all about maintaining our perspective. And the last thing I'll say on this is to your point earlier, Chris, about age. Why is it that we forget what it was like to be that young? Yeah. Why is it that we forget what it was like to be a kid, to be in high school, to be just starting out in our career, to be single looking for that special person, to be in the first few years of a relationship or a marriage, to be without kids, to be with kids, to have parents, to not have parents, all these life milestones, it's like...

46:00 We get past them and it's like we start judging and denigrating anyone that is in that space. And we forget how hard it was. And we forget how hard it was. Yeah. And so these are the stories I try to tell my boys. I tried to tell them of the times when I was starting my business where guess what was for lunch? Peanut butter and jelly. Guess what was for dinner? Peanut butter and jelly. Okay. I didn't do ramen noodles because that was too fancy. I did peanut butter and jelly as I can make it quicker. But there were months when I was starting my business where that was the meal. Why? Because every waking hour and every extra dollar was going into growing the business. Yeah. So at least once a year, I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to remind me of those stunts. Oh, yeah. It's smart. I think building that stuff in is super smart.

46:42 The reality of it is, I even think about it from just a professional perspective. We forget what the world looks like from our tech size. And now, I know some people listen to our show and they've only got five or six techs. So they're as much engaged in the everyday service delivery as anybody else. But teams that have gotten larger, it just doesn't take long. forget. Maybe plight's not the right word, but just the effect of what it is that your people experience. And I remember, I almost feel bad saying it now, but I used to, every so many months, I would go out and I would intentionally just become grunt labor. My staff, they put me to work and I would do everything in my power to not talk about what has to be done.

47:26 What's the scope? What are we going to do? How are we going to do? You do this. It was just keep your mouth shut. And if just try to keep up. Yeah. Like, yeah. I mean, because it was hard. Like, it was hard to keep up with a team in the middle of the night doing some kind of mold job on a commercial property or whatever the case may be. But man, like, not only was it great for the relationship, But it was so good for my mindset. Yes. It's just a reminder. And I think that's where a lot of stuff that we subscribe to make it easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing. And we didn't come up with a lot of this stuff, but it's like, we heard it, adopted it, and we're like, oh, when we do these kinds of practices, that has so much more context than we even thought.

48:12 But just that practice alone. If your team's big, get out in the field and just be a laborer. Keep your mouth shut. Don't boss anybody around and just try to work as hard, if not harder, than everybody else around you. Absolutely. I mean, almost every business owner who has built and grown their own business at one point did the job. Yeah. At one point, you were answering the phones. At one point, you were doing the sales calls. At one point, you were doing the mitigation project, whatever it may be. But as our businesses grow, we stop doing those things. What would it look like if you answered the phones for one day? What would it look like if you went on sales calls? all day for one day. And felt again that, did we get it? Did we not get it? Did I close it?

48:53 Did I not? That feeling that any of us who have ever been in sales have. But when we get removed from that, we lose that tangible connection to the emotional journey that our people are going through. I love the idea of get down in the basement and do the work. Have the experience. And to your point, I think a couple of things happen. Number one, you reconnect with how hard the job is. Yeah. your employees, your team sees you working and goes, well, you know, the old man's not as bad as he's lost his spring in the step, but you know, he can still get there, kind of. It builds rapport. And it also sends a very clear message. There is no job that is above or below anyone on this team. We're all in it together.

49:33 We're working together. I'm just as willing to roll up my sleeves and do the hard work as anybody else. Wow. What that does for retention, what that does for morale, it's unbelievable. Game-changing. Okay, so I want to be sensitive with time. I think a fun wrap-up, so you gave at the end of the presentation, I think it's five or six books that are kind of your formative customer experience books. But more currently for you, what are you learning? Is there kind of a growing edge? And it may have nothing to do with customer experience or your books. But just for you as a person, as a professional, what's new in your life? Or what are you pursuing? Yeah, I love this question, Chris. Thanks. So a couple things. Number one, from a reading context, I try to read one fiction book for every nonfiction book I read.

50:18 Mm-hmm. And the reason I do that is when we read fiction, we understand humans. We relate to the story or we don't relate to the story or we get a perspective we didn't have or we reaffirm a perspective that we already did have. I love business books. I write business books. Business books are great. Business leaders should read more fiction because it will help you with the people you interact with, whether that's your customers, your teammates, your employees, your significant other, your spouse, your children, whoever it may be. So I try to do a lot of that. The area that I'm doing a lot of study and research around right now is empathy. And the reason I'm doing that is if you talk to the AI experts, most of the AI experts, back in the day when you went to the AI experts and you said, what aren't we going to be able to teach AI to do?

51:10 The knee-jerk answer was, oh, creativity. There's no way. Creativity needs the human spark. That's where it's going to be. Well, if you go on sites like MidJourney or you look at what ChatGPT can write or any of these other sites and you're Dali and you're seeing the amazing creative work that's coming out of AI... creativity is going to be possible. Sorry, that Rubicon was passed a long time ago, and it's only going to increase from here. The one thing they will all consistently say though is empathy. We don't think we're going to be able to teach the computer empathy because it's naturally excuse. It requires consciousness. It requires consciousness. It requires the ability to put ourself in another person's shoes. And thus far, we haven't been able to create technology that can do that.

51:53 Do that. Wow. I think if you want to future-proof yourself... I think if you want to succeed in an increasingly digitized, automated world, doubling down on the aspect of humans that makes humans humans, that is empathy, is the way to go. And so as I think about my next books, my next speeches... how can we teach empathy? Because when I say empathy, everybody listening, everybody watching is kind of like, oh yeah, I've heard of that. Did you ever take a class on empathy? Did you ever have a teacher say, today we're going to learn how to be empathetic? Is there a system? Is there a process? Is there a process? Most people have never had that experience. And in fact, most people have also grown up and in their life have experienced a lot of opportunities where they wish there would have been more empathy for what they were going through, what they were feeling, what they were dealing with.

52:44 So I think if we can hone that skill, it could be game changer, not only for our businesses and our families, but I think for our planet. Do you have any people you're following on that subject or a recent book? Oh, you know, it's interesting. It's a really broad net right now. So the way I started is I went on to Amazon because that's a good place to start for information. And I searched the keyword empathy and I bought the 10 books with the most reviews. But there's a premise out there that if you read 10 books on a topic, you become part of the top 1% of the people on the planet with knowledge about that topic. And when you think about that, it kind of makes sense.

53:24 If I were to read the top 10 books on restoration, I'm probably in the top 1% of humans as far as understanding restoration. Yeah. Okay. That's not a huge bar. Yeah. to get a lot of information quickly. So I'm working my way through the top 10 books on it. What's interesting is I also then met a professor at Yale who's an expert in empathy because I read his book and I was at a conference and I started talking about it. And somebody said, oh, you should meet this professor. He does empathy. And I talked to him and he's like, Oh, I do. And what's your interest? I'm like, I'm always conscious of being a writer. And I'm like, I'm not trying to become the empathy expert. I just want to understand it enough that I can talk about it with some level of coherence and confidence.

54:10 And we start talking and I'm like, oh yeah, I actually have read your book. Well, now guess whose eyes are lighting up? That would be the professor who's like, oh, my work, you're a fan of my work, you appreciate me? Yes. And so now we're deepening the conversation. And what does he say to me? Hey, Joey, if you do decide to write this book, don't hesitate to send me a copy. I'm happy to kind of give you feedback on it. Well, if I can have a blurb from somebody whose book is in the top 10 books on empathy, Oh my goodness, yes. Guess what? Yeah. Hashtag winning, right? Right. I didn't go into what I think is important. We were talking about this before we started recording. I have tried to spend my life treating people with as much empathy and love and care as possible because we have no idea how this little conversation, this little connection is going to come back to serve us years later, decades later.

55:02 Yeah. And it's about, are you trying your best to put good out into the world? If you are, I really think good comes back to you. Yeah. You're a living example of that in a lot of ways, for sure. Love it. All right, gang. Well, thanks for hanging out with us, my friend. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me in the live in-person pod at Collective 23 from Core. I mean, so exciting. And more recorded stuff will come out. So those of you that did hang out with us for a few minutes here, of course, the Avon Effect, the media team will do their thing. and push this back out for folks to have a second chance to take a look at it. But thanks again, my friend. And hopefully we'll get you on the show for a third book. Thanks, Brandon and Chris. I really appreciate it.

55:43 All right, everybody. Hey, 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, formerly 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.