Ep 155 - "Money, Work & Elk - With Mark Springer"

0:00 No, don't hate me. I'm hating first. Don't do that to me, you son of a... Bro, I got to tell you, I am very partial to this guy, our next guest. And he's been on once before, and then we've had just several kind of professional conversations with this guy. And I even said this to him, like we, we like hung up the call and I, I kind of turned the recording off and I just straight up just told him like, I, I have met a lot of men, a lot of leaders in my life that there's just elements of them that you're like, yeah, that's cool. That's good strength. It's a good skillset. And, I want to learn from part of that. And then there's like these individuals that you meet where there's just a more holistic recognition of, I would just call it in general wisdom.

0:46 And the reason I use that word is, it's not just book experience knowledge. Wisdom is different when it begins to translate into the way that you carry yourself, the personal brand that you're establishing, the reputation that, that precedes you, those leaders that are confident, competent, and consistent begin to move into a wisdom category for me. And honestly, dude, at the end of the day, Mark Springer for me, he's just a wisdom-filled guy. His approach to his personal life, you don't have to agree with everything he does or doesn't do. but it's hard to look at the fruit of the way he manages himself and disagree with the outcomes.

1:32 Yeah. The other thing that I think I admire about Mark is, is his character. Yeah. Like you, like you talked about just kind of the way he conducts himself at one point in this conversation, it was pretty clear that he's carrying some frustration slash disappointment in some things that he's dealing with right now. And, I think other personalities or people that we know might choose to behave a little bit differently dealing with the circumstances he's dealing with. I think I really admired, I think part of what I've observed in Mark is there's a level of restraint. Yes. Yes. and discipline in how he manages his emotions around business.

2:13 And, you know, he's held a lot of really important leadership roles, not the least of which, I mean, now post-restoration, he's advising different companies and on boards and... making investments in different things. And I just, it's true. I think part of that wisdom you're talking about for me is he just has a great deal of self-control. Yeah, self-control. And the way he shows up in conversations, which I really, really respect. He was one of the figures that caused me to start to rethink how many F-bombs and S-bombs. It's true. I'm using it in a public saying. Yeah, there you go, Mark. Between he and Katie Smith, you know? That's right. I think they're cut from a similar cloth and I respect it, you know, because it's like no one's ever going to go wrong by not saying F-bombs.

2:57 Yeah, no, it's true. We got to tip our hat to Katie and to Mark Bolton. Yeah, for modeling that circumspect, you know, professional behavior. I love it. It's okay to iterate. Let's put it that way. But okay, so we have drawn out this introduction. But so we're going to talk about accounting. We are, which sounds boring as hell. But don't hang up and switch to the next podcast. We were pretty confident there was a solid three listeners by the time we got to the end of the show. No, we dive into more this perspective of where does our head need to be in terms of the relationship that we have as leaders and business owners to the financial competencies that we have. of the business. And there's just a requirement for us to continue to educate ourselves and surround ourselves with people that can help us have the correct understanding and respect for the financial data within our organization.

3:52 And one of the things that we end up kind of pointing to is, is the RIA is kind of accounting. I'm brain farting now, but just basically it's an analysis of some standardized accounting practices. Standards, yeah, yeah. Chart of accounts. Yeah, which he played a huge influential role in helping establish. And it's funny because when you go through it and look at it, it stands the testament of time. It's a valid way to look at the business. And I think one of the things that we're challenged by in our industry, for instance, is we all are kind of trying to attack the thing from a different perspective. And what can make that difficult, what some of the difficult things that come from that is, It's hard to lean on each other. It's hard to get some peer accountability. It's hard to get consistency in the business when we all kind of look at this with such varying degrees of experience and background.

4:38 And I think a good place to start if you're learning, if you're growing in your financial competencies is go to this free tool that's available for us, that's based in our industry. It's very connected to what we do and how we do it. And it was developed by leaders that have gone before us and that have been successful in varying ways with the operations that they were leading and designing. And so it may not sound like the sexiest topic in the world, but it's actually really important. And I think the way that we dig into some of the kind of mindset and posture that we need to have is very relevant and it's bite size. And I think from there, if you're motivated, then you can start digging into some of the more, you know, nuts and bolts.

5:23 I will just say before we dive into this accounting primer and interesting conversation with Mark, did you ever get into his big elk that he got or his buck or whatever? Yes, we did. And then the guy like a week later sends another photo of the buck that he closed out the season with. And I don't know where this guy is going, but Mark finds very large animals. Yeah. He must have a couple chest freezers in his basement. Yeah. And I was also, Mark, if you're listening to this, we are going to have to have you back on the podcast because I want to hear the story of how you burnt your own house down for an advertising campaign at Dayspring. So- More on that, folks. Yeah, I missed that window of dialogue. Hey, guys, before we get rocking and rolling here, real quick, you may be a first-time listener to the show.

6:08 You may not fully understand what Chris and I do. Well, we run Floodlight Consulting Group. And we help restorers scale their businesses. We take that mission very seriously. It obviously leads to a lot of the stories and experiences that we share in the show. And I know that for many of us, we're looking at 2025 and saying, all right, I am tired of being on hold for an election year. I'm tired of being on hold because the beginning of 2024 felt like a disaster. And we're ready to mash the gas pedal down and grow the business and focus on developing what's in front of us. Well, we'd love to be able to have a chance to partner with you on that endeavor. So floodlightgrp.com, take a look at things there.

6:51 And if you have any interest in a strategic partner to help you grow and scale your business going into 2025, Chris and I's team here at Floodlight would love to dance with you. Yeah. Well, you don't want to see me as a dancer, but, uh, but yeah, we'll, we'll talk. We will talk for sure. We will kick some tires. All right, gang, let's get into this one. Wow. How many of you have listened to the head, heart and boots podcast? I can't tell you that react how much that means to us. 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. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours.

7:31 I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Hey, y'all. Thanks so much for listening to the show. Hey, if you're not already following, please do so. And ultimately, share. The coolest currency that we have in terms of supporting this is share it with a friend, share it with somebody, a colleague, a peer, one of your downline team members. Let them be able to take advantage of the information you're already leveraging in your favor. And finally, guys, if you hear a show that really moves you, that really moves the needle, will you please leave us a review? Those five-star reviews help us a ton. Right on. And listen, if you're trying to grow your business, you might consider checking out Floodlight's Business Opportunity Audit.

8:15 It's free. We provide it at no charge. It's actually what we use to assess new clients as they come in. It's a 110-point assessment for your business. And we've now decided to give access to the general public for it. So go and take our business opportunity audit at floodlightgrp.com. It's going to help you identify the biggest gaps and opportunities in your business right now. And at the end, it'll assign you a health score to let you know exactly where your business stands right now. So go check it out, floodlightgrp.com forward slash audit and take the boa. It's a great way to get a pulse on your business. Mark, dude, I've been really excited to talk with you. Chris and I have been kind of fired up about financial conversations in general.

8:57 And you and I are eventually going to get in and talk about this ridiculously monster bull you just harvested that I'm extremely jealous about. So anyways, thanks, brother, for hanging out with us today. Again, I have a feeling that that'll be the predominant topic that we dropped it to. I'm just riding a high still, right? So, yeah, it's all good. I mean, I... I think we know if we didn't have a lot of discipline, we'd probably just spend the whole time talking about pursuits in the outdoors and ultimately what that can even bring to the mindset that one needs to have in their business and clarity of thought and the soul food that comes from that. But yeah, we probably better talk a little business too.

9:38 Yeah, let's go business first. Let's talk accounting. So my buddy here, Chris, we're building our business just like everybody listening. And so he is going to cut out at a certain point in the program today to take care of business and serve our client base. And we'll just keep trucking Mark in the conversation. But this conversation has been kind of several months in the making. We've been connecting off and on over the last year. We just really respect you. I think that's been made pretty clear in some of our exchanges together. And one of the things that came up in those discussions was you were just referring to this RIA document that technically has been around for a long time.

10:18 I think you said something around 2014, but it's basically RIAs. accounting and financial management guidelines. And you and I have just been, or the three of us have just been talking about some of these ongoing frustrations that not only as consultants, but as business owners, right? You being an advisor and having some of the key roles you've had, dude, we are missing the mark on understanding what the financials need to look like, how we manage them and how we leverage them. in our favor. And we just thought, let's get into this topic and start dissecting this a little bit. Maybe a great place to start so that people can maybe get a comprehensive understanding about you and the way that you think about financials.

11:00 Because I think in and of itself, that will lend the credibility that we're looking for why people should pay attention this morning and listen to some of the things that you present. So just... Give us from your view, your background, your experience, what have you experienced around this kind of competency or lack thereof around financial management? And why is this conversation so important to you from your perspective? It's a major dive into the deep end, Brandon. But first of all, thanks guys for inviting me back. I always find our conversations to be extremely relevant to what's happening in the property restoration industry. right back at you as far as the respect.

11:42 I really respect what you guys are doing in the industry, how you're trying to help organizations and coach them and guide them. And so, I mean, I think that's a big stewardship in the industry and I really appreciate how you guys are going about that. So kudos to Floodlight and all your team. What I don't appreciate is you losing 95% of the audience by saying, we're going to talk about accounting. I'm sure that everyone who did, they heard Elk and they're like, accounting. But the ones that are still here are 100% on board now. Yeah, that's right. Well, so we, you know, we had a couple, actually when RIA released this accounting guidelines, we had a session at a conference.

12:23 I mean, it was, I can't remember if it was the 2014 conference or 2015 conference when it was, but it was like the newly published RIA accounting guidelines. And, you know, there was like, two people in the room that were like, oh, we thought we were in the advanced drying technology room. We just got the wrong room on the map. But this is, as we started to talk about this, I think the genesis of this conversation was the cost of doing business report. Yeah, that's right. And if anyone looks at the cost of doing business report, I know a lot of there's been thousands of downloads of that. I am so... Proud of the work that RIA did in recognizing how important this is for the industry.

13:09 I am so proud of know-how. Know-how, just full disclosure. So little quick story on know-how. 2020, RIA, I was the RIA president in the year that no one in the history of restoration would ever want to be the RIA president, right in the thick of COVID. And it was nip and top. I mean, it was like, is RIA going to survive, right? I mean, industry is in a different place today than it was in 2020, right? advocacy work that has been really struck a nerve with the industry was just starting. In fact, this was even before a lot of the discussions around pricing and being able to invite Verisk and Xactware and Mike Fulton to the table to the discussions that we had about building custom prices and things that have really been transformational for the industry.

13:56 This was before a lot of that happened. I remember myself and Christy Cohen, the RICO, and Katie Smith, who was the president-elect after me. I mean, we would just have these grim weekly catch-up call on Friday mornings. And it was just like, oh, boy, how do we make it through this? We'd had to cancel the convention, which was like, that's the kiss of death. Yeah, true. Trade Association. We'd had to cancel it. Didn't know how we were going to make it through that. I fought. tooth and nail against canceling the convention. I was like, we are not, not canceling this convention. This thing is going to pass. This whole COVID thing is going to pass.

14:38 We're going to look foolish if we cancel. Guess who looked foolish? It played out a little different. It didn't play out how I thought it was going to play out at all. So we ended up having to do a virtual event. And I mean, getting sponsors for that was tough. And we had this, I remember one of our weekly calls, Christy's like, hey, so we have this company, like, I don't know if you guys have heard of them. They're called KnowHow. Who wants to sponsor our event? Like, what? Someone's willing to sponsor us? Like, you know, so I'm like, I'd never heard of them before. Got to know Layton a little bit and actually talked to Layton about using KnowHow in my company. But he has like three companies using KnowHow in the spring of 2020. I think it just launched.

15:18 And I'm like, Layton, I'm like, I have beta tested so many industry platforms. Like I can't do another one right now. Right. So we didn't end up, I wish I would have moved forward with know-how in hindsight, but fast forward to today, know-how has 700 different, you know, locations using know-how. It's a, game changer as far as, in my opinion, it's a game changer as to probably one of the greatest pain points that companies experience. How do I get my processes and my procedures to the people who are in the field so that we can instill confidence in our team and protect the time of our leaders who spend all that time picking up the phone, you know, hey, so how do I do, like, is it two foot or three foot for a flood cut?

16:04 You know, I mean, boom, it's all there. And so it's a very, very impactful platform. And KnowHow partnered with RIA now about four years later on this cost of doing business report. And the cost of doing business report, in my view, is one of the most important things that the industry has had as far as a piece of research and data. What this report did is it told us in black and white, you know, I got it sitting right here. What is it? It's like 75 pages. We have This data presented to us about size of companies, profit margins, percentages of TPA work, commercial versus residential, reconstruction versus mitigation, all this stuff we thought we know.

16:59 We kind of asked around. And if you're part of a group, like I used to be a part of DKI, DKI would, you know, had us do this report. But you only have these companies that are supposedly elite companies. So you don't really know, like, do I really have a broad base of information in the industry? And so what this cost of doing business report is, it told us with a valid set of data what's happening in the industry. And then what was great, and I think just this was put together so professionally, right? it said, here's what you should do with this data. Yeah. And as I looked at it, I mean, here's the thing, and I know that I have a, this is a really long-winded answer to your question, but to how do we get to the accounting guidelines?

17:43 But what was astonishing to me is this. This whole swath of companies that responded to the survey and took the time to fill out the whole cost of doing business survey, 52% over half of the companies reported that they were making net incomes of less than 10%. Wow. Now here's what's significant to me about that for anyone. So I, there's a lot of different frameworks that companies can use for planning and for understanding the health of their business, right? Some people are huge, like EOS, that's their, that's their bag. They just are EOS disciples, right?

18:23 There's the CEO tools, another great one, right? There's the, OKR methodology, a bunch of ones. The one that I found a ton of value in was the scaling up Rockefeller habits, Vern Harnish methodology, right? That was transformational in my business. Vern Harnish, I remember, says something in scaling up that just stuck with me, just resonated with me so deeply. And he said this, if you're not making 10% net operating income in your business, you your business is on life support. And so I'm just like, I'm reading this cost of doing business report and I'm saying, wow, over half of the property restoration industry is on life support.

19:05 Wow. Now all the people that fell asleep when they heard we're going to talk about accounting, to be hooked up now. Yeah, come back. They should be enlivened and paying attention to say, okay, life support, like I usually tune out when I hear accounting or accounting guidelines or any of this stuff, but man, life support, you got my attention. Yeah, yeah. Because this means that your business is in jeopardy. If it's on life support, whatever that looks like, you are in jeopardy. And I can say that there is... You know, a lot of unrest right now in the industry beyond what the information that we got out of this here was. That was at the end of 2023.

19:45 That wasn't too bad of a year. Oh, yeah. What are things going to look like? I mean, you guys, you guys tell me what you're seeing first, but what I'm seeing. is there's a lot of businesses that are not in better shape in 2024 than in 2023. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, I think Chris and I have been commenting behind the scenes every month of, man, dude, the first six months of 2024 was not a very motivating year for most of the entities out there, right? And then you compound on top of that, the fact that we've spent the last six months hating each other, depending on which candidate in the president election that you are supporting or not supporting.

20:26 And so I think all in all, this has just been a real ripe year for business owners to feel frustrated, disgruntled, and probably burnt out. And man, you and I and the three of us kind of chatted about this before we got started is... Look, we're business owners too, right? Like we have our own entity that we're responsible for. Half the time we're talking about stuff on the show is because Chris and I are knees deep in the same problems, chaos, or things in our own business. And I have just found two things happening this year, Mark. One is... as a business owner, I'm really kind of being down on myself when I realize how easy it is for me to get distracted by the tyranny of the urgent and lose sight of the fact that as one of the owners of Floodlight, one of my fundamentally core responsibilities is to continue to increase my competency around understanding the financials.

21:20 And then in addition to that, learning how to proactively wield that knowledge to plan, to process, to check, to model what kind of decisions we're making in the business. And I hate saying that out loud because in a lot of ways, our team's responsible for helping people do that inside their own organization. And I think what I'm recognizing is And this is going to sound kind of shitty, but I think what I'm recognizing is I often become comfortable comparing my competency to those around me. And let's be honest, this industry as a whole, statistically, I don't believe would be recognized as the most competent group financially in terms of how they're proactively managing their money.

22:01 And so I think I get a false sense of security in my own competency. And I think what I've been wildly blasted in the face this year is, man, I got to increase my game. And if that's the fact, our industry needs to increase their game, man. Like I am really emotionally connected to this topic right now. Yeah, it's super present for us. I want to just present one kind of counter thought, I guess, to this low net. No, you're not. Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to do it. Okay. Because I was thinking about that when I saw that data, I too like zeroed in on that. And one thing that we've seen in our book, and I think Brandon and I have experienced over the years, you know, of operating in this industry and running companies is, I think that possibly one reason for that low net is amongst the respondents is that companies are pre-investing going into this year.

22:50 That there's the low net as a result of growth initiatives, hiring more staff, building out a sales team. I mean, these are some trends that we've seen. In particular, some of our larger clients are 10 million and up clients. And so I wonder just how much of that low net that was reported was a result of free spending to facilitate growth that didn't come. That didn't come. And I'm curious for your perspective on that, because of course, that's something that all restorers ultimately have to contend with at some point is how do we grow and what should we expect the effect to be on our financials in a healthy company that's doubling down and making bold moves for growth. I'd just be really curious on your perspective of how to manage that risk and how to think about from year to year, we have some clients that are anticipating, you know what, we were at 18 net...

23:40 Last year, we're fairly happy with that. We realized when we hire this VP of sales, when we hire two more commercial salespeople, we're adding a lot of payroll there. Plus, we got to do this. Plus, we got to do that. We're probably going to be looking at a sub 10 net next year and we're okay with that. I imagine that some people are having those conversations. So I'm going to let you guys wrestle through that. But I just thought that that might be a key thing to hit on as well. So here'd be my response to that. First of all, may make some of my point, right? Because if someone is making an investment, they're either making an investment in one of the different areas, right? One area they may be making an investment may be in CapEx, right?

24:20 If they're making a CapEx investment, that shouldn't be affecting them now, right? Because those are going to be fixed assets that are going to have Obviously, depending on how their tax planning is working, they're going to see that affect their net income in the same way as maybe an investment. What I think ultimately you referred to, Chris, and that was, you know, if I'm investing in sales, if I'm investing in certain other areas of the infrastructure of the business, I'm seeing that. So I think we got it again. define our terms as to, okay, what is our financial acumen to understand what the return on my investment is, right?

25:01 Now, all of this goes back to, if I'm going to make an investment in business, how do I see a return on that investment? And how does that investment play out over the course of the execution that I have started to implement or the strategic plan that dictated that I had an investment in sales or infrastructure or whatever to begin with. Right. Yeah. And this is really, I think the foundational basis here, right. Is, is that it's very difficult to build a strategic plan that can actually have execution focus. If you don't have good financial data to begin with, right.

25:45 Or, or, if you don't have a plan that can use the data, how does the plan adjust as you go? And that's, I think one of the challenges certainly I've seen over time, and that is there are investments that restoration companies make that are their pursuit of a silver bullet, right? It's like, I want to find something I can do in my business. I want to buy a piece of equipment. I want to make the hire. I want to hire the salesperson. I want to hire the the manager, I want to hire somebody that's going to be a game changer. I want to buy a piece of equipment that's going to be a game changer. I want to hire the consultant. I want to hire the, you know, the software platform.

26:26 It changes everything. And it's devoid of baseline plan that then utilizes those things as tools, but then measures their performance and in a way that they can evaluate if they are successful or not. And if they're not successful, they then know which direction the company is going to go. And if they are successful, how they leverage them further. Yes. And this is one of the areas, like for me, one of the things in my business that I had such, I mean, it was such a gift to me. I had a great CFO who came to me from a much larger company and he taught me so much about finance. And he helped carry my conscience on two things.

27:09 One is having an understanding of how we implement these proper financial, you know, gap-based, when I say gap, generally accepted accounting practices, because I've done what that gap acronym stands for. How do we do this? How do we put this in place of our company? If we're talking about, you know, having a percentage of, of completion accounting methodology, if we're going to be able to look at a proper WIP process, working process in our organization, it's going to tell us how we're doing in real time in the business. How do we do that? And then second of all, why does it matter?

27:50 What is the motivation for that? How does it help us operate this business better, more efficiently and gain better income so that we make more money and ultimately the enterprise is worth more money? If the enterprise is worth more money, a lot of people right now, they just think about the enterprise being worth more money Because they can sell their business for more money. My mindset, having been someone who sold my business, it's much bigger than that. I want people to understand it's not just about the enterprise value if you go to sell. It's that if your business is exit ready, I mean, my, I say this to the people I work with all the time, exit ready business is a valuable business. A hundred percent. Meaning that at that point, when your business evolves to that point, first of all, you have freedom and freedom is the most valuable.

28:35 That's more, more than any selling your company for top dollar and getting these great multiples people talk about and all this other stuff. Freedom is everything. For you, right? Because now you have choices, right? Now you control your destiny. When you have a business that has... attractive enterprise value, it attracts talent, right? Which actually enhances your freedom. Not only do you now have financial freedom, you have a much more important freedom, and that's freedom of time, right? So you will not attract talent into a business that does not have enterprise value because people want to be a part of it. They don't want to waste their time in it because what's in it for me? And it's difficult to cast vision to people if that's what you have.

29:16 So, you know, those are the areas I think that when coming full circle to Chris's comment, I think, you know, number one, Restorers have always made investment. I don't think the results, the 52% are an anomaly at all. I think we did this in 2022. If we did it in 2020, the numbers I saw in DKI of elite companies was under 10%. The majority of companies were under 10%. Exactly. I'm not going to use any names. We were just recently, let's call it privy to some information on a group that again, high performers as a, as kind of a general group and conversations centered around getting above 10%. And so, yeah, this is not an anomaly by any stretch of the imagination.

29:59 Yeah, no, no, it isn't. And, you know, and again, a lot of people, I think, unfortunately, misunderstand industries. They may come from a construction background where they're Net operating income or net income. I mean, there's a little bit of a difference there when we're talking about those two. But when they talk about net, they compare themselves to pass-through companies, which a lot of GC companies, construction companies, pass-through organizations, right? They may do a large construction company, may do with the same amount of employees as a restoration company. five or six times the volume, right? And so because of that pass-through, they're not really looking at contribution margin.

30:44 Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. Right? And so I think, you know, it's even a problem that we see within the insurance carrier perspective. Insurance carriers compare restoration companies to construction companies. They say, what are you guys complaining about? You guys make more money than construction companies. Well, yes, that's true. But if I'm a construction company, I'm a construction company. that does $40 million a year, and I'm just passing this stuff all through at 10%, I'm making $4 million of EBITDA. If I have a company with the same exact amount of complexity at $5 million, okay, same complexity, same number of employees, $5 million at 10%, I made $500,000. I can ask any one of my insurance carrier friends that pose this question, which would you rather have?

31:28 Same amount of complexity, same amount of employees. Would you rather make $500,000 or $4 million? 100%. Right. Yeah. So there's a misunderstanding there. It is, I can say this, with the exception, and Harnish points this out too in some of his stuff around his cash section of his methodology and scaling up in the Rockefeller habits. If it is a service-based business, And it's under 10% net income. It's on life support because there is no investor who would ever make an investment in that business for that return. It's huge. It's far too much risk. Yeah, that's huge. Again, we're not trying to be patronizing or be dramatic, but just say that again. Because I think so many of us are operating our businesses off gut instincts, which is great.

32:13 It got us here, right? It's the reason that we're not afraid of risk. It's the reason why we get into the trench and initiate these things and build platforms to invite other people to participate with. There's super value in that adapt and overcome mentality of most entrepreneurs. But at some point, though, our gut begins to mislead us and our ego begins to jump in and try to subconsciously save us from the impact of reality. And it can get scary. So say that again, Mark. So I think this, when we talk about risk and the risk that an entrepreneur has to have for the investment they're making in their business, here's how they have to back up. First of all, I think most restoration companies are going to feel somewhat satisfied if their business gets to $5 million in sales.

33:00 They may aspire to be like, yeah, I want to grow to $10 million. I want to be at $20 million. I want to have multiple locations. But there's a certain point at which I think a lot of restorers hit that $5 million mark and they're like, okay, I'm there. This is what I wanted to get to, right? Do you think that's a fair assessment? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, because I think statistically, if you even still look at the numbers, that's a big restoration company. It is, yeah. So they kind of feel like they've arrived, right? Yep, yep. So if they're making 10%, right? And I know that there are some companies that are mint-only companies is a whole separate issue. And I think those companies that are mint-only $5 million companies, that is a very, that's a frightening business model.

33:40 If you want to talk about moving, having your cheese moved at some point, that there is going to be significant cheese moving in that business model, right? So let's take those, that group, and move them aside and say, okay, $5 million business in a mid-market They're making 10%, clearly 52%. Over half of them that are that size are making 10% or less. Let's just say they're at 10 exactly because it's easy math. Yeah. So they're making $500,000 net income, probably paying themselves a salary of somewhere, let's just say $150,000 salary. So they at that point have this on their tax return. When everything passes through, they've got, let's just for the sake of keeping numbers easy, they've got $650,000 now.

34:24 It really is coming into their pocket in the business, right? Now, depending on their tax strategy, and I'm not going to get into tax strategy, but let's just say, like most restoration companies, they don't invest in their financial management and their accounting services. Generally, a lot of restoration companies that I am into contact with underinvest in that area, and they'll hire the cheapest accountant they can find in their local market So let's just make the assumption again. I need you to make some assumptions as we walk through this, that they are not investing heavily there. So they've got $650,000 worth of income. Well, what tax bracket does that put them in if they've got $650,000?

35:07 It ain't the lowest. It ain't the lowest. So let's just say that it's 40, depending on what state they're in, let's just say it's 40%. Yeah, it's going to be close. $40 million just rolled out the door for the IRS. And your local state and state and local government. So now our 650 is down to 400,000. We already paid ourselves 150,000 in salary. So we're down to 250. 250 doesn't quite sound as impressive. Yeah. As far as this is what I have for my business. Now let's go back to the cost of doing business report. What we saw in the cost of doing business report is that restorers right now are running about 82 days on their cash conversion cycle.

35:52 That means if they have this business that is doing $5 million, they've got about three months of receivables right now. Not quite, but three months of receivables in that business means that roughly speaking, they've got about $1.25 million in receivables. hide up in the business. If they're putting any money into the business in CapEx, they want to actually invest in the company and buy some new drying equipment, some new vehicles. Liftify.com forward slash bloodlight. You've heard Brandon and I talk a bunch of times about the importance of Google reviews. Maybe you even heard our episode with Zach Garrett, the CEO and founder.

36:34 Recency, consistency, two of the most important things when it comes to maximizing the benefit from your Google reviews. Why not use an outside partner? Liftify is targeting 20 to 25% conversion, right? So if you do a thousand jobs a year, you ought to be adding right now, 200 to 250 reviews a year, every single year. If you're not doing that, you owe it to yourself to get a free demo from liftify.com. See their system, see how it works, see how affordable it is. I promise you, you'll thank us. Liftify.com forward slash blood light. You know, we spend a lot of money and a lot of attention trying to get that first call. And one of the things that we do once it happens is sometimes we leave it to chance, right?

37:16 Who picks up the phone? How do they respond? How do they walk that client into a relationship with us? Well, one of the benefits of partnering with a team like AnswerForce.com is we can systemize that. We can make it more consistent. We can also have backup for when our teams need that help, right? Somebody goes on vacation. Somebody's out sick. We get a storm surge, we get cat event. All sorts of things can have an impact on how we receive that client. But the most important thing is they need to know that they've chosen the right team. And so answerforce.com can support you, be a bolt-on partner to help you consistently produce an awesome onboarding experience with that first call with your client. So answerforce.com forward slash answerforce.com.

37:58 blood light. That's great. CNR Magazine, we're friends with all the folks at CNR. Michelle and her team, they do a great job of keeping their ear to the ground and reporting all the important information from our industry, right? You want to stay up on all the M&A activity and what the latest best practices are for selling your company successfully, right? She's got that great articles about all the four quadrants of our business, right? CNR is constantly pushing out great material and leveraging great writers and subject matter experts in our industry. It is the water cooler of our industry. So if you're not subscribed, go to cnrmagazine.com. Follow them on LinkedIn. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn. Trust us. If you're trying to stay on top of everything happening in the industry, your best destination is cnrmagazine.com.

38:43 You guys, many of you have already heard about actionable insights and the training and the technical expertise that they bring to the industry. But how many of you are already leveraging the actionable insights profile for Xactimate? That's the game changer. It's essentially an AI tool that's walking alongside of you as you write your estimate, bringing things to your attention that should be added, that could be considered. All of them items that increase our profitability, increase the effectiveness and the consistency of that scope. And it can do anything from helping a new team member assimilate some estimating best practices. And it also helps the grizzled bets add back that few percent that we've just forgot over time.

39:26 So actionable insights, get insights.org forward slash floodlight and take a look at what the actionable insights exactimate profile could be doing for you and your team. Dude, I love where you went and just quick shameless plug. I think that one of the reasons that you and I and Chris continue to have these kind of paralleling conversations is, and we've started to share with you, like our consulting model is designed and built exactly around what you just talked about. Because what we have found is that when we invest time and energy in establishing that understanding and that gap that you referred to, it also gets owners much more clear on what their time is worth. Because instead of us trying to find 1% this year in the P&L and that netting 100 grand or whatever the number is...

40:13 We're looking out and saying, yeah, but what kind of activities and actions and focus should I be having so I make $7 to $10 million more in the next five years in terms of enterprise value? What's going to happen when I exit? And I think you did a really awesome job of painting the reality and the picture of how important that is. Okay, so here's kind of what's been happening because you and I have been grinding gears on this topic for a pretty long time already. And it's pretty 30,000 feet, you know? Here's this one thing I just want to share as a living example of an experience I just had recently that I think may begin to tie some of this to the ground so that we can talk about what we do with this information boots on the ground. was in a meeting with a fairly large team. They're probably north of 20 million, several locations.

40:56 Very competent, young, aggressive crew. And what they were doing ultimately was looking at the profitability at some of their locations. And there was one that I would say was on life support to a certain extent. And they were underperforming in terms of how they were capturing revenue. And so they were overspent. The costs were high. And so part of the initial conversation then is where do we cut costs? And I think what ultimately came out of this, and this is what I want to point to is, so the first thing that we saw, the problem, the symptom, was more expenses than revenue in terms of that relationship. We weren't making enough money or profit at that location. And so first instinct is I got to cut costs. Well, this is where the financial competency begins to step in.

41:37 And this is why it's so important to turn financial competency into standards and unit economics in terms of what we're doing with the information on the ground. When we looked at their closing rate, Meaning, how good of a job are they doing when we get a call converting that into a job that moves into production? And their cycle times. How long it was taking to create or produce a construction project. What the owner ultimately identified for themselves, because this individual is very competent and very connected to their data, is actually our problem is we have the opportunities. We're not converting enough of them. And then when we produce them, we're taking them too long to put them through the cycle.

42:19 And so therefore, we're choking off our own revenue. Because when we looked at the production model per project manager at that location, they weren't overhired. They didn't have too much. They actually had the perfect amount of project management bandwidth to hit that 1.5 million a year in production. Meaning this owner knew his economics well enough that he was able to push back on this broad stroke, we need to cut costs. And what he identified is they had a production problem, not a cost problem. Therefore, had he fired to cut that cost, he would have almost committed a bit of revenue suicide. It would have cut off his nose despite his face. My point in that story is, is that I don't think very many of us understand the economics of our business well enough to problem solve an example like that well.

43:10 And so we get paralyzed in the analysis and we end up making no decision. Instead of making a decision based on the financial data, one that we know can be supported and substantiated. Does that story make sense how I'm trying to connect that to what we're talking about, Mark? I think it really illustrates the crux of the problem for most businesses. And interestingly enough, if the two people who are left listening to this show, once they find out it's about accounting, actually take the time to go download the RIA accounting guidelines. It's not a quick read. It's a 56 page document. Yeah.

43:50 If they get that, they will find that. All of this financial planning is anchored in strategic planning. And I think one of the biggest challenges in the industry today is that we have had an enormous amount of transactions happening. There's been a lot of acquisitions. As a result of all these acquisitions, in a year where there is an industry-wide slowdown, there has been a lot of chaos happening. you hear about layoffs all over the industry.

44:31 And I'm not surprised because, you know, most of these acquisitions that are happening now are driven by, especially the private equity markets, even the bigger strategic companies are private equity backed. And, and, Most of the folks who are running the private equity companies are numbers people. Yeah. Right. They've all got a performa for the business and they've got a model that they want to see in the business. And if there is a drawdown in the business, they want to immediately go in and cut costs. Yeah. Right. Without really understanding the really the crux of how these businesses make money.

45:16 And I think exactly to your point, Brandon, there is a misunderstanding as to what the real profit drivers are in the business. And if any business is simply trying to plug and play and... you know, use the P&L, for example, exclusively to run the business. They have the tail wagging the dog. Yeah. All the P&L is going to do is to validate your underlying thesis as to how you're going to make money. Yeah. Right. Everything that we do in strategic planning has to be proven. Yeah. We have to be able to go out and say, okay, for example, Chris gave the analogy earlier of, you know, these investments.

46:03 Yeah. There's a lot of investments, a lot of different things that I did in the business over the years that were kind of flyers. They were things we didn't really know if it was going to work or not. We added service lines that no one else in the industry was adding. We tried BD approaches that no one else was doing. We tried a lot of different marketing techniques that no one else in the industry was doing. Back, I mean, this is 25 years ago or so. Yeah. Yeah. Again, one of the things that the CFO that I had that was so valuable that he taught me in was building a proof of concept, testing it, and then scaling it.

46:45 So if we were going to add a new service line, we'd go in and build a business plan for it. And model it. And then instead of going and doing it in the whole business, we did it in a location. And then we validated our results. Then we would expand it if it worked. And if it didn't work, we would make a decision as a leadership team. Did we get this one wrong? And I had to tell my group sometimes, guys, I think we got this one wrong or I got it wrong. Yeah. And sometimes they'd fight for it and say, no, these are the changes we want to make because we still believe this is right. We think the underlying thesis isn't that.

47:25 But that's really the discipline that's. that a business has to have if it's going to build enterprise value. They have to have a proper planning approach to planning and to strategy to understand what is it that I'm trying to accomplish and how am I going to know if I'm getting the results that I think I can get. If they don't have the financial measurement in place, they're never going to know. They're going to run this thing by gut. deal and they're going to ruin it. Right. And they're going to have something that doesn't add enterprise value. But what a business can do that means one of the areas that they can really, you know, build the most significant enterprise value. Yeah.

48:05 Right. Because the discipline in that business improves over time. And as the business gets better, they can make decisions more quickly. Right. And they can expand more quickly. When they can capitalize more quickly and the team gets more adept, they build the muscles that enable it to really be a best-of-class company. That's where ultimately people have 80% of the value of a business is based on its intangible capital. Not the trucks they got out in the warehouse. I mean, if they sell to most companies, they don't want to buy your warehouse anyway. They'll lease it from you. They're going to buy it from you anyway. It's not going to be in the swag that you're giving away.

48:49 That's right. It's going to be in those areas of intangible capital. What are your people? What's the people capital in the business? What's the people capital in the business? Who are these people? How are they running the business? It's the processes, the capital and tangible capital you have in the processes. How does this business run if you're not here? It comes into the social capital. What's the culture in this company? It comes into the customer capital. How are we seeing the community and why do people in the community want to work with us? That's the areas that built 80% of the value of the business. Yeah. And you can't know if that's working unless you have a way to measure that. And that's, again, why these things matter in the business. I think you're spot on. It's interesting. One of the things that we reference a lot is, look, the LOI is 99% of the time.

49:34 And we're speaking, this is very general. We're not brokers. LOI, a lot of times, it's just a multiple on your profit. End of story, right? And there's very little data that's been gathered up to that point. everybody kind of thinks this is going to work out and play nice. Then the due diligence period starts. And now all of a sudden, all the things that are wrong in your business because you wear 15 hats and you're the smartest person on the team. Now, all of a sudden, all those scalable buckets begin to get looked at and identified as failing and wanting. And now all of a sudden, the value of your business just gets chunked down, chunked down, chunked down. And that's that mirror, right, that you ultimately get faced with at the end, potentially. And I think what we're saying here is that when owners invest time and energy in increasing their financial competency, what it allows them to do is begin engineering their time spend on the things that create the highest level of ROI for their organization.

50:25 And so, like, for instance, one of the things that, you know, and again, I'm going to say Like, I don't know if you can relate to this, Mark, but I'm failing forward. I'm a work in process. I get better every year. And I also have, you know, annual reminders where I go, man, I just don't know half of what I thought I know. Because my vision gets bigger. I get exposed to smarter and more, you know, more capable people. And it makes me smarter and want to drive for a better result. All that to be said, I think that when ultimately this year for me, I had a new layer of epiphany where it was like, dude, my time's worth five grand an hour. It is because where I'm going and what I'm trying to build in terms of enterprise value in the platform that we're developing, that's where my time's got to go.

51:06 It's got to be $5,000 an hour stuff in order for me to close that gap as you referenced between where we are today and where I need to be to hit my freedom point, right? And I think that once you get armed with that as an owner, which is on the back of understanding your financials. it now all of a sudden becomes real crystal clear which lane you should be in and how much easier it is for you to make a decision that, look, I'll take a half a point haircut this year to hire a competent person to do that task because that is not a $5,000 an hour thing. And it's not what I should be prioritizing in my time spent. And I think that's where the lack of financial connectivity shows up the most is that you watch owners burning themselves out, chasing the tyranny of the urgent, trying to be all hats, be all things to all people because they don't know any better.

51:56 But when they're really dialed into the financials and they understand how to model and make decisions about what will happen in the future... man, does it get easier to say yes to the right things and a whole lot easier to say no to the wrong things. And I don't know if that's an experience that you've had, if that's been an increasing experience as you've had these different exchanges, but that's where I'm at mentally, I know that. I remember I had a discussion with my kids once at the inner table about the value of time. What's illustrating that is, and I think I referred this resource to you guys at one point, I'd certainly recommend it to your audience, It's a book called Midas Managers by Rob Slee.

52:37 Yep. He really gets in and unpackages this whole idea of how important the value of time is, right? You know, initially, someone in their organization may only have... you know, their time may only be worth $50 an hour, right? But they shouldn't be, their time's only worth $50 an hour. You could not be working on $20 an hour activities. Hire a $20 an hour person for those activities. Yeah. You know, but as you build your skills, and as you just described, you know, you've got to be increasing your value to where your time is worth. If it's 50, then it's 75, and then it's 100, and then it's 250, and then 500, and so on.

53:20 But the example that I know when I talk to my kids about this, they were just like mind-blowing. I said, you know, if someone like Elon Musk was walking through the airport and there was a $100 bill laying on the floor, it would not be worth his time to bend over and pick up the $100 bill. And they're like, what? How could that be, Dad? No way. No way. No way. So you figure out, and I think actually this was quite a few years ago, I think it was Bill Gates in the analogy that his time was worth, and I can't remember what it is now, so I'm probably going to be off, but his was like $75,000 an hour or $100,000 an hour.

54:01 I mean, Elon Musk is probably half a million dollars an hour or something, right? Yeah. But it gets down to where his time is worth thousands per minute. Right. And actually, to the point where if you said, OK, it's going to take five seconds to bend over and pick up a hundred dollar bill, his time is worth more than the time it would take to bend over and pick up that hundred dollar bill. So it's an extreme example. But the reality of it is that most owners, it was interesting, Brandon, you'll all be interested for what your experience on this is. But I was recently speaking with a group of restorers. And I asked the room, I would say that there was 150 to 200 restorers in the room.

54:46 And I just polled the audience and I said, how many of you in this audience have a strategic plan for 2024? How many hands in the room do you think went up? Very few. Three. Yeah. Three entrepreneurs in a room. Let's just say it's 150 people went up. I asked the three that had the strategic plan. I said, okay, be honest with me. How many of the three that have you had their hands up, how many of you have referred to that plan in the last 30 days? I knew that's where you were going. No hands? Zero. Yeah. No hands.

55:26 Yeah. Right? So here is the reality, is that number one, very few entrepreneurs plan. Number one. don't have an execution mindset for that plan. Yeah. So if you're in the process, if anyone, if our remaining three listeners here are listening in, if you are thinking about you're at the end of the year, you're at the end of 2024, resolve that you are going to do this. Because it's worth it. It literally is the difference between you when you're 60 years old, being able to look back and say, I used and I stewarded my time well, or I wasted it.

56:11 Man, huge. Resolve this. Resolve that 2025 is going to be different. And start right now by doing this. Start by resolving, number one, 2025 is a year that I am going to plan for success. Okay. I'm going to build a plan. I'm going to have strategic thinking in my business coupled with execution planning. Yes. Because you can't have one without the other. And that's like if you took all the Vern Harnish, scaling up Rockefeller habits, everything, you just boiled it down to the two basics. It's strategic thinking and execution planning. And here's what you can do.

56:52 You can take the RIA document and you can see a framework in there for strategic thinking, how you build a strategic plan is outlined right in that document. And then they tell you, not in esoteric terms that you can't understand because they're speaking to manufacturers or tech companies or biomedical companies or whatever else. No, this was written by restorers for restorers. When we have in this document, this 56-page document, a chart of accounts for a restoration company right there. We've got a balance sheet there and we've got a sample work and process methodology. It's all right there. Okay.

57:32 But set a resolution to have strategic thinking in 2025 and execution planning. And most people, as evidenced in my survey, they did a group of the restores, the 150 restores. Yeah. You're going to not do good at that. unless, and I promise any of the three listeners we have left that we're about to talk about elk, but Brandon and I never talked about this. Brandon didn't get me on the show because of this, but I'm going to tell you this. You better then pick up your phone and you better hire Brandon or Chris or someone from Floodlight to give you the guidance and the accountability to do that.

58:13 Otherwise, you will think about, you'll say, yeah, I think it would be way worth having a $10 million business, a business that's worth 10 million, not a business that does 10 million in revenue, but a business that's worth $10 million. If you can build a business worth $10 million, you will have freedom, financial freedom. If you plan properly, you can. Build a business. You don't even need to have that big of a company to have a $10 million valuation, but you have to have an excellent company. Yeah, so true. But if you do that, if you think about this for a few minutes, you might sit down and jot down some notes, but you won't actually do it unless you have someone who will hold you accountable. Yeah, so true. Set a mindset to accomplish that and then hire Brandon and Chris, or if it's not Brandon and Chris, hire someone.

58:57 Yeah. I think it's wise to hire someone like Brandon and Chris because they understand this industry. But hire someone who is going to cut down the Dane learning curve. Yeah, that's huge. Who's going to call you up and say, bro, don't buy that piece of equipment. It's outside of the plan. I understand it's new and shiny, but don't do that. Yeah, stick to the plan. Bro, don't cancel your quarterly strategic planning meetings with your team. We've got it on the calendar. You're undermining your own credibility as a leader if you cancel this meeting because you don't feel like doing it or you're not prepared or you're not investing in yourself in the business.

59:37 So huge. But do that stuff. And I promise you, if you do that, you look back at the end of this time next year, if we're sitting down and you and I are talking about whatever hunting pursuit we have next year and your audience is listening, I promise to the audience, they do that. Your business will be worth much more than it's worth today. 100%. 100%. And then I think one of the things that you've never shied away from is it doesn't mean next year will be the easiest year you've ever had. No. Right? Not at all. In fact, it will be the hardest year you've ever had. It'll be single-handedly one of the hardest years you've ever had. Yeah. Mainly because it gets exhausting looking in the mirror and dealing with research. 100%.

1:00:18 But when we have reality, we can do something about it. I want to share something with you real quick because I think you did a great job of closing the loop on this piece. And we are going to talk about elk before I let you go. But this is a saying, actually, I think this is some kind of Buddhist saying. I am not saying it verbatim. It's something actually Wayne brought up that I've just been, golly, have I been wrestling with this all year, really. It goes something like this. In the beginning, rivers are rivers and mountains are mountains. At some point, Rivers are no longer rivers and mountains are not mountains. But then finally, rivers are rivers and mountains are mountains. And so hang in the pocket with me, listeners, because I know we're all blue collar chaps here.

1:01:02 But this is what I'm taking away from that statement. We have moments in time where we're either being partnered with someone, we're in a training, we're in an event where something becomes crystal clear to us and concrete. Meaning we have this epiphany that says, I do understand what has to happen in order for me to succeed, in order for me to toe the line, in order for us to win. And then we get caught up doing the mental gymnastics and creating gray and creating reasons why we can't do the thing, we can't hold the line, we can't be accountable. And then we realize at the end of the day, regardless of the mental gymnastics we're trying to put ourselves through, The win is a win.

1:01:46 The data is the data. The systems are the systems. And I think ultimately what Mark and I are trying to encourage you all to do this year is stand up, look in the mirror, and make the determination that I'm not going to allow myself or our team to do the mental gymnastics. You know what needs to be done. Chap up. Insert the discipline and toe the line. Rivers are rivers and mountains are mountains and you know it. Commit to it and execute against that. And don't sell yourself short by giving yourself an excuse to change the direction. That's where I think we'd hang today on the financial piece. Guys, there's a lot of resources for you to lean into and go after to help yourself.

1:02:30 There's guys like our team. Mark and his sphere of influence is obviously an option. We've got plenty of teams that understand high-level accounting, fractional CFO partnerships that you can go after. There are lots of resources for all of you. I think Mark gave you some low-hanging fruit to go after first. Just download this RIA document. Go through it. Spend a Saturday with a cup of coffee and just... go through it. Look at what it's telling you and leverage it in your favor going into 2025. And I want to excitedly give you high fives six months into the year because you can already see a measurable difference in the culture, in the numbers, and the level of excitement that you have for your own damn business.

1:03:14 That would be an awesome thing for us to do in June. Okay, my friend, Mark, listen. Listen. You shared a picture with us of, I'm going to openly admit, one of the largest bull elk I've seen in my real sphere, not on a magazine cover. And then you immediately said, yeah, I had my eyes on a slightly bigger prize, but this is what we're going to settle for. What in the heck, dude? How is that even possible? What were you looking at here? Was that a big old six by six or did you break seven? Oh, it was this big six point. You know, so it was, so the area where I was hunting is up in Missouri Brakes and Northeast Montana. Historically, it's been one of the greatest trophy areas for elk in the country.

1:03:59 Unfortunately, there's, there's a lot of politics around game management, as you can imagine. Yeah. A lot of different methodologies that people can use with game management. The area isn't what it once was. Okay. Right. There were people pulling 400 inch elk out of there. My goal was to get a 350 inch elk, which there's only one or two pulled out of that district. But I mean, I put in for that tank for 16 or 17 years, something like that. Wow. So I've wanted to be able to do that for a long time. You know, really wanted to get a 350 class bull. It's a lot of work. I mean, it's 900 square mile area. I put about 200 miles on my boots.

1:04:41 Wow. This year, which was awesome. Over 14 days, right? About two weeks. 15 days. Yeah. 15 days out there. My wife's really happy that I decided to settle for that bull because I told her I'd said, honey, I don't want to miss Thanksgiving this year, but this has been 16 years in the middle. This has been a long time coming. So no, he's a great bull. I mean, he's a, he's a wonderful, I mean, it was funny because I took him into the taxidermist and And they were like, I was like, yeah, I was kind of hoping for a 350-inch bull, you know, and stuff. And they're like, man, you're out of your mind. They're like, most guys don't ever get an elk like this in their lifetime. And I was like, yeah, I know, you know.

1:05:22 But anyway, he's a cool bull with a lot of character, heavy bull, which is nice. And here's the best part about it. Shooting an animal, I mean, being a lifelong Montana, I've had a chance to shoot. grizzly bears in Alaska. I've had, you know, been on many trips to Alaska. I've hunted my whole life in Montana. Shot mountain goats, you know, lots of deer and elk and bears and antelope. I mean, everything that you can go out and spend time in the field pursuing, I've been able to do. You know, when I was younger, it was about the trophy. It's really not anymore. I just so value and treasure everything.

1:06:04 just how blessed I am to be able to spend the time out there in one of the most beautiful areas of the world. I've got to spend a bunch of time. My brother came down with me for about, of the 15 days I was down there, about five of them. So we've got to spend a lot of time together out there. The other 10 days I've got to spend with me, myself, and I. Wow. In my thoughts, I got to do a lot of journaling. You know, spending time in solitude is one of the most important ways that I think we can get to know ourselves and who we are. We free our mind to, you know, in that lack of stimulation, we can understand more about purpose and what's important.

1:06:46 And so... You know, there was just, I mean, I did not have one bad day out there. I mean, I probably passed up 80 different bulls over those 15 days. Wow. You know, which is more bulls than probably most guys get to see in their lifetime. So I'm like, I'm not complaining. And he was an awesome, awesome bull. But it was such a wonderful time. And I think we are so overstimulated as human beings. Yeah. We spend so much time. comparing ourselves to things that are false narratives. We anchor our identities in things that are not lasting, wholesome or meaningful.

1:07:32 And so I think being able to spend the time that I did sort of recenters all those things. And for that reason, I'm just... So grateful that I had the time to do that. Yeah, I love that. It's interesting, Mark. I think that you just meet certain people in your lifetime where there's just... Sometimes it's hard to put your finger on it, but you just recognize a deep... I'm just going to use the word wisdom for probably maybe a lack of a different term to use. And here's what I mean by that. I think we run the risk of looking to our left and right. And let's say, for instance, the PE frenzy, the consolidation frenzy in our space.

1:08:13 You hear the bar stories, the 10X, the 11X, these things that feel like a quick hit, a quick fix, a silver bullet. And there's several things from what you just shared with me that points me back to wisdom. And one is, you know, I hear you say for 16 years, I was investing, right, the points, gaining the points so that I could eventually go on this hunt. And I don't believe there's very many people around us in the current state of the economy or the world that can think 16 years into the future or do something that long committed to this really almost unmeasurable result that they're headed for, right? And I think there's something really powerful in that because it's unique, I think, in the current ecosystem.

1:08:55 I think the other thing that happened is 10 days of solitude. I only had four days in the woods this year. And one of the things that I recognized in that timeframe is my ego had no place. It had no place because I was rooted in the now. I wasn't worried about yesterday and I wasn't worried about tomorrow. I was looking, smelling, hearing. I was totally... present in the moment. And it's amazing how freed from your ego you are when you're present in the moment. And the fact that it's hard to do and it's scary, if we're honest. And the fact that you spent 10 days in a space where you're leveraging discipline, you're saying no to the easy target, the path of least resistance...

1:09:41 And you're disciplining yourself to stay in that trench and do the hard work of looking at yourself in the mirror, removing your ego and being wholly present. To me, those are two examples of people that have some resemblance of real honest wisdom in their life and that it's helping them make decisions and decide the value of their actions and what they do with their time. And I think that, you know, we can get caught up in thinking about this story of the elk. And the elk is amazing, by the way. And maybe what we could do is share a picture somehow when we post on this. Because it is the things laying on the ground. And I believe you're standing up and you're holding the horn basically at head height. I mean, this is a... Well, that's a little...

1:10:22 I mean, I think I was standing 35. No, I'm holding them up. I mean, it's, you know, how this stuff goes. It's like the people who shoot, you know, catch the fish and they put it like there, you know? Yeah, hold it up. So, I mean, it's a nice, it's a great elk for sure. And he's a big man. I tell you what, it's all fun and games too. You got to get those things out of the woods. Oh, baby. And I tell guys all that they like it. I'm like, man, I'll tell you this. Back to the issue of discipline, you know, that we're talking about. Yeah. Pay me now or pay me later. Yeah. Because when you're out there and you're trying to get that thing out of there or you need that number of days, you are never going to regret the time that you spent preparing for that.

1:11:08 Oh, man. Right. Yeah. Because if you don't do that, you're going to you're going to fail. Right. And and this is the thing, you know, I think the full circle about this stuff, I mean, whether it's elk hunting or, you know, anything that we do. We have in our culture such a preference for leisure and entertainment and comfort. But I was talking to someone else about this. I mean, there was, I mean, here's the thing that's not awesome about being 46 now is that my knees. So the average days of 15 to 25 mile day of up and down these Missouri breaks, right?

1:11:50 I mean, they're straight up, straight down, straight up, straight down. And man, at 46, my meniscus just does not handle the down part as awesome as my 36-year-old body did. I mean, it is just, man, just being sore in the joints. I mean, I enjoy the muscular soreness, but the joint soreness, that's just not awesome. But I mean, it's cold. We had it got down to two below plus like 25 mile an hour winds, you know. And so it's blowing, it's snowing sideways, you know, and. It's not comfortable. You know, when you're carrying that thing out of there and you got 100 plus pounds on your back and you're going four miles, mostly uphill back to where you're going to.

1:12:33 That's not awesome. Especially when you get a trip. But you know what you remember? It's you remember that. And, you know, like I was talking about Alaska. When I think about the trips I had in Alaska, the things I have the best memories of are the times where you were pushed out of your comfort zone. There was massive uncertainty. You felt overwhelmed. You were experiencing a high level of discomfort. That's really when we feel alive, man. And it's the same thing with your business. It's easy to go into the office and think about, you know, well, I'm going to schedule some time on the course. I'm not saying people shouldn't do that, right?

1:13:15 I'm not saying you shouldn't golf or you shouldn't enjoy things, right? But what I'm saying is, is that it's not going to be comfortable with, to read 56 pages on accounting guidelines. But I promise anyone who can do that, if you'll do that, in that journey of getting outside your comfort zone and doing those things that are hard, you will find your greatest gains and you will have your greatest successes come through those times that that discomfort happens. And it doesn't matter if it's an elk or if it's in your business. Man, invest the time. that's where you differentiate between the elker and really doing something great.

1:14:01 And that is where we're going to close. Thanks Mark. I appreciate you doing it. Thanks for having me man. Thanks for letting me talk about elk. I don't get to do that on a restoration podcast very often so thanks for that. Appreciate you guys. Appreciate your guys' heart for the industry and try to do things the right way. I really appreciate what you guys do. Honored, man. Honored. Guys, thanks for hanging with us, all two of you that made it through the financial data. Mark's message is solid. All of us can use more of it. I hope you guys leverage this in your favor going into 2025. Thanks for hanging with us. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots.

1:14:45 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.