Ep 142 - "Rabbit Trails In Las Vegas"

0:00 Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, 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. 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, right? 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.

0:43 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 Right on. And listen, if you're trying to grow your business, you might consider checking out Floodlight's Business Opportunity Audit. 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.

1:25 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. Okay, so we're live. What up, bro? We're live from the Las Vegas airport right here. Yeah, that's right. This is only, what, the second time we've done this? Yeah, as far as recording. Yeah, recording on the road. So this is, yeah, and the first time did work. That's right. It did work. That's right. It was a hotel last time. Yep. So we're just coming off the experience. And that it was. Our first time. Did you hear what I did there? It was clever. It was clever. That's clever. Yeah, so this is our first time going into the experience, and we didn't have a roll either. No, uh-uh, right.

2:06 No teaching this time. It was all just guerrilla warfare under the radar. Yeah, it was fun. It was actually nice just kind of slinking around and chatting with people. So what do we want to talk about today? Well, you know, it was kind of funny because I felt like multiple times throughout our time here at The Experience, like people were running into some of our strategic partners, you know, just peers. In the industry, there was these random conversations that were kicking up, and some of them were really interesting. And I thought it would be kind of cool to walk through two or three of them and just kind of unpack how the conversations went and I think what that meant kind of broader value for the group as far as our industry is concerned. So I don't know. That's where I was anticipating, Guy. So I'm trying to think, one of the sessions that you and I sat in on was Ed Cross's.

2:48 Oh my gosh, he brought the fire. God, he crushed. It was so good. Yeah. And we got into a bit of a dialogue here right as we were leaving. He and Lisa and Leighton and Travis from KnowHow and then Holly Roth. And it's a fun thing about these conferences. It's such a small world. Yeah, there's all these represented groups. Yeah, you see people across the room and they come over. Anyway, so we got into a really good chat, though, with Ed. And I think Ed, I want to make sure I do justice to his comments. But basically it was, man, delivered all this content. And it was fire again. And it was amazing. Really tactical. And it felt as though to him that some or a lot of people in the room just still walked away not really getting the magnitude of these things.

3:34 Or not leaving with a real clear understanding of what to do next. Yeah, like how to apply it. Yeah. Yeah. And you and I have felt that before too. We've gotten out of workshops or we've done a webinar and somebody will ask us a question and it makes you think in the moment, were you listening? Yeah. Were you here for the thing that I just did? You feel like, gosh, I just delivered this really thorough, high impact thing. And then as you encounter people or based on the questions that they ask after the fact, it's like, oh my gosh, were they even paying attention? And what we were talking to him about, or just offering out of our experience was, I think some of the explanation behind that is what we encounter in the consulting a lot, which is why in the world can we not get traction on this really important thing in the business?

4:20 I think what you and I have discovered is that most of the time, most business owners that are in front of us are in some state of what we've come to refer to as the desperation brain. And that desperation brain, when we first started coining that phrase, it was largely related to hiring and firing. And this basic idea that when we lose somebody on our team, We're afraid that we're going to lose our production capacity. We're not gonna be able to service a key client and everything's gonna kind of crumble, you know? There's a very real feeling. And you and I felt it when we were operating in the field. Of course, you can feel it now. And then of course it's like, oh my gosh, we have to plug this hole. And so then you bring that desperation brain into your interview process and it affects your judgment.

5:04 It affects how you're assessing these potential candidates because there's this at least small part of you that's like, okay, can they fog a mirror? Do I think they have a possibility of doing well? Let's get them in. We needed them yesterday. Yeah. And of course it leads us to making all kinds of bad hiring decisions. And of course we do that not just with our technicians, not just with our PMs, but we do it across the board in our business when it comes to hiring and firing. But I think what was occurring to me in that convo with Ed is that that desperation brain, it touches everything in the business. Yeah, I think essentially what you're outlining is it's a failure to make wise decisions because we're so caught up in the impact of now. And I think we expanded on that a little bit with Ed was just this idea that I think owners and key leaders are just so inundated with the stuff that's hitting them in the face right now that it can be very difficult for them to take this more proactive strategic role in how they're analyzing decisions and what kind of solutions that they're forging inside their organization.

6:08 And a lot of what Ed is talking about, and this is not to detract from the value, it's the stuff he talks about. valuable, so real, so black and white, so tactical, but it does seem as if it requires somebody to be thinking longer term about their business. And so like one of the elements that we talked about with him was, I think there are times where operators hear stuff that Ed's saying around our collection practices and our contract practices and how we run and operate jobs to support our invoices on the back end. And, you know, in order for Restore to stick it out, like they're validated. They've got to do the due diligence to provide support through the paces, right, of taking a stand to secure their entire invoice and not a portion of it.

6:52 And I think ultimately they get inundated with the cost now, the cash burn now. And they don't feel like they can sit in the trench an extra 90 days on principle to work through this transaction and actually get the full value of their invoice as they have earned. Yeah. And I think that that's just another way of identifying what you're talking about is that we weren't proactive in the beginning. And that happens over and over and over again to where when we're in the moment to do something that is going to take time or that is more strategic in nature is feels nearly impossible. It's because we've almost set the stage for ourselves now where our options are so limited, like stick that out for an extra 90 days doesn't seem realistic.

7:33 Yeah, it's hard to, because I think everything he suggested, ultimately, is it effective in any one project? Well, yeah, potentially, if you started that project, having put all of these things in place. But really, it's a part of the system. Yeah, exactly. It's a part of your operating process that has to be augmented. Like, you know, he's talking about, you know, assignment of benefits or assignment of insurance rights. Well, that's probably going to involve you meeting with an attorney. And based on your state, it may require you to redo your contracts in a specific way. Or some of these other documentation principles he talks about, well, that's going to require you to augment your mitigation process outline.

8:14 It potentially means if you have any kind of training that you've developed that's documented, it's going to require you to update your documentation. And I think a lot of times when somebody is struggling with their collections, they've got a million dollars in AR that they're struggling to collect that's 90 days or greater. People's cash flow is, they're in crisis at some level. Oftentimes, that's bleeding over into their personal life. It's bleeding into the interpersonal relationships they have across the team. Everybody starts to feel that stress, and then everybody starts to perform more poorly in the midst of that stress. And so the idea of optimizing our process, it's like the picture that comes to my mind is that Maslow's.

8:58 Yeah, exactly. A hierarchy of needs. It feels like some of the things, frankly, that we teach on, and then a lot of the stuff that Ed's been hammering on across the industry, it is incredibly important. And yet, I think at times people are, and we've been here, certainly. Oh, yeah. There's times in our floodlight business where we're we're stuck trying to put the fundamentals in place, the foundation. It's almost impossible in that same moment to be thinking in that higher order of thinking. How is this going to affect our business in a week, a month, six months, next year? Yeah. No, I think you're right. It's like you really have to create space for it. And I think, too, a lot of the people that come to these shows, a lot of the business we work with, when we first start working with them, they don't even have a basic weekly meeting cadence that they adhere to.

9:45 Everybody will say, oh, we have this meeting or that, but if something comes up, if we got all our team out in the field, well, we're not going to do it this week, but we'll do it that. That's more often what we encounter is that people don't have discipline or consistency with a lot of their meeting cadences and reporting structure and stuff like that. So you add that to the mix. Well, I think it boils down to if you own your business or you're a key leader, key contributor to the organization, I think you've got to ask yourself, how much time during the week are you spending on these more strategic items? And I think just to kind of come up with a basic definition when we say strategic, these things that are designed to enhance the scalability and consistency of your business but may not yield a result right now.

10:33 Like you're going to have to work to put this thing in place knowing that your organization will benefit from this on the long term. And I think that most of us, if we're honest, and we're not susceptible to this, we fight with this commonly is, if you're honest, I think the challenge is if we look at our calendar time span, we just released an episode really that talked about this, Very little time is protected to be working on the business. And working on the business often is developing and investing energy in these strategic initiatives that will yield results long term. Like that's what it boils down to. Well, that just kind of points back to this episode that we just came out with recently.

11:13 Exactly. Talking about what's the value of your time, right? Yeah. I think ultimately also what it did was it reminded me, just because of the quality and the tactical benefit of what he was talking about is Ed's got to get back on the show. We cornered him because it's time to do a deep dive into this stuff that he was talking about because, man, it's just massive. It was a huge reminder for me how much we're missing the ball on these fundamental things that allow us as an industry to protect our income. Yeah. You know, it's like you see this. I think for a while we saw it in the roofing industry at large. I think every trade group, every industry in general, you make this comment that there's like 80% of the vendors or service providers are racing to the lowest price.

11:58 Oh, Eric Sprague. He was doing a talk on preparing our frontline techs. And he was like 80% of the companies in this industry are going to fight for the lowest price. And then there's going to be 20 that hold the line and fight for the highest quality clients. And I think something very similar is happening in regard to our invoicing. It's like costs are skyrocketing right now. We are faced with just a crazy inflation. Everything from labor hours to materials are climbing. We can't be fixed or static in our pricing. Our pricing is ours. It's customizable. We are a contractor. And price fixing is illegal. It doesn't exist undocumented, right? And so... So I think in general, we've got to get more of us that have the time, that have the energy that we're investing in these strategic initiatives, because it allows more leaders and business owners to unify that voice of, we're not going to race to the bottom.

12:50 We're not going to allow you to drive our price. We're going to produce a price that allows us at profit to be able to produce a differentiated customer experience, period. And I think that's really what Ed is promoting. And I think sometimes that can get lost. Anyways, we're going to get him back on and spend, you know, as long as he'll give us diving into this topic. It was interesting, too, is the first time I've heard him and I'm sure he has talked about it in other venues recently, but he was pretty excited about this concept of tortious interference. Yeah, that was really interesting. And starting to identify some legal precedents, he's super stoked that this may be a way to kind of push back that tide a bit in terms of the imbalance between carrier control and the role of the contractor, right?

13:34 That, you know, our relationship, of course, like we've all talked about this many, many times, our relationship outside of the whole TPA thing where we make some contractual agreements with them. our relationship is to our customer, the homeowner or the corporation, the building owner, property owner, whatever that we're working with. And I think every single one of us has experienced scenarios at least once, if not routinely, where adjusters or other carrier personnel have made some kind of... advisory comment to the policyholder, like, hey, you should think about using these people instead, or they've made some comment about our pricing or what we're trying to charge them, you know, and that kind of stuff.

14:18 And of course, all of us have felt firsthand how that completely corrupts the relationship. Like that adjuster is seen as a perceived person of authority. Yeah. And yet, of course, oftentimes that adjuster has absolutely zero domain expertise. Oh, correct, yeah. And they certainly don't have the authority to speak to your pricing structure. Of course not. You know what I mean? Yeah. That talk was... It was powerful. It was really, really amazing. And I think what I love about Ed and what I know we respect about him is... He has really, like, he's invested himself so fully in the restoration space. Like, he understands the language of it. He understands the scope of work. He understands all of this stuff, like, really intimately.

15:00 Yeah. I think that's going to be a really great future show. And I think anybody that's had an opportunity to listen to Ed Cross talk about these topics, I think you just alluded to it, but one of the things that's so powerful is he's the one that's the guy on the ground that's going to court with these things. And so it's not his opinion. This is him in often scenarios where he is legally going through the process to support and prove that what he's saying is validated in terms of contract law, insurance law. These are not opinions. And so it just makes them such a powerful influence and a powerful educator for us as restorers for those things that really most of us just don't really have a strong grasp on or what the cause is on these things that we're experiencing in terms of our pricing and our ability to collect and all the things.

15:51 Okay, so I've got a little association I have to share that I have for Ed Cross. Okay. So I'm a huge fan of Billy Bob Thornton. Okay. Okay? So Billy Bob Thornton, anybody that's familiar with him, if you're not, Google him, Billy Bob Thornton. He did a show, and he's actually done quite a few legal shows. This is a bit of a typecast thing that has become for him. Yeah, yeah. One, he's this slender, wiry, really healthy-looking guy, kind of built like an ultra-runner. Anyway, as I was watching Ed in this talk, I'm like, oh my gosh, Billy Bob. So one of the recent TV shows, series that Billy Bob Thornton did that's fantastic is this show called Goliath. Yeah. And he's this passionate trial attorney that goes after every season.

16:34 Yeah, exactly. Every season is him leading this class-action lawsuit against these behemoth offenders. That's awesome, yeah. And like industry titans, you know? Yeah. And I just, I thought of that association when he was up there. And because anybody who's watched Ed, I mean, he's passionate. Oh, undoubtedly. Like when he opens his mouth, all of that stuff has been thought through 5,000 times before he said it. And so he's able to bring the emotion and the passion to it. And he often is the guy sticking up for the little guy in terms of context of power and money. He is, yeah. Like carriers. Hands down, they are the influencers of our industry. They have all the power and all the money, you know, and so I think it is true.

17:17 It's like what Ed is trying to arm us with is these tools that give us a fighting chance against Goliath, you know. It's incredible we have somebody of his caliber and charisma and professional demeanor. Like he's a super pro. So that was cool. It was great to see him. What else? What else did we do this week? It's funny. There was kind of like, in general, there was some kind of a theme that I felt like we kept running into. And I don't know if it deviates too far from this kind of Ed Cross conversation, but we ran into an old client that we've, no, I shouldn't say old. They're still our client. We've had a relationship with them now since, gosh, probably 2021, maybe. maybe 22. Yes. Some of the ones we had dinner with last night.

17:57 Yeah. Yeah. So we go out, it's like catch up, right? Like they're actually working with one of the other consultants on our team and you know, they have this great working relationship, but. They were OG. They're OG. They've been with us since early days. Yeah. They've been around a long time and it was so fun to catch up with them because we watched as they were living proof of this concept or this idea of elevating themselves so that they began working on their business and how it just has translated into their ability to grow, their ability to manage workflow. And one of the things that we were making kind of some jokes about is our boy there, he, you know, in the early phases of our relationship, his wife, in this particular case, marketing, she was the one leading their BD, And she was crushing.

18:42 I mean, she was adopting all these duck soup practices and doing all these things. And so she's out crushing and out bringing in these new relationships. And he really became the bottleneck for a moment emotionally and mentally where he's trying to manage like, oh, my gosh, all this work's coming in. And it was because he was still so engaged in the trench. Like he was in doing the work and it was so hard for him to get high enough to look down on what was happening and make decisions more on strategy. It was more of like, I can only be in so many places at once, right? Like a lot of limiting behaviors. Again, this is not dissing him. This is all of us wrestle with this in different phases. We run into this with every. Every time. It is important to say, they're like toward in the beginning of their heroic journey in a lot of ways.

19:25 I mean, like smaller company, rapidly growing. But yeah, no, it was funny. I mean, I remember a session that we had with them where she was like, hey, he's telling me to like stop selling. And we're like, dude, no, that's not the answer. And this is so common, actually, among small businesses where they get a great salesperson or their reputation starts to catch up with them in a positive way. And they feel like, gosh, I have to shut off this faucet. We don't have the people or we don't have the wherewithal to do this stuff. And I think at the end of the day, everybody learns at some point, like you got to make hay while the sun's out. You've got to find a way to adapt and overcome and modulate your systems and scale things up and figure out a way to service the businesses coming through your door.

20:09 Yeah. Not do this constant gas pedal, brake pedal, gas pedal, brake pedal. And they're, I mean, they've done it, you know, they've made those shifts. They have. They now work on the business, especially, you know, the husband in the situation is like really keyed in on, you know, he was telling us how many times he had been out in the field to be part of production. You know, he's beyond all of it. And now he's down to he sees 20% of jobs. 20% of their job flow. You know, he's got some kind of direct hand in. And that's a major change from 100% from where they started. Yeah. And so it's just, again, it's this really cool opportunity over time to watch these more strategic behaviors and a commitment to working on the business bear the fruit.

20:49 And it doesn't happen in week one or month one or six months often. It takes time. And they were just kind of talking about this year's monsoon season and talking about, you know, this kind of as they prep for fall and winter and all these things. And he's like, he just, he's calm. Well, and I could also tell that they, you could just tell that the dynamic between them as husband and wife was healthy. Of course, marriage is hard for everybody, but like you could just tell that there weren't any resentments that had built up. There wasn't a lot of strife between them. Yeah. I mean, she was making comments about like his participation involved with the kids every night. And it's like, dude, that doesn't happen if you're drowning in your business. Like that's not the feedback that you hear from partners and spouses when someone's drowning in their business.

21:35 And so that was just, I mean, it was rewarding. Yeah. Because we just get so proud of them. They're kind of like our little brothers and sister. But I just made me so proud for them and just convicted on what we do as consultants and all these educators and trainers and partners in the industry trying to serve restorers. That's why. Yeah. It's like when we all can find a way to contribute in a meaningful way to help rearrange some of our default thought patterns, you end up helping people turn their most valuable asset into something that's working for them instead of against them. I love seeing that. It makes the grind worthwhile. And most importantly, it's just awesome to see the fruit of their labor and changing what they get to experience.

22:16 So I thought that was great. I always love that kind of stuff. Yeah, I'm starting your three. Another thing that I thought was really interesting, and actually part of the Ed conversation kicked it off, was unity. You know, one of the things that Ed is going to, regardless of what he's doing, bring up often is his connection to RIA and membership and the value in that. And what it just got me thinking about was the fact that we are such huge supporters of RIA because we do believe it's one of the few platforms for us as restorers to begin unifying our voice. Oh, dear Lord. Well, this is the real deal, folks. Yeah, that's right. You're getting Airport 101. Yeah, we'll kind of hit pause here, hopefully ride this out.

22:57 Oh, there we go. Boy, that's relief. So anyway, we're committed to RIA because we feel like in many ways that is an industry unifier. And the more unified our voices, the more weight it carries, the more value and more alignment that we're able to get in the way that we want to serve our clients. and what the industry can afford and pay us, all the things. And what it got me thinking about was, as we were running around, a big part of what we were able to do is just see our friends that are other service providers in the industry. Thinking about our guys, Larry and Eric, in terms of TechU, and I'm thinking about, we got a chance to finally get some more face time with Lane over at Clean Claims, and obviously the KnowHow team.

23:39 And one of the things I just kept thinking and experiencing over and over again is, as helpers to the industry, we all have kind of our niche, right? We all have this space based on background, competency, whatever that we're centered in on. And how each one of us can get a little frustrated sometimes because the ability for the contractor to listen, learn, engage, and execute Mm-hmm. on what we're trying to help or provide service on is limited, okay? Going back to your hierarchy of needs, right? Ed was talking about. And I think what all of us do in spurts is that we'll tend to chase a shiny thing thinking, oh, well, if we help the contractor solve that, they'll be able to hear this better and we'll be able to get traction in the business better here.

24:22 And I think just like us as restorers, we need to be more unified. I think there's a real opportunity for us as service providers to be more unified, understanding the complexities of the contractor's need and being able to roll into an event or a program and really bring in the best of the best in their area of expertise and help these contractors really net gains. really come out on the other side and have some new momentum, have some new gains in how they operate their business and build their business. And so I think, you know, I guess where I'm going with that is that if you're a contractor, you know, we're not splitting atoms.

25:02 Like, we dry things based on a very specific IR CRC-driven standard. We rebuild things based on permitting and local state laws and standards like engineering you know it's like we're not making this shit up no and when it comes to doing the thing at the end of the day if you're doing it the correct way we're all essentially doing it pretty much the same Where we're different is how we interact with our people, the customer experience that we provide, all those things, right? But it's not trade secret. And so one of the things that I think we do as service providers is the same as restorers, is we get caught in this idea of limited thinking.

25:45 It's kind of scarcity thinking. It's scarcity thinking. Like, I'm afraid if I collaborate with them, that's somehow going to take away from my opportunity. Exactly. And then if we're honest about our service delivery, like if you look at your own business and just say, okay, take stock of what you can do well. Identify maybe where you've got some holes and then think to yourself, is there another restorer that maybe is more gifted or strength than that because that's where they came up or it's how they started their company? And then could you guys mutually work together to reap the benefit of each other's strengths? Or is someone willing, if they're not in your market, for example, maybe they're a couple borders over Could you connect with them and reciprocate in providing value in the sense of, hey, I share with you what we're really good at.

26:29 You share with me what you're really good at. And now we're two contractors setting a higher standard in our individual markets. I just, I think it's so funny how fractioned we are. And I think it's funny that at the end of the day, if we put the scarcity mindset aside and we lean into shoring up our strengths through relationship and unity with our peers... I think we'd all do better. And then we start taking action towards unifying the industry so that when people, when Goliath wants to push back on us, we all push back against it instead of the one lonely guy on that week trying to battle for his money on Friday morning. I agree. That was kind of like the theme I felt like you and I were running into a lot while we've been here at The Experience.

27:14 And that's not formally. That wasn't set as part of the agenda. It's just the people we were interacting with, I think. 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. 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.

27:57 See their system, see how it works, see how affordable it is. I promise you, you'll thank us. Liftify.com forward slash bloodlight. Thank you. 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? 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.

28:38 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. 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?

29:18 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. 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.

30:06 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 vets add back that few percent that we've just forgot over time. 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. I want to talk about leadership. Is it okay if we like sort of, uh, if we tease a little bit this, Oh, this venture we're working on. I mean, the book is out. It's not out. Well, there was copies floating around here.

30:47 Yeah. It's not public yet. Okay. Well, but no, there's some link to, okay, listen, I'm gonna poke the bear a little bit. He's riding the line. So we're- Be careful, dog. We, I wrote the forward, you wrote the back portion of the book. I don't know, the quote. We've been in a conversation with know-how, and know-how's always collaborating with lots of people in the industry, right? But, I mean, Leighton and Travis and their team are always doing cool stuff, like value added. They're definitely one of those brands that we want to be more like in the sense of like give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, ask. Right now, in fact, they're finishing their cost of doing business survey just came out. They're starting to sort of do the roadshow and talking about the outcomes and the data that's come out of that.

31:33 So they have a variety of stuff that they do. But one of the projects coming out is a leadership focus of a new book. They had an early version, an early release version at the experience. Some people listening to this will have gotten a copy of that called Building Leaders. And, you know, I think we're really excited about having some engagement on that project because, you know, in a lot of ways, I think leadership is probably the biggest gap for our industry. Yeah. And, of course, it's not just true of restoration. I think most small businesses and a lot of trade businesses, they originate out of the tradecraft. the ability to make or do or repair or whatever this thing, that many of us got into the business because of that tradecraft versus our business acumen or our experience leading people.

32:24 We were really good at doing the thing. and possibly good at the customer experience, the customer facing side of it as well, likely. But then the leadership is just sort of a thing we fall into. Like then, okay, now how do I build a team? Okay, how do I get my team all sort of like rowing in the same direction? All these leadership principles. Like many of us are never taught that. And even those of us who went to university or some sort of post high school education. Did you say went to university? College, university. You've been hanging out with Canadians. I have been hanging out with Canadians. That's so funny. Layton would be proud. I know, I know, I know. I threw that in there for you, buddy. But I think most of us, with Ronis, we've got very little leadership training or education, even if we got a business degree at a school somewhere.

33:09 And so I think it's long overdue in some ways. I think we've been masterminding ourselves at Floodlight about how do we teach these principles in such a way that we can move through the desperation brain that people often come to us with and get the basics in place so we can start to really develop people's leadership competency because it's actually the thing that's driving all of our struggles and problems within our businesses, within this industry. All of it. All of it. Our ability to recruit well, our ability to retain that talent, our ability to grow people up through the ranks of our business and create an opportunity for them. Our ability to service our clients well.

33:52 They're just like leadership is at the very center of all of it. And I personally, I think as we've been building Floodlight, I feel like in a lot of ways there's been this whole new layer of, I was talking to somebody about just the role of a consultant and how every now and then I'll see people online or in the Facebook groups dismissing the consultants and coaches in any industry. Oh, the gurus, you know? Yeah, watch out for them because you're better off talking to other people, other business owners. And it's like, well, okay. Does your business owner buddy have visibility into dozens of other companies around the country like your business?

34:33 That are succeeding at a high level. Do any of your peers have that kind of visibility into a restoration company? The answer for most is no, not even kinda. And so I think I feel like in many ways the last several years of us running a floodlight, has introduced this whole new demand on leadership because now instead of it, you and I just focusing on our team, now in a lot of ways, like, we're seeing and responding to teams and situations of different sizes, of different growth rates, different mixes of residential and commercial. different maturity of sales teams or a complete and total lack of direct sales operations.

35:15 And I was just thinking about how it's challenging my own leadership in a completely new way. And then, of course, building a consulting company is a different business than when we were building restoration companies. I think, too, what it does is this eye-opening realization that it's so universal in nature and that it's something that will pop up over and over because as you scale, as your business changes, the demand changes. of leadership, the requirement of leadership competency and the level of that leadership competency literally changes. We have clients that are in situations where they're developing full-blown C-suites because they're multi-market operators.

35:58 They have six, seven plus locations there, all these things. And so they have regional management and they have a C-suite. It's like then there's the guy or gal that has just become a, you know, they're leaving the truck in a truck status where they're trying to onboard employees. And so their own leadership competency is changing. There is a universal demand for understanding how in your organization you will create a pipeline of leaders and leadership capable candidates. Otherwise, you'll never be able to maximize what your dream or vision is. You'll never be able to realize it and you'll never be able to maximize what opportunities your company actually has access to.

36:41 Because there's only so much we can do when there's only one key contributor to the entire organization. Like it's just not feasible. I think one of the things that we see over and over when we start partnering with companies is going back to leaders that don't have any time to work on their business. So they can't do any of the things that we're talking about. But I think on top of that, it's like you see all this want and they're like, oh, my gosh, that would be great. I'd love to experience that. I want to participate in that. but they literally there's no more room in the clock like there's nowhere else that they can commit time unless we're talking about burning 20 hour work days but then it's like okay well then before we do this other stuff we're gonna have to find some talent yeah We're going to have some talent to bring some people in.

37:27 To create the capacity. Yeah, that's right. And so I think, again, as people try to move out of desperation brain, this idea that I need to begin identifying how I'm going to build leaders, how I'm going to train people, how I'm going to create succession planning in my company. And I think what you're referring to, the leader builder, and gosh, you're probably going to get us in trouble, Chris. I'm going to blame you. No, I'm not. You're going to be my scapegoat. This thing is coming. You guys will know more about it. The KnowHow team will be leading that communication here in probably the next month. But I think, yes, I think Layton and his team is leading the charge on something really unique here. And obviously we're excited to be a major contributor and partner in that.

38:09 Okay, so we'll leave the KnowHow thing behind here for the moment. I had an experience with Wayne this last week. Okay. And I'm in the process of writing an article on it for CNR. And I just thought, Oh yeah. Yeah. I want to process it because it is related to this subject and it's fresh for me. Yeah. And I think I hadn't, to be honest, I hadn't, it's been a long time anyway, since I really thought about this principle and Wayne did such a beautiful job. In fact, I'm so glad I got a recording of it. So many of my conversations with Wayne, they used to be FaceTime. Oh yeah. And I get into this conversation and Wayne, Wayne is just like in the pocket and I'm just thinking, God, I wish I'd recorded this right. Anyway, so we almost never have a conversation now that's not recorded.

38:51 Right. But, you know, Wayne, we had a scenario within the team a couple weeks ago where I had an upcoming webinar and I needed some creative material for it. And we have an in-house creative team, which is awesome. And... It'd be a huge force multiplier for us. And I think when we were smaller, less clients, less travel, less all of this stuff, like we had the ability to really very quickly, I could throw something on Jana. Hey, can you put this together for me? Yeah, spin it up. And sometimes even same day, like, hey, I need this thing for this thing this afternoon. Yeah. And I got really accustomed to that. And then as the team has grown... And as Wayne has taken over this sort of internal operational leadership role, I have kind of continued in that thing of, oh, well, I can just get this to Jana and she'll throw it together for me.

39:39 The team will make it happen. Yeah. Like, I need this in an hour, you know, or I need this this afternoon. I need this tomorrow, you know, that kind of thing. And in my own judgment, because I'm not entirely inexperienced in this stuff, I'm coming at it from this will only take an hour. Yeah. Or this will only take two hours. Yeah. And let's just assume I'm right in my judgment. So assuming I'm right, I'm like, I know we can do this. Therefore, let's do it. Let's do it. Like I have this need. We have a team that can do this. We have the time. And so I make all of these snap judgments. And then I previously, before my first conversation with Wayne, which I won't get into today. Chuck it over your shoulder. Oh, yeah. I just send it directly to Jana.

40:19 Yeah. And then later, Wayne would come back to me like, hey, bro. Yeah. In case you didn't remember, like, we have an org chart here, right? We have a process. We have a system here that we put in place that, oh, by the way, you're a co-owner in, you know? Like, hey, we call it teaching each other how to buy from each other. Oh, gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so that was previous misdeeds on my part. But so anyway, we had this situation a couple weeks ago where I had this webinar, I think the next day, I needed a 12-hour turnaround. I felt like it was not only justified, needed, but we can do it. It should only take X number of time. And Wayne told me no. And to be honest, internally, it really kind of pissed me off at first.

41:04 And I was annoyed. I had this story in my head about why Wayne ought to be supporting me in getting this last-minute thing done. I was stuck on the fact that we can do this, so why won't you? You know, right? In my head. And then I ultimately was able to adapt and overcome. I made the deck myself. And it was fine. And it worked. And I had old collateral I could use from other things. I could just, I was able to, and people were none the wiser. As an owner, though, I'm thinking about all the owners listening right now and saying, wait a minute, you had an employee tell you as the owner, no. Yeah, but I have a one-year-old employee that told me no. That's the best part of this ramp up. And of course, now, Wayne is not just any employee.

41:45 That's a big part of the story. Of course, yeah. But my point is that I was feeling all those natural feelings of indignance, frustration, irritation, like, bro. I own half of this company, man. And I need you to freaking do something here for me. But then after I figured it out and I had a night to sleep on it, the next day, in fact, actually, I'm trying to think exactly how this went down, but I basically, Wayne followed up with me like, hey, are you good? Were you able to figure it out? I said, yes. He said, well, let's talk about this. I'll put some time on my calendar. Let's talk about it Thursday morning and just kind of review the process. And I want to talk about what happened more big picture. This is Wayne.

42:25 instigating this conversation. Yeah. Just so we're clear. Yeah. We're real blessed and we know it. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so anyway, long story short, Wayne books this 90 minute session for us on Thursday to talk. And actually when I saw the appointment setting, I'm like, God, you know what? I don't need 90 minutes for this. I know what happened here. I get what you're trying to do. I was irritated at first. I was able to figure it out, blah, blah, blah. I just didn't think there was much for us to talk about. So we get into this meeting, and we end up using the whole 90 minutes. Of course. I actually modified the calendar event to 30 minutes. I'm like, dude, we don't need 90, which was also a misdeed on my part from a leadership standpoint. But anyway, we get in this conversation, and Wayne says to me...

43:08 He said, listen, I really want you to understand where I'm coming from and why I did that. He's like, because I can understand why you might have been frustrated. Yeah. It's like, but first of all, just start with, tell me why you were frustrated and what was going on for you. So he wanted to hear my side of the story. And I said, well, look, man, I knew that you could do this. Yeah. I knew from my perspective, there was no way that Jana didn't have the time to do this thing for me because it should only take about an hour. I gave really explicit. I actually recorded a video with my requirements. Here's what I want it to look like. Here's the four images I need. I was like, I was pretty explicit in my directions. I knew this would be about an hour. And he said, well, let me ask you a question, buddy.

43:50 With all the things we have going on, I'm not gonna argue with you. I think you're right. I think Jana could have done it. He said, but let me ask you a question. Does that necessarily mean that she should do it and we should have her do it? Let's just agree that she could have, but is it possible that it wasn't the right thing for me to assign that task to her? And all of a sudden, my mind started to open up. And I'm realizing way more broadly, besides just systems and processes, I started to catch on to what Wayne was actually doing there. And he said, listen man, here's what I mean. He's like, we got the website rebuild we're working on, we got this, we have upcoming webinars, we have conferences that you guys are at, we have collateral we're building for this, we've got partnerships that were real big stuff.

44:39 And he said, in the midst of that, man, I have the hammer down on our creative team. I'm demanding a lot from them. And he said, so, you know, when you give me this 12 hour request, this next day request, when we already have systems and processes in for submitting a need, like I've already taught you how to buy from our creative department when you need something. It's like, what happens to my relationship to our creative team when I'm being very demanding and I'm holding them tightly accountable to a lot of different initiatives? And then I've got to throw this little thing right in the middle of all of it and expect them to do a great job on this and turn it around immediately and still deliver on everything else I've tasked them with.

45:20 Yeah. And show them in action that it's okay for some of us to not follow the rules. Yes. The process. That too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, so that's my thinking is I have to be very judicious with the last minute things that I task them with because otherwise I'm going to lose their respect. I'm going to lose their trust. Right. I'm going to lose my ability to hold them accountable to the things that are really important that all of us have agreed are really important. He said, so it's like, I'm, there's this dance that I'm having to do and I need your help in. of, yeah, there's a ton of things we can do. Yeah. Could I have thrown this on Janice's plate? Totally could have. Could she have done it? Yeah. What's the collateral damage, though?

46:02 So is, oh my God, here's my, here's my employee. It's freaking 14 years younger than me also. And I'm getting a master class in leadership. But I bring this up because that whole can versus should. I think this is a part of leadership that frankly eludes me a lot of the time. I lose track of it. I think I get stuck in the leadership frame of me do the things I'm good at and higher people do the other things. Well, that's okay, that's layer one. Yep, yep. Okay, I've pretty much got on the other side of that, but then I think what I'm, my leadership journey that I'm on, clearly, as evidenced by this conversation with Wayne, is I have to develop more of like a thoughtfulness And a pause break.

46:47 Because now that I've got all this capacity, we have all this capacity as a team. I mean, we have some really incredible resources between our consultants and the rest of our corporate team. Like, there's a lot we can. There's a lot of capacity for can. But it's like, as a leader, stepping back and just saying, okay, hold on, what is this thing? If I sling this over my shoulder, and I demand assistance with this, or I demand somebody else do this, what is all the collateral impact of that? Like, what's the downstream impact of me demanding this thing to be done, creating that momentary distraction? And what does that do? And I think the other thing Wayne was hitting on, and I'm kind of, I'm not doing a great job of representing his part of the conversation.

47:27 Yeah. But I think Wayne was also a very real part of it is he's really trying to manage and steward his relationship. Yeah, very much so. To Jana and the rest of the creative team. It's like the trust and respect is earned. It's not guaranteed, and he's living that out. And if we're constantly, and I've been so guilty of this at different times in different businesses that I've owned and led, I've been so guilty of this of just like... hey, your job is to do things for me. I like you, I'm not an unappreciative guy, but it's like I can very easily get in the box, using that leadership and self-deception, I can get in this box where everybody else, even though I don't typically think of people as objects, I love people, I want to treat people well, I want to be a good person, but I can get into this mindset where I'm so hyper-focused on what's the opportunity in front of me that I just chuck things over my shoulder and I expect my, quote, employees, these labor units around me, like, can it be done?

48:22 Okay, then do it. Like, okay, I'm gonna chuck it over my shoulder and let my team do it. That's what I hired them for. And I think that that loses or I miss sometimes the impact on the relationship. Yeah. Because I'm also coming to this place of, I'm a nice guy. I take care of people. We pay them well. Yeah, whatever. We do their experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know? And we have all these other places where I know we intentionally take care of folks that in some of that tasking and project management and capacity management that I should be engaged in as a leader, I throw the capacity management out. I think that's the thing that Wayne was hitting on. Yep. is this is a very real part of leadership.

49:03 He takes it very seriously. Very seriously. And he's very skilled at it. Very skilled. Yeah. But there's an amount of reflection. Like, I have to create... create space for leadership, for me to consider and think about these things. I don't do that often. Well, and I think the other thing that you're pointing out, and then we'll probably need to land the plane because this plane's getting ready to board, but I think one of the things, too, that you're highlighting is this concept of just because we can doesn't mean we should. And I think if we go all the way back to where we started our conversation, this kind of rabbit trails from the experience is, Ed's challenge was because we have business owners that keep doing the things they can and maybe some of those things they shouldn't be.

49:51 And that's why they don't have the capacity to work on their business, right? And so I think the other thing that you're highlighting that's really interesting and we should all take a little bit more time to think about is that difference between can and should, especially when it comes to managing our time as owners and what we're willing to commit to or not commit to. There was a lot in what you just unpacked. I think that story's chocked full of operational lessons for us to consider as leaders. It's interesting, man. Yeah, it's like never stop learning. Don't ever stop. It's humbling, man. It's really humbling. You know, we were talking with this mentor of ours who runs a very, very big consulting company outside of our industry. And it's his third.

50:32 Yeah. Third multi-million dollar. And I think one of the interesting mantras that he talks about relative to the client relationship is, hey, I'm not your guru. I'm not your guru. I don't even necessarily know more than you. It's like I'm not a subject matter expert in all areas and you are the pupil. That is not the nature of a consulting relationship and I think you and I have learned that intuitively over the last several years. But it is so much more about this relationship of, I have a very hard time identifying my blind spots by myself. Yeah. Yeah. I can learn vicariously through like other people's stories. It's one of the reasons why I love podcasts.

51:12 I know you do too. And why I think many of the people that are listening to head hard and boots do is that at times you get lucky and you'll hear something and it'll connect with you like, oh, shit, I struggle with that too. oh shit I just had that conversation with a deadline employee or oh you know I had a similar thing where I chucked a project over my shoulder without even giving that single ounce of thought to how this is going to impact my relationship and this other person's capacity their well-being their stress level right and so we have these moments where we can learn vicariously through others but I think often times it comes from these outside third party partnerships like a consultant or a coach where they're just able to see something a little bit more clearly than me because they don't have the same, maybe emotional attachment to that problem or that situation.

52:02 And they're at the appropriate level of relationship with you to be a voice of that. I think Wayne is pretty special in terms of his understanding of high-level leadership and competency. He's very disciplined in his approach to leading up the chain, and so it does give him a voice that's not probably super normal. inside an organization. But in a lot of cases, owners, key leaders, they need that outside person that they can be vulnerable with, that they can be honest with and allow to speak to those blind spots that they're inevitably, because we all have them, period. That's the non-negotiable, right? Dude, this is just such a cool conversation because what this also touches on is that Jim Dethmer principle, conscious leadership, this idea that when we get feedback from an employee... Oh yeah, I know where you're going here.

52:49 As leaders, we are so prone to filtering that feedback based on time and grade that that person has in our business or in the industry, their age, their length of experience, their talent level, their pay scale. When somebody from our company comes to us and says, hey, particularly if it's critical, it's like... hey, I think you need to do this or we need to do more of that or less of this or whatever, is before we even consider the feedback, we filter based on that person's qualifications. That's right. And I think that's such a powerful thing to consider and to start to create some awareness around because what Jim Dethmer advocates for, and we're actually going to have somebody from Conscious Leadership Institute.

53:32 That's right. They're going to be on the podcast soon. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's going to be freaking awesome. That'll be awesome. And I interviewed this guy. He's an advisor, former CEO of a few different companies. Nice. But anyway, one of the principles in conscious leadership is that when given any kind of feedback, you first ask yourself, how is this true? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Whereas instead, with the typical default filters we apply to feedback kits, we're rationalizing. Is this true? Is this true based on this person's credibility, experience level, talent, education, whatever? And man, I have just found that incredibly powerful. And like even in this conversation with Wayne, right? That has really, really helped me to start to change my mind frame when you give me feedback or anybody else does of like, okay, part of me feels really offended, defensive, like all the things we feel.

54:19 Like somebody's poking at something that they believe somehow we've done poorly, not enough, we failed in some aspect of our delivery of that thing or our leadership around that thing. And there's this feeling of, well, who the hell are you? I think it's one of the gut reactions that sometimes comes out. and that's what a really huge area of growth for me just to be able to say okay well hold on a second I'm really pissed off about this but or and how is this true? How is this true? And I've started to even use that with my wife Yeah My wife will say something to me. Just hang in the pocket. I feel really offended by it. And I'm like, man, I feel really offended.

55:00 And my wife is not dumb. And my wife loves me. And so there's something here. And I think that's the basis that like Deathmer talks about. He's like, look, somebody wouldn't have mustered the courage to bring this to you if there wasn't something really here. That's awesome. What's real about this? Let me hang in that pocket. Let me let this simmer in this for a while, you know? That's funny man I almost think that's kind of a good way To summarize the entire conversation Yeah maybe so right Go back to all these little rabbit trails These individual moments And ask yourself What about this is true What about this can I apply or think about Oh boy okay well here we are So anyway what do we have coming up I'm going to be at Restoration Affiliates Get some great talks I think the promo is already out So I'm going to be giving a talk on bringing Ritz Carlton customer experience into restoration.

55:53 We just got some fun. Yep. You know, I've got some fun experiences with that and some methodology around that. I'm gonna let you own that. I'm gonna go hunting. Hey, you're going hunting. I'm gonna go in the woods for a while. I'm gonna be giving a talk about discovering your freedom point and building an exit ready business. That'll be, I think the general session, one of the general sessions. And then I'm also gonna be talking about the golden question. Oh yeah. as it relates to pain solution selling and just the power of connecting our prospects with negative and stressful past experience that we've had with contractors and then the concrete people, process and solutions that we've married up to those pain points and how powerful that can be to make those connections with our prospects to drive the sales process forward.

56:35 That's gonna be a really good event. That'll be fun. Yeah, stoked. And then you and I are going to be at Micra in October. We've got some for all our Paul Davis fans out there who have had heart and boots. We're going to be at some key Paul Davis event in November. Your end of the year summit there. That's going to be exciting. We've got another big Paul Davis group that we're going to be doing a leadership workshop with. And they're all killers. That's going to be fun. Oh, dude. So those are the big things. I don't know. Is there anything else that... Let's go get on a plane and make our way back to Oregon. I was ready to see her families. All right. Wow. There we go. Thanks, Dan. Thanks for listening. Until next time. We'll see you.

57:16 All right, everybody. Heath, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart & Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, 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.