Ep 15 - Vision Telling Is Not Vision Casting

0:02 Welcome back to another episode of the MRM Podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business, life, and legacy. It's business time. Hello, my friend. Hello. How you doing, bro? I'm doing better after this Coke Zero. This is an afternoon recording session, which is admittedly Brandon and I's witching hour. It's like after about 3 p.m. The creative work starts to suffer. Well, hey, you know, when you start at 2.30 a.m. every day... No, I'm kidding. Okay, no, we're... We are not the Jocko. We got clients at both coasts. Yeah, yeah. Well, we do start early.

0:43 We are early grinders. But anyways, yes, it has been tough. I got a topic for us, man. Okay. So this thing... I feel like we've run into a lot recently. Of course, this is stuff I think that happens to all of us in all sorts of different phases in our businesses. But one of the things that I seem to realize that we've been running into a lot is this idea of how often people's teams can... And in fact, there's an element of me experiencing this with some of our team members, some of the people that support and help us do what we do. where we can clearly see out amongst our ranks, and this isn't always the case, but where we can see what we have to do, what we have to accomplish.

1:25 Sometimes we have clients and people in general where their processes and procedures are actually really dialed in. They know how to go do the work. Yet there's this vibe amongst the ranks that no one really knows what the hell they're doing. Oh, yeah. Right? So tactically, I guess, or technically, we know how to go out and do this process according to our brand or according to whatever our company focuses on. But at the same time, people can all be bumping around and running into each other with this fog. They really don't know where they're going. And it's funny because I've always weighted that skill set.

2:06 I've always thought to myself, well, I'm a visionary guy by natural wiring. I seem to be really good about communicating what we're doing and why we're doing it. Yet we have people to include my wife at times as a partner to us and what we're doing. Yeah. I can be shocked sometimes when I'm having a conversation and I realize clearly I'm not doing a very good job of some of the vision casting. There is unknowns. We really don't know where we're going, even though we've got this process to do this and we have this system and we do these things this way. And what it reminded me of was we had a scenario where we were opening a second location, as an example.

2:49 And you identify who your key player is. Who's going to help us get this thing off the ground? And we were really looking at all these key aspects in terms of somebody with real entrepreneurial wiring. real adapt, overcome mentality. If you give this individual the right pay structure, they're really going to maximize it. All these things, these really independent, go-getter, adapt and overcome type of personality. So they had all those things. And they went and they deployed those things just like we anticipated. But where some of the slowdown came was just constant. In general, there wasn't this really good, consistent communication.

3:29 Why are we doing this, guys? Where are we going? Why is it important? And I think what we saw over time was it was because that thing would get communicated once or twice... And then we all just go, okay, we said it. Why do we need to keep repeating this message? We know. We already talked about it. Now let's go do it. And I think what you see over time is how important one of the jobs of a leader is actually Rachel and her dad, right? They call it visioneering, which I love that terminology. But it's this idea of we constantly have to be showing the team the direction that... And it's not just on a technical, tactical level.

4:10 So you might adopt process and procedure, and that's fantastic. But then there's this constant mission. It does not go away. It has to be fresh every day. Whereas leaders, we come in and we understand that one of our absolutely critical responsibilities is to continue to sell where we're going. Why are we doing that? Why is it important? How do we interact as a team? Why do we do it that way? And just constantly be encouraging and telling the team what we're doing and how we're doing it. to the point where this has to seep into the individual level relationship you have with your people.

4:53 So for instance, the company is going to have a mission. We're going to have a broad stroke picture that we paint consistently that the whole team is participating in. But when I go and sit down with my mitigation manager... The specific vision that I'm building for that individual in terms of their role and the map of where they could go, I have to be communicating that. Yeah. So in conjunction with, here's our process, train your people, manage your KPIs, there's this thing of, hey, you as an individual... Yeah. Here's what I see in you. Here's how I see you taking part in the bigger picture, communicating that vision for them.

5:35 And one of the things that Rachel's team talked about, or Rachel did, is she talks about, yeah, you take this big picture idea and you start breaking it down to division. to team, to individual, right? And I think that that's what we're talking about. We probably could have spent a lot of time there with her because she's very skilled at it. But this is that thing that was just kind of rattling around with me today is how common it is for us to see people taking on these tactical processes and procedures and really getting them nailed down, but still being frustrated with the fact that their team still kind of doesn't... know where they're going. Yeah. Right. Yeah. There's this, it reminds me of this book by Patrick Lencioni or Lencioni.

6:18 I don't know. I love his books. He wrote a book called The Advantage. Yeah. And The Advantage is, I mean, it's a really powerful book, but it's all about that. Yeah. It's like the advantage in this business fable is, is really their communication and the shared sense of vision and shared language, shared ideals, shared values. Like that, it's like the glue that holds the systems and the... It brings meaning to all the systems and processes. And yeah, I know what you're talking about, man. I feel like we see some version of it in every company we work with because I think it's just so universal. It's so...

6:58 And I think we get better at it. But then we'll have these periods where people start to drift. Department people on the team start to kind of drift. And a lot of times it happens when it's really busy. Oh, sure. Right? You start to get everybody's running in the same lane. Cool stuff starting to happen. You got new referral partners that are coming on. You've got adjusters that are in your corner that are sending you more work. And you've just got... Everything's firing. Yeah. But then everything's firing. And it's like, wow. And people start to get a little bit disconnected. You skip a production meeting because you just got a fire job the night before. And then all of a sudden, it's another week before you sit down and review the whip. And you go through your standards.

7:40 And you check in with everybody. All of us have experienced that. Yeah. So you can be winning. And all of a sudden, people start to disconnect. And then you start to have these side conversations that creep in of... I wonder what's going on here and why'd they do this? And then you start to get some drama. And it's like, all of that is because people start to lose sight. They lose the horizon. Yeah. It's like you're out on a fishing boat, you lose the horizon, things go south pretty fast. Like we can't keep track of where we're headed. Yeah. All you see is the waves. You know, it's like, oh crap, right? They all... Yeah, right. And I think, you know what? You and I have just learned over and over and over again is that one, we can't be afraid of repetition.

8:27 Yeah. I think that's one of the biggest lessons that we've picked up over the last, you know, eight, 10 years together is... you do have to repeat the vision far more times than you think you do. Yeah. Until people actually assimilate it. And I don't know which leader it was, if it was Covey or Lencioni or whatever, that something like seven times. People need to hear something seven times before they actually hear it. And if I'm really honest with myself, it's probably true for me too. Yeah. And it's certainly true in my marriage and with my relationship with my kids and whatnot. The first conversation is just kind of an introduction to the idea. Yeah. And of course, we all struggle with distraction, but you map that onto a company.

9:10 And once you get out past 10, 15 employees, you can kind of hustle your way through that. a lot of the things we're talking about until you get to 10 or 15 employees. And then it just starts to break down. You got too many people moving in too many different directions. Yeah, I think one of the things that I felt were always so important for service companies, and obviously this is with... my specific background, our background with the disaster restoration industry, is that this concept of a flat organization is really neat. And I understand it. I understand the speed that comes from an organization that doesn't have a ton of layers, that you're playing some kind of phone tag through, whatever the case may be.

9:52 But one of the things I just always felt was so important when it came to communication, and I witnessed this in my years in the military, is breaking down the number of individuals that a single person is responsible for. Now, there's a lot of tactical reasons for that, right? Especially in the battlefield, it's because communication has to be so crystal clear. Wrong communication is a life or death scenario in military operations. Well, I think the same thing is true to a certain extent with our businesses, yet we don't give it the same weight. Yeah, we don't. Right? We just think as long as in general, everybody's kind of doing what they need to do, we're fine. Well, that's not the case. You're not fine. Your organization is not fine.

10:34 Or maybe best case scenario, it's fine. And that's it. Yeah. Right? But the reality of it is, is that the reason the military creates this chain of command is because they've got it very dialed in in terms of how many people can a single person command and control in a battlefield environment. And so part of me has always thought about that, even when we were leading restoration companies. In my mind, I'm always looking at my team and saying, how many of these individuals can I have a consistent, clear voice in and help shape the trajectory of their time with this company?

11:14 Yeah. whether it be the way they handle my client, the way that they work with one another, the way that they go home and leave my business for the day and how they act at home and how they act in their sphere of influence. And I always looked at this chain of command and thought of it from the perspective of how many people can I legitimately speak into well? And for me, I've experienced different levels of that. I've had larger leadership teams where I had seven or eight people that I was pouring into on a consistent basis. And then I had scenarios where we were more flat because of financial restraints. And I was a single person communicating to a larger team. But even within that...

11:55 What I would do is I would try to find key influencers and they were the ones that I would spend the majority of my time with, knowing that then I'm multiplying my reach by giving them the freedom then to mirror what I'm teaching them to someone else in their influence. So even if they're not in a legitimate titled position of leadership, you can still create this same thing. And the value of that is it just gives you the ability to consistently send out these messages And take note of who these people are and who this individual is and steer that message so it lands better for that particular person. And you can't do that if you're trying to say it to 15, 20, 50, 80 people at a time.

12:38 Or at least I couldn't. I mean, I'm sure there's people out there that they're very gifted and can. Well, I think there's also different types of messages that are more conducive delivering them to a group of 30 or 50 all at once. But I think a lot of the times, the things that we're drilling on and working on with people, we can really only... communicate in a clear way that they can hear in a small group, a small setting, one-on-one or one-on-three or whatever. I want to go back to something I said because it's been bouncing around in my mind since I said, I'm like, yeah, that's not true. I made the comment a second ago. I said, boy, when you're only 10 employees or 15 employees, you can get away with just sort of winging it. Mm-hmm.

13:18 But that's not true at all. Because, I mean, you and I've seen it in clients that we've worked with, that consistent communication and that having everybody on the same page and working in an organized, concerted effort is the thing that helps you get out of that 1 million, 2 million range, that 10 to 15 person company. Until you figure out how to communicate more clearly and how to visioneer where you're headed and get everybody on board and pointed in the right direction... it's really difficult to break out of that income strata. Right. And we've seen that a lot with companies who just really struggle to get over that first million bucks or break over the next million bucks because that's the piece they haven't totally dialed in.

14:07 There's this general confusion at any given time. And I think sometimes it's hard for us to see as owners and leaders. Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of times that confusion, people aren't talking about it. Where it happens is when consultants and coaches come in like Brandon and I, and we're having genuine, authentic, curious conversations with downline staff, and we start to uncover this confusion. And it's one of those things, it always is happening. Yeah. And I think we have to hunt for it. We have to find it and we have to create clarity. We have to circle back. Okay, well, let's revisit this. Let's talk through this again as a team. Yeah. Yeah. Because yeah, small companies know you can't get away with it for very long. You can't get away with winging it. Yeah.

14:48 Well, and I think at the end of the day, part of what this is contributing to is how many of us as business owners and business leaders feel like we're the only one on the team that is dedicated enough or competent enough or skilled enough or care enough to make these decisions or to push the needle forward or to want to pursue process and procedure for the sake of the consistency in our business. But the reality probably is that we just are struggling more so than we actually know about of communicating again in a consistent manner, the vision for where we're going. Why are we doing this? Why is it important for you as an employee?

15:31 Why is it important for you in your particular position? And the goals that you have professionally and some of the directions that you want to go. If we're not spending any time cultivating that level of relationship with people, we are going to be blindsided by people that just up and walk away. Or that we invest in, in quotation marks, for a long period of time. And ultimately, it doesn't work out. And I think part of the struggle is that us as leaders, think about our backgrounds, right? Most of us, for instance, let's say we were a contractor at one point. And then we got brought into the restoration industry because we're a tradesperson, we're a craftsman, or her background was in negotiations, contracts, and sales, or whatever.

16:22 So we bring people into this industry, or we go and we start a franchise, or we start a business... on this past skillset, on this technical, tactical skillset, tradecraft that we developed. But we didn't really have a full grasp on what it means to be a leader. And leadership is just a total different skillset. Not that we devalue the skills, the background, the experience, because those bring just an abundance of real rich experience to share with the team. But we have to see as leaders, our job's just now getting started. So if you were the person executing in the field not that long ago, understand that when you transition out of that position, you begin to take the responsibility on of leading other people...

17:12 you're about to get pressed in a whole new skill set that you may or may not have really any skill set in. And it's okay. You don't look at that and then hit eject like I can never do it. But I think we just have to be very aware that we're being asked to do and deploy differently than we have in the past just because we're an expert in restoration or just because we're a commercial loss person or whatever the case may be. And that skill set, boils down to your ability to hear someone and then effectively communicate what needs to happen to that individual.

17:54 And most of the times our understanding of how to do that is not as good as what it really requires to do it effectively. And so maybe we spend a couple minutes talking about that in general. What's that look like? For instance, you're about to be working with a couple new people in regards to sales, right? We have clients that have brought on some new team members. Outside of the technical, tactical work... What are you going to be communicating with the leadership on that team in terms of how to guide that salesperson? Because I know you are. You and I talk about this. What does that look like? Because that's an example, I think, of what we're talking about, where you're adapting your communication skill set to lead someone for effectiveness, not just give them a process.

18:41 Right? Yeah. Well, I think it's all the things we've been talking about. It's casting a vision. Both a vision of where, like you say, the company is going and where they fit in with their piece. Where their activity that we're asking them to do, the specific strategies that we're deploying on the sales side, certain behaviors, how it fits into the bigger picture. And of course, a big part of what we do is helping teams... salespeople understand their role on the production team, just how mission critical their relational role is to our teams that are out there performing the work, that connection, and that they be connected and they have relationship with the team and not just be the salesperson.

19:26 Right. Right. So helping them not just understand, but actually feel a part of the larger operation. Yeah. There's a really common problem in sales. Yeah. In our industry. It's like you've got the marketing people and they just go out and have fun all day while the production people are really doing the hard work. There's that narrative inside a lot of restoration companies. And so I think part of the work is helping the delivery teams, like the production teams are doing the work, understand, truly see how the salespeople fit into this vision and vice versa. So that's a conversation, frankly, that is kind of a big deal when we're implementing our...

20:08 When we're onboarding a brand new salesperson is making sure that they get connected to the field operations. Yeah. Which what that would look like nine times out of 10, we hire a new salesperson, we give them some objectives, we introduce them to everybody, and then we're like, go get them, champ. Yeah, go get them. That's what we normally do. Right? And that's so common. Normal to the point where literally, it's probably nine times out of 10. Yeah. That's what someone's experiencing. But what you're talking about is leadership. That's a whole different level of proactive communication that's required to create a successful transition for somebody. Yeah, it totally is. Yeah. Helping them understand their place on the team and who they're working with and who their resources are and who their partners are.

20:51 What do they go to this person for when they have this situation, right? We did a thing on effective onboarding. We did an episode back. I think it was... It's part of our three-part series. Yeah. But I think there's a lot of leadership that goes in to effectively onboarding somebody. Yeah. And with salespeople, the biggest challenge and where my vision is so critical is... salespeople, when we have jobs that start to go south, you know, we just talked earlier about when we find ourself in chaos, things are crazy. We're really busy. You see my air marks. Yeah. We're really busy. Like this is the industry we're in, right? It's built for crazy, right? Yeah. When things are busy and crazy, one of the common things that can occur is that we start to slip on our timelines with our jobs.

21:36 We start to slip on our communication. We start to slip on our punch list walkthroughs. We start skipping steps in our process. And ultimately, a lot of this will... Very quickly, this will come back to your sales rep. And it dramatically erodes their confidence. Yeah. And what I've learned through that experience in those growing pains, the trough of sorrow, those seasons where it's like, everything is going right in terms of new business coming in, but everything is going wrong on the back end. The system is screaming under the weight of the new business. People are frustrated and there's just growing pains. If the sales rep doesn't understand that...

22:18 You need to lead a sales rep through that. They need to understand the big picture of, hey, this is part of our process. It's part of the process of what's learning and growing. Here's why this is happening. And here's how we're going to pull through this. It's a unique part of our industry that a lot of sales reps don't have to deal with. Like the pharmaceutical rep... their worst case scenario is they got stuff on back order. Yeah. Ah, gosh, dang it. You know, I'm not going to hit my number because we got back orders. That's their most frustrating thing. Whereas in our industry, sales reps go out there, they stick their neck out. Their personal, a lot of times these are local people. We all live in local communities. People know each other. People have kids on the same soccer team.

22:59 So when a sales rep is going out and knocking on doors and visiting agents and visiting property managers, they're like, And we start to deliver the work and it's not what they promised. It's deeply destabilizing. Yeah. So I think where leadership comes in is preempting those situations and letting people know, hey, this is something we can expect to happen. As we start to become more successful, we're going to start to have these growing pains. And I think part of leadership too is getting people in the same room to have that conversation and not just sweeping it under the rug. Yeah. They'll figure it out. Yeah. It's not just telling the sales rep, hey, listen, they're doing their best.

23:40 Just tell the customer what you need to tell them to fix it. Sometimes we're so dismissive of our people when they're under stress. Our thing is just, hey, gut it out. That's what our industry has taught a lot of the players. Those of us who came up in construction and carpet cleaning and some of these other adjacent trades, we came into restoration. It's just this attitude. Buck up. Pull yourself up and get over it. Yeah. Get your stuff together. You know, just this real macho kind of... And I think we just sabotage ourselves with that because the employees are like, no, no, this is real. Like we're struggling here. Yeah. Sales reps like, my clients are pissed. I've been working the last six months to get a job from these people.

24:22 Yeah. Yeah. And we can't seem to get the work done or we can't seem to do it right. And we need to step into that stuff and not shy away from it. Yeah. You know, those are the opportunities where as the leader, as the owner or the mitigation manager or the GM or whomever you are leading the team. to get those parties together and say, okay, we got a problem. And we all need to be able to trust each other through this. Yeah. But we're all going to lose confidence. Yeah. I was thinking about another example that paralleled what you were just talking about. It's actually the same thing, actually. Was the conversation with your production manager, with your mitigation manager, about this new salesperson that's about to come onto the team.

25:03 And setting the stage with them. Hey, be aggressive about connecting with them because they're part of the team that's helping feed the machine. They need to know what we're doing and how we're doing it. Get them in the cab of the truck. Go take them to some job sites. Introduce them to our techs. Help them build confidence. Show them that our technicians are skilled, that they can carry themselves well. I remember you talking about all of this to the point where it was part of the coaching conversation with this particular team. Because that proactive communication is so important. Now, we could have assumed that everybody's going to do that, right? Right. But then our teams, even if they're capable, they're going to get busy. Two weeks are going to go by.

25:43 They're going to forget. They're going to miss one production meet. The same examples that you gave, and now this person's been on our team for three and a half months, and they have yet to spend any quality time around each other. But by not making assumptions, by proactively sitting the individuals down and saying, Look, these things are coming. Yeah. Here's some actions that you can take that will really set the stage for how well you guys work together in the future. Yeah. Done. We removed all the assumptions, right? And we've given some clear communication on why. What's in it for them? How does it help the team? All right, let's take a minute to recognize and thank our MitResto Mastery sponsor, Accelerate Restoration Software.

26:28 And I'm fully aware, by the way, that when I say those last two words, restoration software, that that instantly creates heartburn for some of you out there, right? Because we probably all fall into one of two camps when it comes to software. We've either cobbled together kind of a version of free website tools and spreadsheets just to make our business work, Or we're in the camp where we've adopted one of these existing restoration platforms, you know, one that has all the bells and whistles and supposedly does it all. But we can't get our team to consistently adopt it and input information to it. Yeah, and that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's simple, right?

27:10 It's intuitive, and it focuses on the most mission-critical information, i.e., guys, your team will actually use it. Let's talk about sales. After years of leading sales and marketing teams, the biggest trick is getting them to consistently update notes about their interactions with referral partners and clients. And the essential piece there is there's got to be a mobile app experience. the solutions that were previously out there were just too cumbersome and tricky to use. Yeah. Imagine guys, how your business would change if your entire team was actually consistently using the system. Do yourself a favor, go check these guys out at xlrestorationsoftware.com forward slash MRM and check out the special offers they're providing to MRM listeners.

28:02 All right, let's talk about actionable insights. Owners, GMs, you can't be your business's expert on all things estimating. You might've been three years ago when you're writing sheets in the field, but the industry's always changing and so are the tools. If you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to Xactimate Matterport, how does that scale? You're the bottleneck. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is where actionable insights comes in. They're a technical partner that can equip your team with the latest bleeding edge information and best practices and then update them with webinars and training resources when the game inevitably changes again. For this reason, we recommend actual insights to all of our clients.

28:42 Yeah, three of the kind of big things that stuck out to me when being introduced to AI and their team. First off is this consistently updated training. I mean, at the end of the day, these guys are the experts. They're out front all the time. They're constantly learning new trade secrets and ensuring that your team's got access to those things. A 3,700 plus page database of Xactimate templates. I don't know what else to say here other than don't reinvent the wheel. It's already available. Download it, copy it, use it, bam. database of commonly missed items. I think this is huge. So many of us can change the numbers by just moving the needle a couple points and those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world.

29:25 So go check them out at value.getinsights.org backslash fcg. So we use the core values index. We profile all of our clients when they come in. It gives us this picture. And for those of you who aren't familiar with core values index, it's like Enneagram. It's like the DISC profile or Myers-Briggs or StrengthFinder, any of these other self-awareness assessment tools you use, right? CBI breaks people down. They score them on four quadrants. Banker, builder, merchant, and innovator. And they all have different attributes to them. And everybody scores something in each of the categories, but your high scores, those are your kind of dominant hardwired behaviors.

30:13 So one of these kinds of conversations that we have is helping people understand how other people on the team work and see things. And so for example, within a restoration company, we have salespeople. And salespeople, by the way, is not just limited to your actual full-time salesperson. We have a sales function on our team. We have field production. We have work we're doing in the field. We have financial operations, which covers a lot. AR and AP and accounting and all that stuff. And we have leadership. We have coordination of all the pieces. Right. And bankers most often, they're the keeper of process.

30:56 They're the protector of information. They're the protector of resources. They're the conserver, right? And they place a high value on good data. Anyway, my point is that it's really hard for non-bankers to understand bankers. And this is a source of conflict. Absolutely. Likewise, builders... So builders are the ready, fire, aim people. They're the ones that have the internal fortitude and just hardwired courage to just go tackle a problem or an opportunity without overthinking it. They're able to take action without a ton of preparation because they have this internal fortitude of I'll be able to figure out what comes next. And let's just do it.

31:37 And you've got a merchant, which is... The merchant is the relational anchor. Those are the people... They're often salespeople. They're the people that just want to go build and maintain relationships. They want to start new things because they want to pull people together. Anyway, they're always wanting to start stuff and talk. Yeah. They annoy the hell out of builders. Because builders, they're tapping their foot at the meeting. Let's get out of here. Let's go. I got six jobs that I'm going to go process today. Whatever. Yeah. So the reason why we take people through these things is to help them understand each other and then to communicate with that knowledge. So one of the things I'm always careful to go over with people about bankers, because all of the roles, they're so essential.

32:20 Having those protectors, those caution people, wait, hold on, slow down. Let's look at our plans again. Let's look at our P&L before we buy that new truck. You need those protective bankers. But one of the things about bankers is they value information so highly. When they send out a request for information, like say, for example, hey, I need your timesheets in. By the end of today, I'm getting ready to run payroll or I'm reconciling, blah, blah, blah. And somebody doesn't respond to them because they were, quote, busy. To a banker personality, it is deeply offensive. Because to the banker, when you don't send them the information they ask for... It's a value statement.

33:01 It's a value statement. What you're doing is not as important as what I'm doing. Yeah. And I think that same principle is true. A lot of times, we're sort of half missing each other in our business. We don't always take the time to unpack the why. Like, why is this important to me? Why is this important to you? Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. I think it's acknowledging that all of us really do see the world differently. We see the work differently because we're coming at it from a different angle. We just value things differently. Yeah. And it's not a millennial versus boomer thing. That's not at all what I'm talking about. This is something that's universal. All of us have some banker, mine's really low, some merchant, mine's really high, some builder and some innovator.

33:43 It's the mix. It's kind of unique. It creates that unique way that we interpret what's being said to us. Right. And I think our industry is figuring that out, but we're a little more slow moving. We've been very transactional. We've been very, just do it because I told you to. Just do it because this is what we do. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm always hesitant to say our industry is like that because I know there's people listening. They're going, that's not how I run my business, right? Yeah, no. We get it. Yeah. But I mean, doesn't everybody kind of know a little bit what I mean? Yeah. Like the general, it's the generalization. But I think more than anything, that's probably pretty common just in businesses in general. I agree. Especially not the ones that fall into this, in quotes, enlightened period where the Googles and all these things where they're making 50% profit margin.

34:30 That's right. But that's a different story. But I think part of the element of what you're talking about and part of the bigger picture of what we're saying here is that... One of the strongest skill sets that business owners and leaders can learn is how to effectively communicate. And we're not talking about how to articulate an idea, clearly. That is important. But for instance, back in another company that you and I were at together, we started a leadership academy. And one of the very first modules that people went through was communication styles and flexing to communication styles.

35:13 So think about that. We're laying the groundwork of teaching and creating young leaders within our ranks. And one of the very first things that we teach people is how to more effectively communicate because it is the game changer... in terms of how well you can guide and lead your teams. And the reason it's so important is just as simple or just as foundational as we go back to the job level service delivery. What is the number one thing that most likely has happened when a job begins to fall apart? There's been a breakdown in communication. It's communication. Every time. We've done after-action review, after-action review on jobs post-completion.

35:53 And when we dial it back and try to find where the thing came off the tracks, almost every single time, it was some form of communication breakdown. Either we spent too many days without communication... What we communicated was not clear and effective. It lacked detail. It didn't take into consideration the most important things according to our client is communication. And so that's the very first thing that we would teach from a foundational perspective in leadership is this is one of the most powerful tools you will wield as a leader is how well you can hear and respond and guide your team via communication.

36:35 Yeah. Like it is, it's the thing. How do we get by in a new process? Well, it depends on how well you communicate and how well you hear your team as you start to go through that transition. You know, how do I develop a young leader? Well, it depends. How good are you at hearing them? And how good are you at communicating theories and ideas and concepts of where they could go? Yeah. Right? How do you develop better sales agendas? Well, it depends. How good are you at listening to your client? And how good are you at communicating the why and the value for them in your sales process? Right? Right. Guys, at the end of the day, it all comes down to how effective are we at communicating? I think something that you see all the time is examples of young leaders that are taking on new roles.

37:19 And man, they're just grit and their own confidence level and their ability to just go for it. They make a lot of progress. Yeah. But you sit down with them and ask them where they're going and what's going on. They don't know. Yeah. They don't know. Yeah. Right. We've talked about this so many times. I mean, the fact of the matter is there are varying degrees of talent and charisma in every business for every business owner. And you go with what you got. Yeah. And it's amazing how far just grit and determination and hustle and kindness. Yeah. Just being a good person, doing the right thing, those kind of values can take you. But at some point, the limiting factor...

38:00 in every scenario that you and I've seen has been the ability to really communicate and get everybody speaking the same language and saying the same thing. You know, one of the things that I thought about as you were talking is in terms of us communicating vision really clearly to individuals on our team and really, really listening to our people and asking good questions, finding out what their vision is. is kind of a key part of that. Because I think sometimes we get really good at telling them where they fit into the business and where they can go and what they could be and what they could do. But we don't actually know that that's what they want. Yeah.

38:40 And I think sometimes I've experienced this. We have employees that are kind of shining us on because they think that shiny object that we're dangling out there for them, like we think is really cool. And it may not actually be the thing that's motivating them or that they want. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. We've experienced this. We've experienced where we've had really effective technicians on our team and we're kind of dangling. Hey, you could be running the teams. You're so good at this. If you just, you know, did this and this and this. And all the while, like we never actually bothered to ask the question, like, do you... do you want to be the mitigation manager? Do you want to be the, right? And they're like, no. Yeah, yeah. But we don't know that. And so we assume that, of course, everybody wants to move up the ladder and be the chief.

39:23 But the reality is that that isn't always true. It's often not true. They may want to make more money, but they don't necessarily want to go that path. And so it's just, I think that's the other thing that we want to remember is when we're talking about really effectively communicating the vision, make sure you're communicating the right thing based on what that other person really wants. Well, it's communication. It's two-way. Yeah, it's a two-way street. It's not just telling. Both of us have been guilty of this and everybody listening to this, right? Broadcasting. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Telling is not selling. That's kind of what we're doing as leaders is we're selling. We're selling a vision. We're selling ideas. We're selling values. We're selling principles and standards. That's actually what we really are, right?

40:04 The senior leaders is we are salespeople. We're the highest form of it. And what do salespeople do? Salespeople find the pain. They find the wants and they find the pain. And then all of their communication speaks to those two things. What's the solution? Yeah, I think about sales. I love sales. I love sales, right? But it's, hey, I heard you say that this is a need. Yeah. Let me talk to you about how we can meet you there. Yeah. Yeah. I heard you say earlier in the conversation that you just have always wanted this. Like you could have this, it would do this for your business. Well, let me talk about that. Yeah. Let me talk about those things. And likewise with our employees, it's like, find out what do they actually want? Because I think sometimes I have been guilty of this more times than I care to admit.

40:47 I assume the employees want what I want. Like when I had a state farm agency, I just assumed that they wanted to make a bunch of commissions. They wanted to be successful with selling because I put incentives out there and I needed them to sell. Yeah. How often do we approach our teams just basically mandating, this is what I need from you. Now, granted, we do need to have... There's a reason why we have job descriptions. There's a reason why we hire people for specific roles. But at the same time, we're kind of sticking our head in the sand. If we don't ever bother to say, Hey, where do you want to go from here? Yeah. How's the shoe fitting so far? Yeah. How's the shoe fitting so far? Because I think sometimes we don't want to know the answer. Yeah. We just want them to do the job. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh, yeah. But I think it's in those conversations where if we make people feel safe to give us real answers, like if we're genuine and we make this a habit of asking, Hey, how are you enjoying the role?

41:34 Yeah. Does this feel like a good fit? Like just being honest. Yeah. Just being human. Nobody likes to be in a job they don't enjoy. Right. So do we just want, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. We've had employees that have told us, I don't really like this. I'll do this because I love the company. Love you. We've had so many employees do that. Yeah. And we've had the conversations of, okay, Right now, if you can hang in here with me for 45 days, if we can get from here to this objective, we'll be able to hire an assistant for you or we'll hire somebody else in this role and we can shift you into this other one. Right. But that's an active communication. It's not, we do so much. I feel like this is a fatal flaw that so many of us have done or do in our career.

42:16 It's part of the desperation brain. I just need you to do this job. Yeah. I don't really care if you like it. It's what we need. When in reality, we don't have to give them the job of their dreams right this second, but we should want to know. Yeah. How's this fit? You can do it, but do you like it? is this your highest and best use? Okay, if it's not, let's make a plan. As soon as we can hire another tech... then we can move you into this other thing. Because you want them passionate about it. Yeah, you want them engaged, man. And it's like if people aren't enjoying their work, if they're frustrated with it or they're finding a big skill gap that they're just having a hard time addressing, it's just not a fit, right? Wouldn't you want to know? That is the title of our episode too. Like, don't you want to know the truth?

42:58 Yeah, it changes the ability that we have to delegate, to teach, to train, to support. Yeah. A lot of ground, dude. Dude, we covered a lot of ground. That was a lot of ground. So thanks for following us on this trip. But yeah. Right. So you want me to try to do a summary? Can I practice? I can't wait. You don't want to touch this hot potato. Okay. For it. Kind of a hot mess. You know, we started talking out about... How it's possible to be, quote, successful. You can have a cash flowing business. You can be taking a nice owner salary and draw and have a good team of people and still putting it all together. There's still this cloud of confusion within the team.

43:40 And I think part of what we're asking you to do is reflect. Is that happening in my business? Because there's been many seasons where we didn't really figure that out until after the fact, until the drama kind of emerged, you know? So it's that question of, okay, am I really connected to what's going on in my team? We have a good thing going, but what's happening underneath the surface? What's happening in the field? Does everybody know what they're supposed to do? Do they know why we're doing all this? So it's possible to be successful and not be moving forward, you know? Mm-hmm. I think the other thing that we've talked about here is just how mission critical it is as people buy a business or start a company, having been an employee previously, that there's a very real and different skillset owning the company versus being the trades person, the trades expert.

44:32 You might be the most incredible artisan drywaller. And you made a bunch of money doing that, but that does not automatically translate into you being a great leader for a restoration company. There's additional tradecraft that you need to take on. And thirdly, I guess, is that tradecraft is communication, but it's not broadcast. It's this engagement with our people. And I think the last thing that we just covered is don't you want to know the truth of what's going on? Because it's really easy when things are going okay to good to just kind of brush all the little things, you know, the observations that can't, well, it's working. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's really easy to put that on.

45:13 I think what we're saying, boy, there's an opportunity in getting honesty with our people. Because I think when our people truly believe that we care about them, that we're actually interested in their career and their future, um, we've experienced this. There's an entirely different kind of loyalty that comes out of that. Entirely different kind. I think that's what we just talked about. Totally is. Right on. Okay. See you, man. Until next time. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the MRM Podcast. And if you got something out of it, share it with a friend, hit subscribe, hit follow, leave us a five-star review. Thanks a lot.