Ep 12 - What Can We Learn From Elon Musk

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. I really wanted to turn the mic on while you were jamming on your crunch mix. I was saying Gardetto's, not a sponsor. Gardetto's for the carb conscious. I have these new Catalina Crunch, keto-friendly, spicy kick crunch mix, snack mix. I'll tell you what. It was like an 8.1 on the Richter scale, though, when you're grinding on those bad boys. I'll tell you what. That tasted really great. Oh, that was amazing. I think it would have been a good opportunity to test people's base.

0:43 I mean, here's the thing. Like any of you that are listening, probably all of us in the world, certainly in the U.S., have experimented with like a keto or a low-carb diet to try to trim down or whatever, right? Yeah, yeah. And one of the biggest things I miss when I'm kind of watching my carbs is the crunchy, yummy stuff. Right? Crunchy. Yeah. So there we go. That's your confessional for the week. What do you think we should talk about today? Well, I've been chewing on something, pun intended. Okay. See what we did there? Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. It was an old man joke. Oh, by the way, I saw this great t-shirt the other day. It has nothing to do with one of your kids. Yeah. We were at a restaurant. We were actually in Idaho, of all places.

1:25 We were in a restaurant. And this dad, clearly dad, walks out. And he's got a t-shirt on. And it's the counter. You would see how many days without an accident at your workplace. It said zero, zero days without a dad joke. Just absolutely fantastic. I think some of you out there, listener world, can relate to them. All right. So anyways, okay. I've got something I've been chewing on, man. My wife and I actually took a big fat road trip. And so we had like 24 hours on the road and we listened to a book that was released about Elon Musk, I think probably in 14 or 15. So it's been a while. I mean, honestly, at the time that the book was written, he's dwarfed his successes in the last seven years, right?

2:11 He's catapulted to be number one, sometimes two. world's wealthiest man, right? Tesla and SpaceX are doing stuff that is just absolutely mind boggling. Anyways, it's a really interesting deep dive into his life and into the startup of Solar City, Tesla, and SpaceX, right? Which are all wildly, right now, they are wildly successful companies. really leading at an unbelievable pace. Yeah. The race for sustainable energy, space flight, space exploration. And of course, he's achieved a somewhat affordable all-electric car.

2:53 He essentially built a category, right? And it's funny because like the real people who nerd out on this stuff will talk about how electric cars aren't anything new. We know there's whatever Ford came out with an electric vehicle in 1919. But yeah, but I mean, he has basically made it... mainstream category. Yeah. In like less than 10 years. He changed the world's perspective on it. Let's be honest. Yeah. Right. And I don't know if you've, so you know how the algorithms work with social media and stuff, right? You click on a video and now forever you're getting force fed anything related to it. Well, after reading that book, obviously, I was pretty prone to clicking on things related to Tesla and SpaceX. And now he literally is on the brink of releasing a sub $30,000 all electric powered vehicle.

3:40 So think about that. So not only is he making a really technologically high-end vehicle affordable... but he's crushing the most affordable gas-powered vehicles in terms of price. If he pulls that off, it's yet just another monumental achievement in terms of setting these wild goals that the whole world barely has context to understand the reality of it. And then somehow, he and his teams find a way to do it. And I know there's probably some people listening that view him as the devil in some way. And then others that probably love him. Sure, it runs the gambit. Big personalities, it's all or nothing, it seems like, right?

4:21 Anyways, I'm listening to this book. By the way, I think this one is written by an investigative journalist. So this is not an autobiography. This is not an authorized biography. Right. And in fact, it's interesting because when they set the stage at the beginning of the book, this writer is very aggressive about stating the fact that he would not bend to some of the initial requirements that Elon had about the book, meaning that he wanted to read the entire manuscript before it was released. He wanted to be able to add footnotes, the whole thing. And this writer ultimately said, I can't let you do that. And so according to them, this is a neutral third-party perspective on Elon and his big tri-companies that he's put together.

5:01 Anyways, man, I'm listening to this. I'm an audible guy. I'm sorry, I cheated. I listened to this book and kind of the walkaway... is you have a man who obviously is not here to give his side of it, but he's clearly a man for whatever reason that is able to identify a goal. And that goal for him becomes very missional. So it's a life or death type of scenario for whatever reason. I'm not going to try to get into what fuels that for him. But once he establishes that, there's no stopping. Like your opinion is irrelevant. Your perspective on what can and can't be done is irrelevant. It's a yes, no answer for him.

5:43 Once he establishes it's a yes answer, he is going to move mountains to achieve that. It's very intimidating. Like when you listen to what it is that he and his teams had to do to create Tesla and for Tesla to sustain past the first 10 or 15 years of life, it's... or to listen to what happened with SpaceX and the kinds of technologies that they're inventing in order for them to achieve the goals they're achieving. I don't care if you're a nerd or not. There's just this awe. You listen to this story and you go, I can't. My mind is so simple. I do not have the ability to draw the context for this. I can't fathom what it is they're able to accomplish.

6:25 Yeah. Well, yes, I can completely relate to that. You know what I mean? I can relate to that sense of awe. Is this a yes and? It is totally a yes and. Because I relate to that admiration for just like him as an icon of business. Like how in the world, right? Right. But there is information out there about the how. Like, how do they do it? What's different about Tesla? Because everything I've read and different podcasts I've listened to, including how we have heard him talk about his business. Yeah. Right. Is that, you're right. He does. He's very decisive. He gets a vision and then he dedicates himself to making that vision materialize.

7:07 But he's also really pragmatic about his business. He's very non-emotional. Some people speculate that's because of his, him being on the spectrum, that he doesn't connect emotionally in the same way that maybe you or I would with a business, with employees, all that kind of stuff. And so there's maybe a level of distraction he doesn't have that somebody like a normal business person like you and I might because of that spectrum thing. But you hear about some of the practical things he's done, like they don't do meetings. Or are they... At Tesla, what was it that I heard? If you don't have anything more to contribute to a meeting, you're expected to just get up and leave. He has zero tolerance for wasting time in a meeting. So if you're no longer offering something in a meeting, you don't have a perspective, an opinion, a report, data, information, feedback to give, then get out of here and go do something that's important.

7:57 Yeah. Yeah. And apparently this is just permeates their entire company with regard to meetings is, hey, when we're done with the topic at hand, we all leave. We don't do one hour meetings. If we can get a meeting done in seven minutes, that's what we do, which is very... It's interesting. It takes a lot of discipline because I think a lot of us, if we're really honest, there's an element of... meetings kind of feel self-important, like we do them because we're supposed to. But we can end up spending a lot of time hanging in a meeting where it's long lost the value, the productivity of that meeting, right?

8:38 So that's one thing he does. It's really practical. When I first read that, I'm like, wow. Yeah. Yep, that's probably a solid principle to operate on. And then he talks about too, he's very, he's down on hierarchy. He's not a middle management guy having supervisors for this and directors of that. When you look at Tesla's structure, it's basically Elon, the big idea guy. And then you have this huge flat organization. He doesn't have 200 corporate management types. Mm-hmm. And a lot of people think that's contributed a lot to his ability to make products really fast and get things to market really fast, relatively speaking.

9:20 You think about how long Ford's been doing business. And of course, I think there's analogs in our industry too that we're seeing with a lot of the private equity coming in. If you've got some smaller companies... that are achieving scale way faster than some of the original big name brands. Some of them have been growing for 30, 40, 50 years. Yeah. Right. And you see some of these newcomers bring a new value. Yeah. Right. You can see it with some of the newer franchises. Yeah, you totally can. Right. They're expert at some of these new advertising platforms and so forth. Yeah. And they're able to leapfrog. And I think, I think Elon has made some choices about how he's going to do business.

10:01 And then he's, Like you say, it's just binary. There's no reconsidering that choice. It's just, this is how we're going to do it. Yes, no. Yeah. This is the goal. Yeah. So it's not, I can't, it's just how. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I don't think I want this conversation to turn into a culture question because I really, I just want a cheap excuse to process what I'm thinking about myself as a leader after reading this book. But I was thinking about your comment regarding regarding that meeting structure as an example. And I have to say, dude, some of the most meaningful opportunities I had was when there was a breathing moment in the day, but I wanted the team to have that meeting anyways.

10:46 And it was a chance for us to take the rush out of that meeting and actually see each other. And so I would connect with employees. We would laugh. We would make jokes. I would call out personality things that all of us have identified by working with this person for a prolonged period of time, like to create this sense of unity, integrity of the team. And it's like I really cherished sometimes to have those moments. So there is part of me that reads something about his companies and there it is production. It's time in to get something out on the other side. And these things that they create.

11:27 are wildly amazing. They're cutting edge. They're developing technology to develop the thing. I mean, it is unbelievable what these guys do. And it's admirable. It's admirable because what they are able to achieve. But at the same time, it's hard for me to look at the companies and feel like they have a soul that I can connect with personally. I'll tell you what I connect with when it comes to Tesla. He's done such a great job of creating a massive, long-term, bigger-than-life picture of where the company's going and what it's trying to do. Yeah. I mean, we've seen how, when we started really honing in on our story, like, who are we?

12:09 How do we do business? How are we different? How do we talk and think differently than our, you know, the rest of the industry or we see the industry kind of operating? He's given people a big story. Yeah. Which people get, it's easy for people to rally behind. Yeah. I think the other thing that's interesting too is he gives people some creative freedom to really... create novel things about their products. So like the gym I go to, there's this doctor, this physician that's part of whatever gym members. He's comes to the same workout as me every day. He's got one of those Tesla wise. It's like their medium size SUVs. Yeah. And the latest update has this sort of like dance routine.

12:52 Oh, it's had that and music. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of the car commercials you see during Christmas. Yes. Yeah. And it's just so novel. It's fun. I've seen him in these public press conferences and talking about these new software update features and stuff. And you can tell he gets a kick out of it. Oh, yeah. And you can imagine when you've got this visionary CEO... that is constantly talking about the thing that's way out there, the next thing happening, the next thing we have to do, the next big challenge we're going to confront. Yeah. It is inspiring because I think people hear their CEO enjoying their business, thinking way out ahead for their business. And they say, okay, there's job security in that.

13:32 Yeah. That people feel. Yeah. Which creates loyalty, you know? And I just really admire that about him. Like he seems, even though he is this nerdy at times, seems very out there, disconnected. so visionary you can't relate to them. Yeah. Then there's these moments like when he did that press conference to unveil the truck. Right? Yeah. And he or one of the people tossed that metal ball. It was supposed to be break proof, right? Yeah. And it just like spider webbed across. And he's just without skipping a beat. I remember what kind of sassy, like smart ass comment he made. Yeah. During this live press conference. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah. We didn't plan for that, you know, or something.

14:14 I think that kind of... Human, lighthearted. It's like on the one hand, Elon doesn't take himself very seriously. You can see tons of examples of that, like the tweets that he does, the way he even interacts with the FTC and all these governing regulatory bodies in interviews. He's just so self-deprecating. He doesn't take himself too seriously. He doesn't dress like a billionaire. And I think employees can relate to that. But he takes the mission seriously, right? But he takes the mission really seriously. So he has this big goal that he is 150% personally and professionally committed to.

14:55 Yep. And he acts out of that place too. Dude, you're dumb. I think his employees actually remarkably can relate to him. Yeah, I think there is at least the majority of them or a chunk of them, right? No, actually, man, you took the bait perfectly. You're like headed in the exact direction that I was thinking about is how do we look at someone like this? Someone that is leading at a level that is literally bigger than life. And is there something that we can pull away from that experience or that knowledge of how they do what they do? And can we integrate it into our businesses? But just as importantly, it's like there's some stuff to get over. Because I got to tell you, here was my immediate reaction to this, right?

15:37 Yeah. is that I'm reading this book, I'm in awe by this guy in terms of what he and his teams have been able to succeed at. It's really impressive. But then I'm also kind of stuck in this position where you almost walk away and go, well, what am I doing? What does my little five-person, 10-person, 15-person company mean in the whole spectrum of things when someone has tens of thousands of employees and they're building rockets that are literally going to the International Space Station or cars that may be hovering pretty soon? Who knows? Their profits are in the billions. Yeah. It's like these crazy numbers.

16:17 And so part of me kind of goes, well... A week ago, I was very hyped up, let's say, as an example, on additional leadership development opportunities within my own organization or really doubling down on the mentoring and the coaching culture within my team and really doubling down on making sure that we're looking at our company from this foundation. 30,000 foot view, we're looking at the legacy that our company potentially has the chance to leave. And then you read a book like this, or you get stuck watching, serial watching YouTube videos of a leader like this and you go, who am I fooling? Does it really matter? Yeah. Like, what is there for me...

16:58 to learn. It's like a version of imposter syndrome that we sometimes feel. A little bit. I get that when I'm listening to podcasts of certain characters where it's just like, wow, they seem so, in some ways, they feel to me so far out of reach. Yeah. Like that level of leadership or execution. All right, let's take a minute to recognize and thank our MitResto Mastery sponsor, Accelerate Restoration Software. And I'm fully aware, by the way, that when I say those last two words, restoration software, that that instantly creates heartburn for some of you out there, right? Because we probably all fall into one of two camps when it comes to software. We've either cobbled together kind of a version of free website tools and spreadsheets just to make our business work.

17:45 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? It's intuitive, and it focuses on the most mission-critical information, i.e., guys, your team will actually use it. Let's talk about sales, right? After years of leading sales and marketing teams, the biggest trick is getting them to consistently update notes about their interactions with referral partners and clients.

18:28 And the essential piece there is there's gotta be a mobile app experience. And in our 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. So doing leadership, I don't know how else to describe it, but when you're in these roles and you're trying to prioritize these less tangible, softer edged skill sets and priorities, it takes a lot to remain committed to them.

19:17 Yeah. Right? Because most of us, regardless of the type of business that we're operating, there's real in the moment, in the trenches crap that's bombarding you all the time. Everything from financials to execution in the field, customer responses, problem solving. I mean, you name it. And we already struggle to give... enough time to the strategic elements of leadership, the strategic elements of developing our companies. And then we're constantly being bombarded by real life. We're shorthanded, all the things. You almost watch something like this and it makes it harder to keep the gas pedal down in those areas. You're like, ah, screw it. Like, who am I kidding? Let's just focus on the now.

19:58 I'm never going to be there. Right. So it's almost like, I think part of what I need from you, man, this is what I need from you. Partner in crime. I need a pep talk. I need a pep talk, man. Well, I think for me, I get how you feel. And I experienced, no, I mean, I experienced that because you and I both love to read. We love to, like part of our shtick, part of what I think has been helpful in the teams that we've led is you and I love to go out beyond the industry and look for inspiration. Right. Right. Because that's where the new stuff is. It's where we can find new solutions, different ways of looking at things. And so I think for me, it's helpful to just try to like zoom out and say, okay, I'm going what parts of Elon Musk can I apply?

20:39 Yeah. Like, how can I essentially summarize from his behaviors, his mannerisms, the books that we have out there of him and listen to his podcasts and stuff and say, okay, what... What about his leadership style, if you will, if you can say he has one? Some people argue maybe he doesn't really lead in the conventional sense. But what can I learn? So for example, I think some people would say he's stuck in the weeds. He's a poor example of leadership. Some people would say that about him. Yeah. He's actually unhinged. He can't stay out of the minutia of the business. Like he's so engineer first to CEO second. You know, is that something other people said? Yeah.

21:20 And they see that as poor leadership. Just let your engineers do what they do. Don't meddle in your downlines work. But then there's another perspective where as a leader, you also over time realize me being connected and having a real clear understanding of what my frontline team is dealing with, understanding my market, understanding my customer, is such an essential part of being a great CEO. Like I remember reading the book, I think it's called The American Icon by Alan Mulally. Oh, yeah. It was his book about his tenure as the turnaround CEO of Ford Motor Company. Oh, and it's so good. It is amazing. It is so good and possibly a little more relatable than Elon Musk.

22:04 It's a little more tactical. There's so much good stuff in that book. One of the things he talked about is when he came there, I think he came from Boeing. Yeah, I think you're right. He was a Boeing guy, airplane guy, which is certainly it's a high, like it's a large scale manufacturing operation, but way different than cars, way more regulated even than vehicles with four wheels, right? So he had to learn a whole industry. But in that process, he talks about just how mission critical it was for him to get to Ford Motor in Asia, Ford Motor in South America and see how all these different business units were different. Mm-hmm. meet the people, actually building the cars, running the plants. And how he, I think he even relates it to his predecessor who didn't do enough of that.

22:49 And that's why Ford was in such a tough spot. It went from being this iconic motor company to them being disconnected from what's happening in the field. And so, back to Elon, I think one of the takeaways that you and I can observe in Elon is, He's stayed engaged. Oh, yeah. In all levels of his business. Yeah. And I don't get the impression when I hear him talk about it, like he's meddling. He's not doing the work. He's not meddling. No. He's showing an interest. Yeah. And I think he's modeling the kind of curiosity and drive for the rest of his engineering team. Right. by the way he interfaces and interacts with them. And so I think there is something there.

23:30 I think is restoration. We've talked about this actually before. I certainly talked about it with my executive coaching clients where I'm like, you know, it is so mission critical that owners and even general managers, they get to multi-site where they're overseeing multiple units of maybe a restoration company. It's so important for them to make their way around the job site operations and to connect with people and have those front of the van. Yep. Roadie conversations with your people. Yeah. You know, even if it's just once a month in each of your markets. Yep. To do that field time. It's amazing to me how quickly we can lose context. And I think that's the point.

24:11 It's not that all of a sudden you forget how to do restoration or all of a sudden you forget how to do manufacturing. But really, stuff does change. I think there's camps on this. I don't know that everyone would sign up and be on the same page. But there's a reality in my mind. My perspective is that our clients do change. Their buying habits change. The way the tools they're using change, which then changes their priorities. The people you have in your team, what they're bringing to it. It's all changing. Yeah. Right? It's all advancing. It's all... You're right. All those things come into play. And so even after a matter of months, there are things that can get out of whack and we lose context.

24:56 we really can struggle as leaders to identify what our current scenario is from the perspective of our people, of our players out on the ground. And our customers. And our customers. And so I think you're right on the money there. There is this element that we can learn from these big figures like this of... How do you stay intimately connected with the product or the service, the mission that you guys have as a team? The actual work. The actual work. but still be strategically minded, still keep enough space, giving enough time to the strategic elements of your business. And that is a balancing act.

25:37 And I think what happens very quickly is that you almost lose. And you see this with a lot of people in the service industries, a lot of them come up through the ranks, like they were providing the service. And it's really hard to get them to come over the hump. It's really hard for them to make the transition. And we often struggle to get them to take on that more coaching personality, that equipping personality. To take their bags off. And then when they do, then all of a sudden it's like they almost forget what it was like. Isn't it weird how quickly that happens? Everybody says they won't. Everybody says they won't, right? Every sales rep who becomes a sales manager, who becomes a VP of sales, they say they'll never forget what it's like to make those cold calls.

26:22 But we do. We ultimately do. We get... We get rusty. We get comfortable in our more narrow niche role. Yeah. That we lose track of all the other pieces. Yeah. Of the business that we used to have our fingers in. Yeah. We lose track of like, what is our actual capacity? Like how long do things take? We just... Yep. And I think the risk we run is that... we can become so detached that we're not actually resourcing our people adequately to do as good of a job as we used to expect of ourselves. That's right. We aren't giving them enough people on the team. We haven't, you know, whatever. The training, the resources aren't really, if we're honest, as good as we anticipated they are.

27:03 Yeah. Right. Here's another thing that stuck out to me from this book is the cult-like focus on the mission. And I think, again, I think it's easy for us in the service businesses to just get so wrapped around the axle that we're a plumbing company, we're a restoration company, we're a whatever company. And that's what we do. Our mission is to conduct plumbing. Our mission is to repair a house. Is it? Is that the mission? And I think that when we start to work with smaller companies, more service-oriented companies, it can be harder for us to establish what is the real why behind what we're doing.

27:47 And making money is certainly a thing, but it's not the why. That's not going to make you get up over and over and over and continue to smash your head into a wall. Yeah. to get through the wall. Like that's not going to do that. There's something behind it, right? There's for some, maybe it's as simple as the freedom to be an independent business owner, to be the boss. Okay, great. Well, how does that translate into what else we can do with our people and how we talk to our people, whatever. but they don't make rockets, right? They don't build cars. They don't just build solar panels. All his companies have this cult-like focus on this worldly mission that's out way in front of them of interplanetary life, right?

28:32 Or sustainable energy. Or it's these big, wild goals. Like literally change the universe. Yeah, absolutely. Change the universe, yeah. But can we do that? Like, is there a version of that that we can be doing with our businesses that people want to give a shit about? Well, I mean, I think, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we played around with that story for many years and I think saw a lot of energy and motivation in our team from it, which is... the way we make people feel, right, is the critical differentiator. Like people are coming to us and just really repeating this story to our team of, listen, if we were in the conventional construction business, the retail construction trade, right, how do people feel coming to us?

29:17 Well, they're excited, right? They're building for their business or they're doing a home remodel. They've been saving for it at a cash out refi on their house. Like they're excited. Like we're finally going to have that island in the middle of our kitchen. But nearly 100% of people that come to us in the restoration business are in some state of fear, disbelief, shock, frustration, anxiety, and just how special that role is. Like telling that story over and over and over again of really we're changing people's lives. We use that story a bunch. Not only are we trying to affect positive change in our employees' lives, but we're trying to affect positive change to bring families and businesses back together.

30:01 to a pre-loss condition, if not leaving them in a better place, right? These are the kinds of stories we say about ourselves. And I think that is a version of what Elon's doing. Elon's giving people something really huge to believe in. To keep them at the office at 7 p.m. when they're trying to do that engineering write-up on this new part that's better than the last thing, right? That drive to like... I want to be a part of this thing, make a difference. And we saw that. I mean, I don't want to over glamor. We're not trying to like trump it up to be something it's not. No. But there is some kind of value there in getting good at telling that story. Yeah. Elon's just so good at that.

30:41 He's just, people can look at him and they can see how far his drive goes. Yeah. His ambition. Right. Right. And it's contagious. Yeah. I think to a certain extent, right? I think it makes also the other thing obvious of what does a winner look like in our business? Because everybody in that company, whether they're in legal, marketing, they know what a winner looks like in the company because Elon's that guy, man. He's pushing the envelope. he never stops pushing the envelope of bigger, faster, stronger. I would say he's further. No, yeah, you're right on the money. I think he's not afraid to be very clear about what their culture is and stands for and not everyone will fit on the bus.

31:22 Yeah. Not from a numeric perspective, but because he's just very comfortable with the fact that This is the culture, a finite type of person will want to participate in this culture and be able to succeed in it, thrive in it and be successful. Right? And I think we make the mistake as leaders that we get lukewarm. Right. You and I even talked about this a lot with some of the subject matter that we knew we would eventually have to cover or some of the things that we would have to discuss. There would be a moment where you and I would have to be willing to share our opinion and our opinion may not be lukewarm. It's going to be, it's going to at times fall on one side or the other of the coin.

32:04 It's not going to land for everybody. It's not going to land for everybody. And we had to get comfortable with that. And I think that what you see and what can be a little off-putting sometimes when you watch these big, big, powerful leaders like this is they are crystal clear on what camp they're in. And I'm not saying, again, let's not hyper-focus on who. That's not the point. And let's not get hyper-focused about if what they're doing is right or wrong. The point here is that you are going to develop a culture inside your company. Yeah. If you want it to have legs, you're going to develop some form of a culture, some kind of expectation about how you and your team perform, the attitudes that you portray, the behaviors that you act out.

32:44 And not everyone's going to fit in that camp. Not everyone's going to relate to that. It's not going to make sense. And you're not going to be able to cram a square peg into a round hole thinking that once you hit it hard enough with the hammer, they're going to come around. Yeah. And that can be very hard for leaders. It can be hard for leaders right now, especially where recruiting is difficult, where it's hard to find good talent. We just want someone in the seat. And we can lose sight of the fact that it's the right people in the seat. And one of the things I took away from listening to him is that all his teams have been grossly understaffed compared to his competitors. I heard an article where they talked about their PR spend for a company his size.

33:26 And it's like 1% of what a company normally spends on public relations. Oh, yeah. It's like that in every category. If you look at everything that company did bringing a product to market, their R&D, the numbers that they were working with, we're talking at times 200% to 300% less. Not kinda. These are substantial gaps. And yet his teams could make it happen. It'd be an engineer team of 12 people versus 300. And they're producing a product that's blowing out the competitors. And that's really important right now. That is really, really important right now for us to be grossly aware of that with the right people treated the right way with a clear sense of direction and missional focus, they can achieve great things as a team.

34:21 I know that we even look at our MIT teams and things like that. And we think, man, I just wish I had more people. I wish I had more people. I can't give them what they need. I'm too busy. I'm too busy. I'm too busy. And there's just this pushback of weight. We see on huge scales, on massive stages with a lot on the line, people consistently winning with smaller teams because they're willing to wait out for the right people. And then when they get the right people, it's 100% dedication to the mission. Because they don't spin their wheels as much. Yeah. They don't have to spend as much time getting on the same page. Because if you get all the right people...

35:01 that fit, you can quickly get to work instead of having to lay all the foundational stuff. Yeah. No, it's so true. You know, you know where this makes me go is Atomic Habits. Oh yeah. Remember that book? Yeah. James Clear. Yeah. I've shared this with like all of my coaching clients in the past and we've talked with some of our clients about it. I approach that book as kind of another personal development, productivity kind of thing. Like I need to get more You get better prioritizing my time and get some good habits in place, that kind of thing. And really the thing that I came away from that book with most of all is was this idea James Clear has about creating archetypes for ourselves that we look to.

35:46 And for the example being with Elon, right? So if Elon is one of those people I admire, is picking out those attributes about these icons, these people we admire. And he's like, it could be Chuck Norris, right? If you're trying to get in shape, look externally, and it could be somebody you know in your friend group, or it could be some movie star or some sports icon that you just want to look like or be in similar shape or it's a business person, you want to be that kind of leader. But what he suggests is looking at what are the attributes of that person and then what are the routine behaviors they do to live out those attributes.

36:30 And then whenever you're faced with a similar scenario, you can ask yourself, well, what would Chuck Norris do if he was trying to get abs? If Chuck Norris is trying to get abs, well, would he eat this donut? It's almost like that, what would Jesus do bracelet? I mean, not to be sacrilege, but like... That is kind of the idea. What would Chuck do? No, but it is. It's kind of the idea. And it's funny. I've used that as a habit-changing tool with a lot of my past executive coaching clients. And it really connects with people. And it really works for me. Yeah. Is thinking about what kind of leader do I want to be? And when we listen to these podcasts and when we read these books, like you're talking about with Elon, right? I think what we have the ability to do is to kind of create this archetype of who do I think I want to become?

37:17 And maybe the face of that person is Elon, right? Or maybe there's multiple faces, Elon Musk and Jim Collins, who are good to great, or whoever these other leaders are that we respect. We can kind of pick the different things that each of them are good at and then emulate them. Yeah. Yeah. And be like, you know what? With my sales approach, I really want to emulate Jeffrey Gittimer, who's like a big famous sales guy. I love the way he is, his conversational approach to selling. So what would Jeffrey do in this situation? Right. And I can draw on that. Right. Yeah. And then in terms of like visionary leadership and casting vision, like I want to be like Elon. Right. I want to tell a big story to my team. How would Elon handle this all company meeting that I'm about ready to walk into or that I have later this week?

38:03 Right? Oh, dude. Yeah. I just like that. It's almost like to take it to a cheesier level. It's like those dream boards. Like back when life coaching and stuff was really coming out. I literally just encouraged my daughter to make one the other day. You know. They work, man. I feel like I should have one. But. They work. Yeah. So you got these dream boards and it's just, it's that archetype. It's that picture that we keep front and center. I don't know. No, I love that. I think part of what you're saying too there, it's not an all or nothing gig. You don't have to love every element about that individual. Yeah. What is it specifically that you admire, respect, or want to mirror? And just take that piece. Yeah, it's not idolizing. Because I think sometimes we do get into idolizing, like with Steve Jobs.

38:44 Yep. I mean, who amongst us, I think anybody who was around in business at the time of Steve Jobs, who of us didn't? want to be him in some way. I mean, there was so much idolatry of Steve Jobs, but then of course, there was all these rough edges to him as well. And I think then it became this big debate of, was he a good leader, was he not? Well, look, he's founded Apple. He is something. Yeah, there was something there. And you know what, dude? It's funny that you say that because I really think Elon Musk for many, I think he's the same category. And I think that's part of what I was wrestling with as I'm listening to this book. There's elements of this guy that you just can't help but respect. But then there's other elements, at least from this person's perspective, that you hear, listen, or read and you kind of go, ew.

39:29 Yeah. Imitate the good, leave the bad. Man, that's huge. I love that. All the time. Yeah. I don't know if I think this may be the last one. This is some good stuff, man. I'm glad that we wrestled with this a little bit. But the pressure, okay? The pressure as a leader. We had a dear friend, actually, Amy. She's an executive coach. She works with folks specifically on, actually, on developing grit and developing kind of their executive presence. She's brilliant. And we were fortunate, both fortunate, to spend some time with her. Anyways, one of the things that she would talk about all the time was this developing focus on the idea of grit and how important it was. And I think in the past, it was really easy for people going through leadership engagements and leadership development that this grit thing made sense because you're going to have pressure as a leader.

40:20 Right. But I think what's becoming more common is this focus on grit as an application to everyone. That the workforce, in order for them to be successful, we need to find more and more ways as individuals to develop our own grit. To manage the workload that we carry at that moment, that we shoulder at that particular level. Anyways, that was one of the things that stuck out to me is listening to the stories of how these two companies had... multiple scenarios where not only was the end nigh, but it was a billion to one shot that they were going to make it another 24 to 48 hours before a catastrophic failure happened. And not in a product line, but financially.

41:01 Like there was times where the money was not there. They weren't multi, multi, multi-billion dollar companies. they were shoestring hanging on for dear life. And if something didn't happen in the next 24-hour cycle, payroll for tens of thousands of people would not happen. And that would have been the end. These iconic companies spent more times than we understand up against the ropes. On the verge. On the verge, right? And that's not super sexy, but the reality of it is, is that's business. Yeah. Like hard things are hard. And I think one of the things that I was listening to and taking from this is, oh my gosh, man, this man's ability to be shouldering these unbelievable weights of just catastrophic failure that his next planning, decision-making, and or questions that he asked the next negotiation that he had could literally change the lives of tens of thousands of people.

41:59 Yeah. Not to mention all of us, right? Yeah. But don't you think the reason why he was able to get through that is because he was driven by a much higher purpose than the business just surviving. I do. I really think that's it. Like, that's the only way to navigate through those choices. And of course, you and I, it's like, we're here, we're commenting armchair quarterback. Right. Yeah. Give us a call, Elon. But I do, I mean, I think... That has felt true for us. Like we've been through the trough of sorrow. Oh yeah. Together, individually, in our different roles at different times in the companies that you and I felt built. And it's that sense of greater purpose that gets us through those major AR crunches.

42:41 Yeah. You know, where we've lost people when we've needed people and couldn't get them, all of those really difficult times. Yeah. And I think that's also relates to Steve Jobs, which it's kind of hard to talk about Elon Musk without Jobs There's so much common. They both created new things in the world, right? Yeah. One of the things that I have always admired and wanted to imitate that I think is worth imitating from Steve Jobs and has a direct application, I think, in the restoration business and all service companies is... He was fanatical about this idea of how we do one thing is how we do all things.

43:22 Like there's this story of him coming in to inspect the new cabinets for the cases for the IMAX. And there was some blemish or something on the inside of the case. that no one would ever see unless they tore apart their machine, which how many Mac people would do that, right? But there was some kind of blemish in the way that they had it manufactured. Like there was an exposed weld or something. And he came in, he freaked out. He told him, this is unacceptable. This needs to be beautiful. just like the exterior of this, which is so radical.

44:03 And some people are like, how nonsensical is that? How dumb is that? But I think he was actually communicating an important value about the Apple brand to his engineers in that moment. It was probably less about that exposed weld. And it was more like, hey, yeah, We need to obsess so fully about the design and the experience, the beauty of our products, that no one can compete with that, essentially. That's what's special. That's a differentiator, yeah. That's what's special about Apple. And from that point on, he made the engineers sign with a pen the inside of these cases as they were coming off the manufacturing line. They had to be signed. People had to visually inspect them and sign off that I created the inside of this case.

44:47 And it's perfect. It's so fanatical. But again, it's a bigger story because how much prouder do you think those Apple engineers and the Apple salespeople and the Apple marketing teams, the people that are selling all of this product, how much prouder do they feel? Just even thinking about the idea of our machines are the most beautiful and functional and easy and pleasurable to use on the market. And even the interior of our computers is more beautiful than our competitors. Yeah, I think what you're alluding to there, kind of speaking to is this idea that The hard work is really tough. It's tough to be that fanatical. It's tough to hold your team to this real difference-making level.

45:29 I mean, think about what we work with a lot of people on, on just how we conduct ourselves on every job, the nuance about how we introduce ourselves, how much we care about our uniform and how it looks to the point where we may have a backup in the truck between jobs. Like, All that stuff is on a scale, similar to what you're talking about, because those are the difference makers. That's the level of intentionality and focus that we need to have as leaders because those are the things that are hard to get the team to follow through on. But once they do, they do look at themselves in comparison to their competitors and they can honestly say with a straight face, yeah, actually, we are the better company.

46:13 We are the winner. And we had some of those things. One of the dumb things that we had, I mean, it was not dumb. It was important. Sometimes these things feel dumb. But when we talk about them out loud, it's like, I think sometimes, again, this can feel like navel gazing. Yeah, right. We're sitting here twiddling our thumbs, talking about clever... tactics and novelty things that we can do. And that's not what it's about. So for example, like with our carpet cleaning division, we had a facility service division, carpet and tile cleaning for hotels, blah, blah, blah. Turned out to be a really amazing feeder for our mid-resto side of the company. But one of the ways we differentiate ourselves in the market was with a bling mat. I knew you were going to say bling mat. You know, I was going here, right? Oh, yeah. So as part of our job process, when we roll up to a commercial customer site, Every company has some process when they do loadout.

47:01 They take the equipment and materials they need into the customer property and Somewhere along the line, maybe you remember the origin story of it, but somewhere along the line, we just thought, you know, it would look so much more professional to stage our equipment in an unobtrusive corner of the customer's property or a supply closet or something, but to stage it all on a logoed, our company colors, durable mat, four by six mat. Yep. All of it's tidy there. Our cleaning chemical, our extra hose, our scrub regs for spot cleaning, the spray bottles, all of it stays in one neat and tidy place. Everybody knows who that belongs to.

47:42 It doesn't get confused with the on-site housekeeping materials and stuff. It's just that would be a little more pro. Yeah. And I think once we deployed that, one, I think I noticed two things. our actual technicians just a little prouder. Oh. You know, they just like, it's a simple step. It costs us, what, 150 bucks to buy these mats? I don't know, 200 bucks. Yeah. And, but they were proud to be doing something that no one else does. Yeah. Number two, and then other people recognized it as, huh, huh, That's really pro. I think it put us more on their level, especially because a lot of our customers are hotels, senior living, where like aesthetic, like the appearance, first impressions were huge.

48:26 And it's like we were helping them create a clean and tidy professional first impression. That's right. That's where that stuff comes in. Those little details that can really step you apart. I was looking at a Facebook ad from a plumbing company yesterday. And what did my eyes zero in on immediately? This guy was crouched over doing some sort of technician activity. Great picture. Like I love those action oriented ads showing your people doing something right. But he had his own street shoes on, no booties. So it appeared he's doing an inspection in a customer's home following some sort of damage event or repair scenario.

49:10 And he didn't put booties on. Now, you may have different policies. Like, we experimented going back and forth with booties and then laying down floor cover, right? So there's different ways to accomplish the same task, which is protecting your client's environment. Yeah. Whether that's the lobby of a hotel or somebody's living room, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I just thought to myself, that was a detail that was overlooked that for those that have experienced our past company where we would wear booties or we'd lay down in a nice ground cover, they see that and it's like, oh, that's not as impressive looking. Yeah. They just walked into their house. He was nice. Yeah. Tracked dirt in. All the things. Right. But yeah. Yeah. But it didn't make a difference. It wasn't a real difference maker. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, dude.

49:50 Hey, you know what, man? I got to give you some kudos on this. That was a good pull from what really started, I think, in many ways, just kind of a brain dump on what hit me reading this story about Elon Musk. There was some solid stuff here. Can I move to a wrap up? Yeah, do it. So essentially where this started was this idea of us being exposed to intentionally and intentionally these big brands, these big named people who are moving the world, right? Moving and shaking. And there's some amazing things that they're doing, but sometimes it's being done on such a stage, such a wide scale or whatever the case may be, that it can be difficult to pull lessons from.

50:31 from that exposure? Like, what is it that we can admire about these folks without necessarily taking it all in? And are there things for us to learn and to be able to emulate as operators and as leaders? And here's some of the things that stood out from this experience. Never stop as a leader, as leaders, business owners and leaders, never stop being engaged in the end product, the fieldwork. What are you guys doing out there? right? Creating either some consistent touch, right? Where you're going out, you're seeing it firsthand and, or some kind of consistent communication that's happening, two-way communication where you're actually hearing and listening to your people explain to you what it looks like out there.

51:13 I have a homework assignment that relates to that. This could be a new thing. Yeah, maybe. A homework assignment for you to dive into that piece is plot out on your calendar for August, this next month, whenever you're listening to this podcast, next month, plot out times to one, go out and do a ride along with one of your salespeople. Love it. And one of your project managers. Love it. Take an afternoon with one of your salespeople and And take an afternoon, a different afternoon with one of your project managers at a minimum. Now you could take it down the line, right? It would not be a waste of your time to go ride along in a sprinter van with your technicians either. But at a minimum, go get a picture of how your salespeople are talking and selling your company.

52:00 What are the words they're using? What are the value statements they're making? Just understand how your salespeople are selling. Totally. Totally. And have an idea of what's going on in your operations because that's the biggest opportunity for us to lose track of what's happening on the ground. Right. Is we don't know how well our people are delivering on the promise we're making out in the field. Oh, it's huge. I love it. I love that. Homework assignment number one. All right. Okay. Develop or developing a company mission, a story. that people want to be a part of. That is so common amongst these bigger than life companies, Virgin, all the Virgin brands, right? Branson, even Amazon in a lot of ways, which some of that's up for debate.

52:44 But these big brands, the Apples, the Teslas, the whatever, they've got something. It's some kind of mission, some kind of story that reaches far out and beyond, we dry stuff. We make money. Right. And it ultimately gives people a sense of pride to participate in that. They become more loyal to it because it's, everyone wants to be involved in a story. Everyone really wants to be the hero in the story. And there's a great opportunity for us as leaders to create the story that our team members can be heroes of. Right. Yeah. It's really beautiful. Another thing that stands out is not everyone will fit on the bus anymore. Right?

53:24 Not everyone's a good fit for your team. It's okay. I understand that right now, probably more than ever, we feel desperation brain, as Chris likes to call it. We feel this overwhelming obligation to fill the seat versus fill the seat with the right person. And guys, when you look at the big players, when you look at the big brands, the world changers, they consistently are winning with smaller teams because everyone is completely committed to to the goals of that company. They're wearing the five hats. They're doing the work of 12 people because they are so sold out because they fit the culture so well. It can be done, right? So don't underestimate the power of loyal, dedicated, quality people versus just having butts in the seats.

54:10 That's huge. Another one that stood out, and this one was a little looser, man, is just this idea of having the grit as a leader to remain focused enough on the little details that separate us from the pack. And I think we see this with the brands like you were talking about. You gave the example of the case. And the Apple scenario is some of these leaders are unbelievably dedicated to the nuance and However, it's those details that eventually become some of those even subconscious level difference makers. Tesla has a story too about the handles on their cars. They don't pop out. They don't become functional until you get close enough to the car.

54:54 Yeah. Right? And he had engineers up his about it because to them it was utilitarian perspective. It was dumb. Yeah. Why would we slow the release of a car to figure out the door handle and make it flush? Yeah. Now it's iconic. Yeah. It's a difference maker. Yeah. It's high level sports car quality difference maker. So guys, leaders, should we be doing an inspection of our uniforms in the morning? And should the uniforms be accurate? Should they look the same? Should they be clean? Should they have patches in the right places? And should we be crazy about it? Yes. Yeah. Where should we be more fanatical in our business? Dude, that's it. Where can we be fanatical in the ways that maybe for our downlines, They don't understand the value of it at first.

55:37 Yeah. But if you give it enough time and you remain consistent enough, you're going to see it's a differentiator maker. It's awesome. All right. And here's the last one I really like. I really like this one, Chris, is just looking for the characteristics, the behaviors of these individuals. We don't have to emulate or worship them. We don't have to idolize them. We can imitate. There you go. Yeah. The attributes. Yeah. Yeah. that are useful. The things, right? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, right? You can look at these big iconic leaders and even if you don't like everything about them, is there something that we can be smart enough to identify with and say, that characteristic, that behavior, that's something I can mirror and it gives me and my team a higher chance of being successful.

56:26 Yeah. All right, man. See ya. See ya. 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.