Ep 114 - "What Elite Companies Do"

0:07 Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. Man, I love this industry. Christopher Nordyke. Dude, is your middle name Nolan? It's actually Ryan. It's Ryan. You know what? It's weird because when I asked you that, I was thinking in my mind, Nolan Ryan. But I think that was just because I was doing some Astros pitcher action from like... I had Nolan Ryan's baseball card. The old days. The old days. He played for multiple people. There's some sports enthusiasts out there. Wasn't he a Texas Rangers guy though for a big part of his career? No. This is where if I keep going, I'm going to sound more and more ridiculous.

0:48 Okay, we got a fun show. We're going to chat. We're going to chat about a topic I think is really interesting. We're going to at least scratch the surface, get people enough information to get into a good bar fight. Yeah. Yeah. If you're feeling like you've just hit a ceiling in your business, maybe you've been stuck at a certain revenue level. I mean, that's the most obvious, I think, benchmark that we tend to think about our situation in. And you're really trying to jump to whatever that next level is for you. I think this is going to be really relevant. It's going to be super relevant. And of course, everybody probably falls in that category to some degree. I think everybody should have just went, yeah, I'll listen. Hey, dude, I got to do some corrective posture on you. Can you get into the camera frame a little bit? You're always like leaning out like you're on your way somewhere. Okay. I don't know what that is. I mean, I don't have to have like a BO issue or anything.

1:30 Do I? Uh-oh. I feel like I shower regularly. Well, listen, it's a week. Can I share something with you? No, this is not time for the story in your head. I didn't think so. This is not the time. Sponsor action. Before we dive in, let's thank our sponsors. First of all, Actionable Insights, one of our newer sponsors. We're really excited. It's not that I'm going to be less enthusiastic as time goes by, but it's really fun having a new sponsor. And these guys, we really, really, really enjoy this team. They're great business people, but they also provide some really great products and services. Like real concrete. Yeah. Actual insights. It's interesting. They're a 501c6 educational nonprofit. Yeah. One of the few of their kinds, I think, within the service industry especially. But they have a new Xactimate profile that provides live estimating guidance while you write your scopes.

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2:55 And we need partners that will help us increase the level of efficiency and professionalism that our clients, prospects, and vendor partners experience. And this is no different. intake process is a mission critical item. It is not meant to be left to chance. We spend a lot of money, time and energy trying to earn that lead. And then our first line of defense, the first time they make real contact with our team often is right there during the call intake. process. And between storm events, cat events, team members having to take leave for whatever reason, there can be moments where our team just doesn't have what it takes to be consistent in our call intake process. And that's where a partner like AnswerForce.com can come alongside of us and make sure we continue to crush regardless of...

3:39 of what environmental conditions may be having on our business. And so one of the things that's cool about them, you ramp them up, ramp them down. No long-term commitments where you're stuck overspending for no reason. And there is a lot of customization that happens in their partnership. where they really are consistent in saying, okay, here's our process. Here's how it works. Here's how we maintain that relationship with this new lead. And they're able to mirror big portions of that. I'm not going to go into the details and to what extent, but they can create that same process so that it's no harm, no foul. It's consistent across the board. Okay. Yeah, stop winging it with your call intake. Don't wing it. Right? Your receptionist goes out to lunch and you forward the phones to anybody in the company who happens to answer.

4:22 You don't want to do that. No. If me is... Answerforce.com forward slash below. Okay. Liftify.com, you, your business, one of the lifebloods of your business is Google reviews. And for so many reasons, not only is there a reputation piece in terms of people look you up to see if you're okay to do business with... But then how frequently and consistently you're getting Google reviews drives your organic search results and drives those free... Of course, nothing's really free in this life. But those free organic inbound calls, which are the most valuable, right? You're not paying out of pocket for those leads, but they're incredibly valuable. Google reviews are important. So, Liftify.com can solve that problem for you.

5:04 And you may have contests, incentives, and spiffs and stuff you do for your team. But listen, are you getting 20% to 25% conversion of Google reviews for every job that you do? that because some of you hearing this, you've got say 120 Google reviews right now. And you've been in business five, six, seven, eight years, and you do 1,000, 1,200 jobs a year. Hey, 120 reviews are great, but you should actually be producing... Like 4x. Like 200 reviews a year. That's potentially what Liftify will be able to deliver for you at a very reasonable cost. If you've done Podium or BirdEye, or if you looked into field quality and some of these other review platforms and whatnot... think you're going to find, Liftify is less expensive overall and produces a better result.

5:49 20% to 25% conversion rate. Liftify.com forward slash bloodbite. And last, but certainly not least, Michelle, I guarantee you she's probably traveling all over the place right now. Yeah. Tons of awesome information, CE credits, podcasts, specials, interviews, you name it. It's coming from CNR. It's meant to support us and equip us because she is a genuine friend to our industry and cares deeply about our success.

6:32 So cnrmagazine.com and is spelled out. Check it out, get subscribed and start taking advantage of that content. Okay. Guys, we're going to jump right into this. One of the things that Chris and I are kind of doing with our shows is we're trying to just be aggressive about not going on and on and on and on and on, just like I'm doing right now. We're trying to be more concise with this content so you can take it in between job reviews and keep trucking. So one of the things I want to talk about... How dare you, dude? I kind of like going on and on and on. I like hearing myself talk. I haven't done a preemptive story stop already. This is such a new leap we're turning over here. So, okay, guys. This is my show too. Jeez.

7:12 Okay, now shut up. We're back on track. All right. Here's what I'm thinking about with this, you guys, is, okay, many of you are sports fans, right? You've got some team, whoever it is, I don't really care. Yeah. But you, I mean, you're a diehard fan. Whether you're a Taylor Swift fan or a Kansas City Chiefs or a Lions fan. Right? Like you've got somebody that you admire, you watch, and you see them doing incredibly difficult things when there's a ton at risk, there's a ton on the line, right? And we see these outstanding performances, these Super Bowl catches, these tackles, these turnovers, these things that literally stop time. And all we get caught up on is that moment where execution meets excellence, where we see an elite performance, and all of us to a certain extent say, I want that.

7:58 I want to do that. I want my business to feel that way, whatever. I have a military background. I was around a lot of those special operations group. I was part of the 82nd Airborne Division. I like to make the joke I was on the bottom run of any kind of special ops groups in the world. But anyways, my point is, is that we're around these teams doing unbelievable difficult things around the world under unbelievably difficult circumstances. And yet time and time again, you see these small special operations groups succeeding and ultimately carrying out the commander's intent and winning the day. And again, I think it's so easy for us, whether it's in the movies or in real life, to watch these groups perform at an elite level and almost to a certain extent be frustrated by how low the bar kind of feels like in our own organizations.

8:48 Or again, as Chris alluded to early, we just are stuck. There's something not moving. in the organization. We've hit some kind of glass ceiling. And here's what I'm proposing. I think we undervalue what really is happening behind the scenes in order for a team, an artist, a special ops group to perform at the way that we are seeing and experiencing. There's so much that happened prior to game day, prior to mission day. Here's another side picture just around this. I'm not like a big fight guy. I follow UFC and different things. And boxing, I'm interested in the Muhammad Ali and the Mike Tysons and the Money Mayweathers. I like watching the elite guys.

9:30 And I heard a story about Mayweather, actually, famous boxer. He has this image that, of course, everybody wants of slinging bills around. He lives the life of a rapper like a hip-hop star. He does, yeah. Yeah. You know, he's got the Rolls Royces. He's got the gold change. He's got all that kind of stuff. What a lot of people don't know service at these clubs and the ladies and he's drinking and all the things you might imagine with that lifestyle. And the reality is I was listening to an interview with one of his part of his posse and they're like, everybody thinks he's a party animal. Not at all. He said, in fact, one of the things that is most common behavior with him is when they do go to the clubs, he orders bottle service and stuff for all his boys and whatnot.

10:14 But it's not uncommon for him actually to leave his bags and everything and jog home from the club at three o'clock in the morning. More reps. More reps. He is insane with his physical preparation. And it's whether he's preparing for a fight or not. His man, if you see Money Mayweather, like he is in insane physical shape all the time. The dude doesn't get fat. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's just, I think, an example where there's no off season for this dude. And he's not a partier. He's not a heavy drug or alcohol user because he understands the level of preparation required for him to show up. That's right. And to be his brand in the ring. Right. And I think that just speaks to that whole special forces thing.

10:55 It's like, we don't see the thousands of reps in the kill house. We don't see the mobilization process out in the desert of sweating their guts out and their, you know, things off. Yeah. Right. The things are off. Yes, that's right. Oh, you know, who is that famous swimmer, the Olympic swimmer guy that he's like the all time greatest. Phelps. Yeah. Yeah. Remember that Nike commercial? Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, champions are made in the dark. Yeah. And it's like him training in this dark swimming pool. Yeah. Before anybody else is awake, he's putting in those reps. I freaking love that commercial. I love that. So let's think about our businesses. Okay. Essentially, I think what we're trying to do here is what is really going on?

11:37 You know, it's that whole iceberg, right? We see this very small portion that's above the surface of the ocean and the rest of the mass of that iceberg is actually below the surface. And I don't think this is unlike that. And so what we want to kind of hone in on or propose is I believe there's three kind of core elements that... that have to be prioritized, established, and completely committed to in order for our organizations to have the ability to adapt and overcome, and think on their feet, provide a consistent and elite level outcome, right? For those teams to aggressively pursue the end state, even if things are not going exactly as planned, what is required?

12:19 And I believe it's these three things, okay? And we'll just dive into them a bit together and look at some examples. So the first one in my mind, and this all makes sense, I think, as we unpack them more, is a crystal clear organizational structure, okay? And I know all of us are going, well, yeah, you got to have job titles. No, no, no, no. It is well beyond job titles. And I would guarantee, not guarantee is a strong word, I would highly, highly believe That in most cases, no matter how rad you are, there is probably still discrepancies, vagueness, and gray areas in your current existing work structure. Even in our business, our businesses grow, they change. There is stuff happening all the time.

13:00 These gray spots get created. And if we don't address them aggressively, it removes the ability for our teams to operate at an elite level. Okay? So that's item number one. The other item that Chris and I believe is critical for you to be able to have a team that can perform at elite level is what we're doing with training and preparation. And we're going to get into examples and what... But at the end of the day, 90% of you do 90% of your training in quotes for your people via on-the-job training, OJT. And the reality of it is, is most of it's fucking bullshit. Okay? You're putting people in trucks with people that may or may not care about your company or the outcome or the performance at anywhere near the level you do. And you hope through gross osmosis that this individual is somehow going to know how to perform at an elite level and match the brand strategy that you're trying to deploy.

13:50 It ain't going to happen. This is so timely. I was actually going to have a conversation with you about us reducing the amount of F-words we use in the podcast. I got... Anyway, a different... Did we get some feedback somewhere? Let's sideline that. It's all right. We're coming back. Yeah, don't let that haunch you. Please don't do a coaching conversation live. I'll deal with it later. All right. I'm going to keep fucking going here. All right. All right. The third one, you guys, is communication and intel. Okay? Communication and intel. Okay? We've got to have... In order for our teams to operate at an elite level, we have to have mechanisms, tools, processes, and systems in place where there's this clear or what we've referred to in previous episode... Feedback-rich environment, meaning our teams know what the hell is going on at any given moment.

14:34 And if adaptation or a modification is required based on environmental conditions, we have a way to communicate that and we know what steps are necessary for us to adapt and overcome. And then the fourth thing that we're going to lean into is our sales operations and our sales culture. Because there is a way that traditionally our industry has sold. There's a way that typically we interact with sales as a company. And then there's a higher way. And we'll try to describe what does that higher way look like? Yeah, because at the end of the day, they are part of the team. They're an element of these groups of our groups. And they need these things to perform at an elite level, just like anybody else, whether it be operations or not.

15:15 So, all right, let's go to this org structure piece. And again, this is universal across our teams. Can we give an example of like where things get fuzzy or where we allow too much fuzziness in roles and reporting and so forth? Yeah, I think one of the things I'm probably going to end up doing, I'm saying that passively, like I don't already know it. I'm going to be using, I think, a lot of military context, mainly because it's super black and white. And I think it's pretty easy for someone to hear and relate to it. So, okay, let's think about military environments. Okay, we watched cool war movies, whatever. And with these teams, again, against all odds, they're like blowing up buildings with dental floss and all the things. Yeah. But the reality of it is, is that the reason, one of the primary reasons these teams can adapt and overcome, they can respond, not react, they can respond differently based on what's happening around them is that there is crystal clarity throughout the entire organizational structure.

16:08 Meaning each person in a team knows exactly what the guy and gal to their left and right does, why they do it, and what the tools of the trade are that are available to them. We know exactly what our role is. I know where I fit in the hierarchy. I know what my responsibilities, again, for myself, for the left, for the right. I know what adjacent units are doing and why they're doing it. And because there's this clarity around org structure, responsibility, role, it allows us to not use any energy just trying to figure out how to show up. It is all going to this cognizant, cognizant, aware responses to what's happening around us because this stuff's on autopilot.

16:52 We already know these things. There's crystal clarity in the org structure. Another piece with that, think about it from this perspective. Yeah. in order for our teams to succeed, they need to know who supports them, who they're responsible for too. Who can I go to for help? Who can I go to for training supplementation? Who can I go to ask questions about my performance and what I can do to be getting coached and coached up? If we don't have all of this crystal clear, we are reducing the effectiveness of our team at a high, high level. And it literally makes it impossible for our teams to do things consistently, efficiently, and at a high standard. It literally can't happen. And so I think inside our own teams, what happens when our companies grow and we start shifting some of these roles in the organization because we're just trying to get more stuff done that we didn't realize a year ago was going to be something that we have to get done.

17:47 Right? So you just, you ask so-and-so. You trust them. You say, hey, I know you're a JFC. I need you to also do estimating. Oh, yeah. Right? Or I need you to do XYZ or I've got a person that sells. Yeah, exactly. There's just this myriad of things that we've done over the years. answering legitimate problems, but there's nothing wrong with that. But we never go back and crystallize and clean up and make adjustments to formalize and professionalize our org structure. And there's just vagueness across the board, right? We have somebody that reaches out to us, talk to us about a performance, a job, a scenario, a collection thing. I'm not even sure who they are. I begin responding like they're a boss. They're not a boss.

18:28 It sucks. Okay. We can't perform at elite level if our people... People aren't crystal clear on who they are, what their job title role is, and how they fit in the larger organization. We cannot undervalue the importance of that. And it is not a spreadsheet on the wall. This is contextual. This is our teams need communication on what all of this stuff means beyond an org chart on the wall. It's really good, man. Yeah. Talk about training. It's heavy. Yeah. Okay. I kind of like talking through this a little bit because it's fun. It's a little bit of memory lane for me. But okay. Again, I'm going to use the military environment to set the stage. Okay. Training, special teams, sports clubs, even amazing artists.

19:10 We just assume that it's natural giftedness that they bring to every show. And it is such a load of crap. If you think about the work... The number of hours that go in preparing for a show, if I'm an artist, a band, we do not understand how many hours of doing the do, of going through all the paces on the stage, practicing all the dance moves. You're talking about almost at a level where you're a religious zealot, the amount of preparatory time that goes in to put on the show of a lifetime. Yeah. And the military is no different. In special operations environments, the amount of work and training that goes in prior to deploying in a real-world environment is unfathomable.

19:51 And in most cases, they are literally taking a mock-up of the environment that we anticipate operating in They rebuild that to scale in an environment where we can practice the movement, the paces, the communication, just like we anticipate we will experience in the real world. And so the whole operation might be 45 minutes long, but there's hundreds of hours logged prior to that experience. You made reference to the Kill House. How many hours do military personal have behind weapons systems before they ever go out into the real world environment where there's the opportunity to have to sling a real bullet? It's unfathomable. My point is, guys, is that when we see things operating in an elite level, If we're not careful, we're going to miss what level of preparation and training took place in order to do that.

20:42 So then if we just take a moment to recognize that, and then we think about our own businesses, think about your frontline technicians, okay? How many hours of legitimate training have you built into your technician onboarding for real before we allow them to go out, represent our brand? walk our clients through some fairly complex processes, ultimately take on the liability of environmental conditions inside people's homes, which affects their health and welfare, right? There's all these things that we're asking a technician to do. And yet our training does not marry up at all against the fact that we would like them to perform at an elite level.

21:24 We grossly underestimate. And I think we often do it on the premise of cost. We're worried about cost. We're worried about a lack of productivity. And guys, the silly thing about that is, is how long will we have technicians in the field deploying at 60-70% capacity, going back for callbacks, paying for repairs, Yeah. doing repairs that are uncovered because we are the one that caused the damage with our containment, with our equipment that we use, all the things, right? It's unfathomable. Again, the principle here is if we look at teams operating in an elite level, the amount of work that goes in preparing the team to succeed on game day is unbelievable. And I think we need to ask ourselves the question, What kind of priority, energy, and asset resources spend are we deploying on training and preparing our teams to operate at a consistent and elite level in the field?

22:20 And my gut says, if you're honest, it is a fraction of what we should be. It's not much. Based on what you want. Right. It's, hey, you're going to be with Billy Bob for your first few weeks. Right. And what does Billy Bob do? Well, in order to reduce his customary workload, he's having the grunt do all the things, all the mundane things. And there isn't a whole lot of actual fundamental training happening. Let's dig in though. Okay. What does it look like? What are some of the best practices here? Because while we can be critical of that default on the job training, which is sending out the new guy with Billy Bob, the vet. That's right. The reality is, is that still fundamentally, the vast majority of onboarding and orientation training is going to happen in the field, you know?

23:03 And especially, I mean, you start to get into like the big boys, like the first on sites in Belfort, yeah, fly them to Michigan or whatever. They have their four days of da, da, da, da, da. Of course, sometimes some of the training, we're going to send somebody to REITs or we're going to send them down to actionable for this or that. But the vast majority of our people- You're right. are going to jump in a truck. The question is, how do we administer that? What system do we have around that? Can you talk about the three-part training approach as one of those fundamentals? I think you're on to something here. I think there's a couple of things. One, I think we need to have a general guideline that we use to understand the framework of training. The one that we've adopted is there's essentially three phases. The first phase is I'll do it.

23:43 I'll walk you through what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And I think that's where we miss the mark is we think it's being learned through osmosis. Just watch me and you'll be fine. No, we need to understand what you're doing specifically. And then I need to know why. What's the value of this action, this step? Phase two is you do it. I'll walk you through it. This is where we start to get hands-on. This is where real skill transfer begins to take place is this. It's been academic to a certain extent so far. Now I want you to get your hands on it and I'm going to walk you through it. Go through the paces. And then the third phase is you do it. I'm going to coach you up and hold you accountable. And I know that sometimes when we say that, the first part, well, isn't accountability a long-term thing?

24:24 Yes. So how is phase three different from just ongoing accountability? It's your inspection cadence is increased. So not only is your inspection cadence of this practice, this activity, this process increased, you're also looking for specific things and coaching on those to get those loose ends tied up. So if you think about, again, kind of holistically, I teach somebody how to do it step by step by showing them what I'm doing and explaining why. I then get their hands on it. They begin doing it and I walk them through. Yeah, they're experiencing it. And then this third phase is now you are responsible for this. Mm-hmm. Take ownership of it. You do it.

25:05 And what I'm going to do is I'm going to inspect you consistently enough and at a high enough rate that I can find these little discrepancies and we can deal with them right now before you create a bad habit or have an ongoing misconception of what's expected. Yeah, it's like almost the third step is they're performing that function. And then we're doing kind of a mini after action review, so to speak, to spot the gaps between, hey, here's perfect execution. Right. And here were the gaps between what you just did in that. Okay, we have to give a shout out here to Tate Peterson, Exact Restoration down in Phoenix. Very promising young entrepreneur. We went over this and he had a different term and I like it. I think we may end up adopting it. This is the three Ms. Oh, that's right.

25:45 It's model, mimic, master. That's right. Model, mimic, master, the three stages of on-the-job training, right? We're going to model first. It might be Grant Cardone. So props to whomever that is. But Kate turned us on to that. So that's awesome. I do. I love that. I love that thought. Yeah. All right, Head, Heart & Boots listeners. Want to stop here just a moment and thank our underwriting sponsor, Bloodlight Consulting Group. As all of you know, right? You know, Brandon and I, this is our passion project, Head Heart in Boots is. But it's also a way more and more that our consulting clients find us. And in effect, they interview us, right? Those of you who've been listening to the show for a while, you get to know who we are, right?

26:26 What we're about. So if Head Heart in Boots is valuable to you, one of the best things you can do is share it with your friends. And it's been incredible to watch just the audience grow. And we still get text messages from many of you about shows that you really like and impacted you. So that's number one. And please keep doing that. Many of you have been huge advocates of the show. We also just want to remind you too, if you're a restoration company owner and you're interested in a partner in your growth, you want some help building out systems, developing your leadership teams, helping set up the infrastructure for you to scale and grow into the company that you're trying to build. That's what we do. That's what we do is we come alongside restoration company leaders and, We help equip them and we help support them in that growth trajectory.

27:10 So if you're looking for that, go to floodlightgrp.com. Potentially, we could be a great match for each other. Another way that we really do serve our client base and our sphere of influence is through our premier partners. We work really hard to vet those folks that we believe bring a level of value to the industry, that it can really be leveraged in a way to have a sincere, positive impact on your business. We take that very seriously. The folks that we create those kind of ongoing partnerships, that's not a check-the-box kind of scenario. It's we really see strategic alignment in the value that they bring. We see value in the way that their leadership teams and their partners are developed globally. And we've done very sincere work of ensuring that these folks that we introduce our clients and our sphere to can actually create vetted value.

27:53 So go check out floodlightgrp.com forward slash premier slash partners and see if there's some folks on there that you can connect with and begin developing some other resources to support your growth and your business. So one thing I want to add to this, because I think if we don't get tactical enough, it just kind of sounds like BS. Sure. So, okay. So that, I think you guys need to, as a team, let's identify what our framework of training is and teach our people that. Meaning that if you're going to have a key influencer, a senior level technician, for an example, be one of those folks that helps us train our staff. Well, then let's give them a framework. Let's help them understand how they can be more effective in their training process.

28:34 Yeah. I think the second big thing here is be specific on what it is the individual is intended to learn in that moment. So it's not just learn how to do mitigation. It's this thing. Yeah, it's really important. I mean, what we obviously advocate for with our clients and so forth is you've got to have a training plan for each role in your company. That's right. You just have to. You have to. And it's a punch list of sorts. It's like, all right, we have a 45-day training plan. These are the competencies that somebody needs to have by the end of it. The person that you place that new employee with has to be aware. They have to be a participant in that process. So there's a lot that goes into it. It's simple, but it's not easy, right? I mean, it's a discipline like anything else.

29:14 So the three Ms, right? Model, mimic, master. But within the context of, we have a 45-day outline where we're going through a different topic every single day. Yep. I mean, in our experience, that's probably the simplest way to manage a process is each day that that employee is out with a more senior person, there is a primary focus for that day. That's right. You know, if it's basic containment, then the whole day, their trainer is just maximizing the amount of exposure that that new hire has to containment and having presumably conversations in the truck and all that kind of stuff around containment. So it's not a real burdensome thing. It's just a system. Yeah, I think that's the key is it's systematic.

29:56 It's intentional. We know what we're doing and why we're doing it, where we're headed. I think another piece is kind of in this training element is don't underestimate how much we should be doing. I think that tight timelines are great. Clear expectations are awesome. And then training is ongoing. So not just certifications. I think certifications are great. I think they honor the employee. I think they equip the employee. But training should be happening in our organization all the time, right? And I don't want to skip the sales teams. The same thing applies like if you have a weekly cadence of sales activity, right? It's like you can't, you're not going to learn everything at once. What is the skill you're focused on right now and become the master at that piece?

30:36 And then let's shoot and move. Let's go on to the next target, right? And begin identifying that and rocking hard in that zone. You know, another example of this is just build a cadence. Most companies, there's a mandatory safety meeting that's required on a weekly basis to hit kind of your local safety and health organization's requirements. I think that as part of that, what you can do is on that day, right, whatever it is that morning, we just have an extended period of time, the team's in the shop before they go out. And we touch on some safety topics to keep them safe, build our requirement in, and then hit a topic. 10-15 minutes of a refresher, a spotlight on a certain type of activity or skill set. And this is true for project management all the way down to technicians.

31:19 We can just build this cadence into the system. And here's maybe one last piece. Even though all of us hate it. I hate role playing. I hate it. It's uncomfortable. I feel embarrassed. It's goofball. And it's one of the best ways to get skill transfer. So when it comes to these things like training and prep, we're gonna have to get uncomfortable. We're gonna have to do role-playing and we're gonna have to do hands-on practicing of the craft. Two more quick hits is, one, leverage your team to train your team. Oh, it's huge. There's so many positive things that happen, right? When I go to Billy, who's super rad at complex containments, and I say, hey, Billy, I saw that containment he set up in the Jones's house where the ducting and just the cool stuff that you came up with.

32:02 Would you mind doing a little like 10 minute clinic at our next morning stand to or our next safety meeting? That's right. After we're done with the safety component, can you do a clinic on setting up that containment like you did and just kind of how you thought through it? Oh man, that'd be so awesome, dude. Leverage that. The other thing is leverage your vendors. You talk about this a lot, right? When you think about training, it doesn't need to mean spending thousands of dollars to send somebody to REITs, although that's a solution. That's a real great solution. You can also bring in your vendors, like leverage your Home Depot rep. That's right. That's right. Leverage your legend brands rep to come in and teach about some aspect of the business. These people are, in a lot of cases, subject matter experts, and they want to give you value because you're spending so much money with them.

32:43 So leverage that, right? Like they'll bring some snacks and some good. Those relationships aren't all about just maximizing your payment terms, right? Bring them into your shop. Have them teach about emerging new products, new technology, you know, all that kind of stuff. Love it. Personal finance. Yeah. Yeah. If you got somebody in your community, you're a business owner, you got a CPA office that you work with, ask them if anybody in their office is willing to put on a quarterly half-year clinic on personal finance. Yeah. I guess where we're going in general is, guys, environments, companies that emphasize training get a better end product. Big time. They're important. Please feel engaged, honored, respected, and valued.

33:24 It's unbelievable the precedents you set in an environment or a company where there's lots of training available to personnel. It's powerful. Okay. And you are good on the clock today. This dude is running a tight ship today. You know what? I'm trying to turn over a new leaf, bro. I'm under no obligation be the man I was yesterday. That's one of my favorite quotes. I love that. Okay. All right. The last pillar, last critical element is communication and intel. Okay. Now, either not too long ago, we just, we're going to be releasing, I guess, how time is weird when we pre-record. Anyways, one of the previous episodes, we talked a lot about a communication-rich or feedback-rich environment. This is why. The principle of that is a deep dive into this particular element.

34:07 And that is this. In order for our teams to be operating in an elite level, We have to have clean, consistent communication going left, right, up and down the chain of command. And the reason that is, is because we all know, just like most environments, that our industry specifically is very dynamic. It's very dynamic in the way that we get our leads, our lead gen, the calls come in, project announcements. It is bonkers. And so in order for our teams to think on their feet, to adapt and overcome, for them to respond in a way that's healthy and positive and great for the brand and the team, we have to prepare them for that. And one of the ways that we do that is we get this very clear channels of communication that...

34:50 not just one way, but so that when something's changing lives, they can provide that feedback or that communication back up the chain. We can make decisions and get Intel, for example, back out to our own teams so that they can make adjustments and do something different. So my point is... is that this infrastructure around communication, whether it be expectations, standards, what we can do if A is not A and B needs to be B, we've got to have that going. And then there's this environment that we have to have where people are paying attention and available. We can't be operating with such a skeleton crew. That once someone's doing something, their ability to look at their phone or respond in any merit way to the organization begins to slip or fail off completely.

35:35 That is a problem. As soon as intelligence and communication stops flowing, we are immediately beginning to fail. The extent of that failure is yet to be known. But as soon as intel is cut off, communication is cut off, we are going to fail. Can we hit on one like really specific tactical thing here? Because I think it's more and more you and I are seeing this as sort of gospel truth, especially as an industry where we're learning how to better leverage the commercial business. We're all, everybody's trying to figure out how do we do direct commercial business? And when it comes to servicing commercial clients, using multifamily is kind of a primary example. Although of course now we all service, you know, hotels, the whole nine.

36:17 But I think what we're learning about commercial business when it comes to communication, the elite teams are prioritizing daily communication. Oh, 100%. We talk about this ad nauseum with our clients. It's the 24-hour job update is the only appropriate standard. And a lot of people, what happens is they start shifting their focus from residential to commercial and they deploy the exact same sort of battle cadence of a weekly job review, a weekly touch-in, twice a week, whatever. And the reality is for our most demanding commercial clients, there is nothing that will satisfy the service level except for daily communication. And so our attitude, and I think the attitude of most elite teams that we encounter and we work with...

37:02 is I want to build my business and my processes and my structure. And this kind of speaks to the whole elite thing overall. It does. I want to build my business in such a way that we can deliver a high level of service quality to the most demanding customer. That's right. If I build my business that way, how much better? How much more class leading? How much more differentiated will my customer experience be for a normal customer who's reasonable, maybe isn't very demanding, is relatively passive, lets us do our thing, right? If I've built my business around the most demanding needs of the most demanding customers, and I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. Yeah.

37:42 I think the thing that you and I've also observed is, while it's a heavy lift to get these kind of systems in place, to reorient your teams around, listen, we're going to bookend our day, project managers. Every single day, we're going to send a 24-hour job update to every single active file we're working on. Listen, nobody's excited about that when you have that rollout conversation. That's right. Not a one, including you and I. Like if we were in those seats, right? And yet, once it's in place and it becomes normative... we're now able to deliver service at a higher level than most of our competitors because they're unwilling to go over that awkward hurdle of this is going to piss off my team.

38:23 They won't see the value, right? All that kind of stuff. Well, and I know that you kind of set the stage at the beginning of the episode that we wanted to make sure that we were doing a good job of tying the sales component into this. This is not just operations, right? But I think all of these, I would not think, these all competitors, clearly impact the way that we do sales. So I'm just going to, I want to set the tone real quick and I'm going to let you go. We'll let you take off here. But so you made this call about elite performance, right? And I think I actually want to name the episode this. I heard this quote. Unfortunately, I do not know who said it. Okay. Okay. So it'll be quote unknown, right? But it's winners beat losers and champions beat winners.

39:05 Yeah. Dude, think about that. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever I heard that, there was just something that just hit me like a bag of bricks where I was like, fuck, man, that's awesome. There you go again. Oh, sorry. I mean, shoot. That is awesome. Winners beat losers. Champions beat winners. And that's what we're talking about here. This is the framework that allows our teams to operate at an elite level and be the kind of organization that beats the best and puts us into a league of our own, truly differentiated from our competitors because we're champions, not just players. Yeah. Winners. And so let's briefly talking about sales. I'm going to hopefully punch hard on a few things here. What is the common state of sales?

39:47 Even to this day in our businesses, it's booze and schmooze and candy and smiles. We're still many of us stuck in this hire some bright eyed and bushy tailed sales reps. effervescent, charismatic personalities to go and maintain a top of mind awareness in front of our referral partners and our commercial decision makers. How do we compete with that? How do we level that up to an elite status? What are the most elite salespeople doing? Because you and I have worked with several. Oh, yeah. What are they doing? Well, when we're doing that, when we're focusing and we're primarily orienting our wholesale strategy on booze and schmooze and candy and smiles and top of mind awareness, you know what the entire focus is?

40:30 It's on us. Look at how great our company is. Give us a try. Use us instead next time. We're the biggest. We have the best fleet. Look at our... We have the best people. Look at our core values. It's all about us. And what you find is with the most elite teams that are succeeding. These are the companies, when I say mostly, these are people that have sales reps, in some cases, multiples that are doing multiple million dollars of production. And you ask, how in the hell do they do this? There isn't so much a secret sauce to it. It's that they instead flip the script and they are primarily oriented on the customer. Why would the customer give a shit about me? What does the customer care about?

41:12 What causes pain and frustration and anxiety for my customer? And what can my team and I do specifically and concretely to solve for that? And so one of the most powerful moves you can make as a leader to level up your sales operations, if your goal is to become a lead and to be one of those players that has direct sales operations, that's converting millions and millions of dollars from direct relationships, it's by asking questions of your team, your sales team, what are we hearing in the field? What are you hearing from your customers about what they're experiencing and what they want? And it's prioritizing questions like, rather than telling about how we compare to everybody else in the industry, it's asking the customer, hey, you've been in property management for five years.

42:00 Oh my gosh. What is your experience with our industry, Ben? where do you most commonly see us fall down as an industry? Where do we create added stress and anxiety for you and your team when you have a damage event on property? And how would you prefer that our industry handles that instead? It's all about a customer-centric focus. If we had to really hammer on one thing, It's that the old way of selling is drawing attention to ourselves. It's the swag. Now, if you don't hear me, it's not that we walk away from swag and putting cool mugs in people's hands and taking them to ball games and taking the ladies out for pedicure, manicure parties. And it's not that we're not going to booze and schmooze at times.

42:42 It's that if that's what we're primarily banking on, we are never going to reach the elite status of the people that we're trying to compete against or just simply outperform. We have to shift our focus to who is my customer? What do they care about? What are their primary frustrations, concerns? As an insurance agent, when they get a call from a confused, frustrated, angry policyholder about their claim, what is the most common thing that they hear from that policyholder? If I know the answer to that question in every insurance agency I'm trying to build a relationship in, I can establish and cultivate a meaningful, peer-based partner kind of conversation to help them solve for those things.

43:27 That's right. Yeah. That's the orientation we have to have. It's called going pro. And those of you that have bought things from really awesome salespeople, you know what I'm saying is true. We all get pitched by salespeople every day, every week of the year as leaders and owners. Think about the very best folks. What is different about them? It's not that they bought you a bottle of bourbon at Christmas. It's not that they took you to the 49ers game. That's window dressing. It's what I'm talking about. They understand you. They're more curious about you than they are pitching you. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I think you set the stage really well here in terms of, okay, if that's the framework, right? If that's the commitment that we have to have as an organization, as a sales organization, well, how does that lay in alignment with what we've set the stage here for around these three kind of core elements that have to exist within our organization to perform an elite level?

44:22 Well, it's very simple. Like when we're talking about this, this understanding about the client, our role, what our core function is in relationship to our organization and what we're doing to represent us in these relationships in the field, we've got to be clean and clear on our organizational structure. As a sales leader within the company, what is my core function? How do I relate to those to my left and right? What is the partnership between me and my operational leader? When I go out and I ask these questions, what am I then doing with the information, right? We think about this idea that we have to have these clean channels of communication and a transition of intel up and down the organizational chart.

45:03 So this is a perfect example of why that happens. When a sales leader goes out and starts gathering intelligence from the field, intelligence that shapes the way we perform and deliver service, if that only falls right there, there is zero way for us to comply with that promise, deliver on that promise, and we fail. So it's like, okay, if that's the mindset, if that's the framework, then as we gather that intelligence, we've got to bring it back into the system, feed it back up into the food chain so our teams can respond in an effective and elite way. Training, right? Same thing. If we are not boozing and schmoozing, meaning it's not soccer mom and dad talk and just whatever the fuck comes up.

45:47 Boy, I'm killing the F-bomb set. I'm sorry. Spicy. Hey, awareness is the first step, man. I know. Next time it'll be half this much. Yeah. But if that's the expectation though, then that means we have to train to that. That is a skill set that we're developing. Because if you don't develop the skill set to ask these questions, if you don't understand the why and the intentionality behind it, you're not going to adopt it. You're just going to go out and do whatever is comfortable, easiest, what you've done in the past. And you're not going to stretch into an elite performance. Yeah. And so anyways, I kind of got preachy. But... Well, and I want to... Okay, so let's wrap up because you got a dentist appointment you got to go to. That's right. Here's a golden nugget that we teach our people.

46:29 And I just think it ties up a lot of these things. One example of elite level communication and intentionality around this communication piece is the kind of communication we're having with our customers. And I think a lot of times, average teams and even great teams at times, they don't go far enough in their investigation about people's customer experience. We get a five-star review. We think, ha-ha-hoo, you know, we nailed it. But we don't actually know because oftentimes those Google reviews will say some, oh, these guys are so awesome. They're the best. It's like, well, okay. It's great that we won. It's great that we generate a five-star review, but do we actually know what we did well? Why? What was that about?

47:09 We're awesome. Okay. That's not very useful. One of the things that we coach our leaders to do on a consistent basis, establish a rhythm of, is end of job QA calls. And that call sounds something like it's coming from the owner department leaders is what really advocate for that owner. Hey, Mrs. Jones, this is Chris with Chris Nordyke Restoration. Hey, listen, first of all, I understand we just finished your job this last week. I saw that Google review, by the way. Thank you so much. Hey, we're always trying to dig in and learn. Even when jobs go really well, what was it that really made it well? So that we can feed that back to our team and we can all get better and better with every job. Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions about your experience? Awesome. Would you mind just sharing two or three things about our people or our process that really made it a five-star experience for you and your husband?

47:57 And then whatever they say, this is a key behavior that we always coach to is write down the exact words that they say. Because what this helps feed into is creating clarity about the why of all of the mundane things that to our team often feel like bullshit, annoying, irritating things. We ask them to do the 24-hour job updates and it's like, oh, wow. Nobody wants to do a lot of these process-driven things. But when I hear Mrs. Jones say, my husband and I were worried about our white oak floors that we hand-refinished ourselves and we were so worried about all the workers coming in and out, trashing our floors. And when we saw your team, every single one of them stop and put booties on before they came in, we were so relieved it meant so much to us.

48:42 When I can write that down for Ms. Jones verbatim, bring that to my next leadership meeting, my production meeting, and I swing by in the morning as I'm leading by walking around, I pop into the morning stand to, hey guys, I wanted to tell you about something I heard from the Joneses. Listen, I know sometimes guys, it's just one extra thing. It's a pain in the... I get it. I feel the same way you guys do the booty thing. You know it's part of our process. I wanted to tell you what the Jones has said. I love it. When we can tie our customer input and feedback back to the often mundane and annoying processes we put in place to create those experiences... All of a sudden, those things go from being bullshit, annoying, micromanaged, whatever the things that people are taking.

49:22 Oh, yeah. You know, going big corporate. We're going big corporate now. We're no longer family. But it's like when we can tie customer feedback to those mundane and annoying and irritating things that we choose to do over time, we saw this. We've seen this in our teams. They become points of pride. That's right. We're willing to do things that others aren't because customers love it. And this is how we win. So I would like to me that ties in perfectly. It's a part of the communication is creating that back loop where our team understands not just because we tell them. That's right. Because that doesn't work. But when a customer tells them why that stuff matters, it changes categories in their head. 100%, man.

50:03 I love that. That's a perfect example of Intel coming back into the channel, right? Yep. All right, let's wrap this bad boy up. So a couple things. One, just quick flyby reminder, okay? What does it take for our teams to operate at an elite level, meaning we can adapt and overcome, we can still win the day even when things don't go exactly to plan? The way we do that is first by creating just crystal clarity around our organizational structure. Who are you? What's your role? Who's to your left and right? Who's up and down that organizational chart? The second, again, we just hammered on the training. Being very specific about those phases and getting skill transfer. The importance of giving so much more time to prep and training, knowing that that will affect what we ultimately do in the field when it comes game day.

50:50 And then last, a religious zealousy around creating good channels of communication, gathering intel all the time on the good, the bad, the indifferent, and bringing that up and down the chain of command so it can change the shape of what we do and how we behave. That's critical. All right. One last thing here, guys, and we'll let you go. Okay. And you're making yourself late to the dentist, bro. I know. We have got in the show notes, you're going to see a link to our business opportunity audit, the BOA. Okay? If this... Again, we started. If you're in that zone where you're feeling frustrated, there's some stuff just not going the direction you want. You want this elite performing team. Guys, do yourself a favor.

51:32 Just take the BOA. It'll take you forever. 15 to 30 minutes. Okay? And it is going to help you begin understanding what is in place and what is not in your organization. And the outcome of that is going to... Worst case scenario, it's going to give you a map of initiatives that you need to begin focusing on first to create some of this change in your organization. Okay? If you ultimately want some help with what you learn in that BOA, well, obviously, we'd love to talk to you. Yeah, then you can hire us or hire somebody else. But you know, it's interesting that BOA, the feedback we've gotten over and over again is just the act of going through those 107 questions, forced them to think about and ask themselves questions because we go through the four quadrants of the business.

52:18 Just the act of answering all the questions being forced to It clued them in on, I haven't even thought about that. That's right. Or, oh, we talked about that last year. We never did anything with it. That's right. Just the act of going through that in 30 minutes will give you clarity and give you some direction in terms of what you should be prioritizing moving forward. And all you got to do is go to floodlightgrp.com. forward slash audit, and you can take the BOA right there. And then we'll automatically give you an option of a free no-cost integration call where we can highlight those things and really draw attention to the stuff and some next actions that you could be taking. Whether or not it includes hiring us in any way, shape, or form, that's something that we can provide as well. All right. And again, they'll be in the show notes.

52:59 See the links right there. Just follow it. Bingo, bingo. Like, share, subscribe. We appreciate you. Till next time. Later. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.