Adjusting your Leadership Style to Bring Out the Best in your Employees

Speaker 1 With anyone who's having an issue, people are slouching, everybody's tired, no one's committed. It's like, what's the issue? Well, there's no alignment between the two of you.

Speaker 1 And I think you can go immediately to problem solving, which is like, how do we get the KPIs up? What's wrong with you? Let's fix this, like fix, fix, fix, right?

Speaker 1 Or you can go to, before we can get to that,

Speaker 1 we need to get on the same page, right? We need to have some common ground here established.

Speaker 1 And the only way to do that is to take the time to build up that relationship again through what I call just like conflict management.

Speaker 1 And it's simple, it's super simple, but it's something that I think because we're emotional people and we're just busy, we don't do a good job of it.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business.

Speaker 2 Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello.

Speaker 3 Hey, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert Podcast. You guys probably know my guest.
His name is Danny Kerr. He's out of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada.

Speaker 3 He's an expert in leadership culture, hiring recruitment, structure development, and employee training. He's the co-founder and managing partner of Breakthrough Academy.

Speaker 3 a company that's made to help contractors transition from being doers of all things to builders of great systems and leaders of great people.

Speaker 3 BTA is currently working with over 300 entrepreneurs across the United States and Canada, collectively producing over $912 million in annual revenue.

Speaker 3 In 2019, it was ranked as Canada's 32nd top growing company by the Globes and Mail's report on business and Canada's 16th fastest growing startup by McLean's magazine in 2018.

Speaker 3 So you've been here a few times. Why don't you just tell us what's been going on lately? I just heard a rumor that I think is true.
I think they're getting rid of LSA ads in Canada. LSA is going away.

Speaker 1 I don't even know what LSA is, so you tell me.

Speaker 3 Google Guarantee.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, they're doing a bunch of stuff with the Canadian internet. I know there's a bunch of privacy stuff.
They're going to change basically the narrative of what we're able to see.

Speaker 1 So that may be a part of it, but that is news to me.

Speaker 3 So what's going on at BTA? What's new with you? I know you're going on vacation soon, but what's happening with business?

Speaker 1 Yeah, lots of stuff. Actually, we should probably give you a new description.
That one's probably three years old. So we're growing.
We have about 510 companies actively right now. So

Speaker 1 that's good. We have about 1.5 billion we're managing.
So that's, it's been growing the last couple of years.

Speaker 1 A big thing that's happening to us right now is we're, I think I might have mentioned it last time, but we're working quite a bit on technology. So

Speaker 1 if you look at you know, that number, 1.5 billion, that's not our revenue. That's all the companies we manage.

Speaker 1 But that is the amount of activity that happens under the leadership of the Breakthrough Academy system.

Speaker 1 And so we keep looking at it from a holistic perspective and saying, well, what does a $1.5 billion company go do? Will they invest in making everything more efficient across the organization?

Speaker 1 And how do we do that for every individual organization as a small microcasm of what we're up to?

Speaker 1 So there's a couple of processes or technologies we're working on to build out better processes for all these companies at once.

Speaker 1 And so one would be call it like a content house way we do process street.

Speaker 1 There's a few other like sop housing management softwares that people use we have a custom one that we're designing right now that's built off of the organizational structure that we get built with all of our clients and then it'll be pre-housed in there all the training documents recruiting processes at job ads checklists all done by role by industry so as we bring in a roofing contractor or a builder or a landscaper we're going to be able to say hey great here is your sop house for your entire company pre-done now we can start to customize off of it and it's all pre-done in this nice little easy-to-use software you can basically send an email to an employee they have their own house ready to go then on top of that we're building in a kpi management tool that is right now used in google drive it's going to be software where we can hook all the kpis by employee and for the whole company up to each node so we can see in real time how every employee is doing versus goal in all these organizations as a whole and they can all track performance individually and when you start to build that you can start to do something really neat is start to utilize utilize that data so that everybody can benefit.

Speaker 1 So I'll give you an example. This will be a couple years out before we build this, but we have a certain way of doing interviewing that we teach all of our members.

Speaker 1 They all have 10 different preferences and abilities they interview on for their staff members, depending on the role they have.

Speaker 1 You're a project manager, we need to look for your ability to handle goals, like goal setting, right? Or your ability to handle stress or your ability to manage details.

Speaker 1 And so these are all traits in people that you can't really train. They kind of exist in someone or they don't.

Speaker 1 But what if we had someone take an aptitude test prior to them getting employed by one of these businesses and that score pops up and then their kpis for the year play out as they go do their job and we can see how all those employees scored on their test versus how they performed in their job and now you have 1.5 billion dollars of revenue produced every year with data on employees actuals versus goals versus their initial test when they were hired feed that data back in and have all of us benefit from hey as you take this test we can tell where this is a project lead a project manager an office administrator a field technician a salesperson and get more and more honed in data on what that looks like here's one thing that i'd say is a big problem with that is nature versus nurture you've got all these different companies with different nurture different training styles different leadership styles so when i'm comparing my technicians i want to compare my technicians to themselves in the previous months and weeks quarters because if i'm comparing them to each other in separate markets

Speaker 3 I was talking to a company earlier and I was going over this huge chart of all my different markets, 28 different markets. And they said, Why are these ones stagnant? And I said, A couple of reasons.

Speaker 3 Local service ads is the biggest thing in home service. And COVID closed down local service ads for garage drawers for two years.

Speaker 3 These other ones were grandfathered in, so they kept growing. These other, they kept getting reviews.
These other ones didn't. Number two, there's a true leadership issue here.

Speaker 3 And when I mean leadership, it's the power to motivate, power to recruit, the constant training, and then really becoming friends and having this connection with your people.

Speaker 3 And I look at it and I'm like, there's certain markets that don't get really any turnover unless someone gets sick or moves or just decides that their body can't take it anymore.

Speaker 3 That's like a more of a retire type thing or just move type thing.

Speaker 3 First of all, does that resonate of when you're comparing? There's this guy, Jonathan Wistman, that does personality testing.

Speaker 3 and he says, I can't have you test against Mercedes because Mercedes is looking for somebody completely different. They're training for a certain thing.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 The best way I could describe this is, I remember Jocko Willink, his good talk on decentralized command, how much you can really get done when you allow that to happen.

Speaker 1 I think what we're trying to do more than say this is the exact KPI that every employee in this role needs to have, and this is the number that defines success and not defines success.

Speaker 1 It's more to hold the structure for people to be able able to put in their own specifics, but within the same structure, if that kind of makes sense.

Speaker 1 And so, I'll tell you, like from years of experience, some things I know, I know without a shadow of a doubt that if you're going to be a project manager for, let's say, a construction company, you're going to manage a lot of details.

Speaker 1 I know that you're going to handle a lot of stress.

Speaker 1 And I know that to be in an organization that's going to drive performance, you're probably going to be in charge of goals.

Speaker 1 To what degree you need to do those things is up to the owner and you. It's not up to us.

Speaker 1 But how well you manage stress, how well you like or don't like goals and how you operate within that, how well you manage details can be measured.

Speaker 3 No, you can make a lot of assumptions out of that. So, well, I got a question that just has been on my mind all day today.

Speaker 3 Benji says there's three things in common that he sees from successful companies. I want to look at this more of a market by market because I'm really trying to do this in my own company.

Speaker 3 So that's why I'm selfishly asking for myself. But Veggie says the guys that are successful, they have a really good plan.
They're budgeted.

Speaker 3 They say this week, this month, this quarter, this year, they know where they're going. They have realistic goals.
They've computed the numbers to actually get there.

Speaker 3 They actually have a realistic, they don't just say, I want to get bigger. I want to have more time with family and I want to be more profitable and I want to retire.

Speaker 3 They've got the numbers, the KPIs, they've got a good vision. Number two, he says, and it's just from memory, but he says they have really tough conversations.
conversations.

Speaker 3 They're willing to have those tough conversations that aren't easy. And number three, you got to be a talent magnet.

Speaker 3 So he says those are the three big ones that he sees, which if you had 10 markets, and let's just say six of them are doing really good, two of them are killing it, and a few of them are failing,

Speaker 3 what would you attribute? Would it be straight up leadership to the ones not really killing it? What would you say? Because you've seen this, thousands of companies come through your door.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 and you know i'll reference something even earlier than bta so prior to bta i was a part of college pro painters which was basically a student little run franchise organization so western canada alone we had 150 different franchises operating every single summer and so i got to oversee a lot of that with actually james dale my business partner Some markets were ripping, some markets were struggling, and all of the above.

Speaker 1 I would say that the franchisees that we placed into those areas could make it happen and some couldn't.

Speaker 1 And it was actually interesting because some areas that were failing and they're just like, look, everyone here is cheap. Nobody will buy here.
This system doesn't work.

Speaker 1 And then the next year I recruit a new franchisee, I put him in and he kills it. Yep.
Now, was everyone still cheap and no one was buying?

Speaker 1 That was a challenge he had, but he figured it out.

Speaker 1 So I guess to your question, is it just leadership? I think at some level, yes. Does it mean those external factors don't exist?

Speaker 1 No, they probably still do, But it's how that person is able to manage and basically overcome them.

Speaker 1 Another note, I probably talked to you a long time ago, it's just something that was told to me in 2008 when the recession hit, which was, I was like, there's no workout here, right?

Speaker 1 And I remember my business coach at the time just looked at me and he said, Danny, you got to realize there's still billions of dollars flying through the air every day in transactions.

Speaker 1 And it's your job as an entrepreneur to go figure out how to grab just a piece of that.

Speaker 1 And I think that we live in a world where no matter what, there will be ever-changing challenges that that come and go. And then there's new ones that show up.

Speaker 1 And if we're not basically awake to that and we just feel subject to our environment, then yeah, there's all kinds of things that will take us out.

Speaker 1 But if you're just kind of like, well, those are the things. And between my mind and the mind of the people around me, we will figure it out.

Speaker 1 We are in an economy where in North America, generally, it's fine through recessions, through highs, through lows, through.

Speaker 1 the great resignation that we're experiencing right now, whatever it is, there's still opportunity and all that. So, I don't know, a long way to say your question.
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 1 I think leadership has a ton to do with it. I think some of the things that Benji listed are very mechanical pieces to business that allow a business to operate functionally, right?

Speaker 1 Which are important. But behind all of that is a great leader.
So,

Speaker 3 you know, I got into an argument several times in the last two weeks about a certain topic. I asked one of my regional guys, I said, listen, you're.
You run such a great market.

Speaker 3 You're involved with marketing. You're involved with dispatching.
You do a great job recruiting. You do a great job hiring.
You do great ride-alongs. You motivate your people.

Speaker 3 I said, what I'd really like to see from you is a nine to five or eight to five. What does your day look like? And he goes, I can't put it into a system like that.
He goes, it's always different.

Speaker 3 And I said, so is every interview different? He goes, in a way they are. And I said, I know your personality shines.

Speaker 3 You might go a different direction depending on the answers, but you stick to a formula, right? He goes, well, not really. And I said,

Speaker 3 well, to me, I'd rather have a bunch of B pluses than one A plus that I can't replicate. You know what I mean? I'd rather have a good team of all-around good people.
And I just go back to the system.

Speaker 3 I'm like, look, give me something that says two hours a day is motivating and one-on-ones. Two hours a day is interviews.
I spent an hour doing this. But to say it's always different,

Speaker 3 that's the scariest thing I've seen is when somebody says my day is completely taken and I don't really know what's going to happen from day to day and I don't have a plan. It scares me.

Speaker 3 And I think great leaders tend to say some of my day, so I spend this on one-on-ones. I spend this.
For me,

Speaker 3 I could definitely put a scenario for my day. Now, there's different meetings throughout the day, but for the most part, I know what I need to do to make the company successful.

Speaker 3 And I spend a lot more time now more on what we're doing for acquisitions and partnerships than anything. But I do want to go into a certain topic that I was supposed to stay on.
I just selfishly.

Speaker 1 went into that.

Speaker 3 Recruitment has always been a challenge, regardless of the industry you're in.

Speaker 3 And we've talked a lot about this in previous interviews, but in terms of calculating workplace productivity, what's it like to go from 30 hours of productivity to 40 hours or more?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So I think this is something we kind of teed up before

Speaker 1 going live. This actually, again, this goes back to my time running painting companies is we would measure average productivity per person.

Speaker 1 And often across North America, it was around 32 hours per painter on average.

Speaker 1 So, you know, a lot of us think we work 40 40 hours a week or our staff work 40 hours a week because that's what we're paying them, right?

Speaker 1 But what's actually happening is it's about 30, 32. Like that, and that's what I measured anyways, over like 150 separate companies with five to 10 staff each on average, right?

Speaker 1 So if that's the case, you can go out and say, well, how do we get more people to work more 32-hour nodes or chunks? Or how do we get from 32 to 35 hours per employee on average by year end?

Speaker 1 So it's a bit of a different way to look at the same problem.

Speaker 1 And I think coming into this chat today, I thought it'd be an interesting thing to get into that because we do talk a lot about recruiting.

Speaker 1 We do talk a lot about best practices to bring in more people. And I do think that is a major need for a lot of people who need to put a lot of more time, money, and effort and energy into that.

Speaker 1 But there is another way to skin that cat. And for those who are trying to figure out other options, that's what we'll talk about today.

Speaker 3 You know, I had my trainer and my trainer's got a, one of his grandparents is pretty sick. And so he went to Minnesota.
So he's got a guy subbing in.

Speaker 3 So he came into the shop today and his girlfriend works at Yelp and she has to make 80 calls a day.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 all of a sudden I text Bree and I go, we need to hire someone from Yelp because

Speaker 3 that's, you don't see a lot of people, but there's systems in place to monitor and make sure that they're good calls as well. I see a lot of people.

Speaker 3 that have amazing potential waiting to be unleashed.

Speaker 3 And what you gave an example of with your painting company in the past was

Speaker 3 that's a really easy job to say you were painting or you weren't. But what about managers and coaches? What about payroll? What about HR? What about warehouse?

Speaker 3 Like that's a tough one to put a productivity number on.

Speaker 1 This is what goes back to KPIs, right? And this goes back to what Benji was saying, like a really well-managed company has KPIs by role that someone can manage into existence.

Speaker 1 So for us, one KPI that we used was average productivity rate by painter. But there's a lot of other things, right? Depending on the role, you have to think through what that KPI is.

Speaker 1 But once you see it, once you actually acknowledge that this is more than just a feeling that I'm having, which feelings are, you know, all this stuff we're talking about, even like going back to my crazy technology

Speaker 1 geeking out stuff, I'm going to go build, that's half the equation, right? The other half is still the human element, is the gut and the feel and the ability to kind of like feel something out.

Speaker 1 But within that, once you know these KPIs, it helps a lot because you can be like, hey, I can see there's a productivity problem here, whether it's profit per job is off, hours produced per person is off, AR collected by timeline is off, sales velocity is off, lead to estimate ratio is off, whatever the KPI ends up being by the division you're managing, there is a first an acknowledgement of it and then an attempt to make it better.

Speaker 3 So there's a lot of people that say, I don't care how you get there, as long as you get it done, I don't care if you work 20 hours a week.

Speaker 3 I got an installer that could literally run circles, he could do eight doors in a day. And people are listening right now, going, Yeah, right.
I'm telling you, this guy is the best.

Speaker 3 Now, he can't drive around and do it, but there's other guys that struggle to get two done. And it's process, it's experience.

Speaker 3 I'm sure when you were painting, you watched a guy cut in the crown molding, and you'd go, dude, that guy just did the cutting

Speaker 3 in about a third of the time that I could ever do it because it's second nature to him.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 you know, I think there's efficiency, but also learning that technique.

Speaker 3 And another thing that I struggled with is that L Evie one day, he did a ride along with all my guys and he goes, every one of your guys does it differently. And this is five years ago.

Speaker 3 And so we said, what's the safest way to do it, but that we could repeat and it's efficient. And so we started training.
And the way that these guys learn are not the same way I do fix a garage.

Speaker 3 but it's safe and it's efficient and you can learn it and it will never get them hurt. They don't rely on experience.
So

Speaker 3 what is your thought on that about creating a standard process, which we do some dangerous things when you get really good because we're careful and we've done it before.

Speaker 3 And even the way I take a roller is probably not the safest way to do it, but I've done it so many times. What are your thoughts on the standardization of work?

Speaker 1 I think the bigger you are, the more you have to, right?

Speaker 1 Because the benefit of being able to do it that one-off way that works just for you becomes less and less of a, you know, it's a drop in the ocean comparatively to the problems that it causes.

Speaker 1 When it's three people working on a job site and they've all got their unique way of of doing it, it works best for them and they can crush it. You've got three people in your company, that's fine.

Speaker 1 But you have 30 people in your company and they all do that. Now suddenly 10, 20, 30% of them screw stuff up because the other people don't know how they work.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden that works not to the expectation that the salesperson set. And there's a group of people all needing to work as a collective whole.

Speaker 1 You'll see everything on this planet lead to standardization through growth, right?

Speaker 1 Henry Ford didn't create the world's best automobile the quickest way by saying, hey, just build your car the best way you know how.

Speaker 1 He's like, I'm sorry, we're all going to have to follow this way of doing it. And you, Mr.
Star Mechanic, may have a better way of doing it, but we can't do that at scale.

Speaker 3 Well, you know, I think what Henry Ford said first and foremost, and I've always said this, I said he probably started with four people on the assembly line. And then he added a fifth.

Speaker 3 He said, wait a second, there's a big barrier here. We could have someone just on the tire line.
And then it became eight, then it became 12.

Speaker 3 And the story that I think is the coolest about Henry Ford is the day that he came in and looked at the day crew. And he's like, how many trucks did you guys or model T's did you get done today?

Speaker 3 And they said six. So he wrote a big six in the middle of the assembly line.
And the night crew said, what is that?

Speaker 3 And they said, that's what the day crew got done. And so they did seven and then it went to eight.
And I think it went to like 12. Right.

Speaker 3 And the

Speaker 3 people are naturally competitive, at least in a capitalistic structure.

Speaker 3 I know if you go do that right now on Ford's line and you start being productive, you're going to get beat up afterwards because you're moving too fast for the union.

Speaker 3 What usually holds back employees from unleashing potential?

Speaker 1 Yeah, this was something, this is a theme I wanted to get in with you around, which was whenever I saw someone that I liked, right? I was like, you know what? Like this person has a lot of potential.

Speaker 1 And for whatever reason, it's not probably going as well as it should for them, whether they realize it or not. There's two things I immediately have to think about.
Is this due to skill?

Speaker 1 Is this a skill issue? Or is this a commitment issue

Speaker 1 and more often than not it's one or the other sometimes it's both which we can talk about that as well but more often it this is a skill problem or this is a commitment problem and i have to start there and based on that like quick matrix of how i see the person i'm like okay this is a commitment issue there's a certain path i go down oh this is a skill issue okay there's a certain path i go down And I'll say this too, it's sometimes around just the person themselves, but sometimes just around one of the skills within that person, if you're going to go down the skill issue.

Speaker 1 It's not even like maybe the rest of what they do is awesome, but there's this one thing that's missing.

Speaker 3 So how about skill or will?

Speaker 1 That's the same thing. Skill or commitment.
Commitment, just change the word will. Maybe it's a sexier way to put it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 All right. We'll change the model.
That sounds like a better word. But yeah, that's essentially the same idea.

Speaker 3 In the mornings here, like you look at our meeting, like Thursday mornings, and I've been around to probably 10 other meetings, and I've.

Speaker 3 I've not been to every location for a Thursday morning meeting, but there's something about the magic of just

Speaker 3 nobody's talking, everybody's focused, everybody's had like a shot of espresso, and they're like alert and they want it and they want to see who's winning and they're quiet.

Speaker 3 And then there's other markets that it's like donuts are from two weeks ago. The guy's kind of like, nah.
And it's like, oh my God, is there something about the environment?

Speaker 3 My new book I'm writing is about number one, the common theme is everybody's got to be a winner. Number two is organized.
And then you got to trust. There's a lot of untrust.
I don't open my own mail.

Speaker 3 I don't open my own email. I don't look at payroll.
I trust. Now I trust, but verify.

Speaker 3 But at the same time, imagine if I had to look at every single payroll and had to look behind at every email and make sure people are doing their job.

Speaker 3 I think I trust in a way that might be even too much. But if I didn't do this, I could never grow to the size we are.
No.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So you're going to say if I go down that path, right? So I'm like, is this a skill or commitment?

Speaker 1 A lot of things you're talking about and that everyone's slouching and tired and everything's stale and old. That's probably a commitment issue, right?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 So it's like people aren't committed. So what are they not committed to? Well, they're probably not committed to the company's mission or purpose.
They're probably not committed to the core values.

Speaker 3 They're

Speaker 3 problem, I think.

Speaker 1 Probably. And there's probably a massive disconnect where they're like, look, I'm not going to give you my potential because I don't think you deserve it.

Speaker 3 Right. Yeah.
Well, why would I want to fight for you when you're just, I'm just a number to you?

Speaker 3 Why would I want to try when you just, every time I i come to you you said no before you even listen sure every time i talk about that me and my wife are going through something you just say i need to improve my kpis rather than listening to my story

Speaker 3 like you treat me like crap i'm gonna i'm gonna come back to you and you roll your eyes at me when i need something i'm gonna do the same to you this is a job for me but what if you made this a career what if you said i'm going to be there more for you outside of work So we were doing a discovery session for my new book.

Speaker 3 And I said, think about your coach, man. My coach, my mom works three jobs, man.
And I had this really cool coach that made sure I got fed every night. He always checked on my grades.

Speaker 3 He made sure that I got to see my dad when I was going to and that it went good. He asked questions.
And my coach was just a good man.

Speaker 3 And then I think about our manager. And for some reason, I think of the office, how about my TPS reports? And

Speaker 3 I think we should become coaches. We should care.
A lot of times people say, what the hell's wrong with you, Danny? Why don't you pay attention? Why aren't you hitting your goal?

Speaker 3 Why don't you say, Danny, what's going on, brother? Listen, you've had a couple off weeks. I'm here to listen.
Just come brain dump on me. Let me know what's happening, man.

Speaker 3 Why don't we do that more as leaders?

Speaker 1 Exactly. What you're describing is one of the points I have in here under commitment, which is just you need to apply conflict resolution or conflict management, essentially.

Speaker 1 So, Tommy, you ever taken a class in it before? You ever done like a conflict class?

Speaker 3 I don't think I've taken a specific conflict class, but I have. I do got a good book called Fierce Conversations.
Yeah, you're reading books.

Speaker 1 I'm taking classes as we learn. I remember going to one and I was at the time, I was like, well, I have no problem with conflict.
I will tell people off all day long if something's going wrong.

Speaker 1 And at the end of it all, I just realized there is obviously like certain types of people with different behaviors, right?

Speaker 1 There's passive, there's aggressive, there's passive aggressive, which is like 80% of Canadian population. And then there's like assertive, which is a learned behavior.

Speaker 1 And it's, it's not something where you're being passive or you're being aggressive or any of that.

Speaker 1 You're respecting yourself and that other person equally and trying to get to the root of what's really going on.

Speaker 1 And I think that with anyone who's having an issue, people are slouching, everybody's tired, no one's committed. It's like, what's the issue? Well, there's no alignment between the two of you.

Speaker 1 And I think you can go immediately to problem solving, which is like, how do we get the KPIs up? What's wrong with you? Let's fix this, like fix, fix, fix, right?

Speaker 1 Or you can go to, before we can get to that, we need to get on the same page, right? We need to have some common ground here established.

Speaker 1 And the only way to do that is to take the time to build up that relationship again through what I call just like conflict management.

Speaker 1 And it's simple, it's super simple, but it's something that I think because we're emotional people and we're just busy, we don't do a good job of it.

Speaker 1 And so a good just like model that I was taught that I, to this day, will, when I'm intentional anyways, we'll use it, is I will first say, hey, we got an issue. I need to address this.

Speaker 1 I can't just go into the office on Wednesday and start yelling at you about this. It's not going to result in anything.

Speaker 1 But I can say on wednesday hey this friday at lunchtime are you cool if i take you out for a beer and i would love to just chat about this and this like tell them what you guys are getting into a conversation around i think it'd be good for us to clear the air figure this out and see what we can do you open to that right so create a safe space where they're not feeling attacked and it's like totally you know held off guard with not realizing what that conversation is going to be around set that space up friday you meet for lunch most of us are like, okay, here's all the things I'm going to tell this person.

Speaker 1 I can't wait to just tell them off. But that's going to do nothing.
It's going to piss them off.

Speaker 1 It's going to, if you're playing tennis, it's going to put you on either side of the court and you want to have a conversation where it ends with both of you on the same side of the court.

Speaker 1 It's like, well, how do you do that? Well, it's pretty simple. This sentence I was given a long time ago, seek first to understand, then seek to be understood.

Speaker 1 Right. For people who are passive, it's not actually that hard to do.
For people who are aggressive, it's hard.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 1 I have to sit and I have to listen. I have to actively listen to what's really going on.

Speaker 3 Well, I was just thinking, what's the best way to actively listen is to bring notes and actually write stuff down because that shows turn your phone off, literally sit down with somebody and say, really, and you take notes.

Speaker 3 And when you're really just face-to-face eye contact and you're watching and you're actively listening and certain times the button and you'll say, explain more to me.

Speaker 3 And I think you got to peel back the onion quite a bit because people don't, especially when you're just their boss, they're not going going to go i can tell you what's really going on first yeah

Speaker 1 like why are you working because i got to provide for my family there's a lot more to it that you got to pill yeah you got to take time let them feel safe to be able to explain it all my form of active listening is to shut my brain off about what i want to say to that

Speaker 1 because your brain is constantly yeah but this yeah but that like you constantly are thinking yeah but yeah but syndrome you're constantly thinking of like you're saying that but you have no idea what you're saying because here's all the things i know you got to like shut that off and just be like i don't know what i'm going to say to all these things yet I just need to listen and take time to listen and understand and until the picture is clear to me like the analogy I always give in my mind is like I have a stick person in front of me with a problem and I need to create an HD picture of this stick person and until I have that HD picture I haven't asked enough questions yet and so I'm just focused on that question and that next question to find out what's really going on And when you've done a good job of that, A, that person feels heard because you've taken the time to listen.

Speaker 1 And I think the icing on the cake or or the, you know, the cherry on top that really helps that is to actually explain back to them what you're hearing. Summarize.

Speaker 1 So what you're telling me is you're working 60 hours a week, you're getting home late, your wife's mad, the kids are going through their own stuff, and you don't feel like you're there for your family right now.

Speaker 1 Yes, that is what's going on with me right now. Right.
Just like to take the time to hear and then take the time to repeat back what you're actually hearing.

Speaker 1 And I think when you do that well, people are going to be more receptive to what you have to say. And I think it's okay now, it's appropriate now for you to don't even just go into laying into them.

Speaker 1 Ask permission. Do you mind if I like tell you a bit of how it's coming off at work, what we're experiencing from that? Right.

Speaker 1 And then they're like, not all people, this isn't going to be a perfect process, but most people will say, yeah, sure. Like, what's going on?

Speaker 1 And I would say when you go into your side of things, be careful not to attack the person as an individual, but focus on the behavior and the instances and the specific examples of what's happened so they don't have to feel like you're attacking their character of specifically who they are it's here's the behavior i'm i'm seeing here's some of the examples of when it's happened here's what it's caused as a result so people can hear and understand what's going on when you've done a good job of that the next step for a lot of us is to so what are we going to do about it so watch don't do that go to where do both of us on both sides of our stories here where do we have common ground what do you want and what do i want that's the same

Speaker 1 and finding that common ground between their story and your stuff that's going on is the thing that's going to unlock that solution in a way easier way because if you think about it if you don't do that work ahead of time it's a yelling match back and forth followed by either you're going to put up a bunch of red tape or they're going to just be stubborn about everything

Speaker 1 versus hey we've now got common ground we both like You're working 60 hours a week. It's affecting your family life.
Everyone that works for you is upset and like can't handle the stress.

Speaker 1 How do we look at bringing this down to like a proper 40-hour work week with you and look at the stuff that's getting in the way so that we can bring a good life back to your family and a little bit better mannerisms of demeanor at work?

Speaker 1 Let's work on that issue because we both want the same thing. Now you've got alignment.
And that's when you've got commitment issues, that is the first, I would say, line of defense to go after.

Speaker 1 And until you've done that, you don't really know what the next solution should be.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying that works every time because it doesn't, but it's the first thing I would say to go do before you go do anything else.

Speaker 3 In Jonathan Wistman's book, he explains that a lot of times our top performers are in a league of their own.

Speaker 3 And it's not because A players just, they're literally, they're beasts and they don't like to conform exactly to fit into the herd.

Speaker 3 And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, A players prefer to be around A players.
I mean, that's just the facts.

Speaker 3 And when you allow, you can't allow people to be demeaning and just roll their eyes. I think one of the things that I've learned is one-on-one meetings.
I'm not a big meeting guy on one-on-ones.

Speaker 3 I make a phone call and I'm like, dude, what's going on? But I tend to want to listen and I use a lot of the employees to get engaged on where we're at.

Speaker 3 because I'm really checking in on leadership is what I'm doing. And I don't even think that it's not even something that I'm like, this day I'm going to call this guy.

Speaker 3 And this is, is, I wish I was a little bit more organized with my process. But when I call, I know exactly who I'm going to call.

Speaker 3 And a lot of times, certain people just aren't bought in. When I find out why,

Speaker 3 a lot of the reason why is because they didn't have a lot of input. They're like, you guys just changed it again.
I was barely getting used to the last system. And then it goes and changes again.

Speaker 3 And I say, okay.

Speaker 3 And I like to say this a lot, Danny. I say, listen, if you got a way of doing it, do me a favor.

Speaker 3 You give this 110%. You promise me, and I trust you, that you're going to give this 110%.

Speaker 3 And if we go at this and you tell me it's not good, one of my managers who's actually a family member, cousin of mine, he said, look, Tommy, he goes, this scorecard on my installers, you want them to sell stuff.

Speaker 3 I said, Dan, I don't want them to sell stuff.

Speaker 3 We created what's called a mean, and I want them to do the mean. We add up everybody.
I want them to be just in the middle of what their peers are doing.

Speaker 3 This is what caused me to be less subjective is to say, it's not what I expect, not what our management expects. It's what their peers have done.
I said, what can be more fair than that?

Speaker 3 And he said, well,

Speaker 3 these guys, you never hired them on a scorecard. And now all of a sudden they feel like they're being monitored all the time.
And I said, doesn't that happen a lot though?

Speaker 3 You bring somebody in with certain expectations. Two years later, it's a different company and you expect them to do the same.
Have you ever dealt with that? Totally.

Speaker 1 Right. And again, that is a great example.

Speaker 1 And you'll have to do this through your leadership because you can't do this with each individual rep but that's a great example of people are there's no common ground established you've told us we have to have kpis we now have them and we're pissed so we're not going to let those kpis work so

Speaker 1 and it's a matter of like hey i want kpis because i want better performance and roi and you probably like want better pay i would imagine or you want better balance or you want more control or autonomy or whatever it is you want.

Speaker 1 But how do we get to a place where I've listened to how you're feeling about this? then had my chance to explain like where we're coming at and not go to problem solving mode.

Speaker 1 Don't come up with a solution right away. Try and see where both parties would benefit and then focus on that as the baseline.

Speaker 3 Hey, I hope you're enjoying this conversation. I just wanted to let you know that we have a special offer from Breakthrough Academy for you today.

Speaker 3 So stick with us till the end and I'll reveal how you can take advantage of it. But if you're in a rush, just go to.

Speaker 3 btacademy.com forward slash home service expert and check out our exclusive offer that we put together for our listeners today. Okay, now let's get back and continue our chat with Danny.

Speaker 3 You know, a lot of times people they don't recruit. I look at my top guys, and when I talk to them, they're like, oh, yeah, I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Speaker 3 And all of a sudden, it dawned on me a couple of months ago. I'm like, the reason they don't recruit is they never gave them a process and a system, an attribution, and trained them.

Speaker 3 We've trained them exactly an eight-step process on how to make a client super happy and also close the deal for a very generous ticket.

Speaker 3 So I'm like, this has all been my fault. I haven't created an LMS and showed them exactly how to do it, exactly where to go, how to do it.
I can't say, here, build me a house.

Speaker 3 It just doesn't work. And one of the notes I just put down here is they don't know how to do it.

Speaker 3 And so one of the things that I, when I'm talking to my installers, and unfortunately, I don't meet them as much as I do my techs, but I said, guys, we're taking off an old strut on the top of a garage door.

Speaker 3 Most of the time, they're in great shape. We charge around $200 a strut installed.
So why not say, listen, this is a great strut. I'm going to clean it up.
I'm going to put fresh screws in.

Speaker 3 I'm also going to give you an operator reinforcement bracket. Normally, this will cost about $290.

Speaker 3 I'll tell you what, what I could do is I'll cover the labor, everything will do it for $129.

Speaker 3 If they did that on every job, they would get it. And that would add literally $100 profit to every job.
Now, they're doing two a day. five days a week.
That's an extra $1,000.

Speaker 3 They're exceeding their goals and they don't have to feel like they're doing anything.

Speaker 3 they're like i hate doing sales and i'm like do you think you're making the door stronger do you think you're taking care of the customer do you think this makes sense to the client but what i've learned too is sometimes we got to make it their idea and if it's their idea they tend to want to do it so you got to have an open discussion this is a tough topic because i feel like there's so much that gets in the way that's why anytime i could use and this sounds really bad but anytime i could use a system like auto batching service time does auto batching i don't need a human being to do it It's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 3 I don't have to deal with these emotions.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we talk a lot about automation and things, and it's exciting and it's cool. It's the new thing, I guess, in the last 10, 15 years.
But it is, the human element is very important, right?

Speaker 1 This is arguably the more important part of our industry for a long time still to come.

Speaker 1 You know, that whole story with Elon Musk opening up the, I think it was the Giga Factory or one of the factories he opened up. And they just, it was the Tesla Model 3.

Speaker 1 I think that factory was a complete mess because they over automated everything and they had to to bring people back in to be able to make it work did you hear much about that yeah a couple years ago similar to you like i am very curious about how do you create process and automation at scale and and build something out so that it works but the human element is something you just we're not at a place yet in society that we are ready to get away from that and i don't think we should i think there's just parts of what a human brings to the equation that's it's hard to measure What are the thing that you were just mentioning about was just some of the people, they don't know what they don't know.

Speaker 1 Do you want to talk much about that? Or?

Speaker 3 Well, I think it's an interesting topic because you know, you and I could say something to each other and say, dude, do me a favor, draw some ideas on the next podcast.

Speaker 3 And I don't need to check your work. I think we're on the same wavelength on a lot of things.
We've proven that.

Speaker 3 But when someone walks in here and I'm like, hey, do me a favor, come up with some agenda for the next meeting. And then I go to the meeting and I'm like,

Speaker 3 what's this crap?

Speaker 3 We need to be a lot more clear and a lot more on our expectations and the proper delegation the things that we should expect

Speaker 3 sometimes i think and i'm sure you've been in this way like people sometimes walk in and i'm like

Speaker 3 what don't you understand it's pretty simple you want me to spell it out for you why don't i just do it for you and it's not the right way to go about things and i'm not very patient but at the same time i'm very patient so it depends on what's going on with it But what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 A lot of times we do this. We're like, it's not that hard.

Speaker 1 You had a flat tire, changed the tire you know yep what you're describing actually i am finding increasingly more challenging as i'm advancing in my life and career because the more that we do in our lives the stuff we do on auto mode just our brain just does it for us now like we forgot how to even like teach someone how to do that because we forgot the learning process

Speaker 1 and so now there's just this assumption of like well I get it. So why don't you get it? And it's, it doesn't work like that, right?

Speaker 1 At some level, there was a 15-year-old Tommy that had to learn about what people want to listen to when you're doing your first sale or whatever that is, right? How to drive. How to drive.

Speaker 3 Because I drive now, it's unconscious. I stop at the stoplights.
I put my blinker on. It's pretty simple.
I don't actually go, all right, Tommy, apply the brakes, apply your brinker, merge in.

Speaker 3 It's like automated. And if I had to sit down, and I will have to do this, well, maybe depending on cars and age.

Speaker 3 But if I had to sit down, I'd be like, now stick shift, I can understand that a little bit because you're working two feet.

Speaker 3 And I guess when I got in a golf cart, I knew exactly what I was doing. At least I pretend I think I did.
But that's the best example, right?

Speaker 3 You don't really think you're not like blinker, review mirror, check before you, you know, it's like commonality. It's just common now, right?

Speaker 1 It's a great example, right? And so you've got it to your place where someone can just tell you to drive somewhere. They can delegate to you and you can go do the job, right?

Speaker 1 But there is a similar timeframe actually as I took this conflict resolution course. This is 15 years ago, but I took it in situational leadership.

Speaker 1 And that whole concept just allowed me to be a lot more intentional with the people and the things that I was doing with those people to increase skill.

Speaker 1 So if I'm on the equation of like, it's not commitment, it's actually skill.

Speaker 1 That then I get into this little matrix. So you can Google this.
It's pretty simple to find. It's all over the internet.
Situational leadership. There's four quadrants of situational leadership.

Speaker 1 And it just, it helps,

Speaker 1 I guess, like hold you accountable to actually do the right type of leadership or the right type of training, given the type of person you're working with or the type of skill they're, stage they're at in their skill.

Speaker 1 And so I think I've watched a lot of even our members where we work a lot on SOPs and checklists and competency models.

Speaker 1 You know, they build out all this awesome stuff and they'll even go as far as to like implement with their team and spend like a week going through everything and like show them to the nth degree how everything is done.

Speaker 1 And then they kind of feel like their job is done. They're like, okay,

Speaker 1 now go do it. Got to go.

Speaker 1 but when you look at this model you realize like that's literally just the first step of four

Speaker 1 and if you're not aware of that it's very easy to go high direction straight to delegation and then be really angry that people weren't paying attention right

Speaker 1 so that's what a lot of people do i'm guilty of it too i think a lot of us do what this model kind of shows is essentially you go from high direction which is the one i just described to more of like a coaching model

Speaker 3 where

Speaker 1 if what you're essentially doing with somebody is you're increasing over time their competency in something, their ability to do something, and their confidence in that thing.

Speaker 1 And by coaching them and not just delegating right away, what you're doing is you're bringing up their confidence. You're saying, hey, I'm still going to provide direction.

Speaker 1 I'm still going to teach you how to do things, but I'm going to let you know a little bit more about why the things are happening the way they're happening.

Speaker 1 So you can understand the why behind the actions and start to, for yourself, start to make more critical decisions based on what the situation is versus just remember exactly what to do on a checklist and so the coaching stage for a lot of people is missed because it takes a lot of work it takes time and it takes intentionality to slow down the day for a second and explain why something is going on besides just do it this way or not

Speaker 3 i think the uh what you're talking about is You give a man a fish, you feed him for tonight, you teach the man to fish.

Speaker 3 If you teach him the problem-solving skills of how you came up with the process, I think it's really hard not to just do it.

Speaker 3 Sometimes, when I sit down with somebody, I'm like, Let's work on a pace structure that returns for you, and it really helps them. It's a win-win, and it's really hard.

Speaker 3 Once you do a lot of these, it becomes easier and easier to build a win-win. And you start to graph it out, and there's a way to do it.

Speaker 3 So, I'm doing my orientation to the, we've got like 40 guys in this new class,

Speaker 3 and I always tell them, I'm like, my grandma used to be amazing cook and amazing cook and she'd teach me how to put the flour on the dough and we'd row it out we'd make these pies and she taught me the first time i remember she showed me the next time she helped me over time she'd just leave me to do it but she'd keep an eye on me i mean i was a kid but overall that's kind of what we've got to do is the first time i'm going to help i'm going to show you exactly what needs to be done second time i'm going to help you we're going to do it together the third time i expect you to do it with some supervision and then you're going to it's going to be second nature to you yep and the problem is we tend to dump i always tell people what does your onboarding look like hey come on in here you're going to be riding with this guy for the next three weeks then you're on your own forever good luck

Speaker 3 how much should we be investing in our employees on a regular basis how much should we be putting back into training and contest and gamification

Speaker 1 i think it's one of the easiest ways to gain an roi out of your current existing team like i said instead of going to recruit more and more people and just setting the standard and that's the standard.

Speaker 1 I mean, I've got, you know, my sales team right now, yeah, Dave Coughlin, he does a lot of our calls. He does 200 calls, 300 calls a week, at least.

Speaker 1 He has these initial conversations with people and he's gotten pretty good at it. And we've gotten to a place where we kind of know what he hits every week and he's doing his thing.

Speaker 1 One of the other people that work with him very closely is like, hey, I think it would be good, not only for Dave, but for all of us to go and like just do BTA courses.

Speaker 1 Can we just like be a part of the actual classes that the members are a part of? And so we put Dave into Blueprint just recently. He literally like two hours ago before this meeting just texted me.

Speaker 1 He said, I just brought in a $17 million a year company that wants to chat with us that I never would have had the confidence to talk to.

Speaker 1 But I asked him really good questions because I picked them up on the course that we were just, we just went through. And I was like, man, Dave's been with us for like three or four years.

Speaker 1 He's masters of craft as far as like his goals and he's hitting and executing it really well. But there's room for growth.
There's always room for growth.

Speaker 1 And I think it's easy to forget that, especially when people hit the median or hit the norm.

Speaker 3 I think it's amazing.

Speaker 3 And the fact is, when people feel involved, I talked to a guy I haven't talked to in quite a while in Detroit, and I get a couple of guys to come on to my meetings and we pre-record it, we play it because we're in three or four time zones.

Speaker 3 So it screwed up when all of us needed to meet at once. We'd have really horrible Thursdays because the East Coast didn't get started till noon.
So

Speaker 3 when I sit down, it's so weird. There's about a dozen guys that I know.
If I call and I'm like, dude, how you been? You're kicking ass, man. I've been keeping an eye on you.

Speaker 3 They will go have a record day the next day.

Speaker 3 Isn't that the weirdest thing? It's like, I always tell people: when you own a business, you become a father. And if you're a woman, you become a mother.

Speaker 3 They need to hear from dad every once in a while. They need to know that they're doing okay.

Speaker 3 And it's really hard when there's 500 people. And I can't imagine a Jack Welch with, you know, tens of thousands of people.

Speaker 3 And that's where those secondary leaders and these levels of the order chart are supposed to come in, but it's not the same, is it?

Speaker 1 It depends. I mean, I was for the long time with College Pro Painters, I was in charge of all these, these franchisees.
These franchisees were in charge of all these painters.

Speaker 1 I had a VP that was in charge of me. They had a president.

Speaker 1 If you structure your leadership well and you give them a sense of ownership of what they're doing, I mean, people can and will create their own environment of people, right?

Speaker 1 And some happy environments, some not so happy environments.

Speaker 1 Some people, exactly what you're describing, like they can sense it and they're just kind of like, hey, I need to have a conflict with this person. Okay, we need to have a cool team event.

Speaker 1 and yeah at some level you're right like you as the entrepreneur will always

Speaker 1 i guess feel like you can make the biggest impact but i don't know i've seen over time through really good layers of management and just development of people where you're like the feeling is this is yours like good decentralized command people will eventually figure it out for themselves i'll tell you actually one very interesting thing i i noticed and i'm going back to college for a lot here my first couple years with them i had all these franchisees i would always coach them we'd spend all summer together.

Speaker 1 We'd like rip through a year. They're all, it went from like never running their own business to like having a full business all year and never, you know, they learned a lot.

Speaker 1 They learned a lot about personal responsibility and the fact that it's all up to them and no one's going to save them. And they made it happen.

Speaker 1 Then a lot of them would go back to university the next year. So September hits, they all go back to school.
I needed some of them to help me recruit next year's franchisees.

Speaker 1 So I was like, do you want to? you're on campus already. Do you want to come do some recruiting with me?

Speaker 1 And I'll pay you more like an employee now, but I'll basically pay you to help me find more students.

Speaker 1 It was amazing watching these very independently minded people who just like rocked their own teams, did all this stuff that I had never knew about just to keep their teams motivated, suddenly become employees again.

Speaker 1 And suddenly just like their problem-solving brain turned off.

Speaker 1 And I knew they had the capacity because they just finished an awesome summer with me, but they were just like, well, no, like you just, you're paying me hourly to do my job now.

Speaker 1 Often it can be the environment you're setting up for your people that creates that level of autonomy and really good strategic leadership that can transcend just you.

Speaker 3 You know, I got a partner in a different business and he's like, I just want to hire people and let them do what they need to do. They'll get it done if you trust people.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, I'm more like military and I'm not a military. I've never been in the military, but I'm like, no, step one through five, you need a seven steps of delegation.

Speaker 3 You need to make sure this is the eight step sales process that works every time. And you need an SOP, a checklist, a manual, a formula for winning.

Speaker 3 When I played sports, man, we had drills that we practiced every day.

Speaker 3 We had plays that we ran, and we needed to run them perfect if we planned it on trusting each other to actually catch the ball or run the running back play.

Speaker 3 So, you know, when I see people, they're just like, leave it to the people. I'm like, that works great at

Speaker 3 a software company. And there's accountability and there's KPIs.
But I'm like,

Speaker 3 I think we're on opposite sides of the spectrum. Do I not trust people? No, that's not the case because I obviously do.
But to say, listen, guys, make it your own. Here's some tips.

Speaker 3 Go out there and and do it.

Speaker 1 All you're talking about is yours and his preferred management styles.

Speaker 1 So you like an environment where there's lots of structure, probably even for your own brain, because you're probably ADD and you want structure around you so that you can rely on the next step to just come without you having to like mess it all up.

Speaker 1 You probably really like that. He might not.
He might have found a lot of success by having a lot of freedom in his life and being able to just kind of do his own thing. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Like I'm just making a story up right now. What I'm saying is you and him have your own preferred leadership structures that work well for you.

Speaker 1 This whole situational leadership thing, that's one of the first things they, I remember they told us, they're just like, look, like you have your own story of what works and you're not even wrong.

Speaker 1 It's just one of the four, though. And if you can learn to adopt all four and be more strategic about who you're applying that leadership style to, then you can be a way more effective leader.

Speaker 1 So like when we talked about high direction, that's kind of like your world. You know, coaching is kind of like the next stage up where you're involving them in the process and why things happen.

Speaker 1 The next logical stage actually is what's called supporting, where what usually happens with people is if you do a good job giving them high direction, you even go as far as to coach them and involve them in the why,

Speaker 1 they're kind of dependent on you. They don't want to make a decision without you.

Speaker 1 They're kind of like, well, you kind of provided all the answers up till now, and you got to kind of shake them loose of that a bit.

Speaker 1 And do you ever have this where you have people come into you and they like ask you a question that you know they have the answer to? And instead of answering it, you reverse it on them.

Speaker 1 You say, What would you do?

Speaker 1 And suddenly they come up with an even better answer than you were even going to give them. And you're just like, exactly.

Speaker 1 And they take off and you're like, that felt like a really good leadership move. That's supporting.

Speaker 3 Well, I guess what I'm asking for is there's certain roles

Speaker 3 you want input. And I get that.

Speaker 3 But when you're trying to create cohesion, you know, I've said this a million times, but McDonald's put in a system where you got to put in the last footage to your social and the soap would come out.

Speaker 3 That way they knew they were washing their hands every hour on the hour. They wanted a system.
They built a process.

Speaker 3 You get an expected result to say, Danny, I know you're going to be completely different. Now, I was just on another call with Eric Parks, and Eric Parks is outgoing, he's funny, he's loud.

Speaker 3 I've got another guy named Mario who's quiet, introverted, but they both neck and neck every week. Different styles, but they still follow the same eight-step process.

Speaker 3 I'm not like, change who you are completely, try to be outgoing. I don't say that.
I say to the new people, I say, listen, guys, we got to find a style that fits you. But

Speaker 3 the thing is the process is the same. And what does every single guy say?

Speaker 3 Every single week is I follow the process, the process works. Now,

Speaker 3 can you get good results without following the process? Yes, I'm sure you can.

Speaker 3 But to go in and say, I'm going to treat every single thing and every employee and every interview is going to be way different.

Speaker 3 I'll tell you what, Danny, the next guy that walks in, I'm going to do something opposite of the last one. How could I compare the two? You know, I just read this book about recruiting.

Speaker 3 Oh, man, it's, I forget the name of it. It's an amazing book.

Speaker 3 Rockstar recruiting. And she says, you've got to have for the exact same positions, the exact same style, exact same question.
Otherwise, you can't compare.

Speaker 3 How are you supposed to compare completely different questions? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 What I'm describing to you is an approach. So think about it this way.
The process stays the same.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 1 Everything stays the exact same.

Speaker 1 What type of approach does does this person need to internalize that for themselves? Do they need a high direction approach? Do they need a bit more coaching?

Speaker 1 Do they need you just to support them and listen and be a sounding board? Or do they literally need you to shut the hell up and just delegate to them so they can go get shit done?

Speaker 1 What kind of approach does what person need for what skills they're in charge of? You can't do that for all of your team.

Speaker 1 It's physically impossible, but you could probably do that for your top 15 managers or 10 managers that you're directly in charge of and then teach them the same thing.

Speaker 1 So then they can go do that for their 15 reports. And suddenly you've got a much more effective group of people who are saying, look, we're all due in the process.
The process doesn't change.

Speaker 1 But my approach with John was that I was trying to be a micromanager with him and tell him exactly how to do everything to the T and check every single box. He gets it.
He needs me to like.

Speaker 3 lay off a little bit give him a bit of space because jimmy who just started last week needs that john's been around for four years that's all i'm talking about yeah so there's one thing that i find really really hard to emulate and that's passion in 2017 i think i wrote my first forbes article and it was passion

Speaker 3 and i listened to certain people on their morning calls and i'm like

Speaker 3 oh

Speaker 3 what the hell this is so boring they're trying but there's like come on guys we know we could do better than this guys We could try. We could beat every, we're so good.
I'm like, come on, guys.

Speaker 3 We're really, really good at this. Listen, I know each and every one of you has a reason why you wake up.
And today's going to be, there's just a difference.

Speaker 3 And have you ever noticed the charisma, the passion? And I'm not saying you can't learn it, but it's something innate. There's a brain frequency that's causing that.
Don't you agree?

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I mean, I'll even say I have passionate moments and then non-I've had passionate conversations with you and non-passionate conversations with you, right?

Speaker 3 Well, I would say that there's not a passionate person.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but for the most part, what I'm talking about is does a person have the ability to excite not a crowd, but a person or many individuals at once.

Speaker 1 Yeah. A, it's something we would interview on with somebody.
It's just like leadership.

Speaker 1 And also when I look at like core values, like, do they have some of those pride in what you do, whatever it would be? Beyond that, a lot of what you're even talking about is just placement of people.

Speaker 1 Again, I look internally at Breakthrough Academy right now and I look at certain people where we've got a couple coaches, actually, I'll say. So we've got a couple of coaches who are great coaches.

Speaker 1 They're so good at what they do. And they've been at this with us for years now.
And we're finally getting to a place where we're like, hey, like you can take on the blueprint program.

Speaker 1 You can take on the new future program where we're about to go build. And I'm watching them who are very capable people, have great retention.
Their numbers have always been great.

Speaker 1 I'm watching them like light up. They're passionate again.
We enlighten something inside of them because we placed them in an environment where they felt alive again.

Speaker 1 And I think, you know, a part of it is interviewing, getting the right fit and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 Another part of it is where should this person be placed to naturally be in their power zone every single day?

Speaker 3 I think you're right. I think we all need change.

Speaker 3 You know, if I had to bake the same cookies every day at the same bakery without anything changing, owner, manager, employee, whatever it might be, I think change is good and molding into the new structure.

Speaker 3 One of the things that's really cool that Julian does at Nexstar is on his board, his mission changes each year. The vision stays the same, but the mission, I think it went from like 13% to 16%.

Speaker 3 Last I was out there in Minnesota a year ago. And so the average they want profitability per company.
And I think it's kind of cool when you're able to morph and change slowly and have that concept.

Speaker 3 Is there a step-by-step process on building a talent pool for a company? And how do companies ensure that they're building a talent pool with only high-quality candidates?

Speaker 1 I mean, that's what we do. I don't know.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 This logo right here. I mean, that's what we do, right? It's a lot of work.
It's not just a book that could be read, although it could be read and understood.

Speaker 1 The application of it and it's what you've been pursuing for years as you've been building your organization, right? But it's documenting that in such a way where,

Speaker 1 I mean, this is what we do, right? It's getting the KPIs designed to inject into the organizational structure, to build a natural accountability around numbers and tasks that people do every day.

Speaker 1 It's being able to recruit intentionally people that fit those seats really well where they're in their power zone.

Speaker 1 And then it's being able to build standardized processes that get injected to the human mind over time that creates professionals. And it's just driving that over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 And that was what I was taught when I was 18 years old, running a painting company with college pro painters. It's what I learned working as a GM and a VP with them.

Speaker 1 It's what corporate America has, I think, done a great job of in some examples and really screwed up up in others.

Speaker 1 But I think it's, you know, there's something I wrote on my board about a month ago, which I think we're trying to figure out how to do.

Speaker 1 And I think we're doing a pretty good job of it, which is like, how do we bring the competitive advantage back to the small business or back to small business?

Speaker 1 And when I think about that, it's being able to do a really good job of developing, recruit, train, and operate developing people.

Speaker 1 And it's really, you do a lot better of a job of it in small business versus large huge organizations because you have that personal touch

Speaker 3 yeah i mean that was the next question is how does breakthrough academy help entrepreneurs build leaders other people and are there some programs and features that the company offers that's what we're doing yeah we're doing very easy

Speaker 3 you know here's the deal so many people said you're never going to get to where you want to be unless you figure out a way to build leaders and you're not going to get them all from the industry you're not even going to get them all from home service you can't just go to every manager, whether they're painter, roof or HI Plumbing, electrical.

Speaker 3 You can't just go recruit all their leaders. You need a way to build leaders.

Speaker 3 And there's communication skills. There's the power to motivate.
There's, I just, the give a F

Speaker 3 mentality. Like you just got to give an F.
And a lot of people, they just don't. They're just like, it's a job.
And the hiring that you do, I've seen A players automatically become C players.

Speaker 3 And I've seen C players jump up to A players. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but A players are not A players everywhere you put them.
They leave it pretty quickly. They don't want to be there.

Speaker 3 They'll find something new. And, you know, everybody's like, if you didn't have garage doors, do you think you'd be where you'd be? I'm like, you throw me in NASA.

Speaker 3 You could put me in the middle of a landscape company. You could put me as a bar owner.
I'm going to go out there and I'm going to hustle. I'm going to figure out a way.

Speaker 3 The things I learned over the last five years is systems that allow me to to not be here and the company to keep going.

Speaker 3 And I think that's the difference is I've always known how to make a lot of money. Since I was 18, I can make a lot of money.

Speaker 3 So what do you think it is about Breakthrough Academy? I mean, I know I've heard amazing things. I really have.
I know for a fact

Speaker 3 that you guys do amazing things. You guys have so many great programs.
And I've seen people, they're like, I'm working on this this week. I'm working on this this month.
I'm working on this.

Speaker 3 I think it's fascinating what you guys have done. And it continues to get better.
But what is it that a lot of the guys that are missing that when they come to Breakthrough Academy, they find it?

Speaker 1 I think it's, it's, we're talking a lot about structure, but it's actually like structure that's implementable and versus just a pipe dream. These are the hard things that need to get done.

Speaker 1 And instead of us just telling you how to do it and hoping you figure it out, we built the templates.

Speaker 1 Instead of us just building the templates and telling you how to do it, we work with you one-on-one.

Speaker 1 Instead of us just waiting for you to figure it out while we do our one-on-one meetings, we get you to meet with other members that are just figured it out and can show you exactly exactly what they just did.

Speaker 1 It's like all the things that hold most of our members back, which are usually the very creative minds. I call them ADD, dyslexic entrepreneurs.
They're not all that way, but a lot of them are.

Speaker 1 We've kind of figured out and we're kind of like, look, like there is a way to get these things into a business working actively every single day. And there's a way to do it pretty effectively.

Speaker 1 It's taken us seven years and we're continuing to find out more effective ways to do it, but we've committed to that, to that process.

Speaker 1 And I think it takes takes more than somebody who runs a training company, who knows a lot of these things, to be able to do this to the level we're doing it.

Speaker 1 You know, there's almost 40 people that work for our organization now, people who are of like massive project engineering experience.

Speaker 1 Like we've recruited some very interesting brains to figure out what is the most effective way to install a management system into a company that is usually run by a very busy, very creative, very driven, passionate person that can't seem to do it themselves.

Speaker 1 I think we've become the best in North America at that when it comes to trades and home services. And we will continue to work on that as we go.
But that's my answer for today.

Speaker 1 No, it's great.

Speaker 3 This is always fun, man. I always go through the same questions, but I've learned not to ask you which books you've read.
Which book I read?

Speaker 1 I did read a book recently.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 1 I audio booked a book,

Speaker 1 Hero on a Mission, and I'm working on the worksheets.

Speaker 3 Hero on a Mission. Tell me about it.

Speaker 1 It's essentially about the narrative that we give ourselves over time and how that influences our behavior. So, you know, are we the hero? Are we the victim? Are we the guide? I think we're the three.

Speaker 1 There might be one other one. Then how that basically plays out to create your future, that it creates your reality.

Speaker 1 And there's an exercise in it that I'm working on right now where you actually literally start. It's kind of a weird process you start with, but I'm writing my eulogy.

Speaker 1 So I've written my eulogy when I'm dead, followed by your 10-year vision, five-year vision, one-year vision, then it works itself down from there.

Speaker 1 It gets you to just become a little bit more aware of what energy you're putting out there, what kind of way of being you are.

Speaker 1 There's the victim mentality, the hero mentality, the guide mentality. And yeah, I've got my own little coach I'm working with.
So there's lots of things that I'm looking to improve over time.

Speaker 1 And that was the first thing he mandated me to do. So he's like, you're gonna, you're gonna audio book this, you're gonna read this, I don't care, but we're gonna do it.

Speaker 1 And uh, and I did, it was good, and it uh really good.

Speaker 3 And the uh

Speaker 3 something

Speaker 3 seven habits of highly successful people, he talks a lot about when everybody walks in

Speaker 3 and he kind of builds a setting when they walk in and it's a dark room, but what's everybody going to say there?

Speaker 3 And I hope mine's not a dark room. I hope mine's a lit up room and it's a sunny day and it's somewhere near water.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's an interesting thought. And you start to become,

Speaker 3 you know, the brain is a crazy thing.

Speaker 3 And this is why I have these affirmations here is when you work hard and you start to believe and you you let your brain start to really digest the thoughts you have and you can think cognitively in a deep state, you start to manifest who you become.

Speaker 3 And it could be a better father or mother. It could be a great son or daughter.
It could be a great business owner. It could be a great leader.
And it goes on.

Speaker 3 You know, there's people that are competitive at games, people that are competitive at business, and there are people that are competitive at life.

Speaker 3 You know, I'm not like, I want to be the best dog owner, but I definitely want to be a great dog owner. I don't know who the best dog owner is.
I just know walking my dog, beating him, taking plane.

Speaker 3 My dog expects me to play with him at least 30 minutes a night and he expects two 30-minute walks. I'm not the best dad because I'm always out of town.

Speaker 3 But, you know, I'd like to finish it up, though, Danny. You're amazing.
I always love this time with you. Why don't you close us out and give us something to kind of think about and implement?

Speaker 1 Well, we talked a lot about training today.

Speaker 1 I would say here's just like a very practical thing to do right look at your team look at your whole company and look at all the people you work with and

Speaker 1 whoever this person is it's somebody who probably has the most potential in your organization that there's just something wrong

Speaker 1 and follow a little bit we talked about today is a skill so start out like is it skill or is it commitment which one is it if it's commitment

Speaker 1 We'll give a link for this, but there's some downloads you can take on how to do a proper conflict.

Speaker 1 Go through a conflict model with with them see if you can correct a little bit with them if it's skill there's another download you'll get with with all this but it's like go through the situational leadership model and see if you can pinpoint hey it's because i'm being too delegative maybe i should be more supportive like identify what style would work best for that specific individual and see if it moves the needle and if it does hopefully that's enough kind of reinforcement to say maybe i'll do this a couple more times And to give this talk a little bit of weight, it's like, hopefully that brings some ROI without having to recruit another body.

Speaker 1 And just look at your team. Is it skill or commitment? Depending on which one it is, take a bit of intentional action in those areas.

Speaker 3 I love it. You heard it here on the Home Service Expert.
Ladies and gentlemen, Danny Kerr. Danny, it's always a pleasure.
Enjoy your vacation to Dinosaur Island.

Speaker 3 I appreciate you, brother.

Speaker 1 Thank you, man.

Speaker 3 Hey, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast with Danny Kerr. A lot of people always ask me if I could coach them or provide them training to grow their business.

Speaker 3 The fact is, you guys probably know this, but I'm really, really busy with A1 Browser Service, making it the biggest and largest home service company in the country.

Speaker 3 But I got to tell you, when I discovered what Danny Kerr was doing with Breakthrough Academy, I realized that this would be a perfect program that I'm proud to vouch for.

Speaker 3 What I truly love about their program is they combine the done-for-you systems with coaching and accountability to make sure you make huge progress fast in your business.

Speaker 3 So if you're making a million dollars or more and you want to build a solid structure for your business to generate more profits and grow, check out the link btacademy.com forward slash home service expert to learn more about the Breakthrough Academy.

Speaker 3 You're going to thank me for it.