The Void #13 – Profit Vs. Service, Hiring for Heart, Handling Bad Reviews – Mar 13, 2022
In this episode, Marcus asks Mitch and David random questions from a mile long list of show topics we’ve put together. They all seem to center around the idea that building great culture makes your business so much smoother. If this show raised questions you’d like us to answer, please feel free to email them to [email protected] Thanks for listening and thanks for sharing! Enjoy the show!
00:00
[Music]
00:04
hey everybody and welcome to the void a
00:06
show dedicated to filling the void
00:07
between being an employee and becoming
00:09
self-employed
00:11
most people refer to starting your own
00:13
company as taking the leap as if you’re
00:15
blindly jumping off a cliff and into the
00:17
unknown this show is here to help you
00:19
understand that it doesn’t have to be
00:21
that way throughout the course of this
00:23
show i’ll share with you the process i
00:25
used to start our company so you too can
00:28
be on your way to starting your very own
00:30
company and fulfilling your own true
00:33
potential
00:34
as always i’m your host mitch smedley
00:36
and with me is david hilton mitch what’s
00:39
up buddy hey man
00:40
i had a question
00:42
sent to me the other day on facebook
00:44
yeah what is with your really weird
00:48
girly bracelets that i’m wearing i got
00:50
them on again today my daughter made me
00:52
these okay
00:53
so i wear them with pride yeah so that’s
00:56
the answer to that question for the
00:58
actually it’s been like four or five
00:59
people that have said it’s a little
01:00
gerard butler stuff going on and law
01:02
abiding citizen that’s what that is yeah
01:04
i mean it’s not intentional she makes
01:06
them yeah i told her i said one day i’m
01:08
gonna you know sell those on the show
01:10
for and like you guys are selling those
01:12
donate the money to cheers don’t even
01:13
act like you’re gonna donate the money
01:15
to charity or something someday not
01:16
these but like one she made you you
01:18
white marcus back there he’s got a
01:20
daughter that’s about at the bracelet
01:22
making stage that’s a good idea i might
01:24
pass it on to her you know what’s in my
01:25
hallway
01:26
rubber bands millions and millions of
01:28
colored
01:29
everywhere man really yeah just
01:30
everywhere
01:32
she just she’s got this whole case you
01:33
know and she’s just she enjoys it too oh
01:35
she loves it man she tells me if i
01:37
forget him she’s like hey dad where’s
01:39
your bracelets yeah like oh they’re on
01:40
my scene i’ll go get them better go get
01:42
them i wear them with pride sometimes i
01:43
forget so i still got lego creations
01:46
that my kids have created in our bedroom
01:48
and i’ve got like their drawings from
01:49
four or five years ago still taped on
01:51
the wall oh yeah so dude our fridge
01:53
janine keeps a whole file that’s just
01:54
her drawings deceives him it gets like
01:57
there’s a lot of three-year-old it gets
01:59
hectic man oh you can’t keep it all like
02:01
that yeah yeah you can’t keep it off you
02:02
can’t you can get overloaded you got to
02:04
get rid of some stuff but yeah anyways
02:06
that’s that’s the bracelet all right
02:08
guys so we’ve got a new flavor of show
02:11
for you today um it’s kind of an
02:13
off-the-cuff thing a little bit
02:14
basically
02:16
we
02:17
when we started coming up with this show
02:19
we started coming up with a bunch of
02:20
rando like show topic ideas or things we
02:23
could discuss or whatever and we put
02:25
them all on this big giant list
02:27
so what we’re going to do today is
02:29
we are going to have marcus
02:32
surprise dave and i with a couple of
02:36
random things off the list like dave and
02:38
i know what kind of topics are on the
02:40
list but we’ve never they don’t know
02:41
which one it is well we don’t know which
02:42
one you’re going to talk about and or
02:44
which one you’re going to ask us about
02:45
and we’ve never really fleshed out these
02:48
topics or anything it’s literally like
02:50
oh we should do a show on this or we
02:52
should
02:52
try this one and first off
02:55
some late night drinking sometimes i’ll
02:57
get on there like and i’ll just oh yeah
02:59
i’ll just oh wait and i’ll type it on
03:01
there
03:02
so we have i’m not 100 sure any of them
03:04
are good this list is on a shared google
03:06
drive between the three of us so what
03:08
they all are we’ve added to this list at
03:10
any guarantee i guarantee there are some
03:13
that are completely ridiculous right now
03:15
i’m not trying to set anything up i just
03:17
i mean there’s no freaking telling
03:19
there’s some good ideas that come in at
03:20
about midnight after a couple of drinks
03:22
they’re not good i see somebody
03:24
there’s some okay ones and then there’s
03:26
some pretty good ones there’s some
03:27
pretty [ __ ] ones marcus is on some
03:29
pretty good okay so marcus all right
03:30
let’s hold on real quick as as always
03:33
everything that we talk about on this
03:35
show is going to is going to tie back to
03:37
our six core adversities that you’ll
03:39
need to overcome if you want to start a
03:41
successful company so we’ll go over them
03:43
now you go over you want me to go over
03:45
this time hey you you told me we were
03:46
doing an improv show i always do
03:49
all right so
03:50
the this is sick but then reverse it
03:54
yes
03:57
first off i love mary j blige yeah i
03:59
think she’s great so
04:01
that was missy elliott
04:03
no
04:04
that happened is it that am i messed up
04:06
what did i say
04:07
oh yeah i think i did i’m not gonna act
04:09
like i know who sings it i think he’s
04:10
right
04:12
yeah he’s right so
04:14
our core adversities we got six of them
04:16
they’re broken and i could have did the
04:18
same thing nowhere yeah i don’t dude i
04:20
messed stuff up like that we’re still on
04:22
all right you guys
04:23
go ahead go ahead okay all right all
04:24
right
04:25
so we got our core adversities broken
04:27
into two steps
04:28
uh or two sections you’ve got the
04:30
preparation adversities and then you’ve
04:32
got the beginning adversities and so the
04:33
preparation adversities are adversities
04:36
that you wanna overcome before you start
04:38
your business and then the beginning
04:39
adversities are adversities that you’re
04:41
going to want to overcome very soon
04:43
after you started your business so
04:46
the preparation adversities hour are
04:49
personal finance preparation
04:50
um business finance preparation and
04:53
systems preparation
04:55
the beginning adversities so these are
04:57
soon after you’ve started is going to be
05:00
community involvement work
05:03
and finding ways to get involved in your
05:05
community
05:06
the next one is wake up do work and
05:09
repeat or as the young kids call it
05:11
today hustle and grind
05:14
you know what i hate worse than that
05:16
is when they say adulting oh yeah yeah
05:18
dude it drives me insane i’m adulting
05:20
today no you’re not you’re just
05:22
right be an adult right stop jackassing
05:23
around okay and then the the last one is
05:26
evaluate performance make adjustments
05:28
and improve so um you’re constantly in a
05:32
perpetual state of that that one never
05:34
ever goes away in your business ever so
05:36
um as we’re being surprised with
05:40
whatever topics marcus is going to throw
05:41
at us today
05:43
we’ll probably be able to tie him back
05:45
to some of those adversities so
05:47
we’re going to see what happens we’re
05:48
going to we’re going to find out what
05:49
happens here so marcus topic number one
05:52
throw us some topics
05:54
how to handle bad reviews even when it’s
05:57
not your fault
06:00
do you want to go first or do you want
06:01
me to go for it go ahead all right so
06:03
go ahead let’s see what you got first
06:05
off i gotta stretch before i do this
06:07
when you say
06:08
i
06:09
i think i wrote that
06:11
so
06:13
currently at this moment with
06:15
our company let’s
06:17
we don’t have any bad reviews pride
06:19
cometh before the fall
06:20
right
06:21
it’s going to happen i know it’s going
06:22
to happen what are you doing but
06:25
as of right now record prestige as of
06:27
right now we were the only company in
06:29
the kansas city area with a perfect 5.0
06:32
radio i needed like a soundboard
06:35
yeah
06:36
so
06:37
that that won’t last long i’m i mean
06:40
it’s been 18 or 19 months we’re well
06:42
over 300 i think i’ve said this before
06:44
but if you can see mitch’s head swelling
06:46
on the camera then you know something is
06:49
going wrong but let’s get real here i
06:51
have worked and managed uh departments
06:53
in the past where there were plenty of
06:55
bad reviews coming in and i’m very very
06:57
familiar with how to handle them so did
06:58
you handle them personally or did was
07:00
there a part in someone in the business
07:02
that handled them both uh one of the
07:05
companies had so many upset customers
07:07
calling in that that’s not good and i’m
07:09
not [ __ ] you they literally hired a
07:11
person and paid them an annual salary
07:14
just to handle upset customers okay
07:15
what’d they do i’m interested what did
07:17
they do what was that
07:18
how did they do that so
07:21
let’s go two-fold with this one is let’s
07:23
talk about how they handled it and then
07:25
two let’s talk about how they could have
07:26
prevented that whole thing that’s fine
07:28
so start out how did they do it what was
07:29
the job you would have somebody write a
07:32
very honest review
07:33
and they would uh
07:36
uh
07:37
basically divulge a lot of bad
07:39
information about the company right that
07:40
they were taken advantage of or they
07:42
felt like they were sold something they
07:43
didn’t need or the technician that was
07:45
out there was untrained or whatever and
07:49
half the time the customer may have been
07:51
right okay at this particular company
07:54
well what the company would do is
07:56
privately i am under the assumption that
07:59
every time there’s a bad review not
08:01
every time ninety percent it’s usually
08:03
true
08:04
right right now is the is the customer
08:06
embellishing a little bit to try to grab
08:08
maybe some reaction probably maybe
08:09
sometimes but so what the company would
08:11
do is they would reach out to the
08:12
customer and ask them you know hey i
08:14
understand you did not have a five-star
08:15
experience what can i do to turn your
08:17
experience around or what can i do to
08:19
make your experience a five-star
08:20
experience now you’re saying that was
08:22
whether it was a one star or a four or a
08:24
four
08:30
so anything three and under it popped on
08:32
the radar right and so then they would
08:35
start this
08:36
long process of back and forth and
08:39
ultimately it would result in the
08:40
company refunding the customer a
08:42
substantial amount of money in exchange
08:44
for all
08:46
or more than all
08:48
plus all plus right uh in order to get
08:50
the review removed right so that is not
08:53
the right way to handle it that’s just
08:55
how that company handled it so
08:57
um in our company
09:00
we do everything we can to ensure that
09:02
every customer gets a five-star
09:04
experience well of course and so but it
09:06
would now i understand that no but i’m
09:09
devil’s advocate here if you’ve got 50
09:11
employees it’s impossible
09:13
it can be
09:14
it’s impossible
09:16
it can be it very well can be so what’s
09:18
the right i’m not talking about your
09:19
company what is the right way for a
09:22
company to do that because you brought
09:24
it up that is a big company so the right
09:26
way to do it
09:28
is to not take the adage
09:31
of don’t take this the wrong way
09:33
there’s a lot there’s a lot of companies
09:34
out there that take the adage of oh it’s
09:36
impossible it’s just going to happen and
09:38
it is what it is no no what you got to
09:40
do is you got to do everything you can
09:42
to ensure that your technicians are
09:44
delivering a five-star experience
09:46
and when a five-star experience isn’t
09:49
given and you get that in the form of a
09:52
review take it seriously
09:54
and go on and and investigate it and
09:57
figure it out
09:59
there is some truth to the fact that yes
10:01
you can’t make everybody happy however
10:04
for
10:06
like
10:07
we’re at like 325 reviews right now
10:10
right and again now i’m being real i’m
10:12
not trying to pat myself on the back
10:14
325 never so much as even a four-star
10:18
okay
10:19
and
10:20
if
10:21
a four-star or anything like that comes
10:23
in
10:24
i’m reaching out to them and i’m saying
10:26
hey i understand you didn’t have a
10:28
perfect experience
10:30
what did where did we drop the ball what
10:31
can we do to change i’m not i’m not
10:34
asking i’m not buying their review i’m
10:35
not buying them to remove their review
10:38
i’m seriously looking into where did we
10:40
drop the ball because our process is
10:42
built in a way that a customer gets a
10:45
five-star experience
10:46
and if they don’t
10:48
we need to look into why what can we do
10:50
differently right right so
10:52
um
10:53
at that previous company that i was
10:55
mentioning which is beginning step six
10:59
evaluate performance evaluate
11:00
performance make adjustments and improve
11:02
right yeah so um at that other company
11:05
so don’t take it as it’s always a bad
11:06
thing it may actually be it’s a bad
11:08
thing because you don’t want your
11:09
customers to experience that but it’s a
11:11
it’s a good thing in the fact that
11:13
you have some room to grow or is a
11:16
teaching opportunity for one of your
11:17
employees right right and so at that
11:20
other company they literally set
11:22
budgeted money aside every month for
11:25
customer refunds
11:27
yeah
11:28
and that’s a
11:29
that’s extreme an extreme situation it’s
11:31
so
11:32
it’s it’s very extreme yeah and so like
11:35
so much so that they would get nervous
11:37
if you didn’t hit your budget in that
11:39
department
11:41
yeah they would come to me and they were
11:42
like afraid that you weren’t doing
11:43
you’ve only refunded half the money we
11:45
budgeted for refunds like is is this
11:47
going to cause a shitstorm for us
11:49
uh no maybe we just did a little bit
11:51
better in the customer service
11:52
department right
11:53
so
11:54
um
11:55
there there are companies literally that
11:57
go out there operating under the
11:58
understanding that we’re gonna piss some
11:59
people off and it just is what it is so
12:01
if you had if you had a four star
12:04
right now so you you were getting into
12:06
that you call them personally real you
12:09
would call them personally true life
12:10
story
12:11
two days ago we had a four star show up
12:13
right and it’s from a customer that i
12:15
know absolutely loves us
12:17
absolutely like loves us to death
12:19
accidentally hit it or something well
12:22
i’m like there’s no way there’s no way
12:24
she gave us a four star
12:26
like i know this lady just loves us to
12:29
death so she she communicates to us
12:32
through our business messenger on
12:33
facebook and so i jumped back on our
12:35
business messenger and i said hey i’m
12:37
just following up on her service call
12:38
today did how did everything go and
12:40
she’s oh it’s amazing it’s great just
12:42
just as always you guys did amazing i
12:44
said oh that’s great i’d love to hear it
12:45
and and i’m
12:46
you know glad that i followed up with
12:48
you i noticed that you gave us a
12:51
four-star review on google
12:54
did is that is that real or do we have
12:57
some improvement that we need to make
12:59
and she says no no that’s that’s uh
13:02
that’s wrong that that shouldn’t be
13:04
i meant to hit five stars i must have
13:06
hit the wrong button
13:08
and and then she was like apologetic
13:10
like how do i fix it can i fix it can i
13:11
change it and
13:12
you know before i could even get to like
13:14
tell her how to change it
13:16
she
13:17
says oh i’ve already changed it and and
13:19
she changed it to a five and everything
13:21
so it was just accidental however my
13:23
approach with that would be the same as
13:25
it would with anybody of following up
13:27
checking on your experience and then
13:29
asking
13:31
you know where do we have room to
13:33
improve okay so and i’m going to keep
13:35
pushing you on this because i find it
13:37
very interesting yeah say you get a
13:39
three
13:40
and you call them
13:41
and she says hey your tech um
13:45
this is a just an example
13:47
your tech tracked mud in the house yep
13:50
and didn’t clean it up yep
13:52
what do you say to her well for one
13:54
we’re getting our carpets professionally
13:55
cleaned i like it obviously okay so so
13:58
you your or or say it’s not say you go
14:00
over there and inspect it do you would
14:02
that be something you would say hey can
14:03
i come over and look at it in this day
14:05
and age and if it’s okay with you i’m
14:07
only coming over so that i know whether
14:09
or not to call the carpet guy yeah no no
14:11
like i would
14:12
we so
14:14
in in cases like that
14:17
i’ll be very upfront with the customer
14:18
and be like oh if we got mud in your car
14:20
like mud on your carpets you don’t even
14:22
like act like you’re kind of wondering
14:24
should i send a carpet cleaner or not
14:26
right you just go straight to
14:28
let me call a carpet cleaning company do
14:30
you have one you like or should i call
14:31
one that i know love that answer and
14:34
again you’re not gonna send your guy if
14:35
they have one they’re in love with so um
14:39
and and then you’re gonna
14:40
you’re gonna do everything that you can
14:42
to make it right
14:43
and typically when you do have a
14:45
customer that you that has
14:47
legitimately fallen through the cracks
14:50
and had a less than perfect experience
14:51
and that’s what that’s where i’m going
14:53
with this yeah is i’m pushing you
14:55
because customers do fall through the
14:56
cracks and it’s not because the guys
14:58
aren’t trained yeah sometimes it’s
15:00
unintentional sometimes things happen
15:01
yep one more example
15:03
you’ve pretty much answered that
15:05
let me finish that one so um when you do
15:07
have that customer that falls through
15:08
the cracks and everything else
15:10
it’s not
15:11
this is where people a lot of people go
15:12
wrong is they go in wanting to do the
15:15
minimum that they can to try to achieve
15:16
the result
15:18
but what they don’t understand is if a
15:19
customer felt in a position to give you
15:22
a less than perfect rating that’s a
15:24
customer that wants to be a passionate
15:27
advocate for your business
15:29
they just had they’re honest and they
15:31
had a less than perfect experience so a
15:33
lot of times if you spend a little bit
15:35
of time with that customer and truly
15:36
care about
15:38
you know i don’t want to say throw
15:39
caution to the wind and throw the
15:41
finances out the window but you do what
15:43
it takes to make it right for that
15:44
customer
15:45
they will all of a sudden turn their low
15:47
review into a five-star review and now
15:49
they’re going to be a promoter for your
15:51
company because that’s an advertisement
15:53
right because
15:56
we’re all allowed to make mistakes
15:59
the true judge of a company or a
16:00
person’s character is how they handle
16:02
their mistakes when they made one
16:04
finally so i was waiting for you to give
16:06
that type of answer and i was like i
16:08
didn’t want to push you to it right
16:09
right i knew if i listen i had like
16:11
three more examples i was going to make
16:12
you answer but
16:14
it only took a couple so yeah good i
16:16
like it i like it a lot that’s um that’s
16:18
100
16:20
that’s exactly
16:21
what you said there is exactly what you
16:23
should do right the um and if you do
16:26
that
16:27
if you do that
16:29
you get a customer for life right
16:31
they’ve changed their review
16:33
and you have
16:35
added another aspect of your company
16:38
right to another aspect to your company
16:40
right you know what i mean because
16:41
they’re now that if
16:43
so if someone and a lot of people do
16:45
this before they’ll hire somebody if
16:46
they don’t have word of mouth
16:48
confirmation that you’re good they will
16:50
read your reviews
16:52
well guess where that review is going if
16:53
you have the opportunity to post that
16:54
somewhere right that review is going at
16:56
the top right and that can change
16:58
someone’s mind yeah
16:59
yeah they uh
17:01
um
17:02
the former company that i worked at they
17:04
just like understood that yeah we’re
17:06
gonna get a lot of bad reviews because
17:09
they were like very very profit driven
17:11
and so they would sell customers things
17:13
that they didn’t need and they would
17:15
um
17:16
they would inflate the price of repairs
17:18
if the option to do so was there and and
17:21
all of this stuff and so
17:22
they just understood that yeah some
17:24
people are gonna write us a bad review
17:25
and it just is what it is that’s just
17:27
non-ethical behavior yeah you know what
17:29
i mean if you’re gonna do that right
17:30
right profitable
17:32
not ethical yeah exactly and let me just
17:34
one more part
17:36
so if
17:39
i completely lost what i was going to
17:40
say no um cut them off i know messed me
17:43
up
17:45
i have no idea where i was going with
17:46
that
17:48
real life
17:48
but ultimately
17:50
to summarize that since we kind of went
17:52
over a bunch
17:53
take the review seriously
17:56
call them up
17:57
and
17:58
or i don’t want to say call
18:00
communicate to them on the messaging or
18:02
communication platform that they
18:04
originally came to you on so like the
18:06
one accidental four star that we got
18:09
was on she’s never once we’ve never
18:11
talked to her on the phone
18:12
she messages us for every call and so i
18:15
went back to the messaging platform that
18:16
she was comfortable with and
18:18
communicated to her for that so um but
18:20
then you do whatever it takes to make it
18:22
right we’re plumbers
18:24
if if if a hvac guy makes a mistake then
18:28
somebody’s house is hot when it should
18:30
be cold or it’s cold when it should be
18:32
hot right if an electrician makes a
18:34
mistake a breaker isn’t working or
18:36
light’s not working right in this day
18:38
and age very seldom are electrician’s
18:39
gonna cause house fires today um
18:42
plumbers on the other hand when plumbers
18:44
make mistakes it’s usually a wet mess
18:47
right and so
18:48
um yeah there could be some serious
18:50
money involved there’s some serious
18:51
money because it’s hardwood floor right
18:53
um and so um you you gotta there’s
18:57
there’s guys that’ll be like oh well let
18:58
me let me bring a fan over from the shop
19:00
and drive that up for you if i screwed
19:01
up or something like no no call in the
19:03
professional
19:04
that’s gonna give them the peace of mind
19:06
that they truly got taken care of yeah
19:08
so i remember what my thought was yep
19:10
what you said at the very beginning of
19:11
that was i try to
19:14
train the guys
19:15
that’s what it comes down to 90 of them
19:18
if you’re training them to do the right
19:20
thing
19:21
you won’t have those issues right that’s
19:23
what i wanted to bring up right then i
19:25
lost my training yeah but yeah so
19:27
training preparing the guys hey sitting
19:29
down and having a meeting about hey
19:31
guys
19:32
when these people put a three on here
19:35
i’m calling them and if it’s something
19:37
you did i’m coming down on you and they
19:39
so we i am i’m trying to prepare you men
19:43
or women right to make the right
19:45
decisions and be the best that you can
19:47
be when you’re out there yeah and that’s
19:48
the culture that you want to try to
19:50
breed in your company that’s why that’s
19:52
when i first
19:54
when i first met mitch he was telling me
19:55
about that and uh i was
19:58
i was telling him that that’s the
20:00
importance of their guys actually buying
20:02
in to what you have the passion they
20:04
need to embody the passion that you have
20:06
right yeah right and a lot of things go
20:08
into that training taking care of your
20:10
guys hiring good pay hiring like yeah we
20:14
beat those things to death
20:15
on the first episode but right you know
20:17
we said that on a previous episode i
20:19
can’t teach a guy to give a [ __ ] but i
20:20
can teach him how to plumb and so if i
20:22
if i hire a guy with heart and it cares
20:25
yeah i can teach him about anything and
20:26
so when i’m interviewing people i’m
20:28
interviewing them for their heart and
20:29
for their passion
20:31
and and if their skills are a little low
20:33
i can i can deal with that yeah um but
20:37
another real life example
20:39
we traded in all of our vehicles
20:41
recently to a local dealer here in town
20:44
and got newer vehicles that were bigger
20:45
and taller and gave us more room
20:47
ironically one of the guys i know
20:49
bought one of our old vehicles from that
20:52
dealer oh really yeah
20:54
he messaged me actually it was actually
20:56
a conversation on facebook one messenger
20:57
but anyway um he said hey we actually
21:00
picked up one of your old vehicles and
21:02
i’m like oh cool you know and he said
21:04
whatever you’re doing you’re hiring the
21:06
right guys because this vehicle was like
21:07
in the best condition we’ve ever seen
21:09
for what a plumber’s van would look like
21:11
right it’s not right all the hell right
21:13
and and so i had to hit him with a
21:14
hammer no just give you a nice little
21:16
cherry on one side that heart that we’re
21:18
hiring carries all the way through to
21:20
the condition that they keep their
21:22
vehicles in yeah how well they keep them
21:24
organized and everything else so you’re
21:26
gonna see guy you’re gonna see a guy’s
21:28
ability to have heart and caring and
21:29
compassion long before they even see a
21:31
customer yeah culture of the company is
21:33
a big thing yeah it’s huge which leads
21:35
to my next topic unless you have no go
21:37
ahead let’s go
21:38
marcus next question fire away dawg
21:41
finding good workers keeping them around
21:44
i think i wrote this one too
21:46
finding good work do you want me to
21:47
switch up and give you a uh
21:49
a uh mitch mitch one no no no no no i
21:52
think that’s a great segue for that
21:53
right no it’s
21:55
first off finding good workers
21:57
is extremely difficult
21:59
okay
22:00
i’m gonna i’m gonna take it from
22:02
you’re on your own and you’re hiring
22:04
your first guy
22:05
number one is call the guys that you
22:07
already know
22:09
okay i’m gonna give a couple different
22:10
answers if you know guys of heart that
22:13
are you’re not poaching them right
22:15
you’re calling them all and you’re
22:17
asking them hey
22:19
you happy everything going good yeah man
22:21
everything’s great love it you know
22:23
don’t push them right call the next guy
22:25
yeah man i
22:27
i i don’t know it’s okay you know i’ve
22:28
been been thinking about leaving hey bud
22:31
you know i’ve been on my own right yeah
22:33
i’m looking right there you
22:35
automatically have a candidate you trust
22:38
that you know
22:39
okay
22:41
that’s a great way to start
22:42
say you’ve hired three guys and you’re
22:44
looking for guys what do you do
22:47
first thing you do is you ask the guys
22:50
that already work for you if they know
22:53
guys that are unhappy right okay you’ve
22:57
already sound familiar you’ve already
22:59
pre-vetted those guys right by doing
23:01
that
23:02
okay
23:03
same thing if you have a few guys
23:06
hey i know a couple guys that are
23:08
already on my list that i’ve you know
23:11
had my eye on i used to work for him 10
23:13
years ago at
23:14
i don’t want to say anybody
23:18
you know pedro’s plumbing or whatever
23:21
i call those guys hey man you happy
23:23
everything going good can we get lunch
23:25
you go to lunch with those guys okay now
23:27
and i’m talking from a small business
23:31
perspective i’m not talking about a big
23:33
company that’s got 50 guys already you
23:35
know what i mean you’ve pre-vetted those
23:37
guys you already know their character
23:39
you already know their heart their work
23:40
ethic yeah you already know what what
23:43
they expect from a good employer
23:46
right and you’ve basically done half the
23:48
work right out of the gate yep what
23:50
about someone who doesn’t have that that
23:52
uh
23:53
well first off if you’re if you’re if
23:55
you’re coming from a plumbing organ
23:58
anyone that’s starting a i’m just i keep
24:00
saying plumbing because mitch is a
24:01
plumber
24:02
hvac guy if i’m starting an hvac company
24:05
i’ve already worked at some
24:07
so that’s okay you know what i mean it’s
24:09
almost a i don’t mean to say void
24:11
question but
24:12
you’ve got guys you know you know people
24:14
okay and i mean you’re you’re out there
24:16
reaching out you know guys you’ve worked
24:18
with you know
24:19
you know who’s back when i asked that i
24:20
was mean like what happened if all the
24:23
guys that if not if none of them none of
24:26
them pan out i want to stay here i’m
24:27
happy yeah you’ve called i don’t know
24:30
what do you do mitch
24:32
you yeah i’m asking you a question what
24:34
do you do
24:35
that’s it this is this is an area that’s
24:38
what i do yeah i and i think that’s a
24:40
wise approach
24:42
i’m gonna you know what i’m gonna give
24:43
you a personal story that happened to me
24:45
today i didn’t think i was gonna tell
24:46
you guys this someone that i used to
24:47
work for
24:49
okay that i know
24:50
has hired no one in a very long time
24:54
calls me today and says hey
24:57
you wanna have lunch today
24:58
okay i go have lunch with him he’s been
25:00
looking literally for eight months to
25:03
find someone for eight months that can
25:05
do a lot of different things okay not
25:07
i’m not talking about he’s just needs a
25:09
plumber just he needs somebody that does
25:10
a lot of different things yeah well i
25:12
fit that mold yeah you know what he’s
25:14
doing the same thing that i just said
25:16
he’s calling everyone that’s ever worked
25:18
for him uh everyone that has that skill
25:20
set and he’s going through that process
25:23
of
25:24
trying to find someone to fit his
25:26
specific standards for what he needs
25:29
you know what i mean no i did not take
25:31
the job
25:33
right but you know i still
25:35
you know i respect that most people when
25:37
you call them even
25:39
even if you’re even if they’re not
25:41
interested they will still sit down with
25:43
you and when you
25:45
i gave him the name of a couple of other
25:47
guys yeah you know that i know and that
25:49
i trust so you’re saying it’s a it’s a
25:51
high chance you’re going to find someone
25:52
it is a high chance you’re going to find
25:54
somebody
25:55
now if you’re looking for six
25:57
good luck yeah you know what i mean it
25:59
especially now listen when when i first
26:01
started out
26:03
you could get guys
26:05
and this is just kind of a
26:07
thing of the times
26:08
really if you needed three plumbers i’ve
26:12
said this before i got mitch’s first
26:14
plumbing job we worked together
26:16
back then
26:17
it was higher and fire
26:20
they would get rid of three guys and
26:21
bring three guys in that didn’t know
26:23
nothing okay because guys wanted to work
26:26
you know i mean you had to have a job
26:28
that’s just what people did and you
26:30
would just filter those guys out on the
26:32
job it it’s not like that anymore
26:34
you know what i mean it just
26:36
it just doesn’t work like that
26:38
now guys you have to have someone that
26:40
they can plug directly in
26:43
that’s going to get the job done or just
26:45
needs a minimal amount of training yeah
26:47
but like i was saying you know i didn’t
26:49
take the job
26:50
and you know obviously he respected that
26:52
and i gave him the number
26:54
and names of a couple other guys two
26:57
guys yeah i won’t say who they are but
26:59
hey reach out to these guys yeah now if
27:01
those guys can’t work out i’m sure they
27:03
know a couple guys that they would you
27:04
know feel good about giving the
27:06
information to yeah you know i mean
27:08
that’s kind of a long-winded answer for
27:10
that but i mean what do you do like
27:11
marcus says if you can’t literally can’t
27:13
find anybody what do you do
27:15
all right so
27:17
we
27:18
what do you do what have you done i know
27:20
that your first two guys my first you
27:22
knew you got those guys basically saying
27:24
yeah
27:25
yeah well kind of the same it was still
27:27
a struggle though so of course it’s a
27:29
struggle when you’re going from you
27:30
being the only guy to adding one it’s
27:34
hard for to get people to to come on
27:36
board right because they all they’re
27:38
going is off of you and you could be
27:39
selling them a line of [ __ ] right
27:41
you own the company you’re trying to
27:42
hire somebody and that’s the thing of if
27:44
you if you call people you know right
27:47
and they do trust you that automatically
27:49
gives you a little bit of a leg up it
27:51
gives you some buy-in right yeah so um
27:54
first of all and you got to go way back
27:56
on this
27:57
let’s say you haven’t started your
27:58
company yet or even if you have
28:01
this takes some time
28:04
go put yourself back into working for
28:07
somebody else
28:08
first off i love this
28:10
like ambush show that we have oh i love
28:12
it
28:13
so
28:15
marcus back there eating pringles
28:17
just you know you’re pouring the makers
28:19
drinking whiskey and
28:20
some beers and uh telling the [ __ ]
28:23
that’s actually happened so put yourself
28:26
back into an environment where you were
28:28
working for somebody else
28:31
what did that employer do
28:33
that everyone
28:35
hated
28:37
hired guys you had to train that’s what
28:39
i hated it’s a
28:40
i mean it’s an open-ended question right
28:41
yeah it is identify answers identify
28:44
what that is
28:45
and fix it with your company
28:48
fix it before you’ve ever hired anybody
28:50
or if you’ve already hired people
28:52
put a plan in place to fix that so
28:55
whatever it is
28:58
i mean you can’t let the inmates run the
28:59
prison but at the same token like i had
29:02
said on a former show man the inmates
29:03
are almost running the prison now well
29:06
i had said on a not i don’t mean you
29:08
yeah the workforce yeah i said on a
29:11
former show that um marcus making a
29:13
million dollars one year we’re not even
29:14
sure he knows what he’s doing
29:17
one of the one of the guys i recently
29:18
hired the company that they worked for
29:20
had a had a policy in place where they
29:22
got a point system for basically how
29:24
many minutes they arrived
29:26
behind the promised time to a customer’s
29:28
house right
29:30
well that’s such a that’s such a
29:31
[ __ ] rule to have right instead of
29:34
promising a customer we’ll be there by
29:35
10 you tell them we’ll be there between
29:37
10 and 10 30.
29:39
or 10 and 10 10 and 11 right yeah give
29:42
them give
29:43
give give some workable realistic things
29:45
for real life to have we’re not saying
29:47
the directv noon to four
29:49
right right we’re saying realistic
29:50
realistic 15 years so half hour a half
29:53
hour is realistic right right but as far
29:55
as it comes to like hiring the person
29:57
these people would get points if they
29:59
showed up a minute late i mean they were
30:00
so freaking particular with it what’s
30:03
the best way to piss your employee off
30:05
oh you showed up one minute micromanage
30:07
them right that’s totally forget about
30:09
what you did yesterday how late you
30:10
worked the nights before or anything
30:12
like there’s never a policy that removes
30:14
points yeah it’s only a policy that adds
30:16
points right what’d they do they had to
30:17
go in the office
30:19
who knows but but what i’m saying is
30:22
that that’s such a bs thing that comes
30:24
on there that you don’t have
30:27
you don’t have anything that you can
30:28
work with so fix that right whatever
30:31
that is and then
30:33
um
30:34
once you have those things that
30:36
everybody hates corrected and you have a
30:38
plan in place for how your business is
30:40
going to run different
30:42
then
30:43
grow at a rate that your team can handle
30:46
not at a rate that your marketing budget
30:49
can handle
30:50
i see this problem all the time where
30:53
businesses dump a whole lot of money
30:55
into marketing and they’re not ready for
30:57
all the calls that come in from that
30:59
marketing well then they’re flooded with
31:01
calls and all they see they don’t see
31:04
all the work that they have coming in
31:05
they see the work they’re losing because
31:08
they marketed more than their team can
31:09
handle yeah okay so then they rapidly
31:12
hire everybody that they can and they’re
31:14
they’re sending people out into the
31:15
workforce that aren’t quite trained and
31:16
they’re not quite ready and your views
31:18
are bad and then your reviews are well
31:20
yeah that’s what that’s the end case
31:21
right but then you know they don’t quite
31:23
blend with the team they’re not the
31:24
right quite personality and everything
31:26
else and the culture takes a dive
31:29
because they spent too much money on
31:30
marketing or marketing was too effective
31:32
yeah so gets back to training and
31:33
culture grow at a rate your team can
31:35
handle
31:36
not that your marketing can handle
31:38
that’s number two and then number three
31:42
is
31:42
let your people
31:44
[ __ ] up
31:46
and i cannot stress that enough
31:49
so many people
31:51
get so pissed off when when their people
31:53
make a mistake oh my god i made a
31:55
mistake he flooded this customer’s house
31:57
i’m firing him i’m writing him up he
31:59
does that again he’s gone right well you
32:01
don’t want to know how i became a really
32:03
freaking awesome plumber
32:04
i’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life
32:08
that’s how i get not in my life but like
32:09
my plumbing life my career
32:11
i’ve put pipes together wrong i’ve
32:13
flooded houses i’ve done that stuff
32:15
before and if you’re a hair cutter
32:17
you’re going to cut somebody’s hair
32:18
wrong if you’re a lawn mower usually a
32:20
color thing when it’s in the hairdresser
32:22
man it comes out a little yeah a little
32:24
or you burn their hair off pink instead
32:26
of red oh [ __ ] so or or if you’re a
32:29
landscaper and you accidentally take the
32:31
weed eater and you know trim off her
32:33
prized azaleas or some whatever the case
32:35
may be right
32:37
we learn from making mistakes so if you
32:40
have an employee that’s recently made a
32:42
mistake and you handle that correctly
32:45
you now have a better employee after
32:47
that’s over opposed to hiring someone
32:48
new is going to potentially make right
32:50
same mistake you hire somebody okay
32:52
you’re gone you fire them and now you go
32:54
hire somebody new and you just you just
32:56
hired somebody that’s ready to go make
32:58
those same mistakes again right or even
33:00
more and that’s an answer to the the
33:01
second part of the question how do you
33:03
keep those that’s how you keep people
33:04
right right so not having but keeping
33:06
the mistakes cannot be malicious with
33:08
intent and they cannot they have to so
33:12
when our guys make a mistake it’s it’s
33:13
it’s a on it like if you make a mistake
33:15
and you stay on the team right it’s an
33:17
honest mistake
33:18
and and it’s it’s one that it would like
33:21
it was either truly accidental or it was
33:24
a mistake that was made in the best
33:26
interest of the company or the customer
33:28
uh a company and the customer well
33:30
sometimes things just happen too
33:32
sometimes things just happen hey man i
33:34
was putting those stops on let me and i
33:36
complete i i thought i tightened the hot
33:39
and cold and yep i didn’t get the hot
33:41
tight all the way and man that thing
33:42
shot off of there yeah that’s like a
33:44
workmanship mistake yeah let me give you
33:45
another example
33:46
that’s an accident so so the the the
33:49
thing that we were talking about before
33:51
were one of the guys that happens every
33:53
house he goes to now you got a question
33:54
yeah yeah now you got a problem no like
33:56
um
33:57
the guy
33:58
i talked about in our previous episode
34:00
where they had a the previous company
34:02
had a policy in place where if you drove
34:03
away from a customer’s house
34:05
without clocking out of the job yeah
34:07
so i think we talked about it yeah and
34:09
so
34:10
um that is a that’s a discussion you
34:13
could have with the guy right it’s not a
34:15
mistake he he did that with intent
34:17
because it was in the best interest of
34:19
the customer the customer didn’t want to
34:20
see you leave their house and then
34:22
parked in front of their house for 15
34:23
minutes right yeah so he pulled down the
34:26
street went around the corner went to a
34:27
gas station and his work wrote him up
34:28
because he went to a gas station while
34:30
clocked in on the job
34:32
when
34:32
he could have just stayed clocked in on
34:34
the job creeped the customer out because
34:35
he was sitting in front of their house
34:36
for another 15 minutes the same end
34:38
result happened only he was thinking
34:40
ahead and thinking and benefited the
34:42
customer and drove out of their view
34:44
a real life thing that happened in our
34:45
company like a month and a half ago
34:47
we have a policy where we always go over
34:49
all repair pricing before any work is
34:51
ever done so that there are no surprises
34:54
the customer knows exactly what they’re
34:55
getting and they know exactly what
34:56
they’re going to pay for it before any
34:58
work is done
35:00
we were in a customer’s house to do some
35:02
work when you say we you or your our
35:04
company our company and this is a very
35:07
fancy house
35:08
on the lake it’s got like six bathrooms
35:12
okay
35:13
um and and the guy is very busy
35:16
professional
35:17
he didn’t have time to meet us there his
35:19
wife met us there and and i i mean this
35:21
with the best
35:22
that i can mean it the wife was clueless
35:24
about anything that goes on in the house
35:26
okay he takes care of it he takes care
35:28
of the the wife just whatever goes on
35:30
there she’s just clueless right she’s
35:32
just a relationship yeah you cannot
35:33
communicate home repairs to the wife
35:36
she’s gonna mix it all up she’s not
35:37
gonna relate to the husband very well
35:38
whatever we cleared a list of repairs to
35:40
do with the customer he became busy and
35:42
was tied up in meetings for hours
35:44
these repairs had to do with him either
35:46
having hot water or not having hot water
35:48
over the weekend like we were there on a
35:50
friday afternoon so something came up
35:51
and you just did it something came up
35:53
the repairs needed to escalate
35:55
it took the what was going to be a one
35:57
thousand dollar repair bill to a
35:59
thirteen hundred dollar repair bill
36:01
mike
36:02
my guys know that they can do this
36:03
without even asking me he did the he did
36:06
what was in the best interest of the
36:07
customer and ultimately the company
36:10
and he advanced to the thirteen hundred
36:12
dollar repair level without asking the
36:15
customer because the customer was on a
36:16
did he ask you no he knows he doesn’t
36:19
have to he doesn’t have to uh you gave
36:21
him that that authority they have that
36:23
authority to do what’s in the best
36:24
interest of the company in the customer
36:26
in a sense he did that’s that’s your lo
36:27
that’s your little
36:29
i shouldn’t say little that’s your
36:30
business motto yeah if you’re doing
36:32
what’s in the best interest of the
36:33
customer
36:34
right do it dude and so he made the 1300
36:37
repair he got all done
36:39
he he emailed the customer an invoice
36:42
granted he never had a chance to
36:43
communicate that the repairs needed to
36:45
move up a little bit
36:46
so the customer gets this emailed
36:48
invoice and it’s 300 more than he agreed
36:50
upon well he sends us an email
36:53
and and says hey what’s going on i’m not
36:55
happy
36:56
this repair is 300 more and all this
36:59
we let them know that hey we encountered
37:01
a problem
37:02
and we were faced with a decision of
37:04
either get your hot water back on
37:06
for the weekend or like walk away from
37:08
it because we we didn’t want to use
37:10
policy to prevent the customer from
37:12
being satisfied right so
37:14
we we just went ahead and advanced it
37:17
and and once he heard all of that
37:20
he became okay with it but
37:23
that was that that could have gone south
37:24
right if if he would have called in and
37:26
said hey what’s up with this 300 repair
37:28
bill and we didn’t handle it correctly
37:30
it could have gone the other way but
37:32
that was a mistake that it’s not even
37:35
really a mistake like my guy was behind
37:37
in a hard place i would call that
37:39
an accident right but not a not a i
37:42
don’t know traditional accident it’s
37:44
you’re stuck between a rock and a hard
37:46
place and you have to make a decision
37:47
right and and truly that’s where a lot
37:49
of mistakes kind of come from but my guy
37:51
knows that
37:52
if like worse comes to worst let’s say
37:54
the customer says no i only approved a
37:55
thousand i’m not going to do it a
37:56
thousand i would have eaten a 300 bucks
37:58
yeah because my guy did the right thing
38:00
it wouldn’t be a big deal right he got
38:02
them back into hot water in their five
38:03
or six bathroom house for the weekend
38:04
and listen if if mitch if that guy would
38:07
have called and been a a huge dick about
38:09
it right and mitch ate to 300
38:11
and and made the guy happy and said hey
38:13
look man i’ll eat it yeah
38:16
it’s a messed up situation you know i
38:18
and if you’re honest with him and say
38:20
hey i don’t totally agree with it but i
38:21
will do it because we were in a weird
38:23
situation
38:24
guess what
38:25
that guy’s probably a customer for life
38:27
right right you know what i mean right
38:29
even even if deep down he knows hey i
38:31
got that guy for 300 bucks right well
38:33
guess what he got that guy for 300 bucks
38:35
and next time he’s still going to call
38:37
him he’s still going to call so
38:39
he’s still going to like pass pass the
38:42
smedley name on as well yeah
38:44
right right right hey man they did this
38:45
they got my hot water on
38:47
and because i didn’t approve it yeah
38:49
they gave me the 300 bucks
38:51
and he tells two people that so that’s
38:53
how that’s how you get and keep
38:55
employees is is you create a culture
38:58
that they love right it’s the opposite
39:00
of the culture that they hated where
39:01
they came from but also you empower them
39:04
to do the right thing because ultimately
39:06
that’s what people want to do exactly
39:08
when when people are doing the wrong
39:09
thing at other companies they’re doing
39:11
it because they’re kind of in a
39:12
situation where they have to in order to
39:13
succeed oh of course because it’s all
39:14
profit driven right right yeah right not
39:16
all companies but you’re right not all
39:18
but a lot the bad ones where there’s a
39:20
lot of problems yeah yeah yeah they’re
39:22
like hey sell sell sell sell and then it
39:24
makes you make just it makes you make
39:26
choices that you normally wouldn’t make
39:29
if you were on your own right right
39:31
right right and if if those guys are on
39:32
some kind of performance-based pay or
39:35
whatever and they’re performing
39:37
lower than average that week and they’re
39:38
looking at like a low paycheck and their
39:40
family’s not going to eat if they don’t
39:41
perform well guess what you’ve put that
39:43
guy in a position where now he has to be
39:45
unethical to the customer in order to
39:47
look out for his own paycheck and that’s
39:49
not a good position to put your guy in
39:50
so
39:51
fix all those things and then
39:53
let them make mistakes
39:55
so and and i’ll take it even one more
39:58
level and you don’t necessarily mean i
40:00
mean you do mean let them make mistakes
40:02
but don’t come down on them
40:04
like
40:06
a ton of bricks right if they do make an
40:08
honest
40:09
right right and take it even one level
40:11
further it’ll keep those guys there take
40:13
it even one level further if one guy
40:15
makes a mistake
40:17
and and he learned from it guess what
40:19
the whole team can learn from it yeah so
40:21
talk about it to the whole team
40:22
and the guy might get embarrassed maybe
40:24
i don’t know but as soon as he’s all of
40:27
a sudden seeing that we do this every
40:28
time somebody makes a mistake yeah
40:30
that’s that culture
40:31
exactly that’s the culture right right
40:34
so let the entire team benefit from one
40:37
guy making a mistake yeah i like it
40:39
that’s how i do it and it’s worked
40:41
really well when i’ve been able to and
40:42
this goes back to my entire management
40:44
career when i have been able to manage
40:46
under that philosophy
40:48
guys stick around i have never had a guy
40:50
quit me
40:51
never once well
40:53
because of work related
40:55
stuff right yeah right i’ve seen guys
40:58
move guys yeah guys like i had one guy
41:00
leave because he was going to be with
41:01
his dad
41:02
yeah yeah yeah i like to get him a
41:04
little bit you know think but
41:06
i have been at places where i was not
41:08
allowed to manage under that philosophy
41:09
and it was the highest turnover place
41:11
ever which put me in a very weird
41:12
cultural position because now i’m stuck
41:14
in a place with crazy high turnover and
41:15
i’m not used to that and it’s because i
41:16
can’t manage and that’s those rules and
41:18
that’s like when we started out you know
41:20
how it was yeah it was one in one out
41:22
one in one out and it was literally
41:24
every two weeks yeah every two to three
41:26
weeks it was two or three guys out i
41:29
can’t remember they found a bunch of
41:30
guys well enough guys that were good
41:33
to stick around well i can’t remember
41:34
how long you worked there before i
41:36
started working there almost two oh
41:38
before you started working there yeah
41:39
yeah yeah three months yeah it wasn’t
41:41
long but what was funny was like hey do
41:43
you the moment you know anybody i was
41:45
like i was like dude you need to hire my
41:47
friend yeah the moment the moment dave
41:48
and i were both there together
41:51
i bet they only went through
41:53
two maybe three people after that yeah
41:56
for a little while and then they got to
41:58
their team of like nine or ten and it
41:59
was just and then it’s solid yeah solid
42:01
from then oh so yeah
42:03
that’s how it was that’s what they were
42:04
going up they just it was a door and no
42:06
one gave a [ __ ] if you came in and you
42:08
didn’t do exactly what they wanted and
42:10
perform at a high level you were down
42:12
the road and the next guy was in yep i
42:14
mean it was literally
42:16
is is pretty wild it was crazy culture
42:18
is like a flywheel
42:20
and a flywheel sitting there not moving
42:24
it takes an enormous amount of effort to
42:26
get it going right you have to push on
42:29
it really really hard it’s a lot of fun
42:31
first off you have to read that
42:32
somewhere is that just from the heart no
42:33
no this is culture this is how i
42:36
envision culture that’s right legit so i
42:38
like that eventually
42:40
eventually you push on this flywheel
42:42
like your first push is the hardest push
42:45
ever right and it’ll move and if you
42:46
don’t push it again it’s going to slow
42:48
down and stop yeah it’s going to roll
42:49
over and stop your next push because
42:51
it’s already moving a little bit your
42:53
next push gets a little bit easier and
42:55
your next push gets a little bit easier
42:57
and eventually
43:00
let’s say you hire three or four people
43:03
now that flywheel has some momentum yeah
43:06
and it becomes a lot more stable yeah
43:08
and it becomes a lot more
43:10
consistent right and now the flywheel
43:12
starts working for you
43:14
right um and so big engines have
43:17
flywheels flywheels help the engine
43:20
right so your team of great culture is
43:23
this flywheel that actually starts
43:24
working for you and on a long enough
43:26
timeline now your culture
43:29
driven team
43:30
goes out to the public and says
43:33
i got a guy
43:35
that would be great here right so when
43:36
you have a spot available and that’s
43:38
what we know yeah that’s
43:40
you know you’ve got this
43:42
this group of guys well then if if it is
43:45
great that next group of guys says the
43:46
same thing the next group of guys and
43:48
then
43:49
i’ve already easy to find guys i’ve
43:50
already got our next two hires lined up
43:53
perfect
43:54
am i one of them i didn’t no he better
43:57
be
43:58
we want good culture
43:59
no thanks
44:01
no thanks i didn’t these these are guys
44:03
that reached out to me and they said
44:05
when you’re ready i want to come on dave
44:07
will stop the uh the flywheel right i’ll
44:09
just
44:10
put a little i will stone cold rock that
44:12
[ __ ] [ __ ]
44:15
so all right man next one hey we have
44:17
time for one we got time for one more
44:18
one more what do we got
44:20
focusing on profit versus focusing on
44:24
service man these are all tying together
44:26
i was going to say is that i could i
44:28
could pick a different if you want no no
44:30
it’s crazy how they all tie together
44:31
read it one more time
44:33
focusing on profit versus focusing on
44:35
service
44:37
do i want to answer that from a morality
44:39
standport standpoint or a
44:42
business standpoint
44:44
both first off
44:47
all business
44:48
and all everything you do
44:51
is from a philosophy standpoint right
44:54
it’s from a morality standpoint okay
44:57
we’ve talked about this a hundred times
45:00
in the first episodes right
45:02
so if you focus on profit
45:06
you’re making the wrong decision
45:07
okay if you’re focusing on
45:10
being a better spouse
45:12
being a better father
45:14
having more time for your family
45:16
being a pillar in your community
45:18
paying people the right wage
45:20
the profit comes
45:22
that’s just what happens okay it when
45:25
you start with a solid base
45:27
and that should be your base yep the
45:30
profit just comes after that if you if
45:32
you come at it from a
45:35
sense of profit only and you think of
45:38
everything and i’m saying this is an
45:40
extreme
45:41
hey i’m gonna pay this guy two dollars
45:43
an hour or less so i can make some more
45:44
money i’m gonna buy the cheap material
45:47
so i can make two more dollars
45:49
i’m gonna buy the cheap van with no
45:51
stickering so i can make three more
45:53
dollars right that is not
45:56
going to flourish
45:58
and become something great right all
46:00
you’re doing oh
46:02
you’re i don’t want to say you’re a
46:03
piece of [ __ ] but
46:05
that is not the way to look at
46:08
building your business right it’s just
46:10
not going to happen you have to think of
46:12
it as a man i can’t believe i’m gonna
46:16
stay this hippie holistic here it is
46:17
like a sexy
46:19
holistic approach he’s a hippie he just
46:21
didn’t want to admit it that’s what it
46:22
is balanced approach i mean am i wrong
46:25
no you’re right it has to be balanced so
46:27
it has to come
46:29
from a sense of
46:30
i’m not doing this for money i’m doing
46:33
this man this sounds so dumb i can’t
46:35
believe it’s coming out of my mouth
46:37
i’m doing this for the
46:39
for the betterment of everyone
46:41
okay yeah i’m gonna build a business i’m
46:44
gonna take care of my employees i’m
46:46
gonna take take care of my family i’m
46:48
gonna take care of my community
46:50
and if you do all those things
46:52
your business is gonna take off yeah is
46:55
there’s no doubt my if
46:57
if i didn’t think those things were true
46:59
this podcast would be [ __ ] right
47:01
right okay but i believe that yeah okay
47:05
i mean i can’t say it any
47:07
any more
47:08
simply than that yeah that’s just what i
47:11
believe so
47:13
big corporations not to jump in and just
47:15
take the answer to the question but i
47:17
mean big corporations look at businesses
47:20
through
47:21
balance sheets they look at them through
47:23
profit and loss statements they look at
47:24
them through all these reports that
47:26
these higher up executives see
47:28
that they’re trying to manage
47:30
a service driven business
47:33
through spreadsheets
47:35
through balance sheets i know i’ve sat
47:38
in those big corporate meetings yeah and
47:41
you get this you know regional exec
47:43
flies in and oh we gotta
47:45
clean the shop the regional execs coming
47:47
in like let’s make it you know yeah it
47:49
shouldn’t be that way trap that’s what
47:50
it should be right right right so then
47:52
the the regional exec comes in and he’s
47:55
looking at all the reports and he he
47:56
didn’t in this particular instance he
47:58
doesn’t even look at our team he doesn’t
48:00
care about the team he doesn’t care
48:01
about the trucks he doesn’t care about
48:02
anything he’s sitting there looking at
48:03
reports and he’s going yeah what can we
48:05
do to get that up i have a point
48:07
what can we do to get that cost down two
48:09
points yeah what can we do to turn this
48:11
revenue he’s talking percentage when he
48:12
says yeah yeah yeah so they’re literally
48:15
looking at running a company through
48:16
sheets yeah and that doesn’t work i mean
48:19
i shouldn’t say that it works it it can
48:21
if you came from the ground
48:23
that’s right that’s the problem with a
48:25
lot man i can’t even say this either
48:26
that’s a problem with a lot of america
48:28
right now yeah yeah yeah the you know so
48:30
like right now i will be able to run our
48:33
business through that sheet
48:36
later on because i know when i talk
48:38
about like what can i do to get this
48:40
down a little bit
48:41
it’s not running the business through
48:43
sheets it’s how can i change our service
48:46
protocol right to enhance these numbers
48:50
right because you’re not looking at the
48:51
number like a number so the guy
48:53
says how do i raise this two percent
48:56
he doesn’t even know
48:58
how you would do that he’s asking
49:00
someone else how do we do this right you
49:03
would be in the position or i would be
49:04
in the position position to say
49:06
okay this number’s down
49:08
i know who to talk to about that right i
49:10
know what i can personally do
49:12
to make that better yeah you know what i
49:14
mean that’s a huge that when he gets
49:17
black and white when you use profit as a
49:19
motivator to manage your business
49:22
you start doing things just like you
49:23
were saying earlier you start doing
49:25
things that are
49:27
the antithesis of customer service oh i
49:29
like that word yeah yeah that’s a big
49:31
word for you it’s the opposite of taking
49:34
care of the customer okay yeah it is so
49:36
in other words like what can we do to
49:38
lower these costs well we’re just going
49:39
to buy cheaper material what can we do
49:41
to raise our profit well we’re just
49:43
going to raise our prices without doing
49:44
anything to reflect that you know they
49:46
start doing these arbitrary things to
49:48
move numbers around
49:49
and the customer suffers okay um those
49:52
same customers are those same companies
49:55
typically have a pretty impressive
49:57
marketing budget too
49:59
and so
50:00
um
50:01
it’s amazing when small companies get
50:03
big
50:05
they almost lose their grasp of reality
50:07
they do of what
50:09
they lose the grasp of
50:11
what did it take for me to get here
50:12
right right and all of a sudden
50:14
everything yeah they changed their
50:15
mindset yeah from
50:17
i want to be part of the community and i
50:19
want to do these things and they may
50:21
have even been thinking
50:23
you know in the line of i want to just
50:25
make money
50:26
but
50:27
it took
50:29
serious community effort to get them
50:31
there and then once they got there there
50:32
all of a sudden they’re just like
50:35
negating from yeah yeah they just they
50:37
just go off the freaking deep end or
50:38
they hire a bunch of people that don’t
50:41
have that that sense of
50:44
i don’t want to say small time but that
50:46
small time sense of i know everything
50:48
that it took to get here yeah right and
50:50
they let it overtake their company yeah
50:53
that’s the biggest problem when
50:53
companies sell out to big corporate
50:55
companies too
50:56
i think we’re thinking of the same guy
50:57
but
50:58
what um
51:00
the way i look at it here’s how you stay
51:02
service driven rather than profit
51:04
driving dod but not dod
51:06
[Laughter]
51:08
the way you stay service driven instead
51:10
of pro so if you’re service driven and
51:12
if you’re service driven correctly the
51:14
profit shows up
51:15
yeah okay like this this is back to
51:17
money being like a dog right yeah
51:19
if you chase a dog it runs away we
51:21
talked about this so if you chase profit
51:23
it’s hard to find
51:25
yeah but if you focus on being kind and
51:27
gentle and profound serving
51:30
the customer good stuff right you you
51:32
focus on serving the customer and
51:34
miraculously profit shows up right yeah
51:36
so
51:37
the way to do that and and that’s i hate
51:40
to always say this that’s community
51:41
involvement work well it can be i think
51:43
i bring up community involvement work in
51:45
every episode but
51:47
but
51:48
the thing is the heart of community
51:50
involvement work and the heart of doing
51:52
your business that way are the same
51:53
thing right right
51:55
the
51:57
the way to look at this is look at it
51:58
like you’re earning customers yeah okay
52:01
big corporate companies buy customers
52:03
with their advertising and with their
52:04
marketing
52:05
so
52:06
i i always kind of chuckled at companies
52:08
with these big impressive marketing
52:09
budgets and they’re usually the highest
52:11
priced companies in town and the
52:13
customers are literally paying that
52:14
customer that company to advertise to
52:16
them of course they are i mean
52:18
like
52:20
it’s almost like they should get a
52:21
discount if they got a word of mouth
52:23
referral to that company instead of like
52:25
responded to the tv ad because
52:28
you think about it the company’s
52:29
spending you know 2 million three
52:31
million dollars a year on marketing well
52:33
how much more do they have to charge
52:34
their customers just because they’re now
52:37
spending three million dollars a year on
52:38
marketing right it’s so it’s capitalism
52:40
at its best and it’s worst at the same
52:42
exact time it’s crazy so my philosophy
52:45
on it is don’t buy customers
52:48
earn them
52:50
and the only way you can earn a customer
52:53
without buying them
52:55
is impress them so much with your level
52:58
of service and the quality of work that
53:01
you do that that customer is now going
53:03
to tell two of their friends
53:06
to other family members doesn’t matter
53:07
they’re going to tell two people about
53:09
their experience with you
53:11
now
53:12
those two people
53:14
didn’t reply to an ad they didn’t reply
53:17
to
53:18
uh a thing on tv they’re genuine they
53:20
didn’t reply to something that they got
53:22
in the mail that seems too good to be
53:23
true right
53:25
so they’re they’re calling you and they
53:27
have a whole lot more trust in you
53:28
before they even call and then when they
53:30
call and you show up they already trust
53:33
your advisement because their brother or
53:35
their sister or their friend said i had
53:37
a wonderful experience with them you’re
53:38
gonna love them right that’s how you
53:40
earn customers and what happens is we
53:44
are doing the same volume of this is how
53:46
we do it and we’re doing the same volume
53:48
of work as other companies that are
53:50
spending all of this crazy money on
53:52
marketing and we’re not having to spend
53:54
the money on marketing and so
53:57
technically
53:58
we could be making more money than those
54:01
other companies okay
54:02
but one little added thing that i do and
54:04
this helps push culture and it helps
54:06
drive this earning customer initiative
54:08
all the way through the organization is
54:10
i take what would be my marketing budget
54:13
and every month
54:15
and marcus has seen this i take what
54:17
would be our marketing budget every
54:19
month
54:20
and then i subtract out our actual
54:22
marketing expenses which are very very
54:25
low and then i take what’s left over and
54:27
i divide it amongst every member of the
54:29
company
54:30
and i give it to them
54:33
i budgeted this much money for marketing
54:35
i didn’t have to spend it because you
54:36
guys did such an awesome job marketing
54:38
for us by earning customers so have it
54:41
it’s a bonus thank you it is
54:44
it sounds
54:45
it sounds super cliche
54:47
yeah it sounds super cliche but
54:50
you are marketing you exactly you’re
54:52
marketing your branding instead of
54:54
marketing right and that and that
54:56
answers the second question also yeah
54:58
you know what i mean how do you keep
54:59
your employees right
55:01
if you pay them well you give them a
55:03
bonus for marketing and then they get a
55:05
check they continue to market right
55:06
hello so so that is economics one-on-one
55:09
right they continue to and and also they
55:12
realize how when am i going to get some
55:14
checks
55:17
so the guy the guys realize how much
55:19
easier
55:20
the the guys realize how much easier a
55:23
customer is to work with that came to us
55:25
through a word of mouth referral of
55:26
course it is and so they like that and
55:28
they want that to be repeated and so
55:30
they a long enough timeline they learn
55:32
the behaviors that days that and
55:34
everything else so that’s how i deliver
55:36
my level of passion all the way down
55:37
through our organization
55:39
is
55:40
ultimately it’s good for the business if
55:41
we keep that up right so i made it good
55:43
for them yeah and instead greedy owners
55:45
would pocket that marketing oh we didn’t
55:47
have to spend that on marketing whoop
55:48
going into my pocket yep no i gave it
55:50
right back those guys aren’t rolling it
55:52
over i know for a fact that guys that
55:54
have that they do not roll that over
55:55
right no gosh no that guess where that’s
55:57
going right in their pocket every time
55:59
it’s a personal bonus yeah they pay the
56:00
taxes on the 30 or whatever tax break
56:02
they’re in and they put that they write
56:04
their life a check and she goes and buys
56:05
a mercedes and so i don’t know what
56:07
she’s doing out there but yeah you’re
56:09
right so that’s how like so it’s easy to
56:11
say focus on service and not on profit
56:13
right but when you’re staring at the
56:14
books and you’re trying to make more
56:15
money or you need to make more money or
56:16
whatever it’s kind of hard not to focus
56:18
on profit right well these are ways that
56:20
you can
56:22
literally focus on service and then when
56:24
the profit comes you reward the great
56:28
service with money and then they do it
56:31
again and they do it again and they do
56:33
it again you’re paying for that
56:34
marketing yeah and it’s paying for
56:36
itself and everybody knows
56:38
to be honest it’s probably better
56:40
um
56:41
you know
56:42
they say what’s the what is it when they
56:44
uh when you spend you get per calls per
56:46
dollar spent in advertising it’s
56:48
probably higher yeah dollars per lead
56:50
and stuff like that it’s probably higher
56:52
when you’re giving it to those guys that
56:53
are bringing
56:55
work in than if you were to spend it on
56:57
a stupid radio station
56:59
you know no no it’s the same i mean our
57:01
phones stay ringing all the time and
57:03
i’ve got that budgeted amount no no i
57:04
mean i’m saying i if you spend it on a
57:07
for an actual commercial i think your
57:09
actual sales generation might be
57:15
your leads generated or less and the
57:17
customer’s trust factor when they’re
57:18
initially calling you is a fraction of
57:20
what it is yeah that’s what i’m saying
57:22
misunderstood yeah i was saying no and
57:24
and so agreed on that creating and
57:26
that’s why i say you have to start all
57:27
the way back at the beginning because
57:29
you got to create a process that focuses
57:32
on service that creates the profit and
57:34
then you don’t
57:35
you don’t profit it like you give it
57:37
right back to the guys so but it it it’s
57:39
that massive flywheel that takes a
57:41
little bit of motion to get going but
57:43
once you put all that effort into it to
57:45
get it going
57:47
it just it’s just like a steam
57:49
locomotive and it’s hard to slow it down
57:50
at that point so
57:52
um that’s how i focus on service rather
57:55
than profit and result in like it
57:58
results in profit so i like it that’s
58:00
what i do i like it so got you three
58:03
questions yeah that was fun we should do
58:06
that
58:08
we should do that more often so i like
58:10
how they interweave within each other as
58:11
well and a lot of times they will really
58:13
close they’re all going to kind of
58:14
intertwine a little bit so
58:16
um very interesting guys that’s our show
58:18
for today as always remember if you like
58:21
what you’re hearing on the show if
58:22
you’re getting value from the show if if
58:25
you wrote some things down or if you’re
58:26
gonna change the way you do something
58:29
because of what you just heard on this
58:30
show do us a favor and help share this
58:33
show with somebody you can either tag
58:36
this show on social media
58:39
on facebook we are at podcast the void
58:42
so if if you see somebody
58:44
um
58:46
commenting or questioning you know hey
58:47
where do i get advice for this or i’m
58:49
thinking about doing that
58:50
simply tag at podcast the void and and
58:53
we’ll pop up there um and and you can
58:56
you know say hey follow these guys or
58:58
whatever also
58:59
share like literally share the episode
59:01
that you saw with somebody yes um if
59:04
you’re subscribed to youtube and or
59:06
subscribe to youtube if you’re not right
59:08
right we’re on youtube apple podcast
59:10
spotify it’s it’s super easy to click
59:13
that link and then you just click the
59:14
share button and send it to somebody on
59:16
facebook it’s like boop boop done right
59:18
so so easy um also guys do us a favor
59:21
and again if you are getting good value
59:23
from this whatever platform you’re
59:25
listening on to this on if you’re on
59:27
youtube give us a thumbs up if you’re on
59:30
spotify or apple podcasts give us a five
59:33
star review we really appreciate it so
59:35
that helps us come up higher in the
59:38
search rankings so when people are
59:39
looking for shows or suggested shows to
59:42
them yeah those five star reviews help
59:44
us dramatically and it gets out to more
59:46
people because it’s it’s
59:48
further up the list and and remember
59:50
we’re not we don’t make any money yeah
59:51
we’re not making any money on this this
59:53
is like we’re just literally trying to
59:54
get this message in front of as many
59:56
people i mean if you’re trying to get it
59:57
if you want if you want to send me cash
59:59
i’ll take it yeah you know i mean i’ll
60:01
take your money if you want yeah
60:03
but uh guys that’s all we have for you
60:04
this show uh tune in next time and we’ll
60:06
have some more great stuff for you so
60:08
until then we’ll see you later get out
60:10
peace