we gotta we got an awesome topic for you today um but uh before we get into it uh if

you’re new to the show we want to kind of go over the framework of the show so because the show’s growing fairly well

we have a lot of new viewers every episode uh so the framework of the show is we have a couple of different styles

of shows um we have some core episodes those are episodes number one through number nine uh so whatever platform

you’re listening on you should easily be able to find them um those episodes go over some basic core

adversities that you’re gonna need to overcome in order to start your own company so a lot of stuff that we talk

about throughout the whole rest of the duration of this show can tie back to those core adversities um it is it is

basically six steps to start your own company uh we we talk about episodes one

through nine are like nine hours of content uh if it takes us nine hours to talk about it it’s definitely gonna take

you a fair amount of time to do it um but that is basically everything you need to

start your own company outside of that we have some q a shows where you can email in questions to us

that email address is ask mitch mitch smedley.com and you can

shoot us emails if you have any questions about certain you know issues that are unique to you

uh rental things um relationship things like with vendors or or with potential

customers um or anything like that um or just you know general business questions

or how you’re starting your business shoot them into us we’ll answer them if they’re pretty good questions we’ll even

make a show about them we have some guest episodes where we bring on guests who have either started

their own company or that they they can benefit you in some way shape or form with this the creation of your company

um and we’ll talk to them about some of the adversities that they’ve overcome we have just some general business shows

which that’s what today’s show is is just a general business show where we go on and we discuss

good business topics that uh it’s kind of like a continuation of the core adversity shows um but

um it’s just good business stuff to to keep your mind in the right direction and then finally we have the beyond the void

shows and that’s where we let loose a little bit and we talk more about the more current social topics that are

going on and stuff like that so um that is the framework of the show today’s show

is going to be over how to have tough conversations

difficult decisions and tough conversations difficult decisions tough conversations so not just and not just

like business related but with everything with your kids with your wife yeah you

know or husband you know whatever employees customers

um the bank right you know dealerships when they’re trying to you’re trying to buy a car and

the idiot salesman is trying to haggle with you you know now it’s not as bad they won’t haggle at all they just tell

you hey nope this is what it is yep but covets i mean we’re on the tail end those uh debating skills are going to

come right back to play yeah hopefully because i love it yeah i know that the guy wants to sell me the car right now

i’m like yeah let’s do it let’s see what we can find go in there with like a bunch of holes in your pants and a shirt that

does it’s got holes in it and then tell them you’re paying cash it just screams 590 credit score yeah and they’re like

yeah this guy and so you give him a number and he’s like yeah okay and then you’re like oh no

no i’m writing a check for this well nowadays eyes are wide open nowadays they want to finance you

because they make more on the financing yeah so yeah they’re they they’ll actually give you a better deal if you finance it’s not like back in the day

when the financing went through another company no matter what they finally wised up when they were like oh yeah we

could finance these cars and make some extra money yeah hell cars nowadays are almost just an avenue to get to the

financing contract of course it is or sell you an extended warranty yeah or 85

oil changes for 19.99 i don’t know why they try so hard to sell you one i get phone calls every day about my extended

warranty [Laughter] we’ve been trying to reach you you know

i dug open a sewer the other day and there was a note in the bottom of the sewer that says we’ve been trying to reach you about your cars

they stop at nothing right that is the second worst stat joke i’ve heard it’s okay yeah i like it all right so tough

conversations um if you are trying to do anything in life

worth doing you will have to have tough conversations um people that are pushing

themselves to the limits will have tough conversations people that are trying to push those around

them to improve will have tough conversations people that have very exacting

uh goals or or ideas for how they want something to happen they have to have tough conversations

right tough conversations are a very very real part of business but they’re also a very

real part of life and so uh today’s entire show is dedicated to

helping you through the gauntlet of tough conversations um

you can’t avoid them they have to happen simply because you’re human i’m human

we operate on two different levels right like uh your brain thinks

of one path my brain thinks of another path both paths might work however we might only be able to do one path and so

we’re gonna have to choose right or you may view things one way i may view things another and it’s an important

enough thing that we have to dis like that we disagree about it and then we have to talk about it um this happened

to us like yeah three weeks ago yeah three or four weeks before one of the episodes we’re talking about

how to say what do you remember what episode that was um it’s not important no it’s

not it might be for somebody but that’s not the point is um so he was talking about how he likes to

save money for taxes yeah he had a specific way he does it i had a specific

way i do it we literally argued for an hour about freaking nothing and we both knew like i knew i was like

mitch isn’t gonna change his mind no and then eventually mitch finally realized i’m not gonna get dave to say this is

the better way to do it on the show right so we’re just gonna move on we’re just gonna agree to disagree and we’re

gonna tell so it was episode 25 when we were talking about like how to run your business checking account

and how to prepare for taxes and so yeah it was like all right we’ll just tell them two different ways to do it

and then let them pick whatever way works best for them yeah so and it’s fine because you know that’s one of

those situations where you just can’t turn someone’s mind yeah

you just can’t do it it’s just it’s physically impossible and that is mention i’ve been friends so long you

know it’s not it’s not an issue for us to argue like that no you know and at the end of it literally i told him i was

like do you know how arrogant you are sometimes i mean i’m the same way

yeah that’s why we work why we’ve been friends is because and it doesn’t bother me when people are like that some people

they would have lost their mind yeah and been like do you you know uh

and get they get all worked up and mad about it you know yep it’s it’s easy if you know someone

and this kind of delves into what we’ve started talking about it’s easy if you’ve known someone for a long time to tell them the truth

and if someone is a close friend of you and you tell them the truth and they can’t handle it

i mean you either didn’t know them as well as you thought they’d that you did right because you thought they’ll be

fine with this you know but that’s a tough conversation sometimes you have to have yeah oh i they’ll be fine with this

and then you say it now all of a sudden you’re in a tough conversation right well and a lot of people argue for the wrong reasons too they argue to win an

argument they argue to be right yeah they argue to be right or they argue to prove somebody else wrong

you know that maybe not maybe they’re not going to be right they just want to prove somebody else wrong yeah that’s kind of an american culture thing too i

think yeah and it’s not good yeah um we call that deck measuring yeah you know

exactly exactly i’m smarter than you yeah i know what to do yeah well

you know i could put this puzzle together 15 times and each time’s different but i still have the same result at the end of

it well and like come on that kind of goes into the whole theory too of like

the dick measuring thing you’re gonna see like you see this all the time there’s a one-upper philosophy on

literally everything like you could be talking about something that is not even worth dick measuring over

and somebody will talk about how they can they can one-up it they can they’ve done it works right

like you talk about man it was cold yesterday oh that that ain’t nothing man you remember last night remember you

know yeah and they always got to go to some scenario where they’ve had it worse right yeah um you you could talk about

how hot it is man it’s hot here oh it’s only 93 here it was 97 you know

where i grew up yeah or whatever like it didn’t [ __ ] matter 93 and 97 feel the same it’s [ __ ] hot you know and i

don’t know if it’s like a i don’t know what drives people to do that but everyone does it everyone does

everyone does it yeah i try to consciously decide i’m not gonna do that and i still do it yeah you know it’s

like you know a guy will bring up a job a man i had this job and this customer and blah blah and then you don’t even

realize you’re doing it you’re like yeah i oh man yeah i had the same yeah

it’s not always that you’re trying to one-up somebody but sometimes when you start down that road that’s what you’re doing yeah even if you’re not doing it

intentionally yeah it’s hard to break yourself of that habit yeah just it’s weird yeah we should have a

uh a psychologist or a psychiatrist as a guest one day and just delve into so

much i’m afraid they tell me i’m crazy you are crazy i tell you every day you don’t need a psychiatrist to tell you

you’re crazy i know that um i think one of the biggest reasons people argue

and people have to have like put themselves in scenarios where they have these tough conversations is because they’re leading with their

emotions on things that they should not be leading with their emotions on and and that can be very very difficult

to pull your emotions out of something especially business yeah especially business in business

should never be emotional like like it’s okay for me in private to get emotional about my

business because i can sit back and look at the thing i created and the thing like

i’m not taking i’m not taking ownership of like where our business is i’m just saying like when i say i created it i’m

saying like a couple of years ago i had this vision and then i put plans in place and i put people in place and now

all of these people are working together and they’re living up to this vision that started as just

one person’s idea a long time ago right like that can make me emotional

however and so so emotions in business totally cool in that area

not cool when you’re talking with your employees when you’re talking with your

um your vendors when you’re talking with your customers right i’ve watched people

you know if you’re gonna be in business long enough you’re gonna have a customer try to [ __ ] you over

you’re going to have a customer try to take advantage of you yeah or think or they think you’re trying to take

advantage of them and you’re not right right and their emotions have been set off by a certain situation you know what

uh in um the service industry um

like when someone sells their home or is buying a home and they have to have someone come in and you come in and

tell them oh hey the sewer needs to be replaced that’s 15 grand and they’ve had their heart on

buying that house at x price right their emotions are already involved and now

those emotions have been placed on to you unwillingly or unknowingly because

that’s just that’s what has happened because you’ve told come in there and told them basically that

you’re not getting the house for that price or if you are you’ve got to spend this money or you need to walk away and

you’re not telling them those things but you’re subconsciously telling them those things right because that’s what’s going to happen yeah you know in real estate

it’s really bad yeah yeah and and there’s a whole bunch of different facets to real estate too

um you’ve got um you’ve got realtors you’ve got buyers

you’ve got sellers you’ve got house flippers yeah and you’ve got the bank you’ve got yeah

you’ve got banks you have a personal relationship with your bank that’s loaning you the money yeah that you know

and they’re on your side and they’re in your corner yep they’re going to be they could be emotional about it right so you

know in business let’s say customers for example you have a customer that’s trying to take advantage of you or screw you over

it can be very easy to leave your emotions in with that

and next thing you know now you’re talking to your customer and and you’re you’re

you’re screaming at your customer right and and you’re you’ve left your your passion

in with that um it was one of the hardest things i had to

learn how to do in all of my management background and everything else when i’m talking with

upset customers is to remove the amount of time i have invested with

the situation up to that point right so let’s say i’ve got a guy that i’ve trained really well but he makes a

boneheaded mistake and the customer’s upset well i used to

be going to that customer on the offensive or or being ready to be on very

defensive of my guy because i have a lot of emotional connection to my guy i have a lot of of commitment

to my guy um a lot of his back right right and so i used to think i was doing the right

thing by being very defensive with the customer and and everything else well

so as far as your relationship with that guy in the company you were doing that you were doing the right thing right but for the business and your job title

right you were not doing the right thing right and you have to be able to i think that’s where you’re going with this you have to be able to separate that yeah

and so you’ve got to be able to remove all of your emotional connection to your job to your business to your employee to

everything and just wipe all that out and listen to the customers concerns

identify what they are and then come to an agreement yeah and it’s weird because

once you’re able to separate all of that you can actually turn an upset customer

into one of your biggest advocates um we have we have many five-star

reviews on our company that were people that were less than thrilled with our service

but they went it they thought if a customer goes to the links of

bringing an issue up to management or to ownership they’re already fired up too well they’re fired up but also that’s

not a lazy customer right that’s a customer who is is is very uh they’re an advocate and and so if you

when i see somebody email in with with concerns or questions i i immediately look at it like this is

going to be a five-star review watch this and and i’ll answer all of their questions i’ll address all of their

concerns i’ll put a plan in place or whatever and and i i don’t throw my guys under the bus when i’m doing it it’s it’s

literally just me and the customer that’s it yeah you try to you try to just keep that part out of the conversation right all together and you

literally try to just focus on them and get them to focus just on you not the situation just on

you that’s a really good salesman technique too yeah but i mean it’s very

important and it’s hard to do you have to train yourself to do it it’s prac it takes practice yeah and and like you

have to write some stuff down and while you’re on the phone with the customer like you’re looking at your notes and trying to make sure you’re doing the

things that you want you’re trying to bullet point it yeah and and by the end of it because the customer

customer’s not upset at a guy they’re upset at a company right you think the customer is upset at a guy

because you had a guy out of the customer’s house but that’s not true you’re right you’re 100 right yeah if the customer is

is upset they’re upset at a company they’re mad they called yeah smedly plumbing or whatever right

and so once you identify that that helps you pull the emotional attachment of your

guy out of the situation um but as long as your guys are doing everything that they’re supposed to do

and they’re trained really well and everything else then it’s just you dealing with a customer that’s upset with a company and

you you handle it on a one-on-one direct basis sometimes it’s apologies sometimes it’s acknowledging

that we have room to improve sometimes it’s a slight refund sometimes it’s a

visit for me maybe yeah yeah to to make some additional repairs or to get some tweaks

done let’s face it plumbers you know if a heating and cooling guy makes a mistake

somebody’s house is hot when it should be cold or it’s cold when it should be hot right yeah if a plumber makes a

mistake half the time it’s a wet nasty mess it can be a real problem right and so you know sometimes it’s paying for

some damages that we caused and um what’s funny is when they see us go to

great lengths to make sure that we addressed every concern they had as an upset customer

they love us after that yeah like when they see that we spent more time handling them being an upset

customer than they ever would have anticipated they just being they just love us being humble and

taking care of a situation is harder to do than to just go in there and be defensive like you’re saying nope

up nope didn’t do that it’s hard to say up we [ __ ] up yeah this is what we’re

gonna do we’re gonna do x y and z we are gonna take care of this yeah this is how it’s going to happen and if you’re not

happy after that we’re going to keep on trying yep you know and when people see that kind of dedication and that doesn’t

matter what kind of industry you’re in right when people see that dedication they’re usually on board yeah all the

time because sometimes let’s be honest sometimes even if you do the right thing and take

care of everything above and beyond what they thought they were so mad at the

time that they just won’t call you back because it just this is going to sound stupid it brings up feelings of

whatever they were feeling at the time and they won’t they’re ashamed of the how they were feeling sometimes yeah sometimes or they’re just you know what

i’m just gonna i’m just gonna move on from this situation even though they did and they they won’t bad mouth you necessarily

yeah they just won’t call you back and if anyone asks they’ll say yeah they took care of everything you know but i just use this guy now

yeah or gal or you know whatever well i think one of the problems that we find is

you are upset enough to have to ask for a manager or have to try to get to the owner or bring an

issue up to a company you are probably really fired up right

and so you’re putting your emotional connection to a scenario like that you’re putting

that into your customers mind for them automatically so when a customer emails

in or calls in and they’re upset you’re immediately attaching how upset you’ve been in the past to that customer

well what i find is most of the time customers are kind of like a peacock

whenever they’re trying to get attention from management they put on this amazing show up front

and then all of a sudden the moment management comes at them with the total care and compassion and we’re going to do whatever it takes to take care of you

all of a sudden those feathers start going down they’re like okay right okay i did what i had to do to get my the

attention i needed right and you know that’s that’s a problem with a lot of businesses

customers do that because they feel they have to because of other companies right you

know what i mean right i may have said that wrong at the beginning but you know they’ve had to throw those fits to get

someone to even return a phone call right to get somebody to give them any type of answers especially in the online

age now yeah you know you buy something online and get it and it’s broke well you customer service online is either

stellar or non-existent right and then they kind of translate that to the same

uh to the service industry which hopefully is better than that but right you know well in like the home services

industry there are so many con artists and just absolute shitty contractors out there oh man there’s a lot that

customers have a lot of of those uh apprehensions going in right

yeah and the moment they’ve had a bad experience well now they’re they’re kind of teetering on the am i dealing with a

shitty contract or a con artist everyone they call right automatically just scared to death right and so you know we

we head that off pretty fast and it’s different like like i don’t really have like a formula necessary necessarily for

it most of the time if a customer brings up a concern i will try to communicate back with them on the

on the means that they came in on so like if they emailed us i would try to email them back initially i always

wanted to end at least with a phone call if not an on-site visit but if they emailed a concern in i will usually

email them back and say i’d love to talk about this with you are you available for a phone call you know here’s my cell

phone number like yeah i give them my sell sometimes i won’t even bother with that

i’ll just literally pick up the phone and call them it just kind of depends on maybe the severity of the upsetness uh

that they have or or the upsetness or or of the issue right like so if

they’re if they’re mildly upset about a price thing or something that time is not of the essence well then we can go

back on email if they if they’re saying that they’ve received damage to their home i’m not wasting time on an email

i’m calling them immediately if it’s close you’re probably driving over right exactly i mean exactly like if one of

your guys floods someone’s kitchen and it ruins their basement you’re probably like i’m on my way yep and then another

thing that i actively do do is um

if the customer is emailing in and they are taking an incredibly legal

stance on their email i just experienced this yesterday or the day before

um where they’re taking a very very very legal stance on their email i will never

reply to their email ever because they’re putting they think that they’re

building a case by putting it all in writing well you could email a company anything

you want and claim anything you want yeah but it doesn’t verify it until they respond if you reply the only thing you

can do is partially acknowledge some of their stuff even if it’s wrong right you might say something wrong and so i would

just simply call them back and and ultimately um through through 20 years of managing

companies i’ve only ever gone to court one time over a plumbing issue and this was about

seven years ago um i don’t know where this is going yeah we

we actually went to high school with this girl and and she knew where it wasn’t for smedley though right no no no

no this was seven years ago this was before i started my company um we um we went to high school with this

girl and uh she called us up to come out and work on her house and she needed a supply valve

or no no she needed a toilet rebuilt um and so we always give options right

we can just rebuild the toilet or we can rebuild the toilet and replace the supply valve or we can do like a

complete rebuild where everything is brand new brand new the only thing left is china yeah the porcelain yeah um

or we can like replace the toilet right and and so we give them all the options so

they can literally choose their investment yeah as much as they lock cart yeah and and so she

picked the option that was just rebuilding the toilet not replacing the supply valve and and so we turned off the supply

valve and we went to start taking the supply line off of the valve to the toilet well the supply valve

broke in the process of that like literally came undone

and flooded their house and it was not of an action that like we did like we were operating the supply

valve the way you’re supposed to you put a wrench on the 3 8 supply side and you start loosening it yeah right well as

you’re loosening it crack that top the top completely came out of the valve and

so there was no way to know that that would happen for one and for two there was no way that anybody else would have

done anything different like if the homeowner tried to take apart that valve flooded it flooded

it again right if any other plumbing company in town would have tried to do that it would have

so it was is a problem with the valve right and this guy probably doesn’t know where the shutoff is and he’s running around like a maniac no we i mean we ran

downstairs and shut off the water but i mean it was it still comes it was second floor toilet so it’s coming through

lights and the ceilings and everything else um they already had some other water stains on the ceilings from other like

roof leak issues and stuff but um um you know they said you gotta pay for

this and i’m like we gave you an option to replace the valve and you chose now

if she had you’d have had to shut the water off to do that right and and we said look i’m not happy about this

either however the we were operating on your valve like we were we were working on your valve

the the issue that happened wasn’t because we weren’t working on it correctly i would tell you if it was you

know if we didn’t turn the valve off before we started taking the supply line off that’s on us

right but if we turn the valve off and then the valve breaks that’s not on us and so um

i said really you just need to contact your homeowner’s insurance and so she calls her homeowners insurance and her homeowners insurance

um she has like a 3 000 deductible like some really high deductible and and the damage was only like 4 000 bucks in

water damage or something and so it wasn’t worth turning in a claim for him to only pay a couple you know a little

bit and so then her insurance company calls me and and says look you guys are a big

company this is again i worked for a big company in town they said look you guys are a really big company in town and you guys just need to eat this and this is

just part of it and everything else and i said look we didn’t do anything wrong the valve failed and she goes i know but

it’s just good business and you just need to do this and i said okay let’s turn this on you you’re state farm

insurance your way you’re a big company in the nation how about you just eat this

and and she didn’t she didn’t like that right and i’m like i’m just not i’m just being like i’m not being mean i’m just

being honest yeah and and uh she says well i mean the reason they

need you to do this is because they have a really high deductible and i’m like look my liability doesn’t sold them yeah

real high deductible let’s start with that yeah i said look my liability in the situation doesn’t change because

they chose lower premiums with a higher deductible yeah like that doesn’t change that

doesn’t make it more or less my fault right the valve broke the house owns the

valve you insure the house you fix it and and so they ended up taking us to court

and state farm take or not state forum no the the customers the customers and so we go to court and and

um i uh it was a matter of principle at that point oh yeah because the attorney fees

is are going to be higher than that well this was a small claims court like no attorneys you just go represent yourself and so

we go up there and the the customer because the valve failed we left the valve with the customer yeah the customer brought the

valve to court oh and now i’m like oh this is awesome yeah and so they go they go through and do their whole thing and

everything else and i just sit there quiet which which if you’re ever in court don’t say anything do not ever

interrupt the other person ever no that you will lose respect with the judge incredibly fast yeah um so i sit there

quiet and just wait and that’s a free tip and don’t don’t shake your head when they’re talking like literally stone

cold wait your turn because you will piss the judge off really fast the guy who’s been to court

a lot of times i haven’t uh i haven’t uh i sound like a pro here but uh so i wait

my turn and he he says would you like to speak and i said yeah i would and i told him everything and i said now i see that

he’s brought the actual valve here i said would you mind if i grab it and bring it up to the bench and

show you i’m talking to the judge and show you exactly how it failed and he said sure and so i go grab it off the

guy’s desk and and i bring it up to the bench and i’m showing him how we were you know we’re unscrewing here where you’re supposed to and then here’s where

the valve split apart and that’s not supposed to happen like it’s a factory connection it’s not supposed to happen

and he says you know i was just replacing these in my house the other day and you’re right you did exactly what you’re supposed to and this valve

failed and if you gave him an option to replace it and he chose not to then the house owns the valve and i’m sorry sir it’s not what you want to hear but it’s

dismissed it is what it is and yeah yeah so and and you know it’s never it’s not fun

it’s a tough conversation to have well first it’s not fun a tough conversation

there were ten there were a lot of tough conversations right there was the tough conversation of

you know the homeowner’s mad at the tech that’s there there’s the tough conversation of the tech’s got to call his boss and say hey dude we got a

serious situation over here then the homeowner has to talk to you yeah and

now you’ve probably got to call your boss and say dude this is what’s going on i mean

there’s a lot of there’s a lot of stuff there and when you think about it normally what happens in those

situations for one person is every time they talk to the one person it it goes up a notch in

escalation and anger right or sadness or whatever it is so every time they go through it

and the longer that goes out the more animosity builds the more anger builds

the more everything builds until eventually it comes to a head and if you can if you can somehow

be able to detach your emotions from everyone that you talk to

the more clear mind you will have when you get to the end yep or the conclusion of whatever situation

it is that you’re in right and it sounds really easy to do and it’s not no like i am a super emotional person right we saw

this on tuesday when i cried on this show because i to be honest it had a lot of

stuff going on and you know just kind of caught me right um but people that are emotional and there’s a

lot of us out there it’s not just sadness or it’s not this it’s when you start getting mad dude you’re on fire

yeah you know and a lot of people are like that and you’ve got to be able to

um check yourself like mitch knows me has known me a long time my temper when i was in my 20s

like 18 to 22 i could be at the bar and one dude could say one thing and i mean it was a [ __ ]

storm all of a sudden we’re diving into the car and leaving now i’m 40 and that part

i mean that’s not even who i am anymore right you know but when you have tough conversations

you need to realize that in yourself and who you’re talking to you know you need to be able to and it’s

it’s almost impossible you need to be able to read that person as the conversation’s going on yeah and try to

not only calm them but keep yourself calm and try to get the facts as clear as

possible you know when you’re dealing with those tough situations yeah and it’s really hard as a business owner you know as a

business owner what’s the number one thing uh you’re emotional about or care about

it’s your business right you know it is especially a small business owner like mitch or myself it’s your life right

everything about that company is you you have poured your soul and your pain and

your money and everything into this so when something goes wrong you’re 100

invested boom right off the bat right and it’s hard to separate those things yeah

yeah it it can be really tough now one of the things i’ve found is any in any conversation not just customers but any

conversation for the most part the more you remove your emotion all of a sudden the person

you’re talking to’s emotion starts to come down too right like emotions feed off of each other and so if you start

charging up well now they have to react and and they go all newton’s law right like equal

opposite reaction type of thing and so you know if if you raise your voice well now they have to match that or exceed it

and if and so on so that can get that can get really volatile really

quick and so the easy way to keep that from exploding yeah you can go crazy so the easy way to keep that from exploding

is just get your emotions out of it and and most of the time when you have to have tough

conversations you have prep time so you have time to get your emotion it’s not like something happens right now and we

have to talk about it right now really at any time i mean even in your marriage or anything else right yeah um

you’re probably right most of the time now children can be a little bit different because children

can misbehave in an instant and you need to handle that in an instant we’re not just misbehave but come up with

something completely random that you didn’t even know they were capable of thinking about yeah like just like whoa like you have this look on your

face like oh [ __ ] what right and and so even even there though like my wife and

i have a rule that will never punish our kids under anger like well we’ll think about it sleep on it

one night yeah they’ll you know they know it’s coming maybe they’re hanging out in the room for a while while we calm down and

think about it rationally yeah or make it another ladder to get out the window right like i’m gonna get my sheets

together here yeah but uh um you know and there’s been times i mean i

can remember vivid conversations where i’ve told my wife like i’m too pissed you’re gonna have to handle that i’m not

gonna handle that wrong you’re so on fire yeah you know so when janine first told me she was pregnant you know you go to the doctor

and they do the sonogram like i’m wanting a boy right right we only have one kid little girl i mean i am like oh

boy after all these years i’m like man thank god we had a girl because i mean if i had a boy i don’t

know i mean just the amount of anger i know that they spur if you had a boy it

would be like homer and bart simpson your hands around his neck and just ringing his neck the whole time

it’s easy to punch a boy a small child that’s your own son it’s hard to look at

a girl and be like oh baby i love you yeah not as mad you know

i don’t think i’ve ever punched my kids no i i’ve it’s that time i’m pretty sure i haven’t ever punched my kids

pretty sure pretty sure quote unquote for those on spotify pretty sure he doesn’t remember

he was too little or i hit him too hard or he didn’t he just doesn’t remember what he woke up from right oh no mitch

is just kidding yeah um he’s good with those [ __ ] so so we have some framework

for what it would take to have a tough conversation and this is that like when i was telling you have a

tough conversation with a customer and you’re kind of like checking your notes yeah write this down because these are really good things i’m going to blow

through them real quick and then we can kind of dive into them mitch hasn’t read these so i don’t know what he’s going with right let’s see what you got so

step one is remove your emotion from the whole decision process the whole

tough conversation process right um and you’ll kind of have to check back into that one a lot

step two identify the true issue step three state your intention

when you’re having that conversation step four be open to learning a new perspective you may have an

intention based off of your view and then as you’re having that conversation you’re going to learn about somebody else’s

view and you need to be prepared to change your view slightly based off

of learning their perspective yeah you want you might need to change your mind and realize you know what right we were

wrong here right and we’re gonna try to make it right right um uh next step

never sacrifice your values okay so be open to learning new perspective

that’s not an excuse to back down on your values if your values are good

they should actually guide you through this right um and then you’re going to wrap that

conversation up with discussing a plan to go from there how do we go from here how do we move on from this what do we

do what do we put in place so this doesn’t happen again and and move on right and then

follow up check back in week two weeks three weeks later

hey and we’re you’re talking mostly business with this stuff mostly business this works in other things but this works

that’s really i mean this general framework can work in anything right as you’re raising your kids remove your

emotion identify the issue state your intention be open about learning a new perspective right maybe your kid’s going

through something you didn’t know he’s going through or or whatever yeah so never sacrifice your values your values

should hand through hand you know hold through all of that especially with your kids because you’re trying to pass those values on to them right discuss a plan

for how do you go from here so you don’t end up in this position again and then check back up with them literally

i just did this two days ago with my son um which one old one or grant the younger yeah um you know he’s he’s going

through some stuff and he was having some emotional things go on and so we kind of changed up his routine a little

bit and we we pulled some things out of routine and we we let him put some things other you know other parts in his routine um he gets a little too absorbed

into video games and like he can’t handle the fact that video games aren’t real so he gets like really angry he

gets emotionally tied to him yeah yeah and so the controller at the wall and smashes it into a thousand pieces yup i

know 30 year old people that have done that right you know and so we pulled just a kid thing we pulled him away from

video games and it’s not a grounding like we were able to get him to understand just take a break bro yeah we’re like you don’t you’re not happy on

this right so let’s let’s find something else and so he started doing a whole lot more basketball going over to friends houses kind of playing outside yeah we

didn’t make him do this this is just if you can’t play video games what is he going to do yeah and and so

you know he and i were playing basketball in the driveway the other day and i stopped and i said hey i’m just checking in with you you know

it’s been a couple of weeks i i’ve recognized a massive difference in you i hope you recognize that too like you

look much happier and he’s like oh yeah i’m so much you know so he’s a good kid same

same press you know same process from that disaster basketball the other day well he’s also 10. so all of you

so just i mean that kid’s got some moves he’s you know he’s good if he doesn’t get on a team if you don’t get him on a

team we’ve talked about this before we’re not going to get into it he doesn’t like team sports it sucks because if he could

if he could figure out the team thing he would just be amazing but he doesn’t like being coached very well and he doesn’t like team sports maybe i should

talk to him so we tried getting him on like one like i want to get him into like bmx racing where there’s no team yeah it’s just him

yeah you know what um so layla so i have a uh it’s a little suzuki lt90 right and it’s

fast as [ __ ] like when i ride it it scares me a little bit and she loves riding it i got her a little helmet i

cut we’ve got like four acres and then there’s a farm next to us that we’re allowed to ride on right so i’ll mow her

a path and she’ll ride on that thing i mean like full throttle okay riding it and i tried to get her into something i wish there was more of that around here

yeah um a kid we used to know adam beshton you know he

gave me some info uh because his kids used to do it but like these little rodeo rides maybe he should do that yeah

i don’t know bring him over dude i’ll put him on that thing see if he can’t you know break his arm or something we’ll figure something out i mean that

kid hadn’t broken anything yet the other one has you know i never broke any bones and i mean we used to jump off the roof

of my mom’s garage right like just it’s like eight feet i don’t know how we aren’t

dead right do you remember the spillway we used to climb oh yes i do i tell my kids the stories all the time first off

it was completely stupid yeah it was like 25 30 feet and it was wet yeah

and we would somehow make it up there and we didn’t die i have no idea how we someone didn’t ever fall off of that and

we we seriously get hurt you take the goonies and stand by me and everything else that was literally us growing up

hey dad we used to go play in a cave yeah yeah all right let’s go what are we gonna do shoot bob rockets in the dark

okay let’s go i can remember start a fire we’re walking it was like a mine the cave was a mile long

the cave was about a mile into the woods we had to walk on a path to get to it yeah i can remember we’re halfway through that path and you and your

brother start fist fighting [Laughter] and you put each other in headlocks and you’re choking each other out snot’s

coming out of both your noses like one of you is going to pass out in a minute stubborn sons of [ __ ] and here i’m

just want to go play in a cave and i gotta manage youtube rolling off in the poison ivy you know a lot of emotional

emotional stuff going on back then you know all right so with those steps getting hair in weird places you know oh

yeah different you don’t know what’s going on yeah you get you get mad for no reason all of

a sudden you can’t stand up because everyone knows you’re pitching a tent oh oh to be in middle school again

that’s good stuff why are you walking around with your hand in your pocket no reason why you got your math book shut up yeah

in your backpack supposed to be on your back stop it don’t talk to me right um okay so step

one obviously remove the emotion it’s the hardest one to do it is step one because it has to happen before you can

do anything else and you need to keep that through the whole thing so chill out move around leave the

situation for a while calm down and then get your hi get your mind out

of the place that makes you angry about the thing and talk about the simple facts that led up to it and the simple

facts that are going to take you away from it right calling so many names doesn’t help makes

you feel good it can make you feel good but it doesn’t help but it does not help right so

just stick to the facts and you’re going to be a lot better um identify the issue

most of the time what caused the blow up is not what caused the issue right so like with your spouse

she didn’t get mad at you for not vacuuming correctly she’s mad at you for something

completely different than vacuuming she just chose the fact that you were vacuuming the room in the wrong direction you might be able to blow up

on you you might be going down a sketchy path no we’re good we’re good

you might be i mean you’re married to a redhead she might come in here and shoot us all loose cannon

but i like them crazy yeah so she’s crazy um identify the true

issue okay this is easier in business than it is in your marriage for sure or family or anything right something you

know what’s crazy about this if it’s family kids friends whatever

you can make someone mad not know it and they can take it home and it can fester for two weeks yeah

three weeks six months a year yeah before you hear about it yep you know i

mean it it can be bad yeah and it could be something it could be something so small

and stupid that if they would have said something at the time they could have literally been like you know what now that i think about it

no big deal you say you’re sorry but six months has gone by and now it’s grown into something that it wasn’t and

it can be a huge blow up drag out you know and create serious problems right i

say that to say if someone makes you mad or there is a situation don’t let it

fester in yourself right you know bring it up yeah say hey talk about it yeah this is bothering me

right like you know if mitch made me mad and i came in here one day and it i’d tell him i’d be like dude

last week what the were you talking about right you know right no we don’t edit i just edited

myself i don’t know why i did that i have no idea we can cuss on this show dude i know i forget i just

you know i i try to be pc i’m really bad at it yeah like you know i just i’m bad we’ll

do a whole beyond the void show on how pc is ruining the world but yeah

a whole nother deal so yeah identifying the issues so like let’s say business

most of the time the issue is going to be either a performance related issue with an employee or it’s going to be a

price issue with a customer or it’s going to be a quality of work issue with a customer right um and and when i say

customer that might mean customers of your business that also might mean you as a customer with somebody else’s

business right so like i had to have a tough conversation with our parts supplier where we get our parts from

they were not they were allowing their inventories in their in their store to get incredibly low and

so we would go in there to resupply our parts and they wouldn’t have what we needed yeah they weren’t they’re trying to keep that overhead down yeah this

whole covet excuse lately well and i challenged him on it right because covet had gone on for a long time and there

was no problems and then all of a sudden there were problems yeah and the excuse train had run through that joint right

well when you could tell like they used to have quantities like a minimum quantity of 12 and now they’re like

they’re out of something and they’re saying well i got two more coming in well how many are you supposed to have oh it looks like two and it was a matter

they just lowered all of their quantities right it’s because they’re trying people are trying to keep their overhead down right because they’re not

wanting money to go out the door right the first of the month and so but as a supply house your job is to have that

right is to supply me with what i need when i need it right yeah and if i have to wait for it to come in well i might as well just order it off the internet

for cheaper or you know what go to home depot yeah yeah i try to despise that though

because i try to too but you know what a lot of times they have the [ __ ] that i need and it may cost me another eight

bucks but if i’m on a job and i have to have it what am i going to do right i’m going to

pay for it and i’m going to move on i’ve had too many conversations with some insiders to talk about the ins

incredibly lower quality of product that comes out of the box stores then that comes out of professional promoting

supply stores yeah so like we avoid it all at all costs so like when you buy a

this is a general deal if i buy a moe and valve from ferguson

the the body is the same everything’s the same but when i get that tail piece and everything this is just so that

other people can see it when i get it from ferguson it’s all metal it’s all badass it’s super reliable when

i get it from home depot that tailpiece and all those parts are black plastic yeah now i’m not telling you that you can’t

go down the aisle there and buy an all metal assembly and it’d still be cheaper than going to

ferguson but i’m not gonna say that even then it’s cheaper metal right so yeah um but

identify the true issue right so when i was having that tough conversation with my vendor side tangent yeah it’s all

right when i when i was having that tough conversation with my vendor i had to identify the true issue okay i had to

remove my emotions from it my emotions were saying i’m pissed that you don’t have this because now i have to schedule this job off because

i i don’t i can’t i expected to be able to come in and get the parts and you don’t have them right yeah so i had to remove all that and i had to talk about

the true issue the true issue was this is a pattern that’s developed it’s gotten worse

and we need to talk about like how do we fix it and where do we go from here and i had to be very very clear with

them so same thing state your intention right my intention in this particular

scenario was you guys aren’t known for being the cheapest in town you know that i know that however the reason i shop

with you is because you always have it in stock so i i’m okay spending a few points more a

few percentage points more for the items to guarantee that once i come here i will never have to drive anywhere else

they’re here time is money right and i hate the i hate the we have it at the kansas city store yeah well that’s

an hour and a half away yeah thanks so much thanks for nothing the you know

stating my intentions my intentions were like here’s why i use you as a vendor and and here’s where you’re dropping the

ball and so here’s what i need right be open to learning a new perspective

in this particular case there wasn’t a new perspective to learn um they tried using the excuse of covid and i said

don’t tell me that because other vendors in town have plenty of these in stock and it used to be that you would have 10

or 12 in stock and now you’re only ordering four to replace those 12. so it’s a it’s a stocking level issue yeah

we need to adjust it right um however i would be open to learning a new perspective um

never sacrifice your values i you know i was very respectful i was

very integris through that whole conversation they were very respectful integris they were very integrous

uh and so the conversation was very productive we discussed a plan on where do we go from here we talked about what

are we going to do they’re going to increase their stocking levels a little bit we put a plan in place for follow-ups they even offered to come

shopping with me like walking around through the store with me you know next time you’re coming to the

store call me i’ll meet you there i want to see what you’re seeing i want to see the low stocking levels that you’re seeing

um and and we ended up not having to do that we were able to just kind of plan

everything else and then literally this was two months ago that i had this conversation with him i met with my rep

last week and she literally followed up with me again and said hey just wanting to make

sure everything is good the stocking levers are still good you guys aren’t you know running short on stuff and i

mentioned a couple of items i said yeah for the most part it’s good however these these and these

they’re still always out of she says great thanks i’ll i’ll you know i don’t know i can’t promise anything but i’ll

figure it out right so that flow works really really well in business it also works

really really well with customers right customers are going to come in and gripe grab gripe and complain and complain and

i want to refund i want to i want my money back i want you know i want you to fix this thing you broke or you know

whatever same process remove your emotions identify the true issue

is the customer griping about price because they think it’s too expensive or are they griping about price because they don’t have money

you know that that that stance right there if a customer has money and they think it’s too expensive

that’s just subjective if a customer doesn’t have money and they think it’s too expensive

that’s like a defense like that’s a that’s a survival instinct right they’re literally protecting the few dollars

they have so you have to approach that a little bit different um but you know identify the true issue

state your intentions what you what are you gonna do to fix their problem what are you gonna do

to take care of everything be open to learning a new perspective maybe your guy did screw up maybe your guy did

break something maybe you you did your guy did a crappy repair you know whatever the case may be

never sacrifice your values again your value should hold through to all of that discuss a plan so you’re going to tell your customer

here’s where we go from here i’m going to do this i’m going to send so-and-so back out i’m going to come out we’re

going to we’re going to fix this or whatever and then you follow up with them you know let’s say we flooded a house

because plumbers flood houses sometimes we hate it but it happens

call them back up couple weeks later hey did the drying company get out there and get you all taken care of okay like like

again when’s the sheetrock are supposed to be there we did this uh

that’s about a month and a half ago two months ago um one of my guys made a mistake we

actually flooded the same house twice it’s kind of embarrassing i’m gonna throw myself under the bus here first off it’s not embarrassing that’s uh

horrifying it sucks right so one of my guys made a mistake and um

he turned off a customer’s water rebuilt their kitchen valve their kitchen faucet

and then he installed the water softener for the customer and

he turned everything back on at once and was going through like when you install a water softener one of the

first things you have to do is go to the bathtubs and run all the bathtubs um because the water softener can have some loose debris in it that you need to kick

out yeah well he didn’t realize he’s going he’s too focused on running all these bathtubs he didn’t realize that

his kitchen repair he didn’t do properly and the kitchen valve was leaking and it ran over their kitchen cabinets

and all over their granite countertops and ran all over their hardwood floor in the kitchen and then he didn’t realize it until he was down in the basement and

saw water coming through a can light and then panicked and then panicked right and so blind fear rush panic yeah

and and i’ve had that it’s scary first thing he does is call me and he know like we have i mean

mistakes can happen right so he calls me to let me know what’s going on um

he’s very well spoken with the customers so i didn’t really have to do a lot with the customer at that point but

you know he gets the drying company out there to get them to start drying everything i call a restoration company

that’s going to come out and like fix the sheetrock and fix the wood and like do all of the things

finish them hardwood floors yeah and and so then about eight dollars a square foot yeah

so so we’re doing everything correctly right we’re owning up to our mistake apologizing to the customer everything

um then five days later a member uh an employee of the the

restoration company that’s out there fixing stuff calls up and says hey this carpet’s all wet again in the basement

well i don’t know why let’s get our guy back out there so i sent my guy back out there and the

water softener that we had installed had a piece broken on in the control head and a

water softener regenerates every four or five days yeah and when it went through its regeneration cycle it kicked a bunch

of water out of this broken piece and re-flooded their basement oh [ __ ] and that’s one that like that’s something that just nobody could

foresee that yeah i mean it was a manufacturing thing like i’ve never inspected every piece of a

control head before i’ve put it in now i do have a problem like my process to install water softener as we cycle it through a regen to make sure

everything’s good well now and so now that’s part of his process we’ve done step six right now right evaluate

performance make adjustments and improve now when we we have a meeting and we talk about water softeners we’re all doing a regen yeah at least one time

yeah and and so you know now i’m very heavily involved with a customer and very apologetic and

and everything and we get the drying company back out there and then you know in in the restoration company never left like we weren’t even done fixing it

right and and so um i tell him obviously when all that went down

his bill was like i can’t remember how much it was but i told him he’s not paying it yet like i’m

not going to collect a dime from him until we get him yeah you know we’re not going to come in and wreck his house and then try to

collect for the softener that we installed and all that stuff no so so i told them we’re tabling everything until we get your house back in order and so

got them all rebuilt i picked up the tab for all of it obviously and and then i even called him up and i

said okay we got it all dried out i paid the restoration company

they the communication i’m getting from them says you’re pretty happy with them you know it sounds like is that true yeah

yeah is that true sounds like you are he says oh yeah they did great work cool i said

now did you have any personal light like i’m i’m even being proactive like did you have any personal items that got wet

that got ruined any boxes any things like that that got ruined and because i owe you for that and and before we even

talk about settling up on the softener install and everything else like i need to make sure we’re squared up with

everything we screwed you out of first you know yeah not screwed yet but you know what i mean yeah and so

um he talked about you know his couple of ancillary things and you know maybe a hundred bucks here or there and i said okay and then my resolution to him was i

i basically cut his bill in half for the softener was like i you know i can’t do it for free

but we didn’t want to come in and like wreck your house and so as a consolation for you having to put up with all these

extra people you did do it for free well at the moment you’re cutting it in half yeah you’re still yeah

but um but let’s talk about that just for for two seconds yeah the so when we

talk about um having different accounts at your bank

for um for savings for checking at two separate banks this is one of

those situations that it’s all separate you’re not taking you’re taking your money paying for all

of this stuff and you are separating say it was a huge giant job like a giant commercial job you’re not trying to just

swallow that stuff up you’re separating that i paid for x over here when all of

that is done i will treat this bill as if it’s something completely different yeah

that’s what you were doing in that situation at this house it’s not a big deal you know you’re talking you know a few

thousand dollars but if it was at a commercial job where you flooded it and you had to spend twenty thousand dollars

or whatever yeah the bill to to complete the job is still 65 or whatever it is you

complete you um you view those as separate things yeah and that’s what you were doing it’s the

same thing with your personal finances versus your business finances you have to be able to

compartmentalize those things so that you don’t get them confused why

that could come back in taxes so that if mitch was to spend that money out of his personal

budget or personal checking account instead i mean business checking account i’m sorry yeah instead of making a claim

that’s now a tax write-off right but the part that he the bill that he got from that guy is not

a tax write-off that is just part of the business moving forward bill i got from what guy

for the work that you did at his house for the softener

so the bill for the softener is part of your income right right right right the damage that you did that you had to pay

for is a tax write-off right that’s why those things need to be separate yeah just come to the guy and say okay hey

buddy i’m just i’m not billing you at all right no you don’t you bill you keep all that stuff in order you keep your

house in order on that you write all the checks to those companies to make this guy happy yeah but there are tax

write-offs for that if you did not use insurance yeah was i clear on that yeah yeah a little

jacked up it took it took me a minute to get up there but yeah yeah basically what you’re saying is you don’t want to trade your goods and

services for other goods and services associated to the restoration yeah you want to you

want to keep things separate yeah and that yeah you’re right you’re right and that’s what we did um and when things get really expensive

that’s what your insurance is for um insurance for plumbing companies is insanely expensive anyway because when

plumbers make mistakes they’re typically incredibly expensive yeah and so you don’t want stuff to be going against you

especially you’re only two years in business right so if you can eat it and you can come up with the money you just you need to do it yeah and my my thought

on it is um you use insurance when you can’t afford to pay for it right so

um yeah if you’re having to not give your guys paychecks because you had to pay for it right it’s time for insurance right come in there and pay for it right

i mean you know this one it wasn’t cheap but it was still better

than didn’t break yet yeah it was still better than running it through insurance you know if let’s say you got insurance

and it’s a five thousand dollar deductible and let’s say that’s eight thousand dollars in damage

i would never recommend running that through insurance because yeah you’re gonna pay your five your

insurance is gonna pick up the three thousand and now they’re gonna jack your rates by five or six thousand over the next year

yeah now if you were in the situation where you had only been in business for two months might be a little different

it’s gonna be different right i mean you need to pay for it you just gotta be on your game early you just yeah man it’s a

tough spot hopefully that doesn’t happen to any of our guys listening but so again tough conversation but you can

have that conversation with the customer too and yeah you know that’s a tough conversation with your insurance agent

yeah that’s a tough conversation with the bank with a bunch of people yeah right if you had to borrow money to pay for part of someone’s house i mean

they’re just you know a lot of bad situations yeah hey guys uh as as you can tell this show

is is running a little long and so what we decided to do after the fact is we’re

actually going to split this into two shows for you so the very next show that we release will be part two of how to

have tough conversations