TOXIC culture KILLED this $1.7M Landscaping Business

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.151 --> 00:00:00.832
All of it doesn't matter.
2
00:00:00.852 --> 00:00:01.953
It doesn't matter what I've been doing.
3
00:00:02.053 --> 00:00:02.594
None of it matters.
4
00:00:02.614 --> 00:00:03.455
None of it's making a difference.
5
00:00:03.575 --> 00:00:04.276
None of it's moving the needle.
6
00:00:04.296 --> 00:00:04.857
It's just getting worse.
7
00:00:04.877 --> 00:00:08.341
Today, we're in Ohio, visiting Luke with Jay and Elle Landscape.
8
00:00:08.381 --> 00:00:12.566
I've described what I've been through the last three years as trying to change the tires on a car while it's driving down the road.
9
00:00:12.647 --> 00:00:14.048
Everyone who works here is either going to get fired or quit.
10
00:00:14.068 --> 00:00:14.949
This is where all landscapers come to die.
11
00:00:14.969 --> 00:00:16.131
This is where all landscapers come to die.
12
00:00:16.331 --> 00:00:19.915
Luke made $1.7 million in revenue last year.
13
00:00:19.935 --> 00:00:21.477
None of these guys have a clue what I'm dealing with.
14
00:00:21.577 --> 00:00:25.822
No matter how much effort and time and money I throw at it, I'm still running into the same brick walls constantly.
15
00:00:25.842 --> 00:00:29.265
But right now, has more credit card debt than he has money in the bank.
16
00:00:29.325 --> 00:00:31.248
I get the impression that you almost want to quit.
17
00:00:31.408 --> 00:00:31.628
Oh yeah.
18
00:00:31.788 --> 00:00:33.250
Yeah, just completely burned out.
19
00:00:33.330 --> 00:00:34.391
My wife wants me to quit.
20
00:00:34.431 --> 00:00:36.413
My brother, he used to work with me, tells me I should quit.
21
00:00:36.553 --> 00:00:37.554
And employees are leaving.
22
00:00:37.574 --> 00:00:39.356
I don't enjoy managing people.
23
00:00:39.376 --> 00:00:40.577
Employees are stealing from him.
24
00:00:40.718 --> 00:00:42.359
I'm just not sure if it's worth it anymore.
25
00:00:42.419 --> 00:00:43.841
We had a zero turn stolen yesterday.
26
00:00:44.101 --> 00:00:47.004
Honestly, he wants to give up, and his wife is kind of losing faith in him.
27
00:00:47.024 --> 00:00:47.845
This is hard to watch.
28
00:00:47.865 --> 00:00:48.786
Luke, can you do something?
29
00:00:48.806 --> 00:00:49.607
Like, is this even worth it?
30
00:00:49.687 --> 00:00:52.808
It's really started to feel like it's never going to turn around.
31
00:00:52.948 --> 00:00:53.608
We don't make money.
32
00:00:54.068 --> 00:00:54.548
I don't trust them.
33
00:00:54.648 --> 00:00:55.368
I hate my job.
34
00:00:55.428 --> 00:00:57.429
I don't want to come up to work, and they don't want to show up either.
35
00:00:57.529 --> 00:00:59.129
It's never fun being told, you're the problem.
36
00:00:59.189 --> 00:01:00.109
I know I'm the problem.
37
00:01:00.309 --> 00:01:02.490
This is the Business Turnaround Show.
38
00:01:02.610 --> 00:01:08.151
My name is Mike Andes, the founder of Augusta Lawn Care, where we have over 175 locations around the world.
39
00:01:08.291 --> 00:01:11.211
And I travel the country fixing struggling businesses.
40
00:01:11.351 --> 00:01:14.472
Let's assume for a moment that you don't have bad intentions and you want what's best for them.
41
00:01:14.632 --> 00:01:15.632
Why would we not tell the truth?
42
00:01:15.712 --> 00:01:16.352
I have told him this.
43
00:01:16.372 --> 00:01:18.333
This has been an ongoing conversation.
44
00:01:19.813 --> 00:01:21.657
We need to stop the poison in its tracks.
45
00:01:21.857 --> 00:01:23.259
I mean, what if I am the poison?
46
00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:27.848
Our goal is to give Luke a strategy to turn around the business in the next six weeks.
47
00:01:28.088 --> 00:01:29.350
Okay, so, so, so, so, so.
48
00:01:30.032 --> 00:01:32.837
What you just said is why they don't trust you.
49
00:01:35.941 --> 00:01:41.642
I want to see the team rolling out because I need to see their dynamic with him for a second to validate what I think is happening.
50
00:01:41.962 --> 00:01:43.782
But I want to I need to see it.
51
00:01:44.002 --> 00:01:44.222
All right.
52
00:01:44.242 --> 00:01:44.482
We're here.
53
00:01:44.502 --> 00:01:44.883
We're here.
54
00:01:45.123 --> 00:01:46.503
There's the Civic that we owe money on.
55
00:01:46.923 --> 00:01:48.203
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
56
00:01:48.223 --> 00:01:49.863
We got employees sitting in cars beforehand.
57
00:01:49.903 --> 00:01:50.764
That's what I was looking for.
58
00:01:50.944 --> 00:01:51.704
Hey, what's up, brother?
59
00:01:51.724 --> 00:01:52.504
How you doing, man?
60
00:01:52.544 --> 00:01:52.984
Good to see you.
61
00:01:53.004 --> 00:01:53.724
This is a great shop.
62
00:01:53.884 --> 00:01:54.184
Thank you.
63
00:01:54.324 --> 00:01:55.064
Work right next to where I live.
64
00:01:55.244 --> 00:01:55.524
Yeah.
65
00:01:55.564 --> 00:01:55.704
Yeah.
66
00:01:55.724 --> 00:01:56.024
There you go.
67
00:01:56.044 --> 00:01:56.645
Well, that's good.
68
00:01:56.685 --> 00:01:57.585
There's good and bad, right?
69
00:01:57.885 --> 00:01:58.265
Yeah.
70
00:01:58.485 --> 00:01:58.985
But I like it.
71
00:01:59.205 --> 00:02:00.005
It works out good for me.
72
00:02:00.025 --> 00:02:01.285
My kids get to come over and bring me lunch.
73
00:02:01.425 --> 00:02:01.885
Good stuff.
74
00:02:02.405 --> 00:02:02.986
And you have nine
75
00:02:05.948 --> 00:02:06.608
Oh my goodness.
76
00:02:06.768 --> 00:02:08.009
Hi, my name is Luke Dickerson.
77
00:02:08.209 --> 00:02:09.330
I'm from Dayton, Ohio.
78
00:02:09.490 --> 00:02:11.211
I run J&L Lawn and Landscape.
79
00:02:11.471 --> 00:02:17.674
We currently have changes all the time, but I think we currently have about 12 employees in the field.
80
00:02:17.834 --> 00:02:23.757
I have an office manager and I have a part-time shop guy, but our annual revenue is hovering right around 1.7 million.
81
00:02:24.797 --> 00:02:31.959
The issue that he's actually facing right now is the reason why I tell most business owners to grow an 800 maybe to a million dollar business.
82
00:02:32.219 --> 00:02:35.640
Because you can run it or one general manager with one person in the office.
83
00:02:35.660 --> 00:02:37.020
We have a lot of AR right now.
84
00:02:37.040 --> 00:02:37.800
It's over 100 grand.
85
00:02:37.900 --> 00:02:42.541
So if we can start collecting on some of that, which is like, that's why I hired an office manager to do stuff like that.
86
00:02:42.901 --> 00:02:45.262
That was her job and she just wasn't doing a very good job of it.
87
00:02:45.362 --> 00:02:51.387
And right now at 1.7, he's requiring a mechanic, an operations manager, him as a salesperson, an office manager, et cetera.
88
00:02:51.687 --> 00:02:55.290
And it's just a harder entity structure to sustain.
89
00:02:55.410 --> 00:02:56.951
We're in a huge transition right now.
90
00:02:57.191 --> 00:03:01.575
So there's only two people here currently who were here last year.
91
00:03:01.895 --> 00:03:02.115
Really?
92
00:03:02.135 --> 00:03:03.336
At the beginning of the year, yeah.
93
00:03:03.596 --> 00:03:06.258
So most of them are new as of this year?
94
00:03:06.278 --> 00:03:06.498
Yes.
95
00:03:06.739 --> 00:03:07.459
I'm not against it.
96
00:03:07.940 --> 00:03:10.261
He's obviously been successful, but it's a fact of,
97
00:03:11.162 --> 00:03:16.223
He's being burnt out because the size of businesses he has built demands that he work 14 hours a day.
98
00:03:16.383 --> 00:03:17.823
I don't enjoy my business anymore.
99
00:03:17.863 --> 00:03:18.944
I used to love what I do.
100
00:03:18.964 --> 00:03:24.665
I still love the idea of what I'm trying to do, but I kind of just wake up every morning and I just hate my job.
101
00:03:24.805 --> 00:03:26.825
I always think about it from the owner's perspective when we show up.
102
00:03:26.845 --> 00:03:29.866
It's like, okay, he was very humble to allow us to come.
103
00:03:30.426 --> 00:03:31.926
And that's pretty amazing.
104
00:03:31.946 --> 00:03:32.946
Like, I really respect that.
105
00:03:33.006 --> 00:03:35.107
And I'll probably establish that right off the rip.
106
00:03:35.447 --> 00:03:35.987
Like, I'm...
107
00:03:37.107 --> 00:03:44.991
amazed that someone would be grown this size, very established and well known and connected, and be willing to publicly talk about like their lowest moment like this.
108
00:03:45.131 --> 00:03:47.073
What we have right now, we could make something good out of what we got.
109
00:03:47.133 --> 00:03:48.093
We have a serious people problem.
110
00:03:48.573 --> 00:03:49.574
And we're trying to turn that around.
111
00:03:49.614 --> 00:03:53.276
It's just, right now I'm paying our landscape operation to exist, it's not making me any money.
112
00:03:53.456 --> 00:03:54.997
So I don't know how to turn it around, we're trying.
113
00:03:55.137 --> 00:04:00.260
To then somehow think that I'm gonna come help them in like a couple hours, like I don't take that lightly.
114
00:04:00.480 --> 00:04:05.643
First off, egotistical to think I can change 25 years worth of pain and like just flip it around.
115
00:04:06.103 --> 00:04:09.086
Secondly is there has to be something dramatic change.
116
00:04:09.486 --> 00:04:13.590
Is there a lot of customers unhappy just because of customer communication drops?
117
00:04:14.391 --> 00:04:15.292
It's getting worse, yeah.
118
00:04:15.392 --> 00:04:16.373
Yeah, a lot of unhappy customers.
119
00:04:16.393 --> 00:04:19.376
And that's some of my angst is like, my business was built on good customer service.
120
00:04:19.496 --> 00:04:24.040
And I'm really getting discouraged with the emails saying, your prices are going up, your quality's getting worse.
121
00:04:24.200 --> 00:04:26.262
But I just, I hate that there's unhappy customers.
122
00:04:26.282 --> 00:04:27.183
It's just the worst thing ever.
123
00:04:27.303 --> 00:04:28.644
I was thinking about this morning is like,
124
00:04:29.485 --> 00:04:32.626
This is not just like, oh, we can do a couple little things, little tweaks to the business.
125
00:04:34.007 --> 00:04:36.227
Something is dramatically wrong.
126
00:04:36.327 --> 00:04:40.149
For 25 years, you've been growing a business, and you cannot step away from it for a day.
127
00:04:40.669 --> 00:04:42.370
There's something really wrong with the company.
128
00:04:42.570 --> 00:04:44.590
How long have you been here at this space?
129
00:04:45.371 --> 00:04:47.171
We've been on this lot for two years.
130
00:04:47.191 --> 00:04:48.972
We've been in that office since last May.
131
00:04:49.436 --> 00:04:50.957
Okay, oh wow, so this is actually pretty recent.
132
00:04:50.977 --> 00:04:52.018
It's actually pretty recent, yes.
133
00:04:52.238 --> 00:04:53.860
And for a while, that's my shop next door.
134
00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:55.641
Okay, so you were up top there.
135
00:04:55.761 --> 00:04:57.823
Yes, and we were on my driveway for years.
136
00:04:58.183 --> 00:04:58.464
Really?
137
00:04:58.504 --> 00:04:59.524
Playing Tetris with trucks.
138
00:04:59.825 --> 00:05:01.286
I don't enjoy managing people.
139
00:05:01.346 --> 00:05:03.568
I don't enjoy dealing with issues constantly.
140
00:05:03.708 --> 00:05:08.272
We're not meeting our goals that I'm setting for the company no matter how hard I work at it or how hard I try.
141
00:05:08.312 --> 00:05:09.693
We're just not able to meet our goals.
142
00:05:09.893 --> 00:05:11.514
I'm just not sure if it's worth it anymore.
143
00:05:11.795 --> 00:05:15.057
I'm kind of looking for someone to tell me that it is and how to fix these issues.
144
00:05:15.338 --> 00:05:17.239
I get the impression that you almost want to quit.
145
00:05:17.780 --> 00:05:18.020
Oh yeah.
146
00:05:18.380 --> 00:05:20.141
I know it feels like I'm not judging at all.
147
00:05:20.161 --> 00:05:25.302
Last year was total burnout for me, and I made the decision last year that I was not gonna have another 2024.
148
00:05:26.122 --> 00:05:29.343
I promised myself if I had to go through that again, I'm definitely done.
149
00:05:29.363 --> 00:05:30.743
My wife and my kids are my number one.
150
00:05:31.303 --> 00:05:33.564
And if the business is taking from that, then something's gotta give.
151
00:05:33.724 --> 00:05:40.046
I had tried to hire four different production managers, and I interviewed dozens of people.
152
00:05:40.166 --> 00:05:41.746
I was spending so much time.
153
00:05:42.386 --> 00:05:48.128
I was running hundreds of dollars worth of ads to try to attract the right guy, and I made offers to all of them.
154
00:05:48.168 --> 00:05:50.451
Those two guys went and then got back to the other company.
155
00:05:50.511 --> 00:05:52.094
Yeah, and they were just taking my offers.
156
00:05:52.234 --> 00:05:55.459
Yeah, they were just taking my offers and going back to other companies to get a raise.
157
00:05:55.819 --> 00:05:57.161
I was just, I was done.
158
00:05:57.201 --> 00:05:57.862
I was so over it.
159
00:05:57.902 --> 00:06:02.810
I was like, I am buried under the load over here and balls are being dropped everywhere and I hate my life.
160
00:06:03.330 --> 00:06:04.470
I just hate where I'm at right now.
161
00:06:04.490 --> 00:06:04.931
I hate it.
162
00:06:04.951 --> 00:06:06.751
I went out so bad, but I can't quit.
163
00:06:06.971 --> 00:06:08.131
I come into work and I hate it.
164
00:06:08.412 --> 00:06:10.312
I'm just putting out fires all the time.
165
00:06:10.652 --> 00:06:12.333
This isn't what I imagined myself doing.
166
00:06:12.513 --> 00:06:15.153
And I don't want to be the downer to always be like, okay, just get out of it.
167
00:06:15.173 --> 00:06:16.214
But he's always complaining.
168
00:06:16.234 --> 00:06:17.654
And I'm like, okay, why are you doing this?
169
00:06:17.734 --> 00:06:18.734
Why do you want to do that?
170
00:06:19.095 --> 00:06:21.435
You said you want to run a business, but this is what it is.
171
00:06:21.475 --> 00:06:22.756
It's all the stress, all this frustration.
172
00:06:22.856 --> 00:06:23.416
Right.
173
00:06:23.576 --> 00:06:23.776
Really?
174
00:06:23.796 --> 00:06:24.676
Do you really want to keep doing this?
175
00:06:24.836 --> 00:06:26.557
And I've been telling myself for years it's going to change.
176
00:06:26.637 --> 00:06:27.877
You know, I'm going to get better people.
177
00:06:27.897 --> 00:06:28.737
We're going to get better staff.
178
00:06:28.757 --> 00:06:29.618
We're going to be more efficient.
179
00:06:29.638 --> 00:06:29.678
We
180
00:06:31.441 --> 00:06:37.083
And, I mean, no matter how much effort and time and money I throw at it, I'm still running into the same brick walls constantly.
181
00:06:37.143 --> 00:06:38.584
We got a Ventrac loan.
182
00:06:38.624 --> 00:06:40.084
We got a U.S. bank loan.
183
00:06:40.485 --> 00:06:41.805
We got truck loan.
184
00:06:41.845 --> 00:06:43.546
We've got another truck loan.
185
00:06:43.566 --> 00:06:45.046
We got two more other truck loans.
186
00:06:45.226 --> 00:06:46.467
We got a mini excavator.
187
00:06:46.527 --> 00:06:47.907
We got a Honda Civic loan.
188
00:06:47.927 --> 00:06:50.748
We got a cash flow manager U.S. bank loan.
189
00:06:50.969 --> 00:06:52.649
Whopping $332,758 with $52,000 worth of credit card debt.
190
00:06:57.571 --> 00:07:01.327
In the bank right now, cash total, including savings and checking, $50,000.
191
00:07:03.436 --> 00:07:04.696
One credit card, $52,000.
192
00:07:04.996 --> 00:07:06.837
And I think our numbers are okay.
193
00:07:06.977 --> 00:07:09.397
We actually are turning a decent amount of profit.
194
00:07:09.677 --> 00:07:12.178
Last year especially, we had a 19% EBITDA.
195
00:07:12.278 --> 00:07:17.679
But I guess the biggest personal issue that I'm dealing with is just I've got complete and total burnout.
196
00:07:17.779 --> 00:07:24.400
But realistically, even though on his P&L there's a whole bunch of profit, you look at his balance sheet and we're in a bad spot.
197
00:07:24.640 --> 00:07:26.161
We have hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.
198
00:07:26.301 --> 00:07:30.541
We have more credit card debt than we do have cash in the bank.
199
00:07:30.942 --> 00:07:33.002
And we have substantial amounts of loans.
200
00:07:33.182 --> 00:07:34.322
We just got the mulch meal last year.
201
00:07:34.342 --> 00:07:35.203
This is our first spring with it.
202
00:07:35.423 --> 00:07:35.803
Okay, nice.
203
00:07:36.003 --> 00:07:37.523
That's a frustrating story in and of itself.
204
00:07:37.583 --> 00:07:38.003
Really?
205
00:07:38.083 --> 00:07:39.344
Yeah, just how long it took to get it.
206
00:07:39.464 --> 00:07:43.965
And it was supposed to increase our productivity by 30%, but we're slower this year than we were last year without it.
207
00:07:44.205 --> 00:07:44.525
Really?
208
00:07:44.565 --> 00:07:45.285
Yeah, we gotta fix that.
209
00:07:45.425 --> 00:07:46.886
Why do you think that is?
210
00:07:46.946 --> 00:07:47.306
Personnel.
211
00:07:47.686 --> 00:07:51.127
And I seem to be constantly attracting people who don't care.
212
00:07:51.367 --> 00:07:51.927
They don't care that
213
00:07:52.587 --> 00:07:54.948
you know, they left something out in the rain and it got soaked.
214
00:07:55.468 --> 00:07:58.869
They don't care that they didn't lock up their truck at the end of the night and things can get stolen.
215
00:07:58.929 --> 00:07:59.989
I don't understand that.
216
00:08:00.169 --> 00:08:02.230
It's just I don't relate to these guys at all.
217
00:08:02.330 --> 00:08:07.011
And the lack of being able to relate is, yeah, I don't know how to solve that.
218
00:08:07.271 --> 00:08:10.912
There's always a hundred different things inside of a business that are going wrong, things that could be improved.
219
00:08:11.012 --> 00:08:15.473
It doesn't take a rocket genius to point out areas that could be improved or changed inside of a business.
220
00:08:15.653 --> 00:08:16.393
Anyone can do that.
221
00:08:16.493 --> 00:08:22.175
It's identifying which the one thing that if fixed would solve the other 80 problems inside the business or a big portion of them.
222
00:08:22.375 --> 00:08:24.916
You know, we usually talk about the 4L framework and it's like, hey, liquidity.
223
00:08:24.936 --> 00:08:27.576
And then if we get money, we turn them into leads and we go advertise.
224
00:08:27.596 --> 00:08:29.997
If we get a bunch of leads, we need more laborers and we get more employees.
225
00:08:30.017 --> 00:08:31.157
And then we talk about leadership.
226
00:08:31.197 --> 00:08:33.358
Once you get enough employees, you need leadership.
227
00:08:33.378 --> 00:08:36.778
And then once you get leadership and overhead and an admin person, then you need more liquidity.
228
00:08:36.798 --> 00:08:38.899
And we talk about the cycle and that's the 4L framework.
229
00:08:39.019 --> 00:08:43.740
But identifying where is the current constraint in the business and deploying all energy towards is the only way to fix it.
230
00:08:43.780 --> 00:08:47.522
So the mechanic gentleman, you had to let him go last year, or last month.
231
00:08:47.542 --> 00:08:47.922
Last month, yeah.
232
00:08:48.262 --> 00:08:48.742
And then?
233
00:08:48.842 --> 00:08:50.803
And then we just let our office manager go Friday.
234
00:08:51.343 --> 00:08:51.743
Really?
235
00:08:52.484 --> 00:08:53.364
So who's in the office now?
236
00:08:53.384 --> 00:08:54.204
Is there a production manager?
237
00:08:54.244 --> 00:08:55.005
It's just me and Brian.
238
00:08:55.025 --> 00:08:55.385
That's it.
239
00:08:55.425 --> 00:08:57.726
So emails, phone calls, he's just handling that?
240
00:08:57.806 --> 00:08:58.286
Mostly me.
241
00:08:58.506 --> 00:08:59.086
Okay, okay.
242
00:08:59.446 --> 00:08:59.927
It's insane.
243
00:09:00.127 --> 00:09:00.627
Brian!
244
00:09:01.634 --> 00:09:02.054
Where are you going?
245
00:09:02.775 --> 00:09:04.437
And actually he worked here when he was younger.
246
00:09:04.457 --> 00:09:04.937
Oh really?
247
00:09:05.078 --> 00:09:06.259
Six years ago for a short while.
248
00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:07.220
Brian, how's it going?
249
00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:07.881
How's it going?
250
00:09:08.001 --> 00:09:08.441
I'm Mike.
251
00:09:08.661 --> 00:09:09.302
Brian, nice to meet you.
252
00:09:09.322 --> 00:09:10.003
Good to meet you, man.
253
00:09:10.844 --> 00:09:12.185
Thanks for keeping everything afloat.
254
00:09:12.365 --> 00:09:14.007
Of course, I'm fine.
255
00:09:14.127 --> 00:09:17.370
Anyone could have showed up here today and be like, yes, the business owner doesn't want to show up.
256
00:09:17.991 --> 00:09:21.054
Employees are leaving, he's firing everybody, no one wants to be here.
257
00:09:21.074 --> 00:09:24.037
There's so many areas of where we could point out problems.
258
00:09:24.277 --> 00:09:25.258
But what's the one thing?
259
00:09:25.298 --> 00:09:25.758
It's leadership.
260
00:09:25.798 --> 00:09:26.839
That's the constraint to the business.
261
00:09:26.899 --> 00:09:29.241
Unless the leadership changes here, this business will not grow.
262
00:09:29.481 --> 00:09:36.748
The reason it has not grown for three years and it's stuck at 1.7 million and the business owner doesn't want to show up every single day is because there is a lack of leadership.
263
00:09:36.848 --> 00:09:37.409
He's not here.
264
00:09:38.710 --> 00:09:38.990
Really?
265
00:09:39.130 --> 00:09:40.671
Is he not here on purpose?
266
00:09:40.952 --> 00:09:42.913
Well, let's put two and two of that.
267
00:09:42.954 --> 00:09:44.355
We had a zero turn stolen yesterday.
268
00:09:45.565 --> 00:09:48.333
And he left it at a job site and somehow didn't realize that he did it.
269
00:09:48.353 --> 00:09:50.559
When all these ears run around, I'll tell you what I think.
270
00:09:50.739 --> 00:09:50.920
Okay.
271
00:09:50.980 --> 00:09:51.522
Okay, yeah.
272
00:09:53.459 --> 00:09:54.900
It's been a very interesting couple of weeks.
273
00:09:54.920 --> 00:09:55.521
You want to hear crew leads?
274
00:09:56.261 --> 00:09:56.421
Yeah.
275
00:09:56.621 --> 00:09:59.323
The situation on that, the guy, we weren't even going to fire him.
276
00:09:59.343 --> 00:09:59.964
He's not here today.
277
00:10:00.484 --> 00:10:04.667
He sent us a picture of truck wires that are trailer wires and said they got cut.
278
00:10:05.748 --> 00:10:06.569
It's just stuff like that.
279
00:10:06.589 --> 00:10:08.670
We're not even, we weren't even going to let him go.
280
00:10:08.911 --> 00:10:15.836
He left it two days ago at the job site yesterday morning, came out here and told us that they had left it in the hoop because it wasn't working.
281
00:10:16.056 --> 00:10:17.157
Well, I checked all my security cameras.
282
00:10:17.177 --> 00:10:17.958
They never put it in the hoop.
283
00:10:18.059 --> 00:10:19.520
So then we had dash cams in the trucks.
284
00:10:19.560 --> 00:10:20.221
I checked his dash cams.
285
00:10:20.241 --> 00:10:22.083
So he left it at a large commercial property.
286
00:10:22.364 --> 00:10:23.746
So they went back to look for it yesterday.
287
00:10:23.906 --> 00:10:24.486
Another crew did.
288
00:10:24.767 --> 00:10:25.528
And of course, it was gone.
289
00:10:25.868 --> 00:10:27.891
I don't believe that someone snipped his wire story.
290
00:10:28.672 --> 00:10:29.072
I don't know.
291
00:10:29.853 --> 00:10:31.015
Those wires were trailer wires.
292
00:10:32.850 --> 00:10:34.552
I know wires when I see them, those were not truck wires.
293
00:10:35.053 --> 00:10:36.655
Unless someone wired his truck with trailer wire.
294
00:10:37.035 --> 00:10:38.077
We called his bluff yesterday.
295
00:10:38.537 --> 00:10:39.098
Oh, yeah.
296
00:10:39.198 --> 00:10:41.561
I mean, how do you leave him, he left one of those, the 36's.
297
00:10:41.581 --> 00:10:49.912
How do you leave one of those at a job site, come all the way back to the shop, unload your stuff at the end of the day, and then the next morning, think you left it over there when you actually left it at the job site.
298
00:10:49.972 --> 00:10:54.633
That's either a serious lack of intelligence or I don't know.
299
00:10:54.673 --> 00:10:55.473
I don't know what you call that.
300
00:10:55.533 --> 00:10:59.534
But what I try to tell him is they don't think like we do.
301
00:10:59.614 --> 00:11:01.134
They don't care that it's a legal matter.
302
00:11:01.634 --> 00:11:02.274
They don't care.
303
00:11:02.294 --> 00:11:03.395
And it bothers me that they don't care.
304
00:11:03.715 --> 00:11:04.755
They're not going to.
305
00:11:04.875 --> 00:11:05.795
They're never going to.
306
00:11:06.355 --> 00:11:13.157
These, no matter, I think they're great guys, but no matter what, they're not going to see things how me and him see them.
307
00:11:13.457 --> 00:11:15.917
And we have another crew leader who didn't show up today because he's in court.
308
00:11:16.197 --> 00:11:19.678
So his crew, they are good to go, though, without him still?
309
00:11:20.158 --> 00:11:20.338
No.
310
00:11:20.658 --> 00:11:26.440
And the thing is, is he told me, he said, I take full responsibility for it, and I'll help you replace it, whatever I have to do.
311
00:11:26.700 --> 00:11:28.300
He just had that conversation with me yesterday.
312
00:11:28.540 --> 00:11:29.441
And then he doesn't show up today.
313
00:11:29.481 --> 00:11:31.641
He said they're in the middle of trying to figure all that out right now.
314
00:11:31.661 --> 00:11:32.201
They're juggling.
315
00:11:32.361 --> 00:11:32.661
Yeah.
316
00:11:33.062 --> 00:11:34.302
This is part of my frustration.
317
00:11:34.362 --> 00:11:37.563
It's like I'm trying to have a 15 minute from circle to roll out.
318
00:11:38.610 --> 00:11:40.513
And no matter how hard I try, it just never happens.
319
00:11:41.434 --> 00:11:45.459
This is where I think when the 4L framework, most of this is a leadership problem.
320
00:11:45.520 --> 00:11:50.526
There's labor problem, and there's liquidity problem, but those are downstream effects of the leadership.
321
00:11:50.967 --> 00:11:54.211
And that's why as the company grows, the role of the leader...
322
00:11:55.092 --> 00:11:57.373
is much less seen in the finance.
323
00:11:57.393 --> 00:11:58.613
It's hard to see a good leader.
324
00:11:58.633 --> 00:11:59.993
Like, oh, I look at these financial statements.
325
00:12:00.013 --> 00:12:00.693
I see a good leader.
326
00:12:00.873 --> 00:12:02.113
It's hard to do that.
327
00:12:02.454 --> 00:12:06.314
But as a company scales, you have less and less leverage of doing more work.
328
00:12:06.554 --> 00:12:19.757
And so when I see someone working 17, 18 hours a day on manual tasks, like answering the phone, doing emails, et cetera, and they're this size, they've forgotten the fact that they have a higher leverage use of their time, which is work through other people.
329
00:12:19.817 --> 00:12:24.298
And like I said, we have two guys who are still here who were here at the beginning of last year, and that's it.
330
00:12:24.478 --> 00:12:24.678
Yeah.
331
00:12:25.379 --> 00:12:26.039
everybody else is new.
332
00:12:26.199 --> 00:12:29.382
That's part of my stress, is how do you train that many people that fast?
333
00:12:29.502 --> 00:12:42.312
I can't be watching bank accounts, running reports, managing dispatch, selling jobs, ordering product, looking at the numbers, like taking care of Mrs. Jones' gate that got left open and her dog got out, handling clients that are mad and upset and threatening to sue me and all kinds of stuff.
334
00:12:42.453 --> 00:12:43.894
Are you doing sales and estimates at all?
335
00:12:43.914 --> 00:12:44.995
Yeah, I'm doing everything.
336
00:12:45.675 --> 00:12:45.975
All of it.
337
00:12:46.156 --> 00:12:47.056
At the size we are,
338
00:12:48.077 --> 00:12:52.520
I find myself constantly jumping back into that role because someone has to do it.
339
00:12:52.760 --> 00:12:57.783
And I can't expect one person to do three things, even though that's what I'm expecting of myself, because it's what I've been doing.
340
00:12:57.883 --> 00:12:58.783
And that's why I'm so burned out.
341
00:12:59.103 --> 00:13:00.304
I'm just trying to do so much.
342
00:13:00.604 --> 00:13:03.466
I'm trying to be all things to all people and failing at all of it.
343
00:13:03.786 --> 00:13:08.749
I tried hiring a salesman, spent a lot of time with him, and he ended up taking an offer to another company that beat mine.
344
00:13:09.029 --> 00:13:09.849
And I was offering him over $100,000.
345
00:13:10.990 --> 00:13:13.311
So I just, yeah, everyone's offering a ton of money.
346
00:13:13.831 --> 00:13:14.472
It's ridiculous.
347
00:13:14.512 --> 00:13:17.453
Because if he can do a good job, great, 100%.
348
00:13:17.713 --> 00:13:25.096
But if you can get everyone else to work from 80% to 90% and you have 12 people, that's 120% increase in output.
349
00:13:25.256 --> 00:13:28.118
And in order for this group, this business to grow, I have to grow.
350
00:13:28.918 --> 00:13:30.539
We've reached the limit of what I can do.
351
00:13:31.119 --> 00:13:31.419
where I'm at.
352
00:13:31.740 --> 00:13:37.785
And so you have to start focusing and thinking out how do I work through other people instead of how do I just do the work myself?
353
00:13:37.805 --> 00:13:44.832
And that's a very, it's a different mode to operate in from when you're going from a labor and grind hustle mode to now I need to be a leader.
354
00:13:45.132 --> 00:13:45.593
Very different.
355
00:13:46.193 --> 00:13:47.873
Like your schedule should look different.
356
00:13:47.973 --> 00:13:53.295
The way that you approach people should look different in the business because you're thinking about how do I operate through the time of others?
357
00:13:53.475 --> 00:13:57.976
So when he would address the crews since I've known him, it's at this level.
358
00:13:58.376 --> 00:14:00.637
They don't comprehend this level.
359
00:14:00.917 --> 00:14:08.478
So when you go to the lower level of them, it's more like if he was to say it at a lower level, well now he's calling them pretty much stupid.
360
00:14:08.538 --> 00:14:11.039
I've been afraid to go to them and be like, hey guys, here's the problem.
361
00:14:11.139 --> 00:14:12.960
Because I feel like they're not going to understand the problem.
362
00:14:13.100 --> 00:14:14.880
It's above their pay grade, so to speak.
363
00:14:15.040 --> 00:14:19.784
When I say it at a lower level, and this is why I've told him, Luke, grow the business, I got this.
364
00:14:20.185 --> 00:14:21.206
Worry about that back there.
365
00:14:21.586 --> 00:14:26.431
Because since I've been here, and he's even said it and seen it, they take what I say a lot differently.
366
00:14:26.451 --> 00:14:28.012
They respond to him way different than they do me.
367
00:14:28.292 --> 00:14:30.134
I have to create a layer between me and the crew.
368
00:14:30.995 --> 00:14:35.079
Because no matter what I do and what I say, there's a stigma that you're the boss.
369
00:14:35.179 --> 00:14:39.102
Like even if I'm going to say something positive, just approaching them, you can tell they're like,
370
00:14:39.983 --> 00:14:40.884
Oh crap, it's the boss.
371
00:14:40.904 --> 00:14:43.607
You know, it's like, I mean, Brian can attest to this.
372
00:14:43.787 --> 00:14:45.769
I don't yell, I don't scream, I don't chew people out.
373
00:14:45.789 --> 00:14:51.375
Like when you're smaller and you're a solo operator out in the field doing most of the work yourself, it's mostly physical stress.
374
00:14:51.796 --> 00:14:54.959
Then as you get employees, there's the stress of being a manager.
375
00:14:55.480 --> 00:15:00.085
Now he's stepping into, as you grow a larger organization above a million, like you're looking at
376
00:15:00.325 --> 00:15:02.347
the stress of the psychological.
377
00:15:02.367 --> 00:15:05.631
1.7 is the exact size my first location was at.
378
00:15:05.791 --> 00:15:07.894
When you decided to franchise?
379
00:15:08.274 --> 00:15:08.535
No.
380
00:15:08.755 --> 00:15:12.079
Well, we decided to franchise but that's when I decided everything had to change.
381
00:15:12.639 --> 00:15:12.759
Oh.
382
00:15:13.500 --> 00:15:15.383
I remember like similar situation.
383
00:15:15.403 --> 00:15:16.484
Yeah, just like same
384
00:15:16.664 --> 00:15:42.063
kind of breaking points in so many areas every single day there's something wrong happening and so as you grow the business the type of stress changes from physical stress to financial stress as you get employees and your margins get collapsed and then eventually become psychological where what he's going through right now we're working tons of hours every single day their employees walk out the job unhappy customers things are breaking down and that can just get wearing down especially after 25 years the fact though that people close to him are telling him he wants to quit makes it really hard.
385
00:15:42.343 --> 00:15:43.824
Yeah, just completely burned out.
386
00:15:43.904 --> 00:15:44.944
My wife wants me to quit.
387
00:15:45.004 --> 00:15:46.965
My brother who used to work with me tells me I should quit.
388
00:15:47.145 --> 00:15:48.466
I don't want to be a failure.
389
00:15:48.666 --> 00:15:49.767
I'm terrified of failure.
390
00:15:49.787 --> 00:15:51.047
I want this to work.
391
00:15:51.107 --> 00:15:51.928
I know that it can.
392
00:15:52.148 --> 00:15:54.149
I just don't know how to reach that.
393
00:15:54.449 --> 00:15:58.331
Yeah, well, the thing is, look, if you as the leader are broken and you don't want to be there every day,
394
00:15:59.868 --> 00:16:00.509
Your team knows that.
395
00:16:00.849 --> 00:16:12.463
And so if we can't fix that, why are we surprised when there's churn and we can't get anyone to work here that's really good to stay if the owner doesn't want to work there?
396
00:16:14.062 --> 00:16:17.524
Like if the owner loses passion for the business, they should close up shop.
397
00:16:17.805 --> 00:16:20.146
I kinda get a lay of where everything's at.
398
00:16:20.306 --> 00:16:22.208
I understand it because I've had the mutiny.
399
00:16:22.308 --> 00:16:27.911
I've had the whole crew pull me into a meeting and say, here's our list of demands, otherwise we're leaving.
400
00:16:27.992 --> 00:16:31.814
I've had a general manager go start another business, pull the whole team with them.
401
00:16:31.874 --> 00:16:32.595
Like, I get it.
402
00:16:32.855 --> 00:16:33.976
So I get the problem.
403
00:16:34.016 --> 00:16:35.357
Now let's think of like, where are we going from here?
404
00:16:35.557 --> 00:16:38.098
If I was coming to you, Brian, and was like, what needs to change?
405
00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:42.922
Your current thought is, he kinda needs to step back from the team, let me cook for a second.
406
00:16:43.422 --> 00:16:49.486
You need to pull in an admin person and a salesperson, your operations, and then he steps back from the frontline team.
407
00:16:49.546 --> 00:16:51.268
Is that your current thought process?
408
00:16:51.448 --> 00:16:51.708
Yes.
409
00:16:52.028 --> 00:16:57.392
Your thought process is that way because you feel anything he says to them will be taken incorrectly and wrong right now.
410
00:16:57.512 --> 00:16:59.213
Yes, because it's been proven so far.
411
00:16:59.393 --> 00:17:02.215
Yes, based off what I've been told and based off what I've seen.
412
00:17:02.676 --> 00:17:04.177
And when did you move over here?
413
00:17:04.983 --> 00:17:09.387
So I worked for him in like 2018, 2019.
414
00:17:09.407 --> 00:17:10.268
Got it.
415
00:17:10.769 --> 00:17:13.111
I said, man, you're making a lot of money.
416
00:17:13.451 --> 00:17:15.353
So I opened my own company.
417
00:17:15.734 --> 00:17:17.075
I scaled it to about $700,000.
418
00:17:17.115 --> 00:17:23.061
And then the big dog around there that buys all the little guys gave me an offer I couldn't pass up on.
419
00:17:23.181 --> 00:17:27.005
He's just a legit guy, and that's why I'm willing to swing for him.
420
00:17:27.205 --> 00:17:31.107
Yeah, and I can attest to when I let Jason go last year.
421
00:17:31.248 --> 00:17:33.489
When the crew got here, I updated them on what happened.
422
00:17:33.709 --> 00:17:35.270
I didn't divulge into the reasons why.
423
00:17:35.590 --> 00:17:37.912
I just said, you know, Jason's no longer here.
424
00:17:39.092 --> 00:17:42.134
I don't need to get into details, but it's like, it doesn't matter what I'm saying.
425
00:17:42.274 --> 00:17:43.175
They're not hearing me.
426
00:17:43.295 --> 00:17:48.918
And assuming, let's assume for a moment, that you don't have bad intentions and you want what's best for them, why would we not tell the truth?
427
00:17:49.259 --> 00:17:51.020
In order to keep the lies from spreading.
428
00:17:52.011 --> 00:17:54.812
I guess it's because I feel like the truth is going to be misconstrued anyway.
429
00:17:55.852 --> 00:17:58.193
It will be misconstrued if they don't trust you.
430
00:17:58.673 --> 00:17:59.774
And right now they don't trust you.
431
00:17:59.974 --> 00:18:00.534
No, they don't.
432
00:18:00.574 --> 00:18:04.115
If you don't have trust in the team, no matter what you do, pay for performance will not work.
433
00:18:04.376 --> 00:18:05.816
Open book management will not work.
434
00:18:06.116 --> 00:18:10.938
Hiring more people and a different office person will not work if they don't trust you.
435
00:18:11.538 --> 00:18:12.619
You don't trust them by the way.
436
00:18:12.859 --> 00:18:14.781
That's why the cameras are in the trucks.
437
00:18:14.861 --> 00:18:17.783
I have told you that, that trust is a big issue.
438
00:18:17.883 --> 00:18:20.685
Even like with some of the guys, I don't trust them to do this, this, and this.
439
00:18:20.725 --> 00:18:24.348
And I say, I have told him this, this has been a ongoing conversation.
440
00:18:24.868 --> 00:18:29.252
Because I do, I will take, we have a guy that's been here three weeks, I promoted him today.
441
00:18:29.983 --> 00:18:30.964
He would not do that.
442
00:18:31.164 --> 00:18:33.465
And we have new working interviews coming in all the time.
443
00:18:34.366 --> 00:18:38.068
The guy who's being promoted to crew leader who's driving this truck today has only been with us for a week.
444
00:18:38.448 --> 00:18:42.290
And he's already being promoted to crew lead, not because he's not good, but simply because we have no better option.
445
00:18:42.670 --> 00:18:44.471
Somebody just called me, so I will call him.
446
00:18:44.651 --> 00:18:45.032
G.O.
447
00:18:45.052 --> 00:18:46.412
I don't need my phone.
448
00:18:46.452 --> 00:18:46.873
No, come here.
449
00:18:47.213 --> 00:18:47.613
I need you.
450
00:18:47.973 --> 00:18:48.834
Where's the landscaper's?
451
00:18:49.074 --> 00:18:49.494
G.O.
452
00:18:49.554 --> 00:18:52.596
is officially a foreman, letting everybody know that.
453
00:18:53.379 --> 00:18:53.599
V.O.
454
00:18:53.639 --> 00:18:54.561
is the former athlete.
455
00:18:54.581 --> 00:18:55.081
Congratulations.
456
00:18:55.602 --> 00:18:57.364
I will take a swing on these guys.
457
00:18:57.564 --> 00:18:58.746
I will show them things.
458
00:18:59.066 --> 00:19:02.831
If they're showing me things, I will risk whatever.
459
00:19:03.552 --> 00:19:05.955
And until they prove me like...
460
00:19:07.162 --> 00:19:09.783
wrong, like, hey, they're not to be trusted, I'm going to.
461
00:19:09.963 --> 00:19:16.265
I think that in the short term, you getting away from the crew would be a really easy way to make things go better in the short term.
462
00:19:16.405 --> 00:19:18.805
Yeah, because Brian, they like Brian more.
463
00:19:18.985 --> 00:19:21.266
The reason is because they know he doesn't have equity in the business.
464
00:19:21.486 --> 00:19:25.127
In their mind, Brian will advocate for what's best for the employee.
465
00:19:25.447 --> 00:19:27.388
He's going to advocate what's best for the business.
466
00:19:27.628 --> 00:19:31.649
There's only way, one way, in my opinion, to break that thought process.
467
00:19:32.009 --> 00:19:33.150
and that is to prove them wrong.
468
00:19:33.370 --> 00:19:36.072
Brian is certainly a great yin to his yang.
469
00:19:36.212 --> 00:19:41.357
The challenging part is, Brian has also been here for two weeks, and he has more credibility baked in because he's not the owner.
470
00:19:41.477 --> 00:19:44.099
Any other employee, you are inherently on the same team.
471
00:19:44.219 --> 00:19:48.382
When you join an organization where there's an adversarial relationship between owner and employee.
472
00:19:48.503 --> 00:19:55.088
And so when you have open book management, profit sharing, P4P, these are things that are meant to get the owner and the employee on the same page.
473
00:19:55.388 --> 00:20:00.392
You just, you create the notion that like, oh, it is all of us versus that guy in the back that doesn't know what he's talking about.
474
00:20:00.412 --> 00:20:00.713
Yeah, 100%.
475
00:20:01.293 --> 00:20:01.493
right?
476
00:20:01.673 --> 00:20:02.714
That is one way to deal with it.
477
00:20:02.815 --> 00:20:08.600
And I think actually in the short term, if you disappeared for a second and let him just kind of cook, especially the next few weeks, it would be better.
478
00:20:08.740 --> 00:20:09.961
But eventually he's going to move on.
479
00:20:10.262 --> 00:20:10.982
He wants to move on.
480
00:20:11.242 --> 00:20:14.746
And then there's going to have to be, there's going to be another leadership vacuum and we're going to have more problems.
481
00:20:14.926 --> 00:20:18.249
And so like the leader has to be leading.
482
00:20:18.509 --> 00:20:22.173
And if there is no trust going to the leader, no one will be led.
483
00:20:22.573 --> 00:20:26.038
they have asked questions, like obviously, as you know, they've asked questions.
484
00:20:26.138 --> 00:20:37.235
And I was really hoping that the people I had here in the office or Brandon in the shop, I was really hoping that we were a team and that we were pulling for the same things, only to find out that in my absence, it was totally different.
485
00:20:37.475 --> 00:20:37.695
everyone.
486
00:20:37.935 --> 00:20:38.635
I just want to interrupt.
487
00:20:38.835 --> 00:20:39.555
It's Mike Andes here.
488
00:20:39.575 --> 00:20:40.316
I'm in the studio.
489
00:20:40.436 --> 00:20:44.317
And I just want to say a quick thank you to Luke for even allowing us to show up.
490
00:20:44.777 --> 00:20:54.699
I know there's gonna be a lot of people in the comments that will bash him, but the ability for a business owner like himself to allow us to come, be vulnerable and share so that everyone here can learn.
491
00:20:55.019 --> 00:20:57.420
I just want to say a big thank you to him and to his team.
492
00:20:57.940 --> 00:21:06.022
Also, the whole problem of having team members not show up every spring and having a new team constantly churning through the business is extremely hard to build
493
00:21:07.542 --> 00:21:10.164
And that's why actually I created this book called The Off Season.
494
00:21:10.584 --> 00:21:18.670
And if you don't want to buy it on Amazon, which is totally fine, you can go to mikeandies.com slash workshop and get it completely free in video training format.
495
00:21:19.050 --> 00:21:21.211
But one paragraph in here I want to read to you.
496
00:21:21.411 --> 00:21:23.313
It says, off seasons will keep you poor.
497
00:21:23.493 --> 00:21:28.356
The goal must be to fix the off season, to get steady leads all winter long.
498
00:21:28.456 --> 00:21:31.338
By doing that, you'll keep your labors through the winter.
499
00:21:31.538 --> 00:21:35.621
When spring comes, they'll be ready, trained, and experienced, not newbies.
500
00:21:35.801 --> 00:21:38.642
These employees have prepared to handle the busy season.
501
00:21:39.102 --> 00:21:40.642
And that's what J&L is struggling with.
502
00:21:40.922 --> 00:21:44.263
This constant turnover every single spring will kill your business.
503
00:21:44.623 --> 00:21:46.123
We're still in the process of organizing this.
504
00:21:46.163 --> 00:21:51.045
My recent fleet manager who works up at the shop, he's not there anymore.
505
00:21:51.065 --> 00:21:51.845
We fired him last month.
506
00:21:52.025 --> 00:21:53.565
Yeah, I really want it to feel like a team.
507
00:21:53.585 --> 00:21:56.066
Not like it's me doing all the work and I'm dragging them along.
508
00:21:56.686 --> 00:21:58.326
And they don't want to feel that way either.
509
00:21:58.406 --> 00:21:59.767
Nobody wants to be in a company like that.
510
00:21:59.927 --> 00:22:01.367
You find out a lot about people after they leave.
511
00:22:02.087 --> 00:22:05.108
And I found out after he left that there was things he was saying to the crew.
512
00:22:06.199 --> 00:22:07.460
It just wasn't a good culture fit anymore.
513
00:22:07.900 --> 00:22:09.721
Unfortunately, that's been our story for three years.
514
00:22:09.741 --> 00:22:11.303
Same thing with the office person last week?
515
00:22:11.323 --> 00:22:11.503
Yeah.
516
00:22:12.063 --> 00:22:19.708
Joy, our office manager, we would talk about doing things like we should probably get cameras in the trucks because we don't know what these guys are doing.
517
00:22:20.169 --> 00:22:23.711
Or we'll have clients that call up and say, my lawn never got cut, and yet it was recorded that it got cut.
518
00:22:24.151 --> 00:22:24.812
Did it or didn't it?
519
00:22:25.392 --> 00:22:26.634
How are we going to know?
520
00:22:26.814 --> 00:22:30.219
So if we have cameras in the trucks, well, we'll just go back to that day and see, oh, there we are.
521
00:22:30.259 --> 00:22:31.581
We're parked right in front of Mrs. Jones' house.
522
00:22:31.641 --> 00:22:32.722
We did, in fact, cut her grass.
523
00:22:32.762 --> 00:22:33.363
Here's the proof.
524
00:22:33.383 --> 00:22:34.965
I'm afraid of giving people information.
525
00:22:35.606 --> 00:22:37.068
That could be not helpful.
526
00:22:37.349 --> 00:22:40.653
Sometimes arming people with information just allows them to...
527
00:22:41.794 --> 00:22:42.715
wreak havoc, you know?
528
00:22:42.735 --> 00:22:46.536
So you have to be careful who you give information to because they could use it the wrong way.
529
00:22:46.777 --> 00:22:48.277
And she was all about it, to me.
530
00:22:48.757 --> 00:22:54.380
But when the guys would come in and they were talking to her about it and I wasn't here, she's like, yeah, Luke's putting cameras in the trucks because he wants to spy on you.
531
00:22:54.520 --> 00:22:58.842
And it's like, no, I don't sit here in my office all day watching truck cams while drinking Kool-Aid.
532
00:22:58.902 --> 00:23:04.925
You know, like, that's not what I'm doing, and yet that's the image they have, is that Luke's sitting in here watching me all day to catch me doing something.
533
00:23:04.945 --> 00:23:06.466
I'm not trying to catch you doing something wrong.
534
00:23:06.626 --> 00:23:08.667
I just happened to notice someone's not wearing seat belts.
535
00:23:08.727 --> 00:23:10.768
You know, you kind of tend to not want to go back there, you know?
536
00:23:11.208 --> 00:23:13.150
You've been burned before and it's painful.
537
00:23:13.170 --> 00:23:14.711
You don't want to go back to where it's painful.
538
00:23:14.791 --> 00:23:15.812
It's our natural reaction, right?
539
00:23:15.832 --> 00:23:16.753
We want to retreat from pain.
540
00:23:16.953 --> 00:23:21.758
Everybody's valued in a company, but as an office person, an office manager, do office manager stuff.
541
00:23:21.958 --> 00:23:25.681
We found tons of stuff she was neglecting recently the past 72 hours.
542
00:23:25.761 --> 00:23:32.808
I needed to promote somebody, and I wanted to promote organically from within, so I felt like my office manager's husband was the best bet for production manager, so I promoted him.
543
00:23:33.268 --> 00:23:35.850
But I ended up having to let him go May of last year.
544
00:23:36.651 --> 00:23:39.732
And it's my office manager's husband, so you can imagine that was rough.
545
00:23:39.892 --> 00:23:42.993
But her priority was to be out there and turn everybody against him.
546
00:23:43.013 --> 00:23:43.913
Being a bug in your ear.
547
00:23:44.313 --> 00:23:48.594
And I told him from the jump of being here, when you fired her husband, that you should have never hired.
548
00:23:48.754 --> 00:23:51.895
When you fired her husband, she should have walked with him.
549
00:23:52.175 --> 00:23:54.396
You should not ever hire family.
550
00:23:54.896 --> 00:23:55.796
It just doesn't work.
551
00:23:55.816 --> 00:23:58.717
That's why my family that owns companies, I don't work for them.
552
00:23:59.257 --> 00:23:59.677
I can't.
553
00:24:00.317 --> 00:24:01.459
It just doesn't mesh.
554
00:24:01.579 --> 00:24:05.123
Some of my best employees from a work perspective, though, have been family members.
555
00:24:05.364 --> 00:24:07.346
I'm one of 13 kids, so I have a ton of brothers.
556
00:24:07.386 --> 00:24:09.969
Yes, and that's how he views things, and I tell him the same thing every day.
557
00:24:10.190 --> 00:24:12.092
They were good for certain parts.
558
00:24:12.172 --> 00:24:14.495
The guy that was in here, he's a culture destruction.
559
00:24:14.635 --> 00:24:15.496
Is it just burnout?
560
00:24:15.516 --> 00:24:15.897
Is it just burnout?
561
00:24:18.513 --> 00:24:20.234
or their structural issues with the business.
562
00:24:20.434 --> 00:24:21.995
He's been doing it for 20 plus years.
563
00:24:22.055 --> 00:24:27.518
Like that's in and of itself exhausting, especially when you can't keep people and if you've been burned a bunch by managers.
564
00:24:27.738 --> 00:24:29.278
So I know all the feelings I've built.
565
00:24:29.379 --> 00:24:32.820
Like the first location, it was at 1.7 the year I left.
566
00:24:33.441 --> 00:24:34.661
So I know exactly where he's at.
567
00:24:34.981 --> 00:24:42.365
It feels like it's constantly a struggle between you either have guys who are excellent technicians but terrible for the culture or people who are great for the culture but terrible technicians.
568
00:24:42.385 --> 00:24:43.926
Can't find the unicorns that are both.
569
00:24:44.146 --> 00:24:45.307
I'll go prescriptive mode.
570
00:24:45.327 --> 00:24:46.588
I rarely do this in a turnaround.
571
00:24:46.649 --> 00:24:48.490
Usually most of this thing, I try to guide you.
572
00:24:48.651 --> 00:24:49.632
So this is my prescription.
573
00:24:49.992 --> 00:24:56.018
You stand up in front of them and have extreme ownership and say, the reason this business isn't doing good financially, here's the numbers, and people aren't staying.
574
00:24:56.038 --> 00:24:56.558
It's my fault.
575
00:24:56.598 --> 00:24:57.239
It's my fault.
576
00:24:57.379 --> 00:24:57.780
Yes, it is.
577
00:24:58.120 --> 00:24:59.181
And empty your chambers.
578
00:24:59.381 --> 00:25:07.950
If you allow them to do that on you, you now have down the road, after time has gone on, the ability to hold them accountable to the standards that you anticipate for them to have.
579
00:25:08.190 --> 00:25:11.514
Like the reason there's no extreme ownership of your team is because you're not taking extreme ownership of the business.
580
00:25:11.714 --> 00:25:12.875
Like that's just facts.
581
00:25:13.136 --> 00:25:17.881
Like extreme ownership of the leadership position is why did I have an admin person that I allowed them to be a cancer?
582
00:25:17.921 --> 00:25:18.902
Why didn't I fire them sooner?
583
00:25:19.383 --> 00:25:19.823
I should have.
584
00:25:20.064 --> 00:25:21.425
These are the things we know as leaders.
585
00:25:21.625 --> 00:25:27.492
And the only reason they don't take extreme ownership of their actions out in the field is because we don't as leaders take actions at the top.
586
00:25:27.532 --> 00:25:29.194
They are simply a byproduct of the leadership they have.
587
00:25:29.314 --> 00:25:31.697
And the reason people leave businesses is because of bad managers.
588
00:25:31.898 --> 00:25:32.579
It's not because of the pay.
589
00:25:32.599 --> 00:25:33.460
Your pay is decent.
590
00:25:33.700 --> 00:25:33.981
It's good.
591
00:25:34.221 --> 00:25:34.381
Yeah.
592
00:25:34.441 --> 00:25:34.902
It's comparable.
593
00:25:34.942 --> 00:25:35.923
Yeah, we're very competitive.
594
00:25:36.144 --> 00:25:38.187
Good trucks, good equipment, nice shop space.
595
00:25:38.427 --> 00:25:39.408
Been around for a long time.
596
00:25:39.468 --> 00:25:41.071
There's stability in the position.
597
00:25:41.251 --> 00:25:44.315
It is simply a function of they do not want to work for Luke.
598
00:25:44.455 --> 00:25:44.636
Yeah.
599
00:25:45.970 --> 00:25:46.110
Yeah.
600
00:25:46.310 --> 00:25:51.195
So then it just becomes... Well, I've said it from the beginning, there's something about me that they're reacting to.
601
00:25:51.315 --> 00:25:52.196
Right, so we can fix it.
602
00:25:52.417 --> 00:25:55.119
Leadership is a skill, I keep going back to that, but man, it's a tough one to learn.
603
00:25:56.120 --> 00:26:00.365
And it's an infinite game when it comes to leadership because I stink at certain elements.
604
00:26:00.905 --> 00:26:02.487
I'm just not good at leadership.
605
00:26:02.987 --> 00:26:05.228
And that's the constraint to many of our growth.
606
00:26:05.268 --> 00:26:12.591
And that's why so often at times when you look at the 4L framework, we talk about liquidity, we talk about getting more leads, we talk about getting more employees.
607
00:26:12.611 --> 00:26:15.692
But like ultimately, if you fix leadership, it has a reverse effect.
608
00:26:15.712 --> 00:26:17.613
Like your labors get more efficient.
609
00:26:18.013 --> 00:26:23.335
All of a sudden you do better marketing because you have great leadership and like people want to work for you and there's lots of word of mouth, so leads come in fast.
610
00:26:23.936 --> 00:26:26.777
Liquidity, you get better margins because people are more efficient out in the field.
611
00:26:27.717 --> 00:26:41.702
So leadership is the stem of almost every single issue, whether you're one employee, whether you have no employees and you have a family, like if he can just get his wife on board, like I can't even imagine like having someone that for 15 years doesn't really want you to be in the business.
612
00:26:41.882 --> 00:26:48.204
You're pouring yourself into it every single day and the person that you love the most is actively wanting you to leave that place.
613
00:26:48.424 --> 00:26:54.851
And so I would say this is my two cents and you will have evidence to prove me wrong within a year if you did this.
614
00:26:55.151 --> 00:26:57.253
I would take the cameras out of the trucks.
615
00:26:57.594 --> 00:27:00.537
If I knew I could count on my team, yes, I would not do it.
616
00:27:00.697 --> 00:27:00.857
Right.
617
00:27:00.917 --> 00:27:05.662
So we have to take the first step in building a trusting relationship because they do not trust you and you don't trust them.
618
00:27:06.103 --> 00:27:08.145
So would you think I should just shut the whole camera thing down right now?
619
00:27:08.325 --> 00:27:11.666
I would use that as a good faith measure to show that you trust them.
620
00:27:11.866 --> 00:27:13.587
So how do we handle a situation when it arises?
621
00:27:13.607 --> 00:27:15.528
There's a traffic accident and we don't know what happened.
622
00:27:15.688 --> 00:27:18.129
And it's just their word versus the person who the other person who's involved.
623
00:27:18.149 --> 00:27:20.089
If you want them to trust you, you will have to trust them.
624
00:27:20.309 --> 00:27:24.251
And yes, there will be times there's an accident and you don't get it on camera.
625
00:27:24.451 --> 00:27:27.432
So my location has been in business for 11 years now.
626
00:27:27.652 --> 00:27:29.953
You had one accident, cost us $6,000.
627
00:27:30.173 --> 00:27:31.794
We don't have any gas cams on trucks.
628
00:27:31.874 --> 00:27:32.714
There's 15 trucks.
629
00:27:33.174 --> 00:27:36.136
And the reason for that is because they trust that I'm going to back them up.
630
00:27:36.196 --> 00:27:39.538
And if they damage something, they will tell me.
631
00:27:39.558 --> 00:27:41.240
And that's always been that way.
632
00:27:41.320 --> 00:27:42.640
It's been where there has been mutinies.
633
00:27:43.081 --> 00:27:45.282
And in that culture and environment, we don't make money.
634
00:27:45.763 --> 00:27:46.223
I don't trust them.
635
00:27:46.343 --> 00:27:47.043
I hate my job.
636
00:27:47.564 --> 00:27:48.324
I don't want to come up to work.
637
00:27:48.544 --> 00:27:49.585
And they don't want to show up either.
638
00:27:49.885 --> 00:27:51.947
And if you don't want to show up to work, they don't want to either.
639
00:27:53.443 --> 00:27:53.663
Yeah.
640
00:27:53.883 --> 00:27:58.748
Like if you don't love what you're doing and you've lost the passion for J&L, you've lost it.
641
00:27:59.168 --> 00:28:02.772
The number one thing for a founder, an entrepreneur to do is stay in love with the business.
642
00:28:03.132 --> 00:28:05.934
Because if you're not in love with it, no one below you is going to love it.
643
00:28:06.215 --> 00:28:09.398
No one else is going to have the passion and that purpose statement will not be fulfilled.
644
00:28:09.738 --> 00:28:11.520
How do I stay in love with it when my wife hates it?
645
00:28:11.820 --> 00:28:14.743
The same way that you get your employees to fall in love with it.
646
00:28:15.958 --> 00:28:18.740
and that is align the incentives of the business with theirs.
647
00:28:19.301 --> 00:28:23.945
It says 20% profit, but like if you take out his wages, let's call it 12% profit margin business.
648
00:28:24.145 --> 00:28:32.912
When people start thinking about quitting, even when they're profitable like that, what they're comparing it against is, is this really worth working 70 hours a week for?
649
00:28:33.013 --> 00:28:36.415
You got a family of 10 people you're responsible for.
650
00:28:36.716 --> 00:28:37.977
You're not spending any time with them.
651
00:28:38.117 --> 00:28:41.220
You've been doing this for 25 years, so you feel very much like stuck.
652
00:28:41.600 --> 00:28:43.862
Like if I haven't been able to figure out in 25 years, what's gonna change?
653
00:28:44.320 --> 00:28:48.364
She has an idea in her mind about what an ideal life looks like.
654
00:28:48.664 --> 00:28:49.525
Is it nine to five?
655
00:28:49.625 --> 00:28:52.688
Is it, hey, I just need to be able to text you and get your response?
656
00:28:52.728 --> 00:28:57.972
She said before, she's like, I just wish you could come home at a somewhat reasonable time, whether it's 5.30, whether it's 6.00.
657
00:28:58.633 --> 00:28:59.534
And when you're home, you're home.
658
00:29:00.074 --> 00:29:02.256
My problem is when I'm home, the wheels are still turning.
659
00:29:02.957 --> 00:29:05.379
That's, you know, every day I'm a professional firefighter.
660
00:29:05.399 --> 00:29:06.520
It's like, how do I solve this problem?
661
00:29:06.540 --> 00:29:07.461
How do I solve that problem?
662
00:29:09.662 --> 00:29:15.205
And I don't have bandwidth to be thinking about Michael's math problems.
663
00:29:15.665 --> 00:29:16.905
I need more bandwidth for that.
664
00:29:17.005 --> 00:29:18.866
I'm usually against whoever says to quit.
665
00:29:19.446 --> 00:29:30.471
Because, especially someone like your spouse or your brother or someone close to you, especially because his brother worked with him in the past, to tell you to quit is like a gut punch.
666
00:29:31.131 --> 00:29:32.391
You've been doing this for 25 years.
667
00:29:32.411 --> 00:29:33.132
This is all he knows.
668
00:29:34.075 --> 00:29:35.196
He's doing it since he was 14.
669
00:29:35.657 --> 00:29:36.337
And you can tell them that.
670
00:29:36.357 --> 00:29:38.880
Like, hey, guys, the business, struggling financially.
671
00:29:39.160 --> 00:29:40.321
Like, just say these words.
672
00:29:40.582 --> 00:29:42.784
We have more credit card debt than we do have money in the bank.
673
00:29:42.904 --> 00:29:47.248
Yeah, I guess I've always been afraid if I expose stuff like that, that's going to make them feel like their job's a jeopardy.
674
00:29:47.409 --> 00:29:47.669
It is.
675
00:29:48.430 --> 00:29:50.672
Because if you quit, they are losing their job.
676
00:29:50.812 --> 00:29:51.713
You like to be truthful.
677
00:29:52.073 --> 00:29:52.754
That's the truth.
678
00:29:53.074 --> 00:29:53.694
That is the truth.
679
00:29:53.754 --> 00:29:54.815
And you don't say it with spite.
680
00:29:54.895 --> 00:29:57.938
You don't say like, hey guys, I'm proving you wrong.
681
00:29:57.958 --> 00:29:59.079
This is a matter of like, hey.
682
00:29:59.099 --> 00:30:04.503
I feel like if I tell them that, they're gonna feel like I'm telling them it's their fault because they're not getting it up there.
683
00:30:04.523 --> 00:30:04.743
No, no, no.
684
00:30:04.823 --> 00:30:06.765
That's why you start off with, this is all my fault.
685
00:30:07.105 --> 00:30:07.766
I've messed up.
686
00:30:08.486 --> 00:30:13.530
I've allowed things in my past, in my family, past employees that burnt me to affect the way I lead.
687
00:30:13.991 --> 00:30:14.431
And I'm sorry.
688
00:30:14.571 --> 00:30:16.553
I don't think they've ever heard those words come out of your mouth.
689
00:30:17.508 --> 00:30:21.451
And this is the next part, is like once you've done that, then you go to your wife.
690
00:30:21.471 --> 00:30:24.453
Cause you're not giving her what she wants, which is not the business, it is your time.
691
00:30:24.994 --> 00:30:31.019
And the reason you can't give her that time is cause you don't trust anyone here to run it the way you would if you were here.
692
00:30:31.039 --> 00:30:33.741
Well it's because I had office managers literally stealing money.
693
00:30:33.781 --> 00:30:36.243
Right, but if we take ownership of it, it's like we allowed that to happen.
694
00:30:36.843 --> 00:30:41.184
We created an environment where... Well, I know it was happening, but yes, I allowed it to happen unintentionally.
695
00:30:41.304 --> 00:30:46.206
We created an environment that it was in their best interest to do those things instead of support the business.
696
00:30:46.426 --> 00:30:49.907
Yeah, I really don't want them to feel like this meeting's about, hey guys, we're going under.
697
00:30:50.647 --> 00:30:51.627
Just wanted to give you a heads up.
698
00:30:51.647 --> 00:30:52.888
Like, that's not what it is at all.
699
00:30:53.248 --> 00:30:58.690
It's a, I have a clear path in my head about how we can go up, but I'm the bottleneck and I need help.
700
00:30:58.990 --> 00:30:59.810
And I'm asking for your help.
701
00:31:00.130 --> 00:31:02.834
Every single negative thing that comes in their mouth, Whether it's true or not, it doesn't matter.
702
00:31:02.854 --> 00:31:03.756
You want to thank them.
703
00:31:04.457 --> 00:31:05.258
Everyone should be there.
704
00:31:05.619 --> 00:31:07.481
There should be no lines, there should be no walls.
705
00:31:07.722 --> 00:31:14.993
We're gonna open up the organization or if communication flows freely and we don't have silos of poison happening where we don't trust them when they're out there, stuff's not going on.
706
00:31:15.453 --> 00:31:18.696
We don't know if they're not answering the phone because they're on lunch break, if they're at a job.
707
00:31:18.936 --> 00:31:20.217
We don't trust, there's no trust.
708
00:31:20.437 --> 00:31:22.799
And so the only way to fix that is do something radical.
709
00:31:22.940 --> 00:31:24.641
And you will get one or two people that will need to leave.
710
00:31:24.821 --> 00:31:30.866
I think you've actually gotten most of the cancers out, but the problem is even once a cancer is cut out, it can still spread throughout the body if it's got the bloodstream.
711
00:31:30.906 --> 00:31:32.027
And right now it's in the bloodstream.
712
00:31:32.107 --> 00:31:36.071
So you're just gonna create other cancers that are gonna pop up in the business because no one trusts you.
713
00:31:36.851 --> 00:31:39.253
I'm so afraid that no matter what I say, it's gonna be taken wrong.
714
00:31:39.774 --> 00:31:41.075
And so then I'm afraid to say anything.
715
00:31:42.023 --> 00:31:50.009
And then my silence is taken as, he doesn't care about me, he doesn't notice my work, it doesn't matter if I do a good job, he doesn't care.
716
00:31:50.049 --> 00:31:57.435
It's like, it's literally because I'm afraid to say anything, because I'm afraid however, whatever I say it, it's gonna be taken wrong, and I don't know how to fix that.
717
00:31:58.016 --> 00:32:00.898
I think most of the problem is between his ears, honestly.
718
00:32:02.259 --> 00:32:04.521
So this one's gonna be fun.
719
00:32:05.722 --> 00:32:09.445
You know, Francis, this is, this is, this is what I'm good at.
720
00:32:10.382 --> 00:32:12.884
You know, there's some people who are like, they're really good at sports.
721
00:32:12.944 --> 00:32:13.524
I'm not great.
722
00:32:13.564 --> 00:32:14.365
You know, I'm small.
723
00:32:14.385 --> 00:32:14.985
I'm not going to work.
724
00:32:15.226 --> 00:32:15.986
Some people are good at music.
725
00:32:16.186 --> 00:32:16.486
I can't.
726
00:32:16.506 --> 00:32:17.207
I'm not really that good.
727
00:32:17.227 --> 00:32:18.668
I can't really sing.
728
00:32:19.128 --> 00:32:19.869
I think I can help him.
729
00:32:20.729 --> 00:32:22.871
And so, like, this is one of those cool things.
730
00:32:22.891 --> 00:32:24.712
Like, I woke up this morning all jazzed up and ready to go.
731
00:32:25.513 --> 00:32:28.275
Because it's like, this is what I'm made for.
732
00:32:28.675 --> 00:32:31.797
And, like, you know, maybe in 15 years that will be different in my life.
733
00:32:31.817 --> 00:32:35.240
But, like, currently, like, everything is optimized for helping people, like, like.
734
00:32:36.428 --> 00:32:39.669
And like, I'm glad we have the money and the infrastructure to be able to make it happen.
735
00:32:39.749 --> 00:32:42.050
I'm glad we have the team to be able to capture it to help other people.
736
00:32:42.070 --> 00:32:44.772
But like, this is why I exist currently.
737
00:32:44.952 --> 00:32:52.055
And the radical thing that in my opinion needs to happen is you humble yourself, you take extreme ownership of the problems inside the business and you don't address them as the problem.
738
00:32:52.075 --> 00:32:52.795
They are not the problem.
739
00:32:53.215 --> 00:32:55.876
And the way that you phrase that meeting is extremely important.
740
00:32:55.916 --> 00:32:57.317
It's not like, hey, I want to fix the business.
741
00:32:57.517 --> 00:32:58.257
I think I'm the problem.
742
00:32:58.457 --> 00:32:59.438
Guys unload it on me.
743
00:32:59.458 --> 00:33:00.158
Like, tell me what's up.
744
00:33:00.558 --> 00:33:01.139
That's not the way you do it.
745
00:33:01.159 --> 00:33:01.699
That'll be an act.
746
00:33:01.819 --> 00:33:04.181
They'll see the hard act from a mile away.
747
00:33:04.281 --> 00:33:04.501
Yeah.
748
00:33:04.601 --> 00:33:05.522
We're gonna be humble about it.
749
00:33:05.823 --> 00:33:07.304
We're gonna thank them for their feedback.
750
00:33:07.724 --> 00:33:12.628
We're gonna ask them that over the next week that you're gonna create a plan based upon their feedback to make changes in the business.
751
00:33:12.829 --> 00:33:20.315
And the reason, because we're gonna line incentives, the reason we're doing this, I want a place where you guys wanna come and work, that people don't come here and then leave after a couple weeks.
752
00:33:20.335 --> 00:33:22.156
I don't want you guys to have to deal with drama when you show up.
753
00:33:22.237 --> 00:33:23.077
I want you guys to trust me.
754
00:33:23.458 --> 00:33:26.780
I don't blame you guys for not trusting me because I've been putting cameras in your trucks.
755
00:33:26.941 --> 00:33:28.502
I've been down your throat about a bunch of stuff.
756
00:33:28.682 --> 00:33:30.102
I'm gonna take the cameras out.
757
00:33:30.162 --> 00:33:31.083
I trust you guys to do what's right.
758
00:33:31.403 --> 00:33:33.343
And that's just the first step is the meeting.
759
00:33:33.523 --> 00:33:35.864
Then it's a week of you actually going to the feedback.
760
00:33:36.404 --> 00:33:37.164
I just can't stress this enough.
761
00:33:37.244 --> 00:33:39.685
If that meeting goes poorly, you lose your whole team.
762
00:33:40.485 --> 00:33:42.366
This is why no one does, it's a very high risk move.
763
00:33:42.606 --> 00:33:42.846
Yes.
764
00:33:43.206 --> 00:33:44.006
Very high risk.
765
00:33:44.526 --> 00:33:49.348
And so the way that meeting goes hinges on how you react to the feedback.
766
00:33:49.568 --> 00:33:50.388
How this meeting goes,
767
00:33:51.689 --> 00:33:53.170
It's gonna go horrible.
768
00:33:53.190 --> 00:33:54.611
Like literally the entire team leave.
769
00:33:54.631 --> 00:33:55.771
Like it's such a high risk move.
770
00:33:55.971 --> 00:34:03.716
When you take off any facade that you've built up for years and you let your team say whatever they want, you are massively vulnerable.
771
00:34:03.996 --> 00:34:05.777
And this whole team could be gone in one week.
772
00:34:05.917 --> 00:34:11.300
It could also, in one week, be 50% more efficient and a place where an admin person comes in and thrives.
773
00:34:11.480 --> 00:34:14.702
Any poison that's being interjected from past employees completely gets repelled.
774
00:34:15.062 --> 00:34:17.223
Everyone wanting the entrepreneur and the business owner to win.
775
00:34:17.383 --> 00:34:20.344
Everyone wanting the entrepreneur to get home, be with his family, and support his wife.
776
00:34:20.665 --> 00:34:21.705
That's what you need in a team.
777
00:34:21.745 --> 00:34:23.886
The same way that he cares about making them win.
778
00:34:24.326 --> 00:34:26.427
He needs them to want him to win.
779
00:34:26.567 --> 00:34:27.848
And right now that is not happening.
780
00:34:27.888 --> 00:34:31.930
That is a big factor in all of this because of what his beliefs are.
781
00:34:32.110 --> 00:34:34.611
Everybody here knows Luke's beliefs.
782
00:34:34.651 --> 00:34:35.752
Touch on that, personal beliefs.
783
00:34:36.532 --> 00:34:37.754
What are you referring to?
784
00:34:37.874 --> 00:34:48.165
Okay, the thing is that we know with Luke is it has been a persona that he brings them over here as far as who he hires, how they look, how their hair is.
785
00:34:48.225 --> 00:34:51.608
Okay, so let's just say it the way it is because I've been accused of the same thing.
786
00:34:51.828 --> 00:34:52.910
They think he discriminates.
787
00:34:53.498 --> 00:34:54.358
1000%.
788
00:34:54.418 --> 00:35:03.680
I feel like I've already been so cautious about what I say and do because I'm afraid I'm going to be misinterpreted or misunderstood or accused, whether it's true or not.
789
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:07.801
And maybe that's some of my building the shell, building the defense.
790
00:35:08.221 --> 00:35:08.601
Example.
791
00:35:08.621 --> 00:35:09.361
Give me an example.
792
00:35:09.401 --> 00:35:11.982
Is it like, hey, you should do X, Y, and Z or what?
793
00:35:12.102 --> 00:35:14.142
No, so I'll give you a straight up example.
794
00:35:14.162 --> 00:35:17.563
When I hired Geo, Geo is African-American.
795
00:35:18.243 --> 00:35:27.248
There was a huge spiel by guys that if this was in Luke's control, he would have never hired him, that it was based off his color.
796
00:35:27.489 --> 00:35:32.432
Even the guys, when I got here like day two or three, they were like, Luke, put you in a position of power with those tattoos?
797
00:35:33.672 --> 00:35:43.538
And I was like, I mean, see, to me, that's proving to them that it's like I have a preference about tattoos, you know, just like a preference that you don't let your hair, you know, look all like bed hair.
798
00:35:44.178 --> 00:35:46.879
You know, I have a preference, but I'm not going to micromanage that.
799
00:35:46.939 --> 00:35:50.882
Yes, I grew up in the same way, in the same style, in the same places as these guys.
800
00:35:51.102 --> 00:35:51.642
He did not.
801
00:35:51.822 --> 00:35:54.203
I've had to compromise a lot on what I think is.
802
00:35:54.423 --> 00:35:56.584
So I've been described as an obsessive idealist.
803
00:35:57.145 --> 00:36:00.146
I know I can't force people into my mold.
804
00:36:00.326 --> 00:36:07.310
I feel like there's constant battle lines being drawn where they just, but it goes back to the whole they don't care about this company, they don't care about the image, so why would they care what they wear?
805
00:36:07.610 --> 00:36:14.357
And, you know, we wear uniform pants because guys were coming in with holes and they'd wear the same pair of pants for a week.
806
00:36:14.377 --> 00:36:15.077
They're stained.
807
00:36:15.137 --> 00:36:20.983
And, I mean, I had one guy who was zip tying his pants together with zip ties and holding them up with a trimmer line belt.
808
00:36:21.664 --> 00:36:23.926
Like, it just, we looked like homeless guys mowing.
809
00:36:23.946 --> 00:36:36.191
I mean, but from my point of view is, at least the guy still, my point of view on a personal level, we haven't discussed this part because I'm not going to bring my personal beliefs here because mine are not in line with his and that's okay.
810
00:36:36.911 --> 00:36:39.072
He can believe what he wants, I'm gonna believe what I want.
811
00:36:39.152 --> 00:36:42.373
Some of the guys, they can't afford the same things that I can.
812
00:36:42.733 --> 00:36:43.814
I'm not going to knack them.
813
00:36:44.014 --> 00:36:51.076
Some of these guys, I do, I'm against smelling like marijuana when you show up, I'm against smoking on job sites, I'm against smoking in trucks that are $100,000 that you
814
00:36:52.417 --> 00:36:55.759
I mean, technically they're paying for it because they're doing the work, but you get the gist of it.
815
00:36:56.280 --> 00:37:01.063
But they are never going to know in a negative notation that I think these things.
816
00:37:01.083 --> 00:37:03.645
I'm just going to say, hey, it's company policy to not do these things.
817
00:37:03.925 --> 00:37:06.287
But no matter how much I stress that, it's not moving the needle.
818
00:37:06.387 --> 00:37:06.867
They don't care.
819
00:37:08.608 --> 00:37:11.711
And it's easy for me to have the defense of like, that's the problem.
820
00:37:11.871 --> 00:37:12.552
They don't care.
821
00:37:12.792 --> 00:37:16.755
So my mode of operation has been to then put the pressure back on the guys.
822
00:37:16.835 --> 00:37:20.899
Because in my mind, I know if we were hitting these times, I know we'd be profitable.
823
00:37:21.179 --> 00:37:28.846
And I know the profit that we're bringing in would more than offset the debts that we have from, you know, just finding ourselves in a spot where it's like, oh, it's payroll week and we don't have the money.
824
00:37:28.906 --> 00:37:32.809
So now we're going to dip into the line of credit just to make payroll, which is fine because we'll make it up next week.
825
00:37:32.829 --> 00:37:35.592
Well, next week we find ourselves back in the same boat again and again and again.
826
00:37:35.812 --> 00:37:39.133
I need them to trust you and to love this brand.
827
00:37:39.273 --> 00:37:42.494
Everything we're talking about is a downstream effect of that cause.
828
00:37:42.794 --> 00:37:43.934
It's the only root problem.
829
00:37:44.074 --> 00:37:47.656
Right now we have a lot of gap, we're behind on work, and we're like, oh, how are you people?
830
00:37:47.876 --> 00:37:52.077
If you get a team that's pulling in the same direction, you will double productivity, double.
831
00:37:52.597 --> 00:37:52.757
Yeah.
832
00:37:53.078 --> 00:37:54.379
Especially because they're not on P4P now.
833
00:37:54.399 --> 00:37:55.720
Like you could double efficiency.
834
00:37:56.081 --> 00:37:56.941
Lunch breaks get cut.
835
00:37:57.242 --> 00:37:58.303
They immediately get on time.
836
00:37:58.323 --> 00:38:00.925
Like there's so much juice to squeeze from just them trusting you.
837
00:38:01.106 --> 00:38:02.327
So I did this originally.
838
00:38:02.687 --> 00:38:05.090
My business was like 1.4, 1.6 at the time.
839
00:38:05.110 --> 00:38:07.272
We were still going up and we weren't making money.
840
00:38:07.692 --> 00:38:09.434
And so I had anonymous peer reviews.
841
00:38:09.694 --> 00:38:12.117
They all did peer reviews on each other and I was included on it.
842
00:38:12.377 --> 00:38:13.638
Who said they would do that?
843
00:38:13.838 --> 00:38:14.699
We took all the reviews.
844
00:38:14.939 --> 00:38:16.460
I had a whole page of all the negative stuff.
845
00:38:16.540 --> 00:38:21.283
And I spent three hours with my operations person going through every single one.
846
00:38:21.343 --> 00:38:21.904
And that was painful.
847
00:38:21.964 --> 00:38:22.744
I was crying.
848
00:38:23.064 --> 00:38:23.765
It was emotional.
849
00:38:24.065 --> 00:38:29.168
I knew there was a lot of things in my past that I was allowing to surface up from family, religion, et cetera.
850
00:38:29.429 --> 00:38:37.174
And ultimately, if that purpose statement doesn't require someone to look a certain way, act a certain way, be a certain way, I don't care.
851
00:38:37.314 --> 00:38:40.056
It will take a level of humility that is currently not in the organization.
852
00:38:41.548 --> 00:38:42.253
And that starts at the top.
853
00:38:43.289 --> 00:38:46.010
So I did one-on-one meetings with everybody here when I got here.
854
00:38:46.070 --> 00:38:49.332
I put everyone one-on-one and I gave them a few questions.
855
00:38:49.992 --> 00:38:54.814
I said, I wanna know what you're liking, what you're not liking, and what your problems are, and how can I fix them?
856
00:38:55.054 --> 00:38:59.416
Every, pretty much every one of them said, one, Luke is not a man of his word.
857
00:38:59.556 --> 00:39:02.318
And it's like, I hope I can fix it, you know?
858
00:39:02.378 --> 00:39:04.519
Cause I still kinda feel like, can I fix this?
859
00:39:04.559 --> 00:39:05.559
Like, is this something I can fix?
860
00:39:05.579 --> 00:39:08.981
You know, for my company, for my wife, people I work with, for my own sake, you know?
861
00:39:09.061 --> 00:39:11.422
I do wanna fix this bad, in a big way.
862
00:39:11.762 --> 00:39:14.385
And they're also saying he micromanages.
863
00:39:15.126 --> 00:39:21.053
He tries to father, not like, hey, you know, you need to make better choices outside of work, to a sense he does.
864
00:39:21.554 --> 00:39:21.794
But,
865
00:39:22.824 --> 00:39:24.105
that he tries to micromanage.
866
00:39:24.205 --> 00:39:29.648
So as we're gonna discover today as we talk, so people skills are not my strong point.
867
00:39:29.969 --> 00:39:31.810
I'm not a people person apparently, so I've been told.
868
00:39:32.270 --> 00:39:32.911
You told me that?
869
00:39:33.491 --> 00:39:34.071
Pretty much everybody.
870
00:39:34.111 --> 00:39:35.032
Okay, okay.
871
00:39:35.612 --> 00:39:38.254
I've been described as the nicest boss they've ever worked for.
872
00:39:38.434 --> 00:39:40.656
So the current crew we have now, I mean most of them I don't even really know that well.
873
00:39:40.996 --> 00:39:41.756
They're new.
874
00:39:42.337 --> 00:39:44.558
We have, just since Brian's been here, we've let four people go.
875
00:39:44.878 --> 00:39:46.900
What we've noticed, even in the morning meetings,
876
00:39:47.781 --> 00:39:51.805
If you saw the morning meeting with just me today and not him, it's a totally different mentality.
877
00:39:52.346 --> 00:39:53.467
The guys are more into it.
878
00:39:53.487 --> 00:39:56.690
The couple that I've done where he's in here, totally different mentality.
879
00:39:56.850 --> 00:39:57.931
Just their body language.
880
00:39:57.951 --> 00:40:01.014
They were just like, this is a complete waste of time.
881
00:40:01.075 --> 00:40:01.875
Why are we doing this?
882
00:40:01.895 --> 00:40:02.876
This is stupid.
883
00:40:03.297 --> 00:40:04.718
And I had to call those guys out separately.
884
00:40:04.738 --> 00:40:08.002
I brought them into the office and I'm just like, you know, we're trying to make a team here.
885
00:40:08.822 --> 00:40:11.923
And you're totally communicating that this is a complete waste of time.
886
00:40:11.963 --> 00:40:13.384
It's like, do you not want to be on the team?
887
00:40:13.404 --> 00:40:15.145
Because if so, just, you know, there's the door.
888
00:40:15.165 --> 00:40:16.745
I'm not making you be here, you know.
889
00:40:17.066 --> 00:40:21.327
Even today, I had to tell them, I don't know if you heard it, but as they were talking, I said, shut up.
890
00:40:22.148 --> 00:40:25.709
Like, you guys are... And it's only when it's him.
891
00:40:25.949 --> 00:40:30.031
If I'm talking, they're like, okay, like, they'll listen.
892
00:40:30.291 --> 00:40:31.892
Yeah, they relate to him because he's not the boss.
893
00:40:32.737 --> 00:40:34.278
I guess Jonathan's not here today either, is he?
894
00:40:34.799 --> 00:40:35.859
He already knew that though.
895
00:40:35.899 --> 00:40:36.800
Yeah, yeah.
896
00:40:36.860 --> 00:40:37.601
He's normally an exercise guy.
897
00:40:37.641 --> 00:40:41.263
All right, guys, get on the circle.
898
00:40:41.344 --> 00:40:44.206
All right, Chris, let's take it out.
899
00:40:44.266 --> 00:40:45.627
Say something you love about landscaping.
900
00:40:46.207 --> 00:40:49.910
Uh, you can make a lot of money.
901
00:40:50.691 --> 00:40:51.771
Um, I'll go inside.
902
00:40:53.245 --> 00:40:54.346
Ryan Stripes is nice.
903
00:40:54.687 --> 00:41:01.374
Pretty much have to, if he is speaking, I have to go back through every person and say, hey, he meant it this way.
904
00:41:02.274 --> 00:41:08.120
Or they're automatically, like if we sent him out tomorrow and I didn't go out and he just talked,
905
00:41:08.701 --> 00:41:13.246
You can even probably tell their efficiency in the morning is going to be different because they're sitting there talking about what happened.
906
00:41:13.266 --> 00:41:15.468
They're contemplating choices and things of that nature.
907
00:41:15.588 --> 00:41:18.011
I've been a believer in building trust over time.
908
00:41:18.211 --> 00:41:19.072
I give you this task.
909
00:41:19.192 --> 00:41:19.752
You succeed.
910
00:41:19.852 --> 00:41:20.533
I trust you with more.
911
00:41:20.773 --> 00:41:21.674
You succeed at that.
912
00:41:21.774 --> 00:41:22.495
I trust you with more.
913
00:41:22.595 --> 00:41:23.696
And then you take on more and more.
914
00:41:23.716 --> 00:41:25.438
And the more you're able to take on, the more I will trust you.
915
00:41:25.458 --> 00:41:29.202
And the longer we're at this, the more you've shown a pattern of faithfulness that I'm going to continue to trust you.
916
00:41:29.282 --> 00:41:31.504
I don't know why they're so intimidated by me.
917
00:41:31.564 --> 00:41:33.185
I guess it's just because I'm the boss.
918
00:41:33.265 --> 00:41:34.546
It doesn't matter what I say.
919
00:41:34.926 --> 00:41:37.408
I can't approach them and then take it well.
920
00:41:37.688 --> 00:41:41.070
I've even done, I've done infield training with guys where I go with them.
921
00:41:41.231 --> 00:41:43.152
And it's from my perspective, it goes great.
922
00:41:43.412 --> 00:41:44.833
Like we had fun, we joked.
923
00:41:44.993 --> 00:41:47.675
I, you know, I pointed out a couple of things that could be better on the job site.
924
00:41:47.955 --> 00:41:49.897
And at the end of the day, high five, you're doing great.
925
00:41:49.937 --> 00:41:50.637
Keep up the good work.
926
00:41:50.877 --> 00:41:51.598
Two weeks later, they quit.
927
00:41:53.450 --> 00:41:54.230
What did I do?
928
00:41:54.270 --> 00:41:55.031
What did I say?
929
00:41:55.111 --> 00:41:55.891
You know, like I don't.
930
00:41:56.391 --> 00:41:59.252
I do believe that the leadership is the constraint of the company.
931
00:41:59.472 --> 00:42:00.312
We've identified that.
932
00:42:00.552 --> 00:42:01.653
Now we're going to fix it.
933
00:42:01.813 --> 00:42:05.134
And to do that, we need to be humble, listen to the team.
934
00:42:05.294 --> 00:42:10.196
We're gonna have to actually apologize for cutting people off, actually apologize for coming across condescending.
935
00:42:10.216 --> 00:42:11.996
Cause you do like a lot, I'll be honest.
936
00:42:12.296 --> 00:42:12.456
Wow.
937
00:42:12.657 --> 00:42:15.057
The way you talk to the guys comes across very condescending.
938
00:42:15.377 --> 00:42:16.618
Just when you're giving basic instructions.
939
00:42:17.098 --> 00:42:17.258
Wow.
940
00:42:17.618 --> 00:42:25.202
And it is in part just like you give your opinion before asking a question, you cut them off, you roll your eyes back a little bit like this, and they just feel like less than.
941
00:42:25.482 --> 00:42:25.722
Wow.
942
00:42:26.042 --> 00:42:26.723
These are little things.
943
00:42:26.823 --> 00:42:28.844
Yeah, I'm genuinely shocked.
944
00:42:28.944 --> 00:42:32.746
When I tell you what you do when you get to a job site, you never say anything positive.
945
00:42:33.006 --> 00:42:34.847
It is always what is going wrong.
946
00:42:34.887 --> 00:42:37.228
They do something good, after you do that thumbs up.
947
00:42:37.608 --> 00:42:39.149
But they don't hear the good all they hate.
948
00:42:39.189 --> 00:42:42.591
Hang on, after you do that thumbs up, 10 minutes later,
949
00:42:43.591 --> 00:42:44.812
It's something that's going wrong.
950
00:42:44.992 --> 00:42:46.013
Hey, how fast did you do that?
951
00:42:46.033 --> 00:42:46.954
Oh, that's not fast enough.
952
00:42:47.254 --> 00:42:53.960
And to a sense, some of the things that he says not out of being malicious who he is, they do come across wrong.
953
00:42:54.300 --> 00:43:02.166
And that's why I wanted and we agreed that there should be the gate because everything he says, I get what he's saying and I do not think he's being malicious at all.
954
00:43:02.467 --> 00:43:04.088
I do not think he's doing it to be a bad person.
955
00:43:04.108 --> 00:43:04.248
Right.
956
00:43:04.428 --> 00:43:10.377
There's so many little aspects that can make you feel to your team that you are disconnected from them.
957
00:43:10.718 --> 00:43:13.061
And whether it be saying a compliment and then putting butt after it.
958
00:43:13.081 --> 00:43:19.571
Like if I say, hey, you did a really great job on that edging, but as soon as I said, but I just disqualified everything that was said before that.
959
00:43:20.352 --> 00:43:23.535
I could just replace the word but with and, and we'd be okay.
960
00:43:23.935 --> 00:43:25.416
Or just don't say the negative part.
961
00:43:25.436 --> 00:43:29.179
Yeah, I know a big problem, and you, I don't know, tell me straight if you feel this way.
962
00:43:29.419 --> 00:43:37.326
But I know a big, going back to how I was raised, my dad was way quicker to jump on what we did wrong than what we did right.
963
00:43:38.006 --> 00:43:39.848
I didn't get the atta voice growing up.
964
00:43:40.288 --> 00:43:42.510
It was a, you have to perform or else.
965
00:43:42.610 --> 00:43:46.173
And I know, I know that, because my dad's this way,
966
00:43:47.333 --> 00:43:49.294
When you say something condescending, that's not what you meant.
967
00:43:49.775 --> 00:43:52.937
I didn't mean it in a condescending way, but it's how I came across anyway.
968
00:43:53.457 --> 00:43:54.397
And I have to own that.
969
00:43:54.878 --> 00:43:55.558
And that's not fun.
970
00:43:56.058 --> 00:43:59.400
Because my intentions were right, my actions were communicating something else.
971
00:44:00.541 --> 00:44:02.482
And that's frustrating.
972
00:44:02.722 --> 00:44:06.364
I feel like if he did leave, he'd feel like forever, I'm just a failure and I didn't make it work.
973
00:44:06.384 --> 00:44:08.566
And his dad was very entrepreneurial, but he didn't.
974
00:44:08.606 --> 00:44:10.087
He's never complimented Luke on anything.
975
00:44:10.127 --> 00:44:12.148
He says his business has got his heart and it's bad.
976
00:44:12.720 --> 00:44:14.262
Is that like from a religious side of things too?
977
00:44:14.742 --> 00:44:17.565
Yeah, being poor is like somehow you're closer to God.
978
00:44:17.585 --> 00:44:21.469
And I think a lot of it's in fact from his past and his dad and just thoughts, mindsets.
979
00:44:21.629 --> 00:44:24.051
Two days ago on Monday, I told a guy you're doing an awesome job.
980
00:44:24.071 --> 00:44:26.374
He said, I've been here two months and you're the first person to say that.
981
00:44:26.614 --> 00:44:30.978
I've said it a lot, like that number one there to enrich lives or continue to improve it.
982
00:44:31.118 --> 00:44:32.820
Whether you're doing that here or doing somewhere else, I don't care.
983
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:35.523
I just want everyone who comes here to be better off because they were here.
984
00:44:35.683 --> 00:44:39.784
Like maybe your life's dream is to party in your basement playing video games for the rest of your life.
985
00:44:39.884 --> 00:44:40.344
I don't care.
986
00:44:40.464 --> 00:44:41.504
Whatever you want to do is fine.
987
00:44:42.084 --> 00:44:43.825
I just want you to be successful here.
988
00:44:44.045 --> 00:44:44.225
Yeah.
989
00:44:44.445 --> 00:44:45.925
So that's what you say.
990
00:44:46.225 --> 00:44:48.406
In that meeting, what you just said there is what you say.
991
00:44:48.746 --> 00:44:50.986
I don't say the I don't care part because to them that's their life.
992
00:44:51.206 --> 00:44:52.327
That is important to them.
993
00:44:52.547 --> 00:44:53.327
Yeah, yeah.
994
00:44:53.367 --> 00:44:57.008
I say I don't care because I don't want them to think like I'm trying to make them live a certain way outside of work.
995
00:44:57.088 --> 00:44:58.748
So instead of saying I don't care, I support that.
996
00:44:59.048 --> 00:45:01.671
Well, there's certain lifestyle that don't support and I'm not going to lie about that.
997
00:45:01.811 --> 00:45:03.373
But that's where you cross personal business.
998
00:45:03.854 --> 00:45:05.516
Yes, but I would never tell them that.
999
00:45:05.576 --> 00:45:06.557
But I do believe that.
1000
00:45:06.577 --> 00:45:06.957
Here's my question.
1001
00:45:06.977 --> 00:45:08.059
Do you want them to hit their goals?
1002
00:45:08.659 --> 00:45:08.920
Yes.
1003
00:45:09.400 --> 00:45:11.563
What if their goals is that they play more video games?
1004
00:45:12.778 --> 00:45:15.119
Then that's their personal life choice.
1005
00:45:15.599 --> 00:45:15.980
Support them.
1006
00:45:16.260 --> 00:45:18.681
Like, there's people that like music.
1007
00:45:19.061 --> 00:45:20.482
I don't care about music, dude.
1008
00:45:20.502 --> 00:45:21.422
I don't know a single artist.
1009
00:45:21.462 --> 00:45:22.543
I don't know movies.
1010
00:45:22.583 --> 00:45:22.883
I don't know.
1011
00:45:22.903 --> 00:45:23.343
Sure, sure, sure.
1012
00:45:23.383 --> 00:45:24.384
I want you to get your goals.
1013
00:45:24.624 --> 00:45:26.045
And I'd love to know what those goals are.
1014
00:45:26.125 --> 00:45:32.148
But if them trusting me is me caring about what they have going on in their personal life, their personal goals, I'm sorry, I may have forgotten what your personal goals are.
1015
00:45:32.488 --> 00:45:33.569
It's not about knowing what they are.
1016
00:45:33.829 --> 00:45:36.330
It's about them knowing that if they shared those with you.
1017
00:45:36.370 --> 00:45:36.890
Then I would care.
1018
00:45:37.411 --> 00:45:40.112
You would care and they can trust you enough to even tell you.
1019
00:45:40.810 --> 00:45:45.293
I struggle to communicate that to them, obviously, because they feel like I'm the guy who just shows up and wants to criticize.
1020
00:45:45.313 --> 00:45:53.098
And it's like deep down, I do believe my heart's motive is my criticism is coming from a place of I sincerely want you to grow in your skills.
1021
00:45:53.318 --> 00:45:54.959
I want you I want you to be good at this.
1022
00:45:55.279 --> 00:45:58.421
I want that client to come out and tell you what a great job you're doing.
1023
00:45:58.561 --> 00:46:02.964
I think you're miss like understanding what is trying to be said.
1024
00:46:03.004 --> 00:46:05.585
Can I say something that will help with this and help you understand?
1025
00:46:06.086 --> 00:46:07.847
Peter has been here five years, right?
1026
00:46:08.894 --> 00:46:14.318
I told him more about Peter after being here two weeks than he knew about Peter in five years.
1027
00:46:14.378 --> 00:46:17.520
Peter's been working here since the first time I was here before I even opened my company.
1028
00:46:18.001 --> 00:46:24.705
I told him more about Peter with knowing Peter for a few hours compared to five years.
1029
00:46:24.905 --> 00:46:27.367
And I've asked these guys this question, but they don't give me a response.
1030
00:46:27.467 --> 00:46:28.348
Because they don't trust you.
1031
00:46:28.368 --> 00:46:29.068
They don't trust me.
1032
00:46:29.148 --> 00:46:30.950
It all reverts back to one thing.
1033
00:46:31.430 --> 00:46:34.552
All we're talking about, every single thing, there's no trust in the organization.
1034
00:46:34.612 --> 00:46:36.634
And I guess it's because I hold myself to such a high standard
1035
00:46:37.334 --> 00:46:41.335
that when someone does something right, I almost don't notice it because it's expected of you.
1036
00:46:41.555 --> 00:46:46.536
Like, I expect guys to show up on time, but if they're late, it's like, this is becoming a problem, we need to address this.
1037
00:46:47.016 --> 00:46:50.617
But I tend to not address them being on time because like, well, that's what's expected of you.
1038
00:46:51.117 --> 00:46:54.578
And I don't even know how to address that without sounding cheesy or weird.
1039
00:46:54.618 --> 00:46:57.439
Like, hey, you're here today, man, you know?
1040
00:46:57.479 --> 00:47:01.200
And I feel like what they're gonna hear when I say that is, I'm always here.
1041
00:47:02.519 --> 00:47:04.761
You know, why are you praising me for being here?
1042
00:47:04.781 --> 00:47:05.282
I'm always here.
1043
00:47:05.322 --> 00:47:09.386
You know, I'm so afraid that no matter what I say, it's gonna be taken wrong.
1044
00:47:09.587 --> 00:47:10.788
Your wife wants you to win.
1045
00:47:11.028 --> 00:47:13.471
She just doesn't, she just has no evidence for the past several years.
1046
00:47:13.791 --> 00:47:14.952
Right.
1047
00:47:14.992 --> 00:47:17.855
She wants you to win, but she sees that the bond like is the way you were raised.
1048
00:47:18.236 --> 00:47:19.337
Stuff that they get cut last week.
1049
00:47:19.377 --> 00:47:24.222
Like your dad and the way he raised, like obviously there's been, the way that he raised you caused some trouble.
1050
00:47:25.643 --> 00:47:27.665
My grandpa is probably very much like your dad.
1051
00:47:28.105 --> 00:47:30.347
And it has trickled down to our family like crazy.
1052
00:47:30.988 --> 00:47:39.435
And the very hardcore religious and bringing up ideologies, there's no way he could ever have a woman wear pants in front of him without calling her out and saying horrible things about her.
1053
00:47:39.675 --> 00:47:41.056
I have a feeling I know what that's, yeah.
1054
00:47:41.196 --> 00:47:42.037
I grew up in that world.
1055
00:47:42.317 --> 00:47:46.039
And so, like, we can't allow that to impact the way we're leading.
1056
00:47:46.059 --> 00:47:47.620
All right, sounds good, man.
1057
00:47:47.700 --> 00:47:48.100
Thank you.
1058
00:47:48.120 --> 00:47:49.340
I try not to.
1059
00:47:49.821 --> 00:47:55.263
Like, obviously, you can't deny your personal moral standings, but you can't impose those upon other people either.
1060
00:47:55.383 --> 00:48:05.468
It's been a fine line to have to walk, running a business, pulling people into the business who don't share your morals, don't share your beliefs, and yet all still have a cohesive team where everyone's pulling together for the same thing.
1061
00:48:05.628 --> 00:48:12.291
But when I look at the purpose state, none of that statement aligns with personal values or morals.
1062
00:48:12.351 --> 00:48:17.494
All of those things be accomplished with people that look very different than you, believe very differently than you.
1063
00:48:17.734 --> 00:48:21.996
Like the way that you were managed as a kid, you're reflecting on them.
1064
00:48:22.436 --> 00:48:25.178
Like the ability for someone to say like, good job, you crushed it.
1065
00:48:26.018 --> 00:48:28.399
And like that trust factor and be proud of what you built here.
1066
00:48:28.539 --> 00:48:29.080
That stings.
1067
00:48:29.340 --> 00:48:31.921
And like it's coming over the team.
1068
00:48:31.961 --> 00:48:34.282
In my opinion, you are Santa Claus to this business.
1069
00:48:34.663 --> 00:48:37.304
You only talk negative positive things.
1070
00:48:37.364 --> 00:48:39.325
You should be the one handing out bonuses at team meetings.
1071
00:48:39.665 --> 00:48:41.386
You should be the one giving promotions.
1072
00:48:42.126 --> 00:48:43.627
He's the one that takes escape.
1073
00:48:43.987 --> 00:48:46.849
He's the one that tells the crew this is not right, this is wrong, this is wrong.
1074
00:48:47.069 --> 00:48:49.370
They're all looking to use the negative because you keep dishing it out.
1075
00:48:50.898 --> 00:48:51.999
I've been the only one to dish it out.
1076
00:48:52.740 --> 00:48:53.321
There is no one else.
1077
00:48:53.861 --> 00:48:54.382
I didn't do it.
1078
00:48:54.542 --> 00:48:59.086
So in my opinion, having him be the bad guy and you the good guy is very good.
1079
00:48:59.406 --> 00:49:02.749
Well, Brian's been so good for me in that way because he is super blunt.
1080
00:49:03.129 --> 00:49:06.032
And that's what I'm used to is blunt.
1081
00:49:06.452 --> 00:49:08.974
So when he's blunt with me, he helps me to see.
1082
00:49:09.115 --> 00:49:11.297
He's willing to say things to me that other people would never say.
1083
00:49:11.317 --> 00:49:11.677
Okay.
1084
00:49:11.917 --> 00:49:13.518
And when he says it, then I get it.
1085
00:49:13.878 --> 00:49:19.661
Whereas someone might hear something, be offended at how I said it, and then walk out because I was offensive.
1086
00:49:20.121 --> 00:49:22.962
He's just going to look at me and be like, dude, did you hear what you just said?
1087
00:49:22.982 --> 00:49:25.764
And then I'm going to be like, oh, did I say that?
1088
00:49:25.784 --> 00:49:29.946
Yeah, and I think a lot of us come back from his past and his dad and just thoughts, mindsets.
1089
00:49:30.246 --> 00:49:33.327
And we're so, I don't know, we're so assuming good of people in general.
1090
00:49:33.347 --> 00:49:36.289
Like people come in like, you know, I don't know, like...
1091
00:49:37.509 --> 00:49:38.050
with a hangover.
1092
00:49:38.270 --> 00:49:38.410
Right.
1093
00:49:38.430 --> 00:49:41.053
And they're throwing up on the Monday morning and we're just like, huh, I wonder what's going on.
1094
00:49:41.073 --> 00:49:41.253
Yeah.
1095
00:49:41.293 --> 00:49:42.795
They're like, guys, he's having a hangover.
1096
00:49:44.263 --> 00:49:46.324
We're not used to, like, we grew up, we're used to conservative Christians.
1097
00:49:46.344 --> 00:49:49.025
We're not used to thinking of people doing that kind of stuff, you know?
1098
00:49:49.125 --> 00:49:51.386
So it's been a lot of people pulling things because they can.
1099
00:49:51.606 --> 00:49:51.786
Yeah.
1100
00:49:51.806 --> 00:49:52.886
Because they know we're not going to catch it.
1101
00:49:52.926 --> 00:49:53.066
Okay.
1102
00:49:53.086 --> 00:49:55.988
So it's kind of good to have someone like Brian here to catch what these guys are doing.
1103
00:49:56.008 --> 00:49:56.108
Yeah.
1104
00:49:56.128 --> 00:49:57.528
Because we're not catching it.
1105
00:49:57.568 --> 00:50:00.029
From your perspective, you like Brian.
1106
00:50:00.069 --> 00:50:01.049
He's more skeptical.
1107
00:50:01.310 --> 00:50:02.390
He's been here a little bit in the past.
1108
00:50:02.410 --> 00:50:04.771
He seems like he's a good opposite of what Luke is.
1109
00:50:04.791 --> 00:50:05.011
Okay.
1110
00:50:05.211 --> 00:50:07.372
He does seem like he's a good complimentary, like, yeah.
1111
00:50:07.392 --> 00:50:07.532
Okay.
1112
00:50:08.273 --> 00:50:08.833
which is good.
1113
00:50:08.933 --> 00:50:11.436
And I don't want people to come in here and walk on eggshells like, oh, who's next?
1114
00:50:12.117 --> 00:50:13.698
No, it's like, no, no, no, no, no.
1115
00:50:13.718 --> 00:50:14.559
It's not who's next.
1116
00:50:14.579 --> 00:50:16.902
Just, you know, don't do anything worth firing.
1117
00:50:17.282 --> 00:50:26.431
And I think there's a stigma, and I don't know how to fix this, but I've even heard people say, relay back to me what an employee said in a situation like, oh, Luke is so going to fire me.
1118
00:50:27.772 --> 00:50:28.913
You obviously don't know me that well.
1119
00:50:29.373 --> 00:50:32.615
You know, I don't just jump on you the minute you make a mistake and fire you.
1120
00:50:32.855 --> 00:50:35.376
Even though that's, maybe that's what I've communicated.
1121
00:50:35.776 --> 00:50:40.799
We talked till 9 o'clock last night about the guy who lost the motor.
1122
00:50:40.819 --> 00:50:43.000
It's like, I'm not going to just fire him.
1123
00:50:43.040 --> 00:50:44.300
He naturally quit on his own.
1124
00:50:44.360 --> 00:50:47.122
I just gave him the opportunity two hours ago for me to pick him up.
1125
00:50:47.142 --> 00:50:49.243
He was supposed to send me his address right when he got off the phone.
1126
00:50:49.723 --> 00:50:52.084
He blocked my number because my messages are no longer going through.
1127
00:50:52.484 --> 00:50:54.065
So, there's your answer on that one.
1128
00:50:54.612 --> 00:50:56.258
Yeah, it's that times 100.
1129
00:50:59.477 --> 00:51:01.259
And I don't know.
1130
00:51:01.439 --> 00:51:05.042
It's really started to feel like it's never gonna turn around.
1131
00:51:05.222 --> 00:51:09.386
And I'm not going to not trust you the moment you make a mistake, even though somehow that's what I've communicated.
1132
00:51:09.586 --> 00:51:12.589
As soon as they screw up, like this issue with the stolen mower.
1133
00:51:12.689 --> 00:51:15.411
This isn't the first mistake he's made, but it's like I wasn't ready to ax him over it.
1134
00:51:15.551 --> 00:51:16.632
I wanted to work through it with him.
1135
00:51:16.652 --> 00:51:18.214
I wanted this to be a growing process for him.
1136
00:51:18.354 --> 00:51:19.455
How are we were gonna approach it?
1137
00:51:20.536 --> 00:51:23.659
You know, but instead he chose to quit, which is really discouraging.
1138
00:51:23.679 --> 00:51:25.160
What do you think, Brian?
1139
00:51:25.200 --> 00:51:25.921
Why do you think he quit?
1140
00:51:26.541 --> 00:51:27.362
Why do I think he quit?
1141
00:51:27.402 --> 00:51:30.204
Because he doesn't want to be accountable for a $5,000 bill.
1142
00:51:30.564 --> 00:51:31.765
First off, we'll start with that.
1143
00:51:31.845 --> 00:51:34.027
But we never even told him that he was going to be responsible for it.
1144
00:51:34.227 --> 00:51:37.790
But these guys know you, and they know what's going to come out of that.
1145
00:51:38.110 --> 00:51:38.630
He already knows.
1146
00:51:39.871 --> 00:51:41.493
I don't even have to be in my position.
1147
00:51:41.513 --> 00:51:43.794
But that's literally never happened in the history of this company.
1148
00:51:43.835 --> 00:51:44.575
Why do they feel that way?
1149
00:51:44.775 --> 00:51:47.257
Because- I've never made anybody pay for a wrecked truck.
1150
00:51:47.337 --> 00:51:49.599
I've never made anybody pay for a stolen blower.
1151
00:51:49.679 --> 00:51:50.380
I've never done that.
1152
00:51:50.740 --> 00:51:54.483
And the only time I have is when they voluntarily came to me and said, I dumped two brand new wheelburs.
1153
00:51:54.503 --> 00:51:55.824
The guy's name- Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop.
1154
00:51:56.504 --> 00:51:59.306
What you just said is why they don't trust you.
1155
00:51:59.787 --> 00:52:02.148
He brought up a point and you immediately defended it.
1156
00:52:02.589 --> 00:52:03.449
What did I just tell you?
1157
00:52:03.869 --> 00:52:06.611
The past week, stop explaining yourself to me.
1158
00:52:07.152 --> 00:52:07.912
Stop trying to defend...
1159
00:52:07.932 --> 00:52:10.054
I've told him this all... Haven't I said it the past two weeks?
1160
00:52:10.074 --> 00:52:11.375
I guess I'm just trying to understand.
1161
00:52:11.575 --> 00:52:12.956
I tell him to stop defending himself.
1162
00:52:12.976 --> 00:52:17.039
I'm trying to understand why they feel that way when it's... Where's that coming from?
1163
00:52:17.059 --> 00:52:18.700
So say that instead of defending.
1164
00:52:19.797 --> 00:52:24.302
So instead of saying, that's never happened before, but say, hey, okay, why do you feel like that?
1165
00:52:24.362 --> 00:52:26.825
Like, I'm curious as to why you feel like that.
1166
00:52:26.845 --> 00:52:28.887
We had a guy wreck a truck this past winter.
1167
00:52:29.088 --> 00:52:31.110
He drove it, we think he fell asleep at the wheel.
1168
00:52:31.290 --> 00:52:31.691
We don't know.
1169
00:52:31.891 --> 00:52:38.678
I never even had a chance to address it with the employee before I could even walk through how we're gonna bring this up or talk to him about it or anything, he quit.
1170
00:52:39.059 --> 00:52:40.020
I wasn't prepared to fire him.
1171
00:52:40.040 --> 00:52:40.741
I wanted to work with him.
1172
00:52:41.081 --> 00:52:45.404
But the inclination is that anything negative is brought up to you, you defend and you go against.
1173
00:52:45.905 --> 00:52:47.746
That's why they don't feel like you're in the same team.
1174
00:52:48.407 --> 00:52:49.748
Because you go against immediately.
1175
00:52:50.228 --> 00:52:54.391
Instead of being curious, listening, wondering, okay, how do you see it that way?
1176
00:52:55.192 --> 00:53:02.998
Like, and if it's from him who's on your team and is fully supportive of you, when he gives feedback, I don't need to defend.
1177
00:53:03.118 --> 00:53:05.680
I'm curious as to why they feel that way and I need to make changes.
1178
00:53:05.700 --> 00:53:09.943
Well, it's like I'm confused because my MO in the past is I haven't fired people fast enough.
1179
00:53:09.963 --> 00:53:12.484
So if you're confused, the only way to understand that is to ask.
1180
00:53:12.965 --> 00:53:13.785
That's why I was just doing it.
1181
00:53:14.205 --> 00:53:15.046
No, no, you were defending.
1182
00:53:15.066 --> 00:53:17.327
You were saying this has never happened before in the history of the company.
1183
00:53:17.507 --> 00:53:18.728
You were defending everything.
1184
00:53:19.028 --> 00:53:20.849
You do that all the time.
1185
00:53:20.869 --> 00:53:22.150
Me and you've talked about this.
1186
00:53:22.570 --> 00:53:25.972
And without this around, we have had the same conversation.
1187
00:53:26.313 --> 00:53:32.096
That every time I say something, you, Lazarus, whatever, you defend what was done at that time.
1188
00:53:32.516 --> 00:53:34.157
Or the guys do this.
1189
00:53:34.277 --> 00:53:36.699
You defend about something like, well,
1190
00:53:37.919 --> 00:53:41.280
For the past seven years, I've done this, this, this, and it's been correct or whatever.
1191
00:53:41.420 --> 00:53:43.001
It's always like a bullet back.
1192
00:53:43.081 --> 00:53:44.601
It's always Luke's right, they're right.
1193
00:53:44.761 --> 00:53:47.522
You're having two guns shoot at the same time and smack in the middle.
1194
00:53:47.762 --> 00:53:52.763
I know that he wants to help, but some of the stuff that you've said, I know that he's been told for 10, 15 years.
1195
00:53:52.823 --> 00:53:53.064
Man.
1196
00:53:53.364 --> 00:53:57.585
And maybe just hearing it from somebody that's a different caliber, you know, has...
1197
00:53:58.365 --> 00:54:20.532
opens the yeah opens the eyeballs and things of that nature and i just hope he follows along well he's gonna have to yeah yeah because uh everybody's been trying to tell him that right you know there's no reason that me and him are here till 10 o'clock every single night talking about the same stuff yeah like you got to do something yeah yeah you can just run in circles every day i would say this first off
1198
00:54:20.712 --> 00:54:22.654
It feels like I'm like, we're both like shooting at you.
1199
00:54:22.995 --> 00:54:23.876
That's not the objective.
1200
00:54:23.916 --> 00:54:24.536
We want to win.
1201
00:54:25.137 --> 00:54:26.819
And we are team Luke.
1202
00:54:26.839 --> 00:54:32.966
So one thing I would recommend is when someone even has a problem, instead of giving them a solution, ask a question.
1203
00:54:33.106 --> 00:54:36.870
Instead of telling him what to do at the job, say, what do you think's next to happen at the job?
1204
00:54:37.111 --> 00:54:37.832
How would he even know?
1205
00:54:38.092 --> 00:54:40.555
So then he would ask you, he'd say, so what should I do next?
1206
00:54:41.820 --> 00:54:42.781
What should be the- Tell him.
1207
00:54:43.002 --> 00:54:51.114
Right, instead of you just jumping in and immediately saying your thoughts and opinions and coming across as someone who just breathes down their neck and tells them what to do.
1208
00:54:51.434 --> 00:54:55.040
Versus I asked my boss what his opinion is and he gave it to me.
1209
00:54:55.500 --> 00:54:57.904
Now you're a resource, you're not a dictator.
1210
00:54:58.184 --> 00:55:00.166
I would say like, you want people to come to their own conclusions.
1211
00:55:00.686 --> 00:55:02.067
You don't want to have to tell them what to do.
1212
00:55:02.547 --> 00:55:07.291
So when he says, hey, X, Y, and Z, and the immediate, well, this did not happen in the past.
1213
00:55:07.311 --> 00:55:08.112
We've never done that before.
1214
00:55:08.132 --> 00:55:10.393
Like you're defending instead of question.
1215
00:55:10.834 --> 00:55:11.554
Why do you feel that way?
1216
00:55:11.915 --> 00:55:13.896
Oh, they feel that way because of X, Y, and Z.
1217
00:55:14.076 --> 00:55:15.818
Then we get to the X, Y, and Z that we can solve.
1218
00:55:17.006 --> 00:55:20.008
This is like so much like rethinking through how I say everything.
1219
00:55:20.388 --> 00:55:21.088
They're capable.
1220
00:55:21.148 --> 00:55:21.889
They can do their job.
1221
00:55:21.909 --> 00:55:22.789
Let's assume for a moment.
1222
00:55:22.809 --> 00:55:25.190
Let's suspend reality and think that they actually know what they're doing out there.
1223
00:55:25.670 --> 00:55:27.531
And they know how to do landscaping and they know how to do lawn care.
1224
00:55:27.811 --> 00:55:30.713
I want them to come to the conclusion that I already know in my head is correct.
1225
00:55:30.933 --> 00:55:32.814
So I'm just going to guide them to that conclusion.
1226
00:55:32.834 --> 00:55:37.496
I'm going to ask certain questions to get them to say the exact same thing I want them to say.
1227
00:55:38.296 --> 00:55:40.697
at five o'clock when the job's going over, they know what to do.
1228
00:55:40.998 --> 00:55:47.481
Because you reinforce the fact that they think what their thought, they have original thought, they run it by you or they ask for feedback, you're like, yes, that's good.
1229
00:55:48.002 --> 00:55:50.763
And they say, eventually they'll be like, well, how could it be better?
1230
00:55:51.023 --> 00:55:52.044
And then you can give your opinion.
1231
00:55:52.184 --> 00:55:53.825
But until then, you have not been asked.
1232
00:55:54.105 --> 00:56:03.307
Like it's very difficult and it's a tough pill to swallow when you realize the lack that you have has caused problems for the business, for your family, for your employees.
1233
00:56:03.807 --> 00:56:04.408
That is humbling.
1234
00:56:04.468 --> 00:56:06.068
But then it's a matter of what do you do about it?
1235
00:56:06.208 --> 00:56:08.069
Like, are we going to keep staying at the sides of business?
1236
00:56:08.109 --> 00:56:09.429
Are we keep beating our head up against the wall?
1237
00:56:09.569 --> 00:56:11.169
Are we going to keep working 80 hours a week?
1238
00:56:11.369 --> 00:56:12.910
Like it's not sustainable.
1239
00:56:12.930 --> 00:56:13.890
You're going to lose your marriage.
1240
00:56:13.910 --> 00:56:14.890
You're going to lose your family.
1241
00:56:14.910 --> 00:56:15.851
You're going to lose team members.
1242
00:56:15.871 --> 00:56:17.011
You're going to lose a lot.
1243
00:56:19.072 --> 00:56:21.755
Um, recognizing the issue is only the first step.
1244
00:56:21.775 --> 00:56:23.557
Then it's like, what actions are you going to take?
1245
00:56:23.677 --> 00:56:24.718
Are you going to be humble enough?
1246
00:56:24.879 --> 00:56:25.759
Are you going to listen?
1247
00:56:25.880 --> 00:56:27.141
Are you going to change your behavior?
1248
00:56:27.421 --> 00:56:30.605
And that is not easy after you've done something for 25 years the same way.
1249
00:56:30.845 --> 00:56:32.166
You come across fabricated.
1250
00:56:32.307 --> 00:56:36.571
And that's why like, when you take, when you get the bullet, you take the vest off and you let the bullets hit.
1251
00:56:37.472 --> 00:56:39.615
And like, it's not a bad thing to cry in front of your team.
1252
00:56:40.643 --> 00:56:40.983
It's not.
1253
00:56:41.483 --> 00:56:45.005
Like, it's okay that the fact that you have all these stresses and it's overloading you.
1254
00:56:45.365 --> 00:56:45.906
Because guess what?
1255
00:56:46.186 --> 00:56:47.546
They feel the same way in their own life.
1256
00:56:47.846 --> 00:56:50.668
And maybe they don't have the magnitude of all the stresses and people that they have to take.
1257
00:56:50.888 --> 00:56:54.690
But to them, they also feel overwhelmed and they have to show up because they're also flawed human beings.
1258
00:56:55.030 --> 00:56:59.492
And so this is the way you talk to a team member to gain their trust.
1259
00:56:59.672 --> 00:57:02.293
It's not the fact that like, I think everyone here wants to get better.
1260
00:57:02.593 --> 00:57:04.893
I think everyone here wants to get to the next level in their career.
1261
00:57:05.193 --> 00:57:06.294
I want, like that's not, it doesn't matter.
1262
00:57:06.314 --> 00:57:07.794
Like everyone has stuff in your life.
1263
00:57:07.934 --> 00:57:10.455
And I want when you show up to this workplace, that you feel supported.
1264
00:57:10.655 --> 00:57:13.175
And I want, when you show up here, there's not more drama to add to your day.
1265
00:57:13.335 --> 00:57:17.016
And when you leave here, you don't have to hear a bunch of drama and gossip, but you actually care about the business.
1266
00:57:17.156 --> 00:57:17.876
I care about you.
1267
00:57:18.056 --> 00:57:18.957
You care about your team members.
1268
00:57:19.037 --> 00:57:19.597
That's what I want.
1269
00:57:19.657 --> 00:57:20.777
And it's not happening right now.
1270
00:57:22.416 --> 00:57:24.518
And so to fix that, it's gonna start with me.
1271
00:57:24.678 --> 00:57:25.960
And I've made a bunch of mistakes.
1272
00:57:26.140 --> 00:57:29.964
And it's because of the way I was raised, it's because all these stresses in my life, and I'm sorry, I messed up.
1273
00:57:30.084 --> 00:57:33.168
And I need to hear from you all what I can do better to be a better leader.
1274
00:57:33.988 --> 00:57:39.094
I genuinely believe you have so much good intention and passion for the business, passion for your family, passion for the team.
1275
00:57:39.174 --> 00:57:40.035
I believe all of that.
1276
00:57:40.335 --> 00:57:44.440
There's just characteristics you picked up as a leader that are pushing and repelling your team away.
1277
00:57:45.140 --> 00:57:53.448
And the reason that you look to family as people that trust you and that you can, like, are great workers is because they know what those look like and they've seen them and they can whitewash them.
1278
00:57:53.708 --> 00:57:54.629
They can put away with it.
1279
00:57:54.890 --> 00:57:56.051
Yeah, because they know where it comes from.
1280
00:57:56.251 --> 00:57:56.691
Exactly.
1281
00:57:56.851 --> 00:57:57.392
Yeah.
1282
00:57:57.432 --> 00:58:00.795
And it's the reason I tolerate my brother's shortcomings, too, is because I know where they come from.
1283
00:58:00.815 --> 00:58:01.356
Exactly.
1284
00:58:01.396 --> 00:58:02.837
You're like, I'll give him some more grace.
1285
00:58:03.158 --> 00:58:06.401
So what we're going to ask from the team is a little bit of grace while we figure this out.
1286
00:58:06.581 --> 00:58:06.701
Yeah.
1287
00:58:06.721 --> 00:58:08.703
Because we're a flawed human being that's trying to figure out life.
1288
00:58:08.983 --> 00:58:09.724
I see it in my brothers.
1289
00:58:10.404 --> 00:58:11.945
So if I see it in them, for sure it's in me too.
1290
00:58:12.386 --> 00:58:13.567
We're all cut from the same cloth.
1291
00:58:14.327 --> 00:58:15.568
All fell from the same tree.
1292
00:58:15.788 --> 00:58:17.690
So if I see it in them, I know I got it in myself.
1293
00:58:18.967 --> 00:58:26.949
I would have liked to think that I've taken steps to mitigate those negative character traits of self-defense and putting up the wall and interrupting.
1294
00:58:28.609 --> 00:58:30.649
I guess I still didn't realize how much I was doing that either.
1295
00:58:31.870 --> 00:58:32.670
I don't even know I'm doing it.
1296
00:58:33.110 --> 00:58:42.392
It's one of the biggest reasons, honestly, that I don't want to quit because I know if I quit, I'm giving up on the very opportunity for the best thing to bring out my character deficiencies is my company.
1297
00:58:42.552 --> 00:58:45.575
Hey, entrepreneurship is the best self-improvement plan you'll ever have.
1298
00:58:45.595 --> 00:58:49.218
And that's why I want to keep going with this, because I want continuous improvement.
1299
00:58:49.298 --> 00:58:50.039
I want to improve.
1300
00:58:50.059 --> 00:58:53.623
And the fact that you've hit 1.7 and stalled there for three years says there's a constraint.
1301
00:58:54.183 --> 00:58:54.964
And that constraint is you.
1302
00:58:55.444 --> 00:58:56.986
What's cool is you can fix it.
1303
00:58:58.333 --> 00:59:00.575
So like, I'm giving you literally two things to do.
1304
00:59:01.055 --> 00:59:01.736
Meeting with the team.
1305
00:59:01.856 --> 00:59:02.716
Yep, that's what I'm all about.
1306
00:59:03.017 --> 00:59:08.821
One week of listening, absorbing, thanking people for their criticisms, and trying to take action on it.
1307
00:59:09.001 --> 00:59:11.063
So I have one maybe stupid question.
1308
00:59:11.303 --> 00:59:11.483
Yeah.
1309
00:59:11.983 --> 00:59:16.147
What if none of them say anything because it's already been driven enough?
1310
00:59:16.487 --> 00:59:16.727
Great.
1311
00:59:16.827 --> 00:59:19.449
So we have already some bullets in the chamber that we know exist.
1312
00:59:20.310 --> 00:59:21.971
So then he would address those publicly.
1313
00:59:22.011 --> 00:59:22.671
You unleash them.
1314
00:59:23.012 --> 00:59:23.872
Okay.
1315
00:59:23.932 --> 00:59:26.895
Well, in the one-on-ones, here's a couple of things that were brought up.
1316
00:59:27.820 --> 00:59:30.343
And you do it as if you were one of them.
1317
00:59:30.683 --> 00:59:30.884
Yeah.
1318
00:59:30.924 --> 00:59:33.507
Would it be helpful for me to present it as like a, hey guys,
1319
00:59:35.535 --> 00:59:36.836
I know things are said all the time.
1320
00:59:37.797 --> 00:59:39.619
No, no, no.
1321
00:59:40.139 --> 00:59:42.241
You just did what he said not to do.
1322
00:59:42.982 --> 00:59:44.943
I don't trust you when you go out of these doors.
1323
00:59:45.043 --> 00:59:48.587
Usually when we leave here, I'm like, okay, these do things on your website.
1324
00:59:48.787 --> 00:59:51.549
Do these things inside your team, your compensation model.
1325
00:59:51.569 --> 00:59:54.612
Do these things from a loan and debt perspective.
1326
00:59:54.912 --> 00:59:55.653
That's not what we're talking about.
1327
00:59:55.673 --> 01:00:01.478
We're talking about very nebulous, soft skills that will take years to figure out.
1328
01:00:01.638 --> 01:00:07.340
I think if you did that really purposely for a week, and you asked people, hey, if I cut you off, I actually want you to tell me to shut up.
1329
01:00:07.360 --> 01:00:09.700
So one of the guys in Augusta Nation, he had this problem.
1330
01:00:10.161 --> 01:00:11.841
He walked around with $10 bills in his pocket.
1331
01:00:11.861 --> 01:00:14.702
He said, every time I cut you off, I need you to tell me I'm gonna give you 10 bucks.
1332
01:00:14.962 --> 01:00:16.162
He said the first day he lost $200.
1333
01:00:16.182 --> 01:00:16.422
Wow.
1334
01:00:17.383 --> 01:00:18.663
Shoo wee.
1335
01:00:18.963 --> 01:00:19.703
Yo, real quick.
1336
01:00:19.843 --> 01:00:20.984
Oh, yo, real quick figure it out.
1337
01:00:21.004 --> 01:00:21.984
You do that in your meeting.
1338
01:00:22.044 --> 01:00:23.865
Hey guys, one of the things I'm working on this week.
1339
01:00:24.145 --> 01:00:24.845
That's a great idea.
1340
01:00:24.865 --> 01:00:26.886
And I'm trying to not- You want me to remember that?
1341
01:00:27.026 --> 01:00:27.686
I'm gonna be rich.
1342
01:00:29.529 --> 01:00:31.390
I'm telling you, I'm telling you.
1343
01:00:32.051 --> 01:00:33.431
So that's like one thing.
1344
01:00:34.132 --> 01:00:36.493
And then you ask for another, like, hey, what have you noticed this week?
1345
01:00:36.513 --> 01:00:37.654
Like, is it something I can improve?
1346
01:00:37.834 --> 01:00:39.815
But I guess that.
1347
01:00:39.935 --> 01:00:40.336
Very good.
1348
01:00:42.757 --> 01:00:45.078
But like, those are the little things that like, it's not easy.
1349
01:00:45.339 --> 01:00:47.620
It's not tangible numbers and digits.
1350
01:00:47.660 --> 01:00:50.262
You're not gonna go to a training or a mastermind and learn this stuff.
1351
01:00:50.842 --> 01:00:52.363
But your team will tell you if you listen.
1352
01:00:55.422 --> 01:00:59.203
I did the follow-up call, Luke, and things are the same, if not worse.
1353
01:00:59.743 --> 01:01:01.764
So I tried doing the meeting that Mike suggested.
1354
01:01:01.784 --> 01:01:05.344
It went about like I expected it would.
1355
01:01:05.404 --> 01:01:06.845
I got zero feedback.
1356
01:01:08.085 --> 01:01:09.645
Like, none.
1357
01:01:09.885 --> 01:01:12.406
We're just running into the same old nonsense.
1358
01:01:13.686 --> 01:01:24.389
Guys are coming in every day asking for pay advances because they're broke and can't afford anything, and they got bills to pay, and so I'm trying to handle these advances and trying to learn payroll, and I got behind on some truck payments, so I'm paying off.
1359
01:01:24.930 --> 01:01:33.853
I'm trying to I haven't touched my company's record like financials in over a month because I just I haven't had any bandwidth for inputting receipts or running P&Ls or anything.
1360
01:01:33.873 --> 01:01:36.433
So I have no idea where I have all that.
1361
01:01:36.693 --> 01:01:38.654
Our company efficiency is pretty awful right now.
1362
01:01:38.994 --> 01:01:41.815
And Brian just found out Sunday that he's got stage three cancer.
1363
01:01:42.535 --> 01:01:42.975
Really?
1364
01:01:43.815 --> 01:01:45.896
Yeah, he just starts chemo next week.
1365
01:01:46.956 --> 01:01:48.837
Man, I wish the best for him.
1366
01:01:49.057 --> 01:01:49.797
That's horrible.
1367
01:01:50.237 --> 01:01:51.478
Yeah, that's right.
1368
01:01:51.498 --> 01:01:52.318
So he's out of the picture.
1369
01:01:53.045 --> 01:01:55.426
I am managing everything by myself right now.
1370
01:01:55.586 --> 01:02:04.088
Brian was doing a really good job with like rallying the crews and gaining their respect and telling them what to do and where to go.
1371
01:02:04.548 --> 01:02:07.329
In terms of like, have we turned things around?
1372
01:02:07.609 --> 01:02:12.010
No, it's all the same stuff that I'm dealing with day after day, burnout.
1373
01:02:12.791 --> 01:02:13.391
I'm burned out.
1374
01:02:14.231 --> 01:02:16.392
So I made sure that I was very open with them.
1375
01:02:16.472 --> 01:02:17.112
I said, hey,
1376
01:02:18.690 --> 01:02:19.370
You know, I'm human.
1377
01:02:19.390 --> 01:02:20.071
I'm not perfect.
1378
01:02:20.151 --> 01:02:21.231
I know there's things I do.
1379
01:02:21.271 --> 01:02:25.874
I know there's things I say that rub you guys the wrong way or you wish was different about me.
1380
01:02:27.415 --> 01:02:30.016
I want you guys, I want your constructive feedback.
1381
01:02:30.436 --> 01:02:31.537
I won't defend myself.
1382
01:02:31.657 --> 01:02:33.178
But it was just silence.
1383
01:02:33.218 --> 01:02:33.978
Nobody said anything.
1384
01:02:34.358 --> 01:02:35.919
It was kind of an awkward silence, honestly.
1385
01:02:36.319 --> 01:02:38.100
And so I was like, really?
1386
01:02:38.240 --> 01:02:40.261
Nobody has any way I can improve.
1387
01:02:40.562 --> 01:02:42.923
Like, there's nothing I can do that's, you know...
1388
01:02:44.480 --> 01:02:46.461
You know, no suggestions about how I can improve.
1389
01:02:46.582 --> 01:02:51.146
And then one of the crew leads said, it'd be nice if you were more reachable when we need to get ahold of you.
1390
01:02:52.587 --> 01:02:59.413
And I told him, I said, you know, as you know, it's spring and we just let our office manager go.
1391
01:02:59.453 --> 01:03:02.776
So there's, you know, I am on the phone a lot and I apologize.
1392
01:03:03.777 --> 01:03:04.577
I'll do what I can though.
1393
01:03:05.338 --> 01:03:10.843
You know, that afternoon, Brian had like every single person texting him saying like, what the heck is going on?
1394
01:03:11.471 --> 01:03:12.872
Is Jay and I going out of business?
1395
01:03:13.613 --> 01:03:17.776
You know, like, they're not gonna talk to me.
1396
01:03:17.896 --> 01:03:20.438
So most of them had their connection with Brian.
1397
01:03:20.458 --> 01:03:23.541
So him leaving, kind of probably, did they leave or what?
1398
01:03:24.481 --> 01:03:26.263
Yeah, a lot left.
1399
01:03:26.283 --> 01:03:30.506
So he lost an entire landscaping crew, multiple team members, like three to five people.
1400
01:03:32.468 --> 01:03:36.931
And it sounds like a handful of maintenance employees also either left or were fired.
1401
01:03:38.893 --> 01:03:39.073
Yeah.
1402
01:03:40.935 --> 01:03:45.379
Okay, so what's he going to do?
1403
01:03:45.399 --> 01:03:47.721
Work his way out of it, slowly higher.
1404
01:03:47.941 --> 01:03:50.083
Like, I asked him, like, what's the plan here?
1405
01:03:50.203 --> 01:03:52.765
And his plan, I think, is just to work harder.
1406
01:03:52.845 --> 01:03:54.567
Yeah, I'm doing all the billing, all the email.
1407
01:03:54.587 --> 01:04:01.292
I'm answering, I'm responding to three different company emails right now, answering all the phone calls, doing all the sales, doing all the production management, daily dispatch.
1408
01:04:01.953 --> 01:04:04.315
I'm working until 10, 11 o'clock every single night.
1409
01:04:04.753 --> 01:04:05.333
I'm exhausted.
1410
01:04:05.613 --> 01:04:07.194
It's not delivering measurable results.
1411
01:04:07.694 --> 01:04:08.995
So it's like, what do I do now?
1412
01:04:09.215 --> 01:04:11.456
Like, I'm just like, someone's got to give.
1413
01:04:11.516 --> 01:04:15.438
Cause I can't, I just had my, my, my 10th child was just born two weeks ago.
1414
01:04:15.458 --> 01:04:16.539
He's two weeks old today.
1415
01:04:16.559 --> 01:04:21.221
And I like, I was trying to take home, take time to be home.
1416
01:04:21.261 --> 01:04:25.303
Cause my wife is, you know, she's not sleeping well at night cause the baby keeps getting up all night and
1417
01:04:26.316 --> 01:04:33.221
I'm trying to be a dad and be a business owner, but I'm literally like getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, going to work, working till nine, 10, 11 o'clock at night, going home.
1418
01:04:33.241 --> 01:04:38.544
Like I'm not even seeing my kids and my wife's just managing the home without me and it sucks and I want to fix it.
1419
01:04:38.564 --> 01:04:44.708
But it's like, there's like, there's so there's a minimal amount of stuff that has to happen at this company or it's not going to work.
1420
01:04:46.089 --> 01:04:47.270
Money has to get in the bank.
1421
01:04:47.310 --> 01:04:48.471
We have to make payroll.
1422
01:04:48.891 --> 01:04:50.352
We have to get our jobs done.
1423
01:04:53.221 --> 01:04:58.906
Yeah, because it's like, how do you convince somebody to join the team when it's this level of stress?
1424
01:04:58.926 --> 01:05:01.188
You need someone that's like an A player like Brian, right?
1425
01:05:01.208 --> 01:05:04.231
Who's willing to jump into the fire and put it out with you.
1426
01:05:04.411 --> 01:05:04.631
Yeah.
1427
01:05:05.312 --> 01:05:06.713
And Brian's now out of the picture.
1428
01:05:06.793 --> 01:05:08.715
So I'm back to the drawing board with that one.
1429
01:05:08.735 --> 01:05:09.835
I'm supposed to have my brother.
1430
01:05:10.356 --> 01:05:13.258
He's supposed to onboard next week.
1431
01:05:13.278 --> 01:05:14.920
He was up two years ago.
1432
01:05:14.940 --> 01:05:16.661
He was one of our landscape crew leagues.
1433
01:05:16.842 --> 01:05:18.763
And he was supposed to train directly under Brian.
1434
01:05:18.783 --> 01:05:19.964
But now Brian's out of the picture.
1435
01:05:20.305 --> 01:05:20.585
Yeah.
1436
01:05:21.442 --> 01:05:25.543
I don't know how comfortable he's going to be working under me directly because he is my brother and it gets funny with family.
1437
01:05:26.563 --> 01:05:26.743
Yeah.
1438
01:05:27.083 --> 01:05:28.303
But he's going to be well paid.
1439
01:05:28.483 --> 01:05:32.624
He knows the, he knows the, the, he knows the quality expectations.
1440
01:05:32.644 --> 01:05:34.264
He's a, he's an excellent landscaper.
1441
01:05:34.824 --> 01:05:35.425
So that'll help.
1442
01:05:35.505 --> 01:05:37.345
But he had, he suffers with people skills.
1443
01:05:38.945 --> 01:05:42.206
So I don't know how good he's going to be at gaining the respect of the crews.
1444
01:05:42.326 --> 01:05:42.686
We'll see.
1445
01:05:42.706 --> 01:05:45.306
That was one area where Brian was doing really well.
1446
01:05:45.326 --> 01:05:45.966
They respected him.
1447
01:05:46.887 --> 01:05:48.427
And when he said jump, they jumped.
1448
01:05:48.627 --> 01:05:48.867
So.
1449
01:05:49.712 --> 01:05:50.593
I don't know.
1450
01:05:50.933 --> 01:05:51.893
I guess we'll just see what happens.
1451
01:05:52.273 --> 01:05:53.914
Man, that's brutal.
1452
01:05:54.074 --> 01:05:54.815
That's brutal.
1453
01:05:55.095 --> 01:05:56.736
Like, obviously, we just want the best for you.
1454
01:05:56.776 --> 01:06:00.238
So I'm trying to think.
1455
01:06:00.438 --> 01:06:06.341
Yeah, like because like obviously it's like getting that company vision is like important even in times like this.
1456
01:06:06.461 --> 01:06:06.682
Right.
1457
01:06:07.002 --> 01:06:10.163
Because of like, I know, but like I'll just be straight up honest.
1458
01:06:10.264 --> 01:06:16.027
I've abandoned the whole company vision mission, all that stuff, because that's what that's where I've been for the last three years.
1459
01:06:16.327 --> 01:06:18.228
And pushing for that is not getting us anywhere.
1460
01:06:18.743 --> 01:06:21.584
because we're not achieving any of those goals.
1461
01:06:21.984 --> 01:06:25.085
So time for a new vision.
1462
01:06:25.625 --> 01:06:26.465
What is that vision?
1463
01:06:27.045 --> 01:06:29.306
My vision was build a better team.
1464
01:06:30.126 --> 01:06:32.507
Well, the building a better team thing is not gaining any traction either.
1465
01:06:33.087 --> 01:06:34.527
I humbled myself before my crew.
1466
01:06:34.567 --> 01:06:36.768
I opened myself up for criticism and got none.
1467
01:06:38.960 --> 01:06:39.280
Why?
1468
01:06:39.781 --> 01:06:40.021
Yeah.
1469
01:06:40.121 --> 01:06:45.544
And did Brian open it up with like some... Brian wasn't there.
1470
01:06:46.144 --> 01:06:48.125
Brian was supposed to be there, but we kept...
1471
01:06:48.186 --> 01:06:58.071
The only morning that week that Brian was even here for the morning meeting was a day that we already had a meeting set up with the Ohio Bureau Workers' Comp to do a safety intervention meeting or whatever.
1472
01:06:58.532 --> 01:07:00.073
So we had no time that morning to get it.
1473
01:07:00.433 --> 01:07:05.776
And then I was supposed to do it the next day with him, and he wasn't here because of his medical, whatever, health issues.
1474
01:07:05.816 --> 01:07:07.437
And so by Friday, last Friday...
1475
01:07:07.799 --> 01:07:09.802
I just decided I'm doing this with or without him.
1476
01:07:10.382 --> 01:07:13.867
Like I can't just keep prolonging this meeting, waiting for him to be here for it.
1477
01:07:13.887 --> 01:07:14.828
So I just went ahead and did it.
1478
01:07:15.416 --> 01:07:16.156
Yeah, yeah.
1479
01:07:17.317 --> 01:07:20.998
So we just didn't have anyone to like open the floodgates, it sounds like.
1480
01:07:21.599 --> 01:07:23.600
Brian wasn't there for the meeting and it fell flat.
1481
01:07:24.040 --> 01:07:28.001
So yeah, when I asked him, I was like, so did anyone bring anything up?
1482
01:07:28.482 --> 01:07:38.386
One thing was brought up and it was just like, he did a great job taking it in and then just still provided a reason for why that wasn't being met.
1483
01:07:38.426 --> 01:07:39.747
The expectation wasn't being met.
1484
01:07:39.867 --> 01:07:42.828
I did have one of my employees, he's my new fleet guy.
1485
01:07:43.508 --> 01:07:49.570
I did have him in here yesterday and I brought the thing up again about last Friday's meeting and I said, you know, now that it's just you, you're here.
1486
01:07:49.590 --> 01:07:50.630
You were part of that meeting.
1487
01:07:50.651 --> 01:07:51.251
He said, yeah.
1488
01:07:51.511 --> 01:07:57.113
I said, is there not anything that you can give me, like something I can work on, something I can improve?
1489
01:07:57.133 --> 01:08:01.914
He said, well, you were raised really different than the rest of us.
1490
01:08:03.315 --> 01:08:09.937
You, your upbringing was, was so different than what most of these guys relate to.
1491
01:08:10.709 --> 01:08:13.370
that you just don't relate to them and they don't relate to you.
1492
01:08:14.690 --> 01:08:15.631
I said, okay.
1493
01:08:16.151 --> 01:08:23.313
And he said, that makes it hard for them to, that makes it hard for them to respect you because they feel like you don't relate to them.
1494
01:08:23.673 --> 01:08:25.013
How can I, how can I help that?
1495
01:08:25.033 --> 01:08:25.974
What can I do to fix that?
1496
01:08:25.994 --> 01:08:27.414
And he said, I don't know.
1497
01:08:29.195 --> 01:08:32.836
I say, well, I appreciate the feedback, but what, how can I take action on that?
1498
01:08:32.856 --> 01:08:36.597
He said, I don't know, maybe just, maybe just try to be more understanding about what they're going through.
1499
01:08:36.927 --> 01:08:41.170
Like these guys are broke every single paycheck, every single payday, they're flat busted broke.
1500
01:08:41.770 --> 01:08:53.877
They're, they're worried that their rents or their landlord's going to shut them out or that their electric is going to get turned off or that they won't be able to pay their bill or they won't have gas to put in their car to get into work or whatever.
1501
01:08:54.477 --> 01:08:55.518
Um, and,
1502
01:08:56.322 --> 01:08:57.563
You know, I don't know.
1503
01:08:57.983 --> 01:09:06.406
We did a drug test, we did a random drug test a little over a week ago, and only two guys passed without some kind of drugs in their system.
1504
01:09:06.486 --> 01:09:09.487
What do you do, fire everybody because they got THC in their system?
1505
01:09:09.547 --> 01:09:13.049
It's not illegal in Ohio anymore, but it's like, I don't know.
1506
01:09:13.989 --> 01:09:16.450
It just seems like these guys don't know how to not bring their problems to work.
1507
01:09:17.931 --> 01:09:23.973
They've got so many problems in their life, and it's like, I don't relate to that because I don't make those kind of choices.
1508
01:09:24.884 --> 01:09:28.192
And I wish that they would make better choices for their life.
1509
01:09:28.934 --> 01:09:31.640
And I don't know how to care for them more than I already do.
1510
01:09:31.760 --> 01:09:33.384
But apparently they feel like I don't care.
1511
01:09:33.404 --> 01:09:35.108
And I think it's because I don't relate to them.
1512
01:09:35.567 --> 01:09:38.328
And I've got this new sales guy that we onboarded that I'm trying to train.
1513
01:09:38.368 --> 01:09:40.088
And I've had no time to train him.
1514
01:09:40.128 --> 01:09:44.930
He literally sits in the office on his phone half the day because I'm doing all kinds of stuff that have nothing to do with sales at all.
1515
01:09:45.430 --> 01:09:46.470
And I have nothing to do with his role.
1516
01:09:46.530 --> 01:09:53.372
And I feel bad because I want to keep him productive, but he has, he's never done landscaping in his life and he doesn't know how our system works.
1517
01:09:53.392 --> 01:09:55.273
So he's just like waiting to shadow me.
1518
01:09:55.613 --> 01:09:57.113
And I've had no time to train him at all.
1519
01:09:57.613 --> 01:10:00.474
And it's like, I don't even know how to handle that one, honestly.
1520
01:10:00.614 --> 01:10:03.335
And in the meantime, we're just hemorrhaging payroll and,
1521
01:10:06.181 --> 01:10:10.725
We're not even breaking even as a company because, yeah.
1522
01:10:10.785 --> 01:10:14.428
Yeah, just trying to get back up on your feet, essentially.
1523
01:10:14.448 --> 01:10:16.550
Right now, I just feel like I'm plugging the holes in the ship.
1524
01:10:16.870 --> 01:10:19.172
And there's no company vision right now.
1525
01:10:19.192 --> 01:10:22.435
There's no, like, everyone knows where we're going because I don't even know where we're going.
1526
01:10:22.875 --> 01:10:24.076
I'm just trying to stay afloat.
1527
01:10:24.837 --> 01:10:25.037
Mm-hmm.
1528
01:10:28.102 --> 01:10:30.583
Man, that's so intense.
1529
01:10:30.924 --> 01:10:32.304
I'm sorry you're going through all that.
1530
01:10:32.344 --> 01:10:34.926
Like, obviously, that's brutal.
1531
01:10:35.286 --> 01:10:36.267
I can't keep this up forever.
1532
01:10:36.367 --> 01:10:37.047
I'm going to crack.
1533
01:10:37.327 --> 01:10:38.768
I think I actually have to a point.
1534
01:10:38.808 --> 01:10:41.050
Like, I'm to the point where I just, I don't like my job.
1535
01:10:41.090 --> 01:10:44.151
I don't, I, this, this business, I used to love it.
1536
01:10:44.251 --> 01:10:45.952
And now I just feel like it's a giant parasite.
1537
01:10:48.487 --> 01:10:52.992
It almost sounds like you just got to bring it back down to the basics, which is like what you're saying to me right now, even.
1538
01:10:53.032 --> 01:11:01.042
It's just like, get somebody, literally anybody in admin, get somebody literally like your brother will be great just to have a body in operations.
1539
01:11:01.342 --> 01:11:04.987
So that way you can like take a step back and be like, okay, how do we...
1540
01:11:05.642 --> 01:11:06.483
How do we fix this up?
1541
01:11:06.863 --> 01:11:15.109
Yeah, I've had zero bandwidth to even strategize or plan, because every day it's just bust out tasks, bust out tasks, bust out tasks.
1542
01:11:15.269 --> 01:11:19.152
And it's all stuff that's like, I can't just let fires burn because you can't.
1543
01:11:20.310 --> 01:11:23.131
You know, you're going to have guys quit all over the place.
1544
01:11:23.151 --> 01:11:26.633
You're going to have clients dropping you or, you know, they'll have lawsuits or something.
1545
01:11:26.673 --> 01:11:26.993
I don't know.
1546
01:11:27.013 --> 01:11:28.894
It's just you just can't let all the fires burn.
1547
01:11:29.515 --> 01:11:33.177
And you can't just pull someone to the office, hand them a list of, hey, get these things done.
1548
01:11:33.197 --> 01:11:35.138
They'll have no clue where where's the password.
1549
01:11:35.158 --> 01:11:35.898
Where's the login?
1550
01:11:35.918 --> 01:11:37.939
Where's the, you know, there's all that stuff.
1551
01:11:38.219 --> 01:11:39.620
And it's just that's not going to work.
1552
01:11:40.158 --> 01:11:42.800
Yeah, this is a question and not advice.
1553
01:11:44.121 --> 01:11:45.522
You'll understand why I prefaced it like that.
1554
01:11:45.542 --> 01:12:08.161
But have you considered, you know, like doing another price raise, like another 20% price raise and like selling off equipment, like just to match whatever the loss of customers is, you know, because even if you lost half your customers, but you raised your prices by like 20% or so, you'd be making way more money on those guys doing less work.
1555
01:12:09.007 --> 01:12:12.968
I really don't think there's no room in our market to raise prices 20%.
1556
01:12:13.008 --> 01:12:17.170
You think you would just lose a hundred percent of customers?
1557
01:12:18.330 --> 01:12:19.451
I think we would lose too many.
1558
01:12:19.771 --> 01:12:20.091
Yeah.
1559
01:12:20.111 --> 01:12:20.731
Yeah.
1560
01:12:20.751 --> 01:12:21.812
Yeah.
1561
01:12:22.832 --> 01:12:25.693
I think we're, we're already at the max end of what we can be, I mean,
1562
01:12:26.022 --> 01:12:32.346
There may be room for a marginal price increase, but we've already sent out an email at the beginning of the year informing all of our clients that there would be no price increase this year.
1563
01:12:32.546 --> 01:12:34.127
So would you tell them to do something different?
1564
01:12:34.448 --> 01:12:37.049
I mean, like, I told them you should scale down.
1565
01:12:37.209 --> 01:12:40.572
But I was like, yeah, sell your equipment and, like, raise your prices.
1566
01:12:40.772 --> 01:12:42.193
Try to get, like, more work.
1567
01:12:42.373 --> 01:12:42.973
Make more money.
1568
01:12:42.993 --> 01:12:43.814
Do less work.
1569
01:12:44.014 --> 01:12:44.634
Sell your trucks.
1570
01:12:44.654 --> 01:12:49.278
Like, get some, like, liquidity so you can have some breathing room.
1571
01:12:49.298 --> 01:12:49.978
What would you tell them?
1572
01:12:51.351 --> 01:12:59.759
Well, as soon as you go for a million in revenue, like you need supporting management, you need admin, sales or ops, like you need those covered.
1573
01:13:00.479 --> 01:13:00.920
And so
1574
01:13:03.325 --> 01:13:05.447
That's why they're at 1.7 last year or whatever.
1575
01:13:06.068 --> 01:13:09.911
So to maintain that business so that he's not working 15 hours a day.
1576
01:13:09.931 --> 01:13:16.297
Because what he's essentially doing is he is working the equivalent of an admin person and an ops person, and hopefully a salesperson is doing something.
1577
01:13:16.658 --> 01:13:18.279
But that's why he's working 15 hours a day.
1578
01:13:18.379 --> 01:13:20.521
In the perfect world, you'd have those roles filled.
1579
01:13:22.703 --> 01:13:24.385
He's been doing this for so long, like 25, 27 years?
1580
01:13:24.485 --> 01:13:24.825
23 years.
1581
01:13:24.845 --> 01:13:25.046
23 years.
1582
01:13:28.985 --> 01:13:31.907
What I would like him to do versus what I think he should do is actually different.
1583
01:13:32.287 --> 01:13:35.148
Like what I would like him to do is what we talked about.
1584
01:13:35.188 --> 01:13:36.589
And that is like change the way you lead.
1585
01:13:38.870 --> 01:13:44.233
What I think he should do to preserve his family is scale a business back.
1586
01:13:45.134 --> 01:13:45.474
Can he?
1587
01:13:46.054 --> 01:13:47.135
Like he has so much overhead.
1588
01:13:47.815 --> 01:13:49.636
With the whole shop space and stuff.
1589
01:13:49.676 --> 01:13:50.597
Shop space paid off.
1590
01:13:51.676 --> 01:13:53.197
It's all part of their land on their property.
1591
01:13:53.558 --> 01:14:05.267
I would scale it back to the fact that if you, as one person can manage maybe six to eight people solid, raise your prices, be super high end on the market, be able to pay people well.
1592
01:14:05.288 --> 01:14:06.889
There's probably eight good team members there.
1593
01:14:07.189 --> 01:14:15.053
Out of the 12 or 14 that he currently is working for him, he could probably keep six to eight of them, make them super profitable, whether it be on maintenance and recurring stuff.
1594
01:14:15.073 --> 01:14:16.733
And then you don't need a salesperson like that.
1595
01:14:16.794 --> 01:14:19.015
Immediately having a salesperson, like that's a huge amount of overhead.
1596
01:14:19.595 --> 01:14:23.997
I can almost guarantee you in three months, that salesperson won't be there because he can't even train them correctly.
1597
01:14:24.437 --> 01:14:26.218
He's trying to do admin and ops.
1598
01:14:26.778 --> 01:14:30.340
And there's an ops person jumping in and also need a huge amount of training.
1599
01:14:30.960 --> 01:14:34.321
So like it'd be different if this was a five year old business.
1600
01:14:34.341 --> 01:14:36.182
He's scaling very quickly.
1601
01:14:36.302 --> 01:14:37.782
These are skills that can be learned.
1602
01:14:38.622 --> 01:14:41.783
But my question is, can Luke actually change?
1603
01:14:41.943 --> 01:14:48.745
I only ask because like, you know, having some cash, less customers and like a smaller scale always helps.
1604
01:14:48.765 --> 01:14:54.787
Like I'm sure like when you were starting the company, you felt like a lot of things were easier because there was less pieces, you know?
1605
01:14:55.590 --> 01:15:06.852
So I just I always ask because it's just like, well, I mean, I mean, simplification in that in that aspect could put more cash in your pocket, less less daily headaches, less breathing room.
1606
01:15:07.312 --> 01:15:09.092
The money is not the problem.
1607
01:15:09.192 --> 01:15:10.893
It's not that we're not charging enough.
1608
01:15:10.953 --> 01:15:15.293
It's not that our financials last year were healthy.
1609
01:15:15.693 --> 01:15:21.754
The problem is the staff, the team, the team is the team is not where it needs to be at all.
1610
01:15:22.174 --> 01:15:25.195
And and I don't know how to get it there.
1611
01:15:26.084 --> 01:15:31.631
And I'm so tired of hoping and trusting that people that I hire and put in the right place are gonna stay there.
1612
01:15:31.811 --> 01:15:43.606
And it really sucks when you have people sabotaging you behind your back, people that you cared about, people that you worked hard with and worked hard to make sure that they had a good job and were well set up for success, and then they turn on you.
1613
01:15:45.520 --> 01:15:47.302
It's just, that's, it hurts.
1614
01:15:48.123 --> 01:15:50.545
Makes it hard to trust anybody else to take on that position.
1615
01:15:50.905 --> 01:15:51.506
It really does.
1616
01:15:51.626 --> 01:15:58.292
I mean, every time I hire somebody to put them in a seat, it's like, um, like this new sales guy I got now, it's like, he's on a salary.
1617
01:15:58.652 --> 01:16:03.176
And for the first, you know, two months, he's not going to be producing anything for this company.
1618
01:16:03.877 --> 01:16:05.739
You know, in the meantime, I'm paying him every week.
1619
01:16:05.799 --> 01:16:09.602
And it's like, that's, you know, I just have to hope that he works out, you know?
1620
01:16:09.963 --> 01:16:10.203
Yeah.
1621
01:16:10.680 --> 01:16:14.723
And I won't know if he's going to work out until he has a chance to show me what he's made of, you know.
1622
01:16:15.543 --> 01:16:19.446
I just feel like it's going to be the same thing with the next guy and the guy after that.
1623
01:16:20.266 --> 01:16:22.768
And I'm just really afraid at this point.
1624
01:16:22.788 --> 01:16:26.450
Like, if I am the problem, I'm going to ruin every single person I hire into this company.
1625
01:16:27.251 --> 01:16:34.315
Like, if what's going on is a me problem, if I don't know how to fix me, then every single person I hire is at some point going to react to me.
1626
01:16:34.836 --> 01:16:36.637
And I'm going to ruin them.
1627
01:16:37.077 --> 01:16:38.118
And I won't even know I'm doing it.
1628
01:16:39.159 --> 01:16:40.960
Somehow, someway, I'm doing something wrong.
1629
01:16:41.000 --> 01:16:42.021
I'm saying something wrong.
1630
01:16:42.161 --> 01:16:44.503
We can't sustain where we're at forever.
1631
01:16:44.943 --> 01:16:47.305
We're in the hole this year so far.
1632
01:16:47.705 --> 01:16:50.227
And we have to get out of the hole.
1633
01:16:51.648 --> 01:16:51.868
Yeah.
1634
01:16:52.895 --> 01:16:54.377
Luke, it's going to kick us off this call.
1635
01:16:54.737 --> 01:16:56.138
It only has 40 minutes.
1636
01:16:56.319 --> 01:16:56.919
I'm sorry.
1637
01:16:57.220 --> 01:16:57.920
Okay, that's all right.
1638
01:16:58.441 --> 01:17:00.243
But it'll end here in a few seconds.
1639
01:17:00.343 --> 01:17:03.226
But, you know, thanks for jumping on the call.
1640
01:17:03.366 --> 01:17:05.668
I'm sorry I don't have a silver bullet to help you out.
1641
01:17:05.688 --> 01:17:07.070
There never is one.
1642
01:17:07.490 --> 01:17:08.911
There never is one, you know.
1643
01:17:09.072 --> 01:17:11.574
But we obviously wish the best for you.
1644
01:17:12.075 --> 01:17:14.557
And like you said, like, you've been in business for 23 years.
1645
01:17:16.956 --> 01:17:19.437
I'm sure you'll get this figured out.
1646
01:17:20.057 --> 01:17:26.500
I'll reach out to Mike and see if there's any other advice that he has, especially after these updates.
1647
01:17:26.540 --> 01:17:31.222
If there's any direction or even priority that he can help you with, I'll make sure that he gets that over to you.
1648
01:17:31.883 --> 01:17:36.465
Yeah, please update him on where I'm at because I'm open for any advice I can get right now.
1649
01:17:39.427 --> 01:17:52.033
Realistically, he should be a general manager that does sales operations admin for six to eight employees, runs a $900 to a million business, extremely profitable, but he goes home at five o'clock.
1650
01:17:53.534 --> 01:18:05.339
I believe that is a shorter path to success and like work-life balance compared to trying to find an admin person, training them up, getting a salesperson, training them up, getting an operations person, training them up.
1651
01:18:05.599 --> 01:18:06.660
I don't see any...
1652
01:18:09.393 --> 01:18:10.973
evidence that he has the skill to do that.
1653
01:18:11.514 --> 01:18:16.655
And I would say that to his face and it stinks because like, it's a huge, like, we're supposed to turn these businesses around.
1654
01:18:16.735 --> 01:18:18.235
So like, this is an L for us.
1655
01:18:19.015 --> 01:18:25.137
I'd say like four out of five businesses when we leave and six weeks later, like they are on a trajectory of turning around the business.
1656
01:18:25.657 --> 01:18:32.139
This is a big L. And it stinks because like, this is not why the turnaround show exists, but like, I don't want to be big.
1657
01:18:32.159 --> 01:18:35.460
The turnaround show to be where it's like, I go to business like, yeah, everyone just scale back.
1658
01:18:35.540 --> 01:18:36.440
But like, in this case,
1659
01:18:37.545 --> 01:18:41.192
Are we trying to optimize even for growth and having a high revenues?
1660
01:18:41.232 --> 01:18:44.438
Or like, it's kind of a problem when you have a new kid and you haven't spent any time with them.
1661
01:18:46.298 --> 01:18:47.659
And your wife wants you to quit.
1662
01:18:47.879 --> 01:18:54.542
Like these are elements that like will cause fatal error, like fatal issues in life, business, et cetera.
1663
01:18:54.602 --> 01:18:55.863
Like I would fix that.
1664
01:18:56.403 --> 01:19:03.827
And I think the fast way to do that is raise prices by 30%, lose a bunch of your customers, cut out your crews and services that don't make money.
1665
01:19:04.407 --> 01:19:06.148
All the news, the newbies.
1666
01:19:06.168 --> 01:19:08.149
He has a bunch of good guys that have been with him for a long time.
1667
01:19:09.029 --> 01:19:09.690
Go back to those.
1668
01:19:10.210 --> 01:19:11.011
Be profitable on them.
1669
01:19:11.171 --> 01:19:13.893
Be a general manager that can manage six to eight people.
1670
01:19:14.273 --> 01:19:18.376
But when you have 12, 14, 15 people out in the field, you need an infrastructure of management.
1671
01:19:18.416 --> 01:19:19.437
He can't afford that right now.
1672
01:19:20.258 --> 01:19:26.403
And so as much as he wants to think it's not about the money, it's a function of like, well, then why are you working 15 hours a day?
1673
01:19:26.643 --> 01:19:27.964
What's the first thing he has to focus on?
1674
01:19:28.404 --> 01:19:29.065
Like how – like –
1675
01:19:29.905 --> 01:19:33.708
Well, you're going to have to purge the customer basically because you have so many leads and new work.
1676
01:19:33.988 --> 01:19:34.928
So you just raise prices?
1677
01:19:35.048 --> 01:19:35.669
You raise prices.
1678
01:19:36.549 --> 01:19:38.571
And yes, you'll get a lot of people mad at him.
1679
01:19:38.971 --> 01:19:41.032
20% or 30% of people, we need to leave.
1680
01:19:41.853 --> 01:19:44.555
And to make that happen, you'll probably have to raise prices by 20% or 30%.
1681
01:19:44.795 --> 01:19:51.860
But if he did that, it would be profitable enough for him to scale back, get through that pain, and then run a profitable business that he can manage himself.
1682
01:19:52.580 --> 01:19:53.681
And like, that's not fun.
1683
01:19:53.761 --> 01:19:55.102
And this is a funny thing.
1684
01:19:55.962 --> 01:20:03.987
Everyone under the guise of, I don't want to have key man risk, or I want to be able to, I want the business to be able to operate without me being there in daily ops.
1685
01:20:04.567 --> 01:20:06.168
Under that guise, they grow the business.
1686
01:20:06.709 --> 01:20:10.771
And now we have, for 23 years, been growing the business and we have not attained the goal.
1687
01:20:10.971 --> 01:20:13.633
So something is fundamentally wrong with our strategy.
1688
01:20:14.113 --> 01:20:18.317
And there's something fundamentally wrong with the skill of the leader to be able to attract talent.
1689
01:20:18.857 --> 01:20:22.960
And so do I try to change that or do I just go to the straight route of the problem that can be fixed in three weeks?
1690
01:20:23.301 --> 01:20:29.085
And that is raise prices, get rid of customers, and then let the chips fall with the team to where you have six to eight people that you can manage every day.
1691
01:20:29.466 --> 01:20:32.848
And then spend time with your family and make more money.
1692
01:20:34.950 --> 01:20:42.897
If the goal of the business is to make money and the goal of his life is to spend time with his family and support them, both of those things can be achieved with radical violence.