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I will have-- hear this so often, especially when we begin our journey, people say,"I want more accountability.
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We need more accountability." They'll just use that term and throw it around like crazy.
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And I go,"We have so much work to do before we get there, but just let me tell you, accountability is an outcome.
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It is not an expectation.
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We have to change the way we lead and manage if we want accountability to actually occur in our business,
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Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business.
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And now for your host, Matt Haney.
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Good afternoon, folks.
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Here we are, another episode of The Scalability Code.
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Joined today by Matthew Todd from the Pacific Northwest.
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Matthew, thanks for joining us.
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You bet.
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Happy
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I'm gonna ask you the first question that I always get asked.
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Do you like to go by Matt or Matthew?
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Matt is fine.
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I do the Matthew because maybe you've experienced it.
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I end up being a Mark or a Mike or something else if I don't get that in, and then it's Matt after that,
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we're gonna have to label the episode Two Matts Make It Right instead of Two Rights Make It Wrong, it's gonna be Two Matts Make It Right.
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Um, awesome.
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Well, I start every episode the same way.
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you're an entrepreneur, and coincidentally or not, you work with a ton of entrepreneurs.
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So I'd like for you to go back far into your mind when you had really long hair and you were young.
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Somebody impressioned upon you, the, the, the, the premises of, of entrepreneurship.
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There was, there was somebody that, that comes to mind that turned you into the entrepreneur you are today, or maybe you can look back and be like,"Man, this person, I didn't know it at the time," or,"Yeah, they were.
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They are.
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It is." So think about if it...
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Does anybody come to mind that was a special entrepreneur in your mind that, that may have helped get you here?
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Oh, absolutely.
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y-you, mentioned that I...
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Y-you see my stuff there that I'm from an agricultural background.
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And so I grew up on two family farms in Montana.
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One was a dairy farm, which has its own, set of issues, and one was a, a cattle ranch in southeastern Montana.
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And one of the things that we often don't think of with farming is it may be one of the most entrepreneurial enterprises that exists on the planet.
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farmers have to grow what they can sell.
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They have to market it.
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And I didn't know it.
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when I was working in that business that that was entrepreneurism.
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I was just a kid working on a farm.
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a farm.
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But later on, I drew upon that experience significantly as I did, my track in owning my own business, working through business.
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I didn't realize how many of those fundamental features
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pieces
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I drew upon.
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It just really was baked into me in a way I didn't even know
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even know or understand.
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Isn't that crazy?
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Like, I, I don't have a ton of relationships with farmers.
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I have a ton of relationship with ranchers down here in Texas.
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But there's a live animal involved, and for whatever reason, the differentiation between farming and ranching might as well be oil and water to me.
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'Cause I know they're growing the livestock, and you feed them, and then you take them to market and you sell them, but it's very transactional.
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I think when you're growing something in the earth, it's a much more, un, un, unprov- not unproven, but it's a, it's a challenging process, right?
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There are so many variables outside your control.
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When you're growing an animal, you can feed and water and house them, and they will generally stay healthy.
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When you're growing a crop, you can't guarantee all of those things that are happening.
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But one of the things I want to say about, about farmers, I'm fascinating about-- I'm fascinated with how much stuff, equipment, infrastructure, overhead it requires to operate a farm.
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I mean- Yeah, I know some of these equipments, it's like that's an$800,000 tractor.
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I'm like,
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Oh, no, they're into millions.
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They're a million plus now with the articulated tractors.
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I, I, I, spent my summers, as a, as a college student working in ag.
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I, I worked for fertilizer chemical distribution companies, and then I harvested peas, beans, and corn on, on that kind of equipment that you're talking about, and operated it and ran it, and never once thought about how much it
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much it cost.
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Yeah.
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it just, it-- I, was, I was getting paid to drive it, so...
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And then later on, when you get into the financing and the development and, like, we have two family farms in, in our family right now.
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We're running one in Northern Idaho, and we're running one here, and just the upkeep on that equipment, will blow your mind.
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I mean, it's a whole job unto itself, let alone...
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And I, I remember my, my uncle and my grandfather spending the winters in their sheds, equipment torn down, spread all over the place, getting it ready all winter for spring operations, and that was just normal.
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It's like, you're a kid plunking around, and they're kicking around, but it's like, you don't understand how important that is, that once you've bought that piece of gear that's probably unlike most everything else out there on the road, that you're then using it and keeping it maintained and rebuilding it every winter.
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I mean, it's just, it's phenomenal.
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phenomenal.
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Farmers and ranchers definitely, old-school entrepreneurs.
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Been around for centuries, lifetimes.
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That's, that's cool.
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And always a good lesson, always a good story from those folks in my experience.
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Clearly.
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That's awesome.
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well, cool.
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Let, let...
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So you give us, and this is the other thing I like to do.
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Normally, when you have an introduction with somebody, it's how quickly can I tell you about me so that it doesn't turn into talking about me?
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I just want you to know is what I do- and then I'm gonna listen.
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This is your chance to tell us about your entrepreneurial journey and how you got to where you are and, and the bumps and bruises along the way that have, have got you ultimately to being a, a, a successful EOS implementer.
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So give us some history.
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You bet.
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So, again, attached to, ag, I went to school to become an ag engineer, got a degree in ag engineering, and went out there in the world to seek a job and realized that, one of the places that really appreciated the multi-discipline, if you're familiar with industrial engineering, you have to touch on all the engineering disciplines, and so ag was no different.
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And yet I had that bent toward agriculture.
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But I went to work for, United Technologies Carrier Corporation in the, HVAC industry.
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they trained me well, taught me well.
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I went, through the entire process of working from the manufacturer as a sales engineer all the way down to distribution, and then ended up, going into a dealership, a local dealership, and, ended up, purchasing that business, from the original, founding, owner's sons.
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And, me and my partner grew that business from a 17-person mom-and-pop into a 75-person, two, two business regional organization.
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We were primarily in the commercial industrial space, a lot of paper mills, clean rooms, large worship center type of work.
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But we also had a small residential piece that helped us train our technicians to be in front of human beings and, and act like human beings, because oftentimes technicians we find have a little bit of difficulty with some of the soft skills.
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They're really, really skilled at fixing things, but they're not as skilled at interacting with people and
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human beings.
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I, I've, I've, coined-- not coined the term, but I'm using the term human skills.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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And, I, I don't know if I like it better than soft skills, but human skills, it's like we all have different skills when it comes to dealing with humans.
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Some good, some bad.
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And, and, Daniel Goleman's done some tremendous work on quantifying that as EQ, right?
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And, and that's really what you're trying to develop and see if anybody has it.
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And you know what you find out?
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some people don't, And, they're just better off in front of gear with their hands on gear, and that's okay.
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we, we we wanna develop those skills, but boy, that taught us a lot, I gotta tell you.
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going from a 17-person that had been that way, that 17-person organization had been that way for a generation and a half, and so almost 40 years.
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so when we took it and started to grow it, we found out every level of, 25 human beings, 35 human beings, 50-- I mean, every one of those plateaus, and I was like,"Oh my gosh." And we we discovered EOS when we got to 75, and we literally sat down in one of our heart-to-heart meetings, my business partner and I, and said,"Man, what are we doing?
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This thing is killing us.
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It's taken more than it's given back." We weren't getting paid.
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it just was more than we ever anticipated it was.
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And that's when we went to our peer group, who was doing EOS in Minneapolis, and they said,"If you guys don't do this, you're a bunch of idiots." And so we kind of took that to heart, came back, contacted a local implementer, and began our EOS journey for the first time.
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And, and what was really interesting for us, Matt, is that's the first time we'd ever asked anybody outside of our business to help us.
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We just had that fundamental grind it, figure it out, pull it together, lift it up.
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And when we brought-- got our implementer, the very first time, anybody outside of our business other than our accountant lawyer, which honestly they, they weren't giving us strategy, they weren't telling us how to run our business.
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And while our implementer was great, EOS provided us the structure that we were so desperately in need of.
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We
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in need of.
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We- So how long ago was that?
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What year did you implement
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2012.
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It was 2012, yeah.
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And so I, I wasn't seeing a pathway out of the business.
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I was thinking I was gonna be stuck there forever, and I was at a point in my age and career where I wanted to kinda think about doing-- how I was gonna finish the rest of my life.
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I was maybe at that halftime point, And, and I just thought,"Man, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life?
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I don't think I wanna do this." I loved my work, I loved what I'd done up until then, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do that forever.
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And I was thinking about a different track with a large corporation, maybe doing regional sales or something like that.
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And once we did EOS, in our second year, we came to one of our sessions, and our implementer said,"How's it going?" And all of us just in kind just went,"Oh my God, it's so much better." Everything's better." What we'd done is we'd right people, right seats.
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We, we literally transitioned 35 people in our organization.
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Almost half of our organization had transmitted, transitioned since we started using the people analyzer and actually owned it and discovered our core values for the first time.
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And once we put that into motion, it transitioned the business to where people around us were actually helping us.
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We weren't managing them as much.
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Our team leaders who didn't have to work as hard managing people.
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Everybody was good, and it just felt different.
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And that's when I could say,"I think I can get out of this thing in a healthy way, leave something behind that will be sustainable, and go do something else." And that's what I wanted to do.
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I was-- My business partner and I were about a year apart, so one of us had to get out and give the other one some runway so they could get out, right?
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so I mean, that's how it works when you're in a small, tightly held personal business.
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And so I did that.
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I got out, and began my EOS journey.
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I found...
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That was 2015.
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2015.
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Oh, wow.
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Yeah.
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And so I found out that, burning more boats was an actual thing'cause I held on for two years with a contract with my old business.
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I worked from home but managed a really large project, and man, it was so disruptive.
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It wasn't till I completely released myself from that work that I was able to really get traction as an EOS implementer.
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In fact, I, I got booted out of the community because I wasn't doing enough sessions.
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I wasn't doing enough work.
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And so once, I, I got rid of that last commitment with my organization and I dove in, got it full-time, th- I just, had a wonderful blessing.
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One of my clients, one of my original clients invited me to their peer group just like we had learned about EOS, and he introduced me to his peer group, and I walked out of the door with five new clients and, everything just
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just took off.
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So what year do you think that got spun up?
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I know you started
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20--
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2015,
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yeah, 20-2018 was when I really started turning the
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really started turning the dial.
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That's so cool.
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I
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I was muddling around until then, and then that one event really kickstarted me and got things going and,
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uh, changed
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Changed everything.
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Once, once I got past 10 clients, the flywheel was in effect at that point, and I was able to just grow and, and probably, Matt, since 2020, I never lost a client during COVID, and I- I've been operating at on average about 25 active clients, since then.
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So,
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Shout out, man.
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That's a ton of work, sir.
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Ton of work, ton of, ton of problems to help people solve.
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But you know what?
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Well, it's very rewarding work.
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I can, I can certainly attest to that.
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Yeah.
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Well, you kinda clued in on this.
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It's always fun with implementers to see if you see any overlaps in industry types.
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I do know this in my experience.
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I've worked as a fractional integrator for the last 10 years, have served 15 different clients and built probably 20 different teams in some capacity, and EOS does fit all of those, all of those businesses.
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But based on your region, your experience, or, kind of where you're-- how you're, how you're wired, do you see overlap in any types of industries?
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Because I know there's some folks who are like,"Oh, I'm only multi-- I only deal multi-generational blah, blah, blah businesses." But if you kinda rack the brain, do you see any overlap with types of industries?
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And is there some industries more successful with EOS than not?
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Successful, I shouldn't say- Well- but struggle with.
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one of the data points that we just got, this last year because EOS worldwide is now maturing enough that they're able to share some of the information you're asking for.
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And, and, previously we, we kinda had in our gut some ideas about it, but, they're actually producing some data.
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And one of the pieces of data is EOS really has a strong place.
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I think it's like thirty percent of EOS, implemented companies have-- are in the construction trades, and in construction somewhere.
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And it's because it's just such a fit.
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It's like the idea of getting structure in a really chaotic environment.
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'Cause anybody that's worked in construction knows it's just utter chaos literally all the time, right?
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And, and it's just so necessary on a project by project basis to get the L10 structure and the agendas and the issue solving that it really is just a, it's a perfect fit in that environment.
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Beyond that, I think there's several other, particular areas that it seems to work, extraordinarily well.
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But then when you talk about overlaps, what I've discovered is, working from the construction trades and trades specifically'cause I just love the trades and I appreciate the trades and really feel like they're our future, is the idea of other services that.
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interact with that And so for example, you have vendors that supply equipment.
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So I have a number of clients that are those.
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They're, they're not con-contractors, but they're the people that sell stuff to contractors.
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So that's a natural overlap and that's different work.
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working as a rep or-- and which I did, and working in distribution is very different than being a contractor, right?
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And so that's a, that's a natural overlap.
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And then another place where I found a really cool, synergy for me is in the rental business, like the commercial rental business.
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Contractors rent a ton of lifts, equipment, things.
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And so that space is a really natural understanding of what it's like to be a client for them as well as be in their space and understand the difficulties they have keeping equipment running, the, delivering equipment, bringing
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bringing all that kind of stuff, That is a highly challenging business that in Texas...
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I, I live in Central Texas.
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There is-- There-- We're, we're littered with equipment rental businesses.
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And what I do love about equipment rental businesses, amongst a lot of things, but there's a, there's a lot of loyalty.
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I mean, I mean, users of the equipment develop relationships with the owners of the machines, with the people that service the machines, and they, they're a business partner to all of these service businesses.
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A service business partnering with other service businesses to help them deliver.
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1,000%.
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And what, what's really interesting in that business is you think about the people that have the most interaction with the actual client's interaction, right?
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'Cause y- you, you think about the decision-makers.
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Decision-makers are the project managers.
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They write the POs, they do the estimates, and they send out the POs.
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But they rarely, if ever, other than on the phone, talk to that rental company, right?
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They're just, they're just right doing an interaction.
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It's the guy in the field that's receiving that piece of equipment, getting it off the back of the trailer and, and making sure that it works and runs when they get it, and then loading it back up with that same driver and sending it back.
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And then the other interaction that they often have is if they do self-delivery, it's those yard people.
00:15:08.315 --> 00:15:20.254
And so what you find out in that industry, we tend, we tend, to be focused on the management and the sales and the systems that they use, but where the touches are, where the customer touches that business is those yard guys and those drivers.
00:15:20.644 --> 00:15:32.745
And it matters so much whether those human beings have any, EQ because they're engaging directly with the touchpoint of that client that either receives that piece of equipment back or gives it back out.
00:15:33.044 --> 00:15:35.815
And you're talking about loyalty, that's where it's built, baby.
00:15:35.815 --> 00:15:42.404
It's built at that moment with that-- the way they're treated and the way that interaction goes touchpoint.
00:15:42.904 --> 00:15:46.284
Not at the counter, not at the order desk, not at the d- PO.
00:15:46.345 --> 00:15:49.044
It's, it's at that point that I get that piece of the gear and I bring
00:15:49.067 --> 00:15:49.937
bring it back.
00:15:49.937 --> 00:15:50.427
That's huge.
00:15:50.427 --> 00:16:00.216
You're gonna laugh at this'cause you and I, I think we're, we're wired somewhat similarly in this, in that I had a guy come out and clean my windows the other day and, and he showed up with the most beautiful rig I've ever seen.
00:16:00.716 --> 00:16:10.496
Like, very clean, three-quarter-ton four-door pickup with all the stuff in the back, and every cord was hung perfectly, and the ladder was just this and this and...
00:16:10.866 --> 00:16:16.317
And I went out and I was like,"Man, your rig looks awesome." Like, he said,"I clean stuff for a living.
00:16:16.376 --> 00:16:23.346
If I showed up in an ugly, dirty truck, would you trust that I'm gonna clean your stuff?" And I said,"That's really interesting." Right?
00:16:23.397 --> 00:16:26.346
And it-- But Matt, it was cherry.
00:16:26.376 --> 00:16:28.236
And it wasn't like it was brand new.
00:16:28.456 --> 00:16:30.386
It was just very intentional.
00:16:30.576 --> 00:16:39.856
and I love that impression, and I've seen that in, in service yards as well, where people go out of their way to make things look special so that people like me and you notice it.
00:16:40.623 --> 00:16:41.452
And how important is that?
00:16:41.613 --> 00:16:47.143
like where the stickers are, where the labels are, where the access to the, starting equipment, the, the...
00:16:47.312 --> 00:16:48.543
But, and, and that's where...
00:16:48.732 --> 00:16:58.942
I don't know about you, but a lot of times where I see my teams when we're practicing the VTO, because, in, in our quarterlies we're, we're supposed to go through the VTO and see if it resonates and see if the teams convert and articulate.
00:16:59.273 --> 00:17:07.232
We get that marketing strategy almost every time and it's like,"Oh, this again." And they just read it and they don't put any enthusiasm about it, and it's like, man, that's the place where I just go, we...
00:17:07.252 --> 00:17:09.353
'Cause we were taught this at one of our QCEs recently.
00:17:09.353 --> 00:17:14.502
It's like, look at this may be the most important part,'cause it's actually how you tell the world who you are and what you do, right?
00:17:14.643 --> 00:17:14.942
And that...
00:17:14.942 --> 00:17:22.792
But what I tell them is,"Look it, the reason we're talking about this," and in our organization, there's 75 people, and we said this all the time, which is, why I really hold this.
00:17:22.843 --> 00:17:26.472
It's like everybody in this room is part of our marketing strategy.
00:17:26.913 --> 00:17:40.682
Everything we do, the way our vehicles arrive, the way they, when we open up the door and our client might be standing next to us, and the inside of our van looks, the way our uniforms appear, the way our invoices go out, the way the phone answers, their letterhead.
00:17:40.732 --> 00:17:43.432
Everything is part of our marketing strategy and consistent.
00:17:43.442 --> 00:17:47.093
You just described that, and I just described it with these rental companies.
00:17:47.123 --> 00:17:50.393
Part of your marketing strategy is the way that yard guy greets the client.
00:17:50.682 --> 00:17:54.272
It's the way the driver shows up and drops off that piece of gear.
00:17:54.623 --> 00:17:55.792
That's marketing strategy.
00:17:56.123 --> 00:18:02.022
That's loyalty and consistency for branding your business, and every human being in the room is part of that.
00:18:02.042 --> 00:18:19.633
And they think,"Oh, this is just our messaging and our three uniques and all this kind of stuff." It's like, no, this is the action steps that align with our core values, with our core focus and our vision that actually puts our face in front of the customer and touches them, and that's why everybody here needs to know what it is so you're in alignment with it.
00:18:19.633 --> 00:18:27.113
and what we're doing matters because your call, your text, your email is part of our marketing strategy, every bit of it.
00:18:27.363 --> 00:18:29.026
You are listening to the Scalability Code.
00:18:29.026 --> 00:18:37.195
I'm your host, Matt Haney, founder of Sinclair Ventures, and we help visionary entrepreneurs like you get out of the shit show and focus on growing your business.
00:18:37.335 --> 00:18:43.734
We offer fractional COO and leadership coaching services that free up that brain of yours to focus on what's next.
00:18:44.224 --> 00:18:45.964
Learn more about us at SinclairVentures.
00:18:45.964 --> 00:18:46.315
com.
00:18:46.335 --> 00:18:46.954
Now back to it.
00:18:48.287 --> 00:18:53.247
By the way, it's so, it's, I, one, one of the many things I love is managing against those core values.
00:18:53.317 --> 00:19:10.596
If we're continually talking about them and bringing them to the surface, and if even better, if one of us leadership team members could rattle off one of those when we're doing well, positive, positive affirmation of a, of a core value, and then also where people are falling short, on, against a core value.
00:19:10.626 --> 00:19:17.396
It makes it much easier to have those conversations when it's like, one of them, my clients had one that was like relentless commitment and, and I was- Mm.
00:19:17.396 --> 00:19:30.346
And, and it was one that's like very easy to, to talk about where you're not, Anyway, addressing the VTO, talking about core values makes, makes confrontational confronta- confrontational conversations not confrontational.
00:19:30.467 --> 00:19:30.946
Absolutely.
00:19:30.946 --> 00:19:32.076
You, you, you're-- It's objective.
00:19:32.247 --> 00:19:33.707
You're pointing to this thing.
00:19:34.141 --> 00:19:34.517
Yeah.
00:19:34.517 --> 00:19:34.807
It's a
00:19:34.836 --> 00:19:39.366
person sitting there in the room saying, Oh, that's our core value, and you just did it.
00:19:39.396 --> 00:19:47.557
Awesome." And, and and what the statistics that we teach in LMA is we need to be better as leaders at recognizing the positives'cause we're all wired to see the broken stuff, right?
00:19:47.676 --> 00:19:56.527
And it's like, look at every, every business that I work with, if they show up in the room for a quarterly, a lot more is going right in that business than is going wrong every single day.
00:19:56.527 --> 00:20:00.196
And we set up there in the room for a day focusing on stuff that's not working, right?
00:20:00.416 --> 00:20:08.987
And one of the things that was really, really transformational for me in this last year, I belong to Strategic Coach and, and our coach said to us,"Look, managers work on stuff that's broken," right?
00:20:09.017 --> 00:20:09.926
Yeah, we all get that.
00:20:10.426 --> 00:20:14.626
Leaders work on what is working and try to figure out how to make it better.
00:20:15.126 --> 00:20:26.446
And too much of the time we just get stuck in the not working world when really if we were making the working stuff work better, leveraging our strengths, a lot of the ma- the stuff not working would probably go away.
00:20:26.866 --> 00:20:34.356
And we need to get better at recognizing those alignments with core values and where they're fitting in our business every single day as opposed to constantly drip, drip, drip.
00:20:34.356 --> 00:20:35.636
You didn't do this, you didn't do that.
00:20:35.646 --> 00:20:36.477
That wasn't right.
00:20:36.977 --> 00:20:37.997
It's like wow, it's...
00:20:37.997 --> 00:20:41.616
And, and, and the, the statistics, I think Goldman even says it's like seven times.
00:20:41.626 --> 00:20:45.436
They need to hear seven more positives for every negative in order to equal out.
00:20:45.436 --> 00:20:48.237
It's like a, it's not an equal math equation, right?
00:20:48.326 --> 00:20:48.727
So
00:20:49.227 --> 00:20:50.277
Well, it's interesting.
00:20:50.277 --> 00:20:51.096
I'm gonna make a note here.
00:20:51.096 --> 00:20:53.767
Seven negatives, equal,'cause I, I think you're right.
00:20:53.817 --> 00:20:55.457
Um, uh- Seven positives...whatever it is.
00:20:55.467 --> 00:20:55.487
Y-
00:20:55.603 --> 00:20:55.972
negative.
00:20:55.972 --> 00:20:56.403
yeah, yeah.
00:20:57.022 --> 00:20:58.012
It's, it's a thousand or
00:20:58.176 --> 00:20:58.336
better.
00:20:58.863 --> 00:20:59.472
Yeah.
00:20:59.972 --> 00:21:03.732
So, you said something, that triggered me in, in, in the best of ways.
00:21:03.732 --> 00:21:08.222
I used to tell, and still sometimes do, we're functionally dysfunctional, right?
00:21:08.222 --> 00:21:13.083
Let's not, let's not lose sight of the fact that we are operating a business that is successful.
00:21:13.093 --> 00:21:14.212
We are functioning.
00:21:14.212 --> 00:21:15.553
We are hitting these metrics.
00:21:15.913 --> 00:21:17.133
We can focus on the fact...
00:21:17.272 --> 00:21:24.093
But, but the scorecards are another thing that I learned, I lean to a lot when founders are sort of swirling on themselves, right?
00:21:24.093 --> 00:21:42.982
Where it's like,"We're not doing this, or we're not doing this." And I'm like,"Well, I, I'm, I appreciate you have that feeling, but how can we quantify that into something that's tangible for the rest of us to see, instead of speaking in generalizations that are really hard to point backwards to?" so I wanna, I wanna pivot to you, for one second'cause I'm gonna use your strengths, to, to, to you- to against you for a minute.
00:21:43.323 --> 00:21:56.742
So one of the challenges I struggle with running service-based businesses is that there's generally, there's not generally, there is always, a ground level, workforce, somebody on the ground generally delivering the service.
00:21:57.252 --> 00:21:57.833
Getting the work done.
00:21:57.873 --> 00:21:58.343
Right.
00:21:58.532 --> 00:21:58.913
Yes.
00:21:58.932 --> 00:21:59.792
Those people we love.
00:22:00.292 --> 00:22:06.853
But getting EOS down to that level, I've found to be the most challenging part of, of being an integrator, is getting it to stick.
00:22:06.913 --> 00:22:12.653
and I know, R- Roll Out, came, a new book came out, Boom Beth and, and some of those folks, which is fantastic.
00:22:12.712 --> 00:22:28.002
But, in your experience working heavily and owning service-based businesses, can you give us any thoughts or suggestions, feedbacks, tips from the top, whatever you wanna call it, about how you were able to get that down one level lower or two levels lower from the leadership level down?
00:22:28.502 --> 00:22:28.670
Yeah.
00:22:28.670 --> 00:22:35.202
So one of the things I, I, I think was helpful in the rollout book is they've done a nice job of painting this picture of what a full rollout looks like.
00:22:35.212 --> 00:22:43.563
'Cause we often talk about, look at-- We have-- We've been working on EOS as a leadership team, and then we have this event, and that's the rollout, and that's it, nevermore.
00:22:43.583 --> 00:22:45.522
And I actually have teams, and maybe you've seen it.
00:22:45.613 --> 00:22:46.462
too, Matt, where That's, it.
00:22:46.492 --> 00:22:47.682
That's, that was the rollout.
00:22:47.722 --> 00:22:50.932
And that's, That it went as far as the leadership team, and that's all the farther it ever went.
00:22:50.932 --> 00:22:53.363
And frankly, some of those teams do really well.
00:22:53.383 --> 00:22:56.913
I mean, just getting a leadership team on the same page, how important is that?
00:22:56.932 --> 00:22:58.472
Like, when that didn't exist before.
00:22:58.472 --> 00:23:02.313
So I mean, EOS actually serves businesses in that realm very well.
00:23:02.313 --> 00:23:05.803
What, we, we did and what I like to see is what you're describing.
00:23:05.803 --> 00:23:08.343
How can I get it so it touches every human being?
00:23:08.343 --> 00:23:16.303
Because one of the things that we talk about is a greatly run, fully rolled out EOS business doesn't need a suggestion box.
00:23:16.333 --> 00:23:26.313
It doesn't need a complaint, because if L-10s are working and everybody has a voice, and those L-10s are functional and right people in the right seats, then guess what happens with the issues, baby?
00:23:26.762 --> 00:23:45.363
They come in and they roll around, and they get dealt with, and people end up with to-dos, and people get feedback almost immediately whether they were heard, whether anybody cares, whether they're gonna do something about it, or whether that particular issue that they brought up doesn't live in today's world, it needs to be put off a little while because we're gonna have to wait to get ready to do that.
00:23:45.363 --> 00:23:58.903
But the point is, people get heard if L-10s happen all the way down to that field team heading out the door in the morning, fifteen-minute huddle, quick check-in, eight minutes ideas, are we ready to go?
00:23:59.022 --> 00:23:59.813
Boom, hit the road.
00:24:00.173 --> 00:24:03.972
and that's how we did it in our business, and I've seen that be successful in many service businesses.
00:24:04.083 --> 00:24:09.742
I don't-- I'm not putting people in a ninety-minute L-10 if they are hourly paid employees that need to get out and be in, in the world.
00:24:09.742 --> 00:24:16.542
But I need to give them a point of connection so that they're seen, felt, heard, and they know that what goes on.
00:24:16.863 --> 00:24:23.182
And if you don't do that, if you choose not to do that, you have to find ways that those people feel that way, right?
00:24:23.682 --> 00:24:25.593
And it's not your decision.
00:24:25.623 --> 00:24:27.613
You don't get to know that they feel that way.
00:24:27.643 --> 00:24:30.593
You get to provide the system and get them to punch into it.
00:24:30.792 --> 00:24:33.282
you don't get to vote on whether they feel like they've been heard or not.
00:24:33.472 --> 00:24:34.522
That's their vote a hundred percent.
00:24:35.022 --> 00:24:46.192
And so I really encourage people to do it all the way out, and that means a fifteen-minute huddle on a Tuesday morning may be the appropriate L-10 for a field team working together in the field.
00:24:46.192 --> 00:24:57.482
They can do their safety briefing, they can do their toolbox thing, and then they can check in and say,"Look, what's, what are we faced with today that's gonna challenge us?" And then they run that back up the flagpole to the office if it's a systemic issue, process issue, whatever.
00:24:57.482 --> 00:25:02.532
But the issue moves with the individuals that have the identification, and stuff gets dealt with.
00:25:02.972 --> 00:25:08.063
many times people in the field feel like they're distanced and separated, nobody cares, and they're stuck out there.
00:25:08.563 --> 00:25:12.083
And if they don't have a voice, they talk to each other that way.
00:25:12.202 --> 00:25:14.532
They talk to each other on the way to work, on the way home from
00:25:14.664 --> 00:25:16.944
going to work, and it just starts to build toxic.
00:25:16.944 --> 00:25:18.005
It sure does.
00:25:18.005 --> 00:25:35.365
Well, one of the questions I love asking folks who have managed people and grown businesses is, if you could, and I know this is hard, distill down kind of what you feel like your hardest part about managing people is, or any themes you've seen in a decade of sessions where people have failed at managing folks.
00:25:35.865 --> 00:25:38.555
So you know that we have a rule, right?
00:25:38.615 --> 00:25:46.744
If, if a person's name ends up in a quarterly on the people analyzer two quarters in a row, then something needs to change, right?
00:25:47.136 --> 00:25:48.257
And so- Yep and
00:25:48.535 --> 00:25:51.575
and so, that's the biggest mistake I found as a manager.
00:25:51.654 --> 00:25:56.615
And believe it or not, it wasn't until that we got deep enough and discovered the three-strike rule.
00:25:56.916 --> 00:25:57.257
Yeah
00:25:57.724 --> 00:26:06.674
That saved me from being the worst manager on the planet because what it did is it brought into, poise a point of like, look, if this isn't working for either of us.
00:26:06.674 --> 00:26:10.295
Like, a lot of times we get stuck in the fact like, ah, I'm losing sleep.
00:26:10.474 --> 00:26:11.595
This employee's not performing.
00:26:11.595 --> 00:26:12.470
What do I say to them?
00:26:12.470 --> 00:26:13.355
What do I do with them?
00:26:13.355 --> 00:26:14.434
And it's like you're earlier.
00:26:14.444 --> 00:26:15.424
It's like core values, man.
00:26:15.424 --> 00:26:18.295
To point the core values because they're over here waiting for you to administer.
00:26:18.734 --> 00:26:23.795
And it's like almost every time they're out of alignment, they're, they're, they're not, they're not in sync, right?
00:26:23.994 --> 00:26:25.035
So you know that.
00:26:25.035 --> 00:26:26.994
You can put them on the people analyzer, you could tell it.
00:26:26.994 --> 00:26:29.005
You know whether they GWC their seat.
00:26:29.325 --> 00:26:31.025
How hard should that conversation be?
00:26:31.025 --> 00:26:32.525
And yet we're all afraid of it.
00:26:32.585 --> 00:26:34.355
We're all d- oh my gosh, what should I do?
00:26:34.605 --> 00:26:36.505
Three-strike rule into the picture.
00:26:36.505 --> 00:26:38.545
Look, I got three examples of why this isn't working.
00:26:38.545 --> 00:26:40.714
We need to fix this because this isn't a good place for you.
00:26:40.714 --> 00:26:42.085
It's not a good place for us.
00:26:42.214 --> 00:26:42.914
got thirty days.
00:26:42.914 --> 00:26:43.734
Let's check back in.
00:26:44.224 --> 00:26:54.275
I did three of those at the end of my tenure in my business and never had to fire anybody because I did it well enough and figured out how to do it to where they pulled their own rip cord.
00:26:54.494 --> 00:26:59.394
And anybody that I've ever talked to says somebody pulling their own rip cord is better than you having to administer
00:26:59.625 --> 00:27:01.542
from an HR perspective, 100%.
00:27:01.542 --> 00:27:03.063
E- every single time.
00:27:03.063 --> 00:27:03.583
Letting
00:27:03.633 --> 00:27:03.863
it's like,
00:27:04.032 --> 00:27:05.623
your idea is the best idea ever.
00:27:06.123 --> 00:27:08.143
and it's-- and they're in pain too.
00:27:08.143 --> 00:27:09.742
That's the thing we don't really embrace.
00:27:10.063 --> 00:27:15.063
And if they're in pain, start thinking about the pain that they're delivering to other people that are working around them.
00:27:15.063 --> 00:27:18.182
'Cause the second-- the first reason people leave their job is because of their boss.
00:27:18.192 --> 00:27:19.972
The second reason is the people they work next to.
00:27:20.393 --> 00:27:30.323
And if we can't fix that as leaders, that was the biggest resonating part with me coming back when we started administering the people analytics, and we started asking people to leave our business'cause they weren't a fit.
00:27:30.752 --> 00:27:35.182
Our team leaders were the ones that stepped up and said,"Oh my gosh, I see what you're doing.
00:27:35.303 --> 00:27:39.992
You've just made my job easier'cause I'm not having to manage that person.
00:27:39.992 --> 00:27:40.022
Okay?
00:27:40.873 --> 00:27:46.432
And we were, we were doing them a disservice because we were afraid to take action because we needed the people.
00:27:46.442 --> 00:27:47.942
Oh my God, we can't lose anybody.
00:27:47.942 --> 00:27:52.673
I mean, we were just in that same space, and it's like addition by subtraction is a real thing, man.
00:27:52.692 --> 00:27:53.502
It really is.
00:27:53.502 --> 00:28:02.593
And every time you've harbored somebody longer than you should have, and you know that you should have, and I have so many of my clients now, if they listen to this, they're all gonna just roll their eyes and agree.
00:28:02.593 --> 00:28:11.232
It's like that person finally departing their business, they come to the next quarterly and to a person, the leadership team in their check-in, what's working?
00:28:11.262 --> 00:28:15.012
Oh my gosh, the change in management has made all the...
00:28:15.053 --> 00:28:16.722
It's like, well, they'll use the term.
00:28:16.722 --> 00:28:19.613
They won't say Johnny left or, or Abigail.
00:28:19.843 --> 00:28:21.972
They won't, but, but they're, they're saying that.
00:28:22.083 --> 00:28:24.803
They're saying that in a different way, and it's like everything's better.
00:28:24.863 --> 00:28:27.702
And when you dig a little deeper, they'll go,"Oh my God.
00:28:27.742 --> 00:28:31.532
We had no idea how bad it was." It's the iceberg principle.
00:28:31.992 --> 00:28:34.472
You only see what you see from a management level.
00:28:34.492 --> 00:28:41.383
You have no idea the depth of toxicity that that person, when they don't fit your business, is spreading elsewhere around them.
00:28:41.883 --> 00:28:46.502
And what you find out is everybody comes out of the woodwork as soon as they're gone, and they will tell you
00:28:46.625 --> 00:28:46.704
And
00:28:46.843 --> 00:28:48.232
that you go,"Oh my God, why didn't you
00:28:48.444 --> 00:28:50.625
what we find out is everybody comes out of the woodwork as soon as they're gone, and they will tell you things that you go,"Oh my God, why did you tell me this?" this?" is ex- I say this all the time.
00:28:50.625 --> 00:28:53.535
I'm saying like, how, how is it that we're just now talking about this?
00:28:53.535 --> 00:28:57.164
How?
00:28:57.164 --> 00:28:57.709
How could he possibly just be waiting till- Yeah.
00:28:57.709 --> 00:29:12.659
I mean, especially on the leadership team when it's personnel related and I'm like, we have an intimate 90-minute meeting every week with the most trusted individuals in the business, and this issue's been happening for X period of weeks, months, or years, and we're just now learning about it.
00:29:13.088 --> 00:29:15.278
Like, we have failed ourselves, leadership team.
00:29:15.288 --> 00:29:16.288
We are the leaders.
00:29:16.469 --> 00:29:17.669
This is not leadership.
00:29:18.144 --> 00:29:19.144
and we failed them.
00:29:19.154 --> 00:29:23.944
We failed them because we ended up making them work with people that they actually didn't like working with.
00:29:24.305 --> 00:29:29.954
We made it harder for them to get out of bed that morning and come to work because they knew they had to work with that person.
00:29:30.247 --> 00:29:33.386
Yeah, I always joke I have, I have the iPhone, right?
00:29:33.846 --> 00:29:38.295
And, and when it, when it rings, you have a, a red button and a green button, right?
00:29:38.375 --> 00:29:38.394
Yeah.
00:29:38.404 --> 00:29:40.555
You choose which one, right?
00:29:40.654 --> 00:29:45.454
And if I hit the red button more times than the green button, we have an issue we need to discuss.
00:29:45.704 --> 00:29:49.174
Like, it, it's, it's, So anyway, I wanna keep going'cause I digress.
00:29:49.204 --> 00:30:12.125
Okay, um, do, I do, I do think, I do believe this, being in sessions myself for, for almost n- eight or nine years now on the, this side, the c- the, the, the table side, not the whiteboard side, that, that seeing different EOS implementers I've, I've come across, there are pe- there are ones that are better at one tool than the other.
00:30:12.335 --> 00:30:14.484
And by better, I mean they get more excited about it.
00:30:14.494 --> 00:30:15.694
They're more passionate about it.
00:30:15.694 --> 00:30:16.805
They've got more examples.
00:30:16.815 --> 00:30:17.894
It resonates with them.
00:30:18.345 --> 00:30:25.494
Yes, we teach all of them equally, or you guys do, but do you feel like you have, a, a, a superpower in one of the tools?
00:30:25.865 --> 00:30:31.664
Do you feel like there's one where you're just like,"If I could, I'd talk about it all the time because it's that, that's important"?
00:30:31.755 --> 00:30:34.105
But which one do you love the most?
00:30:34.568 --> 00:30:37.919
And this, this is of course the problem with the fundamental toolbox, right?
00:30:37.929 --> 00:30:43.999
Like when you, when you-- we teach LMA, you go,"Okay, we just taught you LMA," and leadership management accountability, right?
00:30:43.999 --> 00:30:46.759
We teach that it's a literal tool sitting there on the toolbox, right?
00:30:47.058 --> 00:31:02.598
And then you pull back and you say,"Let's look at how many of the other tools were just impacted by us teaching leadership management accountability." And you go through the thing, and it's like sixteen out of the twenty tools in the fundamental toolbox are all embedded in LMA, right?
00:31:02.969 --> 00:31:11.338
And so I guess to answer your question, I would say LMA is the one I'm most passionate about because I will have-- hear this so often, especially when we begin our journey, people say,"I want more accountability.
00:31:11.338 --> 00:31:14.239
We need more accountability." They'll just use that term and throw it around like crazy.
00:31:14.739 --> 00:31:19.959
And I go,"We have so much work to do before we get there, but just let me tell you, accountability is an outcome.
00:31:19.959 --> 00:31:21.189
It is not an expectation.
00:31:21.199 --> 00:31:27.648
We have to change the way we lead and manage if we want accountability to actually occur in our business, right?" And they don't get it.
00:31:28.118 --> 00:31:32.058
They hear that, and it's like,"Ah." And then you teach them LMA, and then you ask them...
00:31:32.249 --> 00:31:33.398
And I will tell you this story.
00:31:33.898 --> 00:31:36.729
When we had our accountability chart, we were working with our implementer.
00:31:37.229 --> 00:31:40.118
We couldn't remember what LMA stood for for on my my project.
00:31:40.429 --> 00:31:41.318
We were a year and a half in.
00:31:41.818 --> 00:31:46.628
And so finally, I, I put on the accountability chart,'cause this is previous to any of the current tools.
00:31:46.628 --> 00:31:49.088
We were using Excel and Word documents, right?
00:31:49.449 --> 00:31:54.078
Up, I-- So I put under LMA equals leadership plus management equals accountability.
00:31:54.078 --> 00:31:57.919
I put it on the accountability chart so I could remember what it was'cause we kept forgetting it right?
00:31:58.179 --> 00:32:03.598
And so I try to find myself back in the seat of my client realizing, oh, this is the seven times rule.
00:32:04.028 --> 00:32:08.769
And what we're learning is our attention spans are changing, so it's more like the thirty-five to the forty-two times rule.
00:32:08.769 --> 00:32:11.999
But the thing is, it's like, oh yeah, I've told them this before, and guess what?
00:32:11.999 --> 00:32:15.338
I got seven, eight, nine, ten more to go before they're gonna actually hear me.
00:32:15.669 --> 00:32:21.128
But to me, that one bakes in everything'cause the VTO's in there, the, the five leadership skills are in there.
00:32:21.348 --> 00:32:24.788
The, the, the, the, the model, the US model and the six points in there.
00:32:24.788 --> 00:32:27.038
the people I always, oh my God, maybe that's my passion point.
00:32:27.098 --> 00:32:28.098
Just goes to what I told you.
00:32:28.098 --> 00:32:29.699
Delegate and elevate's nested in there.
00:32:30.118 --> 00:32:31.868
clarity breaks are nested in there.
00:32:32.098 --> 00:32:34.118
Everything is nested in LMA.
00:32:34.118 --> 00:32:37.679
So if you wanna talk about one tool in the box, LMA
00:32:37.696 --> 00:32:38.067
LMA
00:32:38.567 --> 00:32:43.856
encompasses most of it in a way that's powerful, profound, and changes the business cycle.
00:32:43.856 --> 00:32:48.767
'Cause the people are the only difference that you can make in, in who you are today and who you're gonna be two years from now.
00:32:49.086 --> 00:32:54.626
And if you don't apply LMA and actually own it and lean into it and embrace it, you're not gonna get there.
00:32:54.926 --> 00:32:55.326
Right
00:32:55.346 --> 00:32:57.057
not So
00:32:57.557 --> 00:32:58.426
Love it.
00:32:58.426 --> 00:33:04.047
LMA is a good one, and I do love that you, you, own-- humbly say that you-- it took you years to get it.
00:33:04.477 --> 00:33:06.047
but it's, it's awesome.
00:33:06.477 --> 00:33:06.696
all right.
00:33:06.696 --> 00:33:12.037
Well, I, I wanna, I wanna get us to, to a f- a closing point, and I always...
00:33:12.537 --> 00:33:15.196
Like, we start the same way, we end the same way.
00:33:15.267 --> 00:33:17.497
surprise, we start on time and end on time.
00:33:17.497 --> 00:33:19.666
We, we start with a segue and we end with a conclusion.
00:33:20.166 --> 00:33:29.007
the conclusion here is, is, those of us who believe we are wise or have access to wisdom, have received a, a-- some advice from someone.
00:33:29.396 --> 00:33:42.366
And, and I'm curious if, if, if you can pull out any wisdom you've received from someone over the years that resonates with you or that you find yourself sharing that wisdom with folks during good and bad times.
00:33:42.858 --> 00:33:46.409
Yeah, you-- when you, when you ask questions like that, man, I'm sure you understand it yourself.
00:33:46.409 --> 00:33:48.739
It's like you always think, well, what's the one thing that always comes to mind?
00:33:48.739 --> 00:34:00.409
And there's one thing that always comes to mind, and I can't specifically tell you why, but this was a mentor that was so huge in my early career development, out of the Dallas office, working for the, Carrier, Machinery Systems division.
00:34:00.409 --> 00:34:04.818
I was just a young salesman trying to figure out the world, and this, this old gentleman, was my mentor.
00:34:05.278 --> 00:34:15.009
He taught me about what was really important, but one of the most important, things he taught me, not just how to teach HVAC and the technical side of it,'cause he was awesome at that, was I, I came back from a meeting in northern Louisiana.
00:34:15.018 --> 00:34:25.559
I'd just lost a big order, and I was bummed, and I said,"I'm gonna-- I wanna-- I'm gonna go out and have a drink." He stopped me right there, and he's like,"You never, ever go out and have a drink for a loss.
00:34:26.059 --> 00:34:27.128
It's the worst thing you can do.
00:34:27.628 --> 00:34:36.068
You go out and celebrate, have drinks with your friends and celebrate, but you do not go out and drink for a loss." And I can't tell you with certainty why that stuck with me.
00:34:36.099 --> 00:34:39.048
I just know that there's more, more there than just drinking.
00:34:39.048 --> 00:34:41.349
There's more there than just a chemical you use.
00:34:41.398 --> 00:34:46.688
It's, it's about a mindset and an attitude, how you're approaching a loss and what you do with it.
00:34:47.188 --> 00:34:49.309
And you invest in your pain, and you learn from it.
00:34:49.309 --> 00:34:50.588
You don't nurse it.
00:34:50.619 --> 00:34:54.298
You don't, proclivity it, And, and then celebrations are meant for everybody.
00:34:54.318 --> 00:34:55.599
And we had a tight-knit office.
00:34:55.628 --> 00:35:03.059
We had-- We s-- We had fun on the weekends, and that was a really important thing for me early, early in my life to realize from a professional basis, you
00:35:03.327 --> 00:35:04.597
don't inebriate
00:35:04.599 --> 00:35:04.728
your
00:35:04.936 --> 00:35:05.306
your problems,
00:35:05.489 --> 00:35:05.838
right?
00:35:05.914 --> 00:35:07.505
You deal with them head-on.
00:35:07.844 --> 00:35:13.275
So whether that resonates or not or why it does, but that's the answer that always comes to mind when people ask me that question.
00:35:13.949 --> 00:35:14.389
Loving it.
00:35:14.429 --> 00:35:22.938
Well, listen, I think, I, I've really enjoyed chatting with you, Matt, and, and, your wisdom, your wisdom comes, comes received.
00:35:22.978 --> 00:35:30.969
And, we're all better by getting suggestions from those of us around us who have been through a lot and seen different things, and I'm, I'm grateful for this time.
00:35:30.969 --> 00:35:31.329
So,
00:35:31.617 --> 00:35:31.958
Doing it
00:35:32.009 --> 00:35:37.478
we'll get to have some conversations in the future, and thank you for joining us today on another episode of The Scalability Code.
00:35:37.478 --> 00:35:38.159
we'll see you soon.
00:35:38.159 --> 00:35:39.358
Absolutely, Mike
00:35:39.476 --> 00:35:39.876
Thank you
00:35:39.976 --> 00:35:42.047
Thank you for listening to The Scalability Code.
00:35:42.077 --> 00:35:47.567
If you made it this far, please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:35:47.670 --> 00:35:49.409
Let's get out of the sh*t show together.
00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:51.900
We'll see you next time on The Scalability Code.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.080
I will have-- hear this so often, especially when we begin our journey, people say,"I want more accountability.
00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:06.980
We need more accountability." They'll just use that term and throw it around like crazy.
00:00:07.059 --> 00:00:12.279
And I go,"We have so much work to do before we get there, but just let me tell you, accountability is an outcome.
00:00:12.279 --> 00:00:13.509
It is not an expectation.
00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:18.399
We have to change the way we lead and manage if we want accountability to actually occur in our business,
00:00:18.399 --> 00:00:24.429
Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business.
00:00:24.609 --> 00:00:27.219
And now for your host, Matt Haney.
00:00:27.719 --> 00:00:28.760
Good afternoon, folks.
00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:31.309
Here we are, another episode of The Scalability Code.
00:00:31.530 --> 00:00:35.140
Joined today by Matthew Todd from the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:35.140 --> 00:00:36.280
Matthew, thanks for joining us.
00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:37.159
You bet.
00:00:37.259 --> 00:00:37.479
Happy
00:00:37.512 --> 00:00:40.442
I'm gonna ask you the first question that I always get asked.
00:00:40.942 --> 00:00:42.182
Do you like to go by Matt or Matthew?
00:00:42.682 --> 00:00:43.692
Matt is fine.
00:00:43.692 --> 00:00:46.031
I do the Matthew because maybe you've experienced it.
00:00:46.031 --> 00:00:50.531
I end up being a Mark or a Mike or something else if I don't get that in, and then it's Matt after that,
00:00:50.853 --> 00:00:56.573
we're gonna have to label the episode Two Matts Make It Right instead of Two Rights Make It Wrong, it's gonna be Two Matts Make It Right.
00:00:57.073 --> 00:00:58.584
Um, awesome.
00:00:58.734 --> 00:01:01.064
Well, I start every episode the same way.
00:01:01.164 --> 00:01:05.073
you're an entrepreneur, and coincidentally or not, you work with a ton of entrepreneurs.
00:01:05.513 --> 00:01:11.853
So I'd like for you to go back far into your mind when you had really long hair and you were young.
00:01:12.153 --> 00:01:18.463
Somebody impressioned upon you, the, the, the, the premises of, of entrepreneurship.
00:01:18.903 --> 00:01:29.144
There was, there was somebody that, that comes to mind that turned you into the entrepreneur you are today, or maybe you can look back and be like,"Man, this person, I didn't know it at the time," or,"Yeah, they were.
00:01:29.144 --> 00:01:29.534
They are.
00:01:29.543 --> 00:01:31.334
It is." So think about if it...
00:01:31.343 --> 00:01:35.804
Does anybody come to mind that was a special entrepreneur in your mind that, that may have helped get you here?
00:01:36.304 --> 00:01:36.853
Oh, absolutely.
00:01:36.903 --> 00:01:38.573
y-you, mentioned that I...
00:01:38.584 --> 00:01:41.603
Y-you see my stuff there that I'm from an agricultural background.
00:01:41.623 --> 00:01:45.403
And so I grew up on two family farms in Montana.
00:01:45.403 --> 00:01:51.974
One was a dairy farm, which has its own, set of issues, and one was a, a cattle ranch in southeastern Montana.
00:01:52.353 --> 00:02:00.134
And one of the things that we often don't think of with farming is it may be one of the most entrepreneurial enterprises that exists on the planet.
00:02:00.634 --> 00:02:02.334
farmers have to grow what they can sell.
00:02:02.603 --> 00:02:03.463
They have to market it.
00:02:03.963 --> 00:02:04.924
And I didn't know it.
00:02:04.924 --> 00:02:09.163
when I was working in that business that that was entrepreneurism.
00:02:09.163 --> 00:02:10.584
I was just a kid working on a farm.
00:02:10.593 --> 00:02:10.894
a farm.
00:02:11.394 --> 00:02:20.683
But later on, I drew upon that experience significantly as I did, my track in owning my own business, working through business.
00:02:21.104 --> 00:02:23.713
I didn't realize how many of those fundamental features
00:02:23.933 --> 00:02:24.074
pieces
00:02:24.574 --> 00:02:25.334
I drew upon.
00:02:25.834 --> 00:02:28.204
It just really was baked into me in a way I didn't even know
00:02:28.483 --> 00:02:29.252
even know or understand.
00:02:29.252 --> 00:02:30.304
Isn't that crazy?
00:02:30.383 --> 00:02:33.264
Like, I, I don't have a ton of relationships with farmers.
00:02:33.264 --> 00:02:35.493
I have a ton of relationship with ranchers down here in Texas.
00:02:35.993 --> 00:02:43.813
But there's a live animal involved, and for whatever reason, the differentiation between farming and ranching might as well be oil and water to me.
00:02:43.824 --> 00:02:48.943
'Cause I know they're growing the livestock, and you feed them, and then you take them to market and you sell them, but it's very transactional.
00:02:49.243 --> 00:02:56.993
I think when you're growing something in the earth, it's a much more, un, un, unprov- not unproven, but it's a, it's a challenging process, right?
00:02:56.993 --> 00:02:58.873
There are so many variables outside your control.
00:02:58.873 --> 00:03:02.984
When you're growing an animal, you can feed and water and house them, and they will generally stay healthy.
00:03:03.253 --> 00:03:06.843
When you're growing a crop, you can't guarantee all of those things that are happening.
00:03:07.144 --> 00:03:18.294
But one of the things I want to say about, about farmers, I'm fascinating about-- I'm fascinated with how much stuff, equipment, infrastructure, overhead it requires to operate a farm.
00:03:18.734 --> 00:03:22.723
I mean- Yeah, I know some of these equipments, it's like that's an$800,000 tractor.
00:03:22.723 --> 00:03:23.033
I'm like,
00:03:23.207 --> 00:03:24.638
Oh, no, they're into millions.
00:03:24.638 --> 00:03:27.587
They're a million plus now with the articulated tractors.
00:03:27.858 --> 00:03:31.467
I, I, I, spent my summers, as a, as a college student working in ag.
00:03:31.737 --> 00:03:42.228
I, I worked for fertilizer chemical distribution companies, and then I harvested peas, beans, and corn on, on that kind of equipment that you're talking about, and operated it and ran it, and never once thought about how much it
00:03:42.324 --> 00:03:42.764
much it cost.
00:03:42.813 --> 00:03:43.174
Yeah.
00:03:43.198 --> 00:03:45.418
it just, it-- I, was, I was getting paid to drive it, so...
00:03:45.657 --> 00:03:52.388
And then later on, when you get into the financing and the development and, like, we have two family farms in, in our family right now.
00:03:52.388 --> 00:03:59.717
We're running one in Northern Idaho, and we're running one here, and just the upkeep on that equipment, will blow your mind.
00:03:59.717 --> 00:04:02.068
I mean, it's a whole job unto itself, let alone...
00:04:02.068 --> 00:04:14.557
And I, I remember my, my uncle and my grandfather spending the winters in their sheds, equipment torn down, spread all over the place, getting it ready all winter for spring operations, and that was just normal.
00:04:14.598 --> 00:04:29.958
It's like, you're a kid plunking around, and they're kicking around, but it's like, you don't understand how important that is, that once you've bought that piece of gear that's probably unlike most everything else out there on the road, that you're then using it and keeping it maintained and rebuilding it every winter.
00:04:29.987 --> 00:04:31.677
I mean, it's just, it's phenomenal.
00:04:31.684 --> 00:04:31.819
phenomenal.
00:04:32.084 --> 00:04:35.473
Farmers and ranchers definitely, old-school entrepreneurs.
00:04:35.504 --> 00:04:38.244
Been around for centuries, lifetimes.
00:04:38.244 --> 00:04:39.004
That's, that's cool.
00:04:39.053 --> 00:04:43.723
And always a good lesson, always a good story from those folks in my experience.
00:04:44.204 --> 00:04:44.613
Clearly.
00:04:44.764 --> 00:04:45.444
That's awesome.
00:04:45.944 --> 00:04:46.514
well, cool.
00:04:46.543 --> 00:04:47.053
Let, let...
00:04:47.074 --> 00:04:49.624
So you give us, and this is the other thing I like to do.
00:04:49.624 --> 00:04:55.463
Normally, when you have an introduction with somebody, it's how quickly can I tell you about me so that it doesn't turn into talking about me?
00:04:55.494 --> 00:04:58.153
I just want you to know is what I do- and then I'm gonna listen.
00:04:58.463 --> 00:05:11.514
This is your chance to tell us about your entrepreneurial journey and how you got to where you are and, and the bumps and bruises along the way that have, have got you ultimately to being a, a, a successful EOS implementer.
00:05:11.514 --> 00:05:12.564
So give us some history.
00:05:12.906 --> 00:05:13.425
You bet.
00:05:13.425 --> 00:05:31.005
So, again, attached to, ag, I went to school to become an ag engineer, got a degree in ag engineering, and went out there in the world to seek a job and realized that, one of the places that really appreciated the multi-discipline, if you're familiar with industrial engineering, you have to touch on all the engineering disciplines, and so ag was no different.
00:05:31.505 --> 00:05:33.295
And yet I had that bent toward agriculture.
00:05:33.295 --> 00:05:37.706
But I went to work for, United Technologies Carrier Corporation in the, HVAC industry.
00:05:38.125 --> 00:05:39.826
they trained me well, taught me well.
00:05:39.836 --> 00:05:53.956
I went, through the entire process of working from the manufacturer as a sales engineer all the way down to distribution, and then ended up, going into a dealership, a local dealership, and, ended up, purchasing that business, from the original, founding, owner's sons.
00:05:54.375 --> 00:06:01.086
And, me and my partner grew that business from a 17-person mom-and-pop into a 75-person, two, two business regional organization.
00:06:01.086 --> 00:06:08.005
We were primarily in the commercial industrial space, a lot of paper mills, clean rooms, large worship center type of work.
00:06:08.505 --> 00:06:20.315
But we also had a small residential piece that helped us train our technicians to be in front of human beings and, and act like human beings, because oftentimes technicians we find have a little bit of difficulty with some of the soft skills.
00:06:20.315 --> 00:06:26.406
They're really, really skilled at fixing things, but they're not as skilled at interacting with people and
00:06:26.591 --> 00:06:26.982
human beings.
00:06:26.982 --> 00:06:31.812
I, I've, I've, coined-- not coined the term, but I'm using the term human skills.
00:06:32.211 --> 00:06:32.572
Yes.
00:06:32.601 --> 00:06:32.822
Yes.
00:06:32.872 --> 00:06:40.132
And, I, I don't know if I like it better than soft skills, but human skills, it's like we all have different skills when it comes to dealing with humans.
00:06:40.541 --> 00:06:42.101
Some good, some bad.
00:06:42.271 --> 00:06:46.201
And, and, Daniel Goleman's done some tremendous work on quantifying that as EQ, right?
00:06:46.232 --> 00:06:49.822
And, and that's really what you're trying to develop and see if anybody has it.
00:06:49.882 --> 00:06:50.882
And you know what you find out?
00:06:51.242 --> 00:06:56.911
some people don't, And, they're just better off in front of gear with their hands on gear, and that's okay.
00:06:56.911 --> 00:07:00.432
we, we we wanna develop those skills, but boy, that taught us a lot, I gotta tell you.
00:07:00.732 --> 00:07:07.172
going from a 17-person that had been that way, that 17-person organization had been that way for a generation and a half, and so almost 40 years.
00:07:07.211 --> 00:07:27.322
so when we took it and started to grow it, we found out every level of, 25 human beings, 35 human beings, 50-- I mean, every one of those plateaus, and I was like,"Oh my gosh." And we we discovered EOS when we got to 75, and we literally sat down in one of our heart-to-heart meetings, my business partner and I, and said,"Man, what are we doing?
00:07:27.322 --> 00:07:28.482
This thing is killing us.
00:07:28.512 --> 00:07:32.271
It's taken more than it's given back." We weren't getting paid.
00:07:32.672 --> 00:07:36.192
it just was more than we ever anticipated it was.
00:07:36.221 --> 00:07:51.161
And that's when we went to our peer group, who was doing EOS in Minneapolis, and they said,"If you guys don't do this, you're a bunch of idiots." And so we kind of took that to heart, came back, contacted a local implementer, and began our EOS journey for the first time.
00:07:51.312 --> 00:07:58.442
And, and what was really interesting for us, Matt, is that's the first time we'd ever asked anybody outside of our business to help us.
00:07:58.862 --> 00:08:04.422
We just had that fundamental grind it, figure it out, pull it together, lift it up.
00:08:04.922 --> 00:08:16.232
And when we brought-- got our implementer, the very first time, anybody outside of our business other than our accountant lawyer, which honestly they, they weren't giving us strategy, they weren't telling us how to run our business.
00:08:16.732 --> 00:08:23.021
And while our implementer was great, EOS provided us the structure that we were so desperately in need of.
00:08:23.031 --> 00:08:23.302
We
00:08:23.567 --> 00:08:23.771
in need of.
00:08:23.771 --> 00:08:24.668
We- So how long ago was that?
00:08:24.687 --> 00:08:25.867
What year did you implement
00:08:25.973 --> 00:08:25.983
2012.
00:08:25.983 --> 00:08:28.244
It was 2012, yeah.
00:08:28.553 --> 00:08:31.571
And so I, I wasn't seeing a pathway out of the business.
00:08:31.571 --> 00:08:39.500
I was thinking I was gonna be stuck there forever, and I was at a point in my age and career where I wanted to kinda think about doing-- how I was gonna finish the rest of my life.
00:08:39.500 --> 00:08:43.730
I was maybe at that halftime point, And, and I just thought,"Man, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life?
00:08:43.760 --> 00:08:49.760
I don't think I wanna do this." I loved my work, I loved what I'd done up until then, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do that forever.
00:08:50.260 --> 00:08:55.551
And I was thinking about a different track with a large corporation, maybe doing regional sales or something like that.
00:08:55.990 --> 00:09:09.400
And once we did EOS, in our second year, we came to one of our sessions, and our implementer said,"How's it going?" And all of us just in kind just went,"Oh my God, it's so much better." Everything's better." What we'd done is we'd right people, right seats.
00:09:09.791 --> 00:09:12.471
We, we literally transitioned 35 people in our organization.
00:09:12.681 --> 00:09:20.541
Almost half of our organization had transmitted, transitioned since we started using the people analyzer and actually owned it and discovered our core values for the first time.
00:09:20.870 --> 00:09:26.600
And once we put that into motion, it transitioned the business to where people around us were actually helping us.
00:09:26.721 --> 00:09:28.360
We weren't managing them as much.
00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:31.020
Our team leaders who didn't have to work as hard managing people.
00:09:31.370 --> 00:09:33.951
Everybody was good, and it just felt different.
00:09:33.990 --> 00:09:43.301
And that's when I could say,"I think I can get out of this thing in a healthy way, leave something behind that will be sustainable, and go do something else." And that's what I wanted to do.
00:09:43.510 --> 00:09:50.561
I was-- My business partner and I were about a year apart, so one of us had to get out and give the other one some runway so they could get out, right?
00:09:50.561 --> 00:09:54.250
so I mean, that's how it works when you're in a small, tightly held personal business.
00:09:54.250 --> 00:09:55.811
And so I did that.
00:09:55.811 --> 00:09:57.791
I got out, and began my EOS journey.
00:09:58.250 --> 00:09:58.910
I found...
00:09:59.410 --> 00:09:59.980
That was 2015.
00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:00.745
2015.
00:10:00.870 --> 00:10:01.490
Oh, wow.
00:10:01.687 --> 00:10:01.947
Yeah.
00:10:02.027 --> 00:10:09.356
And so I found out that, burning more boats was an actual thing'cause I held on for two years with a contract with my old business.
00:10:09.856 --> 00:10:13.636
I worked from home but managed a really large project, and man, it was so disruptive.
00:10:13.636 --> 00:10:19.197
It wasn't till I completely released myself from that work that I was able to really get traction as an EOS implementer.
00:10:19.197 --> 00:10:22.476
In fact, I, I got booted out of the community because I wasn't doing enough sessions.
00:10:22.537 --> 00:10:23.687
I wasn't doing enough work.
00:10:23.687 --> 00:10:32.417
And so once, I, I got rid of that last commitment with my organization and I dove in, got it full-time, th- I just, had a wonderful blessing.
00:10:32.486 --> 00:10:45.067
One of my clients, one of my original clients invited me to their peer group just like we had learned about EOS, and he introduced me to his peer group, and I walked out of the door with five new clients and, everything just
00:10:45.164 --> 00:10:45.894
just took off.
00:10:45.945 --> 00:10:47.615
So what year do you think that got spun up?
00:10:47.615 --> 00:10:48.294
I know you started
00:10:48.326 --> 00:10:48.336
20--
00:10:48.404 --> 00:10:49.264
2015,
00:10:49.506 --> 00:10:53.067
yeah, 20-2018 was when I really started turning the
00:10:53.164 --> 00:10:53.654
really started turning the dial.
00:10:53.945 --> 00:10:54.784
That's so cool.
00:10:54.784 --> 00:10:54.794
I
00:10:54.986 --> 00:11:01.826
I was muddling around until then, and then that one event really kickstarted me and got things going and,
00:11:01.934 --> 00:11:02.514
uh, changed
00:11:02.826 --> 00:11:03.437
Changed everything.
00:11:03.437 --> 00:11:17.197
Once, once I got past 10 clients, the flywheel was in effect at that point, and I was able to just grow and, and probably, Matt, since 2020, I never lost a client during COVID, and I- I've been operating at on average about 25 active clients, since then.
00:11:17.206 --> 00:11:17.567
So,
00:11:17.657 --> 00:11:18.356
Shout out, man.
00:11:18.610 --> 00:11:19.961
That's a ton of work, sir.
00:11:20.221 --> 00:11:23.750
Ton of work, ton of, ton of problems to help people solve.
00:11:23.791 --> 00:11:24.390
But you know what?
00:11:24.691 --> 00:11:26.000
Well, it's very rewarding work.
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:27.721
I can, I can certainly attest to that.
00:11:28.291 --> 00:11:28.591
Yeah.
00:11:28.730 --> 00:11:30.160
Well, you kinda clued in on this.
00:11:30.160 --> 00:11:34.701
It's always fun with implementers to see if you see any overlaps in industry types.
00:11:34.770 --> 00:11:36.640
I do know this in my experience.
00:11:36.671 --> 00:11:49.390
I've worked as a fractional integrator for the last 10 years, have served 15 different clients and built probably 20 different teams in some capacity, and EOS does fit all of those, all of those businesses.
00:11:50.130 --> 00:11:58.260
But based on your region, your experience, or, kind of where you're-- how you're, how you're wired, do you see overlap in any types of industries?
00:11:58.760 --> 00:12:08.431
Because I know there's some folks who are like,"Oh, I'm only multi-- I only deal multi-generational blah, blah, blah businesses." But if you kinda rack the brain, do you see any overlap with types of industries?
00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:12.780
And is there some industries more successful with EOS than not?
00:12:12.951 --> 00:12:15.341
Successful, I shouldn't say- Well- but struggle with.
00:12:15.788 --> 00:12:24.698
one of the data points that we just got, this last year because EOS worldwide is now maturing enough that they're able to share some of the information you're asking for.
00:12:24.698 --> 00:12:29.759
And, and, previously we, we kinda had in our gut some ideas about it, but, they're actually producing some data.
00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:33.589
And one of the pieces of data is EOS really has a strong place.
00:12:33.589 --> 00:12:39.528
I think it's like thirty percent of EOS, implemented companies have-- are in the construction trades, and in construction somewhere.
00:12:39.528 --> 00:12:41.259
And it's because it's just such a fit.
00:12:41.269 --> 00:12:45.599
It's like the idea of getting structure in a really chaotic environment.
00:12:45.639 --> 00:12:49.818
'Cause anybody that's worked in construction knows it's just utter chaos literally all the time, right?
00:12:50.188 --> 00:13:00.568
And, and it's just so necessary on a project by project basis to get the L10 structure and the agendas and the issue solving that it really is just a, it's a perfect fit in that environment.
00:13:00.609 --> 00:13:05.889
Beyond that, I think there's several other, particular areas that it seems to work, extraordinarily well.
00:13:05.899 --> 00:13:18.568
But then when you talk about overlaps, what I've discovered is, working from the construction trades and trades specifically'cause I just love the trades and I appreciate the trades and really feel like they're our future, is the idea of other services that.
00:13:18.568 --> 00:13:22.448
interact with that And so for example, you have vendors that supply equipment.
00:13:22.489 --> 00:13:24.678
So I have a number of clients that are those.
00:13:24.708 --> 00:13:29.448
They're, they're not con-contractors, but they're the people that sell stuff to contractors.
00:13:29.458 --> 00:13:31.788
So that's a natural overlap and that's different work.
00:13:32.149 --> 00:13:38.308
working as a rep or-- and which I did, and working in distribution is very different than being a contractor, right?
00:13:38.649 --> 00:13:40.788
And so that's a, that's a natural overlap.
00:13:40.788 --> 00:13:46.399
And then another place where I found a really cool, synergy for me is in the rental business, like the commercial rental business.
00:13:46.739 --> 00:13:49.908
Contractors rent a ton of lifts, equipment, things.
00:13:50.249 --> 00:14:00.989
And so that space is a really natural understanding of what it's like to be a client for them as well as be in their space and understand the difficulties they have keeping equipment running, the, delivering equipment, bringing
00:14:01.082 --> 00:14:05.533
bringing all that kind of stuff, That is a highly challenging business that in Texas...
00:14:05.582 --> 00:14:07.023
I, I live in Central Texas.
00:14:07.523 --> 00:14:10.503
There is-- There-- We're, we're littered with equipment rental businesses.
00:14:10.533 --> 00:14:16.893
And what I do love about equipment rental businesses, amongst a lot of things, but there's a, there's a lot of loyalty.
00:14:17.222 --> 00:14:29.793
I mean, I mean, users of the equipment develop relationships with the owners of the machines, with the people that service the machines, and they, they're a business partner to all of these service businesses.
00:14:29.972 --> 00:14:33.533
A service business partnering with other service businesses to help them deliver.
00:14:33.845 --> 00:14:34.575
1,000%.
00:14:34.615 --> 00:14:41.115
And what, what's really interesting in that business is you think about the people that have the most interaction with the actual client's interaction, right?
00:14:41.115 --> 00:14:42.926
'Cause y- you, you think about the decision-makers.
00:14:43.304 --> 00:14:44.774
Decision-makers are the project managers.
00:14:44.774 --> 00:14:47.544
They write the POs, they do the estimates, and they send out the POs.
00:14:47.595 --> 00:14:51.904
But they rarely, if ever, other than on the phone, talk to that rental company, right?
00:14:51.904 --> 00:14:53.745
They're just, they're just right doing an interaction.
00:14:53.934 --> 00:15:04.315
It's the guy in the field that's receiving that piece of equipment, getting it off the back of the trailer and, and making sure that it works and runs when they get it, and then loading it back up with that same driver and sending it back.
00:15:04.325 --> 00:15:08.315
And then the other interaction that they often have is if they do self-delivery, it's those yard people.
00:15:08.315 --> 00:15:20.254
And so what you find out in that industry, we tend, we tend, to be focused on the management and the sales and the systems that they use, but where the touches are, where the customer touches that business is those yard guys and those drivers.
00:15:20.644 --> 00:15:32.745
And it matters so much whether those human beings have any, EQ because they're engaging directly with the touchpoint of that client that either receives that piece of equipment back or gives it back out.
00:15:33.044 --> 00:15:35.815
And you're talking about loyalty, that's where it's built, baby.
00:15:35.815 --> 00:15:42.404
It's built at that moment with that-- the way they're treated and the way that interaction goes touchpoint.
00:15:42.904 --> 00:15:46.284
Not at the counter, not at the order desk, not at the d- PO.
00:15:46.345 --> 00:15:49.044
It's, it's at that point that I get that piece of the gear and I bring
00:15:49.067 --> 00:15:49.937
bring it back.
00:15:49.937 --> 00:15:50.427
That's huge.
00:15:50.427 --> 00:16:00.216
You're gonna laugh at this'cause you and I, I think we're, we're wired somewhat similarly in this, in that I had a guy come out and clean my windows the other day and, and he showed up with the most beautiful rig I've ever seen.
00:16:00.716 --> 00:16:10.496
Like, very clean, three-quarter-ton four-door pickup with all the stuff in the back, and every cord was hung perfectly, and the ladder was just this and this and...
00:16:10.866 --> 00:16:16.317
And I went out and I was like,"Man, your rig looks awesome." Like, he said,"I clean stuff for a living.
00:16:16.376 --> 00:16:23.346
If I showed up in an ugly, dirty truck, would you trust that I'm gonna clean your stuff?" And I said,"That's really interesting." Right?
00:16:23.397 --> 00:16:26.346
And it-- But Matt, it was cherry.
00:16:26.376 --> 00:16:28.236
And it wasn't like it was brand new.
00:16:28.456 --> 00:16:30.386
It was just very intentional.
00:16:30.576 --> 00:16:39.856
and I love that impression, and I've seen that in, in service yards as well, where people go out of their way to make things look special so that people like me and you notice it.
00:16:40.623 --> 00:16:41.452
And how important is that?
00:16:41.613 --> 00:16:47.143
like where the stickers are, where the labels are, where the access to the, starting equipment, the, the...
00:16:47.312 --> 00:16:48.543
But, and, and that's where...
00:16:48.732 --> 00:16:58.942
I don't know about you, but a lot of times where I see my teams when we're practicing the VTO, because, in, in our quarterlies we're, we're supposed to go through the VTO and see if it resonates and see if the teams convert and articulate.
00:16:59.273 --> 00:17:07.232
We get that marketing strategy almost every time and it's like,"Oh, this again." And they just read it and they don't put any enthusiasm about it, and it's like, man, that's the place where I just go, we...
00:17:07.252 --> 00:17:09.353
'Cause we were taught this at one of our QCEs recently.
00:17:09.353 --> 00:17:14.502
It's like, look at this may be the most important part,'cause it's actually how you tell the world who you are and what you do, right?
00:17:14.643 --> 00:17:14.942
And that...
00:17:14.942 --> 00:17:22.792
But what I tell them is,"Look it, the reason we're talking about this," and in our organization, there's 75 people, and we said this all the time, which is, why I really hold this.
00:17:22.843 --> 00:17:26.472
It's like everybody in this room is part of our marketing strategy.
00:17:26.913 --> 00:17:40.682
Everything we do, the way our vehicles arrive, the way they, when we open up the door and our client might be standing next to us, and the inside of our van looks, the way our uniforms appear, the way our invoices go out, the way the phone answers, their letterhead.
00:17:40.732 --> 00:17:43.432
Everything is part of our marketing strategy and consistent.
00:17:43.442 --> 00:17:47.093
You just described that, and I just described it with these rental companies.
00:17:47.123 --> 00:17:50.393
Part of your marketing strategy is the way that yard guy greets the client.
00:17:50.682 --> 00:17:54.272
It's the way the driver shows up and drops off that piece of gear.
00:17:54.623 --> 00:17:55.792
That's marketing strategy.
00:17:56.123 --> 00:18:02.022
That's loyalty and consistency for branding your business, and every human being in the room is part of that.
00:18:02.042 --> 00:18:19.633
And they think,"Oh, this is just our messaging and our three uniques and all this kind of stuff." It's like, no, this is the action steps that align with our core values, with our core focus and our vision that actually puts our face in front of the customer and touches them, and that's why everybody here needs to know what it is so you're in alignment with it.
00:18:19.633 --> 00:18:27.113
and what we're doing matters because your call, your text, your email is part of our marketing strategy, every bit of it.
00:18:27.363 --> 00:18:29.026
You are listening to the Scalability Code.
00:18:29.026 --> 00:18:37.195
I'm your host, Matt Haney, founder of Sinclair Ventures, and we help visionary entrepreneurs like you get out of the shit show and focus on growing your business.
00:18:37.335 --> 00:18:43.734
We offer fractional COO and leadership coaching services that free up that brain of yours to focus on what's next.
00:18:44.224 --> 00:18:45.964
Learn more about us at SinclairVentures.
00:18:45.964 --> 00:18:46.315
com.
00:18:46.335 --> 00:18:46.954
Now back to it.
00:18:48.287 --> 00:18:53.247
By the way, it's so, it's, I, one, one of the many things I love is managing against those core values.
00:18:53.317 --> 00:19:10.596
If we're continually talking about them and bringing them to the surface, and if even better, if one of us leadership team members could rattle off one of those when we're doing well, positive, positive affirmation of a, of a core value, and then also where people are falling short, on, against a core value.
00:19:10.626 --> 00:19:17.396
It makes it much easier to have those conversations when it's like, one of them, my clients had one that was like relentless commitment and, and I was- Mm.
00:19:17.396 --> 00:19:30.346
And, and it was one that's like very easy to, to talk about where you're not, Anyway, addressing the VTO, talking about core values makes, makes confrontational confronta- confrontational conversations not confrontational.
00:19:30.467 --> 00:19:30.946
Absolutely.
00:19:30.946 --> 00:19:32.076
You, you, you're-- It's objective.
00:19:32.247 --> 00:19:33.707
You're pointing to this thing.
00:19:34.141 --> 00:19:34.517
Yeah.
00:19:34.517 --> 00:19:34.807
It's a
00:19:34.836 --> 00:19:39.366
person sitting there in the room saying, Oh, that's our core value, and you just did it.
00:19:39.396 --> 00:19:47.557
Awesome." And, and and what the statistics that we teach in LMA is we need to be better as leaders at recognizing the positives'cause we're all wired to see the broken stuff, right?
00:19:47.676 --> 00:19:56.527
And it's like, look at every, every business that I work with, if they show up in the room for a quarterly, a lot more is going right in that business than is going wrong every single day.
00:19:56.527 --> 00:20:00.196
And we set up there in the room for a day focusing on stuff that's not working, right?
00:20:00.416 --> 00:20:08.987
And one of the things that was really, really transformational for me in this last year, I belong to Strategic Coach and, and our coach said to us,"Look, managers work on stuff that's broken," right?
00:20:09.017 --> 00:20:09.926
Yeah, we all get that.
00:20:10.426 --> 00:20:14.626
Leaders work on what is working and try to figure out how to make it better.
00:20:15.126 --> 00:20:26.446
And too much of the time we just get stuck in the not working world when really if we were making the working stuff work better, leveraging our strengths, a lot of the ma- the stuff not working would probably go away.
00:20:26.866 --> 00:20:34.356
And we need to get better at recognizing those alignments with core values and where they're fitting in our business every single day as opposed to constantly drip, drip, drip.
00:20:34.356 --> 00:20:35.636
You didn't do this, you didn't do that.
00:20:35.646 --> 00:20:36.477
That wasn't right.
00:20:36.977 --> 00:20:37.997
It's like wow, it's...
00:20:37.997 --> 00:20:41.616
And, and, and the, the statistics, I think Goldman even says it's like seven times.
00:20:41.626 --> 00:20:45.436
They need to hear seven more positives for every negative in order to equal out.
00:20:45.436 --> 00:20:48.237
It's like a, it's not an equal math equation, right?
00:20:48.326 --> 00:20:48.727
So
00:20:49.227 --> 00:20:50.277
Well, it's interesting.
00:20:50.277 --> 00:20:51.096
I'm gonna make a note here.
00:20:51.096 --> 00:20:53.767
Seven negatives, equal,'cause I, I think you're right.
00:20:53.817 --> 00:20:55.457
Um, uh- Seven positives...whatever it is.
00:20:55.467 --> 00:20:55.487
Y-
00:20:55.603 --> 00:20:55.972
negative.
00:20:55.972 --> 00:20:56.403
yeah, yeah.
00:20:57.022 --> 00:20:58.012
It's, it's a thousand or
00:20:58.176 --> 00:20:58.336
better.
00:20:58.863 --> 00:20:59.472
Yeah.
00:20:59.972 --> 00:21:03.732
So, you said something, that triggered me in, in, in the best of ways.
00:21:03.732 --> 00:21:08.222
I used to tell, and still sometimes do, we're functionally dysfunctional, right?
00:21:08.222 --> 00:21:13.083
Let's not, let's not lose sight of the fact that we are operating a business that is successful.
00:21:13.093 --> 00:21:14.212
We are functioning.
00:21:14.212 --> 00:21:15.553
We are hitting these metrics.
00:21:15.913 --> 00:21:17.133
We can focus on the fact...
00:21:17.272 --> 00:21:24.093
But, but the scorecards are another thing that I learned, I lean to a lot when founders are sort of swirling on themselves, right?
00:21:24.093 --> 00:21:42.982
Where it's like,"We're not doing this, or we're not doing this." And I'm like,"Well, I, I'm, I appreciate you have that feeling, but how can we quantify that into something that's tangible for the rest of us to see, instead of speaking in generalizations that are really hard to point backwards to?" so I wanna, I wanna pivot to you, for one second'cause I'm gonna use your strengths, to, to, to you- to against you for a minute.
00:21:43.323 --> 00:21:56.742
So one of the challenges I struggle with running service-based businesses is that there's generally, there's not generally, there is always, a ground level, workforce, somebody on the ground generally delivering the service.
00:21:57.252 --> 00:21:57.833
Getting the work done.
00:21:57.873 --> 00:21:58.343
Right.
00:21:58.532 --> 00:21:58.913
Yes.
00:21:58.932 --> 00:21:59.792
Those people we love.
00:22:00.292 --> 00:22:06.853
But getting EOS down to that level, I've found to be the most challenging part of, of being an integrator, is getting it to stick.
00:22:06.913 --> 00:22:12.653
and I know, R- Roll Out, came, a new book came out, Boom Beth and, and some of those folks, which is fantastic.
00:22:12.712 --> 00:22:28.002
But, in your experience working heavily and owning service-based businesses, can you give us any thoughts or suggestions, feedbacks, tips from the top, whatever you wanna call it, about how you were able to get that down one level lower or two levels lower from the leadership level down?
00:22:28.502 --> 00:22:28.670
Yeah.
00:22:28.670 --> 00:22:35.202
So one of the things I, I, I think was helpful in the rollout book is they've done a nice job of painting this picture of what a full rollout looks like.
00:22:35.212 --> 00:22:43.563
'Cause we often talk about, look at-- We have-- We've been working on EOS as a leadership team, and then we have this event, and that's the rollout, and that's it, nevermore.
00:22:43.583 --> 00:22:45.522
And I actually have teams, and maybe you've seen it.
00:22:45.613 --> 00:22:46.462
too, Matt, where That's, it.
00:22:46.492 --> 00:22:47.682
That's, that was the rollout.
00:22:47.722 --> 00:22:50.932
And that's, That it went as far as the leadership team, and that's all the farther it ever went.
00:22:50.932 --> 00:22:53.363
And frankly, some of those teams do really well.
00:22:53.383 --> 00:22:56.913
I mean, just getting a leadership team on the same page, how important is that?
00:22:56.932 --> 00:22:58.472
Like, when that didn't exist before.
00:22:58.472 --> 00:23:02.313
So I mean, EOS actually serves businesses in that realm very well.
00:23:02.313 --> 00:23:05.803
What, we, we did and what I like to see is what you're describing.
00:23:05.803 --> 00:23:08.343
How can I get it so it touches every human being?
00:23:08.343 --> 00:23:16.303
Because one of the things that we talk about is a greatly run, fully rolled out EOS business doesn't need a suggestion box.
00:23:16.333 --> 00:23:26.313
It doesn't need a complaint, because if L-10s are working and everybody has a voice, and those L-10s are functional and right people in the right seats, then guess what happens with the issues, baby?
00:23:26.762 --> 00:23:45.363
They come in and they roll around, and they get dealt with, and people end up with to-dos, and people get feedback almost immediately whether they were heard, whether anybody cares, whether they're gonna do something about it, or whether that particular issue that they brought up doesn't live in today's world, it needs to be put off a little while because we're gonna have to wait to get ready to do that.
00:23:45.363 --> 00:23:58.903
But the point is, people get heard if L-10s happen all the way down to that field team heading out the door in the morning, fifteen-minute huddle, quick check-in, eight minutes ideas, are we ready to go?
00:23:59.022 --> 00:23:59.813
Boom, hit the road.
00:24:00.173 --> 00:24:03.972
and that's how we did it in our business, and I've seen that be successful in many service businesses.
00:24:04.083 --> 00:24:09.742
I don't-- I'm not putting people in a ninety-minute L-10 if they are hourly paid employees that need to get out and be in, in the world.
00:24:09.742 --> 00:24:16.542
But I need to give them a point of connection so that they're seen, felt, heard, and they know that what goes on.
00:24:16.863 --> 00:24:23.182
And if you don't do that, if you choose not to do that, you have to find ways that those people feel that way, right?
00:24:23.682 --> 00:24:25.593
And it's not your decision.
00:24:25.623 --> 00:24:27.613
You don't get to know that they feel that way.
00:24:27.643 --> 00:24:30.593
You get to provide the system and get them to punch into it.
00:24:30.792 --> 00:24:33.282
you don't get to vote on whether they feel like they've been heard or not.
00:24:33.472 --> 00:24:34.522
That's their vote a hundred percent.
00:24:35.022 --> 00:24:46.192
And so I really encourage people to do it all the way out, and that means a fifteen-minute huddle on a Tuesday morning may be the appropriate L-10 for a field team working together in the field.
00:24:46.192 --> 00:24:57.482
They can do their safety briefing, they can do their toolbox thing, and then they can check in and say,"Look, what's, what are we faced with today that's gonna challenge us?" And then they run that back up the flagpole to the office if it's a systemic issue, process issue, whatever.
00:24:57.482 --> 00:25:02.532
But the issue moves with the individuals that have the identification, and stuff gets dealt with.
00:25:02.972 --> 00:25:08.063
many times people in the field feel like they're distanced and separated, nobody cares, and they're stuck out there.
00:25:08.563 --> 00:25:12.083
And if they don't have a voice, they talk to each other that way.
00:25:12.202 --> 00:25:14.532
They talk to each other on the way to work, on the way home from
00:25:14.664 --> 00:25:16.944
going to work, and it just starts to build toxic.
00:25:16.944 --> 00:25:18.005
It sure does.
00:25:18.005 --> 00:25:35.365
Well, one of the questions I love asking folks who have managed people and grown businesses is, if you could, and I know this is hard, distill down kind of what you feel like your hardest part about managing people is, or any themes you've seen in a decade of sessions where people have failed at managing folks.
00:25:35.865 --> 00:25:38.555
So you know that we have a rule, right?
00:25:38.615 --> 00:25:46.744
If, if a person's name ends up in a quarterly on the people analyzer two quarters in a row, then something needs to change, right?
00:25:47.136 --> 00:25:48.257
And so- Yep and
00:25:48.535 --> 00:25:51.575
and so, that's the biggest mistake I found as a manager.
00:25:51.654 --> 00:25:56.615
And believe it or not, it wasn't until that we got deep enough and discovered the three-strike rule.
00:25:56.916 --> 00:25:57.257
Yeah
00:25:57.724 --> 00:26:06.674
That saved me from being the worst manager on the planet because what it did is it brought into, poise a point of like, look, if this isn't working for either of us.
00:26:06.674 --> 00:26:10.295
Like, a lot of times we get stuck in the fact like, ah, I'm losing sleep.
00:26:10.474 --> 00:26:11.595
This employee's not performing.
00:26:11.595 --> 00:26:12.470
What do I say to them?
00:26:12.470 --> 00:26:13.355
What do I do with them?
00:26:13.355 --> 00:26:14.434
And it's like you're earlier.
00:26:14.444 --> 00:26:15.424
It's like core values, man.
00:26:15.424 --> 00:26:18.295
To point the core values because they're over here waiting for you to administer.
00:26:18.734 --> 00:26:23.795
And it's like almost every time they're out of alignment, they're, they're, they're not, they're not in sync, right?
00:26:23.994 --> 00:26:25.035
So you know that.
00:26:25.035 --> 00:26:26.994
You can put them on the people analyzer, you could tell it.
00:26:26.994 --> 00:26:29.005
You know whether they GWC their seat.
00:26:29.325 --> 00:26:31.025
How hard should that conversation be?
00:26:31.025 --> 00:26:32.525
And yet we're all afraid of it.
00:26:32.585 --> 00:26:34.355
We're all d- oh my gosh, what should I do?
00:26:34.605 --> 00:26:36.505
Three-strike rule into the picture.
00:26:36.505 --> 00:26:38.545
Look, I got three examples of why this isn't working.
00:26:38.545 --> 00:26:40.714
We need to fix this because this isn't a good place for you.
00:26:40.714 --> 00:26:42.085
It's not a good place for us.
00:26:42.214 --> 00:26:42.914
got thirty days.
00:26:42.914 --> 00:26:43.734
Let's check back in.
00:26:44.224 --> 00:26:54.275
I did three of those at the end of my tenure in my business and never had to fire anybody because I did it well enough and figured out how to do it to where they pulled their own rip cord.
00:26:54.494 --> 00:26:59.394
And anybody that I've ever talked to says somebody pulling their own rip cord is better than you having to administer
00:26:59.625 --> 00:27:01.542
from an HR perspective, 100%.
00:27:01.542 --> 00:27:03.063
E- every single time.
00:27:03.063 --> 00:27:03.583
Letting
00:27:03.633 --> 00:27:03.863
it's like,
00:27:04.032 --> 00:27:05.623
your idea is the best idea ever.
00:27:06.123 --> 00:27:08.143
and it's-- and they're in pain too.
00:27:08.143 --> 00:27:09.742
That's the thing we don't really embrace.
00:27:10.063 --> 00:27:15.063
And if they're in pain, start thinking about the pain that they're delivering to other people that are working around them.
00:27:15.063 --> 00:27:18.182
'Cause the second-- the first reason people leave their job is because of their boss.
00:27:18.192 --> 00:27:19.972
The second reason is the people they work next to.
00:27:20.393 --> 00:27:30.323
And if we can't fix that as leaders, that was the biggest resonating part with me coming back when we started administering the people analytics, and we started asking people to leave our business'cause they weren't a fit.
00:27:30.752 --> 00:27:35.182
Our team leaders were the ones that stepped up and said,"Oh my gosh, I see what you're doing.
00:27:35.303 --> 00:27:39.992
You've just made my job easier'cause I'm not having to manage that person.
00:27:39.992 --> 00:27:40.022
Okay?
00:27:40.873 --> 00:27:46.432
And we were, we were doing them a disservice because we were afraid to take action because we needed the people.
00:27:46.442 --> 00:27:47.942
Oh my God, we can't lose anybody.
00:27:47.942 --> 00:27:52.673
I mean, we were just in that same space, and it's like addition by subtraction is a real thing, man.
00:27:52.692 --> 00:27:53.502
It really is.
00:27:53.502 --> 00:28:02.593
And every time you've harbored somebody longer than you should have, and you know that you should have, and I have so many of my clients now, if they listen to this, they're all gonna just roll their eyes and agree.
00:28:02.593 --> 00:28:11.232
It's like that person finally departing their business, they come to the next quarterly and to a person, the leadership team in their check-in, what's working?
00:28:11.262 --> 00:28:15.012
Oh my gosh, the change in management has made all the...
00:28:15.053 --> 00:28:16.722
It's like, well, they'll use the term.
00:28:16.722 --> 00:28:19.613
They won't say Johnny left or, or Abigail.
00:28:19.843 --> 00:28:21.972
They won't, but, but they're, they're saying that.
00:28:22.083 --> 00:28:24.803
They're saying that in a different way, and it's like everything's better.
00:28:24.863 --> 00:28:27.702
And when you dig a little deeper, they'll go,"Oh my God.
00:28:27.742 --> 00:28:31.532
We had no idea how bad it was." It's the iceberg principle.
00:28:31.992 --> 00:28:34.472
You only see what you see from a management level.
00:28:34.492 --> 00:28:41.383
You have no idea the depth of toxicity that that person, when they don't fit your business, is spreading elsewhere around them.
00:28:41.883 --> 00:28:46.502
And what you find out is everybody comes out of the woodwork as soon as they're gone, and they will tell you
00:28:46.625 --> 00:28:46.704
And
00:28:46.843 --> 00:28:48.232
that you go,"Oh my God, why didn't you
00:28:48.444 --> 00:28:50.625
what we find out is everybody comes out of the woodwork as soon as they're gone, and they will tell you things that you go,"Oh my God, why did you tell me this?" this?" is ex- I say this all the time.
00:28:50.625 --> 00:28:53.535
I'm saying like, how, how is it that we're just now talking about this?
00:28:53.535 --> 00:28:57.164
How?
00:28:57.164 --> 00:28:57.709
How could he possibly just be waiting till- Yeah.
00:28:57.709 --> 00:29:12.659
I mean, especially on the leadership team when it's personnel related and I'm like, we have an intimate 90-minute meeting every week with the most trusted individuals in the business, and this issue's been happening for X period of weeks, months, or years, and we're just now learning about it.
00:29:13.088 --> 00:29:15.278
Like, we have failed ourselves, leadership team.
00:29:15.288 --> 00:29:16.288
We are the leaders.
00:29:16.469 --> 00:29:17.669
This is not leadership.
00:29:18.144 --> 00:29:19.144
and we failed them.
00:29:19.154 --> 00:29:23.944
We failed them because we ended up making them work with people that they actually didn't like working with.
00:29:24.305 --> 00:29:29.954
We made it harder for them to get out of bed that morning and come to work because they knew they had to work with that person.
00:29:30.247 --> 00:29:33.386
Yeah, I always joke I have, I have the iPhone, right?
00:29:33.846 --> 00:29:38.295
And, and when it, when it rings, you have a, a red button and a green button, right?
00:29:38.375 --> 00:29:38.394
Yeah.
00:29:38.404 --> 00:29:40.555
You choose which one, right?
00:29:40.654 --> 00:29:45.454
And if I hit the red button more times than the green button, we have an issue we need to discuss.
00:29:45.704 --> 00:29:49.174
Like, it, it's, it's, So anyway, I wanna keep going'cause I digress.
00:29:49.204 --> 00:30:12.125
Okay, um, do, I do, I do think, I do believe this, being in sessions myself for, for almost n- eight or nine years now on the, this side, the c- the, the, the table side, not the whiteboard side, that, that seeing different EOS implementers I've, I've come across, there are pe- there are ones that are better at one tool than the other.
00:30:12.335 --> 00:30:14.484
And by better, I mean they get more excited about it.
00:30:14.494 --> 00:30:15.694
They're more passionate about it.
00:30:15.694 --> 00:30:16.805
They've got more examples.
00:30:16.815 --> 00:30:17.894
It resonates with them.
00:30:18.345 --> 00:30:25.494
Yes, we teach all of them equally, or you guys do, but do you feel like you have, a, a, a superpower in one of the tools?
00:30:25.865 --> 00:30:31.664
Do you feel like there's one where you're just like,"If I could, I'd talk about it all the time because it's that, that's important"?
00:30:31.755 --> 00:30:34.105
But which one do you love the most?
00:30:34.568 --> 00:30:37.919
And this, this is of course the problem with the fundamental toolbox, right?
00:30:37.929 --> 00:30:43.999
Like when you, when you-- we teach LMA, you go,"Okay, we just taught you LMA," and leadership management accountability, right?
00:30:43.999 --> 00:30:46.759
We teach that it's a literal tool sitting there on the toolbox, right?
00:30:47.058 --> 00:31:02.598
And then you pull back and you say,"Let's look at how many of the other tools were just impacted by us teaching leadership management accountability." And you go through the thing, and it's like sixteen out of the twenty tools in the fundamental toolbox are all embedded in LMA, right?
00:31:02.969 --> 00:31:11.338
And so I guess to answer your question, I would say LMA is the one I'm most passionate about because I will have-- hear this so often, especially when we begin our journey, people say,"I want more accountability.
00:31:11.338 --> 00:31:14.239
We need more accountability." They'll just use that term and throw it around like crazy.
00:31:14.739 --> 00:31:19.959
And I go,"We have so much work to do before we get there, but just let me tell you, accountability is an outcome.
00:31:19.959 --> 00:31:21.189
It is not an expectation.
00:31:21.199 --> 00:31:27.648
We have to change the way we lead and manage if we want accountability to actually occur in our business, right?" And they don't get it.
00:31:28.118 --> 00:31:32.058
They hear that, and it's like,"Ah." And then you teach them LMA, and then you ask them...
00:31:32.249 --> 00:31:33.398
And I will tell you this story.
00:31:33.898 --> 00:31:36.729
When we had our accountability chart, we were working with our implementer.
00:31:37.229 --> 00:31:40.118
We couldn't remember what LMA stood for for on my my project.
00:31:40.429 --> 00:31:41.318
We were a year and a half in.
00:31:41.818 --> 00:31:46.628
And so finally, I, I put on the accountability chart,'cause this is previous to any of the current tools.
00:31:46.628 --> 00:31:49.088
We were using Excel and Word documents, right?
00:31:49.449 --> 00:31:54.078
Up, I-- So I put under LMA equals leadership plus management equals accountability.
00:31:54.078 --> 00:31:57.919
I put it on the accountability chart so I could remember what it was'cause we kept forgetting it right?
00:31:58.179 --> 00:32:03.598
And so I try to find myself back in the seat of my client realizing, oh, this is the seven times rule.
00:32:04.028 --> 00:32:08.769
And what we're learning is our attention spans are changing, so it's more like the thirty-five to the forty-two times rule.
00:32:08.769 --> 00:32:11.999
But the thing is, it's like, oh yeah, I've told them this before, and guess what?
00:32:11.999 --> 00:32:15.338
I got seven, eight, nine, ten more to go before they're gonna actually hear me.
00:32:15.669 --> 00:32:21.128
But to me, that one bakes in everything'cause the VTO's in there, the, the five leadership skills are in there.
00:32:21.348 --> 00:32:24.788
The, the, the, the, the model, the US model and the six points in there.
00:32:24.788 --> 00:32:27.038
the people I always, oh my God, maybe that's my passion point.
00:32:27.098 --> 00:32:28.098
Just goes to what I told you.
00:32:28.098 --> 00:32:29.699
Delegate and elevate's nested in there.
00:32:30.118 --> 00:32:31.868
clarity breaks are nested in there.
00:32:32.098 --> 00:32:34.118
Everything is nested in LMA.
00:32:34.118 --> 00:32:37.679
So if you wanna talk about one tool in the box, LMA
00:32:37.696 --> 00:32:38.067
LMA
00:32:38.567 --> 00:32:43.856
encompasses most of it in a way that's powerful, profound, and changes the business cycle.
00:32:43.856 --> 00:32:48.767
'Cause the people are the only difference that you can make in, in who you are today and who you're gonna be two years from now.
00:32:49.086 --> 00:32:54.626
And if you don't apply LMA and actually own it and lean into it and embrace it, you're not gonna get there.
00:32:54.926 --> 00:32:55.326
Right
00:32:55.346 --> 00:32:57.057
not So
00:32:57.557 --> 00:32:58.426
Love it.
00:32:58.426 --> 00:33:04.047
LMA is a good one, and I do love that you, you, own-- humbly say that you-- it took you years to get it.
00:33:04.477 --> 00:33:06.047
but it's, it's awesome.
00:33:06.477 --> 00:33:06.696
all right.
00:33:06.696 --> 00:33:12.037
Well, I, I wanna, I wanna get us to, to a f- a closing point, and I always...
00:33:12.537 --> 00:33:15.196
Like, we start the same way, we end the same way.
00:33:15.267 --> 00:33:17.497
surprise, we start on time and end on time.
00:33:17.497 --> 00:33:19.666
We, we start with a segue and we end with a conclusion.
00:33:20.166 --> 00:33:29.007
the conclusion here is, is, those of us who believe we are wise or have access to wisdom, have received a, a-- some advice from someone.
00:33:29.396 --> 00:33:42.366
And, and I'm curious if, if, if you can pull out any wisdom you've received from someone over the years that resonates with you or that you find yourself sharing that wisdom with folks during good and bad times.
00:33:42.858 --> 00:33:46.409
Yeah, you-- when you, when you ask questions like that, man, I'm sure you understand it yourself.
00:33:46.409 --> 00:33:48.739
It's like you always think, well, what's the one thing that always comes to mind?
00:33:48.739 --> 00:34:00.409
And there's one thing that always comes to mind, and I can't specifically tell you why, but this was a mentor that was so huge in my early career development, out of the Dallas office, working for the, Carrier, Machinery Systems division.
00:34:00.409 --> 00:34:04.818
I was just a young salesman trying to figure out the world, and this, this old gentleman, was my mentor.
00:34:05.278 --> 00:34:15.009
He taught me about what was really important, but one of the most important, things he taught me, not just how to teach HVAC and the technical side of it,'cause he was awesome at that, was I, I came back from a meeting in northern Louisiana.
00:34:15.018 --> 00:34:25.559
I'd just lost a big order, and I was bummed, and I said,"I'm gonna-- I wanna-- I'm gonna go out and have a drink." He stopped me right there, and he's like,"You never, ever go out and have a drink for a loss.
00:34:26.059 --> 00:34:27.128
It's the worst thing you can do.
00:34:27.628 --> 00:34:36.068
You go out and celebrate, have drinks with your friends and celebrate, but you do not go out and drink for a loss." And I can't tell you with certainty why that stuck with me.
00:34:36.099 --> 00:34:39.048
I just know that there's more, more there than just drinking.
00:34:39.048 --> 00:34:41.349
There's more there than just a chemical you use.
00:34:41.398 --> 00:34:46.688
It's, it's about a mindset and an attitude, how you're approaching a loss and what you do with it.
00:34:47.188 --> 00:34:49.309
And you invest in your pain, and you learn from it.
00:34:49.309 --> 00:34:50.588
You don't nurse it.
00:34:50.619 --> 00:34:54.298
You don't, proclivity it, And, and then celebrations are meant for everybody.
00:34:54.318 --> 00:34:55.599
And we had a tight-knit office.
00:34:55.628 --> 00:35:03.059
We had-- We s-- We had fun on the weekends, and that was a really important thing for me early, early in my life to realize from a professional basis, you
00:35:03.327 --> 00:35:04.597
don't inebriate
00:35:04.599 --> 00:35:04.728
your
00:35:04.936 --> 00:35:05.306
your problems,
00:35:05.489 --> 00:35:05.838
right?
00:35:05.914 --> 00:35:07.505
You deal with them head-on.
00:35:07.844 --> 00:35:13.275
So whether that resonates or not or why it does, but that's the answer that always comes to mind when people ask me that question.
00:35:13.949 --> 00:35:14.389
Loving it.
00:35:14.429 --> 00:35:22.938
Well, listen, I think, I, I've really enjoyed chatting with you, Matt, and, and, your wisdom, your wisdom comes, comes received.
00:35:22.978 --> 00:35:30.969
And, we're all better by getting suggestions from those of us around us who have been through a lot and seen different things, and I'm, I'm grateful for this time.
00:35:30.969 --> 00:35:31.329
So,
00:35:31.617 --> 00:35:31.958
Doing it
00:35:32.009 --> 00:35:37.478
we'll get to have some conversations in the future, and thank you for joining us today on another episode of The Scalability Code.
00:35:37.478 --> 00:35:38.159
we'll see you soon.
00:35:38.159 --> 00:35:39.358
Absolutely, Mike
00:35:39.476 --> 00:35:39.876
Thank you
00:35:39.976 --> 00:35:42.047
Thank you for listening to The Scalability Code.
00:35:42.077 --> 00:35:47.567
If you made it this far, please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:35:47.670 --> 00:35:49.409
Let's get out of the sh*t show together.
00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:51.900
We'll see you next time on The Scalability Code.
