0:00: Welcome to the Blue Collar Nation podcast, the podcast dedicated to making the lives of home service professionals better. 

 0:08: Now join Eric and Larry to talk about all things home service. 
 0:15: OK, well, thank you, everybody for showing up today. 
 0:17: Really appreciate that. 
 0:20: got a bunch of friends here and I know we have a whole bunch of people on Facebook, so, I'm gonna get into it. 
 0:25: Look, you know, why do we get into business so that we can, you know, reach whatever dreams we have, right? 
 0:31: Whatever goals we have. 
 0:33: So, the way to do that is we have to build a high performing culture because most of us will start to hire staff and, and have people working for us or with us. 
 0:42: And I just want to go through some of those things because I think it's super important and I know we all talk about like Truck bounce and and our finances and all that, but the thing is, is that without good people around us and without us being good, we're gonna have a really hard time being successful, and I, I think really it starts with us, right? 
 1:06: We have to be the prime example. 
 1:08: We have to be the person that the people that are working with us look up to and. 
 1:15: You know, we have to, we have to lead by example, both inside work and outside of work, right? 
 1:22: Like having employees in some ways is kind of like having kids to a certain degree, right? 
 1:27: They're watching our every step. 
 1:29: They're looking for inconsistencies, they're making sure that we're being true to what we say we're going to do, right? 
 1:35: So therefore, my question to everybody is, Well, are you reaching your goals? 
 1:42: We're probably sitting around talking about our goals with our team. 
 1:45: Are we reaching our goals? 
 1:46: Right? 
 1:46: That's the first step. 
 1:48: Are, are we investing in ourselves, right? 
 1:51: Everybody here today is investing in themselves. 
 1:53: They're coming in to get some information to pour into themselves so that they can be better, right? 
 1:58: I got Jacob on. 
 1:59: Jacob told me the other day when we were in Vegas, that he's listened to every single Blue Collar Nation podcast that's ever been. 
 2:06: I believe that's like 310, Jacob, if I'm not mistaken. 
 2:13: So, yeah, so there, you know, that's a lot, right? 
 2:19: You know, are we winning? 
 2:22: Are, are we winning, right? 
 2:23: That's the goal. 
 2:24: Like we're trying to win. 
 2:25: Well, we have to be winning in life to get our people to want to win with us, right? 
 2:30: And the other thing is, are we leading by example? 
 2:31: Are we actually doing, are we living the life that we said they should live? 
 2:36: Are we doing that, right? 
 2:37: And to me, I'm gonna back up, so that's the big picture, right? 
 2:41: Like, are we living the values that we're trying to espouse to our people to build a high-performance culture? 
 2:48: But then it goes into a more micro phase, right? 
 2:52: And I have a big belief, and I know Larry does too. 
 2:57: That the day is won or lost, usually by the time the truck rolls out for the first job, right? 
 3:04: Right, from when we get to work, to when the trucks start to roll, like we have, you know, whether it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, whatever that looks like, that's probably how that goes is how the day is going to go. 
 3:19: So if we have a lot of chaos and a lot of drama and a lot of other stuff, that's probably not going smoothly, right? 
 3:26: And You know, I used to ask my team members all the time. 
 3:32: When does the day begin? 
 3:35: When does the work day begin? 
 3:36: And they would always say like, 07 o'clock, boss, we know what time to be here or whatever. 
 3:41: And my answer would always be, no, it actually doesn't begin then. 
 3:45: It begins when you leave the work yesterday, right? 
 3:49: So we all left work yesterday, Monday, and we had a series of choices that we could make Monday night leading to coming into the office on Tuesday. 
 4:00: And those choices, not only for us as owners, but also for our team, are going to dictate how well we do the next day, right? 
 4:10: So, that might be, what time did you go to bed, right? 
 4:15: Did you stay up till 4 o'clock in the morning playing World of Warcraft, or did you go to bed at 10 or 11 o'clock and get a full night's sleep? 
 4:21: That's gonna impact the next day. 
 4:23: On your way home from work, you had two choices. 
 4:26: You could drive to the gym, or you could drive to the bar, right? 
 4:32: Those two choices are very different as far as how they're gonna impact how high performing our culture is, right? 
 4:37: If you went to the to the gym, got a workout in, went home, ate dinner, hung out with your family, watched some TV, get some rest, get to bed, like, man, that's setting up tomorrow to be an awesome, awesome day, right? 
 4:51: But if, if you got sidetracked, and went to the bar and drank a dozen beers, And, you know, and then get up late, and you don't feel good, and you're showing up to work 5 minutes late, like, that's a whole different day, right? 
 5:05: So like, It's not only on us as owners or managers to live that, but we have to, like, I mean, we can't control people outside of work, that's their time, but we can teach them the difference between what is high performing and what is not. 
 5:21: And look, Larry and I did this all the time. 
 5:24: We're always talking about these choices that people make, and whether they're going to be good for your career or not, right? 
 5:32: You know. 
 5:33: I used to see guys walk in every day. 
 5:36: And you know, we're in Southern California in the summer. 
 5:38: It's 110 degrees where we live, right? 
 5:42: And You know, they're cleaning carpet. 
 5:45: And, you know, that's like jogging in a steam bath all day long, plus it's hot outside, and then I would look, and they've got 3 Monsters, a small bag of Doritos, and a pack of Marlboro Reds. 
 5:57: And I'm just like, you're trying to fuel your day on a pack of Marlboro Reds, a couple of Monsters, and a small bag of Doritos, that's not gonna work, right? 
 6:06: So then, now we're having these talks about drinking water, packing a lunch before you come. 
 6:12: And we went so far as we bought a reverse osmosis water filter for our office, and then we went and got cool water coolers for every single person. 
 6:23: Their name on it. 
 6:24: Our office staff would go fill all the coolers and have them ready for the guys in the morning before they rolled. 
 6:31: Like, look, I couldn't control everything, but I could at least make sure they left with a half a gallon of water, right? 
 6:36: That, that's a big deal, right? 
 6:39: We would talk about what time they got up and like, you know, traffic leading in and showing up 10 minutes early, you know, I was reading something yesterday. 
 6:46: It was really interesting. 
 6:48: They're talking about, you know, that that employee that always shows up, like, right at the time they're supposed to be in, and how it, it kind of shows that they're giving you the absolute minimum that they have, right? 
 7:04: Like, I'm not gonna give you one extra minute of my day. 
 7:08: And I thought that was really telling, because if in our company, If you look to see who walked in 15 minutes early and went and got a cup of coffee and got ready for the day, and went and said hi to everybody, those were almost always our highest performers, right? 
 7:23: They, they were committed to getting there early and getting their day rolling right. 
 7:29: And then, you know, these are things that are trainable on some level. 
 7:34: Larry and I did a a a class for Howard Parkridge this morning. 
 7:38: We were talking about that with them. 
 7:40: It's like, you know, a lot of people would say like, well, I don't have any impact over them or influence. 
 7:48: I, I don't think that's true. 
 7:49: I think a lot of the people that come to work for you, if they're sticking around, they care about what you think of them. 
 7:56: They care about what you have to say, and you can train, or at least Coach people to have better habits, you know, I mean, we had people that, to be honest, drank way too much, stayed up way too late, and we just kept kind of picking away at what we're talking about, about bedtime, you know, working out, family time, packing a lunch, getting here a little early. 
 8:20: And all of a sudden, over time, what happens? 
 8:22: It starts to become your company culture, it starts to happen what what what everybody starts to do. 
 8:28: Now we know we're having a high performance culture, because everybody is starting to buy in. 
 8:33: And to be honest, the people who don't, generally will start. 
 8:38: Probably being on the way out, right? 
 8:41: The, the, the team will start to police the culture and be like, hey, Larry keeps showing up 5 minutes late. 
 8:47: I don't think that's gonna work. 
 8:48: Larry was not never late, by the way. 
 8:51: But, I mean, Larry, I, I know you're in a coffee shop or whatever, you can't talk much, but you, you have anything to add to that real quick, maybe a little bit about our culture before you hop in? 
 9:04: Are you there? 
 9:10: And I'm gonna keep going, can't seem to get Larry. 
 9:14: So, you know, the thing is, is that This is all created by us as leaders. 
 9:22: We have to make sure that we are doing the things that people will start to buy into, right? 
 9:29: You know, we want to build the company that we're proud of. 
 9:31: We want to build, we want to instill the, the culture of high performance into our team members, right? 
 9:39: I mean, it's our job as the leader. 
 9:42: To basically have a set of principles that our company lives by, and then be constantly instilling those principles into our team. 
 9:51: Will everybody take that on board? 
 9:54: No, they will not. 
 9:55: We all know that, right? 
 9:57: It would be. 
 9:58: It'd be nice, but it, it rarely happens. 
 10:00: But what we need is we need our core group of people to start buying in, and then they start instilling this in everybody else, and then the people who never buy in generally don't stick around all that long, right? 
 10:14: So, you know, my thing also, anybody that knows me knows that I kind of like numbers. 
 10:20: So, I wanna measure things. 
 10:23: Oh, Larry, you got something, Larry, you, you just popped in. 
 10:25: You got something to say? 
 10:28: No, can you hear me OK? 
 10:31: I can now, yep. 
 10:33: You can. 
 10:35: OK, cool. 
 10:35: No, no, what you're saying is great, and these are the things that the people that see most successful businesses are implementing, so keep on going here. 
 10:42: I'm enjoying talking to you, and listening to you. 
 10:44: Yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll go a few more minutes. 
 10:48: so yeah, like. 
 10:50: I, I like, I like data, I like information. 
 10:53: I like things to make sense and be. 
 10:58: We all meet in a row. 
 11:00: Anybody knows me with a disc, I have a lot of C in me. 
 11:03: So, what I wanted to always do is I wanted to measure all of these things, like how often are they tardy, how often are they late, you know, I'm gonna give them reviews. 
 11:12: I'm gonna have certain KPIs for every single job. 
 11:15: I'm going to hold everybody accountable because I, I heard Darren Hardy say this, for anybody who knows Darren Hardy, he used to own Success magazine. 
 11:24: He always said that, like, Larry and I went to a two-day event with Darren Hardy, and he said, you know, people always talk about our business is like a family. 
 11:33: He's like, our business is not like a family. 
 11:35: We're paying the people to be there, right? 
 11:36: That's not what families do. 
 11:38: He goes, our business is a team, and it's not a Little League team. 
 11:42: We're not doing it for free. 
 11:44: People are paying us, so we're a professional team. 
 11:47: So, therefore, we have to act like a professional team, meaning, You know, there's a set of expectations. 
 11:55: There's a set of metrics that the people have to live up to, right? 
 12:00: Like, so if I play professional baseball and I have a 197 batting average, I'm probably getting sent to the minor leagues, right? 
 12:07: Or worse, just cut. 
 12:09: So he, his point was, is like, us as owners have to think then, like. 
 12:15: Professional owners and managers of like these sports teams where, yes, we can be kind and yes, we can be caring, but at the same time, we also need certain things met. 
 12:25: We need a certain level of performance to occur, so that we can grow, so that we can hopefully scale on some level, so that we can provide, you know, the things that people need inside of the business, right? 
 12:39: Or they're not going to stick around. 
 12:41: So, You know, figure out what are the metrics for every single position that you have. 
 12:48: What, you know, what, what is their attendance like? 
 12:50: What is their tardiness level like? 
 12:52: Are they, you know, what is the callback percentage if they're technicians, if they're on the phone, what is their closing percentage to getting somebody to the door to do an estimate? 
 13:01: If they're a salesperson, what is, what is their closing percentage and what average sit here? 
 13:07: Like, I want to know how everybody's performing. 
 13:11: And I want to hold them accountable. 
 13:13: I mean, Larry can, can, can back me up on this. 
 13:16: I'm big on public accountability. 
 13:18: You know, back in the day, we had boards, like I used to like take those, you know, melamine whiteboards and take the art tape and like put them all out, and every single job would say. 
 13:30: You know, whose job it was, who estimated it, what the job costing was, what our gross profit was, you know, if there was a callback or not, you know, like I had every metric there so that everybody could see why, because people were into it and want to see. 
 13:50: People were into it because they wanted to see, they would come in too early and they'd look at the wall and they were like engaged and that was part of gamifying things which made a big difference if you wanna touch on that at all because that was the big difference. 
 14:06: Yeah, Yeah, well, I mean, look, all of life could be gamified in some way, right? 
 14:12: So I grew up playing sports and my high school was kind of like a, like a baseball factory. 
 14:18: We won the state championship every year I was there, and my coach, who went on to become one of the winningest college coaches in history, he would post all of our statistics right in the main hallway and a huge board for everybody in the school to see, and that's where I learned public accountability. 
 14:36: Right? 
 14:36: So, like, if I'm not doing the work, if I'm not hitting well, if I'm, you know, making errors, everybody in my high school can see that, right? 
 14:45: And, and, you know, you look at a lot of the best companies in home service. 
 14:50: I'm thinking Ishmael Valdez at NextGen when he owned that. 
 14:53: I mean, Ishmael had, you know, he used DataCube, and he had boards for every position, and there was a leader board, and there was, my point is there's no hiding. 
 15:04: And you're holding everybody accountable to be doing a good job, and if, if they're struggling, then obviously we'll put them on a performance improvement program, right? 
 15:15: We try to help them get better. 
 15:17: But, you know, guys, I see this, you know, in my coaching over and over again. 
 15:24: a lot of people are just willing to accept whatever they get. 
 15:29: And look, there's a lot of good people out in the world, and there's a lot of, it might not feel like it on a day to day basis, that I know it's hard to get employees, I know it could be hard to keep them, but when you gamify this, when you hold them to Our performance goal when you're teaching what our, you know, our mission is and what our expectations are. 
 15:54: My experience has been people, people live up to it. 
 15:57: The good employees will, will start rising to that occasion. 
 16:01: So anyway, Larry, I'm running out of steam. 
 16:03: I've been coaching all day. 
 16:04: So do you have, what I wanna, yeah, some input what you're talking about like Ishmaelel had those game, those cubes going, but AC. 
 16:13: From on softwash systems, he has the same systems going on his wall, and some of those guys only have like 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 or 6 people working for him, and he's getting the same results. 
 16:24: So, you talk about Eshmael Valdez, a multi-million dollar company. 
 16:29: That was his last name, I think. 
 16:31: You can also shrink it down and gamify your company with just a couple of people, and you have to start this way like what Michael Gerb is always talking about. 
 16:43: The systems and presentation you did the other day, and I was just talking to Byron, they wanna put in systems, and Jacob's on here and he wants to put in systems in his company. 
 16:55: There's a lot of people in the Zoom room if you didn't noticed. 
 16:58: That they're focused on creating systems so that they can up their game. 
 17:04: And implementing these things is something everybody needs to do. 
 17:08: And Tom King is here, and Tom and Jordan, his son. 
 17:12: They have a lot of people working it every day and they started out with just a couple people and they're making it happen and there's other people here as well. 
 17:20: I know that Santiago has situations like that, And he's implementing things on a regular basis, and he doesn't have a gigantic team, but he's gamifying it and implementing the super tech lessons, particularly to keep his team engaged. 
 17:36: We didn't, we didn't have a huge team when we started doing this stuff either. 
 17:41: Yeah, we were small. 
 17:42: We all, we started doing this with like 2 or 3 guys. 
 17:46: And then what happens is, is people start coming into the company, if as you grow, that's all they know. 
 17:54: All they know is that this is a high performing company and there's expectations for me to do certain things well. 
 18:01: It's easier to start when you're smaller, not bigger. 
 18:06: Yeah, and they understand their expectations and there's some accountability to that because of what you're, the way you're carrying yourself and the way you're presenting the company, and I'll do a soft promo for super tech. 
 18:20: It helps set the standards and the rhythm of the day so that people are accountable for people meaning the team as well as yourself for being successful moving forward in a profitable direction. 
 18:33: Yeah. 
 18:35: Yeah, so, I mean. 
 18:37: What I would say is, is, you know, final thoughts before these are, you know, kind of shorter, shorter little talks, but Make sure you're holding yourself and your people accountable to being a high performer, right? 
 18:51: Like it, it isn't as hard as everybody feels that it is. 
 18:55: I think a lot of people make this out to be harder than it need be. 
 18:59: It's just have a, have, have principles. 
 19:03: In a mission statement, ideally train to those constantly be coaching. 
 19:09: Look, I, I'll finish with this. 
 19:11: All the data on Generation Z, right, so age 28 and under, that's who most of us are getting as new employees. 
 19:18: All the data shows that they don't really want to manage who they want to coach. 
 19:22: They respond to coaching better than managing. 
 19:26: Right, well, this is, this is the best way, like high perform, creating a high performance culture is really about coaching, right? 
 19:35: You know, I mean, I grew up playing sports. 
 19:36: I always had a coach, and the coach was, you know, hard on me, but yet had my best and my, you know, had my best, yeah, intentions, right? 
 19:48: Wanted me to do a good job, right, so. 
 19:51: I don't know what how everybody's looking at this, but like, I always looked to the coach. 
 19:57: Coaching is a lot like kind of tough love, right? 
 20:00: The person really cares about you, but also is not gonna let you off the hook easily. 
 20:04: I think if we can do that. 
 20:07: Building a high performance culture becomes pretty easy. 
 20:10: It just takes some practice. 
 20:12: Right. 
 20:12: No, absolutely. 
 20:14: And it's just the little steps and the habits that you hold yourself accountable to. 
 20:19: Like we have Christina here. 
 20:21: I met her at the cleaning expo last week with David, and she's growing her business with her mother, and they're just hiring people, and she's like, we just have to put systems into place. 
 20:33: And I was explaining the habits. 
 20:35: That you have to be consistent at make a big difference. 
 20:39: Do you have any questions? 
 20:40: I know, Eric, we have, we're not here that we have a lot of people in the room here that have come to the Zoom and appreciate it. 
 20:49: anybody have any questions, if I could, if I could chime in, everything you're saying is spot on, and you know what, your players want that. 
 20:58: People who don't want it are people who need to either be coached up and off of your team. 
 21:03: Or they need to change. 
 21:04: They're, they're, they're operating below the line of what's acceptable. 
 21:08: A players want it, they want everybody else to do it, and they appreciate it, and it makes them perform better. 
 21:15: Yeah, 100% agree, Tom, that's spot on. 
 21:19: Yeah, look, we owe it to our best people to hold the accountability line, right? 
 21:25: The people who, who get the most angry when we don't hold the values are our best people, because they expect everybody to behave like them, and when we're tolerating poor performance. 
 21:40: It actually hurts our best people the most, so I agree, Tom, I, it's a great point. 
 21:44: I agree 100%. 
 21:47: If I could add to the coaching thing I've struggled with my A players is sometimes they think calling people out or having conversation with you is tattling, but helping your A players understand, hey, it's your job. 
 21:59: I mean, Michael Jordan didn't stand on the court and not give some directions. 
 22:03: Peyton Manning didn't tell people would go to the sideline, get in people's face, and there's appropriate ways to do that. 
 22:09: Sports, it's more aggressive, obviously. 
 22:11: But people need to call the other people on their team that, hey, look, you need to shoot better, you need to run better, you need to pass better because we can't win. 
 22:19: You know, if you can't score, and I think that they sometimes this generation, the under 28 has a hard time. 
 22:26: They think they're tattling, and I tell them, you're not, you're making our team better. 
 22:30: You're protecting our company. 
 22:34: Yeah, one last point, and then I gotta run cause I gotta, my wife had a hip replacement, so I gotta run and help her, but Tom's right, like, you've gotta like. 
 22:44: There are a few players, players or people on your team that have influence, a lot of influence over everybody else, right? 
 22:51: We want that person to be like, Patrolling the culture, patrolling the locker room or per se, right? 
 22:59: And, and we wanna give them the ability to do that. 
 23:02: So, Larry, I'm gonna let you take over from here. 
 23:04: Thank you, everybody. 
 23:05: Appreciate it. 
 23:06: I'll, I'll see everybody next week. 
 23:08: Thank you. 
 23:09: Yeah, Eric's got to step out. 
 23:11: Do we have anything anybody else wanted to share or contribute while we're on this live real quick? 
 23:18: No, OK, listen, we're gonna do this every Tuesday at this time. 
 23:23: It's wonderful to see everybody. 
 23:24: We appreciate you showing up, and I hope we gave you something you can implement your last in your business, and take your leadership and your skills to the next level. 
 23:34: So it's a pleasure. 
 23:36: We'll see everybody, hopefully next week. 
 23:38: And if you have anything you wanna communicate, send us a message, right? 
 23:42: Thanks, Tom. 
 23:43: Thanks to Christina, OJ, Santiago, Jacob Ryan. 
 23:49: Ryan, it's wonderful to see you guys. 
 23:51: We'll see you. 
 23:52: Thank you for listening to the Blue Collar Nation podcast. 
 23:56: For more information about Eric and Larry and Super Tech University, please visit us at supertechu.com. 
 24:04: That is supertech U, the letter U.com.