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Welcome to the Blue Collar Nation podcast, the podcast

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dedicated to making the lives of home service professionals better.

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Now join Eric and Larry to talk about all things home

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service.

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We're going to have a cool presentation today,

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and

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we're happy that we got people coming here on the Zoom meeting to join us.

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And anybody out in the Facebook world wants to ask any questions or

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anything, please throw your questions in the chat,

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and

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we'd love to help everybody out today. Eric's got a cool topic.

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Eric, what are you talking about today?

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We are going to talk about stop avoiding the hard conversations, how to

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review and reprimand without blowing up your team.

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Oh.

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Yeah, we had a conversation earlier about this.

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And stop berating.

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That's a good story.

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This is hard stuff.

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Yeah.

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And emotion plays into it, and having a system plays into it,

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so we're going to dig into that a little bit.

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Yeah.

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I mean, look, Larry, here's the reality for a lot of us, and we've

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certainly lived this at some point, and I think most people do

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at some place along the line, is

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we feel like we're running a babysitting service that happens to be a home

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service business because

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we're not having the hard conversations, we're not reviewing people enough.

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We don't have a system to keep people accountable.

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And as soon as we start having that,

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then that's when all the problems start.

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That's when it's hard to keep the good players because we're not

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holding the people who aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing

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together, and people get bummed out, right?

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So,

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Larry,

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let's talk about our company a little bit for a second.

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I think we

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sucked at this at first because we had to learn, and then we-

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Totally

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... got better with time, right? And look,

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my dad used to tell it. My dad managed

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people his whole life. He always would say, "It's all easy till people

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get involved." And

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that's the hard part, right?

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Well, we learned that getting so aggro and so worked up over

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circumstances didn't solve the problem, didn't push the

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needle.

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So-

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Made it worse

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... yeah, it made it worse, and you look at the most

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successful people in business, they're not snapping and losing their

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mind. They're just being strategic and moving on.

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Because that-

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Yeah

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... energy going in that direction doesn't

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benefit anybody. It doesn't bring value.

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Yeah.

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There's other ways of doing it.

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So I'd like to bring up the thing, I'd like to move

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into the solution part, because I think everybody here can relate to what we're

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saying. And

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we didn't really get this down until we

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started doing monthly reviews. And when I say monthly reviews, I can

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always see everybody's moaning and groaning.

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I don't mean some long review.

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I created kind of a quick review sheet because I think what

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we realized in ourselves, and I think we see it with all the

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people that we consult with,

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they just don't review frequently enough.

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And I think back to when we were new.

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Why didn't we review enough? Well, number one, we didn't want to slow down because

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we're always too busy for that, right? Everybody loves to say that.

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Going faster isn't better.

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Yeah. But the reality is, especially when you do

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yearly reviews, you're like, "Oh, man.

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Everybody's going to ask me for a raise."

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Right? And we're cash-strapped, or fill in the blank.

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So,

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we were having problems. I

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don't think we were ever horrible at this, but

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we could've certainly been a lot better.

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And I just created a one-page quick review,

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because I started realizing that we would let people get way

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too off track before we ever

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intervened. So we'd already be upset with that person by the time,

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because we weren't training enough probably, we weren't reviewing enough, and

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we weren't consulting with them enough.

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So I started doing monthly reviews, and

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it was amazing. Yeah, the first month it took me longer because I hadn't been

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reviewing people very long.

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And look, I used to even go out, we'd have a restoration job, there'd be five or

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six people working on it.

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I'd just bring one out to the tailgate of my truck and we'd do a quick review

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right there, and then he'd go get the next guy, and he'd come out.

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It doesn't have to be this formal,

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super-duper thing. Yes, there are times for that, but

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it's better to review, even if it's out in the field on the tailgate of your truck,

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or at lunch quickly or whatever, than to

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not review at all. Because the thing that we found

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was

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our best employees were getting annoyed with us

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because we weren't holding our not best employees

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accountable. And-

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C players and B players.

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Yeah. A players like working with A players.

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Yeah.

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There's no... And anybody that's-

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They get irritated

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... slowing them down.

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Yeah, and then if we're not holding them accountable and we're not reviewing and

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we're not training these people or rotating them out,

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as Rocky Hensley would say, right?

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Yeah.

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Then our best people are going to

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be looking elsewhere probably.

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And you and I have experienced that.

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We weren't ready for a few of the good people that we had, and we lost them

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early on,

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and we had to improve. So, the other thing is, if

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anybody's been

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reading anything about Generation Z, which is ages 13 to

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28Yeah.

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I mean, that's who's coming to-

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That's our workforce right now. Right?

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And if anybody's doing any research, and I think anybody in the trades who's

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managing people should be reading about Gen Z and learning about Gen Z,

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one of the biggest things for their job satisfaction

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is knowing where they stand and getting feedback, right?

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Because they all grew up with a phone in their hand.

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They're used to instant feedback constantly, all the time.

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And I think parents have changed since you and I were younger, where there's a

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lot more feedback now. Schools, there's a lot more feedback and working in

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groups. So we have to adapt, and part of

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that adaptation is

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they're going to be, generally speaking, happier if I'm sitting down with them, or

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a manager's sitting down with them, for 10 minutes every 30 days to let them

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know how they can get better. What they

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need to do to improve or just to pat on the back and say, "Great job.

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Keep doing what you're doing."

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And that's what happened with us. At the beginning, because we

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hadn't been reviewing people, yeah, the first couple of months were kind of rough

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because there was a lot of fixing to do, and there were some hard feelings,

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and people hadn't been held accountable as much as we should have.

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And at first, and look,

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probably, I can't remember exactly, we probably lost a few around that

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period because they're like, "Ooh, they're holding me accountable now."

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But all of a sudden, what's happened is-

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That's what this whole system does.

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This is what you created, was a formal or a comfortable way

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to be accountable than snapping and losing your mind like we were doing

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for quite a while. That was our MO, just reacting.

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This is not a reacting accountability.

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This is-

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No

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... a responding accountability in an organized fashion.

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Yeah. And what I learned, though, was,

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as the months progressed,

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the amount of negative things was so much lower

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because they couldn't get way off track in 30 days.

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I could always kind of bump them back to where we wanted them.

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And then, I'm thinking of one employee in particular who always had

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these stellar reviews. I mean, he had probably gone a year or two with

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every review as like, "Dude, you're awesome." And all of a sudden, one

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month he just hang.

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And I remember even saying to you, like, "Man, I'm kind of dreading this review.

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I do not know what happened to this person." So before it even started, I

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said, "Look, hey, before I pull this out, your review

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is not great. And here's why." And

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I think it was, "What's going on?"

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And he's like, "I'm getting a divorce. I just didn't want to tell anybody." Right.

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So here's this rock star

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who's had good review, good review, good review, good review because I'm meeting

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with him every 30 days, and then his manager is meeting him.

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And now that's our opportunity

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culturally to rally around this person. Right?

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Now we have some feedback from him like, "Hey, I'm going through a hard time." So

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reviews are a two-way street, too.

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And look, in an employment market that's very hard to

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get and keep younger staff,

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these kinds of things, I think, will keep them around longer.

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And look, sometimes, Larry, it doesn't work

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out, right? We're going to have to part ways.

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There's no question about it. Right?

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It's just not going to be what we had hoped.

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And

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we used to

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kind of

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figure out,

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"Okay, where does this person stand?" And then you and I learned,

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with some help, and I'll explain that in a second,

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we had to do a gut check on us first. Right?

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You and I read Jocko Willink's "Extreme Ownership," and we looked at each other and

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went like, "We are 100% responsible for

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all actions in this company." As soon as we did that, that takes off so much-- I

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mean, it sounds like more pressure.

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It's actually less, because now you're not questioning them.

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And for anybody that's in the cleaning and restoration space,

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they probably know the name Steve Toburen.

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Steve Toburen used to work with John Donn at

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the... And he ran these Strategies for Success meetings.

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And he was just amazing because

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he had a pre-termination checklist that you and I started

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using, and it was the best thing. And for

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anybody out here, I'm going to go through the certain bits.

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The first thing we have to do is get real with

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ourselves. Are we being reasonable? Right?

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So Steve Toburen, his pre-termination checklist. Right?

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Number one, have we been crystal clear on expectations?

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Lots of home service companies, it's a lot of word of mouth and not much written

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or video training, right? So are we clear?

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Two, has the employee had adequate training?

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Throwing the employee in the van with the grumpy

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old technician who doesn't want to train he or she probably

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doesn't really equate to great training.

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Do we have a good training program for this person?

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Number three, am I being rational and consistent?

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When somebody does something wrong

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or something that really-- Like Larry has,

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I'm just thinking of our own service business. Larry has things that trigger him.

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I have a completely different set of things that trigger me.

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So the thing is that I look at something that Larry is bothered

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by, and I'd be like, "Eh, no big deal." And then

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he'd look at me as something that sends me into orbit, and he's like, "Why are you

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so upset about this?" Right? So the question we have to ask ourselves

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before we go and

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think about terminating employees, am I being rational?

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And I think if I had anyAdvice,

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never do it in the moment.

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Sleep on it. A day, two days, three days. Right?

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You've had the guy that long already.

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You can make it a couple of days to make sure that you're making the right

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decision. And is it consistent with all the other

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times you've terminated somebody, or with your mission or your core

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values? Do I practice what I preach?

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Look, I go to places all the time, Larry, and I see the owner has a

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set of rules for he or she, and then the technicians are

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expected to do something completely different.

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And they do the whole owner like, "Well, I don't need to do that.

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I'm the owner." Now, once you build systems, that's what

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it is. We all need to do it. Larry used to fight me on that all the time.

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Yeah. Well, I didn't know I say it was right.

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It's just what happened

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by accident.

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You weren't right.

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No, I didn't say I was right. I meant-

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No.

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... I was totally wrong. But you know.

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I would pull in the office and be like, "Can you stop doing that, please?

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I'm trying to get everybody to do it this way." Right. So yeah.

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Do we practice what we preach?

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Is this truly a long-term problem, right?

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So my gentleman that I mentioned who was going through a divorce, he was having a

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short-term problem. His

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situation changed so dramatically, so fast,

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that his production level went way down.

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We rallied around him, got him through

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the divorce, and then right back to normal. Right?

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Once the dust settled, he's good. So it's like, is

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this a chronic thing where the person has had bad

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review after bad review after bad review, or reprimand after reprimand

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after reprimand?

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Or are we just going through a rough patch? Because look, we're human beings.

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We all go through rough patches, every single one of us, right?

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Has this person been treated with respect and dignity?

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That's a great question. Look, even as owners, sometimes we

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have certain people in our company that just push our buttons the wrong

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way, and it's hard to treat them with that respect and

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dignity that they deserve. So we have to ask ourselves that.

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Do I set the example, right? Am I living the core

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values and the mission of this company so that they understand what's

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acceptable and what's not? Right. Am I calm right now?

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Look, I'm hot-headed by nature. Larry can attest to that.

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I have to sleep one day, two days, three

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days

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making a decision like this because I want to make sure that I'm giving

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that person all the opportunity for me not to be doing it in the

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heat of the moment.

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I got the Irish temper, so it kicks in and nothing good

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happens there. So, am I calm right now?

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And lastly, this is a hard one. Are we paying our people enough?

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Right? I

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think we all understand, Larry, that there's a certain element of

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we have to pay a certain amount to people to get them to really buy in and want to

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do a good job for us, right? To feel like it's a career,

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not just a stepping stone to something else or

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just something to pass time till they find something better.

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So, I think this is hard stuff,

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right? We did a class this morning, and we had several people

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on, and

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every single owner or manager said the same thing,

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like, "Oh, I wait. I'm quick to hire, and I'm slow to

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fire." Right. Or I let it go on too long, and I have like,

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they don't have an official verbal warning, or

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they don't sit somebody down and do a review or have a

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written write-up. They think that talking to them outside the job on the

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street for two minutes

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equates to

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some sort of disciplinary action. And it doesn't.

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That's just a conversation, and they're not going to take it seriously until they

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see some paper in their hand, and that it's going in their file.

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Larry, speaking of paperwork, your daughter is

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a plaintiff-side employment attorney.

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What does she say

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that most of us do poorly when it comes

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to this kind of thing so that we don't get sued

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for wrongful termination usually?

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Document things. You got to document things.

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The whole problem,

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she doesn't like me sharing a lot of these things, but

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when the thing-

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Nah

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... you don't document-

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We used to pay her. She's

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good.

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When you don't document things, you're setting yourself up for disaster

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because there's so many predator people out there for businesses.

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They can get a lot of

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money from you. There's a system to take advantage of you,

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and if you don't document, you're falling right into their hands.

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Yeah.

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So

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please, I always say this, document everything, even things you don't

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even think you should.

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If you have a conversation, Eric used to do it. He documented. "Here you go.

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Just let you know, here's our conversation." Give him a sheet of paper.

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I'm loving this because you're telling

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everybody to do the stuff I did and used to give me a hard time that I was doing

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too many things.

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I

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see the value now, of course. I knew it was important then.

333
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It's just there was so many other things that were important, too, so prioritizing.

334
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But what I've learned

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as of late

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that can save people a lot, and I'm not talking

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$10,000, $20,000. I'm talking a couple of hundred thousand dollars or your whole

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business.

339
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Yeah.

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And I've seen it, and it's terrible.

341
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Yeah.

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People are predators. We just have to protect ourselves in little

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ways. These are little ways. They're not big, gigantic ways.

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But these little things, if there's system to it, makes a huge difference

345
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Yeah. So let's-

346
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Really cool

347
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... let's land the plane here, Larry.

348
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So I had created this little system, I guess, for

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myself, for exactly what you're talking about.

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And I

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made sure to praise in public and criticize in private.

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If I'm going to have to have a hard conversation, I'm certainly never going to do

353
00:18:33.092 --> 00:18:34.592
that in front of the other team members.

354
00:18:34.872 --> 00:18:38.292
That's embarrassing and that's degrading to somebody. I'm not going to do that.

355
00:18:38.342 --> 00:18:39.752
It's going to be behind closed doors.

356
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I'm never going to have that conversation in anger at the moment that

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I'm feeling stressed because something went poorly.

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If I'm fired up, I'm going to wait at minimum,

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24 hours. I usually have to wait a little longer than that, because I want to do

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this right.

361
00:18:57.832 --> 00:19:00.992
I'm going to put it in writing. I was even doing verbal.

362
00:19:01.312 --> 00:19:04.972
I even had a confirmation sheet that we had a verbal write-up,

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00:19:05.372 --> 00:19:08.872
but I was getting them to sign off that they had a verbal.

364
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For the reason that Larry said, I didn't want to be going to court.

365
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And, it

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00:19:16.932 --> 00:19:19.152
protects us, and it gives them clarity.

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00:19:19.972 --> 00:19:23.702
Having a write-up, like, "I need you to do these things," that was the beauty of

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00:19:23.732 --> 00:19:27.632
the quick review. It was like, they knew right where they stood, and these are the

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things you have to do to move forward.

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And then the last thing,

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if somebody has a not awesome review or they're not doing

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really what you need, you need to put some sort of action plan or

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performance improvement plan in place before you go to the next

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step. You have to give them the opportunity

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to rectify. And make sure that you give them the training and the support that they

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need. And then if none of those things work, then

377
00:19:53.852 --> 00:19:56.432
yeah, it's time to shake hands and part ways.

378
00:19:58.012 --> 00:20:00.922
That's just how it goes, unfortunately.

379
00:20:01.032 --> 00:20:04.872
Yeah. Not a comfortable topic, unfortunately, but it's an important

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one. Because look, I

381
00:20:08.552 --> 00:20:11.952
don't know any personally, but I'm sure there's businesses that have probably gone

382
00:20:11.992 --> 00:20:15.852
under because they lost a lawsuit

383
00:20:15.932 --> 00:20:18.372
on a wrongful termination or something similar,

384
00:20:18.412 --> 00:20:21.411
and just didn't do it anymore.

385
00:20:21.512 --> 00:20:23.201
So many things. Just ridiculous.

386
00:20:23.232 --> 00:20:25.032
We don't want that to be you.

387
00:20:25.222 --> 00:20:25.222
Yeah.

388
00:20:25.292 --> 00:20:26.152
So anyway.

389
00:20:26.532 --> 00:20:26.652
Yeah.

390
00:20:26.752 --> 00:20:30.092
Thank you everybody for giving us 20 minutes of your time.

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00:20:30.192 --> 00:20:30.512
I hope

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00:20:31.652 --> 00:20:31.892
this

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00:20:32.832 --> 00:20:35.392
can provide a little clarity for everybody here.

394
00:20:36.332 --> 00:20:39.812
Go back and start working your system. Come up with a system.

395
00:20:39.912 --> 00:20:41.172
Look, nothing's ever been easier.

396
00:20:41.572 --> 00:20:44.432
You can use AI and build out a whole-

397
00:20:44.472 --> 00:20:44.552
Yeah

398
00:20:44.592 --> 00:20:46.372
... reprimanding and system.

399
00:20:47.332 --> 00:20:51.242
Tweak it to your needs. I wish I'd had that 20 years

400
00:20:51.312 --> 00:20:54.352
ago when we were doing this. I used to have to sit there and think them up and

401
00:20:54.392 --> 00:20:57.852
write all the stuff out from scratch, and it took a long time.

402
00:20:58.832 --> 00:21:02.692
If anybody wants that review sheet, I'll put the review sheet in the comments.

403
00:21:03.992 --> 00:21:05.392
Okay, awesome.

404
00:21:05.472 --> 00:21:05.641
And-

405
00:21:05.952 --> 00:21:06.772
All right, my friend

406
00:21:06.792 --> 00:21:09.292
... yeah, Ryan, it's great to see you. Gary as well.

407
00:21:10.592 --> 00:21:12.372
And good job, Eric. That was killer.

408
00:21:13.272 --> 00:21:13.832
Wonderful.

409
00:21:14.442 --> 00:21:15.832
Thanks, man. All right, see you guys. Have a great day.

410
00:21:16.472 --> 00:21:19.872
Thank you for listening to the Blue Collar Nation podcast.

411
00:21:20.272 --> 00:21:23.692
For more information about Eric and Larry and SuperTech

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00:21:23.792 --> 00:21:26.052
University, please visit us at

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00:21:26.172 --> 00:21:28.662
supertechu.com. That is

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00:21:28.752 --> 00:21:32.572
supertechu, the letter U, .com.