[00:00:02.810] - Chris
Welcome back to another episode of the MRM podcast. I'm Chris
[00:00:06.470] - Brandon
and I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business, life and legacy.
[00:00:11.510] - Chris
It's business time.
[00:00:13.910] - Brandon
Chris, how the hell are you? Wasn't that more aggressive? That was so different?
[00:00:18.890] - Chris
That was a new kind of energy from your Enneagram eight, identity.
[00:00:24.230] - Chris
come in with strength and power.
[00:00:26.030] - Brandon
I wanted to come in hard and fast.
[00:00:27.770] - Chris
Okay great. I'm not going to touch that. We have a really awesome guest. And the last couple of episodes where we've had guests, we kind of have pretended that we hadn't already talked to them. But the way we do this thing is we meet with our guests and then we record the intro later.
[00:00:43.910] - Brandon
That's right, we were totaly lying basically. Is there any way lying?
[00:00:45.530] - Chris
We were kind of fooling everybody...Maybe
[00:00:47.510] - Brandon
at least ourselves.
[00:00:50.510] - Chris
[ comment: https://www.restoration1.com ] But today's guest, I mean every single guest we've had is really fun, but I think they're all different. And that's one of the fun things about doing this podcast. Our guest today is Tom Gissler. Tom is the President of Restoration 1 https://www.restoration1.com
[00:01:05.450] - Chris
[ comment: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-stewart-84101014/ ] and we were introduced to Tom from Rachel https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-stewart-84101014/
[00:01:08.570] - Chris
[ comment: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/restore-your-power-to-succeed-through-differentiation/id1552006820?i=1000535334720 ] and we listened to a podcast that Tom did earlier with her. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/restore-your-power-to-succeed-through-differentiation/id1552006820?i=1000535334720
[00:01:12.350] - Chris
And, wow, did we have a good time with him today.
[00:01:14.870] - Brandon
Yeah man. A gentleman and a scholar.
[00:01:18.770] - Chris
yeah
[00:01:18.770] - Brandon
And with the most approachable meaning. That was the theme, i mean I don't want to give it away...
[00:01:26.210] - Chris
And He's a little cowboy too.
[00:01:28.730] - Brandon
It is. It's this down to Earth unapologetic leader!
[00:01:33.830] - Chris
Honest!
[00:01:35.990] - Brandon
Oh man, Yeah. Clearly has a path, knows where he's headed.
[00:01:39.710] - Chris
Big vision.
[00:01:40.970] - Brandon
Huge vision. Understands what role he plays in the vision. My wife says right size at the right time. Oh, man, this guy, I feel like in a lot of ways, he's the epitome of that.
[00:01:51.590] - Chris
Yeah, for such a time as this.
[00:01:53.270] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:01:53.630] - Chris
So I think all of you are going to really really enjoy this, probably for different reasons. People are going to latch on to different aspects of this conversation. We cover a lot of ground, which is kind of your MO.
[00:02:05.390] - Brandon
it is.
[00:02:06.050] - Chris
And I think in the end, what you and I were left with is, wow, it's really cool to know a person like this.
[00:02:13.310] - Brandon
Yeah. I'm excited to hear more voices like this coming into this industry.
[00:02:17.630] - Chris
Yeah, no kidding.
[00:02:18.710] - Brandon
This industry is just chock full of potential. There's so much stored energy on where it can go and what we can accomplish as operators, as business owners. And I think Tom really does a great job of leading from a slightly different perspective and using a voice that I think is going to align with a lot of people. In terms of, how do we look at the future of our industry? And not getting caught down in the technical, but just as leaders...
[00:02:48.470] - Chris
Visionary leaders
[00:02:49.490] - Brandon
As visionary leaders, where are we going? What kind of opportunities do we choose? And how do we build ourselves up in such a way that we can stand. That we can do it, that we can stay in the fight. Guys, you're going to enjoy this.
[00:03:02.870] - Chris
All right. Well, welcome to the show, Mr. Tom Gissler. We are super excited to have you, man.
[00:03:09.770] - Tom
Yeah, me too excited to be here.
[00:03:12.470] - Chris
[ comment: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/restore-your-power-to-succeed-through-differentiation/id1552006820?i=1000535334720 ] I actually want to lead off by actually recommending that people listen to another podcast episode of someone else that we really respect. So Rachel Stewart interviewed you. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/restore-your-power-to-succeed-through-differentiation/id1552006820?i=1000535334720 What was it two or three weeks ago, maybe?
[00:03:25.070] - Tom
Yeah, I think it's been about that long.
[00:03:27.770] - Chris
On her podcast called "Restore Your Power to Succeed" and I actually relistened to that episode with you and her last night and this morning, it is a really good interview. So those of you who are listening to this, if you haven't listened to that interview, go check it out. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/restore-your-power-to-succeed-through-differentiation/id1552006820?i=1000535334720
[00:03:43.910] - Chris
You guys cover a lot of ground in it. There's a lot of stuff about sort of your journey in the industry, but more importantly, I think part of your leadership journey, and it's really good. And there's some cultural stuff about the state of our industry and some unique things about restoration1.
[00:03:59.330] - Chris
We're going to try to cover some new territory with you today and maybe double click on some of those things, but definitely recommend people check out that episode as well. Where do we want to get started man?
[00:04:10.370] - Brandon
I know we were kind of all over the place and prepped to have you on the show, and I think as a full Disclaimer, Tom, I think Chris and I have created a story in our mind, obviously with limited interaction with you from that interview. And there's something a little rogue about you that I'm kind of catching a glimpse of that I'm diggin'. I think it's resonating a bit with me personally. I know Chris and I have mentioned it, too, and so at some point, I think we want to start to hear a little bit of those driving factors for you.
[00:04:41.150] - Brandon
But anyways, we're really excited to get to know you better for sure.
[00:04:44.630] - Chris
[ comment: https://ryanholiday.net/ryan-holiday-books/ ] I think the easy entry point for us here one of the things that we've started asking our podcast guest is what is the best, most useful book you've read so far this year? And your answer to that was The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday. https://ryanholiday.net/ryan-holiday-books/
[00:05:01.430] - Chris
[ comment: https://dailystoic.com ] And I was not just a little bit excited when you said that, because I follow The Daily Stoic.https://dailystoic.com I listen to that podcast a lot. I listen to his new weekend editions that are longer, and I've read all but Stillness is the key.
[00:05:14.090] - Chris
I've read most of his books.
[00:05:16.730] - Tom
yeah!
[00:05:16.730] - Chris
And I've also read quite a few of the books on his recommended list and some of his mentor, Robert Greene, the 48 Laws and So Forth. I'd love for you to unpack what that book was for you. And I'm also just curious to see if there's any other enthusiasm or interest that that created for you in the area of Stoicism. You talked about sort of a spiritual crisis or a crisis of faith that you went through. And I too, that's part of my story.
[00:05:42.830] - Chris
And so I'm just kind of curious how and where all of that connects?
[00:05:46.250] - Tom
Yeah. So it really is directly related to my crisis of faith in the sense that for me, when I lost my faith right off the rip, we alienate all of the believers... So see you guys.
[00:05:59.990] - Brandon
haha
[00:05:59.990] - Tom
So to the three remaining listeners, when I lost my faith, one of the byproducts that was hard about that was losing not only a community of people that I had relied on, but also sort of a central gravitational force inside by which to a-lens by which to see the world, if you will.
[00:06:18.710] - Tom
I had sort of seen events good and bad in my life through this matrix of "God was in charge, and there was obviously some better way or some brand-vision or plan for my life." And suddenly I was left utterly alone. It wasn't long after that that my first marriage collapsed and I ended up being a single father. And so it was a really hard time in my life. Later, and just through happenstance, it's not intelligence, later what I realized was...Many, many times those hard things that happen in your life, even though at the time you're desperate to get out of it, all you want in the world is to get away from this difficulty and get back on a path.
[00:07:03.350] - Tom
It was that hard event, that terrible event that was literally the conduit through which you achieved your later success. And I sort of began to notice that. And that pointed me through conversations with counselors and mentors and whatever. To the concept of stoicism, and then to the concept of Amora Fati, and this idea that what is coming at you it's the road you need to travel down to get to the greater iteration of yourself or whatever that you're trying to achieve. And so as goofy as that sounds, maybe to some people, I decided to double down and really start to... What would happen in my life if I approached every difficulty in that way?
[00:07:47.930] - Tom
If I was able to bring that perception to it, what would happen in my life? And I'm completely imperfect at it. I'm not great. I'm not ready to write my own book on Stoicism, but to the degree that I've been able to do that, there's been a direct correlation with success every single time. So I can't recommend the idea enough. And that book I finally got around to reading, and I'd read sort of like you had read bits and pieces of that philosophy before, but that book really coalesced into an easy digest kind of way of seeing this element in my life that's been so important.
[00:08:23.390] - Chris
We reread the book and that was one of our objectives, too, as we try to read the book before our guest comes on. And for me, it was a reread. Books find us at certain times of our life, right? And sometimes we're ready for them, and then sometimes it's ten years later and somebody recommends it again. We're like, yeah, I probably should read that. Now is a good time. I reread it, and one of the things that stood out, in fact, I screen captured part of it and sent it to Brandon that I really loved was the Ninja guy or the martial arts guy.
[00:08:52.490] - Brandon
The Samurai guy.
[00:08:53.450] - Chris
The Samurai guy. And he talks about the two ways, the two lenses that we can use. Right? The one where we are interpreting. So there's this interpretation lens where we're assigning meaning to everything that happens. This is either good or bad. And then there's the observational lens. And what I hear you saying is kind of referencing that. It's like the quote, bad things that happen in our life are really only bad if we decide that they're bad, and if instead we just simply observe our circumstances, it gives us, like, the mental margin to say, okay, what are my options for dealing with these circumstances?
[00:09:33.770] - Chris
What can I do with them? What could I make out of this situation that I might otherwise call bad or horrible or terrible or woe is me? I love that man. That is very inspiring to me too.
[00:09:47.270] - Tom
Just think about it. We literally work in an industry where we'll watch a television and there's a storm rolling in and everybody else in the room...Maybe if you're the only restoration guy and their like, "oh, my goodness, this is so terrible. Maybe it'll steer away, or maybe it will disperse or whatever." And we see that for a variety of reasons, not all of them great.
[00:10:09.890] - Tom
And we go, "wow, what an opportunity. How am I going to run towards that?" Well, it's no different. Hurricanes come in a variety of forms in our life, not all of them weather related. And if you can instead say, "what a great opportunity for restoration," then it absolutely changes the complexion of everything that happens in your life. And you can get really good at it and carry it with you. My hope is all the way to the end, and that's my goal. That's kind of where I'm at on it.
[00:10:38.390] - Brandon
So where is this coming into play for you? And we're going to probably touch on this in a couple of different ways. But how is this coming into play as the President of R1, and the way that you're shaping kind of the trajectory of what that franchise...? Is this a theme that you're drawing into part of your leadership? And is that at play here?
[00:10:57.710] - Tom
For sure. So restoration1.... Oh, man. Guys, it's so weird. I'm so crazy in love with the concept of restoration1, and I don't remember what Rachel and I talked about on the podcast. So if I repeat myself, then you have to forgive me. But Restoration1 is, I refer to it as a zebra in the horse barn. From a distance it looks like everybody else. Okay, but you get up closer and the closer you get, you're like, there's something different. There's something different. That's different.
[00:11:26.510] - Tom
And if we're looking at it through the lens we've been discussing, the obstacle is the way. I arrived at Restoration1 with the idea of...You guys aren't on any programs? Like you're not on a single, like you're not talking to anybody in the insurance community? Like you're not trying to roll out a pilot anywhere?" That's the first thing we need to do. And instead, everyone, including franchisees, we're like, no, we don't want to do that at all. We're not ready for that. We're not ruling it out necessarily in the future. That's not something we're aiming for right now."
[00:11:57.050] - Tom
And what they ran into was because of the way that they were created and the odd sort of accidental way that the entire company came together. They had found through the obstacle of not being able to eat at the table with everybody else, they had found a brand new way to approach program. A direct consumer, seeing the homeowner or the business owner or the property owner as the customer. Now let me explain that because everybody's going to go, yeah, of course they're the customer. When you are program first and not people first, then your ultimate customer is that insurance company.
[00:12:35.030] - Tom
And it's a slight change in the lens. It changes the refraction that much, but when it does, it puts your focus on that insurance company, and the person standing right in front of you is somewhat of an impediment. It's a challenge to get through and around to get to the customer. Because we don't see it that way our entire focus is right in front of us. It causes us to have this emphasis on safety on an ethical way of doing business. A thoroughness that is agnostic of is the insurance going to pay me for the air scrubber?
[00:13:09.350] - Tom
Or can I put this extra two fans in because I don't know if I'm going to get paid by the insurance? We don't worry about that. We do the right thing, try and justify it and document it. And do we have to argue with the occasional adjuster or whatever? Absolutely, we do. And do we win all of those? Absolutely, we do not. But it doesn't change our focus on absolutely doing the right thing for the person right in front of us. And that's a simple concept.
[00:13:36.770] - Tom
It's so simple, in fact, that it seems goofy that it is like that can't be the driving force. It is absolutely the driving force. We are people first, profit second. And every other company in the space... And I'll say this boldly and let's get us all on stage and let's fight it out. Combat is my love language. So I'm into it, right. But every other company out there is program first, profit second. People fall in there somewhere, but people are something that we're just trying to get through to get to the money jar.
[00:14:07.310] - Tom
And that ain't what we're about. So that's really where it is.
[00:14:11.150] - Brandon
Okay. Well, you did it now. So now that you've let that cat out of the bag, we have a clear area that we're going to hang in for a while. So part of leading up to this meeting with you... Again, Chris and I had listened to the podcast with Rachel, and you started to allude to and hint to there's some things going on at R1 that are that. They're customer centric, that they're focused on the client first. And it's funny you say "it seems like it's that simple," right.
[00:14:38.630] - Brandon
But we all know in execution, it's hard, like a lot of restoration contractors start that way. We kind of even touch on this a little bit with Whatley and Seth, but it's this idea that no contractor, for the most part, starts in this gig all beat up and jaded, right?
[00:14:54.950] - Chris
They want to screw people over.
[00:14:56.210] - Brandon
They're not trying to fight anybody.
[00:14:59.030] - Brandon
But we get tired.
[00:15:00.710] - Brandon
We go out, we do a good job from our perspective, for the client, and then we're trying to get paid, and there's frustration. So anyways, where I'm going with this, Tom, is, can you give us a little insight from 30,000 Foot view? What are you doing to equips your franchisees to actually execute on that? Like to stay the line, to stay committed to that principle, even when they are going to inevitably hit some walls from time to time when it comes time to execute?
[00:15:29.150] - Tom
Sure. So the first thing we're doing is we're not monolithic. There are a minority of franchisees who are walking a relatively traditional path, meaning they kind of grow up. They're here for a few years. Somebody goes, "hey, you ought to get on fill in the blank program." And so they get on the program and they see an increase in work. Maybe they even see an increase in top line revenue. And the other franchisees start sniffing around and going, hey, what are you doing over there? I noticed you're growing.
[00:15:57.350] - Tom
And so one of the things that we'll do for those franchises, and we do it very publicly is that we will publish to the network the profit margins of the program work versus the non program work .And what you'll notice in established programs, and I'm talking about super janky ones, I mean like the big boys, the program work. You'll notice as high as a 33% haircut on that work, right? You just will. And there's no secret to that. That's intentional. I mean, there's so many different people eating off that. You got the insurance companies that's demanding a concession.
[00:16:31.370] - Tom
Then a TPA the command demands a concession. You know, it kind of gets cut. Like is a cocaine coming out of Columbia is probably really good when it comes out of the jungle, and by the time it gets to the streets it's half baking soda. That's the way it is too... Wow, that was probably a really bad example, but it's kind of where it's just this bad thing, right. And so then out of that, we have intentional conversations. And one of the things that I've instituted is that we have these summits.
[00:17:00.890] - Tom
We just had one in Waco recently that was three days long. We drive radical transparency in the network. We've got programming that allows everybody else to see everybody else's PNL and balance sheet so that you can see what other people are doing in terms of labor and job costs and all that sort of thing. So that we're able to compare apples to apples across the network. And we'll say if I had fewer jobs, which you don't want, but if I had fewer jobs but was able to ethically charge what I could charge, how do I compare to the guy that's got more jobs but is able to charge less?
[00:17:37.550] - Tom
And what you see time and time again is that the guy with slower jobs is actually a little above the guy that's working his butt off. Right. So it just keeps us sort of looking at that over and over and over again, to go is it time? Is it the right way? Is this the right customer? And the answer so far has been no. It just has been. From a company standpoint from a 30,000 foot view. Now, there's no secrets you can't ask about anything inside the company that I'll be going, oh, no, that's a trade secret, that's whatever.
[00:18:06.950] - Tom
Here's what I've noticed over the course of my career. You can sit in a room and have a restoration guy get up and say, "Here is exactly what I have done to be successful." Lay it all out. 90% of the people in that room will go home and do nothing about it. They won't intitute one of those pieces. So I can literally give the entire show away, and there's not another restoration company that's going to follow my path. So there's no secrets here.
[00:18:33.950] - Tom
How we're continuing to conquer that market is to emphasize sales and marketing at the ground level. The second you Institute... What people tell you is "I'm going to bring in the program work, and then I'm going to do what I was doing before and combined I'll be even better." What happens is you get that program work and through time management, resource management, whatever you just start aiming towards that. And your natural growth in your own market begins to diminish over time. So we're emphasizing sales and marketing.
[00:19:03.110] - Tom
But even more than that, specifically, how do we do sales and marketing? And again, this is going to sound real first row First Baptist kind of churchy kind of stuff. But I promise you, it's true. We're hyper focused on building a community of partners within our group that we help them better their business. Let me stop. Not, I'm going to help you better your business by being a great restoration. This is not what I'm saying. If I want work from you, I'm going to find tangible ways to help you in your business, whether or not they're restoration related.
[00:19:38.390] - Tom
I might pour money into leads for you online. We might do events where we're marketing to a particular vertical, and we'll bring in speakers and help from their industry at our expense so that we help them become better business people. Okay.
[00:19:58.550] - Tom
What will they naturally do? They'll want us to be better business people, and there's an easy way for that to happen, just give me leads. So we're not trying to manipulate yadda, yadda. We got the best equipment. I mean, this industry is the weirdest industry in the world, man. We all buy our Dehu's and air movers from the same one or two dudes. Right?
[00:20:18.470] - Tom
So why in the world when anybody say I dry faster or I dry better or I dry.... Forget drying altogether. All we do as an industry at the best is bring order to chaos. And that has almost nothing to do with dehumidification.
[00:20:33.590] - Tom
Right? Let's stop talking about it. Let's stop putting it out there like it's something. Insurance companies ultimately don't care. The customer sure doesn't care. Stop talking about it. Just bring order to chaos. And if you want better business from people, make their business better, that's it. That's the secret sauce.
[00:20:51.650] - Brandon
We could pretty much just close up on that.
[00:20:54.230] - Chris
That was so good.
[00:20:55.670] - Brandon
I love the fact that... I think right now, Tom, you are saying a lot of things that most of us have been thinking for a long time. The reality of it is that many of us over the last ten years, we already had the gut feeling that things weren't going in a positive direction for many of us.
[00:21:17.330] - Chris
Things weren't working anymore. The things that always worked for the last 30 years are no longer working.
[00:21:22.490] - Brandon
They're not. And the priorities have been shifting in these weird ways that most of us can see. This is not why we got into it. This is not what motivates us. This isn't what we were building businesses on in the first place. But, man, we are afraid to say it out loud. We're afraid to talk about it. You mentioned that at the end of the day, we all dry stuff. Good
[00:21:44.570] - Tom
right
[00:21:46.010] - Brandon
It's kind of like that's the minimum standard, if you're going to get paid for a service, you better do it well. But it's this relational activity that you're talking about.
[00:21:53.930] - Brandon
It's like, what are we using our drying platform for? What's the mission behind the field execution? And I just love the unapologetic perspective that you're bringing right now. I think it's encouraging for people. You're not saying anything that's derogatory or extremely negative, but they're just facts. Like, here's the reality of the situation we're currently playing in. What are we going to do with that?
[00:22:20.030] - Chris
Well, and it's interesting you're talking to about how if you're going to ask for referrals from somebody make a contribution to their business, right? Invest in that relationship. Every single one of us, as operators, has been watching the whole smiles and candy routine where we just drop in unexpectedly into agent offices and fill their candy jars and chat with their staff that is on their payroll. I've talked about this before. I spent eight years at State Farm, five of those years owning a State Farm agency. And it's interesting back then, I didn't know anything about restoration.
[00:22:50.810] - Chris
In fact, the only thing I knew about restoration, frankly, was that I had five staff on my team that are on my payroll every hour that that team was in my office, I was burning through roughly $100 an hour in payroll costs or more.
[00:23:05.870] - Chris
And so when those restoration companies would come in and do the candy and smiles thing, I couldn't help as an agent, but think, wait, these people have work to do. Like we're trying to sell policies and service our clients. It really felt like an interruption. And what we discovered, actually, when we were operating was we would talk to insurance agency owners, they felt exactly the same way. They felt like we were taking from them. We were interrupting their business while we were asking for them to give us business. And just how antithetical that approach was and how self sabotaging in some ways it was.
[00:23:44.750] - Chris
Now, I think the reason why we've kept doing it right is because it kind of sort works, kind of sort of for the last 30 years, it's become a sales channel. So it's very refreshing to hear you guys not just talking about that problem, but trying to execute in a new way in a really radical, creative way. Can you just speak into that a little bit more what you see franchises doing in their local markets? You mentioned a couple of examples, but can you think of some fun stories that you've heard from franchise recently about how they're doing that?
[00:24:14.510] - Tom
Sure. Yeah. So okay, from a sales and marketing perspective, you mentioned the kind of marketing that I loathe, and I speak directly against it within my network, which is the concept of route marketing. My day gets laid out in a variety of stops and an X number of coozies or calendar strips on a keyboard. And somehow if I make these stops and I smile and I can maintain some sort of positivity through the course of my day, something magical will happen. It's akin to just some sort of Hogwarts related spell where I'm saying something, and I hope that business comes my way.
[00:24:56.390] - Tom
There's absolutely no thought in it. It's a form of insanity in my mind. But if you look at the universe at the right angle, you'll see this sort of same flat sort of dots on a string way. But if you'll just turn it this way, you realize, oh, these things are all interrelated in these sometimes not so obvious gravitational waves and operate as a system. So one of the things that we do is, rather than interrupting. Let's just take agents for instance, they speak directly to your life. Rather than interrupt their day and give them the pitch, which almost always involves something about drying or fire damage or eight ways to remove soot.
[00:25:36.890] - Tom
Oh, my God. I'm in the industry, and I'm bored saying those words. Okay. What we do instead is try and speak to the agents saying, "what are your problems?" "How do I find leads for selling insurance? How do I get my people better on the phone?" Well, guess what? We want our people better on the phone, too. So we're going to be speakers in to talk about, how do I do things on the phone? How do I generate better leads online? How can I capture leads?
[00:26:04.910] - Tom
How can I maybe buy leads, which I'm already doing and give them to you as a form of reciprocity? And then more than anything else? And this is just a super simple example. If I'm going to invite people to an event, whether it's a golf game or a happy hour or whatever else, I'm going to arrange the people that I'm inviting into this from industries that are complementary. So if I've got a young agent that I want to give me business, then I'm also going to invite some mid to high end property managers from apartments that are demanding that they sell insurance.
[00:26:38.330] - Tom
And I'm going to introduce these people. And then I'm going to bring this guy and I'm going to be a concierge and build this bespoke sort of community in which I'm in the middle. I'm the nucleus. But maybe there's business shooting all around me that benefits them. And then I'm the gravitational pull. I will bring the good to me by putting the good out. And, God, I know that makes me sound like I'm going to say, let's all do yoga and drop some acid. I promise you, I'm not. I'm just telling you that it works, right?
[00:27:10.310] - Tom
It is the right thing to do to say what's important to you? If I deliver that, you deliver what's important to me, period.
[00:27:19.430] - Brandon
I love that. That's ridiculous. Okay, so one of the things I picked up on Tom, we were kind of listening to some of your previous interviews and things like that was.... You're not afraid to be open about and admit failures. I tried this. It was a hot mess. I tried this. It was a total dumpster fire. How does that come into play? you mentioned this word before, radical transparency. How does that come into play in the progress that you've made as an individual? And then how teams see you, that you're leading?
[00:27:55.010] - Chris
What does that look like in your role now as President of R1?
[00:27:59.990] - Tom
First of all, failure managed appropriately, there's almost no such thing, it's almost mythical. I've learned the most valuable lessons that I could possibly learn from failure, and I've had epic ones. I mean, just gargantuan ones. But I am who I am as a result of those failures, I wouldn't even be anywhere close to who I am without them. They were absolutely integral to my advancement. So what happens over time is that you begin to develop calluses in the right area so that you're not as burned. I've always wanted to be a Cook.
[00:28:34.670] - Tom
I love food too much, and I'm a bit of a heedeness, and that if I like something, I like a lot of it. And so cooking is one of those things. And I've always marveled at these line cooks that can just reach into a pan and turn the steak over with their hands and manipulate things. It's because they've been burned enough times that they've lost sensitivity in that area. And that's one of the things that I want to do in my life. I want to continue to do battle with the Dragons that are almost always made out of fear.
[00:29:04.670] - Tom
So that as I conquer one by one by one, it makes me less afraid of failing. And being less afraid of failing is a tremendous advantage toward winning because that hesitancy, that "oh, I'm not sure. What will the insurance company think? I'm not sure. Should I leave this relationship? Because maybe there'll never be another relationship?" Or fill in the blank in your life. It's almost always lies. There's always better coming, but you've got to let go of this to grab the next. And that can look like failure.
[00:29:40.130] - Tom
But how many times in your own life, guys, can you think of instantly? Probably one or two areas in which you thought, thank God that life pulled it out of my hand involuntarily because it opened my hand for what was next. Does that make sense?
[00:29:55.430] - Brandon
Yes, absolutely.
[00:29:57.110] - Tom
That's all that failure is. And yeah, it's jarring at first. And there's this feeling of emptiness and this feeling of all what's going to happen. But what's going to happen, actually, is the coolest thing in the world, man, because unless you go through what's going to happen, nothing happens.
[00:30:14.510] - Brandon
Okay. So I'm going to call you out, Tom.
[00:30:16.610] - Tom
Good.
[00:30:17.150] - Brandon
Okay, man. So current President, R1, they're fast growing. They're kicking butt. You guys, as a team are developing something super special. It's easy now to look back and say, oh, yeah, failures were the catalyst to my success.
[00:30:30.650] - Brandon
How do you get there?
[00:30:31.910] - Brandon
How do you get there? What did that look like? Ten years ago when some of these failures were happening? How were you facing those Dragons then? And what's transpired what's changed? What was influencing you to give you more confidence in those failures so that now you can look back and say that's the tool?
[00:30:51.050] - Tom
Let me talk about one of the darkest times in my life, career wise okay, so I went to work for a company.... You tell me whether or not I should name names or whatever. I'll name them. You can cut them out. You can bleep them. I went to work for a company called Rytech.
[00:31:05.510] - Tom
Great. They completely different business model from anything I've ever been a part of. Certainly different than where I am now. They were looking for a national sales director that could encourage their field to sell more direct work because they were very program focused. They were literally the exact opposite of where I am now. They had doubled down on the program work. Effectively their franchisees had become kind of de facto service centers. And they were looking for someone that could change that culture so that they could have the both and approach.
[00:31:37.430] - Tom
And when I tell you that I failed, I mean, there was very little smell of success to what I did. It came to the end of the year. And my supervisor, the COO at the time, was just like, dude, get the hell out of here. I mean, that sucked. You did nothing, right? I mean, at the end of the day, I didn't move the needle at all. We might have gone in reverse in some way. My ideas didn't resonate at all. Many of those ideas that didn't resonate in rytech are the exact same ideas that help us grow 50% in a down year.
[00:32:11.810] - Tom
Okay, it's easy to walk out of that and say, oh, the idea was bad. It's not me. It's not. Oh, my goodness. Right. I had the wrong idea. It was the right idea in the wrong location. Okay, that's the deal. What I'm looking for is the right location for my ideas. How can I be authentically me? And if I'm uncomfortable or if I'm failing, I just haven't found the right seat on the bus. And that happens with employees that happens all over the place. Is that what we regard as failure is often just being forced out of the seat that you weren't meant for and being forced to search for another seat.
[00:32:49.490] - Tom
And maybe you sit in another wrong seat, another wrong seat. But then eventually you end up int he seat and you go...." Oh, Holy cow. Now this is it!" Right. This is the one.
[00:32:58.550] - Tom
Now, I was so depressed after Rytech. I mean, the personalities... Bob Orion that owns Rytech, man. He's a force of nature, super like, energetic guy. I'm pretty sure maybe time has eased these ones, but I'm pretty sure that he actually literally hated me. I mean, we couldn't have been, like, any different. And so when I was let go, there was a lot of self doubt. And that's what led to this idea of becoming a police officer. Like I literally thought to myself, is there something that I can do that's still missional, still allows me to feel like I'm going to work every day for some greater purpose, which is important to me, but it's so different that I can at least prove to myself that I'm not a dumbass. Right? That I can learn new things, that I can achieve new skills.
[00:33:47.030] - Tom
I can see the world in some new way. And there are a lot of ways in which becoming a police officer was also a failure. I joined because I was sort of buying into this idea that policing was in crisis. They needed good people. I'm a good person. I'll inject myself into that scenario, and it will magically change, because after all, it's me. That didn't happen. Policing was the same, probably a little worse in Atlanta from the day that I got there. But I'll tell you what did change, me.
[00:34:16.490] - Tom
It absolutely changed me because I was able A to learn absolutely new things, but also learned.... And here's the magic of policing. It actually makes police officers such a fantastic resource as an employee that most people don't realize...At least the good ones. there are good ones, and there are bad ones. But in policing, you have microseconds to make a decision. This is something that doesn't get talked about enough. I've got to decide to take action or not to take action in just microseconds that makes all the difference in the world.
[00:34:52.190] - Tom
So what you do is you pack your head full of knowledge, and then you go out and you try and implement that knowledge, and you learn. How do I trust my gut? How do I listen to my instinct and absolutely believe in my gut to do the right thing before I even engage my mind? Does that always work out? No. Sometimes it doesn't work out with tragic results, which is one of the reasons why we're in the situation that we're in. But for me, pure blessing, pure luck.
[00:35:20.690] - Tom
I really learned to double down on this idea that in the core of who I am, I will make the right decision more than I'll make the wrong one. In the heat of battle at the right time. I've got that within me. So that little three, four year vacation in some brand new place that ultimately I left without having done what I wanted to do, taught me inside that if I'm in the right location, if I'm hyper focused on being in the right place at the right time, that when the decision needs to be made, I'll make the right decision more than I'll make the wrong one.
[00:35:58.730] - Tom
And that trust that came directly from my experience of policing has been integral in the success we've seen so far at Restoration1.
[00:36:08.690] - Chris
All right. Let's take a minute to recognize and thank our MIT/RESTO MASTERY sponsor, XCELERATE Restoration Software. And I'm fully aware, by the way, that when I say those last two words, Restoration software, that that instantly creates heartburn for some of you out there, right? Because we probably all fall into one of two camps. When it comes to software, we've either cobbled together kind of a version of free website tools and spreadsheets just to make our business work. Or we're in the camp where we've adopted one of these existing restoration platforms, one that has all the bells and whistles and supposedly does it all.
[00:36:47.510] - Chris
But we can't get our team to consistently adopt it and input information to it.
[00:36:53.570] - Brandon
Yeah. And that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's simple, right? It's intuitive, and it focuses on the most mission critical information, I. E. Guys, your team will actually use it.
[00:37:08.570] - Chris
Let's talk about sales right. After years of leading sales and marketing teams, the biggest trick is getting them to consistently update notes about their interactions with referral partners and clients. And the essential piece there is. There's got to be a mobile app experience. And in our experience, the solutions that were previously out there were just too cumbersome and tricky to use.
[00:37:31.970] - Brandon
Yes. Imagine, guys, how your business would change if your entire team was actually consistently using the system. Do yourself a favor. Go check these guys out at XLrestorationsoftware.Com/MRM and check out the special offers they're providing to MRM. Listeners.
[00:37:51.830] - Chris
All right, let's talk about actionable Insights. Owners GMs you can't be your business's expert on all things estimating. You might have been three years ago when you're writing sheets in the field, but the industry is always changing, and so are the tools. If you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to exact Matterport, how does that scale you're the bottleneck. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is where actual Insights comes in. They're a technical partner that can equips your team with the latest bleeding edge information and best practices and then update them with Webinars and training resources when the game inevitably changes again.
[00:38:28.730] - Chris
For this reason, we recommend actual insights to all of our clients.
[00:38:32.030] - Brandon
Yeah. Three of the kind of big things that stuck out to me when being introduced to AI and their team. First off is this consistently updated training. At the end of the day, these guys are the experts. They're out front all the time. They're constantly learning new trade secrets and ensuring that your team has got access to those things. A 3700 plus page database of exact templates. I don't know what else to say here other than don't reinvent the wheel. It's already available. Download it, copy it, use it.
[00:39:01.430] - Brandon
Bam database of commonly missed items. I think this is huge. So many of us can change the numbers by just moving the needle a couple of points and those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world. So go check them out at value.Getinsights.Org/FCG
[00:39:26.430] - Brandon
I just love the idea here of a work in progress, right. I think that the challenge for so many of us is that we see where we want to go. We have visions of where we want to land, and we just struggle enjoying the journey because it feels like everything is in the way until we land at point Z. This is something my wife actually is very gifted in is that she's just been so diligent in trying to teach me how to enjoy the journey. And as I've gotten older, I'm getting a little bit better at it.
[00:39:55.950] - Brandon
And man hasn't made my life far more enjoyable. But that's what I'm hearing you promote here is this idea of, yeah, we're going to have ups and downs, but there are so many opportunities for us to be adding in a positive way to the journey than necessarily allowing them to be negatives right to come from these situations. You talk about being a work in progress, and so I wanted to just hit you up on something with that is... How do you stay motivated while being a work in progress?
[00:40:26.610] - Brandon
You had mentioned before that you're kind of a self help guru. You love learning, you love growing and adapting, which I totally admire and love myself. But sometimes the weight of always looking on the horizon and say, "I can get better, I can get better. I can do better." You see, people not handle being a work in progress in a very healthy way, like it becomes more of a drag or a weight on their shoulders versus this motivating mantra. What do you see happening in that dynamic? How does that impact you?
[00:41:01.710] - Tom
Oh, man,,,fellas. Now this is the deepest of the pool for me, because here's where it manifests in a negative way in my life if I'm not careful. If you came to me with a good idea, doesn't matter what it is. Like, here you present me this is my idea for the future. If I really like that idea, my response to it is here's how you can improve it, right?
[00:41:24.990] - Tom
Wow. That's fantastic. If we tweak this and added this, we could have a wider audience and blah, blah, blah, blah. What people often hear from me when I go, that's really cool. Here's what we can prove it is... "You've failed, it wasn't good enough." Right? And I've got to really concentrate on how I'm impacting other people. Skipping over the how do I stay motivated? Because I'm still spinning on that one. I'm not sure what it is. It's probably just insanity. But the harder part for me is how do I in my motivation, not accidentally demotivate the people that are around me?
[00:42:00.510] - Tom
And this happens in my marriage. I wasn't at Restoration1 very long before my boss, CEO, Sherry Rose, who's just an absolutely brilliant person, especially from, like, a business process standpoint. She just knows how to set things up, where they work and all that. She's in the right seat on the bus for sure. She had to come to my office and go, hey, listen, we appreciate you being a hard charger, but we're getting complaints from the staff that they've never worked so hard in their entire life.
[00:42:30.150] - Tom
And they're about to burn out. And it's just been like six weeks. Because I, like, poured so much energy into stuff, and I'm so maniacal going after things that I can burn people out, I can depress them. So I've got to sort of pump the brakes on that. I don't know where you guys are on personality tests, but my favorite is the Enneagram. It was introduced accidentally to me a long way, and I'm an 8.
[00:42:52.350] - Brandon
amen brother
[00:42:52.350] - Tom
And 8's are challengers, and we just thrive off that sort of combative. How do I make it better?
[00:43:02.010] - Tom
How can we get past things? How do we keep going?
[00:43:05.130] - Chris
It's just everything in my life. I just enjoy working. There's no part of me that looks forward to a retirement on a golf course or pickleball or some, you know, whatever. I want to be doing something that makes a difference up until the fact that I just collapsed in the process of doing it. I really don't know where that comes from, it's just innate. But it can be as much a curse as a blessing because you can find yourself standing alone in the field because everybody else has just sort of dropped off the wagon.
[00:43:37.470] - Tom
So in terms of work and progress, that's something I'm constantly learning. And I'm hoping to get into a group of guys that are similar to me that have conquered that in their own lives and can shape that. That's actually one of the things that I'm looking forward to right now is how can I get a group of people around me? I don't really care even about industry necessarily, that are a similar person to me that can help me be a better person along those lines because work, life balance and that constant improvement that I love in my own life is not always received so well by everybody else.
[00:44:13.110] - Chris
You're in good company. Teddy Roosevelt. I heard an awesome quote. He said, "I'd rather burn out than rust out." And I thought that is the language of the Enneagram 8. Right? I'm a seven eight with like, an 8 wing, I guess they say. And Brandon is a full on 8. And so that whole hard charging, like exploration take over the world, make an impact, change things is something pretty native to us too. One aspect I want to talk about here, and I'm curious about if you felt this and you've had to move through this?
[00:44:46.890] - Chris
Is I think, as leaders, there's a lot of pressure to act as if. To act as if we know exactly what to do, to act as if we have all these different skill sets and understanding and vision and everything else. There's just a lot of inherent pressure of sort of presenting ourselves in a certain way. If we're the owner of the company, a general manager, a President, a COO, or what have you.... And I think what I'm really drawn to with you is now you seem to be very comfortable not being the smartest guy in the room, not necessarily being the most together.
[00:45:28.110] - Chris
You've really shared your failures and you're talking openly about your shortcomings. You're not spending a ton of energy trying to be diplomatic with your language. Did you just arrive there, or has that been a process? Did you ever feel that pressure to sort of have it all together in front of your employees? Because what I found is it has been a huge cap on my leadership at earlier times in my career, trying to present this front and thinking that somehow I was fooling people. But then recognizing later on that I was really diminishing my leadership by pretending or acting as if. What do you make of that?
[00:46:03.390] - Chris
How's that been in your story?
[00:46:05.070] - Tom
I think it comes... Again it's a strategy developed to kind of save my life from the darkest times of my life. So if you go back to childhood and I only know this after spending a lot of money and time and counseling, trying to figure this out, and we touched on my childhood being sort of weird, especially looking back on it. It was weird, at the time it seemed totally normal. But one of the things that I really need in my life is to be seen and whether or not you end up liking me or disliking me, I need the experience of someone having seen me. Having at least been confronted with the reality of who I was and obviously, like every other human prefer that you like or see value in that.
[00:46:51.850] - Tom
But honestly, early in my life, I noticed that I was really good at being a chameleon. I was really good at the as if part. Right? I was really excellent at being able to hide flaws and give answers that seem correct in the vaguest possible way and then taking credit if it went right or skirting out of it if it turned out to be wrong. And what that did for me over time was even if I was surrounded with people, I felt absolutely alone because no one was seeing me.
[00:47:25.750] - Tom
No one was really understanding who it was that I actually was, or what it was that I was really trying to say because I was too busy putting on masks. So I made the decision. And this was again, it's related to kind of childhood and abandonment issues and faith and losing the faith and having to arrive at a new identity after being a pastor and really probably going through the process of trying identities on and then finally realizing, oh, there's an identity in here that's uniquely my own.
[00:47:55.390] - Tom
What is that? And then being absolutely shocked in the best possible way that every single time I shared my authentic struggles, even with complete strangers, I found far more than not that those people had very similar, if not exact, same struggles and that all the way back to our first comments on the obstacle being the way... That it was the struggles and are seeking to overcome them that was the basis of our relationship going forward, rather than the overcoming or the hiding of those struggles and being the right kind of person.
[00:48:33.610] - Tom
It really led to more genuine relationships in my life when we started from a point of weakness rather than strength. Like, let me just say right off the riff, what a dumpster fire I am. And then once you say that people go, oh, my God, I am also a dumpster fire. You're like, I know, isn't it great? But look what we were able to do. Wasn't it magical? And they go, yeah, I'm shocked every day that I'm able to even survive in the world because internally, I'm just such a mess.
[00:48:58.390] - Tom
And before long, you're able to kind of have this journey together where you help each other. The other thing I like my closest friends are absolutely free to tell me when I'm screwing up, and in fact, I demand it. It's the old somethings in my teeth deal.
[00:49:12.250] - Tom
Don't be polite with me. Don't try to spare my feelings directly. Tell me you're screwing up because to me, that's love, that's true care. And so I've just built a community around me over time of people who feel absolutely free to both tell me where I'm screwing up, but also tell me where I'm doing well, and when they tell me that I'm doing well, it means so much more when I know, they'd also tell me where I'm screwing up. So I don't know if I answered the question, but that's at least getting close.
[00:49:43.750] - Chris
That's so good. And you actually such a good segue into this other curiosity that I had. What role does love play in leadership? What does that mean to you when I use that word? It's not a word that we talk about much in business. What does that mean to you? What role does love play?
[00:50:01.870] - Tom
You guys are asking really good questions. Let me say this. I think it's a mistake for people to draw hard lines between the work we do and the rest of our life. People want to put your work in a silo, and they want to put their personal life in another silo, and then maybe hobbies over here. So we're constantly kind of opening and unlocking doors to walk into this area of our life versus the other. And I've just never been that person. I spend so much time at work or thinking about work that it would push out every other area of my life if I didn't allow myself to bring my total self into wherever I was.
[00:50:46.810] - Tom
Be it my family, be it friends, work associates. So the first thing I think of when you think that is that probably a lot of people would be love as no place in work, right? Work is about the policy manual. It's about the rules, it's about the profit motive and really leave your emotion out of it and just stick to the book, right? That love is something that belongs somewhere else. And I could not disagree more, because really, you're batting around what makes R1 special.
[00:51:15.310] - Tom
I don't consider a home restored if we didn't realize that the kid was planning a birthday party, and now the birthday party is delayed, and maybe it won't even happen because the house is under reconstruction or whatever. If we're not aware of those facts and we don't actually work to solve that problem, then have we restored anything? We put up new drywall? Maybe the house is at a normal moisture point or whatever, but if we didn't put the door jam back in that had the heights written on it in the new kitchen, then did we restore anything?
[00:51:51.490] - Tom
And the source of those sort of problems comes from a place of love. Comes from a place of at least recognizing that love exists in the space that we're trying to work. And to the degree that we ignore that or don't realize that, we do an incomplete job. So that's part of the answer. And then the other answer to that is love, at least for an 8, it's not always pleasant. That love can mean a variety of things from inside the company. It can mean letting somebody go because, you know, there's not a right seat on the bus for them in your company and that, you know, because you love them, that after the shock and after the initial sort of, oh, my God.
[00:52:38.050] - Tom
What am I going to do? They're going to land someplace and they're going to look back, and it could be months later, you've got to be willing to bear the brunt of that disdain or that feeling of unfairness that they're going to look back, even if it's just in their heart of hearts, they go, thank God they let me out of that situation where I was more miserable than I even knew, because now I'm in this new spot that also comes from a place of love.
[00:53:02.770] - Tom
So, yeah, it's an interesting question. I think that would be kind of as far as I could get. Does that make sense? Yeah.
[00:53:09.670] - Brandon
It's Crystal clear, actually. And I think what I'm hearing when you say some of those things, too, Tom, is that we have a misconception of love... Of that term, as immediately being adopted as some soft, gushy inability to hold teams accountable, inability to rise to the occasion or overcome obstacles or whatever. And it's just not truth. We are just huge culture nerds. We've always believed that there's something special about not just creating a business but creating a platform, a platform for influence and having positive impact on people clients.
[00:53:45.610] - Brandon
Right? External, internal. And I think those things that you said about Love's role, where it's like, Well, it's got to shape the way we're taking care of our client. It shapes what is a win of taking care of our client. It shapes those times where we have to hold the line and be aggressive about accountability, because that is as leaders showing love to our downline. I think if we could have pitched a better softball, I don't know. It landed well. For me, it's super impactful and meaningful.
[00:54:16.270] - Chris
I want to talk about R1 again because a lot of the things you say have just peaked a lot of curiosity in Brandon and I. I'm curious, what you would say is the responsibility of a franchisor to their franchisees? What do you believe a franchise owes their franchisees in exchange for fees, the royalty, et cetera? What does it mean to support franchisees from your perspective, as part of the franchisor?
[00:54:48.370] - Tom
Wow, that really is something that we think about almost every single day. And so I don't know that we've arrived at the final answer. I'll give you a snapshot of where we are, as long as you allow that it's a journey and we've not yet arrived. So that's number one. Moving into business, whether you're a pure entrepreneur or whether you're a franchise entrepreneur, which they there are differences. When you work in the DayToday kind of rat race that so many of our franchisees come out of, the trajectory is it starts off easy and it ends up hard.
[00:55:23.410] - Tom
When you enter into business, it starts hard and ends up easy if you've done everything correctly, so you're reversing it. So the first and primary obligation of a franchisor is to prepare someone for that initial shockwave of difficulty, which is often harder than the job they left because the job was hard, if that makes sense. So it's there to support that sort of initial realization that Holy Moly, this is not going to be easy and standing beside them in that initial storm. But the issue with Franchising is, and we have been so fortunate with this, is that we have an incredibly low churn rate.
[00:56:09.730] - Tom
Our franchisees just don't typically fail. And one of the reasons for that is that the role of a franchiseor is very simply put at a 30,000 foot view. It's meant to make success as an entrepreneur more likely. That's it. You cannot guarantee it. You will have franchisees fail. You'll have guys that seem to have it all lined up and you think it's going to work and it doesn't. And you've got guys that you think they don't have a prayer in the world. There's no way this guy is going to make it, and he's ultimately super successful.
[00:56:41.950] - Tom
But all you can do at the end of the day is make success more likely. Hopefully every day you're doing a little something to make it even more likely than the day before. But all Franchising does is make it more likely. So you do that by trying to have the best system, trying to have the best technology, et cetera. But I can tell you, and I don't want to bore you, but let's talk philosophically about a different approach that I take to Franchising. So my initial very first job in Franchising was SERVPRO, great company.
[00:57:15.070] - Tom
I respect everything that SERVPRO is and does. I've got no problem with them at all. We're a different, entirely different kind of company. The traditional franchisor tries to become larger and larger and larger. I have a huge training Department. I've got a products Department, maybe we even develop our own white labeled products. We've got our own color dehumidifiers, and we've got all this. There's a lot of ownership in that. I don't see the role of franchisor being that. That's all pretty much window dressing. I think we all do essentially the same thing.
[00:57:49.630] - Tom
What I see myself as a franchisor is really a super powered concierge. I'm going to go out into the marketplace, and I'm going to find the very, very best that's out there in terms of technology, in terms of consulting, in terms of product. And I'm going to try and bring collective bargaining and at-scale buying power to reduce the cost to my franchisees. But I'm not going to invent something. I'm going to bring it in and add it in an open AI environment and plug it into my organization.
[00:58:25.750] - Tom
And as long as that relation is Symbiotic, then that piece can hang on. The second it's not, then we unplug and re plug.
[00:58:33.130] - Tom
So, instead of saying we're going to teach for weeks on end in our own Academy how to dry. We're not the absolute best dryers on the planet. We didn't invent drying. So we're going to go out and we're going to partner with Chuck Duwald Academy or REITs or somebody else, and bring the drying that's already top shelf into our organization. And instead of coming to our Academy, you're going to go to that. And then if you want to have consulting or have people... I'll have a lean staff of guys, and I'm going to try and recruit top talent.
[00:59:08.150] - Tom
But I'm not going to ignore bringing outside consulting in and have that outside consulting be a part of my organization because you're going to bring outside pollen into my field and change my product so that it changes for the better. The more that I build walls around my silo, the more entropy happens, the more sort of inbred an organization becomes and blind to what's going on in the world around. And restoration benefits greatly from having a non siloed approach. So I'm going out and trying to find the best resources and bring them to bear on my network rather than creating things that are white labeled within it.
[00:59:45.530] - Tom
Does that make sense?
[00:59:46.670] - Brandon
Absolutely.
[00:59:48.050] - Chris
For sure.
[00:59:49.130] - Brandon
I want to be cognizant of time. But I got to ask you a leadership question. One of the things that we see happening, and I know you've experienced this too. In fact, probably with the rapid growth of R1 maybe there's times where you're experiencing it firsthand. But we see firms, we see contractors.... We do this inevitable internal promotion based on watching someone be skilled or have successes in a particular area of our business.
[01:00:13.850] - Brandon
Right? So we take a lead complex, a large loss mitigation tech, and we see how successful they've been in the field, and we eventually move them up and make them a mitigation manager. Well, there's no accompaniment of advancement or Proactive engagement on this leadership training, right. Like helping them adjust their skill set for this new list of priorities that they have to execute on. And so we watch team members basically kind of get beat up and burn out because we didn't help them, right? We didn't increase their leadership competency to match the new areas of responsibility.
[01:00:52.910] - Brandon
Where have you seen that come to play either with your franchisees or within some of the experiences that you've had? And what do you give advice as far as what are two or three things we can do as leaders to do a better job of equipping these young men and women that are coming up in our ranks to take on these new areas of responsibility?
[01:01:18.810] - Tom
mmmm, wooh. First of all, that's huge. Okay. We're in a labor shortage and we need to A track top talent, and we've got to keep top talent. I think it all goes down.... And here's another buzzword that we could unpack for another hour. But you said your culture nerds, I'm huge into the culture that we have in our businesses and that if you can keep people in your organization for much longer than you normally would, not through pay or benefits, all those things are important, but through the culture you have.
[01:01:47.490] - Tom
So I'm big into that. Short answer is... That's an excellent question, and I don't know what we're currently doing about it. First of all, where I thought you might be going with that is that we often take people and we move them up. I think it was Tom Peterson, from a business perspective, says that we just promote people until they're not useful anymore, and then they stay there.
[01:02:08.070] - Tom
Right.
[01:02:08.730] - Tom
So we don't want to do that. We don't want to be a great guy and go now you're going to be in management, and he's not good at management, but that's where he stays sort of screwing everything up. What we're doing currently right now is part of being a franchisee, the magic of the franchisee, is what you're getting from the franchisor. But that can see your network again in that route marketing, like, I've just got this many franchisees. If you turn it up on its side, you can see all the interconnectedness, the real power, long term.
[01:02:38.610] - Tom
And being a franchisee is the combined knowledge of your network. So part of what I'm doing is connecting manager to manager, office person to office person so that they benefit from best practices across the spectrum of businesses rather than just trying to what resources can I drip into your bucket and you just swim in that bucket? Does that make sense?
[01:03:02.850] - Brandon
Yeah, absolutely. For clarity, what I'm hearing you say is that let's get some extended dialogue happening so that a new MIT manager has someone they can look to or lean on and say, "hey, you've been doing this for two years. Where do I focus my attention first? Or what do I have to learn here," or whatever the case may be?
[01:03:23.070] - Tom
Yeah, that's kind of where we're focused right now. I think long term what we need to be able to do is to go outside of our organization and figure out, okay, what exists out there as a solution? And how do I bring it in? Yeah, I'm really hyper focused on cross pollination. I love meeting with guys from other restoration companies. I like meeting people from other industries. When I'm selling, and I love sales. I still try to be plugged into some sales aspect because it's kind of where I came through, and it's what I love the most.
[01:03:53.610] - Tom
But I will often book time in someone's office that could potentially give me work, and we'll spend the entire time with me just quizzing them about how they handle their problems in their business and how do they manage these things? And sort of collecting that or maybe even giving some of that advice in return. And we never get around to restoration. But what happens is once the restoration does come up, it's always such a smoother transition, right? It's always just sort of an obvious thing we're going to talk about rather than something that we shoehorn into the time.
[01:04:25.710] - Tom
So I would much rather have a much longer sales cycle, but end up coming out of it not with just a new account, but with new knowledge about everything that we're talking about.
[01:04:35.010] - Brandon
It's hard not to be a little enamored by a lot of the pieces that we've touched on. I know, of course, too, it's like we have conversations on concepts where they're kind of in their advanced stages. A lot of looking back and saying this is what we've learned. But I think there's so much here for our listeners to hold on to. Is there's this idea of we can still dream big. We can still have really high expectations as business owners, as people who are producing profits and providing services in our industry.
[01:05:04.890] - Brandon
And I'm excited about that because for the last handful of years, I feel like the growing conversation has been "oh,the weight of TPAs, oh the weight of the changing industry." It just does not seem like there's been a lot of motivating conversations happening. And so I think it's fun to me to have guests like you on the show to be like, no, we can be pumped. Yes, there's challenges right now, but there's so much for us to do and create and be motivated by. Concepts like love and concepts like developing downline leaders.
[01:05:40.590] - Brandon
These are all missions that are very worthwhile, highly rewarding. And this platform in this space that we're in right now is a place for all of it to be used. It can all happen right here. We don't have to leave to achieve it.
[01:05:52.830] - Chris
It's fun. It feels like a fresh conversation, right? There's some really cool, new emerging conversations that are happening in our industry, and I think today was one of those. It's been really fun to talk with you, Tom.
[01:06:05.850] - Tom
Oh, man. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on. What a blessing to even get to meet you guys. Your facial hair alone makes you worth meeting, so it's super cool.
[01:06:18.750] - Chris
Well, when you've lost it all on the top, it's the final frontier. Plenty of it grows on the back and on the face. It's like, all right, you just go with what you got, right.
[01:06:31.110] - Brandon
The reality of it is that our experience with you has been really awesome, Tom. And we are very likely to try to chase you down again in the near future and get you back on the show and explore some areas we have yet to go. But again, man, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time.
[01:06:46.650] - Tom
Thank you so much.
[01:06:50.290] - Brandon
All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the MRM podcast.
[01:06:54.850] - Chris
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