[00:00:07.370] - Chris
Welcome back to the Head Heart and Boots Podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:00:10.810] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lean.
[00:00:17.590] - Chris
Man, I love this industry. Welcome back. 102.712 floodlight FM.
[00:00:25.870] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:00:26.750] - Chris
I don't know why I felt compelled to do that, but...
[00:00:28.570] - Brandon
It's kind of fun, though.
[00:00:29.150] - Chris
Welcome back. Hey, dude.
[00:00:30.160] - Brandon
Yeah?
[00:00:31.210] - Chris
I stole your opener.
[00:00:32.400] - Brandon
I know. It's kind of fun, though.
[00:00:33.790] - Brandon
I haven't heard you do that in a long time. The old people don't know, but our normal sound check is you doing 102.7 Nordike FM. How's it sound if you can live by?
[00:00:45.290] - Chris
Yeah. Where do we want to go today?
[00:00:46.720] - Brandon
Well, it's an interesting one. I think it's such an important topic, and it's something that I keep personally coming back to over and over again. It's this idea that there's this compounding effect from consistency. Right. And I think what got me really thinking about this a bit this morning, obviously, some of the reading and stuff that we're doing for the book club with the blue collar boys, things like that. But I think what set it off for me is I realized that I'm about to hit. I'm rounding into that 1213 year mark in the industry, and I'm pretty young still. I'm only 46, so, I mean, certainly some people are listening, going, oh, my gosh, you're old. But the whole scheme of things and one of the things that struck me about that is, like, for instance, my second longest career is the military.
[00:01:28.130] - Chris
Yeah, right.
[00:01:28.730] - Brandon
That was eight years that I served in the military. And the other is, like, these situations where two or three years I'm working in some capacity, learning this skill set, and I'm advancing, going to this company, doing whatever those are. Those two kind of industry specifics, though, where I've spent the most amount of time and it just kind of was blowing me away that it's already been 1213 years that I've been hanging out in this industry and learning and growing and really being treated well by it. And it's part of what drives us and why we love it. Anyways, one of the things that I realized that I've reaped the benefits of has not necessarily always been or maybe it's rarely been raw performance or raw grit or I'm so awesome. It's not that it's really I have been able to take advantage of fruit that has been produced because I've committed to something and done it consistently and long enough that some of the inevitable result is beginning to produce itself. Now, that could go a million directions. Anyways, I wanted to hang there. Let's do it a bit today, if we can.
[00:02:32.820] - Chris
I like it. I love it. My brain is going off in four different directions already. It's awesome. Before we do that, though, we have some people to think that's right. First of all, let's talk about CNR magazine. We flip flop. We get to do these Reads brand and I change every time I get CNR today. Michelle has become a friend of ours. I think what we've observed over the last couple of years in particular is like, her ambition and her entrepreneurial spirit is powerful. It is what she's done with CNR after buying it, it's pretty remarkable how she's grown the subscribership. But we're also advertisers in CNR and we've seen a major lift from our advertising presence with regard to our number of listeners, people calling us for consulting, all that kind of stuff. So, from an advertising standpoint, and also just the industry intel, she's really firing on all cylinders with her team. They're always the one sort of breaking stories about M and A that's happening in the industry, other types of current events, and covering the work that RIA is doing in the industry and all of the people she's connected to, all the right people.
[00:03:39.510] - Chris
And you see that in the media and the content that she and her team are putting out. So, we're huge fans, we're advertisers, we're believers in what they're trying to do. So if you're not a subscriber yet, or an advertiser, you really should check into it.
[00:03:52.970] - Brandon
CNR and it's and andc and R magazine. Yeah, huge proponent. Good team list by team, man. We've been working with Zach and the.
[00:04:03.490] - Chris
Crew now for several months.
[00:04:05.220] - Brandon
Yeah, several months. Hitting the industry by storm. We ran and rave about them. So, Liftify.com is an automated Google review platform where it just, in a very consistent, consecutive way, very intentional, goes out, secures those Google reviews after a project is completed. And then, of course, just the benefit of having these live, consistent, and new five star reviews hitting your profile. The SEO activity that people are getting from this is immense. So for the cost that you're producing this or that you're charged to do this, the SEO upside is just bonkers. So Google is really emphasizing the value of Google specific reviews, and it's really having a profound impact on those that are using the service.
[00:04:51.220] - Chris
Yeah, we've had a few clients come back that within weeks, they were seeing a Lift pun intended in their organic Google 100%.
[00:05:00.340] - Brandon
And the guy is brilliant, so he can really talk you through what the impact is, what the effect is, why it's happening. In fact, we've got a couple of shows, not just with Lyftify and Zach specifically, but also Ben with Ironclad and him talking about the ramifications of those Google reviews. So check that out if you want a little deeper dive into the data and the analytics and why it's important. But guys, Google reviews, it is the fuel for us in our digital presence. Liftify can make it super fire and forget. Like, literally just put the system in play and they'll take care of business for you.
[00:05:31.800] - Chris
And it really doesn't matter whether you're a five location, $30 million company or you're a brand new startup. It's like you are going to get benefit either way. It's a larger company size. It's just so much of a no brainer. You sneeze more money than it costs to hire liftify to do that and it's very affordable for small restoration companies as well. So we recommend it to everybody.
[00:05:54.400] - Brandon
That's right, my man. Let's get into this. So it's this idea that when we do something consistently enough, inevitably we're going to get some form of a result. And maybe the counter to that is the flash and the pan behavior that so many of us get caught into where we get it's almost like, hey, what's going on right now is New Year's resolutions. How many people right now have created their list? Right? Their New Year's resolution, it's just like the gyms, you know. Right now they're making money hand over fist on sign ups and programs in March, how many of those people will still be paying in a program and committed to what's happening? Not very many. Yeah, like I think the washout's, what, 70 or 80% or something weird. Yeah, but we're all so susceptible to that. We're also susceptible of coming out of an event immediately, holding a meeting with one of our team members, talking about how critical it is for us to do X-Y-Z for the health of the business. And 45 days in, we're not inspecting that anymore. There's no accountability cadence. We're not even reviewing that agenda item on a consistent basis.
[00:06:59.900] - Brandon
We've just putttered out we got all excited, we didn't follow through with any level of consistency and then we're frustrated because we don't get the result that we're looking for.
[00:07:09.920] - Chris
Undoubtedly, consistency has been the single greatest impediment to my leadership and my personal growth, professional growth really, across my whole career now. It's something that over probably the last ten years as we've known each other, it's been something that I've been aware of and working on intentionally that whole time. And I feel like today I'm able to be a lot more consistent in the work that I do with clients and so forth. And it makes all the difference in hindsight. It's the little things that I forget who we were talking to. I think we even had somebody on the podcast and they were just talking about the importance of consistency within leadership. That it's almost everything about leadership.
[00:07:53.070] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:07:54.070] - Chris
I think it's kind of similar to how we can fall in love with our ideas that we get when the real work is the execution of the ideas. Like we can take a lot of personal ownership of this great idea I have, but everybody has great ideas. We place too much value on ideas rather than execution and I've been guilty of that. I think a lot of us as natural born leaders, we lead through our charisma, our energy, our drive, our curiosity, that kind of stuff. And consistency is not our strong point. We're evangelist is kind of more the category of leader we are. And so it's like we get really excited about the new thing. This is a merchant thing, by the way, those of you who are core value index people. It's very much a merchant thing. It's like as leaders, we're starter leaders, and then there is a class of leaders, and you and I worked with many of them. You're more like this than I am. They're better maintainers the only real differentiator aside from their natural wiring, and they like more details and process driven is just consistency. They're able to be more consistent.
[00:08:56.800] - Chris
And I think leaders like you and I that are more on that charismatic end of the spectrum, right. Merchants, relational, et cetera, we have to really develop that. Like, that's a muscle.
[00:09:08.950] - Brandon
You just have to flex.
[00:09:10.290] - Chris
It doesn't just come to everybody. It comes easier to others. But the consistency piece for me, what I've discovered is it's all about discipline. And that's what I've become better at in the last five or ten years is doing in the absence of feeling. It's like really cultivating that discipline to and I think the translation in our industry right. Is there are there even still are weeks where I don't feel like leading a sales meeting.
[00:09:36.470] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:09:36.800] - Chris
And I have a number that I help lead with our clients and sales leaders and stuff like that.
[00:09:39.950] - Brandon
And I show up.
[00:09:41.450] - Chris
There's part of me that just wants to throw the agenda out and just kind of earlier today, we were on boarding a client. I asked him about sales meetings, and he's like, basically, we get together bullshit for 45 minutes. I'm like, I love your honesty, but that is common. That is how a lot of our meetings go. Many of us here like, yeah, we had an agenda, but then we just bullshit it. We talked about a few things, and then somebody rabbit trailed off. And that is what happens. And I get that sometimes I'm not excited about my agenda because it's the same agenda we've had for the last 19 sales meetings. And sometimes I just want to whiff it and end up getting off on a rabbit trail with somebody. But it's the ability, I think, great leaders, truly great leaders that I've observed, when I try to break down what I admire about them or why I believe they're a great leader, it's because they're reliable. Yeah, man, every time I'm with that leader in a meeting environment or a one on one or just engaging with them, they're reliable. I'm going to say something else too that I don't know, maybe I'll regret it.
[00:10:41.460] - Chris
But there is when you talk about consistency, when you're a leader, people are watching everything about you. Everything about you. Are you overweight and fat? Do you eat like shit and you walk in with your Big Gulp and your go go to Ketos from 711 or wawa what image and how integrated is your leadership? Because people see everything about you. They hear how you talk to your wife on the phone. When your wife calls in the middle of the day and you're in the hallway, you're in your office, your door is open, they hear how you talk to your kids. As leaders, every aspect of our life is being watched. And I think consistency and discipline, it is the defining characteristic of a leader because it's really fucking hard.
[00:11:23.020] - Brandon
It's hard.
[00:11:23.600] - Chris
It is hard to be disciplined. And everybody recognizes that. Yeah, every single person in the world recognizes that discipline is hard. It's hard to do things that are unpleasant. It's hard to repeatedly do things oh man. When there isn't an immediate reward. Everybody knows that. And so everybody looks at the leader. And to the degree to which the leader models, I think, is the degree to which they respect and follow that leader because they can be counted on. There is some importance. I don't want to over index on this. Obviously you and I are really passionate about our physical health. We're vocal about all that. And I realized for some people they don't ever intend to be as prioritized up her life as much as maybe we do whatever, that's fine. We're not advocating for six pack ABS here, but are you £40 overweight? What is it doing to you and how does it impact your leadership? What are you modeling? You certainly aren't modeling selfcare. Is that fair? I think so. And of course we all some people have health conditions. I get it. Like, I know there's exceptions to every rule. I know that it's more difficult for others than for some than others.
[00:12:27.700] - Chris
I get all that.
[00:12:28.480] - Brandon
And it's certainly not even the point.
[00:12:30.160] - Chris
No, it's not even the point. The point is back to this consistency piece. I think it's discipline. And how does that show up on a day to day basis operationally? Well, I think a lot of leaders struggle to maintain battle rhythms in their business that are reliable. And so from week to week, they're peer level leaders, they're co leaders. So GM leadership, his or her leadership team, nobody knows exactly how that week is going to pan out. From week to week we might have a production meeting, but if something comes up, we might punt it. We might have a leadership meeting like we said we were going to do once a month. But then a storm happens and we punt it. We say that the morning stand two and all the elements, the key elements of a morning stand two are mission critical to our business. And then that Mitigation manager or whatever schedules a doctor's appointment during that stand to and they don't show up. That's not to say there's a Mitigation manager. You have to be the one leading your stand ups, obviously. But the point is if we say something's important, the first time that we punt it, people are like, I don't know if that's important.
[00:13:38.440] - Chris
The second time we punt it, they know it's not important, and they act as if I don't know. The more I think about leadership, there's so many fancy books on it, and I just wonder if it really like leadership. The translation is become a reliable person that people can count on, and people will follow you because they're hungry to have reliable people around them.
[00:14:00.730] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:14:01.280] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:14:01.470] - Brandon
It's funny too, because you and I have been pretty open about this in a lot of different situations, lots of different episodes that's come up. You and I are starters by default. If we're just kind of left in a vacuum, we'd be much more excited about starting something new over the next handful of weeks versus knowing that we have a mission in front of us that we can applaud through. And part of that is optimism, part of that is excitement. I think part of you and I are both kind of wired for vision, for what could be. And so we always get pumped when we see like, the foundation of some idea or the starting of something. And so in order for me and I just really appreciate because you're so transparent with some of your struggles, but I agree, that thing has been the most difficult for me as well. And full transparency. There's been times in GM spots or key leader spots that the lack of default to consistency plagued me and it really slowed the development in the growth of the businesses that I was leading. Because of that, it was hard and it had more of a negative impact than I did a good job controlling.
[00:15:01.540] - Brandon
Then there's been plenty of times where I was able to get a grip on a lot of that and we made a lot of progress. The reality of it is there's some level of natural wiring for all of us. But what I've found, ultimately is I just reached a certain point where I said it was very difficult for me to show that I was making gains as a professional, as a senior leader, if I wasn't getting a grip on how consistently I could stay, a, in my lane, and B, keep my finger on the most critical elements of the business. And I think one of the things that we see over and over and over again is a lot of times when we're working with people, let's be honest, it's not like we're necessarily bringing up some idea that nobody on the planet has ever thought about. In fact, we rarely ever do that 1% of the time, maybe, if that the reality of it, is that we're just a third party perspective that reminds people of the critical elements of how to create a healthy business. But really what it comes down to is once those ideas are presented, once somebody gets the reminder or gets some clarity around a certain initiative or vision for how things can be executed on the ones that win are the ones that keep that inspecting happening.
[00:16:15.690] - Brandon
They're consistent in the follow through of those processes, and that really becomes the differentiator between competitors. You've got two great companies, lots of great people, lots of stored energy. Maybe competency is the same across both teams. But I guarantee you the one that is most diligent, most consistent in the way that they pull up the dashboards, the way they pull up their reporting mechanisms, and the way they inspect what they expect. Those are the teams that continue to grow and build and define in a healthy way. We see lots of companies become explosive and grow big. They're just a tire fire on the inside because they've done nothing with consistency. They've done nothing to create that health that comes from it. It's very difficult, but at the end of the day, it's one of the most critical elements of success in our companies.
[00:17:10.940] - Chris
Don't you think? Part of living that out or trying to cultivate more consistency and discipline, reliability, that part of it as a leader is really being careful about what we introduce to our people. Like, you talk about really prioritizing and focusing on the most important things. But here's an issue I've seen, and actually, I saw a positive example. I recall not a specific thing that I just know this was part of my experience with you when we were leading. You were good, and I don't know if you've always been good, but I recall a number of times me bringing important things to your attention and you thoughtfully you explain the why behind it, but you're like, not right now. We can't introduce this right now. Good idea. I can think of several vague interactions that you and I had where you were very disciplined about that. You're like, no, we need to work on this AR initiative we have going on right now. Let's come back to this. It's important, it's valuable, but I got to protect people's focus right now. And I think as leaders, we forget to do that sometimes. We can kind of share every important thing.
[00:18:18.350] - Chris
And in fact, maybe that's the hardest part, right, is that we go to a conference, we read a book, we listen to a podcast, and we're like, oh my God, we totally have to be doing this. But we do that weekly and we bombard our people with really important initiatives. And in the end, no matter what we say, people don't know exactly what the most important thing is. And so therefore, we don't develop consistency or a battle rhythm on any one thing. We're kind of spraying and praying in a way, right? And I have a strong tendency to do that where I'm always masterminding the next thing or the next better way. And maintaining a handful of simple cadences or focuses becomes really hard because they start to become a pile of important things.
[00:19:08.540] - Brandon
Man yeah.
[00:19:09.220] - Chris
And then our people are sifting through the pile because we're in some way holding them accountable, but we're not getting a ton of speed or momentum built on any one thing because we have so many important things we're trying to hit on. I've seen that. I saw that in you, and I've seen that in other leaders where they're like, hey, this other thing you're bringing up is really important. But they have the discipline to say, but not now, not now. And we do this with clients. I think you and I have the opportunity to be so much more intentional because we're in this third position, like coaching position. We can see so much more clearly in a lot of ways than we did when we were operating to where now you and I can help play that role. We're like, okay, look, we got a lot of stuff we got to work on here. Let's focus on these three. And keeping the customer focused on those three is part of what they pay us for.
[00:19:58.830] - Brandon
That's right, because it's hard.
[00:20:00.460] - Chris
And I think it's especially hard, though, for that profile. I'm talking about that charismatic, self starter, entrepreneurial, achiever kind of personality. We love to. And it's an important role. I think sometimes when we talk about a starter and somebody's not a finisher, not a maintainer, it can carry a little bit of a condescending or a negative thing and it's like, no. And I think those of you that aren't starters that you struggle with that apprehension or that you are wired more cautiously and whatever those of you that are wired that way, you understand the value of starters. I think sometimes starters, we tend to not like that part of ourselves because we want to be a better maintainer. Yeah, better maintainer. But the reality is what it is. And all of us can become better by increasing this consistency piece.
[00:20:44.420] - Brandon
But it's interesting, too, because, like, our two day you and I put on two day operational leadership seminars. And one of the things that we prioritize in that is this kind of idea of staying in your lane. And one of the things that we work really diligently to do is first outline and identify what is the most important things that we need to be focused on. And we'd go into depth with that. And what's surprising, surprising and not surprising is how often that really is an epiphany opportunity for a lot of people because they're leaders in transition. They've come out of technical competent roles. They're now being tasked with being responsible for people and just their level of responsibility is completely different and they need a new toolkit anyways. One of the things that we really hammer on in that is driving consistency around being in your lane and focusing day to day on these critical elements that offer the most roy and I think what's interesting about it is that everybody at the surface can see the value of it. But so many of us to include myself will struggle day in and day out to include this week on following through on the things that we've identified or are mission critical for the business.
[00:21:48.900] - Brandon
And so I think it's important for us to maybe outline what are some things that we could be doing to enhance that consistency or enhance the discipline around that. And one of the things I heard you just say was, I'm paraphrasing now, but be honest about assessing what you or your people are capable of. So all of us have this like, legacy idea. Not all of us. Many of us have this idea of where we want our business to be. Right? It's why we hire consultants, why we train, it's why we do all the things that we do. We're going to be this kind of business. Great.
[00:22:19.500] - Chris
Love it.
[00:22:20.000] - Brandon
But to get there, you can't go from zero to 100% in one push. There's just too much to take on. So I think part of creating this consistency starts with us just saying, okay, let's prioritize first what is most mission critical. Meaning that when we put our finger on this thing, how much bandwidth does it give us? How much of the business does it affect or create a positive outcome or impact on? And then I think aligning that and saying, okay, here are the ten things. Whatever. Let's be honest about what I can physically do. Let's be honest about what my people can really focus on and be intentional with then using that as the foundation for how many different priorities do I establish and attempt to work on this year? Right? And I think the timing is interesting because all of us are about to execute on a 2023 plan. Do you need to relook at that plan? How many initiatives have you assigned for yourself this year? Hey friends.
[00:23:21.760] - Chris
Hey listeners. We're doing something a little bit different with our ads. So you've been accustomed to hearing some ads with our favorite partners and companies in the industry. Now we actually have a product page, our partners page, on our website. So floodlightgrp. Compartners. I want to give you a quick rundown though, of the people that we're partnering with and we believe in as really go to resources in the industry. The first one is restoration erp.com, right? ERPs are an important part of our sales process, our customer development process. And why reinvent the wheel? The restoration ERP platform is awesome. It can be customized to your business, branding and all that kind of stuff and has all the components to really create a value add for your commercial client. Accelerate job management software. Everybody needs job management software. And we have just found Accelerate. Not only is their team just really great to work with, when they get ideas from customers, they throw it into the product roadmap and they implement it. They're really advocating for the contractor and trying to create a software solution that works for them. Actionable Insights. We recommend actionable insights all the time, right?
[00:24:25.640] - Chris
All of us as restoration operators are looking for turnkey resources and training solutions that we can take our team to the next level. And AI, when it comes to estimating and matterport and a lot of the other essential tools we're using, they're an awesome resource and they're always coming out with new great stuff.
[00:24:43.880] - Brandon
Super influential in the industry. Super Tech University soft skills development training for your technicians, for your Frontline personnel. Let's face it, frontline personnel are the heartbeat of our company. They are the ones that connect with our clients and create the customer experience. There's no better investment than investing in the ability for those individuals to represent themselves, our clients and our brands well.
[00:25:07.860] - Chris
So super.
[00:25:08.440] - Brandon
Tech University? Surety. They essentially are cutting down this life cycle between delivering service and then getting paid, stepping in, removing the middleman in terms of mortgage companies, refining that pipeline, making sure that there's at least friction as possible so we can go out and do a great job, and then our businesses don't suffer while we're waiting to get paid. The money is coming and it's coming quickly. And then the last one, guys, is liftify is kind of a newer entry to the industry. They're driving Google reviews so they're a turnkey partner that we can literally go out, provide a great customer experience, hand that name off to our trusted partner in Lyftify and have them go chase that.
[00:25:47.630] - Chris
Google Review 25% conversion rate, which is industry wide. People tend to average 5% of the people you ask for review actually convert liftify bumps that to 25. We were such a big believer. We are a customer and they've been generating all of our floodlight reviews. And in a matter of a week and a half, we're up to, I don't know, close to 15 reviews in just a short period of time.
[00:26:06.940] - Brandon
And I think people just underestimate what happens organically with your SEO search activity when you're getting these new and active five star reviews from our clients. And we just can't let the pedal up on that because of the effect on our businesses. Long term.
[00:26:20.430] - Chris
Big deal. So check it out. Check out our partners page. Do business with them. You won't regret it. We're confident in that. Floodlightgrp compartners.
[00:26:29.200] - Brandon
Thanks, guys.
[00:26:31.290] - Chris
As you were saying that, I was like, okay, how do we decide? Do I have too many priorities in front of my people? Are there too many initiatives that I'm trying to move forward? I think one of the filters we can use, this just came to me is right looking at because I have these things, I'm dealing with this right now, and I know you are too. We're thinking about, okay, what are the battle rhythms that. Are so essential for us in our business and also with our clients. When I think of a new thing because of a podcast or book I just read or a conversation with a friend, I'm like, oh, shit, I got to work on this. I think then having that moment of pause as a leader and saying, okay, what other things did I already say were really important this year? Like, last year, what were those things and how many of them am I actually firing on? That's right, how many of them am I actually consistent on? Because you may say, well, I've learned more since then, and that thing is not as important as I thought it was.
[00:27:27.040] - Chris
That's totally possible. That's realistic. In which case, then I think as a leader, maybe the behavior we can put on is when I'm getting ready to throw a new thing in front of my team or myself or whatever, is first asking myself what other initiatives I said are really important that I'm still not 100% on. And so does it make sense like you did in several of those conversations, hey, good, maybe even great, but not now. And part of that here's, why, is looking at those current initiatives or those previous ones and saying, okay, are these still as high value as I said they were? If so, I'm going to delay this other thing. Or I may look at one of those initiatives and be like, you know, what that whole thing about? I don't know, me looking at that dashboard every Monday afternoon. The reality is this other behavior of me having to check in with my office manager every Monday, I think that actually is a way more value, that's more of a force multiplier than that habit I tried to start last year with checking my dashboard or whatever. And so I'm going to replace that one.
[00:28:27.860] - Chris
I'm going to say, yeah, that old thing, this is a higher value item. You plug it in right, instead of just adding on. Now I'm going to have a one on one with my office manager on Monday afternoon, and I'm also going to do this other thing. And that feels like not something I've done routinely, but something maybe I want to lean into this year because I'm an idea guy.
[00:28:48.310] - Brandon
You and I both really love bury.
[00:28:50.160] - Chris
Myself and the ideas and what this also brings to mind from a sales standpoint. So again, you and I sort of help lead a number of sales teams, and with this one team in particular, our largest sales team, I was doing a lot of molding over what is 2023 need to look like and how are we going to drive it. Driving sales in this industry is a really tricky kind of nuanced thing. It's all about the leading behaviors. It's all about getting the right people. It's all about getting the right language and all that kind of stuff straight. There's so much to figure out. But what are the key things that if you just do them day in, day out, what are the battle rhythms that if we sort of evaluated ourselves by, are we doing these 2341 thing every single week? We know is going to have a very high likelihood of leading success. That's right, because there's so much you can track and push on when it comes to sales. Really? If we just focused in as a team on one or two critical behaviors, what would those be? I tried to force myself into this exercise and where I landed and where ultimately we landed as a team when we rolled this out, is having five by Friday.
[00:30:03.000] - Chris
That's what we called it.
[00:30:03.810] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:30:04.310] - Chris
I think we've talked in previous episodes, certainly talk about it on some lives we've done. But this idea of anchor strategy, it's just so important, so valuable within restoration sales, this idea of every Friday, so the five by Friday is, I'm leaving the week already having at least one anchor appointment scheduled for the following week. Know where I'm going to be that week because my anchor appointment tells me, okay, I'm going to be in Dallas Fort Worth this week. I'm going to be in Tyler, Texas on Tuesday. I know where I'm going to be, and therefore I can schedule all of my other meetings and cold calling per day in that area. Anchor per day?
[00:30:39.520] - Brandon
Yeah, I think you said per week.
[00:30:41.370] - Chris
Oh, sorry. Per day. So I know where I'm going to be that day, which allows me, instead of driving all over Timbuktu, just kind of frenzy. Yeah. No, I'm intentionally booking all my sales meetings in a particular area of my market. And so we identified as a team. Look, if the whole team, every single week during 2023, has their anchor sales meeting set for the following week before they end the current week, we are probably going to find success.
[00:31:07.770] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:31:08.570] - Chris
That doesn't mean we stop. We're just doing five appointments a week, but we're leave on Friday with every person on the team showing a screenshot of their calendar on the group thread, holding each other accountable to that as a cadence. We're going to be successful, and I'm confident we are. And the whole team rallied around. They're like, I need this accountability. Sometimes they're tired on Fridays, and it's like, I've only got three days kind of outlined for next week. I need to bang out and get my last two days scheduled, whatever. So that was the first thing we settled on because the trickle down effect of that is huge. And so I think that's an example of us as leaders finding, okay, what are some of the most important things that have the biggest trickle down effect? So I can have the least amount of specific conversations, but just have them every single everybody knows if I ask them what are the two things they know at any given moment. The second thing we landed on was LinkedIn. We've talked a lot about the power of LinkedIn, and so we established the cadence of daily five days a week workdays.
[00:32:10.400] - Chris
We have a whole process. I'm not going to get into it here. We get into our master course, but we have a very specific LinkedIn process that we do for sales. And as a team, we talked about that and everybody ended up agreeing. They're like, these are the two most important things. If all we did was this, we're going to win. And so I think I'm trying to kind of break down what that process was. But for me, I was looking at 2023 and just thinking, god, how many sales calls where there's all these metrics that you can track as a sales manager? But the reality is it still comes back to those leading behaviors. Are we doing the right kind of behaviors and are we doing them consistently or not?
[00:32:48.640] - Brandon
Yeah, I think what you outlined there is you did assess, you assessed what can the team do? And that's what caused you to really break it down as a group and say, what are the most keeping the critical things. The critical things, the most important things.
[00:33:02.650] - Chris
The most important thing.
[00:33:03.450] - Brandon
So I think you did that. I think that's a perfect example. I think the other thing that you did there is you establish clarity on what the outcome is that we're attempting to create. And so I think that's another challenge that we have with creating consistency is we're very good at shotgunning out this idea, the principle, the concept, but then we don't finish unpacking the rest of those deliverables. And so we don't do a good job of assessing what our team can actually prioritize at any given moment. And then because we're not clear on what the outcome is that we want, we can't actually lead the team consistently and long enough to start seeing the end result that we're looking for. And I think we talk about this quite a bit with training as an example. I think this will align. We talk about really defining what training looks like. We've kind of identified this. We're not brain babies of this. It's just kind of industry stuff.
[00:33:54.860] - Chris
Brain babies.
[00:33:55.670] - Brandon
We didn't come up with it. But it's this idea of essentially three phases of training. That first one being, hey, watch me do this. I'm going to explain what I'm doing. That second phase being, now you do.
[00:34:05.010] - Chris
It, I'll coach you through it.
[00:34:06.290] - Brandon
And then that third one being, now you do it, and I will support you and hold you accountable. Well, it's that last piece that never normally comes to fruition, right? We get really good at maybe knee jerk. I'm going to go out and show my team this new way to do X-Y-Z task, and they do it. And it's a great example. Awesome. Sweet. The eternal optimist walks away and says, okay, nailed it. Our team is good to go. We don't even necessarily get into that phase where we intentionally ask our person to show us, you do it. I'm going to coach you through this. Put your hands on. Let's get motion going here, man. Let's make this happen. And then most of the time, what we see is we never get into that third phase where we actually are monitoring and inspecting what we expect from the team. Like we haven't reached that level of commitment. And I think that that is where that lack of consistency shows its head. It rears its ugly head. Right.
[00:35:00.740] - Chris
I'll tell you, here's a thought on that because my example with the sales team, of course now the task for me is those two things have to be the most important things that I'm focusing on a weekly basis and sometimes we set things up. There's a learning curve for our people. LinkedIn is a perfect example. A lot of salespeople, that's a real new skill base they're not as familiar with sort of working in the LinkedIn environment. Like they don't know their way around the profiles and all the functionality super well. And so what it means when I establish that with the team and this is my task right now. It's funny if I say that's the most important. I have a sales rep right now actually, that has struggled to kind of onboard the whole LinkedIn, getting it all dialed in and then working the system, the process. And so the first couple of weeks when we roll that out, they were like, yeah, I didn't follow the process the whole time. I'm still trying to figure it out. At sales meeting this Friday, I'm going to do another LinkedIn overview for the whole team because we have a couple of people that haven't really settled into the system yet.
[00:36:01.680] - Chris
And if I don't do that, then I'm inadvertently saying this is actually not one of our two most important things for the whole year. Right? So it's like, I think as leaders, we want to set an expectation. We want to set a new battle rhythm in place and then we kind of expect people to just adhere to it. And then if we let a couple of people slip, we let a week here, a week there where somebody didn't post the screenshot of their calendar, of their five anchor appointments. Right. And it goes unaddressed.
[00:36:31.200] - Brandon
Yeah, right.
[00:36:32.030] - Chris
Again, what we've allowed, we've allowed somebody to not have that as a priority. And so what I'm hoping to communicate with the team this week is, hey, no, this is really one of the two most important things we're going to do all year. Therefore we're going to train on it until it is clockwork. We're going to spend however much time we need everybody to get up to speed 100% on this thing before we even start talking about anything else. These two things, and I think that's the discipline as a leader, it's part of conceiving what are these most important things? And then orienting all of our inspection and all of our effort into making it the most important thing.
[00:37:15.480] - Brandon
Yeah. That's huge. I think just kind of maybe to start wrapping this up. Here's something that kind of just landed on me. As we've been discussing this, it's the fact that all of us, if we're honest, we can all look out over our staff. Let's not even do the hard work of looking at ourselves. It's always easier to look at everybody else. We look out over our staff, the hot shots, that man, that woman on our team that we just have a special admiration and respect for. Ask yourself why and really keep doing the whole layers of the onion why? Until you get to the root reason, and I almost guarantee you it's because there's a level of trust that you have for them. Why? Because the things that they take on or do, they do consistently.
[00:38:02.320] - Chris
They're reliable.
[00:38:03.200] - Brandon
They're reliable. If you've got that one hot shot project manager, why are they a hot shot? Are they a hot shot because they can just manage so much more money. My gut says the hot shots on your team are the ones that meet the standards in terms of how much productivity they can manage, but they do it consistently. Their margins are consistent. Their customer service examples are consistent. Their follow through is consistent. Their communications beat the dead horse. I can almost guarantee most of us, if we look at the elements of our business where there's traction, it's because that task, that thing, that person is being more consistent than they are not. Right.
[00:38:44.970] - Chris
They probably have and it's probably not a huge because some people hear that, and they get overwhelmed because they don't see themselves as a consistent person. They think about all the task pads and sticky notes and stuff required to do that. The reality is it's probably just two or three key disciplines that they don't stray from. It's probably not some elaborate, fancy, sophisticated way that they're doing their job.
[00:39:07.410] - Brandon
Like you said, the pile of priorities. Right? Yeah.
[00:39:10.240] - Chris
Right. It's like they probably just have two or I'm thinking of some of the really successful project managers that we had. They had two or three key disciplines that they rarely wavered from.
[00:39:20.660] - Brandon
That's right. Let's do a little summary.
[00:39:23.250] - Chris
This is really my resolution for this year.
[00:39:26.390] - Brandon
You beat me to it. Like, I want this year to be tagged by I'm not going to do the word theme. I'm going to stay away from it.
[00:39:34.970] - Chris
Oh, my word is reliable. If I say I'm going to do something because there's an integrity piece to all this.
[00:39:42.250] - Brandon
There is, man.
[00:39:43.340] - Chris
Like, we get the why. Why at the bottom of that pile.
[00:39:46.850] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:39:47.450] - Chris
Is am I living in integrity?
[00:39:50.510] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:39:51.280] - Chris
Am I watching the commitments I'm making because we're all making commitments probably every hour of the day. I'll call you back, I'll call you back soon. Turns into 4 hours.
[00:40:01.120] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:40:02.430] - Chris
I'll get you that email by the end of the day. And I'm sad how much I've done this. I'll get it to you by the end of the day. And my end of day is 09:00. P.m.. Yeah. My intent, the integrity part is when I said by end of day I did mean 05:00, but then I fudged it because I got busy. I didn't discipline myself very well that day and it was 09:00. And so I was out of integrity. Even though I told myself, well, I told them in today. Yeah, they're East Coast whatever. Right? Liability, man. It's the word of the year. I want to drill in and be more disciplined.
[00:40:37.670] - Brandon
That's where all of this kind of lands, I think, is when we think about consistency, that principle, that idea is going to create the most gains in our business. But it is difficult. It requires proactive engagement. It requires keeping it simple, right. That we can't over complicate things. I'm just encouraging everybody this year. I'm not a big fan of theme words for the year. You heard me already say that. If you could sum up what I could do as a key leader influencer, like, look, this is not just entrepreneurs and GMs here. This is all of us. What could we do internally to really have a profoundly different outcome at the end of this year? Consistency. Just identify a handful of things personally, professionally, just a handful of things that you're just going to promise to yourself, hey, I'm going to do this one leading activity, this one behavior. I'm going to maintain this one attitude, this one battle rhythm, and I'm just not going to let up. I'm going to do this all year. Okay, well, how are you going to do that? Quickly, and then we'll wrap this thing up. Hey, look for an accountability, buddy, right?
[00:41:43.040] - Brandon
Maybe someone else in the chain of command, maybe somebody outside of the organization, maybe somebody that's in that succession planning seat, somebody that's coming up in the ranks that you're mentoring and coaching. There's nothing wrong with being transparent with them of, hey, this is a priority for me. Will you help me be accountable to this? What a standard that you're setting and a precedent that you're setting for that individual who's learning how to be a leader under your guidance. Right? So I think understand that sometimes that it takes some accountability or to create that accountability, it takes some utilitarian behavior. Meaning maybe you put it on your schedule, maybe you mark or block that time on your calendar. You look for some ways to be accountable. Have a redundant somebody in the backup to help you stay true to that. If you do that on just a few things, somebody said this to me.
[00:42:30.610] - Chris
And I was like, this is so good. If you're a leader, that is, you get easily distracted. We've been talking about this whole time, right? New ideas, new initiatives, all the things. One of the suggestions that I heard from a leader was, look, I have to tell my team when I establish our priorities, I have to humbly ask them for their help. And I tell my team, listen, I'm inclined to go after the new shiny object. Maybe some of you can relate to that. Of course. Everybody does.
[00:42:57.080] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:42:57.610] - Chris
That key leader, that CEO, that GM, that sales manager, whatever it is, department leader is to establish what those priorities are with your team and ask for their help in staying focused on it. Hey, guys. I know in the past one of the bigger mistakes I've made is I throw something new at you guys, and then it's the idea of the day, and then four days later, we're changing it or we're doing this new thing. Now on top of that. I know I'm inclined to do that and know how frustrated that must be for you guys sometimes. Will you let me know? I'm giving you permission. If I start to stray on some squirrel or shiny object away from these three things that I just talked about, I want you to call me out. The team needs for you to call me out. Now, I may have an explanation of why that thing needs to happen, but there's a good chance that you're going to help me refocus on the priorities we've set. And I need that help. I'm not super human, right? I have the same distractibility. That all you guys have. But I'm responsible for you guys.
[00:43:55.210] - Chris
And if I start to straighten these priorities, please tell me. And I thought, God, that is so awesome. What a great way to model, humility, perfect and consistency for your team, man. Yeah.
[00:44:06.340] - Brandon
The principle, the stage that you're setting is will all work in the truth. Meaning that your key leaders that you're depending on being consistent, will be honest and be willing to be accountable and to have some directional shifting happen as required.
[00:44:19.370] - Chris
All right, right on. We just hit a hard stop. Floodlightgrp.com. Floodlight Friday live stream coming up. Tell everybody about the podcast Head Heart and Boots podcast, and check out our sponsors, CNR and Listify. We'll see you next time.
[00:44:32.200] - Brandon
Bye, gang. All right, everybody.
[00:44:35.660] - Chris
He.
[00:44:35.930] - Brandon
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Head Heart and Booth.
[00:44:39.270] - Chris
And if you enjoyed the show or you love this episode, please hit Follow. Formally known as subscribe. Write us a review or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.