[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 lead.
[00:00:18.050] - Chris
I love this industry.
[00:00:20.930] - Brandon
Chris, how are you, sir?
[00:00:22.230] - Chris
I am well.
[00:00:23.010] - Brandon
I jumped in there quick.
[00:00:24.040] - Chris
It was like you didn't want me taking the...
[00:00:25.680] - Brandon
no, I didn't want you sliding in, and that's all getting out of hand.
[00:00:29.960] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:00:30.970] - Brandon
I thought, today is an episode. Let's just go right into our airport experience where the guy told me my mustache looks stupid, and I was overconfident.
[00:00:38.150] - Chris
Whoa
[00:00:38.950] - Brandon
you want to just go into that?
[00:00:40.090] - Chris
Hey, before we go into that story, though, let's talk about our sponsors. We did have an airport incident, and I really thought, I don't know if.
[00:00:47.650] - Brandon
I really want to go there, but it was kind of funny how's that for a show opener?
[00:00:52.080] - Chris
its really getting real. I think that it'll give some insight into you. People have probably a mental image of you throwing a keyboard down the hallway. Those that are
[00:01:01.810] - Brandon
at least one or two people,
[00:01:03.330] - Chris
loyal fans. Right. They probably remember that story from a previous episode. So this would add another bit of color.
[00:01:08.040] - Brandon
Let me fix my stupid mustache.
[00:01:09.610] - Chris
Yeah, fix your stupid mustache.
[00:01:11.680] - Brandon
Let's hit our sponsors, man, because we love them. Let's give them some love, and then we can and then you start with the story. Yeah, I'll tell it.
[00:01:17.930] - Chris
Okay. Your mustache gathers a lot of attention when we're in airport, both positive and both other.
[00:01:24.040] - Brandon
Clearly. Yeah. I think up until that moment, we didn't know that there was another side, but clearly there is.
[00:01:28.720] - Chris
Oh, goodness. All right, so first of all, we got to get serious. We're doing ads.
[00:01:32.820] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:01:33.820] - Chris
We love our first sponsor, CNR magazine. Literally, for us, CNR is Michelle. Now, Michelle is obviously in her ambition. She's grown. The team, they've got just a powerhouse group of folks that are putting content together. They're scooping all the great interviews. If you want to know what's going on in the industry, like, follow CNR, and certainly follow Michelle as well. Michelle Belovens, she's just a powerhouse. She's a very entrepreneurial leader. And ever since she's taken over CNR, CNR is everywhere. It's everywhere in the industry. She's at all the key events. She's interviewing all the key people. She's on top of the MMA. She and her team just they put out great content work. And I think the other thing that I appreciate is she also provides a platform for restorers and industry leaders to share their experience and share their knowledge. It seems like every single week there's great articles coming out that are actionable. So, yeah, I can't recommend it enough if you're not familiar with CNR, which is kind of hard for me to believe that there's somebody out there in the industry that hasn't heard of it. Get familiar. Right. Go follow them on LinkedIn.
[00:02:38.730] - Chris
Go subscribe to their newsletter on their website. Check out some of the articles that Brandon and I wrote there. Of course. And, yeah, you won't be sorry. I mean, if that's a new thing for you, go discover CNR.
[00:02:51.130] - Brandon
Yeah, for sure. All right. Liftify. Zach Garrett. Super fun getting to know he and his staff. Even more fun to hear the success that our clients are having as they continue to deploy their team with their Google reviews. So, Lyftify.com, Liftify is essentially an automated system to go out and get you five star reviews once you finish a project and you wrap it up and your clients happy, these guys take over and they go to work for you to make sure that you can get recognized for the value that you brought your client. And in return, that value is huge for you and your organization. In terms of SEO Organic Search, it is by far one of the best spins that we've seen in terms of the actual effect on your digital presence, it's pretty darn amazing. Rates, participation rates north of 2020, 5%, which is just absolutely unheard of. So do yourself a favor. Get dialed in with liftify.com. Let them take over your Google review pursuit. They're phenomenal. And hands down, the results are just absolutely banging. So jump over there, support those guys, and do your business a favor. It's well worth it.
[00:04:00.410] - Brandon
Okay, man so we weren't going to talk about this.
[00:04:03.470] - Chris
I just thought it would be interesting.
[00:04:05.250] - Brandon
Yeah, it's kind of funny. I don't even know if there's any value whatsoever. Maybe anger management.
[00:04:10.330] - Chris
Were we coming into Denver?
[00:04:12.090] - Brandon
Gosh. Where were we? Yeah, I think we're coming into Denver. Did we already have a problem with the flight?
[00:04:17.390] - Chris
Probably, like, every trip.
[00:04:19.260] - Brandon
Yeah, like every trip. I'm not going to dime out. United Airlines, our experience has been with them. But wait, that's not true. Wait, I just dime them out.
[00:04:28.710] - Chris
We've had mixed experience. Sometimes they've been very helpful in accommodating.
[00:04:32.490] - Brandon
That's fair.
[00:04:33.100] - Chris
And then other times that's fair.
[00:04:35.020] - Brandon
That's a much more non dramatic way to explain our experience with flying.
[00:04:39.620] - Chris
Plenty of drama in the story. Plenty of real drama.
[00:04:42.560] - Brandon
Yeah, just for giggles, I guess, for pure entertainment. Okay, this is how it went down. So we are on a plane. I believe our flights already been delayed. We're already kind of frustrated. This is at the tail end of a week of travel, which I always get a little whiny and complainy towards the end of that span. And I don't know why people do this, but we're sitting in our seat. The plane is just now stopped, and folks are just now standing up. So think about what your experience is on an airplane. It's a tube. There's only so much room to go anywhere.
[00:05:15.520] - Chris
One way out.
[00:05:16.220] - Brandon
There's only one way out. And there's the group. All the participants on this flight have just stood up. And there's this dude that is pushing his way down the aisle. And ends up stopped right next to me. So now his ass and his elbow is, like, at face level, right? And in my mind, I can't comprehend where this guy came from and where the hell he thinks he's going. People aren't getting off the plane yet. Yeah.
[00:05:44.110] - Chris
Basically, this is the quintessential cutting in line move.
[00:05:47.620] - Brandon
Yeah. Only you're in a sardine can, and there's nowhere to go. So I think if I remember correctly, I asked him, is there any reason you need to get off the plane before every single other person? Like, are you trying to catch a flight? And he just stared at me.
[00:06:02.390] - Chris
Oh, yeah, I was right next to it.
[00:06:05.080] - Brandon
Yeah. He just looked at me and he goes, what did he say? No, but it's cool, right?
[00:06:10.390] - Chris
Yeah, it was kind of like, hey, bro, but it's all good.
[00:06:14.170] - Brandon
It's cool, right? And no, it wasn't cool, and I don't think it's cool for anybody else on the flight. So anyways, I didn't even make much more than a remark, I think, after that because I'm just like looking at stupid, and there's only so much you can do when you're looking at stupid. So listen to me right now. So then we finally get off the plane. Oh, I think at some point he looked back and said, hey, when we get off the plane, tell me how you really feel. So of course I got off the plane and told him how I really feel, and it was just kind of a unique experience to begin with.
[00:06:45.510] - Chris
And I'm just along for the ride. I'm thinking I did take jiu jitsu classes for three months back in 2020 2019. Am I ready for this? How is this going to play out? What's going to happen here? I have a former US Army parrot trooper with me that is getting challenged by some knucklehead.
[00:07:05.930] - Brandon
Oh, it gets better.
[00:07:06.980] - Chris
What's going to happen, right?
[00:07:08.300] - Brandon
Yeah, the story is just getting right now. Listen, guys, just the disclaimer. I'm not trying to ruin the story right out of the gate, but look, I'm not looking to fight anybody. Like my goal on a Friday night at freaking 09:00 or whatever it is, I just want to go home. I'm just irritated that this guy went out of his way to stick his ass in my face so that he could somehow get off the plane before another 100 and something people do, right? All right, so anyways, I get off the plane, and I barely politely tell him how I feel that it's ridiculous for you to do that to people waiting on the plane. They're all trying to get off just like you. So he didn't really have much to say that. So we start walking away, and he tells me, hey, thank a vet. Oh, fuck. Okay, now, I didn't want to get into a fight, but now I'm kind of wanting to get into a fight because there's nothing that pisses me off more than someone leveraging the title, respect and honor that servicemen and women earn through sacrifice and throw it in your face like something is owed them.
[00:08:10.440] - Brandon
Because normally when people do that, they're not the kind of people that you respect. It's normally some douchebag. So my mind went there and I immediately labeled this guy as douchebag. And I asked him, I said, what did you say? And he said, Why don't you thank a vet. I said, Why would we do that? Are you one? And he said, yeah. And I said, Why don't you start fucking acting like it then?
[00:08:33.060] - Brandon
I think that was pretty much my words. Pretty sure. I think it was pretty close then. Anyways, he was not happy with that. And at some point he turned to me and said, nice goofy ass mustache. You're clearly overconfident. I think that was after he told me his MoS was something to do with administration or something, I don't know. Okay, so long story short, we let it go. We didn't bust his lip, we didn't fight. But I just share that with you so that you all know. Clearly not everybody likes the mustache. That was the moral of the story.
[00:09:07.410] - Chris
And the moral of the story is, don't cut in line in front of Brandon on an airplane.
[00:09:13.730] - Brandon
Be respectful of the people around you.
[00:09:18.130] - Chris
I think part of this was we were having a very difficult time on our flight path back from where we.
[00:09:24.960] - Brandon
Were, which is a normal we were.
[00:09:26.570] - Chris
Like, starting out, not in the greatest head space.
[00:09:30.150] - Brandon
No, I was frustrated. This guy clearly had something to be frustrated about besides his own. Stop it, Brandon. Okay, I'm stopping. Yeah. I like sharing stories like that because I think they're, like, halfway entertaining. Because I think there's something a bit.
[00:09:46.170] - Chris
I was thinking, man, you thought we.
[00:09:48.430] - Brandon
Were going to get it.
[00:09:49.440] - Chris
I just thought this might turn into a fracas and then somebody's going to catch it on their cell phone.
[00:09:55.150] - Brandon
I was kind of ready, and I'm not going to lie about it, dude. My self restraint had started to slip pretty heavy. Your fight or flight was it was kicking in. And I was really enjoying mentally in my mind what it was going to feel like to open that guy's face up. But we didn't. It all worked out. It was fine. He went home, whatever he does at home, and he's now cutting in line successfully somewhere else in life. So there we go. Okay, dude, let's move on. Hopefully that was somewhat fun.
[00:10:22.420] - Chris
I'm glad you told everybody how you really felt about it. I thought you were going to hold back.
[00:10:26.200] - Brandon
Oh, man. Yeah. No, that was filtered. That was totally filtered. Okay. All right. Serious business here. You and I recently on a Friday floodlight friday.
[00:10:35.410] - Chris
I can't wait to hear how you integrate SFL. Okay, here we go.
[00:10:38.430] - Brandon
Yeah. I don't know. That the fight scenes coming back or the lack thereof. All right, so anyways, recently Christopher and I were kind of pingponging a topic that I believe is really relevant for all of us right now. Most of us are in this space as we look at our business and we're about to start embarking on or executing on a new strategic plan for 2023. Right? And if any of you and your businesses look like ours or any of the folks that we work with, there's a strong chance that change is in the future, right? So growth requires change, expansion, right. People that are doing M and A projects right now, you're merging in new teams and brands and attitudes. There's just this core thing that happens when we grow our business or try to refine our business or make it more healthy. It's changed right at the end of the day. And the reality of it is that people don't like change for the most part, right? There's some folks that they can't wait for change, but in general, the masses get uncomfortable change. I think my goal today is I want to chat a little bit about some of the strategies that we can deploy within our organization to help change actually happen and hopefully have change happen in a way that's healthy and people get excited about.
[00:11:55.060] - Brandon
And granted, I know that these are ideas and theories. We've seen them work, we've deployed them, we've helped people deploy them, but people are people. And this can be a challenge no matter what we do and how well we do it. But I think if you practice some of the things that we're going to chat about today, I think it'll make the process more enjoyable, more healthy at minimum. Right? Okay, so here's kind of broad strokes. I'm going to throw some outline here, Chris, and then let's see if we can kind of start stapling on some parts to the core there. So there's a couple of things that caught in my mind. So one is key leaders just as a topic influencers, and I think the other thing is a vision message. Those to me are like, if I was just purely going to look at some outline items, that's kind of where I wanted to hang and then I know you're going to contribute significantly to that. So let's start at the top of the actually, now before we get there, let's unpack some of the things that people are experiencing that makes change hard.
[00:12:56.460] - Brandon
And I know that a lot of us have been through these types of things before and we can I think in general, everybody goes, yeah, change is hard, people don't like change. Okay, good. But let's get onto the surface a little bit and start identifying what really motivates people to be fearful of change. What is it basically that drives that dragging of the feet and the things that we experience? One that I've seen that I don't know is as obvious as some of the other things. Like afraid of change. Right. One of the things I've seen is we get personnel that over time have created their value statement of themselves based on the knowledge that they have and the current things they do. Right. So you get tenured folks on the team. They've had a role, they've done it well. But they have a rhythm, they've got a system. It doesn't require as much from them. They can do a lot of it on autopilot. And they may be like the only person that has that skill set or that knowledge base. They may be the everything goes through them in this particular chain right.
[00:14:02.190] - Brandon
Or this particular process. And there's value that they get from that. It makes them feel important. It makes them feel like they're needed. It makes them feel as if we don't have a choice but somehow to take care of them and keep them on the team because we can't lose that skill set in quotes. And so when you begin introducing the idea that that role is going to shift or change, we're really taking the thing that they believe creates value for themselves and we're putting it into question. Right. The reason I think it's important to understand it at that level is we need to know why people are putting their feet down. Because a lot of times we think it's because they aren't very competent or.
[00:14:42.030] - Chris
They'Re just not a team player.
[00:14:43.120] - Brandon
They're not a team player. They don't care. They're lazy, they're self centered, whatever. And those things can all be true.
[00:14:49.840] - Chris
Oh, sure. Just like they can be for us.
[00:14:52.610] - Brandon
Exactly. But I think it's good for us to remember because it begins to shape how we deploy change and how we interact with our team in it instead of this just do as I say because I know it will work. If you understand that people might be dragging their feet because they're afraid that this new role will not make them valuable any longer right. That's important because if you think about the emotional need attached to that and the fact that you're trying to ask them to modify their behavior, it looks different when the thing that they're trying to do is preserve their value. Right. That's different than I just don't understand your idea. Okay, so that was one I don't know. Do you have maybe another one where it's like just not the total obvious?
[00:15:36.410] - Chris
Well, yeah, I think that identity piece is huge. I think, too, there's like a quality of life that I feel is threatened where, like that scenario you described, I think it's a really familiar one for a lot of people is you've got somebody who's got incredible field technical knowledge and they're the go to person. And in my experience, a lot of times as a business, you'll make accommodations for somebody like that that you want for other people on the team because they're so valuable in these certain areas. If I think of a client right now who has a situation like that where it's very difficult when you've got somebody's very experienced their field knowledge is very valuable. You're inclined to let them get away with certain things. You relax standards in certain areas to keep them on the team because you feel like you can't lose them. And then you start to introduce change. You start to introduce a new system where maybe that skill set or that talent isn't as much of a requirement. We see this happening with estimated I.
[00:16:35.890] - Brandon
Know it's the first thing too.
[00:16:38.020] - Chris
It's like when somebody's been a career estimator. They've gotten to a really comfortable place where they understand the tools, they understand the landscape, they understand all those things. And now you start to take away or the value of that role starts to erode. Thanks to technology and all the other things centralization these remote estimating hubs that are forming all over the country, all that kind of stuff. Instead of them reacting as sweet a new opportunity to grow instead it's like shoot, there goes my kind of this cherry eight to five kind of role where I know exactly what's required of me, I know which corners I can cut. I've got this whole lifestyle dialed in now I'm potentially going to have to put more effort in all that kind of stuff. I think it's a lifestyle fear too. How much more is this going to demand? I've got this good thing that's huge.
[00:17:32.350] - Brandon
I think that's a big thing.
[00:17:34.210] - Chris
And I think too as leaders those are the details that we often don't bother to think about because we tend to think about the business. What does the business need in order for us to get to the next level, to get our profitability where it needs to be to whatever we aren't thinking about what consequences might exist for the team that's going to do this.
[00:17:58.060] - Brandon
Yeah, the individual especially. Right. We do tend to take a global perspective. That's our job as key leaders and owners and sometimes in that global perspective we can lose sight of the actual one on one effect with one of our specific personnel down line. Yeah, I think that's a really good one. I think again just and everybody knows this one is just that fear. It's the fear of the unknown. And essentially I think what's a little bit unique about this that sometimes we don't always give credit to. It's not necessarily just the fear of what is unknown. It's actually the stories and assumptions that we begin to make about the unknown. Right. And so it's almost safe to assume. It's never safe to assume. Right. But if you're going to assume something about instigating change in your organization, I think the one safe assumption is the fact that people will build a story and in that story it's likely not them experiencing a better outcome. I don't know why we tend to do this by default, but if you think about all the scenarios that you've been in where there's a substantial amount of unknown, how much of those unknown details that you start filling in are fairly negative?
[00:19:11.490] - Brandon
Right. I don't know why we do that. I can't explain it. Someday we'll have somebody on the show that will tell us. But that's happening. And so I think that that part of the reminder that we want to address or think about as we get down in it is it's not just the fear of the change. They're likely to start filling in the blanks and when they do so, those blanks will tend to be negative. Like it's more work, more effort, more time or whatever.
[00:19:39.280] - Chris
Another, I think, fear for a lot of people in a state of change is I don't know if I'm going to be good at this new thing.
[00:19:48.220] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:19:49.020] - Chris
I don't know. That speaks to the identity and it speaks to, I think, lifestyle, but it feels a little bit different. Right. I don't feel confident that's it in whether or not I'm going to be successful in this new version of what's coming.
[00:20:04.980] - Brandon
That's right. Well, it's the same thing that we see leaders struggle when they make that transition from the field to management roles is they too they tend to slide back into those day to day activities that mirror more what they were used to because there's more confidence for them. And I think what else is kind of interesting about what you're talking about is that subconscious interaction is what's happening there. So there's this level of someone reacting to you and this new strategy that really has nothing to do with you or the strategy. It's all this subconscious response to I'm now all of a sudden nervous about whether or not I'm confident and competent enough to do what you're asking me. These are all probably the most influential things. Right. I think just about other stuff could probably fall under these themes and I don't know, I mean, many of you out there that are listening to this and you're in the midst of your own change within your organization, maybe you're experiencing something else that feels like it's creating a friction point or something. I think the goal with this, in terms of getting clarity around some of the things that cause people to fear change and drag their feet, is that it's very emotional and internal.
[00:21:19.680] - Chris
Yes, but there's also this tendency, and I've seen this in virtually every team I've been on because I think it is a universal thing that all of us struggle with, is that we love company. So it doesn't take very long. When these questions and fears and concerns start to percolate in my head, I'm clamoring for others that feel the same way. And then I share my version of the story, they share theirs, which may be better or worse, but we're going to glom onto the worst version because there's safety in numbers.
[00:21:52.340] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:21:53.170] - Chris
I've felt this and I've seen it. You get two, three, four people all now comparing their stories and now there's a primary story that sort of comes out of that and it's the worst version.
[00:22:04.830] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:22:05.560] - Chris
And then now all of a sudden they're protecting each other from this change. Oh, man. Huge. And then you also have some people that are just inclined the salespeople in the group or whatever where they're the evangelist, and so then they set out to get other people on board. So then potentially, I think, in our minds, they can avoid the change or they can somehow influence not making the change. And now as leaders, you're dealing with this weird version of the story. Now you're having to not only talk people down off the ledge, but now you've got confusion in your ranks and also potentially people don't trust because now you've had this peer group that's been waving this red flag. It just turns into a mess. And I think we've experienced this. I think probably everybody listening has experienced the drama. Like, how does a drama erupt in a business will change as one of them? Because people band together and they start refining the story to protect themselves. In the end. Of course, a lot of times those people are the first to die on the sword because it's like, wow, you can't tolerate that at some point.
[00:23:14.050] - Chris
It's like, Whoa, hold on, let's get on the same page. And if we can't, you got to get out.
[00:23:18.700] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:23:19.180] - Chris
Because we can't navigate this as a business with people working against yeah, that's right.
[00:23:25.330] - Brandon
Almost intentionally sabotaging or whatever. Right.
[00:23:27.970] - Chris
And it's all out of fear.
[00:23:30.130] - Brandon
I think that's the key is that we've talked about this in other relationships in terms of employee, employer and things like that, how you get into a cycle where it almost becomes a self fulfilling process. Oh my gosh, that can happen. We see good people not make a transition when a company is changing because we just didn't manage that change well. And so this friction begins, the story begins to unfold, and then they begin to continue reading our actions and the way that we're interacting with them as support of this misaligned story they've created. And in return, we end up getting frustrated and ultimately forcing them to make.
[00:24:06.610] - Chris
A choice and then to make it worse. Sometimes our idea or our change initiative is really flawed and our people see it. So there's a reason behind the pushback. And I think I've certainly made the mistake at times where I doubled down, I dug in my heels on rolling out that change and it just got worse and worse because it was like everybody knew that this was a bad plan except for me. And it's almost always because I'm disconnected from what the consequences are. Going to be? What is the effect? How is that going to change the workload? Does my team even have the capacity to implement something like this right now?
[00:24:45.980] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:24:46.760] - Chris
And that's difficult to know as a leader sometimes what the capacity of our team is. And so then you just roll out this thing. So anyway, what's the solution to this? What are some ways that we cannot find ourselves stuck in that?
[00:24:59.980] - Brandon
Because I think you're kind of what you're turning to is it's this proactive thought process and strategy that we deploy in order to affect change in the business in a way that's healthy. So I think the first one is as a key leader, let's say this is a GM or a business owner that identifies there's some change that we need to put into the business. A lot of times it's systemization, it's process adhesion, it's these different things. Well, let's begin sharing that strategy and bringing our key leaders in to help influence it. Here's what we mean by that. So if you're a GM, let's get our department heads in that first layer, right? And I know a lot of you think to yourself, well, duh, okay, well, that's great. If you're in the camp where it's duh good, you're halfway there. For the rest of us that are more normal and human, there's a real strong chance, especially on the entrepreneur side of things, you're a doer. You just get in, adapt, overcome, figure it out. Right. That's what makes you a successful business person and entrepreneur. We got to slow the road enough to make sure that the vision of how the rest of our team is affected by this is processed.
[00:26:05.420] - Brandon
And so kind of like what you were talking to about. There are people on our team are closer to the field, closer to the nuts and bolts of how we do what we do that are seeing things that maybe it's been a while and we don't see it as clearly anymore. Right. This happened to me as a GM as I started to move up the ranks. It just got to the point where my experience in the field, the time that I was able to give that gets smaller and smaller. And so my real connection to the field does not come easy. I have to intentionally go pursue it so that I remain connected to the aftermath and the effects on my team. So anyways, by us first getting our key leaders in, there's a couple of things that you do. One is you probably hired these key leaders for a reason. I either not just like you, they may have natural strengths and experiences that are different from you. If you're smart, that's what you have, and that's great. And so their vision or their site to help add color to your perspective is critical.
[00:27:03.360] - Brandon
But also you can't do these lifts on your own. And so it's really important that we get. A department head or a team lead engaged because it's going to be vital for them to help in the lift. We talk about this all the time. The idea of leadership plays this role almost like a WiFi repeater in a big commercial building. There's the signal that starts at some central point somewhere or some main point. It gets passed down these 100 foot hallways and at some point there's a repeater that grabs that signal, re amplifies it and fires it back off again. And the purpose of that is so that you don't lose signal strength. It's so that that bandwidth remains the same throughout the building. Yeah. And I think our leadership, we need to think about it the same way. There's a massive distance between our top line leader or business owner and our downline field staff. And if you don't put systems in place to create a repeating and a reampification of that message, what gets sent out to our teams will only be marginally as good as it started. Right. Bandwidth will deplete, the strength of that message will go down, the type of message begins to become more garbled and less similar.
[00:28:19.970] - Brandon
So anyways, getting our key leaders involved, they help be that repeater signal. They're the ones that help take that message and that vision, which is the third part I want to talk about today. And they make sure that that same message is being deployed consistently and correctly. It's not taking a new shape. Right. And then of course, they, they can give you perspective that you need to make sure that your strategy or your change is going to work. I mean, from your experience, you and I talk a lot about this relationship between sales and operations. What are some examples from your perspective where that signal doesn't get repeated adequately? We don't get key leaders engaged in that strategy change and it has a negative impact on the team as a whole. Right?
[00:29:05.980] - Chris
Well, I think one of the biggest disconnects is between operations and sales. A lot of times we're constantly changing things and fine tuning things on the op side. But I've made the mistake, even as a sales leader, of not adequately articulating the change, the impact, the why, the early, what's going to be difficult about this, that kind of stuff to my salespeople, about what changes and initiatives are taking place on the operations side. And that's what I was VP of Sales. I was the main conduit to our leadership team for my sales team. And I often just underestimated the importance of maintaining that clarity because it's one of the more common areas, I think, of drama in a restoration company or service business of any kind is that disconnect that can happen between sales and service. And a lot of times too, the reality is initiatives that we're doing on the operations side are really designed to ultimately benefit the sales team. It's to create more consistent work product. It's to create more professional, more skilled, more thoughtful frontline technicians that are interacting with our clients. And so it's for the benefit of the sales team, but it's a process.
[00:30:25.990] - Chris
And so I think a lot of times there's going to be fumbles, there's going to be some misses. It's going to be messy while that change is starting to take hold. And if we're not careful, all the sales people are going to feel and hear is, I can't trust my production team. I can't trust my field folks. Things are messed up. Things are crazy. And then that erodes their confidence, and then they stop aggressively selling. We start to have a revenue problem, which then ultimately cascades down and affects our field teams that we're trying to bolster up. I think for me, it's learning to communicate early and often about, hey, pros and cons. Let's just be really honest and transparent. Tell people we talk about this. When it comes to that initial recon meeting that a project manager has with their recon customers, what we found is it's really important to let them know when the hard parts and the frustrating parts are going to come into the process. Because we know in the restoration industry that there are no perfect projects. And we also know where the common failure points are and frustration points are.
[00:31:34.720] - Chris
Like, one of those, for example, is we call the silent phase, where we're negotiating the scope of the job. We're figuring out what coverage is in place. We're setting up ourselves. There's not much visually happening for that customer, and it can feel really frustrating. But if we talk about it ahead of time, it's less disruptive, it's less frustrating for the customer. I think the same thing is true with our people. If we say, hey, look, we're anticipating that part of this is going to be really hard. Here's the hard part that we think is going to here's what part we think is going to be the most hard. Then when they experience it, it actually creates trust because, like, oh, yeah, they said this was going to be tough, and it is. But I think it also takes away some of the sting of that. When you talk about the difficult stuff.
[00:32:17.690] - Brandon
Up front, well, it certainly helps get rid of that story. If they don't understand, right? Like, if you don't convey that message and they experience that, that's the first reason they pull the ripcord.
[00:32:28.250] - Chris
Yeah. And even I think getting into, how is this going to be hard for you? When we talk about massive sweeping changes that are happening in the estimating side of the restoration industry, it's like sitting down with that person saying, look, here's where things are going. What do you make of that?
[00:32:43.650] - Brandon
Yeah, what do we do? Yeah.
[00:32:44.850] - Chris
Like, what parts of this do you think are going to be challenging for you or a growth area? And just getting really honest about it. I think so often when we're anticipating a difficult reception, rather than us being more explicit and more transparent, we're kind of trying to round off the edges.
[00:33:02.640] - Brandon
Of the hard stuff.
[00:33:04.970] - Chris
We soft pedal the challenge that's in front of us. And I think in my experience, that nearly always backfires. When I soft pedal the negatives, the cons, it always backfires. Whether that's in the expectations we set for a client or what we communicate to our people.
[00:33:23.120] - Brandon
I love this. So I'd like to come back to this piece because I think what you've started to tap into here is this is the toolkit for communicating effectively through change. And so I want to come back and really hang in that pocket for a bit because I think you started to scratch the surface, but there's a lot more for us to chat about there. Okay, so we kind of start at the highest level, and we're saying, hey, it's critical get your left and right managers in the room and come up with this strategy. And I would say slow your road a little bit. Even if you've got a lot of time and grade, you've been around the block a handful of times, your strategy is probably sound good for you, but let's still do the practice of bringing my key leaders in and getting their perspective. And I think you alluded to something really powerful, and that is how many times do us as operational teams completely forget the value of bringing our sales team in and talking about the operational changes that are underway or that we're strategizing over? There were times I had to be careful that I didn't get halfway into a conversation, a strategy conversation.
[00:34:27.580] - Brandon
When you're not in the room and it's not a value statement of you and my relationship, you just think about it. Ops people, you just get in the space where Ops is Ops, sales and sales, they probably don't care. There's probably not a lot that they.
[00:34:40.600] - Chris
Can contribute from the truth.
[00:34:42.260] - Brandon
It's just not true at all. Yeah, in fact, it's actually quite negative. And we miss one of the best perspectives on our team, the ones that are interacting directly with our clients in terms of satisfaction and hearing them anyways, starting with our key leaders, bringing them into the process, not just to tell them what you've come up with, but to actually actively engage them in the strategy creation. Okay, now, listen, for those of you that listen, and I know we get a mixed group, so some of this might feel a little crappy for some of you, but look, as a leader, one of our most important responsibilities is perception management. We talk about this with leadership teams. Hey, look, you can argue behind the scenes. You can give each other aggressive pushback. You can fight over the topic to ensure the best thing is put into play. That's your job. But when you leave the room. It's unity. The perception management is, as a leadership team, we do have each other's back. We professionally challenge each other because that's our job. But at the end of the day, it's all for one and one for all, right?
[00:35:44.260] - Brandon
And I think the same thing happens when it comes to leadership in general. There may be times where you do have the answer, and that's great. That's part of the reason you're an owner or key leader. You've been around perception management sake. It's still critical that you get feedback from your team. Worst case scenario, you learn something and actually you didn't quite have it all figured out. All right, I guess that's best case scenario. Worst case scenario, you manage perception. So even if you still end up going the route that you initially were headed, now you've got buy in because you took the time to have that contribute. Okay, so we beat that one up pretty good. All right, here's another one that I think a lot of us misunderstand or don't deploy really effectively when it comes to changes, identify, like people would call your change agents, your influencers. There's people on our team, and often they are the least paid and often have nothing remotely near any kind of leadership title that have one of the loudest and most influential voices in our companies. And certainly when you get under the management level, and we're talking about technical staff, technicians, hourly staff, the weight of your words versus peers in terms of just sheer influence, not Fear factor or pay factor, but just influence is pretty light.
[00:37:01.700] - Brandon
Peers listen to peers, especially when it comes to culture. So I think one of the things that we need to do a real good job at is identifying those personalities in our ranks. And sometimes they may be one of the personalities that kind of rubs you along a little bit, and that's because they're always vocal, they're talking, they're willing to say what they think. Right now, what's interesting is watch how your people respond to these folks. If you just have a loud mouth on your team, don't pull them into this process. We're talking about those folks that have respect. They are balanced. They can do what they say they put up right. And because of that, people care. It's not always the oldest tenured person on your team, not by age, but.
[00:37:46.230] - Chris
It isn't the loudest person in the room either.
[00:37:49.430] - Brandon
In fact, a lot of times it might be in publicly one of your most quiet players. But when they have three techs surrounding them at a job, who are they paying attention to? Right? So identifying these folks, and here's what's really powerful, again, going back up a tier, and our key leaders, when we bring our key leaders in and we're mirroring this kind of connection and conversation, who's best prepared to tell you who the influencers are on your team?
[00:38:15.070] - Chris
Yeah, I mean, it's your downline leaders.
[00:38:18.270] - Brandon
Hopefully it's the people that lead these teams, right? And here again, perception management, mirroring teaching, whatever. If it's not and you ask this of them, aren't you setting the tone for something that you actually want to have happening anyways? So if you bring them into this process and you say, guys, talk to me about your influencers, who are the people on your team that peer to peers watch, they pay attention, they respect, and if they can't answer you, you're already setting the stage like, hey, this is something you need to be able to do. Right? So anyways, identifying those folks and getting them engaged hey friends.
[00:38:56.560] - 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, a 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?
[00:40:00.460] - 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.
[00:40:18.660] - 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. So super. Tech University.
[00:40:44.490] - Chris
Surety.
[00:40:45.050] - Brandon
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. It's 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 Liftify and have them go chase that.
[00:41:22.410] - Chris
Google review 25% conversion rate, which is industry wide, people tend to average 5% of the people you ask for review. Actually convert lift the bumps that to 25. We were such a big believer. We're 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 a short period of time.
[00:41:41.720] - 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.
[00:41:55.280] - 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.com partners.
[00:42:03.980] - Brandon
Thanks, guys. Here's something that's really powerful. I've seen our teams do this. I've seen other teams do it, and it's very, very effective. And that is let your downline leader. Again, I'm a GM. Whatever co, whatever you want to be. I'm going to have a department head approach somebody on my team about their role, their influence. And then here's the best part. I'm going to actually have them set up a meeting with me. I want this person, this downline influencer, to be guided into my office, and I want the stage to be set that, hey, this person is an influencer on our team. They're important to us. They have value. We wanted to bring them in and have them talk to you directly about this strategy that we as a leadership team have been talking about.
[00:42:49.830] - Chris
Small modification to your approach with a huge impact.
[00:42:53.870] - Brandon
Huge, man. Think about that. The boss could use your help, man. Right? And think about what you just set the tone for. So this is why I like this kind of stuff, because it compounds. So you have a department head that talks to their employee and says, hey, I recognize you. I see value in you. I appreciate and value your contribution so much. I actually told the big boss, and the big boss wants to talk to you about this. They roll in the office and you set the stage with, hey, I've been talking to Larry, the MIT manager, about you and man. He has been going off about your level of contribution and how the team respects you. I want to personally ask you to help us with a strategy that we're talking about deploying as a team. Can I run that by you and get your feedback on that? Holy shit. That's all I got to say. That is more powerful than anything you could do in a twelve month cycle. Right. And this is not hard. It just requires us to think about it and do it intentionally, slow down long enough to manage perceptions and bring your team on board.
[00:44:01.260] - Brandon
So these key influencers, they're really important and we have to find them throughout the organization. So just like we're talking about a repeater message, you've got to do the same thing. We need to find ranks in the mid side on the reconciliation, on our sales side, FS contents. We have to find one or two people and actually the more people you can find, the better. Right. But the reality of it is there's always one or two in each group that kind of stands out. So bring them in. Okay, so we've identified, we get our top line influencers, our top line managers engaged in this strategy. We go then and identify these peers, these influencers amongst our ranks and we ensure that we have representation on all facets of the business admin. Right. Operations. And then what do we do is we start casting vision messaging about what we're trying to do, what we're trying to accomplish and where we're going. And you started to touch on this, I wanted to just pause you long enough. So now let's get into that. Okay, so we identified who needs to contribute to the process in order for us to be successful.
[00:45:04.190] - Brandon
But what are some of the ways we begin to communicate this in a way that's effective, that builds trust, that builds commitment even before it's really launched. Right. Even before we really get to see the results.
[00:45:17.370] - Chris
Well, I think, and this is for me, it's one of the hardest things to do is to not commit to that initiative until I've done all this work. Because I think a lot of times I've made a mistake in that. Again, I got this wild hair idea. Maybe I even got the idea from a consultant I've paid to give me good ideas.
[00:45:35.300] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:45:36.730] - Chris
And I can have a tendency to just jump on it. You and I are both a little bit this way. Jump on that idea, run with it. Let's do it. Now I can commit very quickly. Being decisive is one of part of my makeup and so I can just start running in that direction and just pulling people in. But instead I think you have to approach these conversations first with the leadership team, with an open hand. Hey, maybe this initiative, this direction is not fully informed and is not even kind of what we should be doing or spending our effort or energy or attention on that's right. Right. Now I need to be open to that when I bring that to the leadership team and not be personally offended, not be personally vested in my own idea.
[00:46:21.340] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:46:22.160] - Chris
But I think that is really important and to allow that to cascade down to these influencers at the frontline levels and the midline levels, because you may get some additional intel as you start building those advocates, where if you're open, you're not just trying to lobby for the idea, but you're really open. Hey, I wanted to get your perspective on this because ultimately the team, you have the team's respect, you're going to be a critical piece in making this initiative successful. Literally, if we move forward with this, there's no way to do it without your buy in and your help in us rolling this thing out. Let me share with you what we're thinking, and I just want to get your honest take, any kind of concerns or red flags that you have about the idea or question marks for you, I really want to know that because you could help us avoid making a huge blunder as a company.
[00:47:15.150] - Brandon
Yeah, that's right.
[00:47:16.250] - Chris
All of that language is very affirmative. It's very respectful. And I would argue, at least in my own experience, most frontline employees and service companies have never, ever been approached that way with that kind of respect and consideration, where they genuinely feel like I'm being brought in on the front end of this process and I'm being asked my perspective because they see my perspective as valuable.
[00:47:44.410] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:47:45.320] - Chris
And so I think it's really important that you check kind of where your heart's at, so to speak, as a leader, am I really open handed with this new initiative idea, or am I just lobbying to get people to do it? You know what I mean?
[00:47:59.380] - Brandon
Yeah, no, I think that's valid. I think that's part of the reason why we really need to be super intentional about vetting our person that's going to be in this influencer role and making sure that we find that balance of consistency and dependency and trust. Because if they're one of those people on your team and they provide you input, it's probably worth listening to, and it may not shift anything at all. In fact, if anything, it may just give you a really great insight into what others are most likely going to be concerned about.
[00:48:31.560] - Chris
Exactly.
[00:48:32.070] - Brandon
And now you can touch base on it proactively right out in front. Boom.
[00:48:35.600] - Chris
You got it 100% well, and do everything that flows out of that conversation is an opportunity to build on trust. Right. So you may have that conversation with your crew chief, one of your crew chiefs. They're an influencer. You run the plan by them and like, man, I'm really concerned about this. I'm really concerned about that. You process that information. I hear you. Thank you so much. And then for you to really take those concerns either back to your own office or back to the team and say, okay, are these concerns warranted? Yes. What can we do to be prepared for those issues and then to be able to go back to that person? So you know what we are going to move forward with this plan. I wanted to talk about those concerns you had because ultimately, I know your team, they trust you. They're going to come with probably those same concerns, and we need to have real answers for them. Then we can build trust by coming back and saying, hey, I heard this part kind of freak you out. You had this concern and that concern about what we're going to do, and those are real.
[00:49:36.170] - Chris
Here's what we think we can do to minimize that or avoid the hardship of that thing. What do you think of that? Do you think that's viable? Like, does that allay some of your concern or your fears? And if you can really, truly get buying, then, oh, man, you've built a shitload of trust and you've just affirmed them as a leader in their space. There's just so much that happens if we take the time. But I also, even as we're saying this, man, I know there's some personalities that are listening to us. They're like, look, you're the freaking owner of the business. What is all this? Taking your decisions down to your frontline people and stuff. And I can also understand that.
[00:50:16.520] - Brandon
Sure.
[00:50:16.920] - Chris
I can understand how it may feel like if I did this every time we go to make a decision, this is just so much labor just for us to move.
[00:50:25.580] - Brandon
That's fair. Yeah.
[00:50:26.660] - Chris
And that is fair. I don't know if there's any sense in us differentiating between sort of the run and mill day to day decisions. I think what we're talking about is change initiatives. It's not that we're taking every single executive decision down to our front line staff through this process. I think it's just important to say, like, these are the high level, mission critical moves that you're making as a company, and those are the ones that we really need to be careful that's right. With right. Yeah.
[00:50:54.270] - Brandon
I think anytime we start messing with core functions of roles and responsibilities, then you got to slow your road and get by it. Nuanced tweaks to PNL talking to OMS about GNA control and cutting expenses and not being frivolous with the way that we use our money. I mean, come on. You're right. I think it is important to talk about when and where, but when you are about to do something that you know through your own experience. Most of us, this is why you don't incite some of these changes. You know you're going to get pushback. If you think there's going to be some global level of pushback within your organization, that's probably a thing big enough that you should consider following some of this methodology. So I really like what you're talking about there. I think you're right. And again, there is real value in hearing people's opinion on how do you think this will get executed in the field. It's just vital. Here's another thing, though, that we need to remember with this. You guys know, I mean, we've probably had multiple episodes where we've talked about this. I would think if you've come to any of our live, we do two and three day operational leadership training events that I am biased about.
[00:52:01.900] - Brandon
I think they're super rad, and I love them. Anyways, one of the areas of that that we really explore is kind of these core buckets of areas. I guess that key leaders need to be spending their energy, and when they're doing it well, the result that we get is what we want. It's in alignment with our strategy. Anyways, my point being is succession planning is a key responsibility for any good leader, period. If you're a real force multiplier, you're a mid department head manager, your recon manager, whatever GM Om, part of your responsibility is to be identifying key players in your team and looking for that new leadership that's coming up in your ranks. Well, one of the things that you and I really hammer on these events is that people have a limited number of hours in the day. And when we first start exploring the transfer in someone's mindset as a leader to go from Doer to equipper, one of the first areas that I think people get overwhelmed by is we start talking about these mentalities, these attitudes, these focuses, these areas in the business you need to be dedicated to and be aggressive about.
[00:53:05.340] - Brandon
And I think they get overwhelmed because they just think, how in the fuck can I do that many things in one day? And so what you and I really try to do a good job during that event is when we're giving examples, we pinpoint things that when you take this kind of action, you're actually influencing all these buckets at the same time.
[00:53:22.720] - Chris
Yeah. Okay, here's an example. It's like management by walking around. I don't know if that was Drucker or if that was one of these other business icons, but this idea of management by walking around is very common in hotels. Really successful hotel leaders, they do this. They get out of their freaking office and they walk the hallways, they walk the lobbies, they do all that kind of stuff. And that is a really great strategy for leading in our industry as well. And sometimes management, by walking around is getting out in your rig one afternoon a week or whatever, visiting job sites, just poking around, picking up a Dhu, and helping people load equipment, take equipment, all that kind of stuff. Just getting shoulder to shoulder with people. But when I've experienced great leaders applying what we're talking about, some of the best ones, it was those hallway conversations. You did this with me, and I did this with you, and I did this with others on our team as well. But it's that hallway mentoring. It's pulling somebody. Oh, hey, real quick, I want to run something by you. Hey, real. Quick before our meeting tomorrow.
[00:54:27.190] - Chris
I've got something I'm getting ready to bring up and spot on. Don't know how it's going to land. I want to get your take on it and just see if you had any suggestion about how we bring it up in the meeting.
[00:54:36.960] - Brandon
Perfect. Dude, that's succession planning in a two minutes in a hallway.
[00:54:40.470] - Chris
Right.
[00:54:41.050] - Brandon
That is succession planning in action. Two minutes in a hallway. You are mirroring so many great examples for that young person, that up and coming person, even if it's subconscious at this point. You're planting the seed.
[00:54:56.490] - Chris
Yes.
[00:54:56.940] - Brandon
Right. You're showing them how to interact with their downline. You're showing them how to step off of your pedestal and meet your team shoulder to shoulder. You're showing them how to ask questions and show value, how to be available and approachable. Huge. There's so much. And that would be a perfect example. You hit it. You nailed it, man. Is what kind of actions can we take as leaders that give us leverage in all those buckets, as many buckets at the same time as possible? That's a perfect example. That could have been dissected into four or five different things that you needed to accomplish that day. It was a two minute conversation in a hallway very first thing in the morning before the day really gets underway. Yeah. So powerful, man.
[00:55:36.460] - Chris
It creates an atmosphere of transparency and it feels safe.
[00:55:40.690] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:55:41.120] - Chris
It feels like I know what's going on. We were just talking with a very senior executive in our industry, very highly compensated, very effective at what they do. And we were talking about values and so forth, and they said the money is going to be there when you're operating a certain level and you're successful and you're effective in it. Really, all I care about at this stage of my career is transparency and trust.
[00:56:07.160] - Brandon
And trust. That's right.
[00:56:08.360] - Chris
And this person is a very senior leader. Right. They're accustomed to being either at the top or near the top of the pile. And they're talking about how critical that is for themselves and anybody that they would work with or find themselves working for.
[00:56:24.190] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:56:24.670] - Chris
And it's like, okay, if that's true of highly influential executives in our industry, how much more true, how much more necessary is transparency even though our people don't always articulate it to us?
[00:56:38.420] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:56:39.170] - Chris
I think it feels like transparency. And we've talked about sort of there's elements of transparency. Obviously, we don't need to tell people about our sex life with our spouse. And there's like, right there's, there's moments of danger where revealing everything that's going on in the company does not make sense. Counterproductive, it's not what we're talking about.
[00:56:59.480] - Brandon
No.
[00:56:59.920] - Chris
Right. It's but creating an environment where people feel like they know what's going on in the company, good or bad.
[00:57:05.500] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:57:06.440] - Chris
So that they're not going to get surprised or look like a fool or end up flat footed and getting blindsided by stuff.
[00:57:14.350] - Brandon
No, I think that's perfect. So let's think about this too. So some of the core elements that we need to kind of unpack, I guess, when you're talking with some of these folks, one is we need to identify what's in it for them. I think one major mistake we make as leaders is we're very dismissive of identifying and taking the time to communicate the value of our decision making about our downline persons. And I don't exactly know why. I think a lot of times it's just because we're trying to make forward progress. I think a lot of it is not malicious intent, but there is this element of we almost get offended that somehow we need to communicate to our personnel what's in it for them. Because we want this idea that they're so committed to the brand and the mission that they're going to do anything. And their own personal best interest is meaningless because they're all in. Let's be honest. How many of you are doing that right now as a top line leader in your organization? Are you all in just purely for the legacy of it? Maybe if you're the owner, but outside of that, probably not.
[00:58:24.150] - Brandon
Right.
[00:58:24.960] - Chris
But I think there is also one angle on this, is what's in it for them? I think sometimes we make the wrong assumptions about what the win is for our people. Here's an example, right? Let's say we're rolling out a new comp plan for our project managers, or estimators, and we're introducing a lot of new upside. But the outcome of it is that it's going to be a more rigorous role. They're going to have more file volume or there's some aspect to where it's like, yeah, this is going to from a 40 to 50 hours week or 50 to 60 or whatever kind of thing it is, but you're going to make a lot more money. But the assumption we could make is, well, holy cow, these guys will be able to make 25, 30% more money on this new system, this new program.
[00:59:09.090] - Brandon
Sure.
[00:59:09.840] - Chris
And we can assume that's what they want more than anything, right? And of course, if we present it, hey, here's what's in it for you, you're going to make a bunch more money. And instead of posing as a question, here's what we think this change is going to produce. How does that land with you? It lets us know, because we may have some very talented project managers, using my example, that it's far more important to them the time that they have for their hobbies and family and everything else, their bandwidth than it is to make 25% more money. Yeah, that's going to be the case sometimes, yeah, for sure. But I agree with you. I think engaging them in that conversation of what do we think is the benefit, what do we think the why is behind this? But again, trying to hold it in an open hand that we may not know exactly what our people truly want.
[00:59:56.780] - Brandon
Yeah I think there are some yeah. I don't agree with you. No I see the track that you're on there. I think the other thing I would encourage people is when you're devising your strategies make sure it's a balanced one because if it's putting too many of your positions in a place where yeah they're going to make more money but the workload just skyrocketed. It's probably not a good plan.
[01:00:16.040] - Chris
Probably not sustainable.
[01:00:17.070] - Brandon
No it's probably not a good plan and I think a lot of times what we see and probably maybe that example that you gave is really common is in the transition it can feel like that and so part of what you need to communicate is you know what? For the next 90 days this is going to feel shitty. Here's why. I mean we're very honest like that with our clients. We almost tell them almost verbatim every time before we get started as this first part is going to suck because you're already busy and doing a lot and we're going to ask you to do a lot and be busier while we create legacy change instead of slapping on band aid. And I think the same thing applies to our people but I think you're right we can't make assumptions and so identifying a balanced perspective of the values and of the things that people could experience as part of it is key. But along that same lines just like you talked about earlier we need to be prepared to talk about the crappy parts of it too because inevitably when we make change happen and we're communicating that change with our teams there are some things that are not going to be better.
[01:01:19.770] - Brandon
There's just going to be certain aspects of their role that's not going to be better. Here's a big one that we wrestle with all the time. We have organizations that have a process mentally maybe tribal knowledge right there's kind of a flow that everybody kind of adheres to but it's not formalized and the adherence to it is 70% at best. It's most of the time. It's not all the time. Well when you begin putting things into place that increases accountability so that we can get consistency. There's going to be challenges there. Like it's not all gumballs and roses when you communicate to them what's in it for them. There is some reality of you being honest and saying we have to do this in order for us to be a sustainable healthy company. It's not easy. We understand that. And you know what? In a perfect world if every single one of us was so committed to holding ourselves to this level of commitment and accountability we wouldn't have to have systems like this. But we're humans and we make mistakes and these systems are built to protect us. That's okay. Now they may not walk out of the room with a warm and fuzzy but you were freaking honest.
[01:02:24.860] - Brandon
You were honest about the why and you were honest about how it's going to affect them. Right. So the whole what's in it for me? I think that you shed some light on here is it's not always you conveying what's going to be great for that individual. It's more this hierarchy of or this overarching theme of communicate, how it's going to affect them, period, so that they understand they don't fill in the blanks with worst case scenario, just touch base what's going to happen. So I think that's a good way to think about that. Instead of what's in it for them, let's say what is it about them? What will affect them in the process?
[01:03:02.190] - Chris
Okay.
[01:03:03.130] - Brandon
I think it's also okay for us when we're conveying these messages. And again, this can be on a one on one platform. Maybe after we've got buy in from all our influencers. This is our all company meeting where we're really laying out the vision and the plan for everybody else on the team. I think it's okay and absolutely important for us to identify some of the reasons people would be slow to adopt and come on board. Just call it out in public. Hey. I know many of you are fearful that this will make you feel less confident in your role because we're making changes to the day to day tasking. It's okay. We understand how that feels. We have training lined up for it. We're going to support you in this transition. Right. Hey. We understand that some of you this kind of shakes up the routine that you've grown accustomed to, and there's going to be some learning which is going to require you to stretch a little bit and it may make it harder for a while. Again, we're here for you. We understand we're going to give proper time for us to make this transition.
[01:04:02.920] - Brandon
It's okay for you to feel that it doesn't mean this is not going to work. Just call this stuff out.
[01:04:10.670] - Chris
The other thing that comes to my mind, too, is just the importance of repetition and frequency. Yeah, right. There's just so many opportunities in our business on the sales and the operations and admin sides where the volume of situations and interactions that are always constantly coming at us is that presentation during the all company meeting, or that one on one in the hallway, or that sort of conversation had with a particular department or team. It quickly gets forgotten. It's just any individual interaction that we have in our businesses is quickly forgotten. The repetition is so important, and particularly with your champions, you have a cadence. We should already have a cadence in place with your leadership team, it's a series of leadership meetings you have every month, your production meetings. You have a natural rhythm of interaction with your key leaders. But we have to remember to go back to these influencers and continue to engage them throughout the change process.
[01:05:11.000] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:05:11.540] - Chris
That's huge. Because inevitably, the change process is not going to go as well as we envisioned.
[01:05:18.140] - Brandon
It never does.
[01:05:18.850] - Chris
It never does.
[01:05:19.800] - Brandon
And it's not one and done.
[01:05:21.160] - Chris
It's not one and done. And yet, really quickly, even our best influencers, if they are not stewarded, if we're not checking in and we're not maintaining that conversation, they can start to fall prey to the group think and some of the negativity that starts emerging because it's harder than any of us thought it was going to be.
[01:05:40.900] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:05:41.900] - Chris
And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes I've made is I'll have those what were really great one on one conversations with influencers on my team, and then I'll move along and get so consumed in the implementation that I forget that they're one of my key implementation partners.
[01:05:59.400] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:06:00.070] - Chris
And instead I can go back into, I'm the implementer, I'm the guy moving all the levers, or our leadership team, we're the ones doing the real work. And it's like, whoa. It's hard to do the work unless we have these influencers helping clarify day to day on the ground. Because inevitably that new process or whatever, it's inevitably going to throw a monkey rent somehow in our frontline people's day.
[01:06:26.760] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:06:27.340] - Chris
And when that happens, they're going to complain and feel negative about it. And the moment people start to complain and feel negative about something, a story starts forming.
[01:06:35.800] - Brandon
Here we go.
[01:06:36.560] - Chris
And now people go on together on their lunch break over cigarettes, and it's like, okay, now we have a little cancer that started growing.
[01:06:45.150] - Brandon
I think it's interesting you said that because this probably is a pretty solid place for us to wrap things up. So along with what you're saying, I think there's a great example, actually, that you're in the midst of experiencing with a sales team. We won't go into details, but you have someone who is being an influencer. They're being a champion of change, and it's not bullshit. They're experiencing the benefit of the new strategy and they're being vocal about it. And you've done some coaching to leverage that. I think that would be a great example for you to share. But before you get to that, we have to teach people how to be an influencer. So they've naturally done it by their character and who they are and how they carry themselves. Awesome. That's the foundation. But then we have to be intentional about communicating to them how do they be a positive change influencer for this transition. Right. We have to teach them. Hey, examples might be hey in the ranks. When you're out this week and you start hearing the buzz after the all company meeting and we make the announcement the following week, you're out in the field and you hear some negative buzz.
[01:07:50.190] - Brandon
This is going to be hard, but I need you to step in and be a voice that promotes the positive side that you're seeing and we're experiencing. Be a voice of reason. It's okay. And we need to be aware of that means that for some of our people, this will be the first time they're being asked to be somewhat confrontational. And I don't mean that negative or aggressive, but when you don't agree with someone's opinion, for most of us, that feels like conflict. Yeah, right. And so just being honest about that, but I just think that's critically important. It's just like, you know, establishing coaching cultures within our companies. We can't just want it and we can't tell people we want them to do it. We have to teach them what doing it looks like.
[01:08:29.170] - Chris
Here's a little tip on that. So one of the questions you can ask your influencer is what do you think are going to be the objections from the rest of the team? What concerns do you think your teammates are going to have around this? To find out ahead of time. It's good because then we can help load that person's lips with non confrontational responses. Hey, you know what? I totally get that, man. But listen, from my perspective, I think even though it's going to be hard for a few weeks, I see this thing we can help kind of coach them on. How do you respond and or getting.
[01:09:02.260] - Brandon
Them to articulate for you. Just giving them the chance to think about it before they're on the spot.
[01:09:07.610] - Chris
Exactly right. How do you think you'd respond?
[01:09:10.170] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:09:10.800] - Chris
Those concerns and objections.
[01:09:12.260] - Brandon
That's great, man.
[01:09:13.360] - Chris
It's so true. And I think it's just part of this is just remembering to be human.
[01:09:17.670] - Brandon
Yeah.
[01:09:18.420] - Chris
I think it was either in our livestream this morning or earlier in this conversation. I think we can just inadvertently slip as leaders, not into an asshole mode or evil mode, but we can just slide into this thinking of our team as parts of the business subconsciously. We can just sort of let go of some of their humanity as a person that maybe has a brother, a sister, kids, wife, spouse, just has all the things in life that we have and we can just start to see it as a game a little bit. You know what I mean?
[01:09:53.140] - Brandon
Sure.
[01:09:53.840] - Chris
And so by instead really seeing them as a person and being curious, hey, what do you think is going to happen when we do this? What do you think are going to be the most common fears or concerns your team members have? And if that stuff comes up, you're at a job site two weeks from now and people are grumbling about or just afraid, what do you think you'd say to them? Based on what I've shared with you so far?
[01:10:17.690] - Brandon
Yeah. Doing that before the audience is in front of them and they're in that corner is just vital. So this example, you know which one I'm talking about, right? Of course. I think it's a great example. Just give us the kind of abbreviated thing of what you experience.
[01:10:34.680] - Chris
So we have a team right now, and I'm really proud of them. And those, those that can are part of this team. They may hear this and that's fine. We're working with a multisite team that predominantly has been really referral partner based, or what we call smiles and candy, route based. And knowing them, I think they've done a really great job of that part. They're good at that. It's a route sales business. Yeah, they're not your typical smiles and candy, just glad handy people. I mean, they've taken a pretty strategic approach to it. But now as a company, we're really shifting towards how do we figure out this commercial sales and get those operations out? And it's requiring a lot of behavior change. We're introducing a lot of strategy and kind of new behaviors, some new accountability, and it's really neat. As we've come on, there's been a handful of folks on the team that have really been the first to grab onto it and be like, hey, I'm showing some kind of interest and excitement. Yeah, I see this, how it will work. And I've tried to do a really good job of affirming that and spotting, okay, who are my early adopters, right.
[01:11:42.350] - Chris
It's not that the other people are off base or I'm anticipating a problem with anybody else in the team. It's just like spotting, oh wow, that person is really quick to jump on board.
[01:11:51.940] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:11:52.880] - Chris
How do I affirm that? And then, of course, as soon as I saw that, I reached out to those people and say, hey, look, here's what I see in you. This is my observation. The team respects you. You're really quick to take a new initiative or a new thing and just run with it. And I really appreciate that. Hey, I'm going to need your support, and the rest of the team is probably going to need your support to implement this because some may have a more difficult time making this transition than you. Are you willing to kind of play that role, kind of be a pure coach and then is that cool? Is it all right too, if I see somebody else who's struggling on the team for me to pair them up with you? Would you be cool with that? And of course, nine times out of ten, they're like, hell yeah. They feel respected and it's like they feel affirmed and they feel seen. Right. So what I've noticed start to happen is as these sort of peer leaders have been adopting the system themselves, naturally they have the right posture toward it, the right attitude.
[01:12:52.380] - Chris
They're starting to see success.
[01:12:53.910] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:12:54.650] - Chris
And it's been really fun to see in our group chat thread, the peer leaders start to share out that success hey, I did that new thing we're doing and I just got a sales meeting with so and so. Hey, I did that new part of our process. And look, I had three jobs coming in this last since our last thing from that new behavior initiative.
[01:13:15.570] - Brandon
It's priceless, right? I think that's what it was interesting because I've kind of been watching this from afar because you and I kind of split our resources when it comes to ops and sales. And a lot of times you're navigating a relationship I'm not directly engaged in. And I've been watching kind of from a distance as you've been coaching this individual up and just really getting excited when you're sharing screenshots and stuff of them doing it. And I just really respect the fact that a couple of them have just decided, I'm going to give this every ounce of effort. I'm just going to commit to trying it regardless of how I feel and quotes about it and look what happens. But I really admired how that was going because to me it was a perfect example of all those leadership, quintessential leadership activities where we identified an influencer. You used real pragmatic ways to value that early adoption commitment to the process, willing to try it. It's basic stuff. You saw that and now you're encouraging, highlighting, you're asking, hey, can I ask for your help in this?
[01:14:15.060] - Chris
This is why.
[01:14:15.630] - Brandon
This is how it's valued to your peers and how it helps the team and then they're willing to do it. That, to me, is a perfect example of change influencing change in a really healthy way. Now, that's part of a larger strategy that has a lot of moving parts to it. And so we're doing that at multiple different levels on multiple different fronts to achieve some success this year. But I just think that was a great example. So listen, guys, and I would just.
[01:14:42.090] - Chris
Say it's really fucking fun.
[01:14:44.320] - Brandon
It is fun.
[01:14:45.240] - Chris
It is so fun. And I really do mean this like it feels like a privilege when you find yourself in that pocket where you're trying to be intentional, you're trying to bring people along. And as people start to come along, it is probably one of the most satisfying things as a leader. That's right, is you really do try to take care of people and identify the folks and affirm people and stuff like that. And you see it start to come together. You see the collateral effect of me respecting that person, recognizing their contribution to the team, encouraging it, supporting it, and to start to see it bear fruit. It's one of the most satisfying things in leadership. Whereas I think, like previous generations, and still some of us that are finding ourselves in leadership, we still default to that command and control kind of thing. And let's not kid ourselves, accomplishing things under that structure is still satisfying. But it's such a delayed gratification. It's like you lose all the pleasure of the process.
[01:15:47.380] - Brandon
Yeah, you lose all the pleasure of.
[01:15:49.340] - Chris
The process when you're adopting that command and control thing. But it's like when you're in this pocket of bringing people along rather than forcing people or commanding people, you have all these really great moments of satisfaction, of seeing people rise to the challenge, seeing people expand their influence in the team within the company, and also just the own satisfaction for you, all these little wins.
[01:16:14.690] - Brandon
That's right. Yeah. No, I agree 100%. That's great, man. That's a great wrap up. So guys, in general, listen, if you're in the midst of creating change in your business, which there's just not very many of us that aren't, identify your key leaders, get them engaged in the process, get their input, their perspective, help them, help you identify your downline. Influencers those peer to peer influencers, the ones that are going to be the ones doing the work, executing on the new strategy. Get them engaged and use this opportunity to mirror and practice that succession training and planning where you're asking them to engage. You're loading them with strategy on how to influence their peers in a positive way. You're valuing them, you're asking them to participate and to help you build kind of the strategy that you plan to deploy. These are just great ways to make change feel very ugly, very frictionful, very difficult. And you'd be amazed, like you begin to establish a company that's not nearly as fearful about change because they've gone through it now and they see what it looks like when all the folks in the ranks are playing a role to influence that change in a positive way.
[01:17:27.860] - Chris
And listen, like we always say, if this stuff adds value, if this is provoking some self reflection in you and reflection on your team and stuff like that, if this has been valuable, please share it. Please share it out on your LinkedIn, your Facebook profiles and all that stuff.
[01:17:43.780] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:17:44.530] - Chris
But if this stuff resonates in the sense that you like this perspective, you feel like there's value in this and you want to work with us on something like this. Obviously, I think you can tell from the conversation, we are passionate about this and frankly, it's one of the most satisfying parts of our role at Floodlight is just to be able to teach these things to people or help them assimilate them into their own businesses.
[01:18:05.830] - Brandon
That's right.
[01:18:06.720] - Chris
This is a lot of the guts of our leadership workshop that we do. We're getting ready to do actually this next week. And so if you're interested in bringing us in and being a part of this conversation with us, just reach out, go to Floodlightgrp.com, send us an email, find us on LinkedIn here DM, us getting our DMs and we'll see if we've got the right chemistry to do something together, but love it. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.
[01:18:33.060] - Brandon
Later. All right, everybody. He. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Pet, Hart and Booth.
[01:18:39.790] - Chris
And if you're enjoying the show but you love this episode, please hit follow. Formally known as subscribers. 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.