[00:00:00.330] - Brandon
What up, amigo?
[00:00:01.710] - Chris
What's up?
[00:00:02.950] - Brandon
Dude, we are in full blown new space.
[00:00:06.770] - Chris
I know. See, we gotta we gotta figure ourselves out again.
[00:00:11.330] - Brandon
We're all discombobulated. If you're watching this, well, you won't because we don't normally record video, record the intros, but yeah, we're in some new digs. We've moved offices, thanks to you all and the support that the teams leaving. A little team's growing. And because we're growing, we had to find some new space.
[00:00:30.440] - Chris
And you had some friends that had.
[00:00:33.230] - Brandon
A really neat building project that they've been working on for a long time.
[00:00:37.870] - Chris
Yeah. Dude, isn't it just funny how things come full circle in life, right? Friendships, you never know when what they're.
[00:00:44.770] - Brandon
Going to hold, when will they pop back up. Yeah.
[00:00:46.860] - Chris
My friend Lee, real estate guy, and then it's a member of my gym and we've just kind of stayed in touch over the years and lo and behold, it bought a building downtown and yeah, it's awesome. It's pretty sweet.
[00:00:57.800] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:00:58.310] - Brandon
The rumor has it they're going to be building some rooftop space and so we're pretty psyched about that. We might be able to take advantage of that, but yeah. All right, man. We got a pretty fun show today, man. This is a guy that we just keep running into professionally and it's really.
[00:01:12.250] - Chris
Hard to dislike him. Yeah, it's like the more we talk to him, the more we like him. Mark Springer.
[00:01:17.680] - Chris
Heard of him?
[00:01:18.780] - Chris
Past RIA president.
[00:01:21.370] - Chris
Really?
[00:01:21.840] - Chris
I think many, including Jeff Moore and others we've talked to, and Katie Smith, would say he was a really significant driver in really casting a fresh vision, recruiting, really amazing board, not to take away from previous boards and so forth, but he just really provided some fresh wind, some fresh fire to that organization. And we're certainly drawn to it. We went to our first RAA conference this past year and we're just like, wow, there's some really cool things happening here.
[00:01:48.840] - Brandon
Lots of momentum.
[00:01:49.800] - Chris
Yeah. And then when you talk to Mark, you can understand it.
[00:01:52.130] - Chris
Right.
[00:01:52.370] - Chris
I think he seems like a very easy guy to follow. Very high expectations and drive and all the things, but a real humble heart, a real heart for people, clearly. You hear him talk about kind of his career, his origin story. This guy loves leadership. Like, the thing that he's really invigorated by is building teams.
[00:02:17.140] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:02:17.710] - Brandon
He's got a really intense focus on establishing a way to build leaders within the organization and obviously that's given them the ability to do what they've been experiencing, which is a massive M A push. And he's I think that tone that he's set where we invest time and energy into building leaders within our ranks and doing that really proactively intentionally sure showed up. I think the other thing that sticks out to me as part of this episode is he is really open about the pursuit of personal growth. You just will hear it the whole conversation. Like, the guy is never sitting still, but he's also very real about the toll of that growth, about the challenges behind it. When you're experiencing being stretched in your leadership competency and your personal relationships and all those things, it's not easy, and it's not all gum drops and lollipops. And he's open about that, which is how we do it. Man, we love when folks are transparent. I just think it's a really fun interview. For those of you that don't have much experience with Mark Springer, I think you're going to get a drift for what kind of duty is.
[00:03:25.170] - Brandon
And I think, like us, you're going to grow to really respect his voice, not only for the businesses he leads, but obviously the industry as a whole.
[00:03:33.200] - Chris
And he's got a wicked home office that you get a little bit of.
[00:03:35.620] - Brandon
A view of total office jealousy.
[00:03:38.880] - Chris
You can't see it quite as much as our first interview with him, our first conversation of Zoom we had off sort of that we didn't record. But anyway, he's an excellent dude, so dig in. But before we do that, that's it. We have some that's right. Awesome sponsors that they make this kind of thing happen. We talked about our studio. We've been leveling up our studio, our gear, our location. And all of that is possible because of not only our amazing guests, but all of you who listen and support the podcast and share it and so forth, and Answerforce.com answer Force. We met them at the RAA convention, and Brandon and I have had exposure to answering phone answering services, reception services, and some are pretty good. Many are know. I think it doesn't take long to find somebody in the industry that has used a call service that wasn't happy with it. It didn't work for them. I think we were struck not only by the quality of people that were representing Answer Force at RAA. Like, super engaging, very smart. But as we learned more about the platform, the technology backbone that they use, the flexibility of the service, I think it became really apparent to you and I both that this isn't just for the mom and pop business.
[00:04:56.260] - Chris
If you're jump starting a restoration company out of your living room or out of a storage unit, well, naturally you need a professional call reception. You need a quality after hour solution so that you aren't necessarily the person taking every call and answer for certainly can fill that gap. But I think we also were really struck with, holy cow, this is a great tool and resource for medium and large, because what do you do? I mean, I've talked about this before, but to me, what do most restoration companies do when their receptionist is out on lunch? They just forward the phones, and whoever rando picks it up, are they going to do a reasonable job answering the call? Probably, because we want the work. They do their thing, but they are not going to get the same consistent response and call intake that that dedicated full time receptionist would, right? So Answer four steps in fills that gap. They will conduct the exact same intake call as your dedicated receptionist does. So rather than just forwarding it and having random people on your team pick up those intakes, why take the chance? You paid a lot to get that phone to ring, pay a little bit more to have a service like Answer Force respond to it professionally to ensure that you're going to actually get that opportunity.
[00:06:09.420] - Chris
Right. And of course, then and we could spend all kinds of time talking about use cases, certainly storm surges.
[00:06:16.000] - Brandon
Absolutely.
[00:06:16.700] - Chris
Hurricane season. Come on. And it's very affordable. We looked at the cost breakdown, and I think you and I both were like, holy cow, we should have been using I mean, when we were operating the field. We use various services. None of them are super rad, but.
[00:06:30.410] - Brandon
None of them have the same tech backbone. None of them are as customized as this professional.
[00:06:36.200] - Chris
I think the company is like 40 or 50 years old. They are based headquartered out of Portland, so it's kind of in our backyard.
[00:06:42.020] - Brandon
Kind of partial to that.
[00:06:42.930] - Chris
But they have employees and they have calling agents around the world. So the 24/7 coverage is legit, no problem. They have deep experience already in the restoration industry. So anyway, yada, yada, yada. Go check out answerforest.com floodlight. It's smart. And if you don't have a current reception, call intake service. I can't imagine outside of the really giant companies that have whole call centers potentially, right? Why you wouldn't want to partner with Answerforce to have it as a professional backup.
[00:07:14.470] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:07:15.100] - Chris
Can you really afford to lose one inbound call? What does that cost? It almost certainly costs you more than the cost to have Answer Force on the bench. Right. Anyway, check them out. Slash bloodlight.
[00:07:29.350] - Brandon
Liftify guys. You guys know how often we're bringing them up, whether you're at a live event with us or you're listening to the show. I mean, not only are they a deep sponsor and been consistent in partnering with us, but of course we're just good friends with them as well because we trust their team and what they're doing and the investment of their time and energy into the resource that they're building at Liftify. But long story short, automated Google Review chasing Partner is what it boils down to. You guys, your teams, you go out, you produce an awesome experience for a client, and then we often struggle to get that response or that review from our client. And we all are learning quickly the advantages that a brand new fresh Google Review does for us in terms of organic lead, in terms of SEO rankings, all the I got.
[00:08:16.990] - Chris
We have a live testimonial, bro. We do, right?
[00:08:19.940] - Chris
Tell them.
[00:08:20.480] - Chris
Tell them the Scott example with that newer client of ours.
[00:08:23.180] - Brandon
That is true. Okay, so legitimately, I'm not going to use names, but we have a client that we're working with and our consultant obviously referred, arizona Independent Restoration Company in a growth Trajectory team and growing. And Scott, one of our senior consultants, been working with them and got them set up with Liftify.com. And I'm going to kind of eat up the dates here a little bit. But I want to say within a couple of days, they received multiple reviews. Almost instantaneous, they were getting traction. But what the really important part was is they got two organic leads purely because of the fresh ranking that came from the fact that they had gotten jump five star reviews. Now, are you always going to see results that we don't know if it.
[00:09:07.980] - Chris
Was coincidence, but it's a great story.
[00:09:11.110] - Brandon
And it's awesome and legitimately.
[00:09:12.920] - Chris
And you guys know this.
[00:09:13.940] - Brandon
We are not going to talk about sponsors that aren't creating real value. And Zach's no different at forward slash floodlight. Get it, make it happen, and start cranking up the reviews that you're getting and in turn, the organic lead generation. And then, guys, last but very much so. Not least, you guys know we're friends with CNR and Michelle's team.
[00:09:35.610] - Brandon
We love them.
[00:09:36.390] - Brandon
We love the fact that they're essentially a friend to our industry, bringing lots of hot news and topics, always fast on the breaks. The news breaks often. We find out stuff from them within hours of any kind of back channel chatter, which still kind of blows me away. How that's even possible? But guys, CNR magazine is a resource for not only leaders, not only for company owners, but your staff, your personnel. It's a great way to stay in touch with what's happening in our industry. And again, we can speak from the heart of the fact that Michelle loves this industry and is truly a friend to us as contractors.
[00:10:11.830] - Chris
And while you're there at CNR, check out floodlight's commercial sales. Playbook. It's one of their CNRS really cool. CNR has been compiling these I think they call them Playbooks. Yeah, we'll have to double check that.
[00:10:23.590] - Chris
But whatever.
[00:10:24.460] - Chris
Hunt around, hunt and peck on the CNR website. You'll find really cool stuff. Lots of great resources.
[00:10:29.230] - Brandon
Okay, gang, let's do this. Let's get into conversation with Mark.
[00:10:33.930] - Chris
Welcome back to the Head Heart and Boots Podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:10:37.630] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead.
[00:10:44.370] - Chris
Man, I love this industry.
[00:10:47.790] - Brandon
Well, sir, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Mark, I know you're not standing around looking for new things to do with your time.
[00:10:54.420] - Mark
Well, I sure appreciate you guys inviting me on. I've been looking forward this conversation now for some time. I think we tried to connect a couple months ago down in Orlando and it just didn't happen. So I've been looking forward to this. Thanks for the invite. Appreciate you guys having me.
[00:11:10.230] - Chris
Right on.
[00:11:10.710] - Brandon
Absolutely, man. So for those of you that are watching and not just listening, mark basically has the coolest legit background. This is not fake. If he holds up his hand, it doesn't disappear. But that's the real home office that we're staring at.
[00:11:25.310] - Chris
Yeah. When we hung out on Zoom several weeks ago, we're like, oh, my gosh. Is that one of those background things? But every time you move your head, I was waiting for the little ghosting image thing to have in the virtual whatever, and you're like, no, I just finished this dream office. It's incredible. And what they can't see is all the wood, all the beautiful wood ceiling and everything else. It's pretty unbelievable.
[00:11:48.840] - Brandon
It's pretty dialed in. Yeah, I got office jealousy going on right now.
[00:11:53.010] - Chris
Well, Mark, I want to open us up, man. People, if they've been following the industry for more than a they've they've heard your name. They've seen the interviews on CNR. They've perhaps seen you at conferences on the stage talking sort of many people that are newer to the industry will know you as sort of the instigator behind Fleet Services, your previous company. You were you guys are an iconic company leading the industry there in the Montana space. And then, of course, Fleet has been taking the industry by. So, yeah, just a huge and very successful PE roll up in the industry. But I think where we wanted to go with you today is just a little bit different and maybe talk a little bit about that origin story at Day Spring. Just understand kind of get inside your head as a leader of what that leadership journey has looked like for you. I mean, going from being an operator, scaling that business, and then jumping into the PE foray and now you've kind of described your current situation as a bit of a sabbatical, which is fun to talk to you in the sense of just seeing an owner.
[00:13:02.410] - Chris
I think every owner wants to get to that place where they have a little bit of a pause break in their entrepreneurial journey. And so I think maybe we can dig into that some, too, about how you've been spending that sabbatical time, but could you maybe open up and take us back to the early days? Take us back what did the early day and I mean early days as in sub $5 million because so many people listening to this are in that territory. Walk us back to that in Montana. What did that look like at Day Spring? What did you look like at Day Spring? Because Brandon and I, we talk about this a lot in the podcast. I look back at myself ten years ago, and I'm grateful because it's a different Chris Nordike. Ten years ago, what did Mark Springer look like sound like? What were your thinking like back in the day sub $5 million at Day Spring.
[00:13:58.750] - Mark
Well, that's a lot to unpackage, Chris. But the thing about those days when we think about the genesis of our organizations, the beginnings of our organizations as you and I talked a little bit about this earlier, so much of what we become or what we are today is rooted in the choices that we made ten years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, and then also just the people who've invested in us. And man, I was just talking with my dad about this last week. I was over spending some time with him and one of my brother. They have a different business. It's a carpet clean business. And we were talking about a lot of the things that we learned since my dad started day Spring restoration back, which was 1989. And so in 1989, I was eleven then, so I was born in 78, so 89, I was eleven. And when my dad started this business, man, what a different industry in 1989. And I remember the stuff we did, it is a miracle that the restoration industry matured at all, that we didn't all kill ourselves. Some of these things we were used I remember the disinfectants we would use.
[00:15:17.300] - Mark
There were these spats, they called them, and man, they were so toxic that they came wrapped in bubble wrap in these tiny little know and were we using the PPE? I mean, first of all, we shouldn't have been using it, probably, period, but were we using PPE? No, I mean, PPE is for wimps, especially when you're in Montana, right? But, I mean, the sewer jobs we were on, I remember just like, going into basements and just ankle high rubber boots, stuff's going over the top of your boots, and it's disgusting. I never got sick, though. I think the immunities that were developed and the stuff we did there in the 90s was pretty stupendous. But my dad had a small business. He operated out of his garage. He had a little office in his basement. He did not aspire I mean, where Day Spring grew to with a couple of hundred employees before the first step of fleet in the roll up. At that point, we were about 20 million, and I think we had six or seven offices at that point. That was in 2020, and maybe 150 employees or something like that. He wouldn't have envisioned that we would have ever been there.
[00:16:38.930] - Mark
But what we learned then in those early stages is a lot about the industry, a lot about where the industry was going, and learned a lot about work, and learned a lot about work ethic. My dad would be the first to say he's not really an entrepreneur in the sense that most entrepreneurs who grow or scale a business are. But what he really taught me was a lot about working hard and a lot about doing what you didn't want to do because it was the right thing to do. And those seeds that were planted in my high school years, my teen years, I mean, if you'd asked me at that point, guys, what do you want to do with your life? My answer was, easy. Anything but restoration. I don't care what I'm doing. I want it just not restoration. I mean, I was the only guy knew in the 90s that had a cell phone as far as, like, guys my age, right? And I had a cell phone, so that if my dad got a water loss, because I was really his only employee at that point, 15, 1617 years old, if he got a call on a water loss, it didn't matter what was going.
[00:17:50.470] - Mark
If I was out skiing, if I was out playing basketball, it didn't matter what I was doing. We got a water loss. Let's get loaded and roll. And so as I saw it, the business was just this huge inconvenience in my life. And this is something that I've not done anywhere near as good of a job as my dad did in trying to instill this in my kids. I've got five daughters, so it's tougher as a dad of daughters. My dad had mostly sons. These daughters, you have the soft spot for them. You kind of do what they tell you to do, but doing what you don't want to do because it's the right thing to do, or doing what you don't want to do because it builds character. Making hard decisions, because either they're the right things to do with the customer, they're the right things to do. Kind of the basis of all of what we would describe as integrity. What you're doing when no one else is watching. I learned a lot of those lessons as a high schooler, working in people's homes unsupervised, and not just around the things they had in their house.
[00:18:51.610] - Mark
A lot of people in Montana have stupendous houses that are like, their third or fourth or fifth home, and they're loaded up with all kinds of worldly goods. Not only that, but just doing the right thing. As to the process we use not cutting corners, giving a full day's work for your employer, not stealing from your employer, but giving them 100% while you're working for them. And all these sort of things were like the beginnings of, I think, the things that ultimately shape us as business people, shape us as leaders and sort of starts at the foundation for what ultimately becomes what we are. Yeah.
[00:19:33.670] - Brandon
What drove some of that you talked about your dad's perspective on the business was kind of more that homegrown, small business kind of character. What spurred up in you, like, this idea of this could go further. We could take this somewhere.
[00:19:48.000] - Mark
Yeah.
[00:19:48.120] - Chris
What did that change?
[00:19:49.210] - Mark
Yeah, it's a good question. So when I was about in probably my junior ish year of high school again, I was so busy with the beginning phases of running these really small teams. I mean, I might have a crew on a fire loss, two or three people, and they were part time people. My dad's only full time people were me and my brothers that worked in the company. They were all younger than me, so I got sort of the brunt of it. And there was the very early phases in the property restoration business of maturation starting to happen. So companies that were primarily carpet cleaning companies that were dabbling in restoration were starting to get a foothold, and it was really the early stages. I remember Claude Blackburn had at dry's these marketing books he was starting to put out. There were these three ring binders for adjuster marketing and they may have even come out a little earlier than that but they were starting to gain some momentum in the early ninety s and sort of this idea that there was a larger marketplace for property restoration than just the occasional carpet clean customer who called and said, hey, my basement has some water in it.
[00:21:12.140] - Mark
I know you guys put water on the carpet to clean it and suck it back out. Can you guys get the water out of my basement and put some of those fan things you guys have down there? That started to change, and you start to see this maturation in the property restoration industry around psychometrics, and the professionalization of using instruments to record and prove what you did to get paid there in the early ninety s. And so some light bulbs started to come on for me. As I remember, we would do these projects that were you got and clean five carpets in a day, and it might be $100 apiece, or even less than that, maybe you make $500, but you start having these water damage claims. And this was a bigger deal, and the scope of it was so much more interesting to me, because instead of in and out and dealing with cat urine stains, this was something that actually dealt with the building envelope and dealt with these cool instruments that you could use to actually have this desired outcome. You wanted to get to drawing property that you had to do incrementally over days, and then there was the whole part of putting it back together and repairing it.
[00:22:29.870] - Mark
And I was sort of interested in construction, worked a few summers when I wasn't working for my dad on some framing crews, so I was interested in construction as well. I saw this opportunity starting to emerge of construction that I had some interest in, and I always had this sort of interest in business and growing a company and building a company. I had a couple of friends when I was in high school. We were all sort of interested in business, and my dad's company was tiny, but I started to hear about other guys that were getting a little bigger, and that was interesting to me. And I really was interested in law. In fact, I got an internship right out of high school in a law firm out in Washington, DC. Worked shortly out there and realized, man, I am not cut out for 40 hours a week of sitting behind a desk. I've got to be doing something. And really sort of the entrepreneurial juices started to flow while I was there, where I was like, being a part of something that I can build and grow. That's what I'm interested in. That's what I want to.
[00:23:31.730] - Mark
So that's sort of how that transition happened.
[00:23:34.290] - Brandon
Chris so it was pretty that that was your own wiring in the skin already. That kind of the entrepreneurial drive.
[00:23:43.530] - Mark
Yeah, I think God just sort of, I mean, wires us all different different talents, different gifts, and, yeah, that was sort of the way he wired me, was to have an interest in growing things, and I was always interested in being able to achieve things with a team. Went back to team sports in high school. This idea that we can always accomplish so much more as a team than we can as individuals, that was really interesting to me as well. So those were kind of the early seeds. And in the late 90s, then I went from being a part time guy, working part time while I was going through school to sort of again, it was such a small business. I knew if I was going to go to school, if I was going to go to college, I was going to have to pay for that myself and work my way through college. I mean, my parents at that point didn't have any didn't have any resources to do. And as my dad had always told, you know, if you ever want to be a part of this business, as an owner, I'd welcome you to do that with me.
[00:24:45.420] - Mark
And so after I got back from Northern Virginia, I remember having to sit down and talk with my dad. I said, all right, dad. This business while I was gone, it really struggled. And, I mean, it was sort of not even viable at that point. I think the year I was gone, he did, like, 75,000 in revenues. It was like nothing. And so I was concerned about just my parents and their solvency and what they were going to do. And so I said, all right, if we're going to do this, though, we got to put some real plans together. We need to build a business plan. We've got to get access to capital. We've got to actually professionally market this business. We've got to develop the roles that we need to be successful, because this could really be something. And he was all in for that. I asked him, what do you think this could be someday? And he was like, I think this business could support a couple of families, I think that could happen. So supporting hundreds of families, that wouldn't have been in his card, that wasn't a part of his vision there, but frankly, it wouldn't even have been mine at that point.
[00:25:49.040] - Mark
But each step of the journey opens these new dimensions that we have to tackle and master if we're going to grow.
[00:25:57.570] - Chris
For a lot of people listening. This is so great, man, because I think we have so many family businesses in this industry. And succession planning is so difficult because it feels like it goes one of a few ways from what we've seen that either. The kids. They're so burned out by what restoration has been like growing up in the family. Mom or dad always gone or there's so many different experiences people have growing up in a family business. Some of them are really positive. Some of them, by the time they reach college, they're like, I want nothing to do with this. I'm going to go into tech or I'm going to be a physical therapist or whatever, or the kids come up in the business and that can create a source of strife, like the handoff, like how mom or dad doesn't want to let go of the business, and that can be tricky. And then there's others where it's a really natural kind of seamless transition. Kids just follow in the footsteps they model after mom or dad and they keep going. You and your dad had very different sort of makeup. It sounds like just natural wiring.
[00:27:05.770] - Chris
I'm assuming at some point there was friction between that. How did you navigate that as you guys started to make some big decisions, reinvesting money into the business or hiring and expanding, that kind of runs counter to how your dad what was that like as you started to lean into that growth?
[00:27:24.590] - Mark
Very intuitive there, Chris. I suspect there was friction at some point, totally. My dad is today one of my best friends, so I'm so thankful for that. But there was some tough sledding some of those seasons, because if you're going to really grow and develop a business, man, it takes an incredible amount of work and a lot of risk and some providence along the way, too, some people would call it. We got lucky at certain places. And I always say, time is everything. My personal belief is that God orchestrates those things, so people are going to disagree with that. That's just how I see it. There was some challenges there where dad and I were at loggerheads and we had some good people. Again, it's not just sort of the decisions we make along the way, but also the people who invest in us along the way. I was so blessed to have some great people that cared about us, cared about our family, and this is one of the most, I think, important things for us in our journey as professionals and just as. Individuals is being open to and receiving criticism, receiving counsel when it doesn't feel good.
[00:28:48.810] - Mark
Our pride can get in the way of those things so many times. And there are times where I thought, man, I was doing the right thing and I saw things so clearly, and sometimes I was wrong. I wasn't seeing things right. I wasn't seeing them clearly. And so I'm just grateful that along the way I had people who included sometimes my dad who'd look me in the eye and say, you're off base here, you're not on the right track. And that goes to I think back to the earlier phases that are so important. There's a lot of sometimes probably almost hubris that's required to make it in business. There's that line between hubris and competence. Where's the right balance? There having people in your life who are willing to tell you the truth. Super critical.
[00:29:37.090] - Chris
Can you double click on that a little bit? Just because I know this will be so relevant to a lot of people listening. Can you talk about one of those moments of truth, maybe, where you and your dad were just at loggerheads and neither one of you was willing to seemingly give ground and you guys wrestled with something that ended up having a real formative effect on the business? Can you share a specific example on how you guys moved through that eventually?
[00:30:00.810] - Mark
Yeah. One of the areas that was really tough for me, Chris, was the area of just roles. Because what was sort of maybe a little reverse or a little inverse from what some of the experiences you already mentioned about family businesses in some ways, my dad worked for me because I came in and to his credit, he gave me a tremendous amount of latitude to just take the ball and run with it. And so what would happen is I was making decisions about marketing, advertising. I was very aggressive.
[00:30:31.970] - Chris
Wow, what a gift from your dad to let you do.
[00:30:34.270] - Mark
Yeah, no, it was I didn't always see it that way then. Right, I'm sure you did. I was like, you're not pulling your weight, man. Because he just got out of the way a lot of times. But what's tough is that when you're trying to grow these bed we were growing so fast. I mean, we went from that $75,000 level I was talking about to like 3 million very quickly. Wow. And there's a lot of pain as anyone who's had a family business and anyone who's had a quick growth trajectory.
[00:31:08.130] - Chris
Talk about that. Yeah, talk about that.
[00:31:11.370] - Mark
Yeah. So, I mean, there's the first of all, just the question of doubt as you go through it, is this going to work? I mean, you start signing I was talking to my kids about this. In some ways, some of my kids, especially my younger kids, all they see is, this is the way it's always been. They have no idea about the phase when they were really little girls and I was the last person to get paid in the company, sometimes maybe not for a few times. And I had my name on personal guarantees with banks all over the place. And we had a conviction level about what we were doing in business, that we were making the right decision, that we were doing the right thing. This business particularly, man, you got some peaks and you got some valleys and Montana, maybe worse than some others. Maybe I shouldn't say worse than some others. Anyone who's in an area where there's hurricanes and things like that would understand this. But sometimes you have hurricane years and sometimes you don't. In Montana, some years you have freezes and some years you don't. And so we would have these phases where you're asking yourself, are we doing the right thing?
[00:32:20.690] - Mark
I mean, am I going to wake up at one day and lose it all? We had a couple as anyone who's been on the journey of life and what we have here knows, it's not always roses, especially been doing it for 20 years or 25 years. We had one phase where, I mean, it was really tough. We lost one of my brothers when he was 16 in an accident. And then a series of other things happened with kind of the culmination of this house. We were working with a water damage property, and they had a waterbed in this property that shorted out at night. And we're drying the house out. And, of course, all the air movers just accelerated this short that happens in this waterbed that catches on fire and does like I think it ended up doing, like, $300,000 worth of damage in this home. And our insurance company at that point was like, we don't even know if we have the right coverage for you guys as a contractor. And I'm sitting here, I'm 22 years old. I've got a three week old, my oldest daughter, who's almost 23. Now I've got these personal guarantees and potentially a $400,000 liability.
[00:33:29.290] - Mark
I don't got 400 grand. I mean, at that point, 400,000 might have well been 4 million. It was a whole thing. So there's these moments, I think, as you go through the growth of these businesses. Know, again, I think the thing that's so important is not only having the people that tell you the truth we're sort of double clicking there, Chris, but also the people that are going to be willing to walk through those seasons with you and get through the hard times. And I had my dad there who, even though we were at loggerheads sometimes about decisions we were making in the business or who was doing what or who wasn't doing what. I had in my wife, I had in my dad, and I had in other mentors in my life, people who did two things. One, told me the truth, and two, encouraged me when I needed encouragement. And there was a consultant we had I just would pause here for just a second. And you and I, we haven't talked about this at all before as far as consultants, but consultants are really important, especially at certain phases in a business.
[00:34:31.720] - Mark
At that point, I had some guys actually out in your neck of the woods. Phil Rosebrook, phil SR. And Dave Rosebrook, too, who david just sort of come out of the industry, and I was his first client as a consultant.
[00:34:45.470] - Brandon
Dude, the goats, man.
[00:34:46.860] - Mark
Yeah, yeah. Dave is like I was so nervous because Dave had never had a client. And the cost for hiring consultants seems daunting. Especially we got all this other risk over here, right? But there again, I had these people, I had these men in my life and women in my life that came alongside and said, here's how we're going to do this. This seems daunting. This is an uphill battle, but here's how we're going to break it down, and here's how we're going to get there. And here's maybe the areas where you're going to hinder this plan. If you don't develop your skills in this area, if you don't step up your game, it ain't happening.
[00:35:26.180] - Brandon
Sorry, Brandon, I cut you off. So you're a young man at this point, though.
[00:35:30.330] - Mark
You're, what, early 20s? Yeah. Wow. That would have been sort of the phase of probably like 20 to 25 there where I was working with. I mean, that's amazing. I was talking to Phil about this down in Orlando. It's like 20 years ago when and I mean, that's like gazillion clients ago for them. Like I said, being Dave, I was Dave Rosebrook's first client. And like I said, I was nervous. I was like, man, is this guy what if this guy's not a good consultant? This is going to be terrible. But he was great.
[00:36:06.070] - Chris
All right, Headhart and Boots listeners wanted to stop here just a moment and thank our underwriting sponsor, Bloodlight Consulting Group, as all of you. You know, Brandon and I, this is our passion project, Headhart and Boots is. But it's also a way more and more that our consulting clients find us and in effect, they interview us, right? Those of you been listening to show for a while, you get to know who we are, right, what we're about. So if Headhart and Boots is valuable to you, one of the best things you can do is share it with your friends. And it's been incredible to watch just the audience grow, and we still get text messages from many of you about shows that you really like and impacted you. So that's number one. And please keep doing that. Many of you have been huge advocates of the show. We also just want to remind you, too, if you're a restoration company owner and you're interested in a partner in your growth, you want some help building out systems, developing your leadership teams, helping set up the infrastructure for you to scale and grow into the company that you're trying to build.
[00:37:05.320] - Chris
That's what we do. That's what we do is we come alongside restoration company leaders. We help equip them and we help support them in that growth trajectory. So if you're looking for that go to Floodlightgrp.com, potentially we could be a great match for each other.
[00:37:19.500] - Brandon
Another way that we really do serve our client base and our sphere of influence is through our Premier Partners. We work really hard to vet those folks that we believe bring a level of value to the industry, that it can really be leveraged in a way to have a sincere, positive impact on your business. We take that very seriously. The folks that we create, those kind of ongoing partnerships, that's not a check the box kind of scenario. We really see strategic alignment in the value that they bring. We see value in the way that their leadership teams and their partners are developed. And we've done very sincere work of ensuring that these folks that we introduce our clients and our sphere to can actually create vetted value. So go check out Floodlightgrp.com Premier Partners and see if there's some folks on there that you can connect with and begin developing some other resources to support your growth and your business. Okay, so I got to ask this. It's kind of been burning this whole time is how has coming up in the industry that way? How is that influencing the way that you're identifying and seeing potential leaders in your company?
[00:38:26.520] - Brandon
Because at the scale that you're at now, my gosh, that's like lifeblood to the system, right? For continued expansion, but a young man ultimately, and we've seen other examples of this where dad ends up or mom ends up taking kind of this doing posture while the son or daughter is expanding the business, kind of formalizing things.
[00:38:47.780] - Chris
So that it's different.
[00:38:49.100] - Brandon
You've had different lessons, getting coached and mentored in your young 20s. How are you seeing that translate into the way that you see your people now?
[00:38:57.790] - Mark
Well, it's through different mentors and business mentors was one of them. Having coaches, I think it's always one just good mindset, I think for anyone to carry is that any professional should always have a mentor and always be mentoring. So there's never a point when anyone should not have a coach in their life. And there should never be a point where you don't have someone that you're investing in and pouring what you've been given into somebody else.
[00:39:27.320] - Chris
Why do you believe that?
[00:39:28.840] - Mark
Well, I think a couple of things. I mean, I think number one is that if we're really ever learning let me back up one step. If we ever stop learning, it's a dangerous place to be. I believe that if a man or woman ever loses vision for what their purpose is, then it's sort of the beginning of their death. Not their physical death, but their death and their development and in what they were called crafted and created for. And so that constant learning is critical. It never ends. Right? It has to always be continuing. And one of the only ways we can learn is to have the humility to ask other people to teach us things. So that's why I think it's important to always have a mentor. And also a mentor shows us our blind spots. We are so again, because of the pride that's rooted in this humanity that we're in. We are our own worst critics in the sense that we aren't very good assessors of our blind spots. And I always have it's such a gift when someone will share with you where you have blind spots, an area that needs to be improved or deficiency, so that can't happen without a mentor.
[00:40:39.570] - Mark
Now, as to the issue of why we should always be mentoring, I believe that's how we truly crystallize the lessons that we have in life. There's this people who've been a part of our organization have probably heard me say this many times, so if they ever saw this, they sort of throw up in the back of their mouth if they heard this. But there was a mantra in the medical field that is see one, do one, teach one. So you learn how to do anything when you're medical school, you see someone do it, and you see them do it at a high level, right? And then you do it. Now you take what you've seen, you convert it into that muscle memory that happens when you see it, and now it translates into doing it. But if you really want it to truly penetrate this thick gray matter we have, you have to teach it to somebody else. And so that does something else. It's the final step of truly learning is when we teach something. I had a huge back to my early twenty s. One of the huge things for us in the growth of our company was when mold started to become a thing, right?
[00:41:46.520] - Mark
In the wasn't a thing. I mean, how we didn't kill ourselves, I don't know. My brother, who's four years younger than me, is highly sensitive to mold. Now, probably from all the stuff we put ourselves in, like, he gets into certain mold, he'll get a terrible asthma attack. Ended up in an Er once, right? We just did stupid stuff, right? But once mold, like, we sort of learned how professionally we deal with mold. And now there was this liability around it. There was lawsuits happening, all this stuff was happening. We sort of positioned ourselves as the experts in the larger Montana, Idaho, Wyoming area on that. One of the key things for me in doing that is I went and got certified to be a CEC instructor. I know there's a lot of people that do this now, but then no one was doing it. And I remember in one year, it might have been like, 2002 or 2001 or somewhere in there in one year, I trained, like 3500 realtors property inspectors all across Montana. Wow. I had this huge platform to teach the principles of mold remediation. And what that did for me, I mean, it exposed our company in a lot of places and helped it grow the company.
[00:42:59.160] - Mark
But the real gift in that thing wasn't that we got our name out everywhere. It was that my expertise was honed by teaching it to people and the confidence that people develop in the skills they need to be successful, whether it's in the technical skills, the business skills, the financial acumen, whatever it is, man, if you want to really sharpen those, go out and start teaching someone else. So that's sort of why I believe it's so important.
[00:43:29.970] - Chris
Okay. So that is a great principle. Right. We learn through teaching. We master our knowledge through teaching. I want to go back to something you said because I think it's potentially really powerful. Back in your early 20s, when you hired Phil and ultimately worked with Dave, you mentioned that there were people around you. Presumably your wife also had some input into this. And your dad and Dave, you mentioned that there were some things they identified in you that are going to need to change in order for you to get to where you wanted to go. For you as a young leader, what were those areas that they identified, and how did you go about putting on those attributes or characteristics or how did you go about that, what they identified that had to change in you?
[00:44:20.370] - Mark
There was more than one. But one of the ones that probably sticks in my mind the most is I have a certain bend towards perfectionism. And it's one of these areas where I think when you have however God puts us all together, he puts everyone together with certain things that they do well. Right. And there was a principle that a guy has. It's another business coach named Dan Sullivan. He calls it the unique ability. Everyone has a unique ability. That one thing that if somebody could spend the majority of their time on that they would be really successful. So how do you leverage that piece? Right. The downside of a unique ability is there's the cliche that our strength can become our weakness. And that's always the case. One of my best friends, his mom always said something along lines I probably butchered the phrase, but she would always say, our weaknesses are always nearby, our strengths. So whatever we're doing very close by, if we have a misused or no, maybe it was something along the lines of a weakness is just a strength being misused. That's what it was. I knew I'd butcher it.
[00:45:33.640] - Mark
And so I had this with this level of seeing very clearly how certain things needed to happen in our company. I could also and I mean, to this day, I still am always doing this work to sort of root away at this. I don't think it ever ends right. I can be a biting critic and I can have an expectation that others carry that same level of perfection that I have. Right. And it can just demotivate people sometimes and can really get in the way of the outcome that I want that is right and important. But I can sometimes impact that right a lot of times. And it happens with our kids, it happens with our spouses, it happens with our people on our team, whatever it is, right. We all have those areas where I think, again, we would just blow past it if somebody didn't have the guts just to be honest with us and say, hey, you're not getting the outcome that you want. And it's important, it's needed unless you can deal with this. And so I know my dad had a number of different occasions where we just had to sort of have these brutal heart to hearts where it sort of break down and give me a play by play on maybe how I addressed a certain situation with someone who was maybe a superintendent or something like that in our organization.
[00:47:01.930] - Mark
Maybe it's something I said to him. Right. And so that drive, that's good. Without that drive, the company doesn't grow. But it's always this process. How do you polish and refine this so these good things where we can get in our own way, actually become what their potential is? I think the challenge is most people give up too early on it. They'll have these certain areas where they have a strength, but that strength is being misused and because it gets them in trouble, they abandon it. And that's sort of the greatest, I guess, disappointment and misused opportunity there because in that regard, it's something that could have been probably pretty great or pretty impressive, but without, again, those people there who are willing to be honest and invest back in the individual, it just doesn't happen.
[00:47:54.230] - Chris
Yeah, we can become afraid of our strengths.
[00:47:56.650] - Mark
That's right.
[00:47:58.330] - Chris
So I'm curious, though, how here fast forward, just a spectacular career in a lot of ways, punctuated by these crazy struggles and learning moments and all that kind of stuff. But you mentioned it still is something that you continue up to. How do you because that perfectionism thing, we work with a lot of really high driver, very ambitious owners that have super high expectations of themselves and they struggle with this too. Like what level of expectation is appropriate for my people? How do you wrestle with how do you we talked before we got on the call. Maybe we'll have time to get into it. Just thinking as a leader, how do you think about that now in terms of the expectations you're putting on others? And how do you negotiate that? Does that still come to a head from time to time?
[00:48:46.970] - Mark
I'll talk about this. So at my worst, I would have expectations that weren't being met, and I would either get angry or quiet. That would be my response. Right. Either as an owner, you've been pushed, push, push, push, push, and then finally it blows, or probably the other place that is equally as damaging is just turn off. Right? And it's sort of the silent treatment trick. And so the process of growing and maturing as a leader and as a human being, I think in this at least, this is what it's been for me. And I recognize it's different for a lot of different people. It is really the process of learning how to engage in this, to prioritize the relationships that we have in these and do the hard work. Because really what I identified, Chris, is that most of the times that my expectations were not being met were my fault. It was because I had not properly set the expectation, communicated the expectation, or have the measurements in place to measure the outcome that we needed. So if that frustration boils out, really the root frustration is with myself. It's really, at the end of the day, the reason that I have the deepest disappointment there.
[00:50:02.900] - Mark
And maybe that anger that's there is because I know ultimately it's my failure, which ultimately, again, thanks to some of the people that I've had in my life, I was able to sort of embark on this journey about leadership and really to understand what does it mean to really be the leader that I need to be in our organization. Number one. And number two is how do we cultivate and create an atmosphere where leaders can be developed in this organization. And primarily those things are around communication, primarily around expectations that are properly set and then using the right moments and the right coaching to be able to not only get the results we need with the people that are on our team, but also for us to grow as people in getting to the place that it's not either an explosion or the silent treatment. Action. Now, sometimes I find, I mean, my issue is I very rarely lose my cool. I do sometimes, but for me, it's probably more of the kind of go inside, I just get quiet. That's sort of almost worse, I think, in some ways, because as leaders, people watch every grimace.
[00:51:17.790] - Mark
They watch our facial expressions. They watch not only what we say, but what we don't say, and we miss the opportunity to truly lead as professionals, I think, when that's our response to the situation.
[00:51:33.950] - Brandon
Yeah, it's interesting that you said that. I think we said earlier where Chris and I are reading a book called Leadership and Self Deception.
[00:51:41.560] - Mark
I don't know if we remember. You might have, but I don't remember.
[00:51:45.320] - Brandon
It'S really interesting, Mark, because at the very it's they're kind of setting the stage right, for this idea of how often we're kind of confused. Like our look at reality is not factual. And then we're operating out of that misinterpretation of what we're experiencing or seeing. But one of the things he talks about is how often people are picking up the way we feel about them versus how we're acting or what we're saying. And it's interesting to me because I can really relate to what you're saying. Like, your two responses are you either get into it aggressively because you're angry or you back out and you shut down. This is my distance. Yeah. This is me. 101. Right. And one of the things that I realized, again, just kind of a reawakening to it when I'm reading this book is this idea of I often feel a certain way about someone in the moment. Normally it's because it's a perverted view of them. Right. I'm not seeing them as a fellow human. I'm not seeing them as smart as me or as capable of me. I've got all these judgments, all these things. And then somehow I'm surprised by the fact that what I say or how I'm in quotes, acting towards that person doesn't influence them nearly as much as how I'm actually feeling about them is.
[00:53:03.070] - Brandon
But I think I'm hiding it.
[00:53:04.490] - Mark
Right.
[00:53:04.730] - Brandon
I think I'm doing a good job of filtering.
[00:53:06.510] - Chris
We think we're playing nice or we're yeah. I don't know. We get in this headspace where we're just sort of dealing with them quietly and yet all along the way that they experience like it doesn't matter what we say.
[00:53:20.500] - Mark
Yeah.
[00:53:20.750] - Chris
Like you talk about the body language, everything else, it's betraying what's really going on inside for us. Right.
[00:53:26.930] - Mark
It's not you know, I think that you're totally right. And I think what Brandon's hitting on here is that if we are disingenuous at that level, people are smart and they pick up on that really quickly. So it's really this whole thing growing as a leader who has authenticity. And most of our true ability to lead comes out of serving, not out of power tripping. But that's hard, right? I mean, that takes a lot of growth and maturity to be able to get to that point. Because most people I was in Australia here last month, and everyone knows Montana now because of this Yellowstone phenomenon, right? So they asked me about all the time and I haven't watched it. I've seen a couple episodes, but it's sort of actually in reality, people want that. They see that and they sort of see this guy that's this strong guy that wills his way to the outcomes that he wants, sort of intimidates people. If you think about probably the two of the most renowned television series in the last 20 years would probably be The Sopranos and Yellowstone. So I think we're really drawn to this sort of leadership, but it's just incredibly ineffective in not only getting the results that you want, but also just the legacy of a leader.
[00:54:53.610] - Mark
What really sticks after you're gone. That's what I think a lot.
[00:55:00.530] - Brandon
Like you're thinking about that. What do you want that legacy to look like for you personally?
[00:55:07.030] - Mark
So there's probably different capacities that that's important. You guys mentioned a little bit about know, RIA is something that I think is really important for the restoration industry. There's a period where RIA was barely viable. I mean, now everyone wants to be a part of what's going on because it's in a good place. I was pointing out to some people on the board recently that it wasn't all that long ago that ran really know what it wanted to be when it grows up. And that's a whole separate conversation. But I see ri as really important because this industry needs a voice. And I can't be that voice. You guys can't be that voice. Bill rosebrook can't be that voice, jeff moore can't be that know, all these different people are not the voice. It's how do restorers speak for themselves? So I think there's a lot of things that I learned in a small restoration company in montana that ultimately translated into the movement that has become with RIA. And it was all rooted in a lot of really what's right for the ecosystem, the restoration ecosystem. And that's fundamentally, I think, for RIA and for dayspring and for the things that I've been involved.
[00:56:32.990] - Mark
Mean, if there were a thing that I would want to be remembered for, it would be that I did the right thing, regardless of the consequences. And there's been a bunch of different phases along the way where it was hard to do the right thing. And ultimately, at the end of the day, our integrity is a big piece of who we are as leaders. And it's not always popular, it's definitely not easy. That's, again, probably a whole separate conversation, but I think that would be probably the biggest area that would be important, pretty global.
[00:57:08.580] - Brandon
There is something in you that's drawn to that more. I guess bigger is maybe the easiest way to put it, right? There's always been kind of this piece in you. It seems like at least what I'm picking up of bigger. What's next, what's out there, what's possible, how do you balance that? Because I'm thinking from the perspective of I've got a $5 million company, I have dreams and aspirations, I'm entrepreneurial, whatever the case may be. And there's some battle, patience required to put the time and grade, to develop the people, the relationships, the systems, the processes to make that a sustainable adventure, right? To create the legacy along with the scale. What do you do from a discipline perspective or thinking time, or what is it like from a real utilitarian perspective? How do you balance that? How do you keep them in.
[00:57:58.510] - Mark
Check. So I think strategy is of course one of the most important areas that a business can really matter or a leader can master as to how it relates to where they're going to get to. And I think a very difficult piece of the property restoration industry is that being in an emergency business, you have so many things distracting you every day. I mean whatever you set out to plan for a day just goes all haywire. So much, such a high percentage of the time. So I really think it comes down to two things if you're going to get there and if you're going to have the discipline for that. Number one is you have to have a strategic planning process that isn't an annual sit down and then we think about it again this time next year. But you have to have a process that has outside influence, particularly from outside the industry. One of the most important things for me in my career was having mentors, coaches and advisors who are not part of the restoration industry. We have so much self limiting thinking in this industry and I needed to have not all voices, I mean, again, inside the industry really, really important to have those voices.
[00:59:13.130] - Mark
But you need to have some who are from the outside that say why do you do that? Why is that important? Why do you think that? Why don't you think that? So the strategic planning process is really, really important and it has to be revisited regularly. There's a million different ways to do this. I use the strategic planning process in scaling up, which is the Burn Harnish methodology. Doesn't matter if you do that, doesn't matter if you do traction, doesn't matter if you just use a spreadsheet. Whatever you do, pick one and use it and measure it at least quarterly. One of the things that was always one of the most important things for me was having our leadership team reassemble every single quarter from all over Montana or whatever our area was and to hold each other accountable to the progress that we made in process of strategic planning. We wanted to know every single quarter that we moved the needle on the big goals that we had. Some of the goals seemed crazy. 20 million in Montana seemed crazy ten years ago. I mean ten years ago there weren't that many businesses that were doing 20 million.
[01:00:19.020] - Mark
Certainly not in a state of less than a million people. So it was having that and then step one, I think it's critical is have a strategic planning process. Step two is you've got to have discipline every single day to do three things. One is start your day with a list. What are the things that have to happen today for me to be successful and to move maybe just tiny, tiny bit, but to move the needle, number one. Number two then to prioritize that list so that you make sure the most important things on that list happen. Number three is schedule those most important things. My goal was always if I had my list, I would break it down a million ways. You can do this priority A, B and C on my list every single day. Those A's, when I ranked them, if I had a one, a two and a three, I wanted to know that by 10:00 in the morning. I was pretty much off limits, but I was going to get those done before I moved on to all the other pressing parts of life. And then I was always able at the end of the day, no matter how many things went completely sideways, to know I made progress today.
[01:01:20.040] - Mark
Today was not a wasted day. So those two steps I think, were paramount for me, brandon and I think that anyone who can commit themselves to the rigor of doing that day in, day out will be incredibly they'll be blown away by the progress they make.
[01:01:36.990] - Chris
That's awesome.
[01:01:37.780] - Mark
I love it.
[01:01:38.220] - Chris
That's great. Applicable as we kind of land the plane here. I mean, this has been so great, man. You've been really open with us about some of this internal process for you and what matters and all those things. Talk to us a little bit about marriage and being a parent because I think particularly in this industry, it's not the only industry that's like this, but there's a unique level of unpredictability and chaos that can really kind of take over our lives in this business.
[01:02:04.760] - Mark
Right?
[01:02:06.150] - Chris
And there's obviously kind of a trail of tears because of that of broken marriages and substance abuse and just all the things that I think we struggle with running companies in this industry. We haven't talked about it. I don't know. I mean you may have a really wonderful marriage or otherwise, but certainly the impression we have from you is that this balance in life is really important. How have you managed to build a marriage over the same period of time while you've been scaling companies? How have you found a way to build time into your day and your focus to be a dad? What does that look like for you and has it been a struggle in the past? What's your story been as far as those things go?
[01:02:49.400] - Mark
So my wife and I got married when we were young. I was 20, she was 21. This year is our 25th anniversary. She was the only thank you. She was the only girl that I ever dated. I met her when I was twelve and so we've been together much longer than even the 25 years we've been married when I was pretty young. And I live in Montana, so in Montana, like country music is the big thing, right. But I remember something that always was, you guys are going to laugh at this, but like Garth Brooks was big in Montana. I remember one time someone asked him something about this and he said a comment that always stuck with me, happiness isn't getting what you want, it's wanting what you got in the context of marriage. Wow. And so, yeah, you wouldn't think of Garth Brooks as a philosopher or anything like that, even mention the name there. But the point is, and I think what's relevant with marriage is that especially now in the society that we live in, such a sensual society, I think that as men, we can compare for our wives, we can compare our wives weaknesses with the strengths of others that we know.
[01:04:05.150] - Mark
And that's very unfair to our spouses. And so for me, my wife is an incredible woman and we've been blessed with five daughters, as I mentioned earlier. But marriage is incredibly difficult while you're growing and scaling a business. My wife was so gracious to me through that period. So choosing the person you marry, of course, is really important and was so blessed to be married to an amazing woman. But there again, that area of humility, I think, is so paramount. Our pride can find its way into our marriages. We think we do everything right. We get these blind spots. We kind of like, I'm doing everything great here, what's your problem? And it's not, it's just not the case. And so we've had lots of times along our marriage, we've had to just be able to be really honest with each other. And I've had to being willing and able to say you're sorry when you need to say you're sorry and change, change your ways. You need to change your ways back to that area of being critical. That same perfectionism blades over into the marriage.
[01:05:17.400] - Chris
I was going to ask you about that. How did you navigate that? How have you learned to manage know?
[01:05:24.150] - Mark
I think we always learn, at least for me, for Mark Springer, I have learned so much more in the very challenging seasons of my life than I've ever learned in Great Know. And so in points of our marriage where I was just too focused on business, we have this way, we rationalize it. I'm doing it for our family, I'm doing it for you. And that's not really true. Like, we really are honest. We're really doing it for me. It might be, yeah, for you, too, but really being willing to just acknowledge where our hearts are in all these things and really, again, be authentic in these things and really want and value what that person needs and the promises we made, I mean, you think about these promises are just not kept in our society now. I made these promises to you when we got married and I'm going to keep them. Really being committed to that, those were things that were important there. As far as daughters go. I got so much estrogen in this house. I got two female dogs on top of five daughters and one granddaughter. That's where I am in life, right.
[01:06:37.150] - Mark
One of the greatest things back to those people who speak into our lives. One of the best books I've ever read is a book by a woman named Meg Meeker, who's a pediatrician. And anyone who's I'd recommend, she owes me a commission at some point. I've literally sold hundreds of copies of her book for her. But she has a book called Strong Fathers, strong Daughters.
[01:06:59.500] - Chris
Yeah, follow.
[01:07:02.150] - Mark
Her. Not most people haven't heard of it, so kudos to you for being familiar with that. But that book has been so helpful. It has saved my life with my daughters and dads. You are the most important person in your daughter's life if you're listening to this right now, and you have your daughter, don't forget, especially when she's 14 years old, that you are the most important person in her life. And you may think that it's the opposite of that, but it's at that point you have to lean in. And one of the great things about having a family, all my girls have worked in my business. My oldest daughter is very successful business development. In fact, she's going to be working her husband she's getting married next month, and she'll be working now, not in days anymore. She's going to be working for Blue Sky next month down Colorado. She's relocating her husband's, a special forces medic or her husband to be. My second daughter's, also in BD, she was a construction admin once upon a time. My third daughter's, an office admin in the business. I've all had all of them be able to work in the business, but just being intentional and purposeful about the time we spend with them is critical.
[01:08:06.960] - Mark
Take them on business trips. I mean, I've taken all my girls on business trips. If you can have them work in the business, my rule was always you had to work out of the business for at least a season. You couldn't just have entitlement into the business. That is also a big problem. But time with these girls is everything, and sons, too. But all I know is girls, that's.
[01:08:30.710] - Chris
All you know is the girl side of things. That's great, man. Well, listen, we're coming up on an hour or so here. Mark, this has been awesome, man. I feel like I've gotten to kind of see a different side of you than we tend to see in the headlines and the CNR stuff and conferences. And I really appreciate you kind of opening up the kimono and sharing a little bit of kind of your personal life as you've grown as a leader and business guy. Where can we direct people right now to anything that you're involved in that we want to spotlight some attention? I mean, obviously you're a huge advocate and believer in RAA and what we're trying to do there as an industry. Anything else that you want to draw attention to that's important in your life, right?
[01:09:11.790] - Mark
Question I think within RAA specifically, it's really important that restores of all sizes of companies are represented. At RIA, there was a time, I mean, we've got all these big corporate members now, I mean, ATI and first on site Blue Sky and Serve Pro, these big, some cases multi billion dollar companies. At one point it wasn't that way. We didn't have really any of the support of the major companies. And it's always been important to me that RIA continues to have its identity rooted in the growth of the independent restorer. And the only way that that can continue, the only way that can be perpetuated is if the independent restorers first of all become members and get involved and just don't ever, I would encourage any restorers to not ever think or perceive that unless I'm a huge company, I'm not wanted here. Your voice is important. All of the roots and beginnings of the advocacy and government affairs effort that has become a huge thing. All of those were born out of the trials and tribulations that I had in the industry as a small independent restorer fighting these very difficult battles all by myself and really just my conviction that it shouldn't be that way, it shouldn't be this hard.
[01:10:37.770] - Mark
So I would encourage people to get involved in that. And then the second thing is just always I don't have anywhere to necessarily just point people for this, but this journey of how do I become a better leader is one that I just encourage anyone that's involved in their business and trying to grow it. If you want to grow your business, the success or failure of that is going to rise and fall on your capacity and capability as a leader. And unfortunately, it is not going to be with how you make great leaders in your company. It's going to be if you're going to become a great leader yourself. And that work is hard, it's vulnerable, it's painful. Often it feels like in one step forward and 17 steps backwards. But that is going to affect all the areas of your life, not only who you are as a business leader, but it's going to impact how you are as a husband, it's going to impact how you are or a wife. It's going to impact how you are as a son or a daughter, how you are as a father or a mother. It's going to impact on how you are as a person in your community, as the baseball coach, as a teacher, as a guide to other people.
[01:11:53.420] - Mark
And this is really my heart is that we see so many lost people now. There's so much connectivity. All social media I saw know Instagram started its own Twitter competition. I think it's called Threads or something like that. It's like oh great, one more way that people can create an illusion of connection. But nobody has people investing in them. So many of the young people come into our organization, we just ask them, what do you know about leadership who's invested in you? And very few people have had anyone invest in them. They come from broken families and broken lives. And so this is the opportunity that we have as men and women and professionals in this industry and something that a lot of people may turn their nose up at. What we do isn't glamorous or sexy, but, man, we have an incredible opportunity to impact lives. So seize those opportunities. I guess that would be the thing I would end on Chris.
[01:12:49.950] - Chris
I can't think of a more perfect yeah. Yeah. Thanks again, Mark. This has been really great conversation.
[01:12:56.450] - Mark
Thank you, guys. I appreciate you guys giving the space to have this conversation. Right on.
[01:13:03.180] - Brandon
Okay, guys, for those of you that hung out for this particular episode, I think there was plenty to send you back to dig in, to rethink through and reprocess.
[01:13:14.750] - Chris
Thanks, Mark.
[01:13:15.650] - Brandon
Dude, you're a terribly humble leader for the skill.
[01:13:20.070] - Mark
I'm not always that way. Let me grab my wife.
[01:13:23.290] - Chris
Let me ask well, you mentioned earlier it requires a little bit of hubris. We don't know what that dose is, but there is some of that required for certain.
[01:13:31.170] - Mark
No. Trust me, that side of me can emerge without a whole lot of provocation, so be careful.
[01:13:39.730] - Chris
Fair enough.
[01:13:40.440] - Brandon
It's good to know you're not superhuman.
[01:13:42.270] - Chris
Yeah. Pretty good, man. Thanks again.
[01:13:44.360] - Brandon
Thanks for joining. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart and Boots.
[01:13:51.270] - Chris
And if you're enjoying the show but you love this episode, please hit follow. Formerly 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.
