[00:00:00.240] - Chris
Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head Heart & Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head Heart and Boots podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:00:11.220] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours.
[00:00:21.020] - Chris
I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose.
[00:00:24.060] - Brandon
No, I. I don't. I didn't, and I am not happy with it.
[00:00:28.240] - Chris
Hey, you know tomorrow night we're having you and Janna over.
[00:00:31.560] - Brandon
That's right. Yeah. I can't. What are you gonna feed us?
[00:00:33.780] - Chris
We're doing. We're doing, like, tacos.
[00:00:35.850] - Brandon
Oh, and you had me doing some flank steak. You have me at tacos, bro. Yeah, yeah, you had me at tacos.
[00:00:41.370] - Chris
I'll fire up the sauna too.
[00:00:43.750] - Brandon
I'm down. The only thing I'm. I will be a little embarrassed about is the gut that's sitting over the. The old belt loop.
[00:00:50.210] - Chris
Well, you know.
[00:00:50.920] - Brandon
And that's where we're going today.
[00:00:52.040] - Chris
You can wear one of my wife's robes or something if you want.
[00:00:54.290] - Brandon
That'd be great.
[00:00:54.930] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:00:55.330] - Brandon
Cara, do you mind if I guess that. Yeah, yeah. I'm feeling a little self conscious right now, so if you can. No problem, dude. I want to journey down a little lane here. I've been chewing on this for a while, and we're going to get transparent. I've been geeking out on some podcasts. Sean Ryan is a show I just freaking love. Anyways, the guy brings in real hitters. I mean, these are.
[00:01:18.320] - Chris
Well, these are actual hitters.
[00:01:20.310] - Brandon
Literally. These are the men and women that in governmental, professional, military, paramilitary roles are just unbelievable. They've done some unbelievable things, and they've passed through unbelievably hard times and experiences. And many of them are the kind of people that when you hear their story, it shapes you, it influences you and how you consider your own world and your own life. And I have an affinity for it because I just. I have a ton of admiration and respect for the military. Not just because I had a short stint with the military, but it's just. It's meaningful to me. I. I. You know, you and I have the honor and the opportunity to own companies. And we do that partially because of the freedoms we have in the United States to be business owners and entrepreneurs and free thinkers. And I know for certain that that has never come without a price. And so I just have a lot of admiration for military and first responders alike. Honestly, I've got family that are blue bloods and they are part of the police, you know, different police forces. And anyways, I just. When men and women sacrifice and do hard things, it's hard not to stop and pay attention.
[00:02:22.770] - Brandon
So I've been watching a lot of the Shawn Ryan show recently and just kind of covering the gambit with all these amazing men and women. And you know, for the first time in a long minute, if you guys have listened to our show for some time, you can hear these moments where Chris and I and our own, you know, have some moments of time where life's a little bit harder than we want it to be or whatever. And the last three months I've been kind of whining a lot more than I would like to admit. And for the first time in a long time, I've felt like a straight up victim to circumstances. There's just certain injuries and certain things that I've been experienced that has taken my ability to control my physical fitness and some of my own health concerns. And I'm facing the challenges of that. I've also been wrestling with midlife and wrestling with the fact that, dude, I'm just fucking sorry, excuse the French. I'm getting older and as you get older, there's a lot more things working against you than working for you. And dude, it got in my head.
[00:03:12.330] - Brandon
Like I. I had a couple moments over the last couple months where it just got a little, a little deep. It was just really bothering me. And I had several scenarios where, dude, this sounds crazy, but not even that long ago, we're talking probably last couple weeks. I had a night I was not. I couldn't sleep. I was just literally, I don't sleep often, but this was bad. Like straight up, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. And I literally had to like reach out. And I needed, man, I get a little emotional. Actually. I needed my wife to come for me. I'm a 200 pound dude that normally is working out, that fires guns, that drives trucks. Like I, I do all the things. Like I'm independent, I like to hunt. Like, I have all these things in my favor. Sometimes I want more control over my environment than I should actually let on or, or admit that I want. But anyways, my point being is I had this moment. I was like, dude, I was like full blown compromised. I needed this woman in my life to tell me it's okay.
[00:04:11.740] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:04:12.500] - Brandon
And man, I'm like, what the fudge is like, how am I in this, this place, like what's been going on. And you know what, for me, and I want to be clear as I get into this, is that there's a difference between being a victim of your circumstance and your thoughts versus someone who is truly a victim to a scenario. Okay. And I want to differentiate there because people experience horrific things that are not their fault. That's a real victim. That's not what I'm talking about here. So anyways, my point is I had been becoming really prey to this victimhood, and I was allowing that to bleed in to my self dialog. And it kind of started out with things like I would if I could. And it just. It's this little worm that begins to make its way into your self, talk into your. Into your brain, where it just erodes a little bit more each day, your ability to be responsible for what you're experiencing. And I think we've talked about this in several different formats before, but it's this idea that as soon as we begin to remove our own responsibility from a situation, we essentially neuter ourselves.
[00:05:29.640] - Brandon
We remove our ability to take any kind of proactive action, make decisions, do certain things to have an influence on what's going on around us. And eventually you actually just completely succumb to the fact that you were a victim. There's not shit you can do about it. And I was like, it's been a long time, dude. Like, I'm mentally fairly tough. Like, I've been around the block and I found myself slipping into this. So here's where I'm going with this in turn then. So this is my personal experience that's going on in the sidelines behind the scenes. Although at work we're progressing, we're making. In fact, there's great freaking things going on with Scared.
[00:06:04.640] - Chris
Just a little context because I think a lot of people would probably relate to your injury.
[00:06:08.400] - Brandon
Oh yeah. So basically like, I'm an ex paratrooper and I just got banged up back in the day. And so my joints, my knees, my ankles, and my lower back are pretty much toast. And as I get older, there's just more and more things that you have to do to aggressively stay in front of some of the deterioration that just happens in your joints when you beat them up. And some people listening were in active in sports, football, maybe military or just the work we do. A lot of us that are in the trades and the contracting, like you break your own body down and so we eventually begin to pay the consequences for that. Your body keeps a score. And so as I've gotten older, the disk issues that I'm having have progressively gotten worse. Twelve years ago, I had a full blowout in one of my disks. I had to have surgery. No fusion. And then recently I just had another massive bulge and it came out and pushed very hard on one of my sciatic nerves. And it just took me down, dude. I went from ordering a bunch of new personal gym equipment because I was getting ready to take it up to the next level this year, and literally I was moving an item that had gotten shipped to me.
[00:07:13.100] - Brandon
I wasn't working out. I picked up one of the items I ordered.
[00:07:17.270] - Chris
I mean, in all fairness, it was a rather manly moment because this wasn't like you're picking up the garbage can. Well, you're picking up a 70 pound dumbbell. It was a. To your credit, bro. I think it's worth mentioning that detail.
[00:07:29.370] - Brandon
It was a 70 pound dumbbell, but I literally just picked it up. I actually lifted it the correct way. I squatted down, got low, picked it up, and then when I went to set it down, something clicked and I got the warning sign in the back of my head and by. And it was one of those slow release things because that thing must have just been kind of like swelling up and pushing more and more pressure on my nerve. Well, by the next morning, I had to. I ended up having to go to er. Yeah. So that night I was like, oh, this is not good. But because that's a weakness in me. I've had back injuries before that you just eventually just get through it, you're okay. Anyways, long story short, pain was stupid. I had to go to the er, went back several times, and now I'm on a recovery program. And I've been doing some research and soliciting some support on how to get back in action. I want to take control of this. I don't want to just sit around.
[00:08:20.450] - Chris
How to rebuild stuff.
[00:08:21.630] - Brandon
Yeah. So there's been this cycle for context, and I hope some of you are hanging in on this and we're not wasting a bunch of time here. But. So what happened was, is I went through this phase where I'm a victim of circumstance. I'm struggling with these things I can't actually control. I'm like bonafide injured. That was on the back of getting really sick late in the year. Like, I just have all these things that like, keep slowing me down and making me feel like I'm almost 50. And now I'm just now coming out on the other side of getting some Hope back. I now have some things that I can control that I can put my hands on, that I can start to do to put me back into a. Not just recovery, but getting back into a position where I'm. Where I'm at and better. And so finally my brain is in a much better spot because I see hope and I'm not a victim. As I've been going through this process, I've been grinding on these Sean Ryan shows. And recently there's a young man, he was a MARSOC guy, so Marine.
[00:09:18.460] - Brandon
He was a Raider Force Recon and then eventually became part of MARSOC, which is their special operations group, not SEALs kind of a counterpart. Long story short, just a young man. He was one of. He was the youngest E8 in the core. He was the AT2 record. He's still the youngest man to put on E8 rank in the entire core, let alone MARSOC. And he's just telling his story of his military career and how the age thing got held against him. So even though he was controlling his performance and earning accolades and checking the appropriate boxes and going through all these, what they call, pain gates. So in any kind of military environment, special operations environment, there's all these pain gates that are used to filter out the chafe and only leave the cream of the crop, right? And he's crushing all of this. But then he has things that are happening in his chain of command where his age is getting held against him or he's getting, for lack of a better way to describe it, grounded when he could be operating. Anyways, long story short, guys, here's. Here's where I'm going, I think, and maybe this is me, but it is so easy for us as leaders, business owners, individuals to find ourselves becoming a victim to our circumstance.
[00:10:37.390] - Brandon
I've just been thinking about all the different ways that this sounds in our business. If only I could find good people. If only people cared about the business as much as I do. If only my leaders gave me the training and the support that I needed. If only I had the right swag to go out and represent the company. If only we had the right equipment. If only once, so and so does their job, I'm going to be able to do my job. I would love to perform at that level, but I'm always waiting on a project manager to do X or well, I would like to help you with that, but you know, subs have been hard to find this year. There are all these worms that we begin to say, and I think they start as a thought and then the thought moves to something that we verbalize and then we give ourselves permission to repeat that message. And the next thing you know it. I have literally stripped myself from the motivation and the optimism that anything I will do will change the outcome. And, man, once you cross over that threshold, the misery that follows suit is unbelievable.
[00:11:50.370] - Chris
It's a deep, never ending hole.
[00:11:52.770] - Brandon
It's scary as hell because you've neutered yourself. You have no dog in the fight anymore. And so what starts out is a realistic challenge in the moment of, yes, there are things in our environment that are going to play against us, and there are circumstances that you will face in those moments of trial and error and problems. But when you begin to feed the victim monster and you allow your dialog and your thoughts and your behaviors to begin aligning around this idea that you are a victim to what's happening around you, it's a scary place to exist. And what's nuts to me is I'm fortunate. I'm fortunate because I have a great family, that we are very consistent in talking about what it looks like to be a victim to circumstance and how we don't want to live in that state. I'm fortunate to have a business partner that I can have open dialog around and surround myself with people that care about me, that will challenge me if and when I begin to act that way. We are fortunate, Chris. You and I live in a place, clients, friendships, relationships that make it harder for you and I to slip into this state.
[00:13:05.100] - Chris
Yeah, we've been very lucky, been very fortunate.
[00:13:07.420] - Brandon
But for many of us, man, there's nobody in our corner that pulls us out of this. And I think just one of these things I became just acutely aware of over the last probably quarter is, man, if it's this easy for me to slip into this space where it's just all of a sudden I'm waking up and I'm like, this is some dark shit, man. Then I'm just thinking around all those entrepreneurs, all those business leaders out there, all these people on our teams that no one's in their corner, no one's talking about this. They're not listening to podcasts where people are telling their story and talking about the hard things they had to transition through. And that means that a lot of people are faced kind of buying into these earworms that they've allowed, and they really are a victim of their circumstance. And I think what's scary about that is when you really are a victim, like you feel helpless. That in and of itself is Just such a dark space to live in.
[00:13:59.710] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:14:00.330] - Brandon
And I think that, you know, to kind of pull out of this a little bit. I think one of the things I was just very blindsided about was how common this is, how easy it is, no matter what kind of lifestyle or sphere of influence that you hold, like, this is a tough thing to combat. And I'm wondering how seriously all of us really consider this topic and how as leaders inside our organizations, are we paying attention to our people and are we doing anything to talk about what it means to not allow ourselves to become victims of circumstance and to remain empowered to have influence and pushback back and a voice and to have control over our own performance, even when it doesn't feel the way we want it to. At the end of the day, we all have a lot of control over our own performance, regardless of where we sit in the food chain. Anyways, this is where my head's been, brother.
[00:14:53.320] - Chris
It's good. Yeah. You know, I have my own stuff. I think all of us have these repetitive negative thoughts that if we hang in them, they start to create hopelessness where we start to relinquish control and our agency. And I think the only thing is kind of what you talked about, which is recognizing it and then I think refocusing on what do I actually have control over.
[00:15:23.160] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:15:23.840] - Chris
You know, because what I see you doing, I think it's the only real solution right there is it's just recognizing that my mind, for whatever reason, our mind minds, and I think it's because they're tuned to danger. Right. We've evolved to sort of spot something that feels very dangerous and scary and to hyper fixate on it and to tune all of our senses to that thing.
[00:15:45.700] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:15:46.530] - Chris
And it's that nature. And I think also our egos with social media, we're constantly drawing this parallel between what we're seeing in social media amongst our friends, our quote friends, our acquaintances, and how good their life is, apparently, and how terrible our life feels in the moment, in the dark corners of our mind where we have these repetitive, stressful, negative thoughts. We're comparing that existence with the image of our friends, fellow business owner buddies, and the images that they're presenting to us. The fancy truck that pulls up in front of the building that the owner drives, or the shiny red Corvette that the owner drives. That what they're presenting to us seems beautiful and awesome and all the things. And we're comparing that to what's happening in our inner mind. And it just gets worse. Gets worse and worse. And worse. And I think all of us are plagued by that. Your story, these thoughts. It brings up, okay, what are those? Repetitive negative thoughts that cycle in my mind. And I think the only antidote that I found, apart from really investing in great friendships that I can be honest with and share those thoughts with when I get them outside of my head, I think that's incredibly powerful.
[00:17:18.160] - Brandon
It is. Yeah. It's like turning the light on in.
[00:17:20.390] - Chris
The closet a little bit when you say those thoughts out loud, even sometimes just to yourself, you can start to create some margin between you and those thoughts. And you can look at them and like, I've said this before, but this one coach, it was just transformational for me when I was really frustrated and pissed off about a certain thing. Again, just a repetitive, negative, stressful thought. And he's like, whoa, dude, that's not you. Like, part of you is having that thought. There's a part of your brain that's just going off on this thing. Yeah, but where are you at? And I'd never given that consideration of my thoughts are not me. Yeah, like, the Buddhists talk a lot about this, but you don't have to be Buddhist to get to understand it. I think all of us can understand that.
[00:18:02.360] - Brandon
Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that you're saying too, and this has kind of been the heartbeat behind the show, we're not alone. It's part of your and I's commitment. Like, hey, we're going to talk about real shit on the show because we know we're not alone. And every time we've taken the time to do that, we get plenty of people that say, you know what? I needed to hear that. And, you know, one of the stories that I was listening to recently was around an ex dev group guy. And so he had done his. His time. He had made his way through SEALs, went to SEAL Team 6, was at the elite of the elite on the, on the SEAL side of things. And one of the things that they learned post several deployments was all the micro traumas from door breaches. So these guys were real warriors. They were breaching doors. And so they just had all these moments where this is a very universal theme, by the way, for warriors, where they have these micro brain traumas from explosions, right? IEDs going off, door breaches, grenades happening at too close proximity, calling in fire, things like that.
[00:19:00.050] - Brandon
And what happens is. And we've heard stories like this. This was a young gentleman that was a very promising team member of an NFL team, ended up committing a couple Murders and going to prison. There's this real life stuff that happens when there's too many traumas to the brain, these micro brain traumas and how it actually ends up changing people's psyche. They go through a mental breakdown that's being driven by trauma to the brain and they feel very isolated in it because they feel like they're losing their mind. Yeah, personalities change. They become hyper ridden with anxiety, stress. They can become angry, they can become physical. They can begin to isolate. And one of the things that this guy was talking about is how his entire unit had been experiencing this exposure and how all the guys from the SEAL team came back and they all had the same problem. Let's call it. 70% of the guys in this platoon were suffering the same consequences from these micro traumas.
[00:20:03.710] - Chris
And they were alone in it.
[00:20:05.010] - Brandon
They were all alone. Yeah. You're talking about guys sitting on an airplane less than 2ft from each other and they're literally fighting the same exact demon. And no one will talk about it. No trauma doctors, no medical support, no psych eval officers, no one in the command. No one is saying that you guys are all talking about similar things because nobody's talking to anybody about it. And so this guy ends up finding out and you hear. This is several hours of storytelling where you hear him come to death's doorstep. Meaning wanting to eat his own 45 over and over and over. Just on the brink of taking his own life. Desperate because he feels so alone and isolated, he's losing his mind. Only to find out, dude, that he had seven or eight buddies that could have. The entire time, they could have been sharing each other's load. They could have been shouldering the weight of this trauma.
[00:21:05.390] - Chris
Just the words of, I understand, you.
[00:21:08.120] - Brandon
Know what I've been going through. You know what I've been experiencing. Have you guys? He said there was even times where he was ballsy enough to bring it up and people like, no, I'm good. And many of those people, dude, are dead.
[00:21:19.280] - Chris
Yeah. Kill themselves.
[00:21:20.960] - Brandon
They're dead.
[00:21:21.720] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:21:23.060] - Brandon
That's not to be all overly dramatic. It's just think about that. And in an environment where it's almost expected that trauma, mental health challenges with someone's psyche is expected. These are warriors.
[00:21:38.420] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:21:39.140] - Brandon
If it's in that kind of environment where it's expected. Meaning this is going to happen to people in this kind of an environment. And yet they can't talk about this and find relief. And people are dying because they're in isolation. That's self induced. Again, I'M being a little dramatic here, but just the translation is, guys, we are all human beings. Our companies are made up of human beings. I am not the only person that had a dark ride the first three months of the year. And I have a really fucking good life. I have a good life. And it was a dark run the first couple months of this year. And that's while my business is doing great, that's while I have good friendships. It's while my kids are doing well and I still had this place. It's like, I think I'm just kind of reaching out to the industry right now and just saying, guys, remember how easy it is for us to fall prey to thinking that our circumstance is so unique, that we are alone, and that we are a victim to what's going on around us. And the reality of it is, most of the time, it's just not true.
[00:22:43.090] - Chris
And Answerforce, we tend not to give the attention to our call intake that I think we really ought to have as restorers. And of course, one of the biggest challenges we have with our call intake, whether it's an in house receptionist or a service like Answerforce, is what do you do when your receptionist goes out to lunch? Well, Answerforce makes that very easy to solve for, right? They're 24, 7. You have a receptionist or a call intake person that's out for maternity leave, out on vacation, et cetera, et cetera. Answerforce has a solution to all of those things. And I think too, it also solves for us having a very consistent, repeatable, call intake process. We all know how important that is 100%.
[00:23:19.100] - Brandon
And the cool thing is actually we just hung out with these guys and, and they let us know, let us in on some big feature updates that have recently been pushed through the system. So first, verified contacts. Right? So verified contacts, basically it allows the system to understand that this is a repeat caller and then it allows them to auto capture and fill those details as part of the intake process. So smoother, more professional intake. Much easier to kind of give that client that impression. First time you've called, right? Yeah. And we'll listen to the rest of these sets because I think they're super applicable to our commercial opportunities. So specialized scripting. Okay, this is great because this is everything from holiday shifts, after hour shifts, I mean, you name it. There's different reasons, right. Or different layers of the cake, if you will, just based on what's going on in terms of call volume, what's going on, time of day. And so with specialized scripting the script then will match that. And so it's shifting live, if you will, along with that kind of richer context of what's actually happening in the business. Then this other thing, I thought this was super cool, is dedicated phone number.
[00:24:21.490] - Brandon
So going back to that repeat client or that key client or customer, we now can associate a specific phone number to them. And so what happens is, is they get received very uniquely. Right? So I can imagine creating a custom script for that client. We now can recognize a repeat caller and auto fill and speed up their intake. And then on top of that, there's a specialized number that's dedicated to them. So you really get to marry up that professional service offering. Right. That we're promising, if you will, during the prospect.
[00:24:53.190] - Chris
And right from the jump, if you've got a commercial client with specific needs or specific expectations, they build that into the script. A call and take.
[00:24:59.760] - Brandon
Oh yeah, super powerful. Super powerful. Another one is just access to information wherever you are. So I don't know how many of you are already currently using Answer for us. You should take it seriously in terms of getting a demo and checking them out. But if and when you shift over to them as a partner, the cool thing is now is that you've got access to all this data, all this information on the go from anywhere on your mobile device. And so you can literally check inbound, outbound calls, you can listen to recordings, actively coach the team, kind of like midstream. Right? And so again, just a ton of efficiency, ton of automation and just higher levels of customization coming out of answerforce.
[00:25:38.050] - Chris
And it is so stinking affordable. This isn't just for big multimillion dollar companies. This is for you that's still working out of your home shop, your garage, and it's also for you that are running a $25 million operation with four locations. It's, it's just, it's pretty extraordinary. They work with some of the biggest companies in our industry and many of the smallest ones as well. So.
[00:25:58.000] - Brandon
Okay, Actionable. So guys, we have talked about our friendship and relationship to these guys for a long time. Many of you know, in, in the recent, probably year and over the last several months, just this hyper focus on the efficiency and quality of our estimating. Right. Like at the end of the day, our cash flow is heavily impacted by our team's skill and competency around writing a really comprehensive sheet and really making sure that the scope is accurate. And one of the powerful things that Actionable has is their actual xactimate profile. And this profile is a Live AI tool that's monitoring you as you write the estimate and as you're implementing specific line items, it's helping you be sure that you've really taken into full account all the individual elements and line items associated with this element of the scope that you're trying to accomplish. And I'm not going to highlight any specific teams, but we have heard robust numbers from teams using this. We're hearing everything from 5%, 6%, even 8% top line growth, specifically from the quality of their estimates increasing.
[00:27:04.360] - Chris
I remember when they rolled this out to you, that one of the use cases or part of the value that they were trying to hit on is the ability for us to bring up a new estimator quickly up to the standard and competency and the results ultimately of the more experienced estimators on the team. Right. So this is an incredible onboarding and training tool to get somebody up to where they're very, very competent at producing quality estimates just that much faster.
[00:27:30.300] - Brandon
Way faster. And just one last thing I kind of want to hyper index on is they have just an absolute boatload of white papers and F9 supporting notes. And so this is something that you could participate in, being a member with actionable insights. But guys, we all know that getting our estimates approved in that negotiation phase is hard. Right now it just feels like every carrier is significantly understaffed. They're fighting for air, we're fighting for air. And anything we can do to reduce that friction is better. And so the better we are at providing really good support for what we're calling out in our scope and why we're calling for it, the better. And so these white papers, these F9 support notes are super powerful, man. It's been a little while, but we've been kind of refueling the relationship with C and R quite a bit lately and that's been good, man. We, I think both teams got so dang busy, we had a tough time kind of locking in and getting some face time together. But the team over at C and R has been great for our industry. You guys, you know, we've often referred to Michelle as a friend of the industry.
[00:28:30.890] - Brandon
She really is keyed in on giving us what we need in terms of tools, communication, intel on the industry. And so we just continue to encourage you guys participate. Make sure that you're receiving your quarterly copies and that you're getting all the online content that just comes in boatloads from their team. So C and R magazine guys, pay attention. Make sure that you're participating and getting your intel from that team as well. Liftify, bro.
[00:28:55.810] - Chris
Yeah, liftify. You know, it's interesting. Yesterday I was just seeing one of our, one of our clients was getting awarded their 750 Google review trophy and they were already talking about hitting a thousand.
[00:29:08.420] - Brandon
A thousand.
[00:29:08.980] - Chris
That's right.
[00:29:09.670] - Brandon
Which somebody has done.
[00:29:10.910] - Chris
Yes, one of our clients has done. It's remarkable. And I think the most remarkable thing that people are discovering, and we're seeing this every single day with our clients, is that when you start upping the volume of Google Reviews you're getting consistently week after week. The recency, when you're getting the recency dialed in and just meaning every week you're adding Google reviews to your profile. Dramatic jumps in organic phone calls and lead gen. And of course, who doesn't want that? Every single one of us, including Floodlight, we want that. And that's why we've indexed on. We use leads, liftify, to build up our Google reviews. So it's a simple turnkey service. They've really created a process for capturing the most quality Google reviews from the jobs that you're already getting. So if you want to get more work, grow your revenue just off of the existing work you're already getting, liftify is a big part of how to do that. And it's simple. It's very, very cost effective. From our experience with liftify and what we've seen with our clients, significantly better value and better results than many of the other platforms that some of you might already be trying.
[00:30:16.490] - Chris
So if you're not happy with the number of Google reviews you're getting, you need to reach out to liftify. And I think as a point of reference, it's worth us saying Liftify expects 20 to 25% conversion. So think about that within your own numbers. If you're doing a thousand jobs a year, you should be adding, adding 200 to 250 Google reviews to your profile every single single year. If you're performing under that, you owe it to yourself to reach out to liftify.com floodlight.
[00:30:42.970] - Brandon
You know, one last thing to add to that. As part of their kind of more recent integration of AI or advancing that integration of AI, one of the big focuses for their team is gathering more live project data and analytics for you guys. And so really what this is focused on is equipping all of us to create better customer experiences. So not only are they keyed in and driving Google Reviews for us, but now they've actually turned the corner and began developing toolkits for us that use liftify to Actually be getting information that can help us modify our service delivery to create better client experiences. Super powerful. Midstream. We're talking mid job. Yeah.
[00:31:22.350] - Chris
Wow.
[00:31:22.740] - Brandon
Super powerful. All right. Liftify.com. all right, guys, thanks for hanging out with us. Let's get back to the show.
[00:31:29.180] - Chris
Gotta somehow learn how to be more transparent and more authentic with each other. You know, like we love to toss around those, those things, but I, I think it's a big part of the antidote because when we feel alone, everything spirals out of control. It totally does. Everything. And that. And that's true for marriage. It's one of the reasons why I feel compelled to be on. You have many people that listen to podcasts for a long time. Like I've brought up. I've talked about my, my wife and I's relationship and a number of times because it's just real. And I'm, I'm just convinced that all of us struggle in different ways. Maybe not so different ways. We all struggle with the same sort of pattern of things. And I think it's why in general, like our industry tends to be known amongst owners and leaders as being a real anger fueled environment.
[00:32:17.360] - Brandon
Sure. Yeah.
[00:32:18.360] - Chris
It's not because of what we do necessarily. It's just that that is a really common way that all of us react to pain.
[00:32:25.530] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:32:26.170] - Chris
And stress and anxiety and fear is. We erupt with anger.
[00:32:32.140] - Brandon
Oh man. If I'm sad, I'll get angry. If I'm fearful, I get angry. If I'm angry, I get angry.
[00:32:36.580] - Chris
But instead of really like trying to understand what's going on there and to work towards peace inside of our mind, we kind of accept it as. It's just part of the bravado, part of the whole get shit done.
[00:32:51.200] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:32:51.900] - Chris
Grind culture of being an entrepreneur in a service industry or whatever.
[00:32:56.550] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:32:57.000] - Chris
And so we just suppress it. And then we all hang out, we get together and we drink until 1am in the morning at the conferences and.
[00:33:03.580] - Brandon
Tell each other it's all good.
[00:33:04.830] - Chris
Yeah. We just cover it up and we talk about our trucks and we talk about how awesome things are and you know, it's just. Nobody benefits from that.
[00:33:12.280] - Brandon
No, nobody does.
[00:33:13.560] - Chris
But it's funny when you, when you and I like get on site with our clients and we get into these kind of conversations.
[00:33:18.000] - Brandon
Oh yeah.
[00:33:18.550] - Chris
It's kind of just become a pattern for us getting down into this level of things 100% of the time. Everybody in the circle fails and struggles.
[00:33:29.510] - Brandon
With the same stuff every time.
[00:33:30.880] - Chris
Every single time.
[00:33:31.570] - Brandon
And they always meet us.
[00:33:32.800] - Chris
Yep.
[00:33:33.370] - Brandon
If somebody's brassy enough to bring it up to open the door, it does tend to be that people will follow.
[00:33:39.840] - Chris
Almost 100% of the time.
[00:33:41.070] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:33:41.400] - Chris
Yeah. When I'm at conferences, I mean, I don't know, I just. I find it. It's really life giving. Yeah, it's actually, it's like, it's really. There's a point where my ego is like, oh, no, what if I share this? And like, everybody else is like, nobody reciprocates, nobody understands. I'm going to feel weird, I'm going to feel small, I'm going to feel less than, I'm going to feel unprofessional. I'm going to feel all these negative things. But every single time when I open up and I mention some struggle or some recurring imposter syndrome, negative thought. Like, I was talking with the CEO of a really successful company here the other day, and I. I asked him. I actually asked him this question. I think I'm going to start asking every person I talk to now. But I just said, hey, what has been the most difficult thing that you've had to deal with inside yourself as you've grown as a leader? What's been the biggest sort of mental or emotional hurdle that you've had to confront and deal with? And he took the bait and he shared a lot of really personal things. And I was like.
[00:34:45.680] - Chris
And they all resonated with me.
[00:34:47.150] - Brandon
Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:48.050] - Chris
It's like, oh, yeah, okay, so you're telling me we're basically the same. We just have different circumstances.
[00:34:52.560] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:34:52.870] - Chris
You know, but it was such a powerful conversation because when we went to that level, another thing happened. Right. Is I felt understood by him because I share, like, everything he was saying was resonating with me. And I was able to be like, oh, my gosh, you know, that. That reminds me of this in my life. And yeah, I had this experience, too. And so we got to know each other at a much more authentic level. So much more beyond just the revenue he's doing in his company and how many people he leads and other investments he's made. And just you get caught up in people's success and you don't realize that while they may have more money, more things, more influence, they still struggle with the same dark loop. It may be different, it may be a different thought track, but it's like all of us have that. And the antidote is let's just incorporate that into our relationships with each other. Let's be a little bit more open and transparent because it Totally diffuses. It really helps diffuse the power of those negative thoughts.
[00:35:57.750] - Brandon
I think you're spot on. It kind of reminds me, I went down, I had the opportunity to go down to California and visit with one of our clients down there. And these two guys are really dialed in on. We talk work and we maximize the time. And they like knowing what's going on with me as an entrepreneur. Like, they just want to talk shop about business and plans and vision and things that we're investing in, all that kind of stuff. Just friends, right?
[00:36:21.300] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:36:21.920] - Brandon
And, you know, I was, as part of that conversation, I was letting out a little bit of some of the stuff I'd been fighting with and how I was like. Right. You know, I was kind of thinking through community and kind of my current circumstances. And I was talking about your group that you've kind of highlighted and began to surround yourself with. And anyways, long story short, you know, this individual just kind of finally challenged me and was like, hey, you know, sounds like you know what you want. Why don't you just go start it? And it's good. This is my client challenging me. Right. It's great though. Like, this is that iron sharpens iron kind of conversation. I was like, man, he's right. And it's like going back to kind of like this victim because these things tie in. Right. It's like these victim of circumstances. I think that's part of how you solve this problem. I think part of what you try to do to combat these things that are very real, that we're not alone in, is sometimes you have to take things into your own hands. Like, I can continue to sit around that this XYZ group or this thing doesn't exist and I can't find it anywhere, or I can take action to begin remedying the problem.
[00:37:23.090] - Brandon
So in my current moment, am I kind of a victim to what's going on around me? Yeah. Because the thing in quotes doesn't exist. Does that mean my hands are tied and I can't do anything to affect change? No, not at all. But I had what happened. I had to voice it out loud. And I needed somebody in my sphere who can relate to what. What I'm saying, to challenging me in response. Right. And it's like, I think that's what you're saying. I think that's part of what you're alluding to is I think it's a reminder to all of us two things. One, we're as much of a victim of our circumstance as we allow ourselves to be at the end of the day, like, we can always rethink the situation and re approach what's going on around us to take more ownership and to change and have effect on the situation. I think too, just like you said, is you have to be brave enough to bring it up and live in some cold faith that when you do, someone was desperately waiting to hear someone else say it first.
[00:38:20.670] - Chris
Yeah. I think it's this weird yin and yang thing about life. If we're really honest about what we see and what we experience in life, it's like on the one hand, we have far less control over than we want than we think we do.
[00:38:32.850] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:38:33.460] - Chris
And then on the other hand, we have far more control over things and our circumstances than we think we do. It's like it just is. And all of us are constantly in that in. Part of me is just freaking out because of this thing that's happening that I can't seem to control. It's having control over me. And then there's this other part of me that can look at that and zoom out a little bit further and be like, oh, but I can control this and I can do something about that. And then we start to regain control over the situation. But you know, this is such a great topic, dude, because I think we don't acknowledge just how much of a role what happens between our ears has over everything in our world.
[00:39:15.940] - Brandon
It's unbelievable the way we treat our.
[00:39:17.510] - Chris
People, our ability to attract talent to our business that just the thoughts create the experience that other people have of us. So I can be thinking certain things about you or my relationship to you or what I think you think of me and all these things. And it is absolutely affecting how you experience me. The body language. I put out everything right. And we don't do enough to really acknowledge just how much these thoughts are affecting us. I was talking with a really, a really successful sales executive in our industry. This is a prospect, a client that I'm working with and working on onboarding. And I shared with you the recording from that, that first interaction. And you said, do you remember what you said? What'd you say?
[00:40:01.270] - Brandon
Well, that there was probably about a 30 or 40 minute counseling session that took place.
[00:40:05.810] - Chris
Yes. And I said, get over yourself. This is the real work, bro. No, it was very interesting to me. So the context of it was I was asking them about this extreme level of success that they've had. It's just a bonkers business that they've been able to build and yet still have things that they're Working on and shoring up and whatever. And I. I asked them, I said, hey, what. Where did this come from, this level of success? And. And she said, first of all, she pointed back to a coach that she had hired. Yep. And that coach, in the work with her had actually introduced her to a therapist. Because one of the things that came up was just that there was some things in her past, some experiences that she had had that were affecting how she was thinking about and showing up to moments in her work.
[00:40:56.220] - Brandon
Yeah. It's huge.
[00:40:57.210] - Chris
And in the process of connecting with this therapist. And of course, not all therapists are great, but this one was really, really awesome for her because it helped her create a linkage between these thoughts and these behaviors and these reactions she was having in the moment with these earlier inner childhood kind of experiences. And just. Just her making that mental connection.
[00:41:20.140] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:41:20.560] - Chris
Being able to see that connection in her mind's eye started to break apart.
[00:41:26.560] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:41:27.060] - Chris
Those repetitive thoughts and those. Those nagging, stressful, and negative thoughts that she was having that was affecting the performance she was bringing to her work. And it's not often I get into that kind of conversation with a prospective.
[00:41:39.970] - Brandon
Client and some of the comment.
[00:41:42.750] - Chris
But I so. But I so appreciate it. And you can imagine just the. The connection that we were able to make with her sharing that. And I was able to validate that with. Hey. Some of my own experience of connecting those dots. That's right. But there is. There's something so important. You and I, two years ago, we gave a keynote speech at the Collective by Core on stage about the Heart of the matter and yours and I's experience with our own past traumas, unmet longings, difficult, you know, relationship with parents and so forth. And how we've seen that show up in our leadership.
[00:42:15.520] - Brandon
Yeah, right.
[00:42:16.150] - Chris
How we've seen that take away from our leadership or suck us into this victim mentality. You know, and there's just something so powerful of being able to visualize and connect in your own life. Like, what are these outward behaviors that I routinely go to? What are they tied to down below the surface of the water? Like, what are those things anchored to? And there's just something about knowing.
[00:42:41.140] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:42:41.830] - Chris
That seems to be important in our psyche, that once we see something, clearly, we can't unsee it.
[00:42:48.760] - Brandon
Yep.
[00:42:49.410] - Chris
And that's the path. That's the thing that breaks the pattern.
[00:42:52.560] - Brandon
That's it.
[00:42:53.380] - Chris
You know, and it isn't always overnight for people. And a lot of times, it's, like, kind of appealing. The layers off of an onion yeah. Until you get to the core, to the seed, and you're like. And then for other people, it's like they have one counseling session where this, that's the aha moment.
[00:43:06.500] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:43:07.090] - Chris
And all of a sudden, when they go to react, to respond in the next situation, there's a new hook there where it's like, whoa, Yep. I'm having this really visceral response. What's that about? And they're able to change the way they.
[00:43:18.160] - Brandon
Yeah, right. Yeah. Agreed. 100.
[00:43:21.490] - Chris
Good stuff, dude.
[00:43:22.590] - Brandon
It is, it's. I think it's worth talking about. I know sometimes when we think about being, you know, whatever. A business podcast for whatever that I.
[00:43:30.800] - Chris
Want to do, a marriage podcast, I think we should get our wives in here.
[00:43:33.490] - Brandon
Maybe we should.
[00:43:34.630] - Chris
Yeah, that'd be cool.
[00:43:36.060] - Brandon
Yeah. I think the hard thing would be to just shut up and let them talk because they're the ones that probably have all the good advice.
[00:43:41.390] - Chris
The hard thing would be getting my wife to do it because the last thing she wants to do is tell entire world about our marriage, but.
[00:43:46.960] - Brandon
And shoot a handgun, obviously. Chained a couple episodes together.
[00:43:51.980] - Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:43:52.820] - Brandon
No, no, that was good. I, I, guys, you know, for those of you that stuck around the whole show, I sure appreciate being able to voice that stuff out loud. I think for me, it's an example of me putting the actions in that I know are valuable, that it's worth us saying the things that we are experiencing, because we often find out, no, we're not alone. Not even kind of.
[00:44:12.610] - Chris
And some of you may be asking, what in the world does any of this have to do with business consulting? That's a fair question. Yeah, fair question. I actually, though, dude, sometimes I get a little self conscious about this when we have these kind of shows, because it's like, okay, we're not getting in the nuts and bolts about business best practices. We're not quoting some business book that we've been working our way through. But I think this is part of what we've built and what the team at Floodlight is building. I think it's part of what makes us. I agree.
[00:44:43.140] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:44:43.600] - Chris
We do aspire to have this full spectrum relationship with our clients. And like this executive I was talking to yesterday, one of the things that she said to me was, she's like, you know, it was in that experience with the therapist and this coach that I'd hired where I just came to terms with, there is no such thing as my personal life, my professional life. Like, I carry my whole person into all of these interactions. And the more I try to separate like, well this is just business or I'll save and deal with that when I get home, the more stressed out and anxious I feel. And I, and I think that's we're all just people.
[00:45:20.210] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:45:21.160] - Chris
And if we have shit we're dealing with, we're gonna bring that shit to everything. Everything we do.
[00:45:26.810] - Brandon
Yeah. It's just, it's what's always in the bag.
[00:45:28.970] - Chris
If you've got, if you go home at night and you visit your two fingers of scotch to close out the day and you've got this real of negative, stressful, self critical, self loathing, fearful thoughts, there's no question you're bringing that to everything that happened earlier in the day, whether you realize it or not. And I just think it's an aspect of improving your business is starting to improve your awareness of yourself and what's happening inside. And that doesn't mean that our consultants are counselors. No, it doesn't mean we're going to get into some, we're going to put you back on the couch and you know, start acting. We're not doing free fall your inner traumas. But it just means that I think we at Floodlight, we bring an awareness that the things that we are dealing with personally and the personal life that we have is inextricably connected to the type of business we're building and the type of leader that we are being. And I think it's just that awareness that helps us take a more holistic approach that I think seems to bear fruit.
[00:46:32.080] - Brandon
I just don't think you can ignore you can't one and assume the rest all works out.
[00:46:36.970] - Chris
Yeah, you can. All right.
[00:46:38.320] - Brandon
Okay guys, thanks for hanging out with us. Yeah, we'll see you. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart and Booze.
[00:46:48.440] - 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.