Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Leading with Impact: A Guide to Growth and Excellence with Pat Morstad
85 Plays2 years ago
Unlock the full potential of your lawncare, landscaping, and tree care business with transformative insights from industry leaders like Pat Morstad from Precision Landscaping, who credits his partnership with Cardone Ventures for remarkable new growth and strategic guidance. Discover how establishing a strong, value-driven culture and implementing strategic systems and processes can elevate your team's performance and drive your business to new heights.
Learn from the experiences of those who have walked the path of growth, embracing personal development and leadership excellence to not only achieve but exceed their business goals. Join Brent Oberlink, Travis May and Pat Morstad in our latest podcast as we delve into the principles that underpin successful business management, sharing stories of resilience, innovation, and success that will inspire you to rethink your approach to leadership. This isn't just about what we do; it's about why we do it and how we can do it better together.
#LandscapingLeaders #TreeCareGrowth #LawncareInnovation #BusinessTransformation #LeadershipExcellence #CulturalChange #StrategicSuccess #Lawncare #TreeCare #Leadership #cardoneventures
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Pat Morstead and Precision Landscape
00:00:11
Speaker
All right. Well, welcome back to another edition of The Better Contractor. Today, I'm happy to bring on Pat Morstead with Precision Landscape. Good morning, Pat. Good morning.
Pat's Background and Career Transition
00:00:20
Speaker
How are you doing, Brad? Doing well. Travis, our normal guest here. No, not guest. This normal dude. There's the cost and we've been looking for one normal dude. Travis the normal dude from Texas. I like it. I'm excited to have Pat on looking over the
00:00:40
Speaker
profile and stuff on you, Pat, I'm impressed. Um, I love the growth history that you've had with precision. Uh, I love, you know, you partnered or not partnered, but worked with Cardone ventures and Brandon Dawson, something I'm familiar with have not been a part of myself, but know a lot of people that have. Um, and I love the transformation you did there. So, but just to kind of kick off, tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, anything personally you want to share, who is Pat Morstead?
00:01:08
Speaker
Well, um, I'm just a normal guy, you know, realistically, I, I went to college and, and, uh, at Michigan state university, I got my degree in agronomy specializing in the turf field. So I came right out of college, uh, working in building golf courses. So, you know, years ago we were building golf courses with the Nicholas group and, and, uh, Worked on in Birmingham, Alabama for a little while.
00:01:38
Speaker
prepping for the 1990 PGA tournament and, and, uh, went from there over to desert mountain and, and, you know, Phoenix, Arizona, and, and spent some time there. And then I came back to Minnesota and spent some time in Minnesota building, uh, another course that's called Madden's classic and, and, uh, ranks in golf digest top 100 courses. And, and, uh, again, great, great experiences over those years.
00:02:06
Speaker
Um, but throughout all that time, I had my own aspirations to be in the landscaping industry or maybe owning my own business someday. And I always had a side job after work going out and working on, you know, my landscaping. And there got to be a point where I was making more money in the landscaping field than I was in the golf industry. So years ago, my wife and I decided to make that transition and, um, through, you know,
00:02:37
Speaker
a lot of blessings from the good Lord above.
Keys to Business Success: Personal Growth and Self-Reflection
00:02:40
Speaker
We've been very successful over the years and been very, very happy and grateful because of that. So. Very cool. Very cool. What age, just curious, what age did you start like completely on your own where it wasn't a side gig? Oh, geez. You're going to ask me a difficult question. So if I'm 55 now, I'm probably, I was about 35 when I did it. So. Okay. Okay. To full time. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Um,
00:03:06
Speaker
So looking at your bio a little bit, uh, you guys experienced a lot of growth in recent years. Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that. Cause I guarantee you every guest that's listening to this podcast is probably wanting to know any secret you can share any, any nugget of information you have. Yeah. Well, you know that, I mean, the first thing I can say, you know, if you're, if you're looking for, you know, a hack or a secret, you know, my personal opinion is they don't exist, right?
00:03:33
Speaker
The reality is it takes hard work. And, you know, I would say if anyone is really, truly looking for something, start looking at yourself first.
00:03:43
Speaker
Start developing yourself, changing your beliefs, where it is that you're going in life, you know, and that's probably the most important thing that I can tell anyone.
Financial Success: Revenue and Profit Growth
00:03:52
Speaker
My growth started when we, you know, for years we had been at probably, you know, a million, you know, million one, million two that we were, you know, bringing in and netting about a hundred thousand and, you know,
00:04:07
Speaker
we felt like we were doing really good but we didn't think that there was anywhere else for us to go and you know just after you know 2020 we got introduced to an individual his name was Brandon Dawson through Cardone Ventures and went down to one of his I would say
00:04:30
Speaker
educational events, which was called a 10x360, and it was a mind blowing transformation and understanding what it is that we didn't know. And when your eyes get open to the factor of all the things in the world that you don't know, and you start to work on the things that you don't know, things change for you metamorphically. So our first year, we went from one million to
00:04:59
Speaker
3.3 million and 500,000 net.
Overcoming Employee Turnover Challenges
00:05:04
Speaker
So basically we condensed time. So we brought five years forward that, that first year with, with, with not profit, right? Cause no matter what, what, what this whole world looks at is like, Oh, you know, I did this in sales. This is all great. It doesn't matter until you look at the bottom line and what are you really making money? Yeah. And, and you know, our,
00:05:26
Speaker
Our second year with Cardone Ventures, we went from that 3.3 to a little over five and a half million and we were $750,000 in that.
00:05:42
Speaker
And last year we did 6.5 million and we did, again, real close to that $750,000 net. We came down a net because of a couple of things because we're changing operations ourselves internally.
00:05:58
Speaker
So we're trying to duplicate myself and my wife and trying to get us more out of the company. So we're bringing more people in to kind of fill our positions. And that's what business is. You go up a little bit, you come back down and you go back up and you come back down. But it's been a...
00:06:18
Speaker
It's been a wonderful deal for us. Our goal this year is $8.7 million for the landscaping side and then taking our $1.1 million that we did with the electrical company that we bought last year and bringing that to $2.3 million. Very nice. I like your point a little bit about a lot of people want to talk about, oh, we went to $8 million or went to $10 million or $12 million.
00:06:46
Speaker
if your net profits not there, it doesn't really matter. Cause if it, if you hit 12 million, but it costs you 12.5, 500,000 and you would have been better off at, you know, doing 2 million with a, you know, a hundred thousand net revenue. So that's a good point to make. It's a lot of people focus too much on that number, but you guys percent wise, especially those first several years did better actually, you know, increasing your net revenue as a total compared to the other, which is really what it's all about. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent.
00:07:14
Speaker
No, you know, it like,
Ensuring Cultural Fit in Hiring
00:07:16
Speaker
what's the saying that I've heard before? And I don't know who came up with it, but it's like, um, you know, revenue is, is vanity and profits are sanity. So, um, what was the employee growth from that, like the million to, you know, the eight? Well, I mean, we, we went through a transition of, uh, losing, you know, quite a few people and then,
00:07:44
Speaker
gaining quite a few people. So we went from, don't quote me on the numbers, but like right now, we're at about 35 people that we have within the business. And ours is real seasonal up here. So we have about seven full-time staff, eight full-time staff right now at this time of the year. And then once the season kicks in, then we ramp back up to that 35 or so.
00:08:16
Speaker
but this year we're, we're going to be adding crews. So we're going to be probably up closer up to that 45. Okay. Um, as any of the business owners know that have scaled that quickly, one of the biggest issues we all have is experience and retaining and keeping and attracting employees. What'd you guys do to kind of, you know, to take care of those two issues?
00:08:40
Speaker
Well, you know, that that was like one of my biggest weaknesses. So I spent a lot of time, you know, studying books, learning leadership and trying to understand, you know, things that I could do for creating a different culture within, you know, my organization. And I knew that that because that was my biggest weakness that I had to spend the most time on that.
00:09:05
Speaker
And we developed some systems and processes that start with screening people. So we have a bunch of what we call cultural questions that we interview the employee first before they ever come in here. And we screen them out because if they're not doing certain things and hitting certain words within our world, within the screening of culture,
00:09:32
Speaker
They don't even get that chance to come in here and sit down for an interview. And then once they sit down, then we've got operational effectiveness, you know, questions that we put them through. And then at the end, then we give them another test. So basically there's three interviews with us.
00:09:48
Speaker
and then it's a core values presentation. So we've got core values that we have set in place and then they have to give us a presentation on what they mean to themselves personally and what it means for them professionally in their professional world.
Leadership and Responsibility in Business Outcomes
00:10:06
Speaker
So. I love that. So safe to say quick to fire and slow to hire. Yeah. I mean, a hundred percent, you know, it's
00:10:15
Speaker
In the very beginning, I think as owners, sometimes you have what I would call a dependability or a dependency on people, right? And you think in the very beginning, I'm not going to be able to do anything without this person and you're dependent on one person. And what I really, truly realize is that, you know,
00:10:42
Speaker
sometimes the best thing you can do is those people might not be the right fit for your company. And the sooner that you let them go, it gives you the opportunity to be able to grow and move along even faster. And that's how we went from that 1.1 to 3.3 instantaneously when we changed what it is that we were doing. So you've changed your culture as well. Oh, yeah, 100%. How did that change your turnover from like before you did this transformation to today?
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, truthfully, if you look at the numbers, it was well over a hundred percent because, you know, we, we went, you know, we probably lost 90% of the people right away, you know, and then, then we were, we're kinda, I would say,
00:11:30
Speaker
foundering back and forth between the factor of hiring the right people and developing the right tactics to get some of the right people in and we made mistakes going forward. So, you know, we probably had 110% turnover, right? But, you know, we still were able to move forward and start to crush things at different levels that we were never able to do before because we were starting to get some of the right people in and do the things that we needed
00:11:58
Speaker
what let you know that you were on the right track. So other people would look at, well, Hey, if you're having high turnover, so you guys didn't have an unsuccessful business to begin with. It was successful. Um, so all the processes, culture, people that you'd put into place had led you to success. So having 90% turnover, uh, even 50%, 25%, especially if you had the mentality of
00:12:25
Speaker
Well, I need these people. So other people, other organizations, other leaders might look at that as an indicator, hey, I'm doing something incorrectly here. So what was it? What was the anchoring point that you guys relied on to let you know that this is okay? And this is maybe what, I don't know if you expected it or not, but you were on the right track and not see it as an indicator that you were off track. We were measuring by the numbers.
00:12:55
Speaker
really simple. I mean, when the numbers start going up, you know, are you doing the right thing? Well, obviously, something's working, right? Don't really know what it is yet. I can't pinpoint my finger 100% on it. But when you start to measure by the numbers and you pay attention to what's going on from a mathematical standpoint, because, you know, that's what, you know, I look at QuickBooks every single day, right? That's the first thing that I do every single morning. So I'm looking at
00:13:25
Speaker
you know, what was our revenue, you know,
Structuring Clear Communication and Alignment of Goals
00:13:28
Speaker
where are we at with gross profit margin and what's our net? And those are like high level numbers that I look at every single day. But when you're very aware of that and know what's going on, it's really easy to start to see that, you know, you're succeeding in some stuff too, right? And then all of a sudden you're able to pinpoint, okay, so
00:13:53
Speaker
When I, when I brought this person in, how do I want to model, mimic and master after that person? Because this person is exactly what I want. You know, they have the right attitude and we were able to train them for the results that we wanted. Right. So then now how do I start duplicating that? Right. And, and that's, that's what we, we focused on really clearly that way. What, uh, what do you think your turnover rate is now? Just cause I like looking at 90% to, yeah, well, you know,
00:14:23
Speaker
I would say it's probably in that 10% range. You know, that's awesome. So that's awesome. That shows, uh, how drastic of a change you guys made effective change at that. Yeah. No. And, and, and, you know, it all starts with your hiring, you know, and, and, and, you know, before somebody, it was, it was almost uncanny because we would just say, if you had heartbeat, you're good enough. Come on in, you know, and, and, and then we were wondering why we were failing with, with people and,
00:14:53
Speaker
people not showing up to work and people not doing the things that we wanted them to do. Well, we didn't go through the process of screening them properly. And that was my fault. And that's what business owners have to understand is that it all starts with us. And no matter what, it's me. And so it was my failure by bringing those people in. It wasn't their fault. It was mine.
00:15:21
Speaker
And when you, when you look at yourself from that standpoint, you know, all of a sudden you start to say, okay, why do I have to change about myself to start changing what comes in, into your world? Brent has to say, uh, you, you're going to scale something, um, whether it's chaos or structured success, uh, but you're going to scale something. So essentially it's the exact story that you had a process before. If you're breathing, you can fog a mirror and there may be,
00:15:48
Speaker
go hold some equipment, you're hired. That was the process. And it was, you were scaling that, scaling chaos, and it was giving you limited amount of success compared to what you wanted. Seems like your structure of the new cultural fit, your goals and some other processes and things, you swapped that process or that procedure and the things that you were doing out and you were scaling now something completely different that was more aligned to do it.
00:16:16
Speaker
So I love that contract because we've talked about it on a couple of other episodes of putting structure in, putting it in early, really figuring that out and being deliberate about what you're scaling. I love that. Yeah. I think within the industry in general, there's a lot of issues with contractors, lawn, landscape, whatever, tree that do not take the hiring process seriously. Like you said, they will literally hire a warm body.
00:16:45
Speaker
you know, and then they get mad when it doesn't work out or the job doesn't go well or a tree falls on somebody's house or whatever major event happens and they get mad at the employee. But the fact is they didn't onboard, they didn't train and they didn't, they weren't picky about who they hired. So really it's a leadership issue because there's a lot of people that need a job and want a job. So it was a leadership issue for not putting the right person in the right role, train them to set expectations. But then also I love the one point you made
00:17:14
Speaker
about leadership development. So you pour time into yourself. So there's so many times that a boss or, you know, business owner will think, I don't really need anything. I mean, I've created this. So I'm good. You know, I'm good where I'm at. I've created this business. We're doing a million. We're doing 10 million, 20 million, whatever it is. I don't need that. And that's so untrue. You know, so I love that you push yourself with Cardone Ventures. There's other platforms out there, business groups online, business groups in person.
00:17:42
Speaker
But I think any business owner absolutely without a doubt has to constantly be growing personal development, you know, business development, pushing themselves. Cause I think the moment we stopped doing it, the whole company stops doing it as well. They can tell that that leader is not investing back in himself. But then I think the next key, and this goes back to the culture point is we can't stop with us. So if you think like the hierarchy, the little pyramid,
00:18:11
Speaker
if we're doing it, but we're not transferring that to the next level of management and teaching them to transfer it to the next and to the next, to the next. Some people will see it stops with them or it stops at a person below them. That development has to be something that goes all the way through that culture, that organization. What have you guys done to kind of help like the managers of Foreman, four person in the field also have your same mentality? Well, you know,
00:18:41
Speaker
Again, we have what we call an EMM scale, an employee maturing model, right? And within that model, we have certain things in there like things that they have to learn. So let's just say general laborer to crew lead, and I'm just going to give off the top of my memory with some of this stuff. So a general laborer will come in.
00:19:05
Speaker
And he'll say, I aspire, you know, to move on up at some point within my career as we have what are called PPF conversation. So we talk about people's personal, professional and financial goals. So we know are very clear and we know exactly what these people want. Right. And so then it's how we as a company have to align their goals with the goals of the company. So in that EMM model, we have.
00:19:33
Speaker
the, you know, for them to mature and move on to the next level, you know, as a general laborer, they've got to start to learn, you know, ICPI and NCMA training. And now it's, I don't remember what it's called now, but they, because of the factor that they've merged, you know, so we try to get our guys certified within that. That gives them an opportunity to move on up. You know, we suggest certain books. So books that we, you know, we look at, you know,
00:20:03
Speaker
just off the top of my mind are Dr. Robert Anthony, Beyond Positive Thinking, The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. So some books like that, when you start digging into stuff where people are just instead of just me leadership,
00:20:23
Speaker
where they have to actually start to move into we leadership to where they're, they're going to be managing others, then we have such start suggesting other things and other books and,
Core Values and Daily Business Operations
00:20:32
Speaker
and, you know, um, you know, um, books like, like, uh, you know,
00:20:42
Speaker
Brandon Dawson has a couple of books that are out there that are very good to read. Grant Cardone has lots of books that are good to read. Natalie Dawson, Teamwork was an amazing book. So those are things that we, another one, 21 Laws of Leadership by...
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah, John Maxwell. And so those individuals, our mentors are mine and how I look at stuff, but then it gives opportunities for people to start to say, why are we doing these things? Why are we reading these things? But it's developing them as a person, right? And when that development starts to come into play,
00:21:39
Speaker
and we're talking with them every single month about their personal, professional, and financial goals and holding them to their metrics. This whole network of the things that we're doing and how we're presenting this stuff and making success clear and easy for these people.
00:21:58
Speaker
helps him understand. Some of that is training through Cardone Ventures. I have sales staff that train every single day on Cardone University. Let's just use Michelle that I have who is an amazing project manager for me who I love and appreciate dearly.
00:22:19
Speaker
I'm going through myself personally what's called business leadership or business mastery leadership program through Cardo and Ventures and it's basically a two-year program where you've got to do all these modules, all this training and have
00:22:39
Speaker
you know, Zoom video cast that we do, you know, every single week. And that's developing me as a leader. And Michelle is in that course as well. So, you know, she's farther behind than where I'm at because I found that that was so valuable to me.
00:23:01
Speaker
I needed to make sure, one, I had to get her buy in and say, is this something that you want to do and change and develop yourself as a leader? And she was all in on that saying, yes, 100%. That's what I wanted to do. And then now she's starting to utilize and then now we're speaking the same language. So when, when I'm talking about something and she comes to me for advice, you know, then she'll turn around and then she'll speak the same thing.
00:23:29
Speaker
But then she's also hearing it again the third and fourth time with our training through BMLP. So it's great to be able to have that kind of assistance and leaderships throughout everything. And now she's training people that are underneath her.
00:23:49
Speaker
So we have, we have what we call the rule of three. The rule of three is yourself and then two others underneath you. And how do you start training and developing the two people underneath you? It's that multiplication right now. Yeah. That's key to growth right there. So you guys do financial Fridays or something. Uh, so is that a religious every Friday is financial Friday. Um, and what was that intended to accomplish?
00:24:17
Speaker
Well, so it's transparency, right? So that's one of our core values that we have and financial Fridays is, is essentially it's, it's the scoreboard at the Superbowl, right? So, you know, you're, you're not going to be able to put a little extra effort in at the end of the month if you don't know what the scoreboard says. So that's, that's why we utilize financial Friday. So we basically go through.
00:24:45
Speaker
you know, electric, you know, what, what we brought in for the week and what our target was, you know, and you know, where we're sitting at from a net standpoint, you know, and, and we also talk about, you know, what's, what's in the pipeline. So that's, that's kind of our, our financial Fridays, because, you know, realistically what we want to be able to do is, is.
00:25:11
Speaker
only have one emotion in, in, in our business. And that one emotion is, is celebration. Hmm. I love that analogy to, you know, kind of compare it to like the Superbowl because a lot of companies don't do that where they don't really tell the employees, you know, here's how we're doing. You know, they're all out there playing your game and your move all year long. Um, but no real idea of what the score is. Another thing you brought up earlier was the promotion process. So a lot of companies I've noticed like
00:25:41
Speaker
there may not even be a process at all. It may be the employee has to come to them to ask for a raise, or it may be an inflationary type deal or a promotion only type deal. I love that you guys sit down, we do that with Land and Corp as well, where we sit down and we try to go over the employee goals, not just the company goals, both are important, but the employee goals as well. But then also, one of my mentors has always said, you, I, we gotta create a vision so big,
00:26:08
Speaker
for the company that each employee's goals for their life can fit inside of that overall vision. And then we have to execute on it. We have to do it. We can't lie to them about it either. But I like that you guys are doing that. I think that's something key for a lot of the listeners to remember. It's not just, nobody wants to just get a $1 raise every year. They have goals in their life too.
00:26:31
Speaker
We have to hear those goals and help them to get to that point. You know, you know, so I love that you guys are doing that. Yeah. And, you know, it after a while, you know, you, you get employees asking you, Hey, when's my next PPF conversation?
Maintaining Strong Employee Relations
00:26:48
Speaker
Right. And, and, you know, sometimes, you know, if you're able to help these people,
00:26:56
Speaker
achieve things, you know, within their lives, you know, and we have a big bell in our office, right? And when somebody achieves a goal, whether it's personal, professional or financial, we tell them go out, you know, if you want to share that, go out and ring the bell. And everybody stands up and, you know, says a woo-hoo and, you know, it's a great thing. And, you know, sometimes it's not always about money.
00:27:24
Speaker
Right. Some, sometimes it's about, you know, family or, you know, they wanted to go on XYZ trip and, and, you know, how, how do we, you know, provide the opportunity for them to be able to, to be able to get there and, and, and achieve that. And, and, you know, that's, that's us as the company aligning our goals with the employee and, and nobody's ever, you know, done stuff like that.
00:27:52
Speaker
in our area that, and they're like, it's just amazing. It doesn't take long in a town of our size, 400 people to tell the whole community what's going on.
00:28:09
Speaker
And you just resonated with me. So we're Atlanta Corps in a town of about 700. So you're 400 and around 40 employees. We're around 70, 80 employees in a town of 700. So it's kind of, kind of interesting how that works. But obviously you pull from a big area because we traveled, but still it's kind of interesting too though. That's cool. Yeah. You know, and, and, you know, we're, we're, you know, thank the good Lord of love. We know we're blessed with, you know, great and remarkable people. And, and, you know, we're very fortunate that way.
00:28:39
Speaker
all the time. I tell my wife how grateful and thankful I am for everything that we have and it's just been getting better and better all the time. It's amazing.
00:28:53
Speaker
That's awesome. When you guys are doing the steps to do that, the continuous growth and stuff. One thing you mentioned earlier made me think about KPIs. We didn't really talk about that pre-podcast, but I'm positive you know what they are and I'm positive that you do them. So tell me a little bit about that.
00:29:14
Speaker
There's, so there's business KPIs, right? So what the business has, you know, for its targets and then how the employee itself has their own KPIs. So we've got basically anywhere between three to five KPIs, you know, per role, you know, and those KPIs, you know, could be anything from like, you know,
00:29:40
Speaker
out the gate in the morning to basically what we try to figure out is how we create more efficiency. So how the employee themselves directly impact their job that would directly impact revenue within the business. So it takes a lot of thinking and a lot of time and effort that goes behind that.
00:30:09
Speaker
But then that's how the employees are bonus too. So let's just use three of them. So then one third of their bonuses is based off of KPI1, one third of their bonuses is based off of KPI2, and one third of their bonuses is based off of KPI3. And when you do it that way and say that you have an 80% target, if once you hit that 80% target, then you get payout on that.
00:30:37
Speaker
that portion of the bonus, right? And that's part of our PPF conversations and our metric conversations of what we call the one-on-ones that happen every single month. So again, talking about the scoreboard and they know exactly where they're at and we know exactly where they're at and we know for winning and they also know if they're going to be getting a bonus.
00:31:06
Speaker
I love that. So that's something we struggle with here is how often to do those. I'm just curious, do you guys do those monthly or quarterly or annually? Yeah, we do them monthly. It's as, you know, so we do them from the standpoint of ownership, you know, so Tristan and I, and then Michelle and I, so, you know, upper level management, and then how we kind of break that out into employees. But when you start, you know, going to,
00:31:34
Speaker
you know, 35 now going to be, you know, 45 employees, we're going to have to start delegating that out. So we're going to have to go from, you know, upper level management down into, you know, crew leads and crew leads are going to have to start doing those, those conversations and stuff too. So we, from a rhythm, we want to do it every single month and have clarity that way, you know,
00:32:01
Speaker
our consultants tell us that we should be doing it every two weeks. When you got guys that are out in the field and you're having to pull guys in from the field, it's a little bit more difficult that way. So we found that the once a month cadence works really well for us and doesn't interfere with production. Yeah, that's where I'm at is, and I agree with you guys in the one month because I know a few companies that do quarterly or even only annually,
00:32:31
Speaker
My issue with annually is it's so far out, it almost seems like unattainable or they lose sight of it. Right. It's quarterly, it's a little better, but if it's monthly, most of our bills are what? They're monthly bills. Right. Then they can look forward to, Hey, if I hit this, this, and this, then I can get this and that helps pay for this. So it's that more immediate reward, but it also, it renews every month. So, and it gives you guys a chance for more touch points. Yeah.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, and again, it's transparency. It's inspirational to them as employees, especially when they see others winning. And it's accountable, and it's showing results, and it helps them be disciplined. And those are all part of our core values. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your core value. I was going to bring that up earlier, and I actually forgot.
Leadership Principles: Transparency and Feedback
00:33:30
Speaker
What, what, what are your core values and how do you, so I have kind of a saying here that I don't typically like core values for most companies because they're just like on the website on a board in the meeting room or whatever. And that is it. So like with us, we try to kind of hire fire, make decisions by those core values because they actually do matter. That's how it's how we conduct our business.
00:33:54
Speaker
I'm interested to see someone else is kind of doing the same thing and interested to see how you guys implemented those, pick those and use those throughout the organization. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, you know, if we want, we can, we can role play on how I, how I use that and stuff too. But, but quite often, you know, like for us, you know, like you said, we, we hire by our core values. We fire by our core values. We discipline by our core values and we reward off of our core values and you know,
00:34:24
Speaker
before our employees come in and are part of their team, they have to give us a core value presentation. So our core values are accountable, results oriented, transparent, inspirational, disciplined, and results oriented. Did I say results oriented? So anyway, that's essentially six of them, right? And with that,
00:34:49
Speaker
you know, we utilize them in conversations, right? So let's just say somebody is not performing like they're supposed to. And, you know, so let's just, guy shows up late, right? And he's a crew lead, you know, so it's like, okay, you know,
00:35:08
Speaker
Brent, I know that you've been having some troubles and not necessarily getting here on time in the morning, but what I want you to see and understand is that you're not being very inspirational to the other team members that you're trying to train and get put into place because you're not showing the results and you're not being accountable to what it is that you need to do.
00:35:31
Speaker
So you have to work on, and what I need from you is to be able to commit to the factor of you being a little bit more disciplined to showing up on time. Brett, how do you feel about that? Hey, I appreciate you letting me know that up front. And, uh, you know, I can definitely do better for my team. So yeah. So, you know, again, when you start to utilize those core values, instead of saying,
00:35:57
Speaker
Damn it, Brett, you should have been here. You're an idiot. You're just attacking the person. But when you can utilize those core values, it makes the person think a little bit differently and be able to utilize a different thought process behind what it is. You know what? Hey, I understand. You're right. Today, I was not disciplined. I didn't get up on time. I hit the snooze on my alarm clock. And it won't happen again. That's my fault. Yeah.
00:36:25
Speaker
And from a psychological standpoint, it takes it from being a personal attack to your team. So it takes more, more, more to the team effort, which is what I think works best. I agree. I think too is the relationship that you have with the employees. Um, if it was, so there has to be a foundational, I care about you to make those conversations successful as they are in, um, it will be a harsh cold reality. Um, if you came to them, like why, why you showed up late? Uh,
00:36:55
Speaker
Because if you step back to you, you probably notice, because there's other things, you'd probably notice that there were other things influencing that. Whether it was just they dropped the ball a couple of times, but say that their family was sick, the wife got diagnosed with cancer, or they just lost their parents or something that would be influencing, or the kid was dealing with issues. If you didn't have that relationship with them,
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, it would just end up in the conference room like, hey, what's going on? You showed up late. And it would be, then it shouldn't be that you're realizing that there was something personal with them. But that would probably manifest differently if those relationships were there ahead of time, as you would see them off. And there would be other conversations, hey, what's going on? It probably wouldn't start with, hey, you were late.
00:37:50
Speaker
What's the deal? Hey, I know you're off a little bit. Your attention, you're just not yourself, what's going on? And having that personal communication, I know that's transpired in multiple organizations that I've been a part of, both for better or worse. But I think some of the ones that we've seen the most successful is what you guys have created. And part of that culture of you create that family where it starts off before that conversation even happens, it's I care about you.
00:38:16
Speaker
and I see the things going on with you, for better or worse, and are rewarded. I'm there for you. A lot of the times, I don't know, it's more of a question. Do those conversations happen? How often are you having those tough conversations before it's mitigated with talks and an extended conversation before you head off? Yeah. I mean, I think
00:38:46
Speaker
The tough conversations are really easy in our world because again, when you go back to our core values, we hold people accountable. You know, we want to show the results every single day and we want to be disciplined, right? And that discipline also comes from us as leaders too. So it's really easy to have those conversations because, you know,
00:39:16
Speaker
One, we also know a lot about the people. So like part of that, that PPF conversation, the personal professional and financial goal setting, we get to understand those, those people, right? And, and that conversation of knowing those people also gives us, you know, an understanding of where we, where they're going. So sometimes you can say, you know,
00:39:41
Speaker
How are you going to be able to achieve your goals? Because we talked about the factor that Travis, you wanted to be able to be a crew lead in the next year. How do you think that you're going to be able to show and be inspirational to others if you're showing up to late dawn all the time? So it's really easy to be able to use the core values as that tool, as a leader, and then use the core values
00:40:11
Speaker
and say, you know, listen, we've got a much bigger thing to do. What we're accomplishing together here, it's a much bigger thing, right? And for you to accomplish your goals, Travis, and for me to accomplish the goals of the company, we have to all be aligned and we all have to be going in the right direction that way.
00:40:30
Speaker
Alignment, that was the other one, I think I forgot. Those conversations are happening before, and I guess where I'm getting to is for the one on ones, those conversations are happening kind of micro conversations before the monthly one on one. So the crew lead is probably having those conversations with their crew on a daily basis. It's little micro corrections all along, because it comes out of,
00:40:59
Speaker
I worked for a large corporation for many years, and we had global teams, teams that reported to the leadership might not be co-located. There was an expectation there was weekly one-on-ones, the larger your, and it ended up probably defaulting to biweekly. But those touch points, it was formal, especially if you weren't working with them on a day-to-day basis.
00:41:24
Speaker
And I think where that was driven out of was to try and establish that ongoing conversation where it's less formal. But if you're not having that daily conversation, connection with them, that weekly touch point is more informal and conversational. And you don't lose track of their performance or that engagement by just that once a month where it's just bullet point, bullet point, we've got 45 minutes and we're just all business. But to show it was an artificial way maybe of trying to create that
00:41:53
Speaker
personalization, the weekly stuff, the more longer your team or the bigger your team got, the more difficult and you just couldn't do it. But those conversations would oftentimes end up on phone calls, because they weren't co located with you. Obviously, there's no replacement for in person. But to have those touch points, so that you can course correct and make micro improvements or corrections before it actually got far off course one way or the other, it's, it's
00:42:22
Speaker
0.5 degrees off course week one, but by the time the monthly one on one, there's six degrees off course or more off the rails completely.
Conclusion: Self-Development and Leadership for Success
00:42:32
Speaker
So there's probably a missing piece in there that so that week or that monthly one on one that you guys are doing is firm and established. But for the audience there, those conversations, you're not losing track of those people. There's like micro conversations and course corrections happening daily within the
00:42:52
Speaker
the crews. And then there was also statistics out that the younger generations need more of that, partially where they've been raised, the culture that they were where and that that's a stark contrast to between some of us who were in the 40s and above. It was if I don't hear anything, I know everything's good. But yeah, no, no, this is good news is kind of our state. But now we're more mixing those two cultures.
00:43:22
Speaker
younger generations get frustrated because they're not getting any feedback and they're actually used to a lot of touch points and a lot of feedback and and trying to manage that has been critical for a lot of organizations. Yeah I think those like you said that the frequent touch points are key you know so if you look at touch points and then you look at the culture so if you if you only are evaluating and some companies never really evaluate it's only
00:43:47
Speaker
Things are really bad and we're getting ready to fire you. This is your first warning and final warning. That's the only touch point they get. But if you had done a monthly touch point with that person and let them know, hey, this isn't quite where I need it to be, you're doing great in these areas, but this is not quite where I need it to be. By the time we meet next month, this is really what I need to see from you. But I think having those within a culture of respect though, where you as the leader is key too, because I know I've fired people that have shaken my hand.
00:44:16
Speaker
when they've left the room, which is weird to a lot of people, but it's because there was a respect there and there was a fairness and it was done in a humane, you know, I still know you're a human being. Right. You know what I mean? Like I don't hate you for it. Um, but having those, so there's three things I think are key in leadership, you know, so one is do what you say. I think that's absolutely critical. Number two is practice what you preach.
00:44:44
Speaker
So your core values that you talk about, all that kind of stuff you do, if you're not doing them, nobody else is going to do them. And also if you don't do what you say you're going to do, respect is lost. And then number three is the constant execution of task. So if your people know, Hey, I can count on you. If you say something, you're going to get it done in sec or third, you practice what you preach. So everything you're telling me to do, I know you're doing it.
00:45:12
Speaker
I then have a complete different respect for you as a leader. And then when you come to me and say, hey, dude, you're not doing these things quite to our standards at Precision, Atlanta corporate, wherever company. It hits different, plain and simple. So I think you guys have done a good job from what I can tell of building that respect as well, which has allowed you to have those tougher conversations and monthly touch points to be effective.
00:45:41
Speaker
One of John Maxwell's law of attraction, you attract the things that are like. So if you exemplify all of those characteristics and all of your core values, then you're going to attract people that are essentially the same way as you. And it's uncanny how well that works.
00:46:10
Speaker
The universe is an amazing thing and it gives you surprising things over time. And you just have to kind of open your eyes to it and pay attention to it. So yeah, I love it. Well, guys, we probably should start wrapping up. Is there anything else you want to share, Pat, that's on your mind?
00:46:28
Speaker
No, you know, again, I think like what we talked about at the very beginning, I think, you know, the most important thing that people can do is look at themselves and start developing themselves because if they want to have great teams, you as a leader, you have to be up above and leading them. And if you're not above them, you're not going to be attracting the people that you want into your organization. So it's, uh,
00:46:54
Speaker
That constant development and that constant learning is the most important thing that you can do. It changes your whole life. I love that. Travis, final thoughts? I think we could take this conversation for another hour. I think we're going to do a part two. We have your project manager, Michelle, on the next podcast. This is technically a part one podcast, I guess, in the next part two with Michelle.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah, she's amazing. And I love her and appreciate her. She's a, she's a great person and a great team member. So that's awesome. I can't wait to talk to her, but guys, it's really, you've heard Travis and I talk so much about two things and it was reiterated here on this podcast a day. Culture is king. Assistance and processes rule. If you guys are not doing those two things, you will scale chaos. If you don't have the proper system and
00:47:49
Speaker
processes and systems. And if you don't have a culture, your employee retention, especially now in this climate, this environment, and with this newer generation, if you do not have culture, your employee retention is not going to be good. So you have to do it. It is time consuming. The results are not immediate, but so worth it. Once you, once you have built that culture, gosh, the sky's the limit. Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:48:17
Speaker
Well, Pat, thank you for your time today. Awesome conversation. Probably one of my favorite podcasts so far. Travis, thank you as always. Well, I'm always here for you guys. So I appreciate like-minded people. And I love hanging around you guys. So it's awesome. Awesome. I'll definitely be in touch after the podcast as well. I want to talk to you a little bit more about some stuff. Absolutely. Everybody listening, if you liked it, share the podcast. If you don't, tune out. Thank you, everybody.
00:48:47
Speaker
Bye.