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00:00:01
Pride Replacing Arrogance
190 Plays4 years ago
Saunders & Grimsmo are ending of the year with expansion! Both shops are on similar growth paths in their respective shops. Grimsmo has hired on Pierre to help boost production, while Saunders has hired 3 people around his shop.
Grimsmo's surface grinder should be here in a couple of weeks! Which means they have to make some room for it and figure out how to bring it into the work flow.
Saunders' describes how "Lex" is formatted. Going in depth about the benefits of an ERP system when it just works. Grimsmo and Saunders talk in depth about pride. Pride often gets confused with arrogance, but letting the pride replace arrogance is a step we all need to think about.
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Transcript
Parallels in Business Journeys
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business and machining episode one hundred ninety nine my name is john grimsman my name is john saunters and for a hundred ninety nine actually more.
00:00:09
Speaker
Fridays, John and I have kind of shared commiserated plans, thought, challenged each other, and the parallels, as on a personal level, continue to blow me away between our businesses without any intention or planning of how similar our successes have been, but how similar the struggles have been, but really just the stages of, you know, you got your VMC before I did, but then I think I may have hired some people more where you did, and we're now at this stage of,
00:00:37
Speaker
not taking a step back from the business, but rather taking a step back from the task role and putting places in people and processes in place and growing the teams and being mindful of the culture, being mindful of our work-life balance and in building this business.
00:00:56
Speaker
1 bajillion percent. People observing it from the outside would think that you and I are chatting 100 times a day and growing at the same pace, but we're not. I mean, we should chat through WhatsApp every now and then, and we do the bomb every week, but the parallels of our growth
00:01:18
Speaker
are oddly similar and it's amazing. We've both chosen different businesses that make things and make things we care about. Very high quality, caring products. We treat our staff really good and we want to grow this even more.
Strategies for Growth: Caution vs. Scaling Efficiently
00:01:36
Speaker
We have similar values and similar work ethics.
00:01:39
Speaker
Oh, no, I take issue with what you just said. I don't want to grow this anymore. In fact, a lot of 2020 has been deliberate downsizing in terms of focusing in on what we do. Yes, growth becomes a byproduct of scaling what we do well and what we like to do. But I actively resist this idea of growth. I'm not correcting you because I know that's not necessarily what you meant.
00:02:09
Speaker
Does that make sense? There's a difference between adding the Rask or adding the pen or adding a flashlight versus just saying, well, we're going to now go downstream in the market and add a $60 folder or fix. You know what I mean? Just to make sure. There's different kinds of growth. In our perspective, growth is simply a volume increase.
00:02:32
Speaker
whether it's adding a new knife, but at the end of the day, we're making more knives per day. That is I want to grow the business. I want to double our revenues and make twice as many knives as we're making right now. And that requires, you know, this coming out that requires this machine that requires these people in place and that like from my perspective, your business doesn't have to, you know, be follow
Long-term Planning and Future Visions
00:02:54
Speaker
that either. But from my perspective, that's where I want to go.
00:02:57
Speaker
It's exciting to plan for that. I've never been much of a long-term thinker. You ask me what's my five-year plan or whatever.
00:03:08
Speaker
Usually, I've had trouble answering that. I'm getting more clear on it these days than ever before. But because I can see that things take time and that five years happens fairly, it passes regardless. So I can actually kind of almost see us in five years and kind of think where we might be clearer than ever before. That's strange.
00:03:31
Speaker
What I do think about is you and I are both coming up on the old 4.0. You're 37? 37. Yeah. Okay. Not quite. 37. We've got- Yeah. I told my kids yesterday, I'm almost 40. I'm like, oh crap. That's great. You can think of it. If you think in five-year chunks, two to three five-year chunks starts putting you at the age where it would not be uncommon to think about
00:03:58
Speaker
transition, whatever you want to call it, the R word. That's not in my vernacular. That's like the second time I've thought of that in my life, but you know what I mean? There's a lot to be said for what you want to get out of this, what you want to do within the company and your community and the knife industry or the fixture. That's sort of a question, but that's not how I think. I think in like 30 day chunks or frankly in the present, the more you can think in the present, something I wanted to bring up this week was
Reflecting on Tony Hsieh's Legacy
00:04:28
Speaker
stopping to think about how things will be different in the future because they are never different in the future. They're different. You make them different now and then now grows into the future. It's like the path diverges now by a decision made now. Yeah, even just a thought process for sure. Yeah, you're not going to clean that floor up if that's important to you. You're not going to clean that up tomorrow. Clean up now. Make that cultural change now, period.
00:04:55
Speaker
On that note, I wanted to share some really sad news that is still messing with me. Tony Shea died. Tony Shea was the author of the book Delivering Happiness, which has been mentioned here I think a few times and definitely a book that we promoted. He is probably best known for
00:05:18
Speaker
being the, not the founder, but rather the person that built Zappos, the shoe company into what it is. He didn't found it, but he acquired it when it was struggling and young. And he may even be better known for being that guy or that company where you would go work for Zappos for a relatively short period of time. I think it was a month
00:05:36
Speaker
And after that point in time, they would offer you a relatively large sum of money, like $1,000 to quit with the summary of the idea being, if you're willing to just take a thousand bucks and go find something else in life, then you weren't here for the right reasons for the long haul.
00:05:53
Speaker
a sense of identity, a sense of belonging. You're just here to make a quick buck. We want to find people that we want to invest in, that we want to provide a long-term outlook for. Obviously, there's a lot of MBA level analysis that can be done, whether that's a good or bad thing or the moral hazard of the people that are going to come try to rip you off of that.
00:06:12
Speaker
He was pretty revolutionary in a lot of his thinking, and I would, without hesitation, anyone out there who's running a business, involved in a family business, contemplating some tough life questions about sense of purpose, outcomes, how to treat people, and so forth, without hesitation would endorse reading the book or listening to the audio book on delivering happiness.
00:06:35
Speaker
Even anybody running a team of any kind, a Boy Scout troop, like a group of people, that book definitely adds cultural value to kind of anybody who reads it. And I saw it on my bookshelf last night and I've read it twice, I think. I saw it and I was like, I'm going to have to pick that up again. I mean, partly now because he's so much in our minds lately and I want to, you know.
00:07:00
Speaker
acknowledge it and remember it, but also it's a very fantastic book that should be at least glanced over often. Never have I read a book that talks about building technology databases to rave parties, to Blue Man Group, to building out your apartment, to team culture and moving, driving from Nevada to Kentucky to fix a warehouse. I mean, all over the place.
00:07:27
Speaker
He appears to have succumbed to injuries in a house fire and it's kind of one of those like... It's a wake up call. He was 43, I think? 46. 46? And that's part of where I haven't grappled with it is going back to everything you and I have said on this morning's podcast, but just in life in general, you got to do a little bit of living in the present because Tony Hsieh was a made man. I mean, he sold
00:07:52
Speaker
His first company for $265 million, he sold Zappos to Amazon for over a billion. Now, he did not receive all that money, of course, but nevertheless, he was a great example of somebody who money was not in any way a limitation in his life and seemed to stay really grounded and wholesome in one of those airport test guys where you'd love to just get stuck with them and hang out with them and have fun.
00:08:15
Speaker
to think that, you know, death at 46 was not in his plan. And, you know, I mean, I didn't know the guy, of course, but nevertheless kind of hit you. I'm glad to hear that book resonated with you so much, too.
Hiring and Cultural Fit
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah. And you pushed it like three years ago or something in a good way. And yeah, right. Sticks with you. Yeah, I know. So shout out to Tony. Yeah. Yeah. We're thinking about you.
00:08:44
Speaker
On a more positive note, we have hired three people. I mean, if you were Tony, you have hired like 89 people in the past week. There's a lot of reasons I'm not Tony. That's one of them.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah. Fantastic though. That's three. That's okay. Go on. It's what I think I'd mentioned earlier. It's positions that we actually found through. Indeed, that process went great. It reaffirmed my belief that having the ability to see multiple different people
00:09:15
Speaker
both a little bit, maybe some small percentage in the competitive nature of interviewing, but a lot more so in the helps you introduce yourself. It gives you a chance to look at who's out there, who's a good fit, who's got capability, who's got perspective. We were able to find what I think are great candidates for all three positions. I also think that there's a lot to be said for the whole
00:09:37
Speaker
commentary that Malcolm Gladwell introduced in his latest season of revisionist history around the fact that there is no such thing as a good interview process because much in the same way that a politician is a different person when they are a candidate versus when they're in office. Everybody, right or wrong, good or bad, everyone is a bit different when you're going through an interview process.
00:10:02
Speaker
It's of course still possible to glean a lot and see and get a feel for it, which we did. And actually the first person is started this morning, first day, and so far great. We actually did have them come in for kind of a working day interview as well, get a chance to meet the team culturally fit, see, and it's interesting because that person came from a different industry that's a lot more stress induced and chaotic and rough, if you will. And we had to talk about, hey, like there's a different culture here and you'll have to,
00:10:31
Speaker
you'll have to adapt and embrace that culture. We are soft gloves in terms of precision and taking our time and thinking. It's not that we don't hustle. It's not that we don't have some stress, but we're generally ... Stress is not part of the daily or hourly vernacular here. I want to be planned, courtized. It's not something that I
00:10:53
Speaker
came to naturally, again, the countless shout out to guys like Jay Pearson, where things like stress or even overtime are not necessarily motivators or signs of success, but rather signs of a lack of organization or plan or process, etc. And I think it's difficult to embrace that at first, because it seals a bit condescending. But the reality is, it's been absolutely true and great. And to hear
Training and Development of New Hires
00:11:16
Speaker
to hear commentary like that from candidates that spend some time here and say, why is it different here is actually pretty awesome. That's almost exactly what happened here too, because we hired Pierre a week and a half ago. So he's been crushing it. Awesome. And I'll ask him every few days, so like, what do you think? How is it compared to your other places? And he says, it's calm. And we're busy. And there's like four machines running right now. But it's, you know,
00:11:45
Speaker
We're not stressed, and we can have this conversation. We can take the time to clean and take the time to do things well and measure parts properly and pull out the chip conveyor from the Nakamura and clean it. We've certainly put him on some of the dirtier jobs that have come our way, but that's what an extra body is for, an extra person around.
00:12:10
Speaker
And it's great. He's really enjoying it. And we're doing great stuff together. I'm teaching him on the Swiss. Angelo's teaching him on the Nakamura. He's been running the U-Mac. We'll get him trained up on the Maury and then just keep going, going, going. That's awesome.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's not bad for a week and a half now that I think about it. There's so much to do, but it's like, okay, we're actually making great progress here. To the extent that it's a pre-plan thing, how much do you think about, hey, we want you to learn or start here and get warmed up on this versus like, hey, right now I need complicated parts on the knock. Just dive in.
00:12:50
Speaker
It's both. We certainly started with the, okay, let's work on what's critical right now. We need these parts. So shadow me doing this. And then I'm making a conscious effort to like yesterday, I was like, okay, I asked him in the beginning of the day, can I have a couple hours today to teach you the Swiss? Let's hang out.
00:13:09
Speaker
And I know him and Angela are developing plans and timelines for themselves. So it's like, I have to come in as the CEO and ask, can I have some time? I know you guys got a busy schedule, but I want to make sure that we get this training time in. And he was like, yeah, I can do that. I'll reschedule this. That's hilarious.
00:13:29
Speaker
And while I was teaching him, he was running foam on the UMAK and pen clips on the Nakamura. And every 20 minutes, he'd have to go over there and change something, put a new piece of foam on, and come back. And it was great. Yeah. It was fantastic. That's awesome.
Shop Efficiency and Machinery Setup
00:13:45
Speaker
The quirky, unexpected thing that I'm seeing is that I like being able to see, or I like anybody being able to glean information on tower lights, like what machine is idle or running or waiting for an operator. We didn't lay our shop out in necessarily a great way for that. It may actually be an easier change than I'm thinking, but it's the same thing. I don't care about stress in terms of cranking out productivity numbers by hour, but if a machine is waiting for 11 minutes for no reason other than just somebody says, well, the tower light's not,
00:14:15
Speaker
easily visible. It doesn't make sense to be saying a bunch of timers and alarms and thinking around. Something I want to think about as we finish up this overhaul. It's funny because when buying machines, especially the ones like the Nakamura, we did not get a tower light. The more we did, but they're like a $1,200 option or something. It's a really nice light, John.
00:14:42
Speaker
I know. When you're looking at it, you're like, I'm not paying $1,200 for it to tell me if it's running or not, but thinking back on it, it is worth it. It's like you need to know from a distance. You need to be able to glance up. The point is running machines unattended. I need to be able to look and be like, green, good, red, okay, yellow, bad.
00:15:01
Speaker
You have, again, full permission to Arduino, a thing that basically if the spindle, if the machine stops running for 70 seconds, turn a light on, that'll cost you all $3. Exactly. Luckily, the Acremer is loud enough that we can tell when it's over. But what was it? Oh, even for the surface grinder that we got, pretty sure I added the tower light option.
00:15:29
Speaker
Because I'm like, you know what? That thing's going to run relatively unattended for however long the cycle is. And I need to be able to know from across the shop if it's done or not. The way you started that, I thought you were going to say the service graders already ended up running. I thought, oh my god, that was quick. Oh, but soon. Really? They told us two weeks, like over a week ago. And I haven't heard since. No kidding. Oh, because it was already on a, it was in stock or something. In stock in Chicago. Yeah. Did you negotiate any training or setup into that? Yep.
00:16:00
Speaker
Two days, three days, training and setup. And they come in, they level it, they finish up the power. We have to get the electrician to hook it up. And then they grind the table, I believe, and then they grind the chuck on both sides, the magnetic chuck. So they grind the backside of it first, and then they flip it, and they put it on the grind the top, and then kind of teaches us how everything works.
00:16:26
Speaker
We briefly thought about we could do that. We leveled our machines now. We could grind in the chuck. There's not that many buttons. We could figure it out. It came as part of the package, and it was a nice deal.
00:16:39
Speaker
It's kind of an easy solution. Just come in and do more for the work and teach us how to do it. Good. PSA from one of the horror nightmares, which is when we bought that used Okamoto and whoever foolishly put the magnetic chuck on the table without a good rust inhibitor. But please, dear God, make sure that you'd like to think that any
00:17:05
Speaker
skilled reseller or technician would do that, but you never know if it's somebody new or something gets skipped and the consequences are catastrophic.
00:17:15
Speaker
I remember over the years trying to find suggestions for the best kind of underneath vice rust inhibitor. What's your thoughts on that? We've used two different ones pretty regularly with confidence. We use a product called LPS3. There are different LPSs, but LPS3 is kind of the one you want here, which is a very thin filmed rust inhibitor
00:17:35
Speaker
It can be wiped on with a rag, it can be sprayed on with a spray bottle, and it's thickless. It's just a film that's almost invisible, and it's a very high-quality product. We also use lanolin, which is basically like a grease or a honey, if you will, kind of thicker stuff. It's easy to find as a nipple cream at your local pharmacy for nursing mothers.
00:18:00
Speaker
Sorry, super weird, but true. That's great. Especially, now it's a lot thicker, and so I wouldn't think it's the right application. Sorry, that's a much better descriptor than my crazy bad description. As an example, the orange vices have a little cavity that takes a coupler mount, and you may not look at that thing for a year. That's a great place where you can just put some of that stuff. It's never going to get washed away or
00:18:27
Speaker
decay away and it's going to keep that interior inside pocket that's hidden. Gotcha. It's a thick Vaseline grease kind of thing, so you can coat that pocket. Since it's a raised pocket, there's no surface level issues or whatever. Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
Cool. I think we have some LPS3. I bought a spray can of it a long time ago and we've finished that. I think I bought a squirt bottle of it from McMaster recently. We buy the one gallon or the oil can size thing from MSC and then just pour it into spray bottles or weight on rags.
00:19:02
Speaker
Nice. There's also a PSA, something called VCI paper. I don't remember the acronym, but it's available from Uline and any kind of packaging type company. It's a paper. It doesn't really look that different, although it maybe looks a little bit shiny or waxy, and it's a rust-inhibiting paper.
00:19:20
Speaker
So we ship our fixture plates. Oh, you ship the fixture plates. You know, like you're putting it under the vice. Um, no, you wouldn't do it there. Sorry. Not at all. But like when we pulled, when we, I read some people like wax paper or something under their vices and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
00:19:36
Speaker
I would not think that's no. You don't want anything that can retain or soak up moisture. But when we pull mod vices off the VF2, we'll usually lay them straight onto VCI paper on the cart because it's just a good step. We haven't gotten to LPS3 stage yet or anything else, but it's cheap and a good process. Sweet. Sweet. Good. I'm curious. Let me know what they use or how that goes. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. I'll make sure we have our bottle ready.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah. Cause especially like that, it's always wet, always under coolant kind of gets ignored. The vices not coming off, you know, the magnetic not coming off like anytime soon. Um, yeah. So let's do a good job on that. You misspelled ever.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, because I almost said ever, but I'm like, I don't know. Can you talk about the decision making or what you ended up with on both the pole style of magnet and any of the chip filtration, enclosure, magnet, skimmer, whatever?
00:20:39
Speaker
So we got the, I think it's called the transverse pole magnet. So if it's a rectangle, the poles are going the short way. The lines are going the short way across. Some people get it going the long way. But you want as many lines across your part as possible to get more holding force. And since we have a rectangular blade,
00:21:01
Speaker
with the poles going the short way, we get a lot of lines per blade. More lines is better than the cumulative length of the line contacting the particle. Interesting. I don't really understand magnetism, but it's jumping between the poles. It's creating a magnetic arc field between each line. Interesting.
00:21:20
Speaker
Whereas if there's longer lines, but less of them, you're still jumping, but now you're jumping sideways. And it's not as you want holding force. And they have a fine pole option, and they have a medium regular pole option. And at first, I wanted the fine pole, because I'm like, we're more likely to do small parts, like tiny parts, than we are to do this giant big thing that's super tall.
00:21:44
Speaker
but I looked up the fine pole that they quoted and it looks like, I don't know, really close together, like less than 0.1 inch pole spacing, like way too fine. And I was like, no, that's not too, so let's go with the normal one, like everybody gets it, it's fine. I think it has half inch pole spacing or something.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, so we got that. The Okamoto brand magnetic shock. We got the paper band coolant filter, which is similar to what we have on the Kern, where basically there's pump waterfall of coolant goes over filter paper that constantly slowly spools and gives you fresh paper. And that should be good. I don't know what micron it ships with, but probably 10 or 15 or something. Is it small?
00:22:30
Speaker
Do you like, I mean, I feel like I would love that, but I've never owned one. Do you like it on the current?
00:22:35
Speaker
Kern, I don't even think about it. I look at it every now and then as I walk by. It's got chips on it for sure. It's catching stuff. On the Kern especially, I think I want to add a bag filter on the pressure side to the machine. Secondary, maybe smaller filter than the 15 micron paper, just to see what I catch. And since I'm doing grinding in there now, it's probably a really good idea.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah, so with the Okamoto, and then I got the signal light. And I didn't get their task light, their little LED thing, because it was like $500. And I'm like, I have several friends who are making very high quality LED lights under $500. And I would way rather support them. So hashtag probably lux.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah, either Freelix or I'll do Jason from Promethea, DarkSuck, because he makes a 110 volt plug-in task. Cool. So that could be perfect. And it's like 300 something. So I'm totally supporting my boys, as opposed to sending Okamoto more money.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah. The scroll filter on the Kern and assumedly us on the Okamoto. So it's a fresh roll on one side that takes up the slack of the spent filter paper on the other side. So that's kind of a bridge where the coolant falls and the chips get caught. Once it moves to the spent side though, do the chips just fall off into a bin or do they actually kind of stay on the filter paper that's used?
00:24:12
Speaker
In the Kern, the paper ejects, it spits into a tub, so the paper just literally like coils itself into this container and chips would kind of fall there too. But for the most part, the chips kind of suction themselves to the paper.
00:24:30
Speaker
And this is still separate from your chip shoot that captures most of your larger chips. Correct. Cool. Yeah. And the current, it's interesting because the coolant drains straight down underneath the spindle and then the chip conveyor is right there. And so the chip conveyor will drag the chips away, but then there's a pump that will pump the coolant out of the chip conveyor trough, pump it to the paper band filter, and then through the filter paper, like over the paper.
00:25:00
Speaker
So yeah, it's like there's this constant flood of coolant that enters the chip conveyor and it has to be pumped out to get to the actual coolant tank.
00:25:11
Speaker
Cool works. I think I haven't been running the chip conveyor very much and I think I flooded because it kind of got backed up. That trough just kind of got a little blockage and there's so much volume of coolant that there's like a trickle behind the machine. I'm like, where'd that coolant come from?
00:25:30
Speaker
That's funny to say, that's the gentleman that started today. I mean, we have a maintenance list printed out. Actually, two separate lists. We have an Excel file that I've been noodling on for two years. And then we have the Saunders version of 100 things you can do, which is okay. It's a little bit tasky, like if you had free time, which the other Excel file is much better. And it has like a real list every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every six months, every year.
00:25:56
Speaker
And it's things like, hey, pull the pumps on the Haas and look at the intakes and clean them because that's all about preventative maintenance and it's a good thing. And to have somebody here now who's dedicated on, I mean, he's doing more than just maintenance, but is just oxygen. It's awesome.
00:26:15
Speaker
But yeah, you were saying last week, that's one of the roles. Is that the first guy that started today? He's more of an everything man, like maintenance and do all kinds of stuff. That's going
Teamwork and Delegation
00:26:25
Speaker
to be cool. Yeah. Unloading trucks when they come, coordinating those receivables, like in that material with Lex, getting the barcode scanned in, getting them stored in the racking, demacking material, breaking down the pallets. I still do a lot of this stuff. And again, it's kind of like a point of pride that a lot of entrepreneurs have, but it doesn't make it the right decision.
00:26:45
Speaker
interfacing, helping fill orders, pack orders, yes, all that. We do all of that here and there's probably four or five of us that dabble in all of that.
00:26:58
Speaker
cool. Yeah. It's good. It's absolutely the right. Every time you make these decisions, it can be nerve wracking. For almost every single time it's occurred, you've realized. To say it would be an exaggeration to use the example that by the time you've hired somebody, it's too late. That's a little bit
00:27:21
Speaker
Maybe that is true for your first employee, but that's a freaking nerve wracking. I remember that well, but yes, we're ready. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to get to that point. Yeah. I mean, almost every hire for us has been not the same level of nerve wracking as the first and second, but everyone is serious consideration, but it is getting much easier.
00:27:43
Speaker
Because the business is growing to the point where it's not like, what are we going to have them do? It's like, what aren't we going to have them do? It's like, is one going to be enough is my question now. So yeah, it's a nice place to be. What's been going on this week? Yeah, like I said, teaching Pierre on the Swiss, switching over to pen parts.
00:28:10
Speaker
I've actually been taken, I haven't been as mega hustle mode, and I've been taking some more time off and just, you know, a bit more time with the family and a bit more clear my head kind of thing. And it's weird, but really nice. And it's not like I planned it. It's just sort of happening and enjoying it, which is
00:28:31
Speaker
causing me to be more ultra-focused when I have to be and get my critical things done, not my toy projects, which is nice too. When I'm on the current, I'm on the current. Leave me alone.
00:28:46
Speaker
and get to step back and figure out, okay, if the goal is to make 100 rasks a month or more, whatever the number is, what do I actually need between now and that happening? Yes, I know what I need to finish to get the first sellable rask done, and that list is very tiny.
00:29:05
Speaker
You know making one at a time is one thing but making you know ten at a time with the fixtures and the palettes and everything it's kind of a different story so make sure that I know. Exactly what that list entails and how can I split that list up between my team or even outsourced to friends of ours who can like make stuff for me because that will save me significant time and i'm always playing that battle like.
00:29:27
Speaker
Well, I've already, you know, prototyped it and made a few on the currents. I have the program, so it's really just running more parts. Or do I set it out to have buddies make it? You know, send a couple hundred bucks here and there. And I don't know, always playing with that.
Outsourcing vs. In-house Production
00:29:41
Speaker
Is there an example of when you did the ladder, you sent out a fixture or a support tooling part, et cetera. Is there a time where you sent something out and you regretted it? No, I've only done it a few times and mostly for things that I can't or really don't want to do.
00:29:56
Speaker
haven't done it yet for something that I could easily do myself. But I need to get to that point just to see what it feels like. Right so that I can look back and just like you said, regret it or not. And most likely I won't. Yeah, there's always that like let go issue of like, Oh, man, what if something's wrong or the quality or frankly, if you dig down, sometimes it's more of the well, I've not really thought through everything. And I don't have drawings that accurately like that's really a byproduct of
00:30:23
Speaker
of your own, this is going to sound extreme, your own failings as an entrepreneur and engineer because you're just creating a system that only lives in your head. You can run. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm worried about too, is for me to send out parts to other people, I have to tolerance them better. I have to create drawings and notes and make sure it doesn't bend and all this stuff.
00:30:44
Speaker
Whereas I just know it in my head, and when I make the part, I just know those things. And I'm very not used to creating drawings and sketches and notes for other people. But whether it's internal or external, I got to get good at that stuff. No, you don't. Angelo can do that. Yeah, absolutely. He knows enough. He can ask you questions. You can review it, John. He's experienced at that. Yes, yes, yes.
00:31:10
Speaker
Exactly. We flipped over. I love what I do today more than I maybe ever do, sincerely. In a weird way, I've just made this flip in the last week or so where almost every time something comes in front of me, I kick it to somebody on the team.
00:31:26
Speaker
Good. And it feels abnormal, but whether it's jacking a piece of material to somewhere else, whether it's answering a customer email, whether it's a PO or quote or anything, it's just like building that team and letting people do... It's awesome. Absolutely. I guess I bring it up because it's still... Once you do it, it's the right decision, but there's a strain of, oh, I'll just answer this. I'll just take this and handle this.
00:31:56
Speaker
Still, was this a conscious shift for you recently, like kind of a change in time? Yeah, it's that stage four. I mean, it's the finishing up. It's hilarious how it has coincided with the calendar year. But literally, as of two hours and 38 minutes ago, the first person of that last three higher has started, like I mentioned. So he's helping finish some of the other things. And that's actually the most relevant role in terms of the staging of that overhaul this year.
00:32:23
Speaker
But that frees up other people's time and it makes things happen on a cleaner basis. We're using LEX, that Excel file of maintenance things gets pushed into LEX because maintenance is not really any different than a work order from a database standpoint.
Systematic Maintenance and ERP Challenges
00:32:39
Speaker
So as an example, if we run out of washers, when you scan the barcode in LEX, it just goes to PO to MSC or McMaster or somebody.
00:32:47
Speaker
If you run out of mod vices, the scanning goes to an internal work order for somebody here to make them be assigned a person. If it's a maintenance thing, it can be either scanned or triggered automatically on a calendar, and that goes to the new person to say, hey, you need to calibrate the Rent-A-Shop probe, or you need to check the bricks.
00:33:07
Speaker
I don't have all the answers yet, but my thought is once a month, each machine gets a pretty good cleaning. So you get up on top, you wipe down the chips, the residual coolant that has de-emulsified, and you wouldn't drain the tanks. But really, every month, one machine gets a good clean, because that's how the machine cleans. Not every machine once a month, but one machine per month. Got it.
00:33:33
Speaker
That's great. The fact that you're developing a scheduling planning maintenance system is fantastic. Yeah, GURP. Let's go. What is the architecture of Lex? You said it's WordPress, but is it Airtable?
00:33:49
Speaker
No, we briefly started with Airtable. I was looking into it last night. There's two answers. Number one, I don't really know. I didn't build it. We've had a lot of questions and
00:34:05
Speaker
The answer is we're not sharing it for a bunch of reasons. Number one, that's not our business and industry. Number two, it's actually not software. It's not software you can just use and install. My understanding is it's a SQL database that has a WordPress front end and the bridge between those two is a script or plugin that is PHP based.
00:34:27
Speaker
It's it's not it has major Weaknesses like like I'm already starting to realize the fact that it doesn't tie into our accounting system could be a real issue because we're getting four and five Things show up or invoices show up a day. Sometimes all four of those are not small amounts I don't have any clue John if that show stuff arrived and it's not scalable and sustainable to just assume that you know, this thing always did arrive so the
00:34:56
Speaker
there is a lot to be said for that reconciliation process of when something gets in bounded and that also clears the invoice to be approved to pay. But what I would encourage if folks want to do this, I have a guy call me yesterday asked about this. And
00:35:11
Speaker
figure out what you want, use another ERP software, game it out, write it out, and then go hire someone to write the software for you. There's a million WordPress developers, PHP is not hard, SQL is not hard. You're now tying it all together, it takes work. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Good. So, Pierre's working out?
00:35:37
Speaker
Absolutely. Awesome. I haven't actually had the thought of like, why didn't I do this sooner? Even though it's kind of true, but no, the timing is perfect. It's good now. It was at a good time when we could justify it and it made sense and it works for him, works for us. Yeah. Zero regrets whatsoever.
00:35:58
Speaker
So yeah, now it's just looking at everybody in this shop and figuring out, OK, what are the roles? What are the responsibilities? How do we maximize everybody? How do we get to the next level of production? I got to make sure that the extra person hired doesn't just kind of make everybody's lives a little bit easier, but actually makes more products. Sure.
00:36:20
Speaker
Yes. Because otherwise you've just hired somebody and you're paying them to make the same revenue as you were before. That's an interesting question though because our view, which is probably not unique, is that we wait till we need somebody, hire them, and then that backfills and de-stresses or takes up off people's plates and it also builds for growth.
Leadership Styles and Personal Balance
00:36:41
Speaker
you know, on my right shoulder is my grandfather who, you know, kind of self-made man, worked his butt off and you had no appetite for mediocracy, like just to the tune of just really, it's interesting. I never knew him as my grandfather. I never knew him as a boss or worker, but I know people who worked for him. He was not a nice person, but people still liked him. They still wanted to work for him because at the end of the day,
00:37:11
Speaker
You know before there was you know, Michael Scott in the office like he kind of understood like I'm not here to be your friend I'm here to run it. I'd like to swear right now. I'm here to run a flippin company And you know get on or get off the train And if you drop a piece of paper, you don't pick it up What you know, why that flip did you just do that? Like he was not nice but but but
00:37:37
Speaker
But people liked it. There actually is a structure now. Why he was like that, I don't know. His upbringing, he was in the Marine Corps and was in Okinawa. I don't know. Was that what drove him to be that hard or was it just more common back then? I mean, manufacturing is different now. There's a lot more soft elements to it. We almost work in a clean room compared to what
00:38:00
Speaker
place looked like 30 years ago. So that's one sub shoulder. The other shoulder is, hey, John, you know, you just said it yourself, like you're taking a little bit of more time off. And you know what you said when you said you betrayed was a sense of guilt. Why the heck are you guilty that maybe you're not quite working so hard? You know, that's okay. I don't know. I look at both shoulders a lot. And I'm sure I certainly lean heavily towards the nice guy shoulder. Yeah, it's just who I am. It's personality. But
00:38:28
Speaker
I'm building the muscle of the business owner who needs to get stuff done and needs to, not bark orders, but make sure that things happen and ask you to do something and needs to get done. I was going to ask you before.
00:38:44
Speaker
especially as you said, you're handing off more and more tasks and responsibilities, little things on a daily basis. Like sometimes I still have that little guilt of like, Hey, can you move that thing over there when I could just do it in five seconds, but I need to get zero guilt. I know I still have zero guilt. No, that is now over.
00:39:04
Speaker
So I need to get because because so we had a film crew here this morning filming a thing on promoting Zanesville, Ohio, and we're one of the businesses they picked is like, hey, quality of life, blah, blah, blah. And we needed they wanted to film somewhere we had four or five pallets and a little table.
00:39:21
Speaker
I could have easily moved it. I had Garrett come move it. Because, yes, you know what happens? When he moved it, he had a question. Ed was like, hey, actually, that needs to get moved into recycling. This needs to get cleaned up. This needs to get moved over here. I would have just relocated at eight feet, which is not a great use of my time anyways, when I've got some other things I wanted to get off my plate. Garrett not only did it, but did it better. We're better off for it. It's so much better when that happens. Yeah, so many good downstream effects. Yeah, it's good.
00:39:49
Speaker
Now, I will still hop on the forklift and unload a truck if I've got an unloaded truck. I'm not too good for that. It's that balance. I don't ever want to get to the point where it's like, I'm too good to do anything. But it's not that. I guess to push you outside your comfort zone, you should act a little more like that. Yeah, right? I mean, that's kind of the way of like, no one's going to all of a sudden think that you become some entitled
00:40:13
Speaker
Turd that nobody wants to be around that's the fear inside your head that prevents you doing these things that might not ever be true but whether it's you know this scenario or Talking to someone or you know Dealing with something you don't want to deal with it's that that fear of the unknown or of the of the thing you think you know That reality you think is going to happen. That's most likely not gonna happen That prevents you from doing it
00:40:40
Speaker
I got to take a pause to bring up a great list.
Pride and Humility in Business Success
00:40:45
Speaker
Top 10 reasons for entrepreneurial success. You and I have talked about this a lot. Not lately, though. And we'll put a link in the description. But number three, act responsibly to customers, employees, and vendors. That doesn't mean, responsibly doesn't always mean overly kind. It means responsibly, which means sometimes the company's goals are what need to happen, like this example, the palette jacking.
00:41:09
Speaker
You need to fix the plan as you go, learn from your mistakes, make sure the math works. Here we go. Number eight, make sure that every employee understands and works toward the mission. In your case, the mission is not only shipping a quality product, but it's embracing the culture of Grimsman knives, the processes, the obsession and passion for what you do. That's why reorganizing a
00:41:31
Speaker
bunch of titanium round bar is just as important as putting the edge on a rask, John. It all ties into the mission, but you got to make sure, and I'm not, this is where I probably have more insecurities than I do in other areas about making sure I am communicative and clear about the team, about what the culture is, what we're trying to do.
00:41:51
Speaker
the goals and the values. I do struggle with that too. I think it's not even that clear in my own head because I struggle to explain it to myself. That's got to change. I think a lot about it. But to communicate that to the team, even though we have meetings every day at 12 o'clock, I still kind of choke when I
00:42:12
Speaker
want to explain those values and the culture. You got to stand up on your high horse, basically, and you got to speak with confidence. It's not something that's natural for me, and I've certainly been putting myself out of my comfort zone to do it more and more. But it's like I'm so growth-oriented. My personality, myself, that
00:42:35
Speaker
I will probably never be at the level that I want to be because that's what goals are. It's like once you reach where you thought you were going to be, then you've got a bigger goal already. I'm way farther than I was three years ago. John, what you got to remember is when I'm the machinist that's walking through your doors to consider coming to work or join your team, I'm looking at a guy who's built a reputation in your industry that's built a real business with real revenue, with real employees that you've been around.
00:43:05
Speaker
You've got a beautiful shop. You've done this because you love it. You need to draw on those nuggets to leverage that confidence as a superpower character. It's not arrogance. It's not conceit. It's, hey, I've gotten this this far and hop on board because I'm going to keep moving this business along.
00:43:28
Speaker
Yeah, like, two things about that. One, I don't like pat myself on the back about all this stuff, because there's still so much more to do. And, you know, the goals are way further down the road now. But also, I'm, I've realized over the past year or so, that I think I'm terrified of arrogance, of being perceived as arrogant, you know, your tooth, I don't brag. Yeah, you're too scared of that. I mean, we've had some trolls that have laid down some trollish stuff. And then all of a sudden, you flip around, you're like,
00:43:58
Speaker
Okay, but yeah, I mean, it's just absolutely thick skin confidence about the pride of what we've done. Yes, absolutely. Maybe pride needs to replace arrogance. There you go. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Because I can be prideful about everything we've done. Yeah. Truth. Deliberate pride. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Podcast Reflection and Future Direction
00:44:25
Speaker
And sometimes it is as stupid as little semantics. Like you explain it to yourself in a way that you're okay with. Now you're okay with it. You'll be fine, John. No doubt. But there's certainly things I have to do that I'm not doing yet. This has been a great episode for our second to last ever when we shut the podcast down in episode 200. Just kidding. Or are we? I've often thought about what's the end of the business of machining. Yeah, I don't know, right? What's our five year plan, John?
00:44:57
Speaker
Well, we're what, four years in? I know. It's crazy. Crazy. It's been good. It's been good. I'm enjoying it. And as you told me a long time ago, I'm still enjoying it. For as long as we enjoy it, we'll keep doing it. And the second we stop enjoying it, we'll stop it. The podcast?
00:45:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, no, totally, right? Like, that's funny. Okay, let's end on this note, because it kind of ties in with pride and loving what we do, and sometimes strutting your stuff a little. We pulled some stats, and we've got pretty strong viewership, and pretty good. Maybe on 200, we'll talk about it. Yeah, and it's awesome, because there've been some other folks out there that have kind of
00:45:40
Speaker
maybe represented themselves to be bigger than I think it doesn't even I mean, it's not a contest, but it's only you kind of chuckle when you're like, Oh, actually, we're, we're doing okay. And we do this because we're like, like, we love it, right? Like putting zero effort into advertising it, or you wouldn't even post about it, like, but we should I wanted to Julie started that a little and I want maybe you can get your guys to do that where every when you guys that we alternate editing weeks for those listening. And so, hey, put a little highlights rail up on Instagram and drive people over to it and we'll do the same.
00:46:11
Speaker
I mean, it's a good thing. Cool. See you next week. Have an awesome week. Take care.