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Climbing the Ladder: How to Stand Out and Move Up in Any Contracting Role
87 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of The Better Contractor, Brent Oberlink breaks down the keys to standing out in your role—whether you're an operator, laborer, or foreman. Learn how to stop the "us vs. them" mentality, take full ownership of your work, and develop an entrepreneurial mindset that gets you noticed. Brent shares powerful tips for leading, managing, and excelling, while offering practical advice to help you rise above the average. If you’re serious about moving up the ladder, this episode is a must-listen.
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Transcript
The Limits of Being Average
00:00:00
Speaker
realize that you do not have opportunity in being average. So if your goal is or your mindset is, hey, he's doing it, she's doing it, whatever. If they're all doing it, then I can get by with it and then I'm going to do it too. If you want to move out the ladder, I promise you being average is a bad way to do so.
Introducing Short Edition for Field Workers
00:00:33
Speaker
onrows Welcome back to another edition of The Better Contractor. Today I am not joined by the professor Travis again. I promise you guys he did not quit though. He is still with TBC. We're just giving him a little break and he's going to be on a few more of the full length. So today is a little bit of a shorter podcast and it is geared more towards people in the field. So workers, operators, foremen, laborers. So it's basically moving up the ladder. So, you know, I think that's something, whether you work for, you know, one of my companies or another contractor, you're obviously thinking about moving up that ladder.
00:01:12
Speaker
There's some people that they want to be an operator and they don't want to be a foreman. And that's totally fine. I see it all the time. However, there's a lot of you that want to move up that ladder. So as an owner, as a CEO, I want to talk to you today about how can you do that, whether that's with Manacorp or that's with company A, B, C, or D.
The Downside of an Adversarial Mindset
00:01:32
Speaker
So number one, stop the us versus them mindset. So that is only hurting two people. It's hurting you and it's hurting your boss.
00:01:42
Speaker
So but when I say that, what I'm talking about is that's a mindset that I've seen a lot more in recent years. And basically, it's as if you're putting each other against each other, instead of thinking, you hey, we're all on the same team. If the company does better, I do better. If I do this, the company gets more money, then all of a sudden I have more money to be given a raise. But for whatever reason, there's a lot of people that view it as I'm here as an employee. My boss is here. He's bad and and vice versa. And it shouldn't be that way. <unk> We're all on the same team. It is, it is hurting both of you and it is inhibiting you from success and moving up the ladder.
Ownership and Impressing Superiors
00:02:24
Speaker
Number two, own your stuff, own your project. Um, the way I think, so if I have someone who's wanting to raise, if they've went through an essentially
00:02:39
Speaker
viewed every project and treat it as their own. I see that usually. I see that heart. I see that passion. I see that fire in them that they took complete ownership in that job. If that is the case, most likely I'm going to be impressed. But you need to take that ownership. And I think back to some of my earlier years and I've talked about this with Noah who's sitting here beside me. I always had that mindset even before I owned a business and that mindset was My name is on it. So if my name is on it, then I need to perform at a certain level because that's what I want to be known for. I don't want to be known as the guy that put a half butt effort into something. Like I want to be known as the guy that if if he did it, then it's done at least to a certain level. He probably went above and beyond on customer service. He went above and beyond on safety. He was more efficient. I think of places I worked where there was a production goal, a certain number.
00:03:37
Speaker
And for me, it was I need to beat that number because that number was probably chosen by somebody in the office as an average number. And I don't want to be average. I want to be better than average. So I need to beat that number. I need to do better. I think back when I was in college, another example, I worked at a place that basically cleaned seeds, so soybeans, corn for farmers. And with that, we stacked it manually onto a pallet. So there were 60 bags on a pallet.
00:04:06
Speaker
um And I look back at those days and that was when robotics was first starting to come into play and robots were starting to stack those pallets. So it became kind of a game for me and one of my coworkers to be able to stack faster, flatter, shorter and straighter than a robot. You know, so I look at that and that was that taking ownership and making that kind of a game of beating that. So, but you've got to take ownership in what
Entrepreneurial Leadership for Goals
00:04:32
Speaker
you're doing. Number three.
00:04:34
Speaker
lead and manage entrepreneurial entrepreneurially, that's a tough word. So basically, EOS style system. So EOS is entrepreneurial operating system. But basically, that goes back to the last point. If you are taking the project that you've been assigned that you're on, whether you're an operator of labor, and you are thinking of that, and hopefully your boss is allowing you this flexibility, but you are thinking of this as, hey, this is actually mine to run, it's mine to mess up,
00:05:03
Speaker
but it's mine to exceed and excel on. So you're going to with that mindset, be more likely to meet the production goals, meet the safety goals, lead your team, manage your team and in a different and better way. But you got to look as an entrepreneur and that is different. I know it's a weird thing to say if you're, you know, you're not an actual entrepreneur in this situation. Not everybody wants to be that though. There's a lot of people that don't want the stress, the debt, the headache of being an entrepreneur, but to me,
00:05:32
Speaker
If you're in any position, that's how you should live your life though at work because that is where you will stand out. And in today's culture, today's climate, I am a firm believer that it's actually very easy to stand out with these principles and this mindset because most people don't have this mindset anymore. They view the boss as a bad person. They view the company in a negative way.
00:05:54
Speaker
um I've seen this across the industry a lot of times, not all the time. There's plenty of great people in the field. There's plenty of great bosses. So this is a little bit generalizing, but that's what I have to do for this podcast.
Daily Excellence to Get Noticed
00:06:05
Speaker
Number four, do good. That seems simple because it is. If you are doing your best job day in and day out, I promise you will get noticed by your boss. so Number five, um realize that you do not have opportunity in being average.
00:06:24
Speaker
So, if your goal is, or your mindset is, hey, he's doing it, she's doing it, whatever. If they're all doing it, then I can get by with it, and then I'm gonna do it too. If you want to move out the ladder, I promise you being average is a bad way to do so.
Standing Out Through Exceptional Work
00:06:40
Speaker
um It's simply not going to happen. You have to stand out to your boss, you have to stand out to your superiors, whether you're an operator. So, you know, taking better care of that equipment with your labor, you know, being more efficient, more productive.
00:06:54
Speaker
If you're already a foreman and you're willing to move up to a project manager level, if your projects are all run successfully and you've run them as if it's your own deal, most likely, I promise you as an owner, you're probably going to get noticed and talked about. That is how you move up the ladder. Doing what everyone else is doing, you're average and your chances are not as good. But if you're going through there and you're doing the entrepreneurial mindset, you're taking full ownership, you're actually putting your name on that project,
00:07:24
Speaker
You are killing it on production. You're killing it on safety. All those things you are going to move up that ladder because you're going to get noticed. But it leads me to my last point and that is you have to change your mindset. If your mindset is again an us versus them mindset, it isn't going to happen. But if your mindset is you know what, this is my project. This is my name on this project. And you take full ownership and you knock it out of the park.
00:07:51
Speaker
Every owner right now wants you and they are going to try to keep you and move you up that ladder.
Balancing Leadership and Management
00:07:57
Speaker
But again, you got to take ownership and you got to be entrepreneurial in your mindset. For the foreman out there, with you guys, um there's two two things. You have to lead and you have to manage. A lot of people will focus on one or the other. They have great management skills, meaning organization, production goals. They're good at managing and delegating.
00:08:20
Speaker
You have some people who aren't so great at that, but they're great at leading, meaning motivating, getting a team to move towards a goal. They're a motivational and likable person, but they may lack management. You guys need both. You have to be able to be doing both of those things, meaning creating that environment where that team wants to follow you, where this team, you know, enjoys working with you. They feel inspired and motivated to go achieve the goals that you want to achieve, but you're also delegating and managing that project in a way where it's profitable,
00:08:51
Speaker
It's safe. It's getting done on time and the client or customer is satisfied or hopefully beyond satisfied.
Reaffirming Entrepreneurial Mindset
00:08:59
Speaker
So for you guys, you got to look at it that way too. And again, that's going back to that entrepreneurial mindset. So in a nutshell, take ownership, have an entrepreneurial mindset about it, stop the us versus the mentality, blow your competition, which is your coworkers out of the water.
00:09:17
Speaker
And in this climate, this day and age, I promise you'll get noticed by whoever it is that you work for.
Closing and Subscriber Encouragement
00:09:23
Speaker
So guys, hopefully this podcast was helpful. If you like it, please share it. If you didn't, hey, you don't have to listen. But hey, I will say this. How many subscribers are we up to, Noah? Noah said we're up to 1,060. That's a huge percent increase from ah last time. That's on YouTube. So to those of you who have subscribed, thank you. If you liked it, please go ahead and subscribe if you haven't already. Catch you next time. See ya.