← To The Point - Home Services VIP Room Podcast
To The Point - Home Services VIP Room Podcast
Sage Business Advice From Home Services Legends Pt. 2
00:50:17
Loading summary
Transcript96 lines
- [00:01]
Chris
What's up to the point listeners? I know you've been excited waiting for part two. It is. Again, this is an absolute banger. I mean, the second half of this is so dang good. These guys get on one and it's so much fun to listen to. So enjoy this episode with Jonathan Bancroft, Kevin Cumberford and Chatty P in the place to be.
- [00:19]
Kevin
You know, we started our university in 2014. We've got technicians that are making upwards of 300,000 now. North of that, we've got salespeople that are making north of 600,000. One of our salespeople, his name is Stephen Gilchrist, often says, you know what I love about working at Service Champions? I changed my zip code. It changed my zip code. And, you know, I get the chills when I think about that. That's exciting to me because that's right in line with developing people and something that Jonathan said earlier, which is we want people to continue to progress and inspire them to be better. The advice I would have for people that are looking at starting a university, because it was the fuel, it was the fuel that powered us to go from, gosh, we were probably 28, 30 million and then last year we finished it north of 120 million. I would say, though, more than anything else, when you're starting a university, start small, start simple. We did it by just training maintenance technicians, train drain cleaners. If you're in the plumbing business, right, Just small, simple, and then let it, let it grow from there. But if you come in with just the focus that, hey, we are, we are, we are going to teach simple operational things like, and someone to be a maintenance tech. That's how our growth began. This is to the point a Rhino experience voted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts. Cutting through the.
- [02:06]
Chris
And getting to the point.
- [02:10]
Kevin
Hey, can I, can I change topics just briefly, simply because it was. I always like to hear from Jonathan on this and I think it's big in the industry. It's around, you know, it's around universities. We talked about.
- [02:30]
Chris
I was headed there. Hey, Kevin, take the floor.
- [02:33]
Kevin
Well, it's mainly because I always love to hear Jonathan speak on this because you're going to see in a second that, you know, we started our university in 2014 and it was after a visit out to Morris Jenkins. And I'm going to go back to why I see more opportunity in the, in the home services business than I do in professional sports. You know, I'm sure we've got technicians that are making upwards of 300,000 now, north of that, we've got salespeople that are making north of 600,000. And I'm very, very proud of that. Some people like, oh, no, be careful sharing that. I'm excited about that. That's, like, revolutionary. That's, like, transformational. And one of our salespeople, his name is Stephen Gilchrist, often says, you know what I love about working at Service Champions. I changed my zip code. It changed my zip code. And, you know, I get the chills when I think about that. That's exciting to me because that's right in line with, you know, developing people and something that Jonathan said earlier, which is we want people to continue to progress and inspire them to be better. We started our university and the advice I would have for people that are looking at starting a university, because it was the fuel. It was the fuel that powered us to go from, gosh, we were probably 28, 30 million, and then last year, we finished it north of 120 million. It was the university was the thing that fueled us. Everybody complains that there's no. There's no. There's no nobody there to work in the industry, can't find good help. Well, all you got to do is go find somebody that, you know, our mantra is trained for higher, for attitude, train for skill, which I know you all have heard before. I would say, though, more than anything else, when you're starting a university, start small, start simple. We did it by just training maintenance technicians, train drain cleaners. If you're in the plumbing business, right? Just small, simple, and build your whole business. This is what we did. We built our whole business around training people to do the lowest form of service in our industry. Cleaning a furnace, changing filters. Pretty simple. You know, do being a drain cleaner and then let it. Let it grow from there. But if you come in with just the focus that, hey, we are. We are. We are going to teach simple operational things like, and someone to be a maintenance tech. That's how our growth began. We've now grown our university again. I. I learned this from Jonathan. I watched him do it, and I'm like, I'll. I'll say what Tony Robbins often says. Success leaves clues. I saw. I saw Jonathan go out and hire a principal, and I'm like, huh, It's a pretty damn good idea. That's kind of transformational. So what did I do? I hired two.
- [05:51]
Chris
Sounds familiar, right? Chad?
- [05:52]
Kevin
I hired. I hired two. And so now I've got two former principals that run our university, and our management Training. So it's now both at service champions, and it just. It's made such a big difference to find people that are educators that believe in adult learning, that understand adult learning. We were always really good at being a sharing organization. Here, everybody take a hand out. Let's read this together. That was, that was, that was. That was Kevin's teaching. We were sharing organization. We became a learning organization when we hired professionals. When we hired professional adult learning teachers and administrators. Educators.
- [06:43]
Chris
Yeah.
- [06:44]
Kevin
Game changer.
- [06:45]
Chris
Now I know where Chad got this stuff from. We got it from you guys. That's what you did, Chad, right? Didn't you go out and hire educators?
- [06:52]
Chad
My COO is a former principal in New York City, and he started as doing the same thing, kind of overseeing our school, because I saw it at Jonathan's and I put two and two together. I was like, that seems like a really weird idea that he hired a principal. Then I finally put it together, I was like, this is a brilliant idea.
- [07:10]
Kevin
I think it's.
- [07:11]
Chad
To your point, Kevin. There is a vast difference between training, handing out a list of bulleted things that you need to do and then truly educating adults. And he's really my. The guy that we have now is the guy who taught me the difference. Because when you, you know, the training is only as good as the person who delivers it. In my mind, like, the training is the training, right?
- [07:35]
Kevin
It.
- [07:36]
Chad
It is what it is. Run the system, do the thing. Okay, cool. But like, how do we get adult learners to understand that, to grasp it, to internalize all of those things that they need to. To where it clicks and then they can go carry it out? Whereas, you know, some people are doing training, they're like, all the guys never listen. They never follow the script. It' like. Well, then you never educated them properly, right?
- [07:59]
Kevin
Yes.
- [08:01]
Jonathan
Much like my belief, and I'm not trying to impart this to anyone on this group that I. I have a firm belief that management and leadership are two different things. I believe that training and education are two different things. But wrapped up in our university is both training and education. Ours started just like Kevin's and probably like Chad's. We started teaching techs to be maintenance techs. On the H Vac side, we expanded that to drain techs and plumbing. But it's grown to be so much more. When you hear we hired principals, understand that a really good principal was an awesome educator first. And so most of them teachers. And so I stumbled upon it in hiring a former educator. Former educator of the year, former principal, kind of disenchanted with the public education system. And I needed an assistant at the time. And that's why Shallon, who I know, Kevin, you've met, spent some time with, came to me and I was just like an aha moment. Wait a minute. You don't need to be my assistant. You need to help guide Morris Jenkins University. And we've expanded that to. Because we're those same two things. We're both. Marsh Jenkins is a growth organization and it's a learning organization. Actually for us it's three things. Growth organization, learning organization and a support organization. But if we're going to be serious about us being a learning organization, who's going to educate us and it's going to have to be ourselves. So from the training aspect of teaching jobs, the competency, the ability to do that for us, we saw that we've got these core fundamentals, these things that we believe in. They're from outside of our industry and they're going to be foundational for our business. And what would it be like for us to have both bachelor and master's level education pieces wrapped around that? I walked by the board today and I saw what was upcoming in Morris Jenkins University. It's wilder than I even imagined many years ago because we have two. We have. I found out Kevin had two. We have two principles too.
- [10:09]
Chad
I gotta catch up.
- [10:13]
Chris
Five minute abs. Five minute abs.
- [10:15]
Kevin
Five minute abs. Yes.
- [10:19]
Jonathan
And I saw on there Dale Carnegie. Are you able to have a certified Dale Carnegie class within, inside your own organization? Look, we sent many people to Dale Carnegie. I'm a huge fan of Dale Carnegie. My wife certified, took a Dale Carnegie class many years ago. And on the board this morning I saw upcoming that we have a couple Dale Carnegie certification classes coming up. Now I didn't, you know, push that through, I didn't instill that idea. But you know, we've gone to a level of both self improvement, there's, there's a healthy amount of self improvement classes that have curriculum test in, test out. There are, you know, requirements, maybe previous classes that they have to take to even get into those classes. So it's really grown to that. But then we also have those fundamental classes as well. I'll just give you one as an example. You know, what does it take to be a great manager? And what we took from that was Marcus Buckingham's first break, all the rules. A legendary, probably 25 year old writing by now. And we saw that as like, yeah, that is, that is what we believe a manager should be. And so we wrap A multi day, some, in some cases multi week class wrapped around that. And to see that go from like 1.0 to 2.0 to even advanced classes is, is really awesome. And I go back to thinking, you know, somebody like Kevin Steven Gilchrist or our bud Viniconis, you know, somebody, these top salespeople or top techs or top whatever, they can grow out to become 100, 200, 300, half a million dollar per year person. But what's going to. I have seen so many flash in the pants, somebody that goes out and does that and then poof, they're gone. And so what we want to help people is reach out to do that more M O R E and then stay there and keep elevating and growing. And I wasn't going to wait on our education system, God bless them. I sure as hell was not going to wait on our government to do it. So this was very, very nasty, sometimes expensive. Oh, you got to be prepared to fail and fall on your face and get back up, dust yourself off, learn from those failures and do it again in a different way. And it is like this. This organization could not be what it is today without our getting serious about being a learning organization.
- [12:55]
Unknown
Sorry for the interruption. To the point listeners, have you heard of rilla? Are you using RILLA yet? If not, are you for Rilla? See what I did there? Rilla is the leading speech analytics software for the trades. It is on a mission to bring physical ride alongs to an end. You can coach your reps with virtual ride alongs now that are a hundred times better, faster and much more efficient than the physical ones. All you gotta do is use the killer Rilla.
- [13:24]
Chris
That's R I L L A Rilla.
- [13:31]
Jonathan
Beautiful.
- [13:32]
Chris
I'm not going to compare myself to you guys, but I just want to say I have Rhino University. We've had it. What I've done though, over all these years is I've listened to what's been successful and thought how could that be? Even though it's, you know, our businesses are different, we're, I'm, we're in the same world.
- [13:52]
Kevin
Yes.
- [13:53]
Chris
I just thought, well, that actually makes a lot of sense because education being one of our core values is why not create our university? And then we can cross, you know, we can cross train departments and have other, have the leaders from those departments cross train other departments. And then we could also use it as social media clips. We could also use it for ongoing education. So that would be more like cross training stuff. But then we have some of our Leaders going to a maps program that they've been to or if they do the Dale Carnegie stuff, you know, or. So what I think is cool about this conversation is like again, it's just a variation of different things that you use that works for your company or your organization. But training has to be, has to be a part of it. The way I've positioned it with our employees. It's crazy to think that our kickoff meeting at the beginning in January of next year, I'll be talking to a group of 300 people. Like it's weird to be doing that large of an organization is. You know, we have always believed that when someone comes in here, when they leave, they will be significantly better and more valuable for themselves and more valuable for our customers. And you know, if they don't, if they don't retire from here, like wherever they go, they certainly left a lot better place than they were when they came in. If we did that, we did our job and we've made a lot of those. You know, like you talk, Kevin, about getting goosebumps because your guys selling a lot of money. That's life changing money for someone to make $600,000 a year, half a million dollars a year and you gave the environment and all the things to, for that person to accomplish it, but they had the will to go and get it done. So it's kind of just neat to hear the different variations of how you guys have used your universities to scale the businesses. So it's just interesting. I haven't really thought about that until you guys were all talking about it. On the different things that you've done that I've listened to and also have implemented in my own business that have also worked. So it's industry agnostic at this point. So that's pretty cool.
- [15:45]
Jonathan
Chris. I just like to add too for anybody listening, like where do you start your business? And the people in that business are going to tell you the pain points on where to start. And while not traditionally one of our six fundamentals, there's a new education piece that's happening at Morris Jenkins right now because there's a need to it, there's a need for it, we identified it and it's some silos had been created here within the organization. So we went right back to Patrick Lencioni and I know Kevin knows Patrick well and that was one of his books. Not just five dysfunctions of the team, but we're creating a whole educational piece on silos and Brandon is leading that along with the university team because inherently Left to its own devices, people are going to kind of get encamped into their own area of the business. It's naturally going to happen. It's okay. It's just best to realize that. But we're coming back to help break down those silos and get back to what our core purpose is and our unity there. So your business, whatever your business is, no matter what the size and scale and scope of it is, there's some great stuff in the outside world. As a leader, founder, owner of your organization, I'm a firm believer is that you need to spend as much time in the outside world of your business trying to find the best pieces, drag them back in, make them your own, and help your other team be exposed to them and explore them together. So that was just one of example where there's a need here right now and we've identified what it was and found some help for it.
- [17:20]
Chris
Do you guys think there's. Like, do you guys think there's a. I can save my question chat if you're. If you're.
- [17:25]
Chad
Oh, no, I was just going to say one quick comment. I think. I think Jonathan hit the nail on the head. I think too often, you know, as business leaders were like, well, why don't you just go do that? Why don't you just go, you know, I found all these resources. Why can't you find them? And I think what I've uncovered is that a lot of times they just don't know where to go. Like, they're all about, like, how do I develop, how do I get better, I want to make more money, I want to take on a different role, and they just don't know where to go. And I think to your point, Jonathan, it's like they'll identify where. What they need, and then it's our job as a leader to go find that resource, bring it back, inserted into the organization so that it's readily available. I think that that's been the biggest thing for me. I mean, we have the. We have the, you know, fantastic pleasure of being able to talk on this podcast. Well, I've got a ton of notes written down. Well, not everybody has access to all of this stuff. And it's like, how do we give them access? Is always kind of how I've looked at it. Like, plug them into this development pipeline because we've been exposed to it. So now it's our job to share it.
- [18:30]
Kevin
Yeah. I think, Chad, what you just brought up there, as successful as you are and as successful as your business has Been and continues to be. You're still taking voracious notes. You're still taking notes. You're still. You're still learning. You still have. I think I've always looked at. To be successful, you need two things, and this is. This is lencioni. You need a. An incredible will to succeed. Actually, this is Jim Collins incredible will to succeed, balanced with an incredible humility or yearn to learn. You've got a yearning to want to learn more. It's got to be balanced. And I've always looked at, yeah, will to succeed. You got to have a big ego. Sorry, maybe a bad word. For some people, a will to succeed is just another word, in my opinion, for a ego. It's okay if it's balanced with humility and the ability, the understanding that, wow, wow, there's still so much to learn. There's still. There's a bigger kid on the playground. What can I learn from that person?
- [19:48]
Chris
I think that there's probably some people listening right now in regards to, like, a university or thinking, well, of course these guys have big companies. Like, that doesn't make sense for me because I'm too small, you know, and. And if you're a, you know, a single person right now who's just getting started, well, like, you are the person, but you got five, you know. You know, if you're listening to the podcast, congratulations. Like, you are. You are doing something because hopefully you're learning to, you know, learn to take some things away from it. But it would. You guys. I don't know if there's, like, any set number, but, like, when's a good side? Like, what's the starting point? When I got two people, I gotta train the other person. I got five people. Is there, like, time, you know, is there a number to this thing where somebody's like, okay, cool, I should go ahead and start this now? I mean, I don't know. It seems like to me, as soon as you got one person, you make. I'm responsible for making sure that one person's getting better.
- [20:36]
Jonathan
So I think that. I think that's the right answer. If it's one person, one person in a truck, they. They need to start investing in themselves. And there's enough people on this call and there's people not on this call that we all know that have a varying degree of places, great places where they could start. Because just walking into a. Like, if you go and try to find a book on management, there are 10,000 books out there on that, but there's a few subset within that, that I think that really get it right. So get my opinion on it then. Get Kevin's opinion on it, get Chad's opinion on it, get Chris's opinion on it. Come to Rhino X, there'll be a whole bunch of different opinions on it. That's, that's the blessing of that. That's the beauty of that, is that it's just an opinion. But if you start collecting and finding what's right for you, leaders are readers and you know, you're good. I'm not a voracious reader. But you know what, you can get all this stuff where you can listen to it and you start getting around it more, you become inquisitive, you become curious and you then once it resonates in your heart and it starts impacting you personally, you want to tell other people about it because that's. Look, if you're going to lead an organization and grow an organization, you've got to bring other people along for the ride. The last thing I will say on that is anything that you find in the outside world, what I have found helps us is you've got to simplify it. You've really got to simplify it. So some of the materials that are wrapped into our six fundamentals here at Morris Jenkins are complex. Like a couple of them are really, really heavy reads. And this is where our principals, our educators have helped kind of decipher through that and simplify that to get in that adult education mind. But here are the key elements and really, you know, make it not overwhelming for the average person that is reconnecting to become a learner themselves. So simplify, simplify, simplify. In fact, that's what we should be doing as operators as well, because left to its own devices at any given moment, while we're on this podcast right now, our businesses are screaming complexity and they're trying to become just more intertwined with a whole different web of stuff. And we've got to cut through that and keep it core simple.
- [22:58]
Chad
Yeah, I would add to that, I think in what Jonathan said, I think, you know, the term university, I feel like is over the last call it four to five years has really got blown out into this thing of where like everybody in the contracting space thinks I need a 5,000 square foot lab and I need full time trainers and I need classes of 15 to 20 technicians. Whereas I think to his point, it's super simple. It's about transforming your contracting business into a learning and development organization. Right there you're a university. I went To a college of 850. Gentlemen, there are colleges out there with 60,000 people. So you start small. We maybe only have two students. Okay, you start with two and then one day maybe you'll have 100. But it's okay to start small. But I think it's just about like, what can I do to develop and teach my people something that they may have not known before and something that can make them better tomorrow and the next day and the next day and then you start, and you start packaging that up and then when you turn around it's like, oh shoot, I've got all of this training. It doesn't have to be necessarily like, hey, we have this really defined process and this hundred page book on how to fix a furnace. It's like, just start small. Like if your technician knows that, like if he, you know, says three gratitudes in the day, every day, he's going to be a better technician. Like that's a good place to start. Just start small and stop getting overwhelmed by this, like what you go and see and these people have these massive facilities and how am I ever going to do that? And I don't know the curriculum and all these things that to me are just getting in the way from starting small and getting, just knocking over one domino, the rest will fall in time. But we, we all didn't start with massive universities. It was very scrappy at the beginning. Correct.
- [24:50]
Kevin
Ours was a cracker box. I will just close with this on what the point everybody's made and it's from a guy by the name of Dan Sullivan that to me, I followed since 1996. And you did it, Chris, when you just named it, you start by naming it Rhino University. Any, any training that you begin doing, any whatever, whether you're sharing something, you can just begin saying, hey you guys, this is courtesy of Rhino University. Just naming it and understand that your university, our university had ebbs and flows. Sometimes it was going, it was, it was, it was going really well. I was excited about it and other times it was kind of like, man, we haven't seen a lot from the university recently. That's okay, you've got it, it's there, you've named it, you've named it. That's where to start then. Everything that you do, training wise, keep sharing with your team members. Hey you guys, guess what? This is an event that's going to be put on by Rhino University. Guys, this is courtesy of Rhino University. Name it. Everything training goes through that name.
- [26:09]
Jonathan
Yeah, that's great. That's A great point. And it doesn't have to have university in its name. I mean, you know, you can come up with something creative.
- [26:16]
Kevin
Yeah.
- [26:17]
Jonathan
Another side piece on that is market that back home. Because I tell you what, for the loved ones back home, when they see what's coming forth in your X platform, university, college training, whatever, they're going to want to encourage their spouse to get involved with that. Hey, what are you doing about, hey, you need to learn this, you need to learn that. So we have a whole page in our newsletter that goes home to. That goes home about what's upcoming. And I think that there's some traction on that because, you know, there's some encouragement for the team members to get involved with that.
- [26:50]
Chris
That is a fantastic idea.
- [26:52]
Kevin
God, I just. I just got my black swan. I just got my black swan for the day. Thank you.
- [26:58]
Chris
That was a fantastic. You're. You know what? Chad and I just experienced this. We just made a hire of a sales guy on our. In our. At our roofing company and his wife is like, pushing him to do these different things. And like, she's all in on it. And I was like, wait, wait, she. I think she made. Even negotiated his, his salary with us. I have no idea. But she's like all in on the business. She's very supportive of. Of him. And he's. And he's. And he was a really good catch for us too, but we got his wife with the deal. Like, we got a twofer. But I was just thinking about how much that, you know, that makes sense because you do want. You do want the significant other or, you know, spouse or whomever to, you know, to want to be supportive of the business as well, because they're part of the business, you know, in, in a way as well. So I think that's a great. That, like, that's, that's a fantastic idea, Jonathan. Thanks for sharing that.
- [27:46]
Jonathan
If you do it, put a picture in there. Put a picture of a recent graduation in class, everybody holding up their diploma, their certificate. Uh, remember, people want to please. They want to be inclusive. And so there, again, that goes home and goes, hey, why weren't you in that picture? Hey, there's another class coming up.
- [28:03]
Chris
Hey, I saw the MVPs for the notice. We're six months in. I'm not seeing your picture on there. Like, did you. What's going on here?
- [28:10]
Kevin
Hey, Chris, I know we're running long on time. Do. Does. Does Jonathan have a. Can Jonathan take an opportunity to kind of differentiate or define what the difference between training and education is, yeah, I.
- [28:21]
Chris
Think what we can do guys with this episode is we'll just two part it because of the length and so I'll just end up splitting it into two. So as long as you guys are good to, to keep, to keep rolling, I would love that. I think, I think the listeners would love to hear and if you guys are, you guys have time, then yeah, I say we let it rip.
- [28:37]
Kevin
I, I, I'm, I'm all ears. And I got my pencil ready.
- [28:40]
Chris
Well, well, Jonathan doesn't have a choice now because you already called him out to do it. So now Jonathan's doing it.
- [28:46]
Jonathan
Yeah, I don't know. My definition is transformational for anybody. But you know, I've always looked at training is, you know, what are the repeatable. It's like a repeatable task, you know, something that is unknown right now. But how do I get through the different steps to complete this task in a competent, safe manner? And so if I'm going to train you to take apart a natural gas high efficiency furnace and put it back together again, for me that's training. It doesn't have to be just on a physical task. I mean there can, there can be some other things, but training is to me equally as important. Education takes it to a different level because if we're really a learning organization, we're kind of educating people to become learners and like we're trying to instill in them not just to take one class on this deeper subject, but we're bringing out the inquisitive side of them to want to go further and learn more. So that is my like really, really, really rough definition of the difference between training education. I could train you on what it takes to make a high performance team through five dysfunctions of a team. Or I could educate you into the science behind that and help tie that into bringing out the best in people. The great Aubrey Daniels philosophy or correlate that into how to scale a fast growing business either through Vern Harnish is scaling up or Gino Wickman's traction. So you know, we have gone out and found basis of our education to build our foundation principles around. We didn't write those books. There's some awesome thought leaders and authors out there but we simplify, simplify, simplify and we're trying to pull out people to become true learners. Like don't stop at one, keep going to the next. Does that make sense?
- [30:42]
Kevin
Mm, yeah. Great.
- [30:44]
Jonathan
What's your, do you, Kevin, or, or you Chad, believe that there's a difference between Training and education.
- [30:53]
Kevin
Go, Chad, go ahead.
- [30:54]
Chad
Yeah, I mean, I think 100%. I mean, and like you said, I think it depends on the topic, you know, But I think that where a lot of people struggle, I feel like. And maybe some of our listeners, like, you can train somebody to work on a furnace all day, every day. Like, if you got the skill, I can train you on how to do that. There's not. To your point, there's not as much nuanced thinking of, like, how am I going to apply this? Like, well, apply, you know, changing the capacitor. Like, okay, very simple. But when it comes to, well, how do I take this concept and then roll it out? I think you. You hit the nail on the head. It's just simplify it down. Because when we talk, it's like, well, yeah, duh. Well, yeah, we're overlooking all of the experience that we've had using that principle and what worked, what didn't work, all of the trials and tribulations that, you know, we've used this principle. But when you give it to somebody new, you've got to allow time for them to digest, for them to even practice it. Like, okay, yeah, here's how to better coach somebody. Well, they're not going to know that tomorrow. Yeah, they may know the philosophy behind it. And I think they would all agree, well, probably not better. Probably not best to berate somebody, maybe say, hey, how could I help you? Seems like you're struggling here. Have we thought about that, all of these things? Well, they got to practice that to get good at it. And so, yeah, definitely. I think the educational piece is. Is a lot of the things where people struggle because they, too, themselves are struggling with it. And so I think that's where. And one of the things that I just picked up from. From the both of you that I love so much is the number of times that you guys have quoted different, like, things that you've learned. And to me, that's like the ultimate. Like, I've. I've been educated on this because I can take a situation that someone brought up in this conversation, and I can say, oh, yeah, that's just like, so and so teaches, and they say it like this, and that's kind of how they do it. And I think that's what we ultimately aspire, all of our people, to get to. Right. It's like, you're sitting at a meeting and they're all going, oh, that's kind of like, you know, lunchoni. That's kind of like, whoever it may be and it's like, when do you get to that level? And I think it's just how do we educate better? How do we ingrain that into the culture so that everybody is just, just locked and laser focused on learning and development and how do we continue to get better?
- [33:17]
Kevin
I, I, I, I agree with you whole, wholeheartedly with, with the definition and thank you Jonathan, for taking the lead on this. We were a training organization and training is 90% of the speaking is the person up at the front. You get any manufacturer come into your business, all they do is talk about a PowerPoint. They want to talk about their new furnace, they want to tell you all the flux capacitors that they've got installed on it. And it's 90, 10. Maybe they get the group involved where learning or education, what Jonathan's talking about, it's flipped on its head. It's 10% is the instructor speaking, 90% is the students working and forcing them to think. To think is to create, like getting them uncomfortable and having them think, having them have to write down what they think actually. And Mike, our principal always, always says to me, Kevin, you have to respect the level of knowledge that's already in the room because if you start, if you hand out something or you ask people something they already know, you're disrespecting that. You have to respect the level of learning already. Even, even if you've got different groups of people, meaning 10 year veteran salespeople and three year veteran or brand new salespeople. He, he's quite often saying that to me. So the 10% trainer speaking, 90% the students is learning an education and it's flipped the other way.
- [35:15]
Jonathan
And yeah, participate participant based. Yeah, you know, a great place to start and hopefully Julian Scott and will give me kudos for this. But you know, for us, gosh, 14, 15 years ago, the reason we joined Nexstar, so I'm not trying to do a Nexstar commercial, but we saw Nexstar for that training and to some degree education piece, it helped us learn about adult behavior long before we hired our principals, our teachers. And it was simply by going to nexstar and not just taking classes there, but seeing the science behind it. So I want to give proper credit for our organization where it's due. And the organization of nexstar was a great place. Nexstar can do so much for so many organizations, but for us particularly it was the training and education aspect of that. Another little piece on that, and you may have seen me just reach back, was at A next door super meeting and I know Chad was in the room, I think we were there together was the great Michael Gumbe Steiner and you know, the five question leadership. But I failed at that. I like believed in it, read the book cover to cover a couple times and just struggled with that. So the part of education that you're going to stump your toe on is okay, you've learned something but how do you apply it? And Michael included his five questions. Little look how simple that is. And it hangs on my desk. So when somebody confronts me to go save the world, I got a problem. You know, my first question is what's on your mind and what's the real challenge here? And you're trying to get them involved in solving that. So it wasn't about Michael Gumbe Steiner and the five questions, but I had to learn that whatever I had learned I had to then go apply. And so you're when you start either training but mainly education, when you start educating other people, are they going to take that out and apply it? And you've got to be okay to understand that you're going to have a very, very small percentage, especially on the onset that's actually going to go do that. Like we all probably took some advanced math class, whether in high school or math. Are we all good at trigonometry right now? I'm not. I mean I did it well enough to get the grade and then I lost it and I moved on. So center your education around something that is going to be repeatable, right. And something that they can go out even at first at an elementary level they can apply. And for me, that was the one example of where I needed something that was in front of me. It's pinned up on my board where I can look at the challenges me to apply what Michael Gumbe Steiner taught me, you know, I heard him speak and I read his book and so, you know, give some cheat sheets to folks where they can start applying whatever it is that you want to educate them on.
- [38:06]
Unknown
In home services, speed to lead is everything. Chirp stands out by transforming your communication strategy. With chirp, accelerate your lead response time with instant sms, text messaging, email and ringless voicemail automation. Chirp's cutting edge technology ensures you're the first and the most persistent, helping you close more deals than ever. But that's not all. Say goodbye to missed opportunities with chirp's incredible follow up system. Keep your leads engaged and moving smoothly through your sales funnel without lifting a finger. And with Chirp, deep integrations with top CRMs like ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, and Jobber. You can launch laser targeted campaigns to connect with the exact, exact right leads at the exact right time. Automation creates efficiency. Efficiency unlocks scalability. With Chirp, you can automate speed to lead, estimate follow ups, rehash abandoned, call follow ups, cancel job follow ups, review requests, outbounding to your list, annual reminders, membership expiration, follow ups, and so much more. So stop chasing leads, capture them, connect faster and close more deals with chirp. Contact CHIRP today and elevate your communication game.
- [39:28]
Chris
Oh, and he just. Mike dropped and said see you later.
- [39:32]
Kevin
Genius. Oh, genius.
- [39:34]
Chris
That was perfect. Hang on a second. Oh, we lost. He's back.
- [39:40]
Jonathan
Did it just cut me off?
- [39:42]
Chris
It did and it was perfect timing. It was like bailed out of the podcast, so. So anybody who's watching this, if you haven't watched it, you gotta watch it because that was perfect. Yeah, that was so good. I'm not sure what the hell happened there.
- [39:56]
Jonathan
I sensed the black, the blackout was coming up.
- [39:58]
Chris
So you nailed the timing. Well, I will say this. I, you know, I mean, one, I appreciate you guys giving, you know, extra time. I think it's worth it because there's some really like the back half of the scene. We've had some fantastic conversations in it, but a couple things I just want to call out and I don't know if you guys saw this or not, and if you didn't, I'm not going to have my feelings hurt, but last week we, we announced the pantheon, the merger of businesses. So Blue Corona was a digital marketing company for home services. You know, since 2007, I've known the owner forever. We grew up our businesses together. Well, you know, they merged into to Rhino. So now we're one big behemoth, you know, as of last week. So we're super proud, you know, super proud of that. So now I'm technically a nexstar partner and Julian was just on a few episodes back, so I'll make sure to text him, let him know you gave him some love. Yeah.
- [40:50]
Jonathan
And congratulations, Chris. Congratulations.
- [40:52]
Kevin
Yeah, that's terrific.
- [40:53]
Chris
I appreciate that. It's, it's an exciting time. I was glad to get the merger announcement out to the public. Done. But I will say, you know, you know, because I'm. I talking about training, anytime you're listening to anyone talk to you, because I do lots of, you know, I do lots of keynotes or I do breakouts or I do whatever, you know, nobody wants to listen to you for an hour. So you Got to keep it entertaining. You got to keep it, you know, so. So getting people involved in it, to me is very important. Just like your question, like your question base, when you're doing problem solving, I think is a great solution. You get them to solve the problem, you know, themselves. It's, you know, I love doing those types of things. I'm super. I'm like, Kevin, I'm super high energy when I present. But what's interesting is that, you know, if think about this, Chad know, You know, Chad and I are very good friends. Like, we're very close friends. So he knows me really, really, really well. Jonathan, you and I have only met in person once, and that was at. At Rhino X. So that was our fourth Rhino X event that Rhino hosts and put on. Did you see me at Rhino X talk anything about what Rhino does?
- [42:01]
Jonathan
No, I can't recall.
- [42:03]
Chris
No, because I don't. I went to Home Service Freedom event. We had a main stage. We were the sponsor. We had a main stage spot. Wait, what did we hear from Ren? What did we hear from Renai? Chad, whenever they came and they got their 10 minutes to go and talk about stuff on stage, what do they do?
- [42:18]
Chad
It wasn't great.
- [42:19]
Chris
Yeah, everybody goes and pitches the product. Right, I understand. But, you know, what Rhino did was talk about leadership. What you can take away from this event, how you can apply the things you learned this from, the things that we've known, that we've experienced nothing about the business because we knew that's what people wanted to hear. And if they want to know more about the company, well, hopefully they thought, well, shit, she's really smart. Because we had Anna, my wife, up there speaking, and I said, let's go check out, you know, Rhino. That's the right move, is we knew, okay, here's where the most value is going to come from this. The byproduct will be, okay, maybe they'll consider using our business. Point being is, you know, you gotta want to be listened to. Like, you need to figure out how you can deliver, and if you can't deliver it, like, you might think, hey, well, I'm the best one to deliver this. Well, you know, maybe you're not. Would you listen to you for 15 minutes? I have ADHD. I don't want to listen anybody for 15, 20 minutes. Like, I have to really be engaged in that process. So it does matter that much. So whomever's delivering it, whether it be training, training, or you're, you know, or even if it's just, you know, your you know, whoever it is that you're talking to, if it's a podcast, gotta be entertaining, man. Figure out how to make entertaining or interactive and educational at the same time and you'll have a winning recipe. So, I mean, listen, I think, you.
- [43:34]
Kevin
Know, Chris, on that point, I was taught by a mentor of mine, which I found pretty interesting. And it was probably about 10 years ago and the numbers probably changed. He shared with me that his opinion that he felt that the number was 250,000. If somebody starts making 250,000 or more, maybe it's now 350. They stop talking about what they sell, what their product is. They don't have to. Like, if you have a guy that's making 60, 80, 90,000 a year in your house or whatever or over for dinner, they're going to be talking about their product, they're going to be talking about and trying to sell you on whatever business they're in in a lot of cases. But there's a certain point where it's like we, we make a certain amount of income or stature, whatever you want to call it. He had, he had the $250,000 number. Is that the right number? I don't know, but it was. You don't need to sell. You don't. It just will come. It will come when. And you don't, you're not. There's no desperation. So I think that's what you're speaking to is you have now gotten to the point where you're a well established business, you're a well established person, and probably the people you put up on stage are not going to be, you know, selling the Rhino experience. It's like, hey, guys, let's just let that come in organically.
- [45:04]
Jonathan
That's it.
- [45:05]
Chris
I mean, that's the deal, you know, And I got like, kudos to you.
- [45:09]
Kevin
Thank you.
- [45:10]
Chris
That is the, the that I took early on the business for never pitching from stage and only educating. Like, I had come, you know, as I was getting bigger, people are like, well, you need to do a soft salt. Then I'm like, sales by education, man. Like, just let them like build it and they will come type of approach. And I took so much heat for that for like in the beginning part of this, but now those same people are like, hey, can you buy my business? Like, nope, nope. But no, I really appreciate that. And again, like, when I, when I listen to this, you know, and I use this as my weekly education, it's like, fantastic because I learned so many things since this podcast started. In January 2020, that, like, I've. I look at the f. How of me as a leader, my intelligence, my emotional intelligence, like, all the stuff that I've learned in this last, you know, four or five years, I feels like what I learned in the first 10, I just learned so much more at a different level. And, you know, and once I was, like, really willing to let go of my pride. You know, you talk about ego and things like that. Like, I don't. Never. I haven't had an ego in quite a long time. But you're prideful. I just like, hey, listen, people know better than me, which is why I brought on a private equity partner. I was like, I got it here. I don't know how to get it here. I need some help. And. And. And I. I, you know, just constantly, you know, taking the notes. Something simple as Jonathan talking about sending a newsletter to your. You know, to the. You know, the sending newsletter home. That is such an easy, brilliant idea to do, and it falls right in line with the culture of the business, you know, but that's. This is. This is my training. Like, this is how I get my education. It's great, you know, is I get to do things like this now. I go to the conferences, you know, like, all you guys go to, and half the time it's just me seeing all my buddies, seeing everybody that I haven't saw. Like, I spent, you know, half hour with Geiger, you know, last week at Pantheon, and, you know, and next thing you know, he's like, hey, hop on this call with me, you know, next week on Tuesday at 4. I'm like, is that. So that's. That's what I'm doing. That's not the. I just don't have enough or. Okay, yeah, clear your calendar, Chris. But point being about this is like, you know, however you receive your. Your, you know, your education or your training or whatever, I mean, or you're delivering it. If you're the business owner now, like, make sure you got the right person up there that's sharing it. And the hope is with this podcast, the reason the popularity has been great is one, hopefully we're entertaining, like, and that's why you continue to come back. But you're actually taking something away of value. Which is a lesson I learned was, as, you know, when we started this thing, even back when you did it, Kevin, it was like, maybe only a couple home services podcasts, you know, now there's like 50 of them. And that's great that there's a lot of Options to go and listen to different things. But it needs to be a little bit more, I think, niche, like, what are you getting from this one versus that one? And so that way you kind of know what you're going to get from whatever source it is. I started to get away from what I knew the real value of the source was and the real value of this podcast was my relationships and the industry that I've created with some of the biggest and best contractors who I've known for years or. Or have known, you know, of them four years, or they've known of me for years, and bring them in to listen to us. That way, everyone else on here could learn from those who've actually done it, who've not spent time with them, not been to an event, or you have been to an event, and you can't connect with them, you know, or maybe they're introverts, you know, but the point is, is that they start hearing some consistent messaging through this, like us talking about the universities or us talking about culture, and, like, you know, like, if you hear it enough times, and maybe we, you know, maybe for our sake, they listens to this and they actually, you know, move forward. And today's that day, so. So that's the hope of all this. But my point being is, like, you know, all these things, you know, are great around training and all this stuff too, but just be mindful of the person that's delivering the message.
- [48:59]
Kevin
Beautiful.
- [49:00]
Jonathan
Beautiful.
- [49:01]
Chris
Awesome. Well, guys, I'm gonna. I'm gonna cut this. So we're like an hour and a half into this thing, so. An hour and a half into this. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna split it into two different, you know, into two different episodes. So thank you for giving Chad and I a break for one week down the road. So I appreciate that. Just doing these every week, it's a little crazy. I think it's worth it. Did you guys have fun? I thought this was great. This is the kind of stuff I like.
- [49:27]
Jonathan
I had a blast.
- [49:28]
Kevin
I love it. Gives this. This kind of stuff gives me energy. So thank you.
- [49:33]
Chad
I've got a lot of work to do.
- [49:34]
Chris
Yeah.
- [49:34]
Chad
So I'm gonna get back to work.
- [49:35]
Jonathan
That's a sticky dough guy. Okay.
- [49:37]
Chad
Yeah, yeah. Guys, I can't. Thank you. I mean, I was gonna say if we were still on air, I was like, people ought to just go listen to this literally every week, just as, like, a constant. Just reminder of what is actually going to drive your business forward. I mean, I think you guys nailed that right. I mean that was awesome. That was so much fun.
- [49:55]
Kevin
Thank you, Chad.
- [49:57]
Chris
Chad had a bunch of post it notes stuck together. Oh, there you go.
- [50:00]
Jonathan
Chad and I are alike, baby.
- [50:05]
Kevin
Yeah, baby, yeah.
- [50:10]
Chris
Same thing.
- [50:11]
Kevin
Life, mom, students.
- [50:13]
Chris
I knew it. So good guys, man, I appreciate you y'all so much for taking, you know, taking the time to do this, to share with our listeners and man, I could not be more excited for to, to have both, both of you two at Rhino X again and Chad obviously be back at Rhino X again. But Kevin, I'm excited for you just to experience it, you know, because you've been, you've probably been to a lot of events and I'm just excited for you to see what we've built and, and I want it to be a lot like what we just did. I think that's what people really want to do is be in the room. I'm using air quotes. Well, you want to be in the room. Well, this is the spot to be in the room.
- [50:44]
Kevin
It's great.
- [50:44]
Chris
So, you know, I'll finish with this, you know, as I kind of reflect in the mornings, you know, on just on like where how things have progressed in the business and how I've progressed as a professional. You know, I, I made a quote around I've always been a very goal driven guy and, and this is the like the driver in me who says I'm going to accomplish this because I can control my own output is. It's been interesting to see how that's shifted over the years where it's not like necessarily the goal, it's who I become while I'm chasing that goal is what the focus has been for me. How have I improved as I'm chasing whatever that next goal is. And so my focus has shifted from not the thing that it's going to give me but the outcome of who I become as a human being through the process. And, and that's really changed the game for me because now it's like I'm constantly chasing how do I get better?
- [51:36]
Jonathan
How do I get better?
- [51:37]
Chris
Because there's people relying on me to make good decisions, you know, and I'm not afraid to reach out to. If I had a question I needed Jonathan, I would text Jonathan, I would text you, Kevin. Chad knows that. Chad and I talk all the time throughout the week. So find a good peer group, man. Some people that you can support with or like if it's next R find nextar if it's whatever the group is, if it's AKA if it's whatever. You know, let's keep listening to the podcast. Maybe it's something as simple as. Like Chad said, you got one person and you're working on the one thing, and you keep it simple. Whatever it is. Whatever it is. Find your thing. You don't have to do everything, but you got to do something. No. Zero days.