Next Level Pros - #118: How to run weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings

Starting point is 00:00:00 Everybody hates meetings, but it's not because meetings are important. It's because a lot of meetings are a waste of time. So on this episode of the Founder Podcast, we're going to teach you our exact structure for meetings that we use to scale our nine-figure solar business by using weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meeting structures. This will be huge for you to save time and your employees time. All right, get ready. This is going to be an in-depth one. You know, in culture, we talked about one of the most

Starting point is 00:00:33 important things in establishing a great culture is consistency. And this section about planning your meetings is one of the most important to create that good consistency with an incredible plan starting right now. And I know you're going to go through this and you're like, Chris, I'm not that big. I shouldn't have all these meetings or this, that, and the other. You need to start today and have a big plan in mind in the way that you're going to go and make this thing happen. So we're going to jump in and we're going to talk about, so we already talked about the cadence of having them on a weekly or on a daily basis and where you should be doing that. And then making sure that you are addressing.

Starting point is 00:01:13 So jumping over here to the iPad, you got the right ramp, right? So making sure that recruiting and training and all these different things are a part of every single meeting that you're going to be doing. And so let's dive in. On a weekly basis, you're going to want to make sure we've talked about the company roundup. This is a time where you're going to just create that recognition or quick training, just something, boom, get everybody clear, let everybody know exactly what's going on. Management teams, this is where the rubber is going to meet the road. This is going to be a 60 to 90 minute meeting. And this is going to exist. So let's go over here. Say if you have a VP, a director, and a manager, okay? And the director is going

Starting point is 00:02:03 to have several managers and a VP should have a couple different directors. So every week, this director, he's going to have a meeting with his managers that he is going to be in charge of, or she, and this VP, she is going to have a meeting with all of her directors. So this director will attend the VP's meeting and will direct the meeting with the manager. So you're going to have one up and you're going to have one down. And essentially what's going to be taking place in that 60 minute meeting, you're going to be going over the scorecard, your KPIs, checking in, seeing how everybody's doing. How are we lining up with our goals? You're going to talk about open issues,

Starting point is 00:02:45 but more importantly than just talking about open issues, you're going to work on solving and hand out tasks. All right. So this is going to be one of the most important meetings that you can, that you can establish this management teams. So once again, scorecard, right? so you're gonna have that scorecard you're going to so there's gonna be accountability with that scorecard you're going to talk about issues you're going to work on solving issues see if there's any way that you can actually get those issues solved during this meeting and then you're going to assign tasks. And then with that, at the top of the meeting of every single week,

Starting point is 00:03:31 you're going to create an accountability with those tasks. So there's going to be a weekly check. And Chris, did you do this? Boom. No, I forgot. I screwed up. I didn't do it or whatnot. These tasks are the to-dos throughout the week.

Starting point is 00:03:42 This is the meeting that you're going to be held. There's a lot of different softwares out there. One of my favorite is 90.io. I would highly recommend it. It's a great way to keep on track, to keep this meeting shortened to the point so that if you're at 60 minutes, you have a 60 minute timer. It's going to walk you through these different sections to make sure you are dialed in. That's going to be taking place with your management teams. And then there needs to be weekly trainings that are happening in every single one of the departments. That goes for ops, that goes for sales, marketing, and finance. And these meetings should be anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes tops. That should be

Starting point is 00:04:23 happening once a week in conjunction with your daily check-ins, which are just those 10 to 15 minutes. Now, moving on to monthly, you're gonna have a few different things that are different than your regular meetings. Now, in your weekly management meetings, you're gonna have aspects of finances where you're gonna talk about certain things

Starting point is 00:04:42 that are on your scorecard, but these finance meetings are going to be directed exactly at towards financials. So you're going to hopefully be getting your financials on a monthly basis. You're going to go through cash flow statements. What is a 13-week projection? I always recommend that you create a 13-week cash flow projection. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, essentially what it means is you project how much money you're going to have come in and how much money you're going to have coming out during those 13 weeks and have a beginning

Starting point is 00:05:15 and an ending balance for each of the weeks. The higher level of a financial executive that you have on your team, whether it's a CFO or a controller, and sometimes even good bookkeepers can do this, they can put together this 13-week cash flow, really depending on how complex your business is. This helps you make plans. And so in this monthly meeting, finance meeting, you're also going to have budget accountability. Who's on, who's off?

Starting point is 00:05:42 Where do we need to go and crack the whip? Are goals in line? Did production slow? Are there different adjustments that we need to make financially? So that meeting is going to happen once a month. We also have an executive goal and forecasting. And so this executive team, that's going to be you and your next level of management, whatever that is. They could be directors. They could be VPs. They could be C-levels. I don't care. Your team, it could be you and two others, you and four others, whatever it may be, are going to get together once a month, and you're going to discuss goals and forecasting, so you're going to check in, see how you're doing, the accountability. How are we with our goals? Are they on track? The things that we set on a quarterly basis, which we're going to

Starting point is 00:06:29 talk about in a little bit. Any adjustments that need to be made. Remember, when it comes to goals, typically the adjustment needs to be in the input rather than the end result. A lot of times we're not pacing for the end result. So we just, we say, oh, let's just change that. And we don't change the input. Figure out a way to change the input, make any adjustments. This is also very important. HR needs need to be addressed once a month during this meeting. Who do we need to hire? What potential fires do we make? Are there cuts that need to be made right now? Because whatever reason, you know, volume isn't there. Are you a home service business owner

Starting point is 00:07:07 struggling to get your time back? Maybe you're feeling like you have to do everything yourself or maybe you aren't able to break through that certain revenue plateau. You feel like owning your business isn't quite what you thought it would be. Am I right? I understand you more than you know.

Starting point is 00:07:21 I've launched many businesses throughout my life and I was lucky enough to have built multiple businesses that scaled to two nine-figure exits. But more importantly, I have had even more businesses fail. Why would that be more important? I learned a ton from each venture that I was a part of, each teaching me lessons about how to hire the right people, how to price my product, how to build out proper SOPs, and even building the right culture. These lessons are what led me to being able to sell my most recent business for nearly $200 million. Why am I sharing all this with you? Because I've been in your shoes, feeling the same exact feelings that you are. And if I knew back then what I know now, life might have been

Starting point is 00:08:01 a lot easier for me. Unfortunately, I can't travel back in time, but I can help you so that you don't have to. How? I package everything that I learned into over 150 videos all about my wins and mistakes that I've made in business over the years. And I want to give you access to these videos, but it's so much more than just a bunch of videos. I've created a community of home professionals just like you where people interact and share ideas with each other. Plus, we host live calls every single week where you get direct access to people like myself and my business partners that were a part of these different ventures who are experts in marketing, operations, software, and even more. All you have to do is book a free call with one of our team members

Starting point is 00:08:45 to see if this would be a good fit for you. That way I can help you take your business to the next level, making you a next level home pro. Inventory. What does inventory look like? Are we, are we pacing? Are we on track? Have we made the right orders? And as you get bigger, some of these actual subjects becomes meetings of their own, right? As you have like 18 locations like we did, you actually have weekly inventory meetings. But depending on where you're at, that's going to be including your executive goals and forecasting. You're going to be talking about quality control. Where are we at?

Starting point is 00:09:21 Are we on pace? Are we creating a good customer experience? And then any goals or forecasting that you need to adjust, make happen or whatnot. So that is all going to be addressed during that meeting once a month. Your sales teams, they should do this as a whole, all hands on deck once a month, create planning and goals and accountability. Depending on whether they're remote or all located in the same location, I would recommend this is going to be like a 60 to 90-minute meeting. Going back up here to your finance meeting, I would recommend two to four hours.

Starting point is 00:10:03 Sometimes there's a lot of detail there. Executive goals, I'm recommend two to four hours. Sometimes there's a lot of detail there. Executive goals, I'm going to say two hours, maybe up to four. Your sales meeting only needs to be 60 to 90 minutes. There could be a little aspect of training. Mainly it's going to be planning, goals and accountability, probably a little bit of motivational factor, maybe a five-minute motivational big thing. One of the things that I like to do with my sales teams on that once a month, they get together. We pay for food. We do a nice little catered lunch. Everybody gets up, all the different leaders, and say, okay, this is where we were at last month.

Starting point is 00:10:42 This is where we plan on being this month. And they recognize maybe some of their top performers. So that needs to happen monthly from your sales department. Same thing from your ops. Once a month, there needs to be accountability. There needs to be goals set. But then also ideas. This is where the rubber meets the road.

Starting point is 00:11:00 They're seeing what's actually going on with your customers. They're installing at the home. They're doing the service at the home. They're going to be able to bring ideas. This should be the time where they bring it up to the executive team. Hey, these are ideas that we have. What do you think about this, that, or the other? And then that can be later addressed during the quarterly meetings. And so moving on to our quarterly meetings, we have our leadership retreat. Leadership retreat should be done with your highest two levels, and this should be a two-day event. Depending on what your budget is, this could be a travel event. Sometimes we'll do this in Las Vegas or we'll go up to a cabin for the weekend. A lot of times we like to host this over like a Friday, Saturday,

Starting point is 00:11:45 not to take away too much from the working days. But you need to remove all distractions, everybody in a room, your two highest levels of management. Depending on how big you are, it might be just you and your management team. You're going to do a few different things. You're going to do leadership development. You're going to give some sort of training. You can bring in external training for that. There's going to be accountability for what happened last quarter. Where did it line up with the goals and the budgets that were

Starting point is 00:12:16 dialed in? Then you're going to set goals. You're going to look at strategy. Is there any adjustments that we need to make to strategy? Maybe potential products that we need to add in. Maybe a different go-to-market strategy. Do we need to do more door knocking? Or do we need to do more internet leads? And you're going to have all your executive team representing all the different business units, your operations, your marketing, your sales, and everything.

Starting point is 00:12:49 So then there's a nice, good, free flow that's going on. Of course, they have their weekly meetings where a lot of this stuff is going on, but this is where you're going to get very high level. You're going to spend a long time together. It's going to be a two-day event. There's going to be a lot of planning. You're going to come together. You may not have a plan perfect. Most people should come prepared with information and a potential plan, but open to adjustments. Like that is one of the most important things that you can do during these quarterly meetings is being willing to change and be willing to be wrong. You're also going to create a forecast or adjust the forecast. This should line up with your annual forecast that you create annually, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. So any adjustments to forecasting, are we above or are we below? And then ideas. So ideas that you got from some of

Starting point is 00:13:30 those monthly meetings, anything, any big things that could potentially be pushing or changing the market that you just want to talk as an executive team. On top of that, you're going to have a sales leadership retreat. This should be for all your team leads, your managers, and any level of management. This should also be a two-day event. This is really just a way for management. They deal with a lot of junk, right? Like salespeople are crazy, right? Like, I mean, it's hard. They're emotional. There's a lot of different things. So some of this is just experiential, getting away, resetting, getting realigned, buying back into the vision. That's going to be a lot of the goal over these two days. And the same thing happening up here with your leadership retreat. But yeah, so big focus on leadership development, team building,

Starting point is 00:14:23 accountability for last quarter on goals, what the goals are going to be this quarter, doing a little bit of training. And then I would just add, have a lot of fun. And really, I'm going to add that to every single one of these meetings. If you aren't having some element of fun or doing some exciting stuff, the two claps, the Ric Flares, the recognition, the awards, like figure out ways back going to the cultural aspect that you can do this and really dive in and make it happen. So that should be a two day event. Also once a quarter needs to be a six to eight hours. So

Starting point is 00:14:58 that's basically a full day of budgeting. There needs to be accountability to budgets, any adjustments that need to be made, and then also forecasting and just making sure everything is in line with the annual plan. A green hat meeting. So if you guys remember, we talked about the different color hats. Green hat is just an idea. This should happen with really whoever your idea people are. Usually it's going to be your management team, maybe two levels of management. This happens once a quarter where you just gather in your office. You're at your office. It's not a remote site. You say, hey, okay, for the next couple hours, we just want to say the world is our oyster. There's no budget constraints. Say you had a billion dollars.

Starting point is 00:15:45 What would you change about our business? What are some ideas? What are some potential products we could explore? What are some other verticals? How can we make the company more efficient? And it's just a dreaming meeting. There's no black hats. There's none of that, right?

Starting point is 00:16:00 And so this is going to kind of be a compilation of potentially other ideas that have flowed up to them from their team. But spend two hours. Just do this. It's a great practice to go and dream. Do this once a quarter. It's fantastic. Safety and compliance.

Starting point is 00:16:16 This needs to be addressed in depth. Of course, we have those daily safety meetings that need to be happening with our crew. Anybody that's in construction or anything that's safety related needs to have those regular check-ins. But once a quarter, spend two to four hours and say, hey, is there anything that we're missing from a compliance standpoint? Are there any safety issues that need to be addressed? Is our northern star correct? Are we doing the things that align with our vision, with our direction? So doing that once a quarter. And same thing with the customer experience. Go and spend two to four hours once a quarter where you say, all right,

Starting point is 00:16:59 let's go back with the Airbnb approach. Elon Musk, rocket to the moon. That's the goal. This is where we're at. What are we missing? What are some ideas? How can we improve it on a grade of one to 10? Where would you put us in this particular customer experience? And just always working on ways that you can better this. So that wraps up the meetings. So once again,

Starting point is 00:17:25 leadership retreat, sales leadership retreat, budget meeting, green hat meeting, safety and compliance, customer experience. I want you to push pause right now, write down, all right, what am I missing? Where can I implement? What are some ideas that I heard? What are additional ideas that I have that I can make sure that I am dialed in for my weekly, my monthly, and my quarterly. Push pause and then jump back on. All right, so now you're back. We're going to talk annual meetings. There's two big, or sorry, three big annual meetings that you want to do. One is a kickoff party. I don't care who you are, spend some money, do a kickoff party. This is like one of the coolest things you can do.

Starting point is 00:18:09 We would do yearly Christmas events or kickoff parties. And essentially it's just an evening for your workers and your spouses, a evening of recognition, an evening of awards, give out prizes, give out awards, do some fun stuff. One of the things that we do is we bring in casino dealers, give them fake money, and then we do raffle prizes at the end, bring in a nice dinner. Everybody dresses up in suits and ties and dresses and the whole nine, just a whole black tie event. Something that I highly recommend. It's worth every single dollar. You can do stuff on the budget. It was funny one year during COVID, you know, no place was hosting. So this was December, 2020. We wanted to do our Christmas

Starting point is 00:18:58 event. Nobody was allowing us. My wife's uncle had a big 5,000 square foot shop we just essentially ran a speakeasy not from an alcohol standpoint but just underground event we brought we brought them in the state kind of heard about it they tried shutting it down but we went and did it anyways it's because it was culturally one of the best things that we could potentially do once again recognition awards you're going to drop a lot of vision for the new years. You're going to drop a big goal. Hey, this is what we're going to go and we're going to attack and we're going to accomplish 10,000 homes this year,

Starting point is 00:19:33 1,000 homes this year, 500 homes this year, whatever it is, whatever that big, hairy, audacious goal we refer to as the BHAG, big, hairy, audacious goal that you're going to just go and attack. This is when you're going to get your team behind it, get roaring, get excited, and having a good time. That's going to be the kickoff party. The most, of course, important meeting that you're going to do for the year is in executive planning. This is going to be a three-day event. I would highly recommend between the Christmas and New Year's or maybe like a week before Christmas, go into the mountains, go find a cabin somewhere, go to the beach, go do something,

Starting point is 00:20:15 go to budget constraints, go to the local hotel and rent out a conference room. Just get away, get off site. This is absolutely imperative. You're going to spend three days and you're really going to be dialed in. So a few things that you're going to cover during that meeting. State of the union. Where are we at? How was last year? What is everyone's general feeling? How's the culture?

Starting point is 00:20:37 How's everything dialed in? We're going to really dial in that state of the union. Accountability for previous year are we satisfied are we happy where we ended up were we above or low below projections on point with budgets where did we overspend where did we underspend what would we do differently had we if we were able to live that year again these are all questions that you should be asking yourself i would definitely hire somebody from outside to come in and do some training. There's a lot of consultants.

Starting point is 00:21:08 You could hire a guy like me to be able to come in and share with your top training. Just spending time on leadership development within those three days. Have a lot of fun. That is one thing that I'm going to just overemphasize. Make sure you have a lot of fun. During this one thing that I'm going to just overemphasize. Make sure you have a lot of fun. During this, you are going to set a budget. This is what all your quarterly meetings and your monthly meetings are going to be based off of. This is where you're going to go in and be like, okay, fuel, that's going to be half a percent of our revenue.

Starting point is 00:21:39 This is going to be that, whatnot. Your CFO or your controller or whoever's doing your finances, maybe it's you, should come well prepared with this budget, with the willingness to make adjustments. But this is where you're going to get final approval from your management team, making sure that everybody is on board. Once again, this should be you and your next level management, not two levels deep. It's you and your next level management. That could be three people. That could be 10 people, whatever it may be. You're going to go over goals. What are the big, hairy, audacious goals? You know, uh, hopefully you're going to be doing this before you do your kickoff party so that you can come out and get crazy. So sometimes goals are a little

Starting point is 00:22:19 bit higher than what forecast is. Okay. What is the blood oath that we will, like we will go to the grave if we don't hit it? We're gonna make sure that we create a good forecast around that. A few things that you're going to address in here that only get addressed once a year, and we've talked a little bit about it, your mission and vision check-in.

Starting point is 00:22:39 How aligned are we with our mission? Do you have your little wristband? Are we building a brighter future for our people? Is our daily action, do they check in with just a little culture check for that? And then also the vision, are we pushing towards being the largest solar installer in the nation with the gold standard? Where are we lacking? What do we need to do differently this year that aligns with that vision statement? Also a check-in on core value alignment. Are these still our core values? Is this still our mission? Is this still our vision? Is there adjustments that need to be made? If you're going to make any type of adjustments to core values,

Starting point is 00:23:16 mission, or vision, this is the time to do it because you got to do that real gut check, that real check. What is the truth? Where are we at? Are we actually aligned here? What things can we do? And then last but not least, making sure you have the hard conversations. Sometimes in an executive team, in a management team, there's this negative feeling that builds up. Maybe you have something that you didn't resolve correctly. Now is the time to dig in.

Starting point is 00:23:45 Heck, even spend a day diving in deep like, hey, look, is there anything? I've been feeling vibes lately that we've been incorrect. Address it now. You need to take care of it when the doors are closed, when you're up in the cabin, when you're on the beach, so that you can leave this meeting united and behind a goal, a budget, a forecast, a dream, a vision, a set of core values that you are going to go and change the world with. So this is, once again, the most important meeting of the year.

Starting point is 00:24:18 Spend those three days. Get it done. Last but not least, one of my favorites, I say, if you can figure out how to do a company trip, do a company trip, figure out ways throughout the year, whether you're salespeople, your ops people, um, or whatnot can participate. And there's a couple of different company trips that you can do. You can do charity company trips, which is a way for you to go and serve third world country, local, whatever, whatever it may be. There's a lot of programs that you can go and partner up with. So, um, some of my favorite ideas with those charity trips is like

Starting point is 00:24:48 the company will cover a third or a half and then the rep or the the employee has to cover you know two-thirds to a half and that way they are bought in and really actually appreciate it as a charity experience the other is an earned tribe trip you know cruises are cheap. All-inclusive resorts in Mexico are super cheap. You know, you might not be able to afford to shut down your full operation for a certain amount of time. So maybe you even do two different trips or maybe it's only that certain level of people can, you know, you got to really make a determination for your culture.

Starting point is 00:25:25 Maybe your industry is very seasonal and there's like three or four weeks in December that really don't make sense. So that would be a perfect time for you guys to move off site and go do this company trip. But this is an incredible way to be able to go and grow your culture. Guys, I am so excited that we have gotten through this. This is an absolute game changer with creating this structure for your meetings. Once again, this may be a lot or feel like a lot, like, man, I'm not sure I can go and do this, but I promise you, you need to put something like this in place. I'm going to have something, hopefully I can drop in the notes, a PDF of all this of ideas so that you can go and create,

Starting point is 00:26:09 but super excited. We'll see you on the other side.

Next Level Pros - #118: How to run weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings

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