The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Growing Your Own: Common sense advice for developing leaders within a small business by Rich Ashton

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Growing Your Own: Common sense advice for developing leaders within a small business by Rich Ashton https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Your-Own-developing-business/dp/B0F7NB1C22 https://www.growingyourown.net/ Unveiling the Ultimate Leadership Guide: Transforming Novice Employees into Expert Managers with Real-Life Anecdotes and Proven Strategies. In the realm of small businesses, a common obstacle is the lack of leadership. To bridge this gap, this book offers a comprehensive guide incorporating the wisdom amassed over years of practical business experience. Authored by an industry expert, the content is derived from a bi-weekly blog that was initially addressed to his leadership team, and now has been curated into a single, impactful volume for a wider audience. The book is a reservoir of personal stories and examples, addressing a broad spectrum of leadership and management challenges that leaders encounter on a daily basis. It goes beyond theoretical knowledge, delving into the nitty-gritty of real-world scenarios, offering tangible solutions and strategies that have proven to be successful. This guide serves to equip readers with the skillset and mindset required to cultivate potential employees into outstanding leaders. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of leadership and management, enabling them to navigate the complexities of the business landscape with confidence and competence. The book is an invaluable resource for those seeking to stimulate growth and productivity in their small businesses. Harness the power of effective leadership and watch your small business team flourish.

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Today we're an amazing young man on the show. We're talking about his insights, his entrepreneurial journey, with this new book that came out May 27th, 2025. It is entitled Growing Your Own Common Sense Advice for Developing Leaders Within a Small Business. Rich Ashton joins us on the show. We're going to be talking to him about his insights, his experience, and maybe how you can use some of that to improve your life. That's what we do here on the Chris Foss show.

We don't do things to have you destroy your life. Those are different podcasts. Rich Ashton brings a. wealth of real world experience to his book, Growing Your Own. And in his in-person management training courses, he does that as well. Rich has spent four decades building and growing a successful HVAC and plumbing business. And one key to his success was his ability to coach technicians and salespeople into dependable, motivating managers. Welcome to the show. How are you, Rich? I'm fantastic. Thanks for having me. We're glad to have you as well. Give us a

us at dot coms, where dot nets, wherever you want people to get to know you on the inner webs there. Growing your own.net or my email, I'd love to talk to people directly, is rich at growing your own.net. So give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside this book? Let me tell you how the book came about first, and that'll explain it. Frustrated, like most small business people, with the choice between bringing outside leaders into a company when it's ready for that next step versus promoting people who are not ready for

leadership roles. It's a common dilemma in small business when I faced several times. I failed in both directions and I finally decided if I was ever going to retire, I needed to train my replacements. And so several years ago, we began a training program with some of our best and brightest and all from the field, with one exception. And it works so well that I decided to write a book about it. During the course of the training, I began to write a blog every two weeks to the employees to try to give them something that was current and about management issues that we were facing. After two years, I'd about run out of ammunition.

I read through the blogs. There were 52 of them at that point and said, this is good enough to publish as a book, even if it's only a legacy book. And I did that. I reduced it to 35 chapters, about two and a half pages a piece. They're all very simple. They all relate strictly to small business. And I'm very proud of the final result.

So I was an author by accident, I guess. Well, it's a wonderful place to be because, you know, people really look at authors and go, wow, you wrote a whole book. You must be smart. It's really funny how they get around to that. Like when I wrote my first book, I was like, people are like, oh, man, you're really smart. I'm like, you've been here for 50 years. You've followed me through everything.

Like, now you think I'm smart just because I wrote a book. Yeah, I faced a little bit of that. It is funny. People look at you a little bit differently. Yeah, they look at you differently. They're like, you must be smart. And you're like, where have you been the whole time? I've been telling these darn stories.

But, you know, that's the way it is. But, yeah, it's hard to write a book. It's challenging to write a book. Now, you mentioned when your business reaches that next level, hiring the managers, and, you know, that's one of the things you have to do, especially as an entrepreneur or as a leader. You've got to seed the people that replace you because it's just inevitable. I mean, you can't live forever, number one, last time I checked. And according to Jimmy Hendricks or was it Jim Morrison, nobody gets out alive. But yeah, you've got to bring in the upper team, especially if you're in a sale moment.

I think were you in that moment where it was time to sell your business and get it to where you could turn that over? Or how did that work? I looked at that. But I really, we have such a unique business and so many unique employees in our culture that I'm not comfortable just turning it over to anybody. So I made the decision after investigating a little bit, I made the decision that if I could figure out a way to do it with our own people. And ultimately, maybe I'll sell it to them. maybe I'll bring in some financial help to them. I don't know.

That's a couple of years down the road. But you don't spend all that time building up a company and then turn it over to somebody that's going to operate it differently. In today's world of private equity, there's lots of people out there that do business a lot differently than we do. I'd be terribly uncomfortable doing that to the employees and the customers. Yeah. A lot of the private equity and funds that we see,

they just go in and strip the companies in a million different ways. We've had authors on that come in detail how they, how the games they play and they'll throw like parts of the, they'll throw the company into bankruptcy, then buy back the parts of their own company. They threw into bankruptcy. And it's crazy. There are,

there are very good private equity groups out there, but there are horror stories that abound, particularly in the HVAC industry, which has been consolidating for years. Yeah, there's, there's a million buyers. out there and they all talk a good game, but at the end of the day, you have to be just really, really careful who you entrust your baby to. Oh, yeah. And you've spent your baby. How many years

were you in the business and building it? This business, 38 years. I've been doing small business for 45 years, and then I was in a large business for 10 years before that. Oh. You and me, I'm feeling it, too. I'm sure you are a little bit. So tell us, give us more details on what you teach in the book. What are some axioms maybe or favorite stories you have in the book that you want people to learn to help them? The book is based on several principles. Accountability, proactivity, honesty and integrity, you know, employee empowered culture, and then the quest for knowledge, which I think is a dramatically overlooked trait of up-and-coming managers or buy up-and-coming managers. I was very lucky early in my career. I had a young man pull me

aside and say, you don't really know much about business, do you? And I said, you're right. I don't. Wow. And he said, I want you to start reading five business periodicals every week, and I want you to read the Wall Street Journal every morning. And I started that. I was 24 years old. So 52 years later, I am still reading, now I read about an hour and a half every day or listen to podcast or audio books or whatever. The pursuit of knowledge is incredibly powerful. And when you commit your life to it, it's surprising how much you wind up learning. And then your role as a leader is to influence people. And the more you know, the more you know about people, the more you know about the world, the more likely you are to be able to influence them. And so it's just common sense.

And everything in the book is common sense. Well, that just makes sense. Let's put it that way. See what I did in there. So what was your raising like? What was your experience like in being raised? How did you get the entrepreneurial disease or the bug, as we like to call it? You know, once you get that drug, you're kind of stuck on being an entrepreneur for life pretty much. My dad was a school administrator, but he was a frustrated entrepreneur. And he always wished he had been an entrepreneur.

He did some side things. But he was very smart, very creative, very hardworking. and he gave me a lot of the traits that I have carried on into my entrepreneurial career. He also was a very authoritarian style leader, and I copied that style until I learned better. And I kind of had a come-up in my early 40s that what I was doing was not working as well as some of my friends, and so I made some changes at that time. But to go back a little bit, when I was in the Navy for a while after dropping out of college, I then was very fortunate to go to a work for a company called Trammell Crow, named for a man, Tremel Crow.

He was a real estate visionary. It was a real estate development company based in Dallas. Phenomenal company, smartest people I've ever worked with. Great work ethic, great ethic, just a great honest way to do business. And they developed in me a foundation that I then was able to carry through. I unfortunately was not passionate about the real estate business. And so after five years as a partner there, I sold my interest back and said, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I really like this small business stuff and I'm going to pursue small business. So I began buying and selling and operating and turning around businesses at that point and have had, I think I've had eight businesses over the 45 years.

And so what do you, what inspired you to get in the HVAC business? And, you know, you've been running it now for 38 years. What brought you to that business particularly? I felt like I was good and passionate about customer service and employee development. And I felt like I could use both of those skills. And then I'm a decent communicator. So I throw that in there too. And I thought that even though I don't really, I can't go out and do the work, I think I can inspire people to be special.

And so that's what I've tried to do. The company was in horrible shape when I bought it. It was near bankruptcy. I was young and I thought I could turn it around in two years. It took five. Oh, wow. But it was just a lesson a day. It was a great sharp learning curve. At the time, it scared me to death. I got very close to disaster at more than one point. But that's what makes you enjoy it, you know, when you turn the corner. And so many, many years later, it's been a great experience. You know, the one thing I love about entrepreneurship, especially if you have to come up from being poor or come up from

being, you know, not having money. I suppose if you're, you know, like right now rich, Richel or what's his name, Allison, the big billionaire, you know, he's buying CBS, buying Hollywood companies and somebody. Larry Elson, yes, thanks. And so, you know, he's buying them all for his son and his son's running him. So I can see why, you know, if you're rich and your dad buys at a company, you may not be good at running it or good at just being a good human being. But the great thing I love about entrepreneurism is, and I'm not saying he's not a great hunter, a human being. I'm just implying that, well, I'm getting to the point.

So learning to be an entrepreneur coming from zero or coming from a point that you have to work your ass off, you have to be self-accountable, you have to be self-actualized, you got to use your brain, you got to be on point. It brings out character and develops character, I think, in you that sometimes you don't get if someone hands you something for free. I think that's what I'm trying to say with the Allison analogy. And, I mean, it made me, it honed my character to be self-accountable and self-actualized, like nothing else.

Would you agree? I completely agree. One thing I have come to learn fairly late in the game is that entrepreneurs are just different people. And so when I started the training program to try to raise up leaders in the company, I began trying to teach them to think like I thought. Yeah. And I did not need entrepreneurs in the company, nor were they capable of being entrepreneurs. Yeah.

We're just different. You know, another realization that I've come to recently is that being married to an entrepreneur is no day at the beach. And my wife's a wonderful woman, and she really had no interest in business. So it probably was a good match. But only recently that I realized the roller coaster that I put her through, all these years. But entrepreneurs are a different breed. And the nice thing is, we kind of run in packs. I have a number of friends who are entrepreneurs. And so they've been through the same thing. But it's either terrifying or exhilarating and it's kind of on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah. Sometimes it's half a day terrifying and half a day exhilarating. Exactly. So, you know, but I mean, just the responsibility that you have, you know, the buck stops here. There's no one you can turn to and blame. You can't be like, well, my boss, he's a jerk. I blame my boss all the time, but he is a jerk and he's me. And he fires me daily, which he should, but I keep showing up because that's the kind of commitment we have here. I think it's a mental health commitment rather than just a professional commitment.

But I'm crazy after all these years. It seems like you're having an awful good time doing it. I do. Well, you know, I do what I love. I love talking to people. I love hearing their stories, their journeys. I think I'm at the age. I joke that I'm at the age where I just, I'm so sick of me and all my stupid stories and all my crap that I, it's just more pleasant to hear what other people are up to.

Well, I bet you it's fun hearing the stories every day from. Oh, yeah. I learn more from this show than probably the audience does, because number one, I guess. to ask all the cool questions. And, you know, I've seen, a lot of times we'll have people on this show that have been on their podcasts, or they've been on TV, you know, they'll walk off of CNN. They'll be on our show, and then they'll go back to MSNBC and do their book tours. And I like that I get to ask the questions.

And, of course, we have a longer format of time than, like, Network TV does. You know, somebody comes on for, you know, three-minute segment, and they pound through the show on them and you know that's it and they and I'm like you didn't get to ask the good questions and then I learned so much like you know I don't know a lot about Catholicism I think yesterday we had somebody on talking about

Catholicism and the church and I learned for the very first time at age 58 that there was seven books of the Bible that the Protestants put aside they were just like yeah it's not for us and I didn't know that it was kind of interesting to hear about what they were and now so I get to learn all sorts

of stuff and I get to learn I I learned from everybody on the show, that or if I don't, if they, if they tell me something I already know, they usually give me like a different angle of looking at it, a different perspective. And I'm like, oh, I never looked at it that way. So I learned a lot. I love it. Yeah. I like people too. I'm a story collector. It's obvious. Yeah. Now, not all people. There's some people I want to choke to death, but that's another story. They're on Twitter usually. Anyway, so you, you developed this, you wrote the book. Now, how did you, one of the things about the business, blue collar companies, like you, I've owned a lot of companies. Sometimes dealing with those folks is very different than white collar, sometimes different than sales, because, you know, these are guys who are really good with their hands, their talent and they're skilled in a tactile way that, like, I can never do.

Like, I'm not allowed to work on anything mechanical because I will break it because I'm an idiot. but there are some people that they have they have that talent and I don't yeah I you're 100% right they they are different and I and I realized real early that I thought I was inspiring I thought I was a good communicator they didn't want to hear they they could they could like me they could respect me as a leader and as an owner of the company but they didn't want to hear it from me they wanted to hear it from somebody with a technical background and so I learned I learned early on that I had to work through the guys who were capable of being leaders in order to communicate with the troops.

The other thing that in building up and raising up leaders out of blue-collar employees that you find is that all of us have ceilings and they have different ceilings than I did. Maybe it's because your parents didn't talk to you about leadership, or maybe they told you that you could never go very far. Maybe you were, you know, because you didn't get a college degree, you just assumed that you could never be something. And we started our program by identifying whatever those ceilings were for every employee so that we could begin to either get rid of the ceiling or realize that they were probably not going to go very far in the leadership program. I happened to have breakfast with one of the employees this morning, and he's one of my favorite stories. He came to us 19 years ago, on the lowest rung of the food chain in the company, his intention was to work for six months to earn enough money to travel back to Mexico.

And 19 years later, he gradually rose through the company. He's now one of the strongest leaders in the company. He never had any earthly idea that he could be a leader. And we built him up one step at a time. And you could always tell he was smart. we could always tell there was something under the surface. But as we raised those ceilings bit by bit, he just took off. And he would be the first one to tell you.

Not only is he shocked at his leadership skills in the company, but he's so much better as a parent. He's so much more of a leader in his family. And that whole transition, and we have a number of stories like that. That's probably the longest duration, one. But those are just so exciting. to see. And just because people start out in a blue collar role doesn't mean that they can't become the owner of the company.

Ah. Now, how do you identify those people? Like, one of the challenges I had in trying to figure out promotions and stuff, like one of the things I, we had a lot of great salespeople, and I found that great salespeople do not always make great sales managers. It's a whole different sort of mindset. And kind of, it's two different mindsets. Let's put it that way. how did you identify the people who want to be leaders? Because a lot of people who like doing the work, they love just doing the work. They don't want to think about anything new. They just want to do the room energy thing, show up every day and do their work.

And God bless those people because we need them. If it wasn't for them, we just have a room full of cooks and nobody doing any work or leaders and trying to lead the cooks, no cooks. So how did you identify the people that were management quality, I guess? So I'll use a sports analogy because everybody understands those. But on any kind of a sports team, you have the stars and then you have the unofficial leaders. And maybe it's an offensive guard who really holds sway in the locker room. So you look for those people in your organization.

Who do the other employees naturally respond to? That's your first indication that somebody's got some natural leadership talent. They may not want to develop it. They may not want to take it any further. but we look for that spark, first of all. And then the second thing is to delegate relatively minor tasks to them and see how do they respond? Do they grab the bull by the horns?

Do they love the idea that you entrusted them with some responsibility? Or do they spit the bit and show you that that's really not a course they want to pursue? If they're 80% successful on the first project, you applaud them and give them. them a second project. And I just find that leadership, particularly with people who have not been formally trained, is a step-by-step day-by-day process. Yeah, step-by-step, day-by-day, and all that. Sounds like a song, doesn't it? It does, right? It does. You know, it's really interesting how that works and trying to find the right people that can manage well. Because management, you know, doing a job, you know, you know how to do your job. There it is.

blah, blah, blah, and stuff. It's pretty simple and easy. But, you know, once you go into management, then you've got to, well, you've got to be good with other people. You've got to cite some of the things you've talked about, you know, being good at communicating what your message is, invoking, you know, good leadership. Did you, what sort of training did you develop for maybe other entrepreneurs out there to listen in it?

How did you train these folks? What was the key to building, you know, good communicators, good leaders, et cetera, etc. that you utilized? I use a lot of stories and anecdotes when I teach people and I find that I was listening to a relatively well-known leadership book

audio book the other day and I thought all of these principles are great but my people would not respond to this stuff and it's too long there's too many examples. It's too theoretical and so with the people in our company

I had to I had the blog turned out to be a great kind of an accidental format. They were short, you know, two and a half pages, you know, maybe it took a minute and a half to read them. They all had an illustration that was practical and believable. All of the principles that I taught or teach are things that you feel like you could read them this morning and put them in place this afternoon. It doesn't require, I'm not a very deep thinker, so it doesn't require a lot of deep thought. As the subtitle on the book says, it's common sense. All of them are common sense. Everybody can benefit by reading that. My youngest son was halfway through the book and he called me and he said, Dad, this is as much about life as it is

about leadership. You know, I kind of like that. I think, I think it's probably true. Yeah, it is true. You know, in my book, Beacon's Leadership, we talked about how, you know, everyone's a leader at some point in their life. You know, I've had so many people say to me, they go, well, I'm a leader. I don't have a title. Chris, a manager, CEO, or vice president. You know, I don't, I don't have that, so I can't really be a leader. No, a parent is a leader. You know, if you're leading children, I hope you're a leader as a parent, because otherwise the teenagers are leading you.

Yeah, no, there are definite levels of leadership, but it starts out with if you get yourself out of bed the morning, you led one person, and then it goes from there. You know, you give me a new piff and you think about, I need to lead myself in the morning when I get up at a bed, and have a coffee. Sometimes that's a challenge. I'm doing leading right now.

I just like to everyone to know that I start leading. I am making the coffee and I am one foot out of bed. So, yeah, so, you know, anybody can be a leader. I mean, there are times of crisis where usually one or two or maybe some more people raise, you know, crime is being committed against somebody. They jump in and save them. You know, there's disasters that happen where leadership comes. everyone can be a leader and everyone usually is a leader.

I mean, you know, it depends upon who's the dominant in your relationship. There's a leader. There's a leader everywhere. And so, you know, it's a great skill development to learn to communicate well, to learn to be effective, to learn how to be a good leader, to learn how to be a good judge. That was the one thing I always tried to be as a CEO, is to be a good judge because sometimes you're presented with situations where

it's like Solomon. You've got to make a decision to either. cut the baby in half or try and make the right decision of who's maybe responsible or a fault or, you know, I've had two people for me where I can't figure out which one I'm supposed to fire because they were fighting at the office and I don't know who started. I don't know who propagated it. And, you know, one of the things I used to do was when two people fought at the office and I needed to sell their business so they didn't fight anymore but keep them as employees, I'd just bring them into my office. They'd sit down and I'd just be with my back to them

working on my computer and then I turn around and I call my executive secretary and I'd be like Krista I need you to bring in two uh two uh firing notices whatever you call them in the nice way and then I would just look at them both and I turn around and keep working on the computer and I just sit and let them stew and then Krista knew that she had to wait like about 10 minutes to come in so they'd be sitting there in the quiet you know hating each other wanting to start up firing each other and realizing that I was probably going to cut off both their heads And so then she would bring in like blank pieces of paper, some fake paper and set on my desk. And they'd just be shit in their pants because they're like, he's going to fire both of us.

And I'd be like, look, I'm like Solomon. I'm not going to figure out which one you's right or wrong, but I'm going to cut the baby and half fire both of you unless you can learn to get along. So you have two choices. You can either hit the bricks or you can get along and there's not going to be any more issues between the two of you. What sounds best to you guys? Oh, they're best friends after that. Oh, oh no, you know, Chris, it was just a fight. You must be better at that than I am, because I tried that a couple of times and didn't work out.

There's a drama that you have to put to it. That must have been what I missed. You have to let them sit with it. So like I said, they would come in the office. I would have them sit down. I would turn my back to them and work on the computer for a moment. And then I would turn around and make the call to Krista. And then I look at them, like, you guys really fucked up.

And then I'd turn around and listen to the computer. and they would sit there, you know, and then the wheels start calculating. And then like I said, she was, she had to wait 10 minutes. And then she'd bring in the forms. Oh, that was the other thing. She'd bring in the forms. And they wouldn't be firing forms because I got away with this. And she would give them this look after she said them on the computer, tis, tis, you guys really fucked up.

And they're looking at her going, we really fucked up. And, yeah. And then I just sit there for a while and then turn around to them and I explained to him when I was and they just they just really knew that I I was fine either way but yeah it was it was always interesting they'd always be like best friends after that point it's like I said you're better at that than I am we we we I've certainly have faced that a lot a lot of times I believe in getting to the bottom of of whatever it is that's irritating people and usually it becomes pretty clear there's a chapter in the book called facts beat speculation and and managers who who

Let gossip rule the day or influence their decisions don't do very well. Yeah, I call them the high school managers. They work off a popularity and rumors and silly games and I hate those people because I had to work for a few when I was young. But, yeah, I mean, we had a pretty solid system. And I just learned that the other thing I learned, and maybe you can speak to this, is if you spend a lot of time interviewing, you do three to four interviews, you spend a lot of time getting to know the person and not just hiring the first person who shows up and fogs a mirror, it will save you so many nightmares that you would have had if you, if you just hire

like that. And then one thing we found when you hire, the more interviews you do, the more relaxed they get and the more they'll hang themselves if they have anything to hang themselves. They'll be like, yeah, well, this one time I was in prison, you're like, what? You didn't tell us that in the first interview, you know, and they show up for the third interview in their underwear and their pajamas, they got their feet up on your desk. And they're just, they think they got it in the bag and they start telling you all this stuff that you're like, oh, oh, you have five sexual harassment complaints with your private employer, huh? Good to know.

We'll call it. Yeah, we've developed a really good idea about who succeeds in our culture and who does not. And so we always start the interview with that in mind looking for that specific kind of person that we know matches up with the existing people that we have. And I agree with you. I agree with you on a multi-interview format. In fact, we have non-managers do the third interview with people that are going to be coworkers because we think that that provide pretty good insight.

Oh, yeah. I mean, most definitely. You know, and I can tell employers out there, if you're an entrepreneur, hire, you know, have multiple interviews with people. It's amazing the shit that will come out with people. and make sure you read the resume. I can't tell you how many times I was going through resumes for salespeople, and there would be this gap in the resume.

And I'd be like, there's a three to five year gap here in the resume. What were you doing between that and that? And they'd be like, no, it's not. And I'm like, well, this is your resume. You wrote it. And they'd be like, well, can I see that? And I'm like, no, you wrote it. You have seen it.

So what happened in those three to five years? We're missing. You know, usually it's prison. Yeah, I know. I know exactly what you're talking about. We've come across that. And finally it'll just be like, yeah, I went to prison. I had a meth problem.

I was stealing copper, you know, or some bullshit, domestic violence, assault. I don't think we have anybody committed to murder. Maybe we did have one that was second degree. But it was always funny. And it's amazing how people tell themselves if you give them a chance. Like I used to always tell me and my interviewers, shut up. quit selling the job. The job sells itself.

Shut up and listen to people. Because if you just shut up and listen, they'll talk. Open any questions will bring out a lot more information. Oh, yeah. And they'll sit there and talk and I'll just, oh, tell me more. And eventually, especially after, like, by the third interview, they're just showing up flip-flops with a cup of coffee and wearing their pajamas and they're just comfortable as hell.

They'll tell you everything about them. And you're just like, oh, well, that's what we're. we were looking to know about. Or they won't, you know, they'll stay professional. So what, let's mention one thing, and I imagine you talk about this in your book. What do you, one of the things for me is culture and a business, and it's really important to have a culture of good leadership, ethics, morals, you know, people know you're a good judge, you know, being trusted as an, as a boss or a CEO or as a manager, people got to know that you have their interests at heart and that you behave in that way. How much important. How much important.

important is the culture with you and being able to establish and maintain that culture. It's huge. We started in the interview process. We have very clear values and a very interesting culture in our company. We recently read as a group, the book, Start with Why, by Simon Sinek, which is a very popular book. Simon's great. It helps you crystallize your thoughts about why you're in business. In our, in our case, we provide exceptional, not just really good service, but we provide exceptional customer service through empowerment and supportive employees. And we talk about that in the interview. We talk about it every day one way or the other. I am someone who's highly connected with the employees, as all of our

managers are. So I know them personally. In many cases, I know their kids maybe have been to sporting events, you know, that their kids are participating in. They know I care. They know the other people care and when employees feel supported and empowered, they can do amazing things. And so that really defines our culture right there. We start with the ethics and the integrity, but we really walk the walk on supporting and giving our employees opportunities to become something. You know, and have a future. I mean, that's really what employees want. They want to have a future. They want to know that they're safe and secure in their environments and that the work that you do. Like, you know, I've been, I've worked at a place where I've kicked ass, took

names, and done a great job spectacularly. I've worked double the hours when I was young beyond what I did. And I would get fired, usually because of recession, or sometimes they would take another person who was older and replace them with me. Or, you know, they'd be like, well, we got this guy. We moved them from the other satellite office. And he has, he's been here longer than you. So he needs to have a job and, you know, we don't have a space for you anymore. And you're like, thanks. Well, I'm, I'm not drinking at the office every day like he is, and I work hard. But have fun with that. And, you know, it's, it's something you happen. So people, people want to know that there's that safety. What else do you talk about in the book or maybe

you want to talk about here on the show that you want to let people know about? Well, we talk about in the very first section of the book is about communication. And if, you asked a hundred people, what screwed up about their company, a hundred people would say communication is our greatest weakness. So I don't know that I have solved communication problems for everybody in the book, but I believe in a very simple style of communication. I think of communication as a circle. You start at one part of the circle with the idea that you're trying to convey. You make sure that the person heard what you said. You check back in to make sure that if action was required, that there's some progress on the action, complete the circle

by saying, okay, is the action complete? Did we finish? Or is there a little bit more to go? And if you think of communication in a circular fashion like that, it's amazing how complete your communication is. And you don't wind up saying, well, I told them to do such and such. But if you told them but you didn't follow up and do the rest of the completion of the circle, communication is ineffective. And then we talk about the inspirational style, which is nice to have, and it's important for a leader to have that style of communication. But if all of your communication is like Tony Robbins and you're always on high, you know, it tends to wear people out. You've got to vary the message. You've got to deal with facts. You can't allow speculation

and gossip to run your company. Those are some of the early parts. and around communication in the in the book yeah it's a big rumors can really hurt your company especially if you get those those employees that are saboteurs uh we used to call them back in the day in the car business uh we used to call them tubers and what they would i don't know they would come in and tube everyone out basically negative uh you know they would they would just try they were usually the guys who couldn't do well selling or performing and so what they would do is they just kind of you throw the whole company and and the sales process under the bus and trying to get everybody to sell crappily.

In fact, I think one time we saw a hotel marketing unit of like 12 people quit one day, and I think it was eight. And we had one employee come in that was new, and he was just negative Nancy. And he totally got these people tubed out on the company. We've had some employees that we've written up a couple times, start spreading complete lies about the function of her company and the funding of it. in a logical way that you could just be like there's no way that could be possible because it would be unsustainable.

But, you know, there's people and employees that will destroy your company and you've got to be on the watch for them, but you've got to have good ethics, good morals. And usually, you know, that will attract and keep the best employees and the other employees will usually find a way to move themselves long if you don't. You know, weak managers tolerate that kind of employee a lot longer than they should. be tolerated. And what people don't realize is that someone like that is doing damage to other employees along the way. Oh, yeah. And if when you replace that employee, the chances are you may replace them with a superstar. So not only do you lose the low performing employee and the

cancer in your company, but you pick up a real star. And it's one of those things that when managers are fearful, they won't pull the plug on something like that. But boy, there's a, there's, you can recognize those employees pretty early in the process, and they just have to be gone. That just, there's no two ways about it. They are almost never salvageable. Yeah. And it's just, and it's their, it's their character and also the way they just behave. And I don't know, maybe they're just erased wrong or something.

But, you know, it's usually the ones who aren't performing her don't really want to do the work. And so what they're trying to do is bring everyone down to their levels so that they don't stick out so much and get fired. Absolutely. I'm sure you've seen plenty of examples. Many, many times. Now, on your website, you have in-person coaching. Do we want to promote some of that or tease that out a little bit?

In-person training more than coaching. I can go any place and reproduce the training course in kind of short form. I do it over three sessions in two days on site and with groups of 10 or smaller. I'm happy to do that. And that's a fun thing. I do public speaking. And that's probably my favorite thing to do these days besides being on podcast. I'm just really having fun sharing this message because it's so needed.

You know, every day on the news, you hear that we are moving more and more toward a skills-based economy, toward the trades. And they're becoming more important. But the tradesmen don't receive much in the way of leadership. advice or training along the way. I'd love for this book and my approach to be something that helps young leaders, small business owners, and wannabe leaders become something more than they currently are. Leadership's really important, and the great thing about it, it's just like sales. You can use that skill and talent just about anywhere. And then few good leaders are hard to find. I like how you talk about communication and confirmation because so many times as a leader,

I gave communication and instruction without asking, do you understand when I told you? And a lot of times when it bite me in the ass, I would have to, instead of pulling out the axe, I would have to go, did you misunderstand something about what you're told? And then I'll find out that, yeah, I hadn't clarified it. That's on me. And they hadn't understand it correctly. Or that's their interpretation. and yeah, and it's on me.

So I have to go, okay, well, we're going to try this one time, and let's see if we can communicate right. But yeah, that's a really fundamental way to make sure that people understand you, whether it's your children, whether it's your friends or whatever it is, you know, making sure that everyone's on the same page and all ships are sailing in the same direction as it were. Well, if everybody agrees that communication is the fault or is the problem at every company, then somebody ought to do something about communication. It's hard to get people to talk to each other now.

And, you know, you have this remote work and all this other stuff going on. So as we go out, anything more you want to tease out to people or promote? Well, we're happy on the show. I'd just love for you to download the book. It's an audiobook form. It's in hardback, paperback, an e-book. I think that you, it's a small investment, and I think it will pay not only big dividends, I think it will pay immediate dividends for you.

And I'd love to hear from you if it works for you. And I mean, you got, what was it, was it 34 or 43 years of business? I've got 55 years in business total, but 45 in small business. Folks, you can't learn that unless you want to spend the next 55 years doing it. So grab the book because it will save you some time and some heartache and brain damage because it's hard going from ground zero. And back in the 90s when we started our companies, it wasn't anybody you could talk to about the only person you could hire to get advice for business

because the internet was barely starting then. The only people you get advice was to hire an expensive business lawyer to give you business legal advice. And that was too, you know, for a small company, that was too much. But, you know, buying a book like this, you're going to get that rich resource of 50 years of knowledge. And you can't put a price on that. It's priceless, really, when it comes down to it. Well, and they're just really, because I looked,

there's really not much help for small business available on the internet. Yeah. And most books are aimed at larger organizations on leadership. They really are. Like Tom Peters is like Fortune 500 companies and Drucker and all those sort of stuff. And they're good books and good authors. So thank you very much, Rich, for coming this show. We really appreciate it.

My pleasure. I've enjoyed the conversation. Order up the book, folks, wherever fine books are sold. Growing your own common sense advice for developing leaders within a small business out May 27, 2025. Thanks for mine us for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortresschast, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Forchess, Chris Foss, 1 on the TikTok, getting all those crazy places in it.

Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts.

consult the doctor for any resulting brain bleed. All right, we're out. Great show.