The Home Service Expert Podcast - Creating More Value For Customers With Fewer Resources

Episode Date: January 31, 2019

Paul Akers is the Owner and President of FastCap, and the author of the best-selling book 2-Second Lean. FastCap is an international product manufacturer with distribution in over 40 countries, and is recognized as a Lean leader among American manufacturers. In this episode, we talked about productivity, mindset, operations...

This is the Home Service Expert podcast with Tommy Mello. Let's talk about bringing in some more money for your home service business. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Tommy Mello here with the Home Service Expert Podcast,

and I'm here with a very special person. He's changing lives. He owns the process, The Two-Second Lean. He wrote the book. And his name is Paul Akers. He's out of California. He invites everybody into his shop to see how it is to be lean. Paul, I'm so excited to have you on today. Tell us a little bit about when you studied the lean process and where you've come from and where you're going with the whole thing. Okay.

Well, first of all, Tommy, I'm actually out of Washington and we, Washington state, and we actually just had a team from Honduras come to our company for the last two days. And the cool thing is their lives were totally changed. They make children's magnetic blocks. And it's so cool to see people transform when they understand what we're doing. So I learned about lean Tommy in about 2000, three years after my company started. I had a couple of young kids who were translators in Japan and speak fluent Japanese come into my facility and basically tell me I didn't know what I was doing. I was clueless. Now, at this point, the important part of the story is I was wildly successful. And I mean, wild with a capital W. In every regard, my facility was immaculate. I made a ton of money. Everybody wanted to work for me. It was a young startup

company. Everything was going right. And these guys basically came in and told me I was clueless. That all happened in 2000. Okay. Well, I'm going to redo that recording from the get-go. The funny thing is I bought so many, so many versions of it. I own the audible. I own the, uh, the paperback. And then I own the, um, what is it? It's a cheaper version of it. And I sent it to all my guys. I have every version of your book. I have everything you do. And I don't know why I thought you were from California for some reason. Well, wait, wait, that is true. I'm from San Diego. I'm a native Californian. So my, a good part of my life I spent in California, but I moved to Washington about 25 years ago. That's my mistake. I apologize

about that. One other important thing you need to know, my book is available in 14 languages and nobody ever has to spend a dime. Everything's free. You can download the PDF. The audio versions are on YouTube. You can download the MP3s. You don't ever have to spend anything. A lot of people buy hundreds of thousands of these books around the world, but it's all free. You know, I paid for them on Amazon, but I'm glad, you know, I had my old assistant come in. She literally came in two days ago and she goes, do you still have those extra books of the Paul Akers book? And I'm like, yes, I do. And the way that I heard about you was one of my buddies owns a pretty big solar company. And he said, have you ever heard of the two second lean? I was,

I told him, no, I don't know what that book is. And he goes, dude, it's changed my company because you've got to see, we're going to go do a tour of another company that does lean. So I went to this other company, it's called a CR2. And we went out there and they're there in Mesa. And I was so impressed by the owner and everything they're doing and everything you guys do. Can you explain the lean process a little bit and just explain to the listeners out here what we're doing with this whole process?

Well, it's so simple. It's literally a rabbit, a squirrel could figure this out. This is it, Tommy, in a nutshell. Everything you do in life, from answering your emails to brushing your teeth, to how you prepare your breakfast, to how you compose a score of music, everything in life is from answering your emails, to brushing your teeth, to how you prepare your breakfast, to how you compose a score of music. Everything in life is a process, period. There's no exception. Whether you're writing a legal document or you're building a tool, it's all a process. All Lean seeks to do is engage your mind as the doer of that process to say, where is the waste from the

starting point to the ending point? And just shrink it down and remove the waste, the non-value-added activity so you can deliver higher quality to your customer, to you and the life that you live, the way you work. That's all we're doing. And lean thinkers do this relentlessly. They don't do it one time. They just keep doing it over and over and over again. That is lean. So, you know, I think lean is about always improving, right? What are the basic definition? I don't think enough people know what it comes from and how it works because I've never seen anybody. I've never seen anybody I've watched all your videos I mean I watched you around with your your company and

you pull out the drawers and your we started to get the whole thing the Kaizen like everything that's got a place Kaizen foam Kaizen foam so tell me a little bit about how this applies to your personal life and how, I think I read something about you learning how to make your coffee quicker. Yeah. Well, you know, it applies to everything. So when I make my coffee in the morning, now this is the way I used to do it because I'm an absolute health maniac. I wrote a book called Lean Health and I don't use Splenda or sugar anymore. But back in the day, when I was evaluating what I was doing, I would put some cinnamon in my coffee. Then I'd put some Splenda or sugar anymore. But back in the day, when I was evaluating what I was doing, I would put some cinnamon in my coffee, then I'd put some Splenda in my coffee. And I said,

why don't I just combine those together? Then I take one shake and it's all done. That's it. It's that simple. Now in a current day model, what I put in my coffee is butter and coconut oil and cinnamon. So now what I did is I took the butter, the coconut oil, and the cinnamon, melted it down, put it in an ice cube tray, and made little tiny cubes of it. So every morning, I just take a little tiny sliver, a cut of that, which is equal proportions, drop it in my coffee, it melts perfect, and my coffee's done. That's the way I think about everything I do. So when I first got a hold of you, you wouldn't let me even call you. What was your two forms of, it was WhatsApp and one other form.

And Voxer. Voxer. You would not take calls. You said, look, if you want to do this, explain the first time I talked to you. You wouldn't even let me call you because you would, you would not take calls. You said, look, I want to do this. Explain the first time I talked to you, you wouldn't even let me call you because you said, make a video, send it to me. And that's the way I communicate. I want to understand where you're coming from on that. Cause that's where I want to go with my company. I want to go email lists. I want to stop the communication of just as blindsidedness. So I love what you did and you forced me into it and it was amazing.

So explain to me. Well, first of all, Tommy, you're awesome. You get it. So here's the deal. In everything we do in life, we're communicating to one another. Most people, when they communicate, it's so clunky, it's so bad.

There's so much ambiguity. There's so much unclarity in what we do. And there is no better vehicle to make sure that happens than email. Typing a flat sentence and people being burdened down by email, everybody hates it. So I require everyone to communicate with me on WhatsApp or Voxer. Voxer is my first choice. They send me a quick audio message. Hey, Paul, this is Tommy. I want to interview you. Hey, Tommy, Great. I'd love to. When do you want to do it? Let's do it next month. Super. What's the platform? Zoom. Great. That all just takes a split second and we're done.

Instead of 10 emails back and forth that are cumbersome and difficult to deal with. That's why I require everything audio. My entire company's on audio. I communicate with hundreds of people around the world, if not every day, every week. I literally go through 300 communications a day, and every one of them are on Boxer or WhatsApp. I've already been communicating with China, Japan, Honduras, Germany, and Ireland just this morning. So you have so many products that you do. I mean, literally everything you do is about saving time and energy. And I'm, this is weird because I've

had a lot of, I've had billionaires on this podcast, but you're very, you're somebody that we follow. We study, we try to be an emulate everything you've done in your company. And, um, it's amazing that you're on here right now because there's so many things I want to ask you. It's just so little time. So everybody on here is a home service business owner. Like literally if it's gutters, roofing, garage doors, air conditioning, tell me a little bit about how you get into the mindset of just doing the lean process. I mean, what's the first way to get started

other than buying the two second lean, which if anybody, it's the most amazing book. I mean, you give so many examples of YouTube and so many pictures. It's a good book. I love it. I love Tommy, your enthusiasm. So this is what you need to do. You need to change the way you think. What I'm really trying to do is not necessarily save time. I'm really trying to do is bring joy into work. Most people in the world spend the preponderance of their time working. Why shouldn't work be unbelievable, amazing, the most incredible experience of your life?

The problem is it's not. Why? Because the processes by which we conduct work are clunky, burdensome, cumbersome, and we really don't want to do a lot of them. So what lean does is it transform your mind to think work should be fun. It should be enjoyable. It should be meaningful. You should feel like every day is an amazing day because your productivity is through the ceiling. You should feel like every day is an amazing day because your productivity is through the ceiling. You deliver to the people you're serving what they want, when they want it, just in time. So in order to be a lean thinker, you have to realize you're trying to bring joy back to work, dignity back to work. And then when you do that, then you realize the vehicle by which you do that is by

simply making tiny incremental improvements to everything. And the improvement you want to make, Tommy, is the improvement that you can make right now. Not the improvement that's complicated, not the improvement that requires a spreadsheet, but the improvement that's simple and easy to make right now. Why is that improvement the improvement you want to make? Because it changes your view. And when you change your view, you become empowered. You become enlightened. We equate it to climbing a mountain.

As you climb a mountain, your view gets better and better and better. When you do small incremental improvements, you're climbing the mountain and changing your perspective. You're empowering your mind to see what happens when you make these small improvements. That is how you start. When you got started, where do you start with your home life versus business? Well, it's best to start in your home because you will feel the benefit immediately. And most importantly, you're not generally encumbered by other people. So where I started my home was where's the most common place you work every day, two places, the kitchen and the bathroom. I'll bet you a hundred bucks,

your bathroom's a mess. I'll bet you a hundred bucks, the cupboards are a mess. I'll bet you a hundred bucks, there's clunky processes in the way you brush your teeth, the way you get your razor out. There's all kinds of clunky processes everywhere. If you saw my bathroom, it is epic. You walk into my bathroom, you go, oh my gosh, this is the most beautiful bathroom I've ever seen and everything makes sense. For instance, I like to use a water pick on my teeth. So I put in the water pick is very messy. So if I use it at the at the sink, and I'm doing my mouth, I can spray it all over the mirror, then I create over processing because now I have to clean the mirror. I put splatters all over the place. So I mounted the water pick on a glass shelf in my shower. So I can fill it with the shower wand.

And then I rigged up the electrical, it's really cool, the ground fault. And so now I fill it with the shower wand. And then I rigged up the electrical. It's really cool, the ground fault. And so now I do it in the shower and I never make a mess. It's incredible. Tell me about the light in your closet. How about that one? Oh my gosh.

It's just incredible. So I hated flipping the light switch on and flipping the light switch off. So I made it so that it's door activated. When the door is shut, it's off. When I open it, it comes on. And then I didn't just put an average light in, just one light. I put in this massive light so that I can clearly see all the different colored clothes and in my coat closet, all the different colored coats I have. There's just zero ambiguity. It took me a while to do it. I have maybe four

hours in getting all those lights set up. But for the rest of my life, I enjoy the benefit of that. Well, it's incredible everything you've done. I want the listeners to understand, you know, it's a great story, the whole process, but tell me how this applies to business. Tell me about when you started making cabinets and just how long it took you and that you'd like, if you're like me, do you know Parkinson's law? Occupy space. I mean, you're pretty familiar. I'm sure. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not. Go ahead. Say it again. So Parkinson's law means that, uh, anything you have, whether it's a bank account or a big warehouse, you're going to use all the space you can use yeah thank you so what I've done in my warehouse in the past is we didn't have enough space you know we used everything we used three 20,000

square foot of garage door parts and then I looked at it we didn't touch a lot of them you know we didn't have this just-in-time. So we tend to, uh, use everything that are at our disposal. What I found was when I read your book is, uh, you know, you had a lot of, uh, extra stuff there. You were like, well, all it took you how long to get ready just to make your parts. I mean, that's what a lot of people out there are doing right now that are listening. I mean, they're spending all this time and effort. So tell us exactly how you really learned that you were making a mistake and how it came through to you. Well, the biggest thing is these two Japanese kids that came into my company, you know, I was performing a process that took me

45 minutes. And let me tell you, I'm an expert at manufacturing. I'm not a neophyte. I can run circles around anybody, right? I know engineering. I know manufacturing. I know this stuff cold. And I was good at it. And I knew what I was doing. And these young kids came in and saw the process that I was doing. And it took 45 minutes to do it. And I thought it was magical. It was clean. It was organized. It was clear. Everything was great. And they said, 45 minutes? You got to be kidding.

We can get that down so low you won't believe it. And I looked at them and I laughed. In one week, they took it from 45 minutes to five minutes. And then I realized I was clueless. That is so powerful. So, you know, when I went and I really studied lean, I went to a real company that did this. They had a cleaning process in every bathroom. And what I found was, was everybody was so engaged. Every single person was, they cared so much about

the company and the wellbeing. And I think maybe I read between the lines, but the owner always had companies doing tours. And what that made is everybody be on their feet. Everybody knew that they were going to get watched. I mean, is that part of the lean process? Oh, 100%. You're constantly being evaluated. You're constantly benchmarking. And then what really happens in those tours, and this is the magic that most people don't understand, is your people have this deep sense of pride that people want to come and learn from them.

So your average employer, average worker would never experience something like that. And all of a sudden you have top CEOs, top leaders come and view them. And they're just average people. They're not CEOs. They're not directing companies. And yet the directors are learning from the shop floor people that people feel like, wow, I'm important. This is meaningful that I'm doing. And all of a sudden,

it accelerates their passion to continuously improve. Wow. You know, I took, I think I took 30 people there and they get started with a presentation. Some of the people there, they didn't know that they were not good presenters and they gained life skills out of this whole thing. I mean, it was literally, it was mind blowing. It was mind blowing and every single person walked out of there and they wanted that. Every employee that I have wanted that. So. You know why, Tommy, you know why they want it? This is important. This is very high level thinking. They wanted it because this is the way God designed us to function.

God gave us this massive brain to be able to think and solve problems and be creative. And lean obeys the laws of nature. The laws of nature say, this is what we were designed to do, but this is not the way most people work. So when they see it, it's natural. They say, yes, I want that. Yeah. Well, I want that. And I think everybody that works for you wants that. And I think everybody listening, if they understand the book and I think the two second lean, it's a well-written book. You didn't care about the price because you made it a lot of its color. There's examples, there's pictures everywhere. It wasn't a low budget book. And you know why, Tommy? Because I was concerned about quality.

I didn't care about price. Everybody focuses on cost, cost, cost. Cost is not the issue. Quality is the issue. So I said, I don't care how much it costs. I don't care how much the paper costs. I want clarity, zero ambiguity. I want quality. And because of that, the book is in 14 languages, hundreds of thousands of copies sold around the world. It's a brilliant book. I mean, like I said, I spared no expense on my end to give this book to everybody, senior management that works for me. And I will tell you that I'm not making any money

by selling your book. You and me, you have no deal worked out to the listeners out there. I just, I really get a lot out of it because what's the first thing you do when you go into a business? When go to the bathroom you pretty much judge them I feel like and right and you look at how their employees view themselves and you got it there's a lot of time we have two bathrooms for about 55 people

so basically it always smells a little funny in there and you know you know about our bathrooms are the most beautiful bathrooms in the world. Bidet toilet seats, $500 bidet toilet seats in every one of our bathrooms. They're spotless. They're immaculate. It smells perfect. It looks perfect. There's not a drop on the floor.

The toilet seats are always down. Nobody makes a mess. The men are flawless. Flawless. There's not one speck of paper on the ground. There's not one spot on the mirror. Everybody has a deep respect for the people that come after them and the resources that have been provided to us. Yeah. What is that? I saw a tour of your whole facility and it shows everything. You were on a Segway, I believe. What is that video that where listeners could go watch are you uh two or three there are two and it's so evil

so easy to find just go into google or youtube and type in lean tour those words and it should be the number one tour that comes up our first video has over 350,000 views I'm just doing it right now and the other one is just posted about a year ago and it already has like 60,000 views so people are watching this worldwide yeah it's all there going to Google put it in the word lean tour they're the first two that come up the first one is has 350,000 I'll click on it right now. I'll see. And the second one has 354,000 views on the first one. That's a lot of people watching a tour of our company. And the second one has 60,000 views. And I recommend the second one only because it's the most updated one, but they're both awesome.

Yeah. I just think I really, everybody here, look, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, garage stores, everything you do. I don't think how the people understand how powerful this could really be when you actually get your employees. The hardest part I find that everybody asks me, I mean, we do a lot of consulting and they say, how do you get good employees? Tell me a little bit about how this changes, that people come to you when you employ these processes. Well, we're a magnet for the best people in the world. Everybody wants to work for us. Everybody's just like, oh my gosh,

if I could work in that company. So think, I want you to think about this. You ready for this? We're a big company. We do tens of millions of dollars of business. We're in 40 countries. We have 3000 distributors around the world. You ready for this?

All your listeners are going to be shocked. You ready? I'm ready. No HR department. We have no financial department. We have no marketing department. We have no sales department. We have no maintenance department. We have no gardening department. We don't need any of that. That's crazy. It's crazy. It's unheard of. Never heard of it. And every order is shipped two hours backs to trucks. From the time we get the order to the time we make it, pack it and put it in the truck. 99.9% of every order goes out within two hours.

Well, I think you're the marketer. I think that you say you have no marketing department, but I think you're the guy. I mean, no quality, quality is the marketing, exceptionalism, operational excellence. That is our marketing. We don't have to do it. It's automatic. Everybody looks at us and goes, Oh my gosh, I want to do business with that company. I've never seen anything like it. It's all word of mouth. I mean, everything down, you know, when I went to this place i'll tell you this they had a beer fridge full of beer and i was like if we had that that'd be gone the first day i mean right they give it all out there that it was so clean and they had a slide right so they

said we could save if you think about every single person that goes downstairs, how much a slide saves time, right? It's so cool. It was so cool. I'm telling you, it was amazing. Everything they did, their whole process. And the owner said, his name's Matt. He goes, I hated my business.

He goes, I was an asshole when I walked into work. He goes, I didn't look at anybody. I didn't respect anybody. I was very upset every day I walked in. And as I got to learn the process and that I was't respect anybody. I was very upset every day I walked in. And as I got to learn the process and that I was failing my employees, he was literally failing every day. And he will, he wakes up every morning and he text messages 10 employees and tells them how good they do. And it's so amazing. What's the name of the company? Tommy again,

ER two it's in, um, Arizona and I of the company, Tommy, again? ER2. It's in, what is it, Mesa, Arizona. I know who they are. I know who they are. The guy is amazing. And he just walked through the process. So they take old computers and basically they crush the hard drives, but they rebuild the old computers. So they go into Intel and Honeywell and all these other big companies and they take the old systems and they put new ones in, but they take the old ones and they sell them. And everything when you walk through there is just everything's on wheels.

So we started to implement a lot of their processes. And, you know, I think the most important thing about the whole process of what lean is, is you're not going to go from zero to hero overnight. It's continuously improving and moving the ball forward. So, Tommy, there's two things I want to point out about the comment. What was the owner of that ER2's name? What was his name? His name's Matt.

I'll actually pull up his. So I'm on his website now, but here's the important thing that matt did number one everyone who's listening if you don't do these things you will fail number one i'm sure matt was reasonably successful before he started this his name's chris actually matt was uh matt was his number one employee that gave us the tour, but I was quite about that. So, I'm sure it was relatively successful, but the honest answer is he came to grips with really, he's not that good. He was a truth teller. He was honest with himself. If you're not honest with yourself, it will never happen. Number two, if the leader is always giving credit to other

people and not thinking they're the genius in the room and they have to come up with all the solutions what chris did is textbook high level level five leadership and is required to successfully implement lean brutal honesty with who you are and always giving credit to other people and praising other people. Yeah. I mean, it's so amazing. And we're not a manufacturing company. They pretty much are. And everybody applies lean to manufacturing. Tell me a little bit about how home service businesses could learn and use a lean process because I hear a lot about Six Sigma and lean and manufacturing. I don't hear about it applied in a lot of businesses and it just works at your house.

It works at your business. Well, first of all, the home service, the contracting business, it is the most wasteful industry outside the medical. The medical and general contractors, builders, tradespeople, I couldn't think of a more wasteful environment and more in need of lean than those two genres. So the amount of inefficiency, it makes my head hurt when I watch contractors work. It's just so bad. They haven't thought about anything

and they're predisposed to thinking this is the way it's always been done. Therefore, that's the way I'm going to do it. So it applies perfectly to them. Again, everything they do is a process. How they prepare in the morning, how they communicate with the customer, how they have their tool trucks organized, how they actually execute inside the home. Are they walking back and forth to their truck or they use a cart with all the tools set up and ready to go and they roll it from place to place with all the tools readily at hand so they're not struggling. I could go on and on and on. We talked about step one is just the mindset. How important is the mindset to just

becoming a better person overall? I mean, what happens when you change this? What happens for your wife? What happens for your husband when you decide to engage in this process? Well, first of all, let's go to the highest level of all. If you want to have a meaningful life, as Rick Warren talks about in his book, The Purpose Driven Life, on the first page and the first paragraph, in the first sentence, on the first line, he gives the lean answer if you want to have a fabulous purpose-driven life. And it only requires one thing. It's not about you.

Your purpose in life is to serve and help other people. When you have this understanding, everything becomes crystal clear. Everybody begins to look at you differently. Everybody is gravitated and wants to then emulate. And what could be better than a world of people that want to help and serve one another and are not always looking out for their best interest? It's mind-blowing. It really is. I think about the limbic brain a lot. I think about how Simon Sinek talks about finding your why. That's right. Why do we do what we do? I mean, at the end of the day, I want to hear your

perspective on that whole thing because the hardest part, people get into business to make more money. They work for somebody and then they say, I can do this better. And I want especially small business owners to help them understand the bigger picture. And it's a lot easier to say

when you're multi-millionaire, you know, and me and you have been very, well, you've been uber successful. I've had things go my way here in the last few years. And I think it's a lot easier to look down at people and say, do it this way, build a culture, live your life. What are people going to say at your funeral? You know, I just, and some of these people are just struggling to get by day to day. They're trying to make the best they can. How do you get into that mindset? It's a very good question.

How do you get into that mindset? Well, the first thing I would suggest is take evaluation and stock in where you currently are in life. And if you're frustrated with where you are, you're probably not gonna change that outcome by doing what you've been doing. So the first thing is, maybe I'm not conducting life in the best possible way. And if the answer to that is yes, then maybe you

should consider doing it a different way. And I would bet that the people that are frustrated in their life in the outcome that's being produced, it is because they are focused on themselves and not focused on their contribution to the world, society, and other human beings that are engaged in their life. I have a consultant that I work with every day pretty much. And he says, what's in it for me is the other perspective. But what I've learned is when you go into a situation or a negotiation and you learn about how you can help other people, you almost win every single time. I mean, there's not a time I can remember that I lost thinking about what can I do for that other person that makes this want to do business with me or want to be an employee? I mean, what is your mindset around that whole concept? Because I

think it works. It's really simple. Be a servant. Most people miss the point of business. I have MBA students come in here all the time and they go, well, the purpose of business, I ask them, what's the purpose of business? And they go to make money. And I say, you got to be kidding me. You really think that? Oh yeah, that's what it is. And they get in arguments with me. I go, no, you don't understand business at all. When you start a business, it's because you see a need that you can fulfill or serve the customer more effectively. If you fill that need more effectively, if you serve that customer at a higher level,

if you deliver more value through the service to that customer, then the byproduct is money. The money is simply a byproduct. If it is the driver, you will lose every time. So there's a book that I like other than your book, which I'm telling you, this is a book I hand out. I hand out three books. I hand out The Two Second Lean, The E-Myth, and The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes, who passed away. But I really like the book Raving Fans because it talks into people's minds. Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah.

And for the listeners out there, I mean, it's a good book that explains that it's a, it's the customer experience that drives the business. And when you have a different mindset about that and the byproduct of great business is making money. But the problem that I find is some people are living paycheck to paycheck. And I was on a podcast probably three months ago. And the guy said, Tommy, you have $2,000 today only. You got to go out and start your home service business. Tell me how you get started. I said, I'd go borrow as much money as I can.

There's no way I could start a business with $2,000. There's no way I could be successful, hire great employees and do what needs to happen and a lot of people they have a job and then they go quit and they borrow money from their you know uh their mother-in-law or whatever happens and uh they're just not prepared to be successful and when money money becomes a driver when you got to pay rent money you do things you shouldn't do you just do things that are corrupt. I mean, you trash people. And I always tell my guys, look, we're going to sell people a lot of parts that they need. But if you ever feel like you're doing something,

the way I look at it is my grandma passed away, but she was probably the closest person in my life. And I said, if my grandma had a broken garage door, what would I do to her garage? I make sure that thing never broke again. I don't want her to ever get stuck. Literally, I'd give her the best parts. She'd get a huge discount, probably not even pay for it. The point was, do what's right, do what you really feel, but don't take advantage of people. And I think that's hard to... It's treat other people exact... All we equate. It's treat other people exact.

All we're doing in lean is treating other people exactly as we would want to be treated. Yeah, it's amazing. So the whole story, I got the book sitting on here, the Toyota way. And, uh, the whole thing started in Japan and they just figured out how to do processes so much quicker. It's just efficiency. It's like, there's a whole process behind everything. And you're just trying to self-improve at everything you do. I mean, it's a way of life. And the guy, Chris, he said, it's not easy to do this unless you and your wife agree that we're going to do it together.

Because if it's not, if it's not done correctly, you can piss a lot of people off, you know, especially your home life. Yeah, I know. I know Chris. Well, he actually came to the global lean leadership summit in Fort Collins. So yeah, he's a very cool guy and a very, very good business guy. Oh, super smart. Amazing. He said, when you go into my drawer at my house, the shavers and he's got the Kaizen foam in all of his drawers at home. I mean, he's just mild and he was so excited, but he's such a good example of what your business should look like. And I got to tell you, he represents you very well. He gave us a tour. I actually recorded everything and we interviewed about 10 of my employees after we got out of there. So I'll share that with you too down the road, but I actually recorded everything and we interviewed about 10 of my employees

after we got out of there. So I'll share that with you too, down the road. But he's got a cool team too. Cause I've met a lot of his team members and they're really cool people. Yeah. Everybody there was, they were, they just wanted to give back. I mean, no, isn't it beautiful. This is the lean culture. This is specifically the two second lean culture. I want the lean culture. This is specifically the two-second lean culture. I want to emphasize that. The lean culture is cool, but it tends to be more based on data and facts and things like that. The two-second lean culture is a different breed of people. They're crazy how

much they want to help other people and give back to the society. Yeah. I mean, it was an awakening for us and I don't think we're even close to where they're at, but I know one thing is we're driving forward every day and I think it can be discouraging to see how successful people are and know that where you're at a lot of the times, as long as you're moving the ball forward and you're making progress and you're continuing to try, just don't give up. It's like people when they quit smoking, I've never smoked cigarettes in my life, but I just know, I don't expect you to go from a pack a day to zero. Just try to lean off of it. That's a good word. Lean off. But it's funny because we have a home service business. We're going to do between 30 and 40 million this year. We're going

to double and triple next year. We're going to continue to raise the bar. But the point is, is I know we have so much work to do. And I think one of the biggest things I see about successful people is they read a lot and they're continuing to always improve and they respect each other. And I think by some summarized lean, it's continuing to improve every day and respect one another. Is that pretty much the basis of lean? It is. It's creating a learning organization

and not just the top leaders. Throughout the entire organization, top to bottom, everyone is learning, everyone is participating. So step one for my business, the people listening right now, I walk into work tomorrow morning. Where do I get started? I mean, obviously buy the book, study the book, but so many times we get on a podcast, we start learning all these things. We read a book and you don't know where to get all these ideas, but where do we get started? Oh gosh, this is the easiest one of all. Fix what bugs you.

The minute something irritates you, the minute you feel angst, the minute you begin to struggle, stop right now and start improving it. And I mean now. Don't put it off. Don't put it on a list. Do it now.

So email is the most annoying thing in the world, but we pretty much live and breathe by it every day. And you stop that in your life. How do you make that happen in a business? Because I think it's one of the struggles that it's how I did it with you, Tommy. The minute I'm going to start communicating with someone more than one time, someone might initially contact me with email. I type in the word Voxer and I have a text replacement in my iPhone and it says, look it, I receive hundreds of emails and communications all day long

and I do it all with Voxer or WhatsApp. My Voxer contact is Paul Akers. My cell number is 360-941-3748. You can find me on WhatsApp. Communicate with me there and I'm happy to answer any questions or do anything you want. That takes me to type in a five-letter word,

V-O-X-E-R. Boom, it populates, and I push send. That's how easy it is. And stop doing the insanity that you're currently doing. Yeah, I think we, you've heard of the one-minute manager, and we all get distracted each day. I think the biggest thing I see when Iminute manager, and we all get distracted each day. I think the biggest

thing I see when I consult somebody is how much they get distracted on their day-to-day lives. I tell them, journal. Take an hourly calendar and explain what you do. And when you look at it on a daily basis, I mean, I'm preaching to the choir here, but so many times you get distracted. And I've had every successful manager that worked for me say, I'll get way more done when I work from home because I get distracted. People come up, they ask stupid questions. Then we created manuals and we got an org chart and we do things a lot more organized now. And I just feel like a lot of the people out there with 10 employees, they say, yeah, that's good and great, but we're not there yet. And I think that's where you need to start your business. You need to start with

organization in mind. And this lean process, I hate that it started in manufacturing because I think it's a way to live your life. I think that- Absolutely, it's a philosophy. It's a philosophy that it applies to manufacturing, but it applies to life. It applies to home service. It applies to how your guys get their truck ready in the morning. It applies to manufacturing, but it applies to life. It applies to home service. It applies to how your guys get their truck ready in the morning. It applies to how you get out of bed and you do your hair and you take your shower and you shave. I mean, every single aspect of your life is about always improving.

And you don't know it to anybody else but yourself is my philosophy on the whole concept. I mean, I'm so impressed by everything you do. And the whole book is, it really is. I think you give and you get back 100%. I mean, what's your take on the whole concept of 10% to God and 10% savings, right? That's what... I mean, I would say that's the bare minimum. Giving is the most powerful thing in the world. There's nothing better than it. That's the bare minimum. I'm so impressed and I'm glad, you know, every single thing you do, tell me a little bit about how people could get more of you other than the two second lean.

If they want to get ahold of you, if they want to tour your building, if they want to buy some of your products. Let's talk about your products too in this. Well, again, we're not trying to sell anything. There's no monetization whatsoever in this whole thing. We're just trying to help people. If they want to get ahold of me, they can find me on Voxer, V-O-X-E-R.

My contact name is Paul Akers with no space, P-A-U-L-A-K-E-R-S. That's the best way to contact me, ask me a question. I'll reply back to you very quickly. If not that WhatsApp, my cell phone number is 360-941-3748. You'll find me there. Send me a message and I'll reply back. In terms of buying any of our products,

I really don't care whether you buy them or not, but it's all available on our website, basscap.com. We have tons of fabulous Kaizen products, lean products that will transform your life, but I can care less whether or not you buy them or not. You're not selling anything. You're making lives better. I mean, we literally bought the Kaizen foam. So we have a custom door department where we build custom garage doors and everything has its place. And what I learned from Chris of ER2 is that when there's a place for something, it always gets returned. It looks out of order if it's not back there. You got it.

Everything that you do is just, it just creates a process around everything. And I think that our lives become chaotic when we don't have a process behind the way we think. Well, here's the big thing that happens, Tommy. Basically, you're freeing your mind up to be creative. When you have to spend your life searching for things, looking for things in clunky processes and bound up in that maze of just dysfunction, then your mind is not free to be creative. By establishing all these well-defined processes, it really is the vehicle to being hyper-creative. You can't make a mess in a mess. You can't be creative in a mess. You can't be creative in a mess. You can be hyper creative when things are smooth

and you know where things are and you're not struggling. Yeah. Well, that's powerful stuff. I mean, Paul, I don't get a lot of people that publish books. I've got Michael Michalowicz who talks about profit first, and he's wrote a lot of good books. I've had several successful publishers as far as books go, but I don't really implore people to read a lot of books that I have the gas on because I'm not selling your, you know, you're not on here to sell books or sell products, but I got to say that this is not, I didn't have you on here. I don't get any deals off of this, but pick up the book. If you get a chance, it's the two second lean. It's one of the books that I buy every single manager that works for me. And when they understand the

process behind it and they understand how much they can create a better life, they can take care of their kids better. They can take care of themselves, work out. It's like, I'll end the podcast here pretty soon, but tell me a little bit about what you do to take care of yourself and how you implement lean and just being healthy and working out. Well, I will, but let me just say one thing. Don't buy the book. Just type into YouTube, digit two, second lean, and it's right there in Spanish and English and about four other languages, German now, Spanish, Polish, and Portuguese, Brazilian, Portuguese. It's all there. Just type in the word Two Second Lean into YouTube and start listening right now. Don't spend a dime. It's all there for free. How I take care of my health. It's very simple. I realized that the greatest gift in life is our health. If we don't have our health, we have nothing. And I

realized that I did a terrible job. I had terrible processes surrounding the way I took care of my health. To put it in perspective for the listeners, I'm 58 years old. I weigh about 165 pounds. It's unheard of for a man my size, I'm 5'10", to weigh that much. I'm totally ripped. I did two Ironman last year. I could run circles around most 18-year-olds. It could never keep up with me. I did that. I accomplished that about four years ago through refining the process and continuous improvement on what I was doing to take care of my health. To make it so simple, it's unbelievable. This is it.

I don't open packages. I eat real food. 80% of my diet is fruits and vegetables. 20% is protein. Fish is my first choice. Chicken, pork, meat, red meat, protein, cheese, things like that. I don't open packages. I eat real food. I don't do sugar. I don't do Splenda. I don't open packages. Sugar is in everything. It's in salad dressings. It's in seasonings. It's in everything. It is the cocaine of cancer. You want to have a crappy life, you get addicted to sugar. I don't do sugar. I eat tons of fruit, natural sugar combined with the fiber and all the other nutrients that

come along. Don't do juices. Juices are a disaster. It's just concentrated sugar. You've stripped away all the actual elements that are designed in a piece of food to be nutritional to you. Eat real food. Eat whole food. It's that simple. Wow. I should ask you about religion, self-motivation. I mean, I just, I got so much out of that just now. I know we got to, we got to end this, but. Well, religion, I'll answer religion. It's so simple.

It's unbelievable. Religion is not what you say. It's what you do. Shut your mouth and do it. Shut your mouth and do it. Shut your mouth and do it. I'll repeat one more time. Shut your mouth. Do it.

Wow. Well, just the little things you give in this, there's so many gold nuggets. I'm going to ask one more. How do you get your day started? Because, and then we'll end it. We'll end it and we'll tell people. This is the best part of the interview right here are you ready yes i get out of bed i turn on the light and i make the bed that's how you got to get your day started there's what's

that book by the military guy that says just start by making your bed well i learned it that's where i learned it from him yeah and then I get down on the floor and I do 50 pushups and 100 sit-ups. Then I drink a bottle of water to hydrate my brain. And it just goes on and on from there. I get the fundamentals right. And my days are always awesome.

Everybody here listening is just, this isn't about business. This is about a way of life. And, you know, it's so exciting to have you on here, Paul. And thank you so much. I got to tell you, one of the questions I always ask is if you got a couple of books to recommend, give me your top three books that you would say to go out there today and read just to make your life better. Well, you know, the one, I'll tell you the books that I'm reading right now that are just outrageous, but let me be very specific

because you asked me a question. What are the top three books? The most important business book you'll ever read and you must know every page and every chapter in it verbatim is good to great. Oh yeah. The next book is How to Win Friends and Influence People.

The next book is How to Win Friends and Influence People. The next book is American Icon, the story of Ford, how Alan Malawi transformed Ford from a totally dysfunctional bankrupt company to a world-class company by implementing lean. And I could give you a list of 100 more that are outrageous, but there's three. So from good to great. And then, uh, what is the other book that he writes, um, about, uh, leadership? Oh, built to last, built to last. Excellent book.

Yeah. Great, great stuff. So I always like to leave the guests with one last final thought to tell us a little bit, if we didn't cover it and to leave the listeners with one last go moment, well, how can we end this and make, make the listeners really go and implement what you're talking about? Start now,

not in a half hour. The podcast is over. Goodbye, Tommy. It was great meeting you right now. Turn around and look at something that needs to be improved and do it now. Well, I'm addicted. You know that right now my assistant is buying the book American Icon.

She just pointed it to me and she looked it up online. It's an incredible read. It is riveting. Riveting. It's an incredible read. It is riveting. It's riveting. It's so good. Paul, I got to tell you, you changed so many lives in your time here on this life. I just think this is so powerful. And it's not always about business. It's about doing the right thing. And so many times we go after money and we chase. We chase money every day of our lives. And if you just do the right thing, and it's a mindset, and you're amazing our lives. And if you just do the right thing and it's a mindset and you're amazing at it.

And thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. And I hope that everybody gets a chance. You're giving the book away for free on YouTube. I mean, I think that's, that's great for me. Cause I gotta, I can stop buying it now. And I'm glad there's no need to, it's all available right there. Thank you so much, Paul. And, uh, if you, you know, if you ever get a chance in here in Phoenix, stop by A1 garage door service,

we'll show you what's going on. We're not ER2, but that guy Chris has got it going on and that guy represents you well. So I got to give him an applause as well, just for the fact that I got a tourist facility and he's killing it. So. Well, cool. You know, I'll tell you something I would like to do and we'll talk offline of that. I'd love to upgrade my garage doors to some, I have a beautiful home and maybe you could advise me on which ones would be the good ones to get. Well, I'll tell you what, I'll stay on here.

We'll end the podcast here, but thank you so much. And they want to get Paul, do you get all of them on Voxer? And the other one was, just tell them one more time. Oh, WhatsApp. Okay. Thank you, Paul. Appreciate it. Okay. Hey guys, I really appreciate you tuning into the podcast. I wanted to let you know that my book is available right now on Amazon. It's called The Home Service Millionaire. That's homeservicemillionaire.com. Just go to the website. It'll show you exactly where and how to buy the book.

I poured two years of knowledge into this book, and I had 12 contributors, everybody from the COO at HomeAdvisor to the CEO of Valpak, and of course, Ara, the CEO of Service Titan. It tells you how to have the right mindset and become a millionaire and think like a millionaire. It goes into exactly how to turn on lead generation. Have those phones ringing off the hook for the customers that you want to be calling where you can make money and get great reviews. It also goes into simple things like how to attract A players.

Listen, if you want a great apple pie, you need to buy good apples and you need to know where to buy those apples. And it also talks about simple things like knowing how to keep the score. You should have your financial check every week. You should know exactly what's coming in and out of your account. You should know when to cut advertising that's not working. And more than anything, you should know how to cut employees that aren't making it for you. Listen, you might have a big heart, but this book is going to show you how to make decisions built on numbers. I hope you pick up the book and I really appreciate everything. I hope you're having a great day. Tune in next week. Thank you.