The Home Service Expert Podcast - How To Address the Bottlenecks in Your Business With Effective Leadership

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

Dustin Kaehr is a leadership and business coach at R/I Solutions, and has over 20 years of experience working with large and small organizations throughout North America, helping them with leadership challenges, operational management, and employee/customer engagement. He is the author of two books, “Retail is…50 Thoughts, Ideas, and Conversations to Make Your Business Better” and “Dear Boys…The Letter Every Son Needs From His Father”.  In this episode, we talked about leadership, account management, business coaching, retail...

So many times people don't have a system or a process short of what's in their head Because that's how we did it when we first started. So I know that process. I know You know, you've got to look for a spot where you're not getting traction and we need to put up a cheap showroom Like that's instinct to you. That's your obvious, but it's not their obvious And so that's where you've got to teach them and as you teach them some people will get it And some people go well, I don't understand, but I'll do it. The ones that get it, those are the ones you start to pour into because if they get it, what you're really trying to do as you develop people is you want to know how they think.

Your job isn't to necessarily always teach them what to think. It's to teach them how to think because too many times a leader will have somebody do something and it gets done. Okay, let's be clear. The outcome is success, but the leader will look at the individual and go, yeah, but that's not how you do it. 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. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. My name is Tommy Mello, and today I have a very special guest. He's from Indiana. His name is Justin Carr, and he is an expert in leadership, account management, business coaching, and retail.

He's the director at Lippert Academy of Leadership from 2019 to now, Lippert Components Director of Leadership Development from 2016 to now, River Oaks Community Church Associate Pastor from 2014 to now. Do It Best Corporation Territory Manager from 2007 to 2016. Retail Programs Coordinator from 2004 to 2007. He has over 20 years of expertise working with large and small organizations throughout North America, helping them with leadership challenges, operational management, and employee-customer engagement. Prior to his existing role, he took charge of over 1,100 team members, two facilities, and 200 leaders providing leadership training, one-on-one coaching, personal and professional development. He has led breakout sessions, keynote speeches,

and multi-day conferences across the United States and Canada covering topics including customer experience, leadership, team development, and personal development. He's the author of two books, Retailer's 50 Thoughts, Ideas, and Conversations to Make Your Business Better, and Dear Boys, the Letter Every Son Needs from His Father. Dustin, how'd I do? You know, I'm listening to you read all that. I'm like, this guy's all over the freaking place. Holy cow. Good. I think that's a pretty checkered past, but I think you got it. No, it's great. You've done a lot. It's cool to hear you got four boys.

Right now, you guys are pretty much like everybody else on lockdown. Tell me a little bit about your career path and how you've proven to enrich yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Yeah. So let me start with sort of the personal side of me. I'm married to my high school sweetheart. It's been 21 years this year. We have four boys, 16, 14, 12, and 10. So one driving, soon to be driving. And at some point in my life, I'll have four teenage boys. So that's why I'm bald. My beard is gray.

And I probably can't afford car insurance for all of them. But we'll try to cross that bridge when we get there. It's a ton of fun. My house is never dull. It's never quiet. And I joke with people, I'm not fixing the drywall until I'm convinced they won't destroy it any further. Because that's just the nature of voice. So yeah, you know, I was joking about that I've been all over the place.

But as I really think about that, what I heard through all that really was a clarifying of my sort of personal and professional development. As the years went on, I got a lot more clear about who I am, what I'm chasing, and sort of the rules by which I'm going to play. And for me, that all was driven out of a medical diagnosis at 26 years old of a rare genetic disease that runs in my family. And so when I say rare context, less than 50,000 people in the world, less than 3,000 people in the country, it's called HATTR for short. I don't want to bore you with all those details, but essentially no cure. As of now, there's a couple of drug

options that have finally just come to market. My grandfather passed away at 63. He had a brother die at 64. Another brother die at 54. My uncle passed away at 58. and my dad, now 10 and a half years ago, passed away at 53. So at an early age, at 26, right after my first son was born, I had a ton of certainty around my long-term future. Now, we all know life is short and lots of people have experiences and reminders that life really is short, like not even tomorrow is guaranteed. But that knowledge has given me a ton of clarity and a ton of focus. The clarity to know what's really important and what's not and the focus to chase after it. So there were times when I was working for Do It Best where I had opportunities to move

in advance, but at what cost? Why uproot your family and chase money, title, and status when you're not going to be around to enjoy it, right? And again, for people that are listening that have been through some of that, they've gotten that terminal diagnosis, they've lost someone early, they recognize that. And those experiences will totally reform and reshape what you know to matter. And so for me, it really was about how do I know who I am and what I'm chasing. And so for me, I'm a firm believer that we all develop from the inside out, that it starts with our identity and who we are. And then what are we chasing, our mission or our why, whatever that is. And then the rules by which we're going to play, what are those core values? And so if you think

of it like a funnel with the person standing at the bottom, that's your identity. Who are you? Like at the end of the day, man, when you finally put your phone down and you're laying in bed at night, do you like that person? And if you don't, what are you going to do about that? Who are you? And by the way, I mean, Tommy, we're in a season right now, right? Where lots of people, where they place their identity, a lot of that was stripped away. If your identity was in how many miles you traveled every year on an airplane, that's no longer a thing. If your identity was wrapped up in your kid's sports, that's no longer a thing. So there are a lot of people that have a ton of unrest right now because they're wrestling with this identity piece. And especially in the professional world,

just think about this, Tommy, the first time two people meet each other, aside from what's the first question they ask each other, it's what do you do for a living? They want to know because I want to size up how smart you are, how much money you make, and how can you help me? And then we'll call it networking. So our identity gets wrapped up in what we do. So for me, it's all driven out of who I am, which then my faith is extremely important to me. My personal relationship with Christ is sort of where my identity lies. So when I talk about who I want to be, it's all driven out of my personal mission statement. And this doesn't matter whether I'm working in a business setting, inside a manufacturing setting,

with small business owners, with large multi-location family businesses or corporations. My personal mission is to be a man of God who has kingdom impact, long-term legacy on my family, friends, and community in that order by thinking differently, leading courageously, and living passionately. So every day when I wake up, how do I help individuals and organizations think differently, lead courageously, and live passionately and discover the purpose they were meant for? Because I think every individual is here for a reason. In fact, entrepreneurs, a lot of times the reason they go into owning their own business to entrepreneurship is because they believe so deeply in having an impact and doing something

that they feel they're called to do and have a desire to do that they just can't shake. And I think we were all meant for relationship, influence, and an impact. And so where I anchor is in my faith and the way I approach every conversation and everything I do is driven out of how do I think differently about life, about what it means to work, to lead? How do I lead courageously? Because if you're going to think differently, you got to lead courageously. It takes a ton of courage to do what you do every day if you don't want to be like everybody else. Because nobody ever woke up and said, man, I hope my business is just like everybody else's. Man, I hope my marriage, like, here's what I want. I hope my business is just like everybody else's Man, I hope my marriage like here's what I want. I want my marriage to be like everybody else's marriage

I want my kids to be like everybody else's kid. Nobody wants that So if you're going to do that, you got to think differently It's going to take a ton of courage to lead and then at the end of the day you got to live passionately and so That's what drives me It's the impact I get to have on my wife, Amber, and my four boys every single day. And then how do I get to carry that into my friends and into my community, both locally and even nationally and globally as I

get to work with people and organizations of all sizes. That's great. So tell me a little bit about the Leadership Academy. Tell me a little bit about the people you work with and how that all comes together. Yeah. So the Academy itself has been around a little over a year. So Lipper Components is a supplier to the RV industry. So if anyone has an enclosed cargo trailer, a fifth wheel, a travel trailer, a pop-up camper, It was probably made right here in Northern Indiana. And odds are that you have a lot of our components on that unit of yours. And so take you back about six years, Lipper Components had 5,000 team members and our turnover was about 127%. It was a pretty bad place to work in terms of the way we treated people. We got a lot of stuff done, but we left a wake of personal destruction in our wake. And finally, our CEO and some of our folks realized there's a better way to do this. So we began the process of changing culture and

what does that look like and how do you do that? And at the core, it's about how you treat people and the way you value people and the way you interact with them. So fast forward today, 10,000 team members, 75 manufacturing locations throughout North America and Europe. And we've got our turnover is just under about 28%. Not great, but still in terms of where it was. And so what we saw was an opportunity to help other businesses, both in our industry and outside our industry, both for-profits not great, but still in terms of where it was. And so what we saw was an opportunity to help other businesses, both in our industry and outside our industry, both for-profits and nonprofits, and really just come alongside them wherever they are in their journey of business, of leadership, of culture, and help them take their next step because everybody's

in a different spot. And so how do we help them do that? So through the academy, that's what I get to do every day through speaking at conferences and breakout sessions, through coaching executives, through doing a team consult and working with individuals and groups. So that's what we get to do. We are a consulting agency that helps organizations take their next step in the journey of business and culture. So what do you think as far as a leader, you know, I used to hear a lot

about leadership and culture and how important it is. And when I was small, you know, five guys, we were just, leadership kind of took the back seat. It was like, we were so busy every day with the minutiae of our daily running the business and just headaches that came up and angry customers and, oh, here's the city auditing my taxes and all inventory didn't show up right. But as I got bigger, leadership and culture seemed to be, especially going through this pandemic, talk to me a little bit about a characteristic of an effective leader. Yeah, because culture in general is one of those things that just happens. It's like your financials every month.

At the end of the month, you run your financials or someone that you pay runs your financials and you get a P&L. Culture is a lot like that. It just happens. What determines how culture happens is the way you interact. So in a small business, the culture really is the way you interact. So in a small business, the culture really is the owner, right? Because you're setting the tone, you're setting the pace, and you're not even thinking of it. You just show up and do what you do, right? What are you known

for? Well, that starts to be a little bit of culture because it's who you are. As you grow, as you get outside what you can personally control, what you can personally do, things can start to creep because everybody has had that one onsite job site leader who's behaved a certain way that you got a phone call as the owner because someone didn't like the way they were treated. And in that moment, you're either going to go, no, he was fine or no, no, no, that's not how we do business. So you're right. As organizations grow, leadership and culture, paying attention to leadership and paying attention to culture become really, really important. So when I think about a leader, and for me, leadership is influence. Now that's not mine. John Maxwell would say leadership is influence, nothing more,

nothing else. But by that definition, every individual is a leader, whether they're titled or not, because everybody has influence on somebody. And so for me, I think the two most important characteristics of a leader, of a person of influence, and I would argue anybody, a person that owns their own business, a person that wants to be a great spouse, whatever it is, it's self awareness and then humility. Like there's got to be a level of, whatever it is, it's self-awareness and then humility. Like there's got to be a level of self-awareness where they will recognize, I don't know it all. Hey, I screwed that up. Hey, I could have done that better. I need to get some help. And then to go along with that, if you don't have humility, self-awareness doesn't matter. Because if you don't have humility, you're probably never wrong. Like you are the smartest guy on your crew. Like I know nobody can do it as good as you can.

So that's why you don't delegate. I know nobody will ever know as much as you. So that's why you don't ever hire and train well. And honestly, that's the biggest bottleneck for people that want to grow their business is they can't get out of their own way a lot of times because they can't let go because they don't have the self-awareness and the humility or they've never even asked anyone where they can get better. So for me, those two characteristics are pretty important. So with that being said, I think we've all hit peaks and valleys. Sometimes we hit years that we grow like crazy and then we hit years that kind of stay stagnant. And I always think I got it figured out. I think there's this gradual thing of taking on too much. You delegate not enough, and you have too many direct reports. And then you got to rebuild your infrastructure, rebuild your depth chart and your organizational chart.

But from your definition, what causes companies, and all of us have hit it. I don't think there's any company unless they're technology or hit the lottery. It's just every single day they're growing. We always hit these little lulls and then we got to kind of reassess. What causes that? Yeah, because it's in those moments where there's something that's triggered you to have to reassess, right? It's staggering growth. And all of a sudden you realize we can't operate the way we did to meet the demand, or it's an environment we're in now, right? Where things are looking completely different based off your industry, sometimes even just based off your state and what's deemed essential or not. And here's the reality in either case is that pressure reveals

where there's weakness, right? When things are going really, really well, poor communication might get overlooked because you just, you happen to get things done. When pressure is placed, character is revealed, systems are revealed, faulty systems are revealed. And so the bottleneck comes is when a leader is in that spot of pressure, either because of growth or because of the environment, like an environment we're in now where it's a crisis or a downturn. And they're not willing to go, okay, we need to stop and recognize what's working and what's not. And what do we need to fix? And what do we need to change? Especially for businesses, the longer they've been around, the harder it is. I mean, you think back to when you first started, you were making up systems and processes on the

fly. Now, as you've grown, you have well-established systems and processes. And some of them are really, really good, but some of them aren't very good anymore because they don't work because you designed that system for when you were 50 people and now you're 100 people. But man, I really liked that system. I knew how to create a new system, more than likely, usually what it is, is there's something inside the leader that doesn't want to change. I don't want to change because of something inside them. Let me give you an example. I was talking with a business. They have six crews that are out doing install work. And they really needed to hire a bookkeeper to help on the inside. So one of their principals could work on higher level things and wouldn't let go of some of the day-to-day book stuff. Turns out this individual grew up in family business.

And over the course of 30 years of being in the family business and watching relatives go through the family business, the family had money that was embezzled from them by a bookkeeper. and said, no one's ever going to touch my books. That roadblock has nothing to do with the fact that there isn't someone else who couldn't do the books better. I'm going to go back to where I started with out of our identity come our values and out of our values become our behaviors. So if you want to know why people act the way they do, get to the underlying value. And all of a sudden, that's where my work and I use my psychology degree as much as I use my mba because a lot of what trips us up as Leaders as business owners a lot of times has nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of the business It has to do with a lot of the stuff we dragged into the business

from Our growing up from our previous business experience with our past partner, from my current marriage, from my previous marriage. We bring all of that in and that starts to filter and affect the way we view what's going on. And a lot of times we just can't get out of our own way. And by the way, that's not a bad thing. That just takes some real work. I'm going to go back to self-awareness and humility, right? That's the bottleneck The bottleneck is recognizing where am I doing? Well, where am I not and how do I fix it? Can I fix it do I need to hire somebody smarter than me to fix it?

Because if you're not hiring people smarter than you you are not growing You're just adding more people to do whatever you just can't get done on your own to-do list. I like it. Yeah. I think I got to the point of the opposite of that, where I kind of just, I'm so lazy now. I just kind of delegate everything. And by the way, that's, I mean, you joke about that, but what you've really said there is you've gotten to the point where you now have the freedom to do those things which are most important to you, right? is you've gotten to the point where you would now have the freedom to do those things, which are most important to you, right? Because you've changed over the years and you could probably talk about this over the years, that thing you were chasing, what really, really mattered while some of it may have been core in the same, some of it's changed. Hey, I want to run this career. I want to grow this business to X. Okay. Now I want to expand into this market.

Well, that takes a different skillset. And so sure, you go through these as you grow and then you gain more freedom, you absolutely have to refocus. And if you don't, you're right. You go, well, I've went a whole year and not done anything. But everyone's got it. You got to know what you're chasing after and then go after it again. But sometimes you never create enough freedom to ever go after that. You know, what's interesting is I was talking to my regional manager yesterday. We were talking about our market managers. We're in a lot of states, a lot of markets. You know, we know what we need to do to grow the market. There's two things. We need more jobs and we need guys to run those jobs. And obviously we need to book those calls. We need to maximize the opportunities. There's all kinds, you know, the devils in the details, but we need more jobs and we need guys

to run those calls. So recruiting and get more calls, better advertising. So sales is a big thing too. We want to maximize every opportunity. We want high conversion rates, but that's the kind of macro level. But you know, that's what he said. He said, I tell these guys, that's what we need. And I said, well, here's the problem. It hasn't changed. Their jobs changed a lot. So three years ago, the whole company, we've taken on more from our headquarters here in Phoenix. We do a lot more. We handle inventory control. We've got a full-time recruiter. We've got full-time trainers. We've got a full-time sales coach. We've got all kinds of stuff. So it was the wild, wild west five, six years ago.

But these guys, it's so hard to teach an old dog new tricks. And when we were talking, I said, you know, Mike, I think what we need to do is really start to put a couple paragraphs every two weeks of what each market needs to do. And he goes, well, what do you mean? I thought you just said raise sales. I said, raise sales and raise the amount of jobs. So I said, for example, I want showrooms in areas that don't have a lot of Google My Business pages. And I want to add Google local services onto that. That's a hundred jobs a month. I said, so they got to find a spot for cheap rent and make a showroom out of it. Hire somebody to do that. Number two, I said, we got to talk about reviews. Number three is how are they going to recruit? How many builders are they reaching out to in a day? How many real estate agents are they using

social media? All these things. And I said, how do you get your top guy more calls? How do you get your bottom guy? How do you micromanage the bottom guy to either move them up or out? So I said, can you imagine if we just gave these guys a playbook every two weeks and we helped them figure it out for themselves? So right now, that's kind of my biggest goal this week is to literally show them the numbers and say, there's about 10 key performance indicators. Now, you fall here on this one. You're the top of the mark. So I'm going to have you talk to this guy. What do you guys think you could do to help him get up? And literally let them kind of work together for a couple hours as I'm facilitating it and then say, so our takeaways and then have them sign. They're going to sign what they're going to get done.

And I'm going to hold them accountable and I'm going to put a carrot and I'm going to put a stick there. And it's just interesting though, because you feel like this is pretty much common sense. Like we know what we need to do, but I think sometimes we take people for granted or we say it's common sense to us and we don't, we don't delegate, we don't get signatures, we don't get dates, we don't get timelines. Talk to me a little bit about that because that's something I'm going through and I feel like a lot of businesses right now going through this whole corona thing that they're really fixing processes and really trying to coach and figure out their fleet managers. But some of the things just aren't as easy for other people as they are for us

yeah and here's why because based off your position and your your title your obvious isn't somebody else's obvious what's obvious to you because of who you are because of your experience because of your position and your title isn't somebody else's obvious. I can walk through my house right now and I guarantee you who knows what my kitchen looks like because my four boys have just finished lunch, right? I'm going to go, guys, look around. Do you not see all this? And they go, no, not really. Why? Because where I'm coming from, I want things done this way. Like the process, right? What's the process? What's the system? I know it. They don't. Now, why don't they? Have I not taught it to them or have they not chosen to do it? Well, okay, now that's a discussion we have to have. Is it either on me

or is it on them? And here's what I've learned is that most times it's on the leader. I mean, if you think about the reason someone's not doing something, there's a few reasons. They weren't trained properly. They didn't understand the training or they didn't have the capacity to do the job. So let's think about those three things. They weren't trained properly. Well, whose fault is it if they weren't trained properly? Them or the trainer and the leaders? Well, it's the leader's fault. They didn't understand the training. Whose fault is that? Well, it's probably a little bit of both. The leader or the trainer didn't explain it well enough and didn't ensure comprehension. And maybe the individual didn't say, hey, I don't understand. Okay. The third one is then they just don't have the capacity to do the job. Okay. Well,

whose fault is that? Well, their fault for not having the capacity, but who hired them? So when you start looking at the reasons someone's not doing the job or following the process, more than half the reasons probably fall on the leader, fall on the leader or fall on the organization for it. Yeah, you're absolutely correct. You know, I always blame it for two things. They're either insubordination or there's incompetence. I'd rather have incompetence than insubordination because I always tell people, if you have a will, I'll find the way. I don't want to get rid of somebody that has passion that will figure it out. And outright defiance, that idea of insubordination,

outright defiance is coming from a very different place, right? And a lot of times it has to do with there's such a strong disagreement. I'm not going to do it because it's the wrong way. Hey, I'm not going to do it because ethically I don't want to do it. That's probably usually not the case. Or I just don't trust you as an individual, so I'm not going to do what you say, so forget you, right? And that's where then creating, like you said, hey, we're going to give them a playbook. We're going to evaluate where they are

so everybody knows. Because at the end of the day, all they want to know is how am I doing? Like, give me a scorecard. Am I doing well or am I not? Don't make me wait till my annual review, assuming you have one, to tell me how I'm doing. Like people want to know. They want to know how they're doing and what they need to do to get better. And so that's where creating systems, right? Creating processes. And so many times people don't have a system or a process short of what's in their head because that's how we did it when we first started. So I know that process. I know you've got to look for a spot where you're not getting traction and we need to put up a cheap showroom. That's instinct to you. That's your obvious,

but it's not their obvious. And so that's where you've got to teach them. And as you teach them, some people will get it and some people go, well, I don't understand, but I'll do it. The ones that get it, those are the ones you start to pour into because if they get it What you're really trying to do is you develop people is you want to know how they think Your job is isn't to necessarily always teach them what to think it's to teach them how to think because Too many times a leader will have somebody do something And it gets done. Okay, let's be clear. The outcome is success, but the leader will look at the individual and go, yeah, but that's not how you do it. Okay. Now you're hung

up on the process. And that really goes back to the way we're wired. Some people are process people. I am not. Some people love structure. Some people don't. The result is what matters now. Okay. If he got there, how can I help him refine his process so it's a good process, so he's not so inefficient, so he doesn't waste so much time? That's where the real work of developing people comes in, is you've got to be able to have a process that's replicable and that people can understand. And if you're ever going to grow, you know this, you can't go into the second market until you have a process for your first market down. How it plays out in the second market may look different, but man, that process has to be there. And it's obvious to you

because of your position. We all come from a different position. So one thing that you didn't have on my bio, because it's not out there, is I officiated high school and college basketball for 12, close to 15 years. And nowhere is this idea of perception is reality more clear. Think about sports. Think about basketball. A guy's going down the lane and there's a collision and I have a foul. I either have a block or a charge.

You either agree with me or you think I am the biggest idiot in the world based off the team you're rooting for. It only happens one way. They're either safe or they're out, right? Perception is reality, right? Now, here's the bigger piece is that position, position drives perception. Where you come from determines how you think. Let me put it in a personal context and then I'll give you a professional context. Every pinch point and every relationship you have happens when you come from a different position than someone else. If you've ever dated or are married to someone whose family grew up handling money differently than your family grew up handling money, I know what you argue about. You argue about money. Should we buy cars

or should we lease cars? Should we spank our kids or should we give them a timeout? Well, I would never spank my child. Well, he can have a timeout after I whoop him. Like how we were raised, right? Where we come from. Now think about this in a professional setting. Have you ever had a conversation with someone and you walked away and thought, that guy has no clue what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. Like, I promise, maybe it's been today, right? Like, I promise, they've walked away from you going, they have no clue what I'm talking about.

Now, what are you really saying in that moment? They have no idea the position I'm coming from, right? Which is why one of the greatest tools a leader can use is empathy. I need to understand where my guy is coming from. because if I don't understand where I'm coming from, I'm never going to be able to communicate. He'll never understand the process I need him to do if I don't understand where he's coming from. Like when I was in a corporate office, I would have the best ideas in the world. I'd have the best ideas in the world in a corporate office. And then I would call one of the business owners I got to work with and they'd go, have you ever been out of here on a really busy Tuesday in May? That's the dumbest idea ever.

Well, from my position, it was great. Okay. But if I don't understand their position, I'll never be able to, which is why I've got to know their position. Now, that doesn't mean they get what they want. That doesn't mean they get to run the show. It just means I have to hear them out and understand it. And now how can we together get to where we want to go as an organization? Bill Hybels would say it this way. Everybody doesn't have to get their way, but everybody wants to make sure their way is understood. And I think our jobs as leaders, as owners, is to make sure we're taking everyone's position

and then we're coming up with what's best for the individual, for the crew, for the customer, and for the organization. And now my job is to drive everybody towards that goal. Because if I can make my crew leader happy, if I can make my crew leader happy, if I can make my customer happy, and if I can satisfy the organization's need, probably financially, that's going to be good for everybody. Like now we're going to be firing on all cylinders. And now we're starting to create systems and processes that I can replicate the next community over, the next state over. Now, if you want to

grow your business, that's what you do. Systems and processes I can replicate based off what I know people need based off the position they're coming from. Yeah. There's Marcus Lamone in the private. He says people, process, and product. I think it's all about the process. The process dictates the people and the product. So one of the things you said is competition, competitiveness. And I think that's the number one thing I look for when I hire. Even in the call center, do you want to win? Do you want to book the most phone calls? Because you'll make the most money. And the hardest part for me is how much time do I have to spend when I do a wrong hire? Now, you're right. If I listen to them and I have empathy and I'm Dr. Phil, Dr. Phil Mello,

I'll call myself. My last name is Mello. There you go. And I'll just sit there. We'll talk and I can hear all your problems. But I'm like, you know, if I had to do this and we all, everybody listening right now is that one guy, that one gal or a dozen of them, that you're just like, man, you don't want to pick up the phone

because you know it's going to be. And a lot of times it's problems. I'm like, you know, here's the thing. Call me up when you have a solution for that. And here's the number one thing I try to do is, okay, I'll just use a random name. I don't have anybody named Kevin. So I'm just going to use the name Kevin. Kevin, I can appreciate where you're coming from. So what's the solution? Because here's my deal. I want you to tell me the solution to this problem and I'm going to make it happen for you. But if you come to me with problems every day, I need to know what's stopping you from being successful because we will agree

that you've always got something getting in the way. And there's a lot of things right now that are out of our control. I can't help it that the coronavirus is crazy in Detroit right now. That's where you're at. But there's certain things that are out of control. So let's talk about the things we can do that are out of control. Do me a favor. I want to put this in writing and I want you to sign off.

And I make everybody sign now on everything. I'm going to say that if I fix this for you and we work on this together, then you're going to have these results. Can we agree on that? There's nothing else going to stop you. I need something to release them. I need them to tell themselves they're free, that they have no more excuses. You know those people that I'm talking about? Yeah, because they're the people that they don't want to think for themselves. They just want someone to tell them what to do.

So all they do is bring a fire. Like the tool I will give leaders is if you have someone that does that and they always come to you, what do I do about especially if you know, they know Maybe they don't have the self-confidence. Maybe they're scared to come up with their own answer All you have to do is look at them and go Man, that sounds really really difficult. What are you going to do about it? And then don't say another word Like don't say another word let them wrestle with it because what you want them to do is exactly what you just said. Hey, here's the problem.

And here are three solutions I think that would work. I want to get your input. Now you're starting to see how they think, right? And now what you've done is now you go, okay, now here's what we're going to do. Or do we agree this is the issue? Okay. Now what you've done, Tommy, by making them sign is you're just creating real clarity around the expectation because without clarity, you can't have accountability. You can't come back to them. If it worked, you can't come back and celebrate them because that's

accountability too. Accountability isn't always a negative or it doesn't work. You can come back to them and go, what happened? What didn't work? Because we had talked through this and this is what we agreed we were going to do. Why didn't that happen? we had talked through this and this is what we agreed we were going to do. Why didn't that happen? And you're right, bad hires, you are better. The old adage is hire slow, fire fast. We talk about the three Cs when we look at bringing people on the team. Character, who are they as an individual? Can I trust them, their character, their competence? What do they know? Or what skills do they have that are transferable? And how much do I think they can learn?

And then connection. How well do they get along with everybody else on the team? Because everybody has that one team member who is really, really good. He's the best at the job, but nobody likes him. Everybody hates him. Yeah, he's really, really good, but nobody likes him. Everybody hates him. Like, yeah, he's really, really good, but nobody likes him. You can't have someone with a ton of competence, but if they have no character and connection, you're looking for team members that are growing in all three of those areas. Because you can't have someone that's a high character person, but not know what they're doing because everyone knows that person too. Listen, I trust that guy with my life. His integrity is through the roof. His character is unbelievable, but he doesn't have a freaking clue what he's doing. Like that doesn't work

either, right? It's got to be all of those areas. And when you have a team member that's out of sync in one of those, they start to create havoc through the rest of them. And no, you don't need to be, and we don't need to be Dr. Phil for people. We don't. We absolutely do not need to be. We need to be a place where people can know that someone will listen and someone cares. But I'm also not going to continually give you time if all you're looking to do is suck the energy out of me and you're not willing to put in some work to actually grow and improve. Like that's the trick of personal development is we can only do so much for a person and then at some point it's on them. We can want it more than they want it, but at the end of the day, you know that doesn't

work. They've got to have a pretty heavy dose of personal responsibility if they truly want to get better. Otherwise, it becomes this vicious cycle, and it's just time for us to move on. I agree. I've moved down a lot, even from top performers. And you kind of made me think of a funny phrase that I used to say a long time ago in my early podcast days, is people always say, man, I wish I had 10 more of me. And I say, hell no, I don't want 10 more of me. I'd have 10 really, really aggressive competitors if I had 10 more of me. There's no way I'd be working for myself. So I look at it like sometimes I'm like, man, if I was in that market, first thing I would do is I'd build a team of freaking amazing technicians because I handle all the phone calls from Phoenix. I handle

all the dispatching from Phoenix. So make my team ultra strong. And the way I do that is I get my ambassador, my strongest guy. Then I let him be the captain. And then I teach everybody else through standard operating procedures and manuals how to play the game. And then that's number one. Number two is I need to get more jobs. Then I go into my relationship mode and I'm meeting people every day. And I'm doing the things I need to do to build the business.

And I'd say to the owner, who would be me, I'd say, listen, give me a piece of the pie. I'm not talking about equity, but I want to show you if I'm able to improve 40%, that's your goal per year. What can I have after 40%? What are you willing to give me? Because I'll stay at your EBITDA number, I'll get you to the percentage you want, or I'll get you to your growth. Now, after that, can I take a piece? Boom, I'd say, okay, you're being aggressive. I like this. And you know what? I don't care if you make a lot of money because I know I'm doing

good. I know the company's doing good. But one thing that I did notice as we're talking, I want to ask you this question, Dustin, is if I have to give you one characteristic of a home service company that's winning every time, and I've visited hundreds and I've been to, I've done keynotes myself. I've, I've listened to a lot of keynotes. I've read thousands of books. And the one characteristic I will say is they keep track. You talk about basketball, you know, how many field goals, you know, how many, every single thing, you know, how many steals you've got, every characteristic of every player, you watch the stuff, you know, who you're playing, you do your research and we call them key performance indicators within the company. And everybody knows where they're at every single week.

You know where you place, you know how your coworkers are doing amongst you. You know who the best is. You have the opportunity to train with the best. You know your sales coach. You know there's a rhyme and rhythm to everything. And there's great leadership. There's great culture. But I see sometimes shitty leadership, not the best culture, but as long as they're keeping track of the numbers, they're good in finance, they're good at seeing, and see, the numbers kind of, they make the decisions for you, in my opinion. It's not, I think this, or I feel this way. It's black and white. This is what we're going to do, and here's why. So I wanted to ask you, you've been around a lot of companies. I'd say for me, that's the number one characteristic that I could tell you. And I want the listeners to understand that when I walk into business and they know exactly

the top conversion rate, top sales, top door, top air conditioning, top this, top that, top CSR, they tend to do an even round robin with their call center. The best booker will get the most calls and they'll get paid the most for that. Performance pays the way to go. But tell me in your expert opinion, what you think the characteristics, obviously there's so many to pick from, but what do you think really stands out to you about a company who's growing,

who's actually doing the right thing and the people enjoy working for them and they're just on a growth plan. That's just a hockey stick. Yeah. I think it's two things and they have to work side by side. The best ones are the ones who understand where that internal passion comes from through that, where that fire comes from internally. And they allow that to fuel what they do, but they don't just give in to the passion and sacrifice the process. The worst ones will always put passion over process. And the problem is, is that will only get you so far. Because as soon as you hire somebody,

employee number one doesn't have the passion you have, right? Even if it's a relative, they're not going to have the passion you have. So you got to have the process. And early on, entrepreneurs will go, man, if I just work hard enough, sheer brute force, I'll make it happen. And a lot happens because of sheer brute force, just because of digging in, putting in 80, 90, those 100 hours. But that will only get you so far, right? The best ones. The best ones fuel that passion and they start to fuel it not into the grunt work of doing the actual job of making the calls,

of ringing the doorbells, of all of that. It's going, I'm going to put that into forming a process that allows us to do even more because of the passion. So the best ones, they take the passion and the process and the need for process and they combine those. And when that happens, you become a force to be reckoned with because you have the drive to know what you're chasing and you will never stop. But you also have the discipline for process. Because you know there are times when sometimes the way to go fast is you got to slow down a little bit. Like you can't run wide open all the time. You burn out.

You know sometimes the best thing you can do is I need to take a break. The best thing I can do is I need to spend a day in my office even though hustle quote-unquote Hustle starts to look like well, I got to be out there. I got to be going I got to be going really? Because sometimes the best thing you can do is be in your office if you're the owner And thinking and you know what thinking looks like. I mean just imagine the thinker the sculpture, right? It looks like you're sitting there. People walk by your office and go, what the hell is he doing? He's just sitting in there. You're right. I am. I'm just sitting in here thinking so I can develop processes so we can continue to go out and do what we do

with amazing exception. And so you can never sacrifice one for the other between process and passion. Because if you ever sacrifice the passion, it just becomes a job you do. And nobody wants to do that. 75% of the workforce is disengaged in their job. They don't like what they do. So nobody wants that. You got to be passionate about it. But passion is only going to get you so far, man, because passion won't necessarily last forever at the level. And at some point you better have process. So the best companies, they have both of those. And for the leader, that's good at one and not the other, they hire people that are good at it. Right? Like I had, I would work with businesses and I would go, listen to me.

Don't you ever touch your books. Don't. You be out front. You talk to customers. You pick up the phone. You be the person out front and hire someone to take care of all that process stuff in the back. And then I had other owners where I would say, listen, I know this will sound weird because of the industry you're in, but don't you ever talk to a customer. Just don't.

You're really, really good at the back end. You're really, really good at process. You're really good at financial management. You're really good at systems. You're really good at all of that. Hire somebody who is high energy and who's good with customers. You don't have to do it all. Maybe early on you had to, and it's gotten you to where you are, but if you're going to go where you want to go, do what you're really good at and then hire people who are better at those other things. Like you said, you don't want 10 people at you. Like you need one of you and you need another one that's not you that's really good at all the things you're not good at.

Yeah, that's important. And I think if you look at the book Rocket Fuel, a guy told me to read that a long time ago and it literally changed my life when I realized I'm the visionary and there has to be an integrator. And I think if you look at the book Rocket Fuel, a guy told me to read that a long time ago. And it literally changed my life when I realized I'm the visionary and there has to be an integrator. There needs to be someone around me that says I'm the big picture. There needs to be the micro guy, the guy that says, okay, he's the tactical, I'm the strategy. And a lot of people could do both, but that'll only take you so far. And it's so hard because everybody that reads that book,

they say, I think I'm both. And I'm like, okay, well maybe, but I, at least I'm a realist. I don't enjoy it. You're both because you have to, right? I'm both because I have to, right? Like I'm a, I'm a passion drive, big picture guy. I have a day planner because I hate structure, but I have to, we all do things we don't like to do and things we're not good at, but we've learned to flex and do them really, really well because we have to. But at your core, what are you really, really good at? Like what part of those job fires you up and what part don't you like to do? Well, okay, you do them and you do them well because you have to. But man, if everyone could just do the things they're really, really good at and they want to, and you build a team that all has their thing,

and that team clicks on all cylinders, man, now you're going to go somewhere because you got a group of people that want to win at all costs because that's where they'll get and they'll respect each other and take care of each other in the process. Yep. And I think what you said earlier, though, is like, you know, keep being competitive. It's like the blind leading the blind when you're not keeping score. And I'll tell you this, when I realized I hated, I would not look at the bank account. I mean, we went really bad for a couple of years when I was like, I was afraid to look at financing. I was afraid to look in the bank account. I was afraid to look at credit cards. Whereas before,

I kept track of all of this. So all of it was paid, cut up. And then I learned, man, it was so easy. It was so hard. But once I looked at, I faced the devil square in the eyes. And I said, the devil to me was the books. It was the P and L it was, I know we're doing good, but how good. But then I said, oh my gosh, holy cow, we got to close this market. we got to close this market we got to do this we got to do this we need to give him a raise we need to fire these guys I was like holy crap so I had to end up looking at it when I looked at it it was like oh my gosh and now I'm like obsessed with it the stuff that used to give me the worst headaches the nightmares I'm like show it to me now I could do something about it so now I'm going okay we're stuck in a rut, you know, three and a half to 4 million. How do I get to that 5 million a

month? And the thing is, I know I could buy some companies, but we built a calculator. I'm looking at it right now. It's on one of my four screens. And it literally says, if I change this number this much or change this, so it's by changing these numbers in this calculator, I'm actually setting goals. I'm saying this is doable, I'm actually setting goals. I'm saying this is doable. And I'm setting these initiatives for the company. And that's my job as the president, CEO, owner, is to say, here's our goals, and here's what happens if we hit them. So maybe the numbers are so important to me is because it's something I was missing.

Maybe some companies need marketing and sales, because that's my two favorite things in the world. But I hate the no. I love math. I took advanced calculus, all that stuff. But I don't like the finance numbers. I'm like, whatever. I don't like doing pivot tables and CSV files.

But now that I'm comfortable with it, I'm like, whoa, holy cow. We changed this cancellation rate from 13% to 10%. We changed this average ticket from $6.55 to $6.85. We get our conversion rate and door sales from $55 to $68. We're hitting $5.5 million. I mean, we don't even have to change the leads. Sometimes I hear this all the time too. I hear that people say, I need more leads or I need more guys. And I'm like, wait a minute, why do you need more guys? And they're like, because it's truly a lot of times they need more guys, but it's so hard to make those first few hires.

But a lot of times they say I need more leads. I'm like, wait a minute, you guys are already running five calls a day. They should be running three. Why do you need more leads? All you're trying to do is throw, why not get more out of the jobs you're already running? Why not take more time? And I'm telling you over and over and over time is a cure. You spend the

time with the customer, you connect with them. You tell them, I want to earn your business. You smile. You say, listen, you know, one of my guys told me this the other day. He said, I'm sorry. I want to wait for my wife. He said, what time did she come home? He said, 530. He goes, listen, I'm not a pressure guy. I'm here to do the right thing. Do you mind if I just come back at 530, show her, let her make a decision? If you guys choose somebody else or I'm not the right person, we're not the right company, I understand. But I'd love to at least show this to her and I don't mind.

I'm going to be back in the neighborhood. He said, yeah, he closed the deal. I mean, that's the difference though is time cures all. Kind of went off on a tangent there, but I just. No, and so a couple of things. It goes back to being competitive and knowing where that drive comes from, right? And what winning really looks like. Why did you get into the business? Why do you do what you do? And how are you going to chase after it, right? And knowing what that looks like, both in the immediate and in the long-term,

right? Are you building something because you want it to go on? You're going to liquidate when you retire? Knowing all of that starts to determine. And knowing what you're good at, especially as the owner, going, well, I don't like that. And I don't want anyone to hear me going, well, Dustin said I should just hire someone else. And now it's their responsibility. Because as the owner, as that guy, that's still on you, right? Just because you didn't like the books, you shouldn't have gotten a pass for not looking at them, right? And what you found out was, oh, maybe they weren't so scary. And now I actually love it because now I can just change. I don't need to go worry about buying another company. If I can change my close rate, if I can increase this,

if I can decrease that, we're going to hit all the numbers we need to. And it starts to give real clarity. And the problem is when people don't have those systems and that understanding, the fix, more sales, more calls, more stuff at the top of the funnel. That's all we need. And then it will all be fixed, which we know that isn't true, which is why inevitably exponential growth is nearly all the time way harder to manage and lead through than exponential decline. It always is because cash gets really tight when you have exponential growth because you're hurting for people when there's exponential growth. It's way harder. But the problem is, is people just want to stuff the top. Just give me more leads, give me more sales, and that'll help me make more money. And what they don't do is they

don't convert. They don't convert. Man, my sales, I was up 14% last year. Great. What was your bottom line? What were you up? Well, I was pretty flat. I was up 2%. Really? Okay. People always brag about that. They brag about their revenue, not their profit. And me personally, and I've heard this, there's two frames of mind, and I want to hear your take on this, Dustin. So me personally, I'd rather be at 5% with 100 million than 10% at 50 million. Now people say, why? You got way more headaches. at 10% at 50 million. You've got half the headaches. You're at a hundred million doing 5%. But I say this, you got to be telling me you got a hundred million and you're only making 5 million profit.

Let me come in there because you're doing something right. All you got to do is turn a couple of dials. I'll spot it out right away. And when I fix it, you're going to go from 55 million to $20 million. But it's so hard to take you up from $50 million to 10% to $100 million, if that makes sense to you. So, of course, people always say, do less revenue but more profit. I've always had the mentality, especially when I was out,

because there was a time, Dustin, where I said, I don't care how much profit I make. I'm just going to have to pay Uncle Sam if I need to get to those huge numbers and then I'll worry about profit. And I don't know if I was necessarily wrong because it's great to be profitable all the way up because I was just re-injecting the money. And it was just, it was like so many people I know, Dustin, they take the money out, they buy a boat, they buy a second house to get the huge RV. And me, I was just like, no, let me not make a ton of money. Let me pump it back in. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah. And I don't

think either one is wrong because I bet somewhere out there in the world, there's another guy who's just as passionate about you who would argue the other side. Oh yeah. This is right. And so this is where it starts to be really important as an individual to know what matters to you and how you like to operate, right? You like to go, and I would, by the way, I would agree with you because when I see a hundred million at 5% versus 50 million at 10%, I instantly going, holy cow, the inefficiency in a hundred million dollar operation, I can have more impact there than I could a 10% because at 10%, to get another percent is going to be really, really hard.

Like you got to put a lot more work in to get that 1% out of that 50 million versus to get 2% out of 100 million. That's probably simpler. There's probably more low hanging fruit on that, right? But there are some people that because they know what's important to them and they know the life they want to live, like, man, you want to take the money out and buy a camper and spend that time? Great. Then be content with that. Then don't get all riled up and ticked off with yourself or with your people if you're

not growing like somebody else is growing, right? It's the comparison trap. If what you do makes you happy and you're content and at making the money you're making for your family, then you should stop. Like you're there. Whether that's making a hundred million, five million, or half a million. Like whatever that is for you. The problem is, is we go, well, yeah, but they got a new boat. Did you see where they went on vacation? Well, they got another car. What are we going to like? We start to compare. And so it's knowing how you operate. It's the same reason some guys love to go in and buy a business and turn it around. And once it's turned around, they're like, I'm out. I don't want to run this if it's just going to run smooth.

Other people go, I have no idea how to turn it around. But once it's humming, I can absolutely fine tune it. Some guys are good at major repair work. Other guys are really good at fine tuning. And as long as you know that about yourself, you're in the right spot and you'll always be in the right. It's when you don't and think you should be doing the other one, that's where you'll get yourself into trouble very very quickly it's kind of funny it reminds me when i used to play you know just in the a lot of soccer and when we play recreational i'd always say okay that team's way better like let me go on the other team. So that way, if I win, I always want to be on the, I won't say the losing team, but the other team had a huge advantage. And, uh,

I don't know if that's quite the same thing, but in my mind, Competitive street, everything you do is a contest. I bet like it might not be. It's like, listen, it's not a contest. It's not, I know. I'm sure. I can just tell like, there are things in your life where you go, listen, I know it's not a contest, but we're winning. And that's the way some people are wired. I remember telling one of my boys, he was soccer early. And at early ages, there's no winning and there's not. And they were in the final game of the year. And he's like, dad, it doesn't matter. And I'm like, well, listen, if it doesn't matter, then let's just go out and win. Because I'm just, I can be that way, right? And that benefits you. And that's allowed you to do

what you do. And as long as you know that about yourself, then everything will continue to work. Where people get in trouble is when they don't recognize that about themselves, and then it starts to get them in trouble. You know, I tell my guys, I'm like, there's two types of people. When I hire them, I say there's those I tell my guys, I'm like, there's two types of people when I hire them. I say, there's those who have to win and there's though that hate to lose. And there are two different, because the difference between me is hate to lose means you don't want to be in last place. You know, to put me anywhere except for last, don't put me in the bottom 10%, but I'm okay in the middle. Then there's those that see themselves come in number three out of a hundred

and they, they look down at themselves and they go, how could you do this? You're better than this. Number three out of a hundred. It's amazing. But they say, I'm, I'm the third place. I'm the third loser. Other people at the number 50 in the company, they go, man, I'm right there. I'm hanging in the middle.

I got, Hey, I'm right there at the meat of the media, you know? And it's just a different mindset. And I love the guys that get mad. They're in the top 10 and they, they look at each other and they're like, dude, how you doing today? There's not a loser because you know, if everybody does good, no one loses, but they still look at it as a competition. And I think that that that's what makes an amazing person. And I'm talking about sales and conversion. I'm not talking about in the financial department, cause that's a different type of mindset and personality. You know, we've got a lot of stuff here.

I wanted to just hear a little bit about your two books if you wanted to talk a little bit about those real quick. Yeah, so the retail is 50 thoughts, ideas, and conversations to make your business better. Came out of my work in the retail world with small business owners, family businesses. And in reality, the book, because that was the space at the time I was in, I actually started to even rewrite it because that book is so more applicable than beyond just retail, but it's short. It's 50 just chapters.

So every chapter is a word. And then I just sort of expand on that. So when we talked about that word obvious earlier, one of the chapters in there is retail is obvious and you're obvious isn't someone else's obvious. And so they're real short. It's a real short read one you can just pick up and put down. There's no sort of thread to it. And so that was the first one that came out several years ago. And then the second book, the boys book, Dear Boys, The Letter Every Son Needs From His Father, is a completely different book. That's one that would have been written no matter what. It was written for my sons. Because of my health and because of my history, it was a letter that I wrote to my boys if something should ever happen to me. And I got the idea from the Gettysburg Address.

So the Gettysburg Address is maybe the most famous speech in American history. But Abraham Lincoln wasn't the primary speaker that day. And his remarks were only 10 sentences, 262 words. And so when I heard that, I thought, huh, I wonder if I could tell my boys everything I wanted them to know about what it means to be a man, especially a man of faith in 10 sentences. And so I wrote it and I wrote the book and the book is designed for fathers and sons to go through together. So when my son, my oldest son turned 15, we go out for breakfast. We read a chapter. There's questions for dad to answer. There's questions for a son to answer.

And my goal in that book is that every dad would write their son a letter because I think, man, deep down in my core, I believe there are words that if you have a son and you're their father, that they need to hear them from you, that only you can speak to them, no matter how great their uncle is or their grandpa is, or even their mom is, there are words that they need to hear from dad. And so the book was written for my kids, but it's one I've been excited to share with the world and heard some pretty exciting and cool stories out of dads and sons going through that book together.

And even dads going through that book together just to help them as they navigate parenting and raising boys in a society that it's awfully hard to do that. I don't have any kids yet, but I'm going to buy it when I have a kid. Hang in there, man. You have no idea. You want to talk about game changers. The kids in general. Hang in there, man. You have no idea. It's a, you want to talk about game changers. The kids in general are a game changer, man. Oh man. I'm excited though. I gotta tell you, I just smile when I think about my niece and nephews. So, you know, tell me a little,

okay. I asked a few questions towards the end. What are three books that you'd recommend? And they could be, it could be the Bible. It could be fiction. It could be, you know, futuristic. It could be business books. What are three books that you'd highly recommend at this point for the listeners? Okay. Three, three books. Here's the first one for anyone who has people that they're responsible to lead in any way, shape, or form.

It's called The Master Coach by Greg Thompson. G-R-E-G-G, two Gs, Greg Thompson. The Master Coach. Just practical, lots of great practical application on how to interact and actually lead people in a way they need to be led, not necessarily where I want them to go, but how to actually coach people,

not just manage people. That would be the first one. The second one is by Simon Sinek called The Infinite Game. It's his latest book that just came out. And it talks about the long term versus the short term and what kind of game are you really playing? And what are you really playing for? That would be for me, the, the second book and the third one. And this is written from a position of faith. So if there's a leader who's comes from a position of faith, it's a book called rare leadership. It's about how to lead and lead well but through the filter of

your faith marcus warner and jim wilder there you go marcus warner that was it yep rare leadership again through the filter of of your faith because i think as a person of faith you can live it out in a way that's not off-putting that's's not anything less than genuine, assuming it is genuine to you and live it out authentically. And if you live it out like most things in life, if you live it out authentically, you really don't have to talk about it because people will sense it because they see it in you. And I don't care what that is. You don't have to talk about how competitive you are because people just see it because you live that out so authentically. And I think that's true for every area of our lives. Awesome. If someone wants to get ahold of you, what's the best way to do that?

Yeah. The easiest way to do that is through either LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn, just Dustin Carr, my last name. And I know you'll have it spelled for everybody, but it's K-A-E-H-R. It just looks hard. You can hit me up on LinkedIn or on Instagram are the two easiest places to look me up and you can get access then to get the books and everything else right through those two platforms. Perfect. And the final thing I do is let you kind of

finish this off with a few minutes on any subject you want. Just kind of one last message for the Audience it could be anything that you feel passionate about Yeah, you know i'm gonna sort of end with where I started And it's that idea that life really is short and I think We were all designed to have relationship

And you know ego is a funny thing But we weren't meant to do life alone. So there's a type of camouflage called the dazzle effect. And most of you may not know what the dazzle effect is, but you know the animal that uses it. All you have to do is picture a zebra. The black and white stripes of a zebra are called the dazzle effect. And how the dazzle effect works is that when a herd of zebra are running, it's very hard for a predator to determine speed and direction because of the stripes. So the way they hunt zebra is you have to break one off from the herd. You have to isolate them because once you isolate them, the dazzle effect loses its effect.

We were meant for relationship. And especially for people who are highly motivated to win, especially for business owners, don't do life alone. Don't do life alone because it's not how we were meant to live. And ultimately, you will get eaten alive. You will get separated. I think everybody needs to have a mentor. And I don't care who you are, how much you know, or how smart you are, or how long you've been alive. Everybody needs somebody above them who's a little bit further down the road than they are, whether it's in personal or professional life. Everybody needs people beside them. They need an identity group and not just an accountability group, but an identity group. Find people who deeply believe the things you believe and stick close to them and help

each other through life. And then I think everybody needs someone below them. There's somebody who is a few years behind you who could use your help. And you may be going, well, Dustin, I'm 27. I'm just trying to figure this whole thing out. Great. Somewhere there's a 19-year-old who'm just trying to figure this whole thing out. Great. Somewhere there's a 19-year-old who's still trying to figure it out as well. Help them.

Because we were meant for relationship. And the only way we have relationship is getting over our ego and thinking differently about how we live our life. And so remember the dazzle effect. Find a mentor. Find an identity group. And find someone below you that you can help. Because listen, at the end of the day, you know it as well as I do. It's all about people. Life is about people. No matter how much money you make, if you don't have people to enjoy

it with, it doesn't matter. If you don't have people you're doing it for, it doesn't matter. And if at the end of your life, you have all of those possessions, but you don't have people, then I'm going to argue it really didn't amount to that much. Relationships are what we're meant for. So chase those with the same fervency. You chase everything else in your life. I love it. Well, that's good. You're one of the first guys I've had on here that really was more of the, a little bit deeper, a little bit more on the higher level of thinking, just more of a frequency of thinking more than just a tactical approach to business. So got a lot out of that and really, really, really appreciate everything you taught us here, Dustin. Hey, Tommy, I appreciate the time. I love the conversation.

All right. Well, listen, if I'm ever in Indiana or, hey, when appreciate the time. I love the conversation. All right. Well, listen, if I'm ever in Indiana or hey, when are you coming to Phoenix? There's a chance I may be coming out there for a conference at some point. When I come out, I will. I was supposed to be out there in April, but it got canceled because of all of this stuff. So that gets rescheduled. I will be sure to hit you up. All right, my brother.

We'll talk soon. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, it means a lot to me and I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast. Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff. And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe. You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going

to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on. And do me a quick favor, leave a quick review. It really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review, make it four or five sentences, tell us how we're're doing and i just wanted to mention real quick we started a membership it's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club you get a ton of inside look at what we're going to do to become a billion dollar company and uh we're just we're telling everybody our secrets basically and people say why do you give your secrets away all the time and i'm like you know the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them so we also create a lot of accountability within this program. So check it out. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment.

I'm not making any money on it to be completely frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your lives even further. So thank you once again for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it.