The Home Service Expert Podcast - How To Take Your Time Back By Becoming A Master In Delegation

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

Ryan Paugh is the co-founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, an exclusive organization for entrepreneurs under 45 seeking to bolster their business credibility and forge lasting professional relationships. A well-known figure in the world of community-building, Ryan is also the co-founder of Brazen Technologies, a company that specializes in helping professionals create more meaningful connections through convenient technological solutions.  In this episode, we talked about networking, entrepreneurship, community building...

I've always found the best candidates for me are people that have come from just the most interesting lines of work. One of my favorite employees right now who I hired for a community builder job used to sell oil to just millionaires and billionaires all day. That's what they did. And now they're one of my top community managers. You wouldn't have put those dots together on the resume. But when you talk to them and you really listen to what their strengths and weaknesses are, you can just see and connect the dots to know where they fit. So for me, I think what's really important as a leader is to be a really good listener and to really do a lot more listening than talking to your employees. Because I think you'll learn so

much more about them, where their strengths and weaknesses lie, what their values are, and what their motivations are. Because that's the stuff that's going to help you continue to help them grow and succeed and make them feel valued and make them feel like they're a part of the culture of your company. 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. Today, I have a very special guest. His name is Ryan Paul, and I'll tell you a little bit about him. He's an expert in networking, entrepreneurship,

and community building. A quick bio about him is he's been involved with the Business Journal's Leadership Trust. He co-founded that. The Ad Age Collective, he's a co-founder. The Community Company, the co-founder. Forbes Council, co-founder and COO. Young Entrepreneur Council, which I'm a member of. He's the co-founder and COO. And the Brazen Technologies, which he's the co-founder. Named a cult legend in the community building world by Mashable and Gen Y Employment Champion by Fortune. Has helped thousands of young professionals and entrepreneurs in their career pursuits. Co-founder of YEC, which is the Young Entrepreneur Council, an invitation-only organization for top entrepreneurs under the age of 45. He's

a co-author of Super Connector, Stop Networking and Start Building Business Relationships That Matter. I've traveled with Ryan. I've been to some of his events. The last one was in Salt Lake and he definitely was a huge advocate when I was putting my book together. Ryan, excited to have you on today. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Yeah, man, this is going to be great. You know, do you want to just tell us a little bit about you, a little bit about what you're involved in, where you came from, what your plan is, where you're headed. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I'll try to do some of that for you. Yeah. So to get started, I became an entrepreneur after college. I jumped into a pursuit called Brazen Technologies. At the time it was called Brazen Careerist. Really what we were focused

on is bringing young professionals like ourselves together as we were making that transition from college into the real world, helping kind of make it a little bit of an easier transition. That was my first real professional bout into community building, focused very heavily on bringing young people together from around the country to help them find their calling and find career success. That's what led me to meet my business partner now, Scott Gerber, who you also know as the other founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council and the community company. And together, Scott and I formed an alliance, formed a common mutual bond and understanding that we believe that entrepreneurship can be a lonely place.

And we wanted to create community and create camaraderie for entrepreneurs who felt the same way. And that's how YEC was born. And subsequently, we created other communities like that through the Forbes Council's At Age Collective, Business Journal's Leadership Trust, and the rest that you mentioned earlier. Okay, so there's a lot to be discussed about a community. We think about all the different things that we go do, networking events, there's masterminds. Tell me a little bit about community building and what that's all about. And I've grown so

much through these things. And just give us the definition of what that means. Community building, in essence, is just the construct of bringing people together with mutual bonds that share mutual interests, have mutual values, to help them succeed or reach their goals together. It's really about connecting the dots, helping two people that need to be connected or multiple people that need to be connected, get together and make magic happen. So really, we're just kind of the people behind the scenes connecting those dots and hopefully making magic happen, specifically in the business world between two or more than two business people who really should connect to excel and support one another and reaching their business goals. All right. So I met you at YEC, Young Entrepreneur Council, and I know what it is,

but it's pretty cool how the community uses each other. I'm involved a lot. I post a lot of stuff in the Facebook group. Anytime I need help with anything, there's like 20 people there to assist me in whatever category, whatever help I need. Also, it's got like 20 people there to assist me in whatever category whatever help I need Also, it's got a great way to get posted on forbes Entrepreneurs like every single I think huffington post I got put on. I mean you got me under my first huge articles online Talk to me about what that looks like and how powerful it is

Yeah, so yac really has three Main pillars of what it is that we do. We do networking and connections, again, so helping connect those dots and bring really great people together to help them achieve their business goals. We do visibility, which is sort of the benefit you just touched on, where we really put a big focus onto personal and company branding, helping our members share their thought leadership, share their voice, get put on a soapbox so they can really connect with an audience and build some additional credibility and some additional social proof for what they're trying to create through their business endeavors. And then the third is our growth pillar, which is really about education, mentorship, and coaching. We actually have a collective of coaches that work specifically with YEC to help members through business growth and bottom line business revenue growth challenges that they want to overcome, getting through some of those hurdles and some of those

plateaus that you hit. And we also have people that help folks that have reached sort of a point of feeling really successful, operationalize and become better leaders through our leadership coaching program. Awesome, man. This is pretty exciting what I've got through YEC and just the people I've met. I've probably met up with other outside of meeting with you and your events. Just I've had guys fly in to come see me. I've flown out and met with people. When I'm in a city, I've connected, like a lot of times we'll post on there. Is anybody going to be in Dallas at this time? And it's just great. It's almost like a mini mastermind, but it's bigger than a mastermind because nobody has to be at an event, but you

could be. And it's just a great way to be there i think it's just the coolest thing ever and cool and the fact so you guys post those questions all the time and i've been getting a lot of uh you know just by reading through them and going through them and using what people use in the latest softwares i mean you get a lot out of that don't you yeah we call those our expert panels and really it's it's a two-part value, right? The first is, it's a really easy way, literally from your phone, right? You could be answering these questions while you're ordering a latte at a Starbucks to get easy press mentions because we turn all the content that we gather from these expert panels into roundups of advice for outlets like Forbes and Inc. and others that we have partnerships and

relationships with. But then also what you just alluded to as well is it's a great way to just kind of get a roundup of really, really good advice on very hyper-focused topics from a trusted group of entrepreneurs. And I think we hear that a lot. You know, members love, enjoy answering the expert panel questions for that publicity and that visibility, but they also just enjoy reading answers from other members because it gives them insight into how they might be running their business differently.

And just getting that perspective from a lot of different diverse types of entrepreneurs who have skillsets in different industries is just a very valuable thing. Yeah. One of the ancillary benefits of these expert panels and being able to publish articles within the YAC community is it becomes a huge SEO tool. So if you search my name, Tommy Mello, without the W, I've got Huffington Post. I've got all these things that came from YAC. I actually became an Inc. contributor. So there's a lot of great things that comes from

that. And then also, it lets me put my name on each one of them. So Tommy Mello gets put out all over the internet and people are like, geez, how'd this guy get on Forbes and Huffington Post and Inc.? So it gives me credibility, but it also allows me to put a link into my business on a lot of them, which is there are no follow links, but they really mean a big deal to Google and Bing. So it would take somebody years to get the notariety or whatever you want to call it, to be able to get at that level, to be able to publish on them. And you kind of created a fast track way to do it through YEC, right? We created a framework to do it through really trusted partnerships in a very safe way, right? Because you could go out and you could pay someone to do a lot of SEO for you, but

really does it work or is it valuable or is it something that is actually helpful or harmful to your business? There's a lot of hucksters out there. What we really focus on is we focus on the thought leadership benefit. And then a lot of members like yourself get SEO from that as well. That's not the intent or the goal when we go into it. A lot of members have that outcome. But really, at the end of the day, we believe that it's the thought leadership and that social proof that you're building through sharing your expertise with the world through

these renowned media publications that comes first. And yes, then when someone starts Googling Tommy Mello, you see all these really great things come up. If someone you're working with is thinking about whether or not they want to choose you over someone else, you got to believe that the first thing they're going to do is they're going to type your name into Google. And if you have really solid results and thought leadership out there where you're sharing your ideas and really putting out some powerful stuff, that's the kind of thing that really wows a potential customer or stakeholder.

And it's not just links to a site where you might be mentioned. Anyone can perform that task. It's going to a site and actually seeing valuable, rich content that you've put out there for the world that really showcases who you are as a professional and what you know. Not to mention, everything we put out there is professionally edited, which is the other unseen value of YEC. It's not just about you writing. It's about being able to work with a professional J school graduate editor on our team who's not going to let you publish anything until it's something that's readable and something that people are going to want to look at and want to read and will understand. Because a lot of us, let's face it, as entrepreneurs are not the most prolific writers,

right? But we help you take those ideas, which we all have, and that expertise that we all have, and turn it into something incredibly valuable. Because again, we're going to match you with someone behind the scenes that's going to make sure that all your ideas and your expertise turns into something that's incredible for a reader of any of these media publications to pick up and read and tune into. Yeah. And actually what happened with me by using YEC is I became a much better writer because I learned what these different articles submission, whether it's Forbes, Stuffings & Post, Entrepreneur, all these different places, I learned what these different articles submission, whether it's Forbes, Stuffington Post, Entrepreneur, all these different places. I learned what they're looking for. And with the help of your editors, after you go through that process enough times, it helps get you ready to be able to put out really great content all the time.

So I learned a lot from that as well. I was reading a lot of your interviews and everything. And you mentioned that right out of college, you became an entrepreneur. It was like right out of college, you wanted to be an entrepreneur, and you've had major successes and major failures. And what specifically about being an employee made you want to become an entrepreneur? You know, I think I was just uncomfortable with the idea of someone else being in the driver's seat of my own success. And I think that when you are in that corporate world, in some ways, you kind of are just at the mercy of other people.

Versus as an entrepreneur, you are the decision maker. You're the one that controls the vision and the path in which you take. And it just didn't feel right to me to jump into something where I wasn't able to give my full self, especially in my 20-somethings where we're all just ripe with energy and enthusiasm. It just felt as if I should be using those years to do something where I could give more of myself and be in charge of more of the decision making. And that's what kind of led me to take the leap because I knew that early on, this is the time to make those changes and take those risks. Because now I'm 36, I have two kids, I have a

mortgage, I have a wife, I have to put food on the table. And it would have been a lot harder for me today to make that move and say, you know what, I'm going to jump out of the cubicle and I'm going to start my own thing. I mean, that'd be a very risky endeavor as the breadwinner for my family. But again, back in my early 20s, when I was just ripe with energy and able to take those risks, because there isn't a lot to lose, it was the right time. And I'm really glad that I did it. You know, a lot of people that are listening are involved as either a home service business owner or they're involved as the employee and both have very great merits to them. I think a lot of owners are still in the employee framework.

And what I mean by that is they don't, and this isn't all cliche, but they work in the business all day instead of on the business. They think they were a really good technician or they were really good on the accounting side. But when you become an entrepreneur and an owner of a business, you know, I say this all the time, I only work, I only work half time because I only work 12 hours, seven days a week. I just pick the 12 hours are different. So what do you say about that? Because I just wish there were more employees that were still employees instead of becoming owners, because they come out, they play this game of I'll be cheaper and they work from home and they don't have a professional office. They don't offer their employees benefits. They have attrition

through the roof. And then they fail at it after three to five years, they go back and they just wasted all that time. Now they have bad credit. They have no money saved. And now they're back doing what they did before. And I don't think a lot of the people that are on this podcast are listening like that, but they got to warn the people out there and their employees. What do you have to say to someone like that? There's a lot there to unpack. First and foremost, I think it's important to kind of recognize this isn't just a home services thing. I don't have a lot of experience in your realm or for some of the listeners, your realm. But I do hear what Tommy's saying. And what you're saying is so true to any

entrepreneur, any small business, any startup. It doesn't matter if you're like the next big unicorn company or a home services business. We're tried and true. I mean, I have friends in all of those realms of business and they all say the same stuff. This is hard and it's hard to strike that balance. It's hard to figure out how to scale and to give employees over the control and teammates over the control to help grow it for you so you can be more of the executive that you need to be.

It's also hard to make decisions as to what to spend your money on. There are so many risk factors. I think at the end of the day, the one thing I would say is that in business, and again, it doesn't matter what business you run, people will always be your most important asset. Who you surround yourself with will always be your most important asset. Who you surround yourself with will always be your most important asset. Nobody does it alone. I think there's a stigma of being an entrepreneur that you are sort of a one-man army,

and that's just not the case. The best entrepreneurs, the ones that I respect and I admire and look up to for mentorship are ones that have surrounded themselves with people who have strengths where they have weaknesses and vice versa. They fill gaps and they bring great people into the fold and they help create wealth for those people in their lives, not just wealth for themselves. When I hear about bringing on people

and not providing the benefits and not really investing in them and doing sort of the bare minimum and cutting corners, I think, well, it's no surprise to me that you're failing. It's because you're not investing in your most important asset, which again, is those people. And that at the end of the day, to me, is the difference between entrepreneurs who make it a lot of the times and entrepreneurs who don't, is whether or not they invest and truly value the people they surround themselves with. And I agree 100% with the people who make the company. I have to tell you, you know, the Marcus Lamont show, people, process, product. I believe in the process the most because

the process dictates the people. And what I mean by that is I just filled this out today at a meeting and I just put a list together on what we're working on. So background check, drug test, that's a given. I look for a credit. We're starting to do credit tests just to find out, did this person lose five cars in the last year? Stuff happens. Look, we all went through 2008. I understand stuff happening,

but I don't expect the perfect credit score. But do you have developed credit? Have you been, if you're always broke, it's a problem when you work for a company. We do a couple of tests now. We do a competitive test. Look at their tax returns and they could be whited out. My main thing is on your tax returns

is did you file a tax return? Are you a responsible adult? That's gonna, I mean, it's crazy. Some of the stuff, check-in references, personality tests. Do you have any letters of recommendation? And the harder it is for them to get into work for me, the more they cherish that job. And the more they realize that they're the elite, they're the best. And like, if you work for a company, let's see here, enterprise, for example, they go through a lot of tough things to get. If you work

at enterprise, a lot of people will hire you. Same thing at Southwest Airlines. And it's the process in which you get the people which make a great team. But then again, and I want to hear your thoughts on these, is you might have this MVP football player, but he comes into the team for the first five years, the first five years in the NFL. He fails. He's not good. He's best. He's second string.

Then he gets traded. And all of a sudden, he gets coached better, better teammates, better routines, he fails. He's not good. He's best. He's second string. Then he gets traded and all of a sudden he gets coached better, better teammates, better routines, better processes. And now he's back to the MVP he was. So just because you got great people, you have to have great leadership. And I want to hear from you what a great leader looks like and a CEO. Sure. Yeah. Well, I think it's funny you say you get someone onto the right team. You know, it could be a total rock star pro and he just doesn't perform in one team, but you move him to another team where he's got better utility and better people, strengths around them and better coaching. They do better. You know, a lot of times too,

you find someone who looks like a sexy candidate for a job that has all the right criteria and they work for the right company before you. And you get them into a role at your company and they bring some of the old habits from the other company with you and they never really succeed at transitioning. Just because if you see them at maybe like the company that you look up to and you want to be, it doesn't mean that these people are going to necessarily comply to your process and your way of doing things. I've always found the best candidates for me are people that have come from just the most interesting lines of work. One of my favorite employees right now who I hired for a community builder job used to sell oil to just millionaires and billionaires all day.

That's what they did. And now they're one of my top community managers. You wouldn't have put those dots together on the resume. But when you talk to them and you really listen to what their strengths and weaknesses are, you can just see and connect the dots to know where they fit. So for me, I think what's really important as a leader is to be a really good listener and to really do a lot more listening than talking to your employees. Because I think you'll learn so much more about them, where their strengths and weaknesses lie, what their values are, and what their motivations are. Because that's the stuff that's going to help you continue to help them grow and succeed and make them feel valued and make them feel like they're a part of the

culture of your company. So I think, again, investing in the people and really listening to the people, not just preaching and treating yourself as sort of like the de facto leader, but calling on them and making them a part of the process is typically what I find to be the best style of leadership for me. The kind of groupthink and community style of leadership where there is a clear line of command, but there's also an understanding that anyone can bring something to the table. It doesn't matter if you just joined the company yesterday or you've been the CEO for 20 years, there's so much value in creating a culture where anyone can speak up and anyone can make a change.

Because at the end of the day, at least from what I've seen in my company, it's rarely a big, sexy new product or service that's going to change your business. It's the nitty-gritty details and refinements you're going to make about your operation and how you guys do business that is going to make the biggest impact for your company. And that always relies on the people in the trenches speaking up and bringing opportunities to make big changes to the table. So I'm a big process guy. When you say like, open it up, listen, as far as an activity, and we're listening here as managers or owners, what's the best process? Obviously, I have an employee manual for each employee role, but we read these manuals, three pages every single week.

And it's not meant to be, oh my God, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're not like, what is my job? What am I expected of? How do I win the game? And what we say is if you've got to change the manual and you've got a better process, we want to know about it. So that's kind of like, we embrace you. You guys do this every single day. You're going to come up with better, more leaner ways to get through this. This is your job. This is what you do all day. You know, what do you recommend switching? So what would you say is your best way of giving them a voice within the company and their job in the future? God, there's so many things. But for me, it's about making that time for one-on-one connection and making sure that you're available. So one of my favorite activities,

and I still do it today, is just a one-on-one coffee with random people in the company. I try to do it with everyone at least twice a year to just hear what's going on in their world, right? And we're 100 people plus strong now of a company. It's a lot of coffees. But at the end of the day,

that one-on-one time to talk and really connect versus being a part of the group can help people who are more insular and perhaps more introverted or just a little bit more timid to speak up, jump in and offer something of value. A lot of times, individuals that work for us don't even know that they've brought something of value to the table. So again, I just try to get them to talk. Tell me about the things that are working and the things that you're frustrated about. And in those conversations, you can connect the dots and recognize what things are working really well that you should be continuing to support or elevate in terms of level of importance to make better and what things aren't working

that we really need to hone in on and either scrap and stop doing or figure out a new process to make it better. So just having that one-on-one time is very important. And then again, as you grow, because we're a hundred plus person team now, I can't catch everything. I think it's important to set up processes

and empower your managers and your leaders within your group. People that are owning pods on your team need to feel a part of the company culture. And they need to feel as if they can create and continue to evolve the culture as part of their contributions to the organization. It's not just about them showing up and doing their job. It's about them making a mark and an impact. And it's very hard to do because I think a lot of employees come in just wanting to do a good job and want to just continue to be in that role because they're looking for what we're all looking for in life,

which is stability. Stability makes us happy. And I think any sort of change or any sort of thought process where you have to take yourself out of your day-to-day and think, if I was gone tomorrow, would someone be able to take up and do my job? That's really a hard pill to swallow. But teaching people to think that way and to know that it's a value to the organization, especially in a manager's position, is really one of the most important things you can do. And I really try to reinforce

that with my team, make them feel like they can make that impact and make them feel like they have a strong impact on the company culture and they can make change happen and they have the autonomy to do so. It sounds like you put a lot of effort into the people you invite onto the team. And if you enjoy getting a coffee, and I'm going to use another cliche, it's, would I go have a beer with this person? You know, if you enjoy who you work with, and they fit into your culture, and I used to not like that term, because I'm sitting there with 10 employees, and I'm going, my culture, what do you mean? I'm working 12 hours a day minimum.

I'm on the phone the other four hours. You know, relationships are getting destroyed and you want to talk to me about culture and employee fitting in? If you could fog a mirror, you could work for me at some point, you know? I lost two guys last week. I'm out there running jobs. We're in a tough scenario. You do what you got to do.

But the point is you got to start somewhere. And the one thing I find a big mistake, Ryan, is we hire when we lose somebody or when somebody moves or we have to fire somebody instead of always be looking. Tell me a little bit about what you look for in a new employee and kind of the things you go through. Because that's the number one thing I get is I don't have enough employees. I don't have enough good people. Yeah. Well, I think the number one problem I get is, I don't have enough employees. I don't have enough good people. Yeah, well, I think the number one problem is people are reactive and not proactive. You just nailed it on the head. I mean, I take phone calls every week

with people that I don't have a job for, informational interviews, people who I see a potential fit for down the line. You know, one of our employees who was with us for many, many years, and I consider her impact on the organization to be one of the top five for our company. She is someone that I started talking to a year before I even hired her. So again, you have to make time for these connections and make time for other people,

even though you might not have a specific, straightforward, real-time outcome in your head. You have to be thinking ahead on these things. And I think that that really is, in a lot of ways, a big part of what community building is and a big part of what making great connections is. You know, like don't go into every relationship with something that you're expecting to get in

mind. Instead, think about what you could potentially provide to other people. I mentor and support and talk to people who are looking for new opportunities all the time. Sometimes I place them with other entrepreneurs in the YEC or other communities that we run, or I hand them off to colleagues of mine that I know are looking for someone similar. Sometimes I end up hiring them myself. But the point is, I make time to connect with other people that have strengths that matter and that are valuable to businesses, whether they're mine or someone else's. Because I know that when the time comes, and I'm in that sort of, oh shit moment where I need to replace someone, I'm going to be a step ahead versus having to go and create a job posting

and start recruiting. That is a hard, hard thing to do. But I've been very lucky because I've built a network of people who send me referrals. And I've also made the effort to take time when I can to talk to others who need help. And a lot of times because of that, I have really good people top of mind when I need them. Top of mind, baby. That's what it's all about. And those connections, those human connections. I always say 1A equals 3B. 1A player equals 3B players.

And I'm fascinated with that little equation because I started to really analyze it. And what I've realized is B players are not bad. What happens with a B player is they're more likely to make a mistake. So it takes a long time to fix a mistake. Just like keeping a really good employee is 10 times cheaper than trying to go out and find a new one and train them. So a B player tends to not have the right processes and they tend to have to go back and fix things where A players spend a little bit more time, but they don't make mistakes. So one A player that you're paying $25 an hour to could run circles around three B players that are making 15. So you spend 25

for an A player and 45 for three Bs, but that one A is happier and they get way more done. And the one mistake I get a lot though, Ryan, is people listen to me and then they go, I hired an A player. I paid him what you said and stuff isn't working out. Well, it wasn't an A player. Well, or you didn't prepare for that A player to come on board. I think a lot of people hire really great people, but don't put the effort into building strong processes and building a really good playbook and a really good roadmap to help them succeed.

Because even A players need support from a leader that's going to help guide them down the path of what your vision is and what your operation actually does. So, I mean, that's important too. But yeah, there's a lot of hucksters out there. There's a lot of people that pretend to be A players. And again, you also have to be really cognizant and aware of who they are. And again, really listen to what they're

saying. If you're doing interviews, spend more time listening than you do talking, because I think you'll really find that it's actually not very hard to tell the difference between someone who's a true A player and someone who's just pretending to be. And you said something that's really important there that I want to go back to that you reminded me of a quick story is one of my buddies is a $70 million advertising company here in Phoenix. He's the largest in Arizona. And I met up with him about two years ago. I mean, I see him all the time, but two years ago, he tells me, he goes, Hey, I hired a CEO. And I go, what do you mean? You're the CEO. He goes, no, I decided to go to the next level because I don't think I could be as good a leader. I'm better at sales and marketing.

And I know my strengths and I don't have, he said, well, this guy started with me. And I think you've heard of craft, like craft macaroni and cheese and that stuff. Yep. So he pulled him over from, I think it was craft. And he goes, man, you got to understand the culture now and the time he takes to develop people and just that inner department relationships. And he goes, could I have done something similar? Maybe over 10 years, I could have maybe learned it and done it. But he realized his strengths and he accepted it. And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes we make as entrepreneurs is we got to know

everything about the bookkeeping. We need to know every inventory. And how many times have you heard this, Ryan? If I don't do it, it won't be done right. You know what I mean? I have. Yeah, way too many times. But unfortunately, the problem is that mentality a lot of the time leads to a CEO or an entrepreneur becoming the bottleneck of their own organization. Well said. That's another thing that you got to avoid. You can't grow and you can't become more successful in scale if you continue to allow yourself to be the bottleneck. And this is a universal thing that all entrepreneurs deal with. If you think that maybe it's just you, you're not alone.

I still deal with it. I'm not perfect. There are still things that I do that I shouldn't be doing. And I laugh as I'm saying it because it's true. I'm probably going to do some things today that I shouldn't be doing. I like to do a little exercise for myself to kind of keep myself on track because there's always going to be a thing

I shouldn't be doing anymore. If I don't delegate something new once a week to another person on my team, I consider that a failure on my part. And I think that if you can get yourself into a regular routine of doing that, it doesn't have to be every week, figure out what works for you. It's like going to the gym. You have to maintain a routine and consistently do it if you want to be effective. There's always going to be something that you could do faster than someone else in your

own mind. But really, should you be? Probably not if you're the CEO or the founder of the business. You need to consistently look for ways to delegate and hand those things off so you can continue to focus on what's next. So it's a little exercise that could help. It's something we all struggle with. And there's no easy answer.

That's a very straightforward way to start. I love it. And delegation is something that's scary because I delegate certain things and I realize one thing, maybe there's sometimes I could have done it better. And then maybe it's expensive to delegate certain things. Like there's certain things that I've delegated

that it's like, man, that's $150 an hour to get that done, but they get it done and it's fast. So time's important to me too. And I've learned this from Al Levy, but I've got my steps of delegation here and I'm going to read them out loud because a lot of us listening right now, we don't know where to start. Delegating is not dumping and we get confused as entrepreneurs and I'm the worst. So I need these steps every time I give somebody a delegation step. So here's what needs to get done. Here's why it needs to get

done. The why is so important. Why do you have me doing this? Here's what you have available to get it done. Here's the priority assigned to it. Here's what it needs to get done by. Here's the meeting that we're going to check up to make sure you're progressing because I don't want you waiting until the last day. Here's the consequences if they're not done. And also there's a stick in the carrot. Here's a carrot if it gets done. And then we've got a chance to kind of get feedback after the end and say, how did it go? And I feel like without a process and how you delegate,

I'll give you a quick example, Ryan, is I left one week when we were getting our new building that we're in done and I said, just paint it this color. You know what I didn't say? I didn't tell him to paint it in semi-gloss instead of flat. So the whole building on the inside, we had to repaint and it's 35,000 square feet. So pretty annoyed that I thought, how many times do we think that the other people understand? And it can be the most minute task. Go clean this toilet. I didn't ask you to clean it with bleach. I wanted you to use, you know, or ammonia. I've seen the craziest things happen because I assume that people understand and that they're competent.

And some things that I assume are competent maybe are easy to me because I've been doing it for so long. So that's what you're talking about. Documentation matters and really communicating correctly and thoroughly matters. I mean, to me, when I document and build systems and processes for our team for how they're supposed to be doing things, I'm not satisfied unless the most excruciatingly boring detail that you don't think needs to be mentioned isn't covered in that document. That's how detailed you need to be if you want operational excellence and you want people to follow instructions. Because if you don't, you leave people to their own devices. And like you said, it seems silly. Why did I need to say this thing that should have been just so obvious? Well, it wasn't obvious to the other person, and you should have.

And I think that that's the key, right? Having good employees, whether they're A, B, or C players, don't care. It all starts with you and how well you document and build your systems, because that is the playbook for how people are going to execute your product or service for the end customer. Powerful stuff. And it's the most boring details. When I had to put my manuals together, I just pulled it out while we were talking. My technician manual is 57 pages. Now I didn't want to make it too big. So it accounts for 80% of what your job is, but it goes through the description, transportation policies, required meetings,

time off, attendance. I mean, look, this thing goes on and on. Definition of a residential job, definition of a commercial job, direct bill accounts as defined, work to be desired, tools provided by the company. It goes on and on. And it's so important because if I had to ask you, Ryan, and I'm a 99.9% of the people, when's the last time you looked at your employee manual or your standard operating procedures? And maybe you looked at it yesterday, but we read ours. Probably. I read it all the time. You really? Oh, absolutely.

Because there's always room for improvement. And I think if I'm not holding myself accountable to review and understand it, how can I expect my team and my managers to be? Our playbooks are huge. In fact, we have an entire online wiki, right? Like it's, if you were to put together our employee manual together our employee manual, it would be a lot of paper. We've got various departments and different functions of the business that it made more

sense to make it a digital thing. I mean, we're in there every day making changes because in our business, changes to procedures and what we do, they can change within 24 hours. And a lot of times, I mean, I get notifications multiple times a day of new things that are being updated in those Confluence documents, as does my team, because we need to know when changes are being made. Confluence is the tool we use. It's a product for creating and documenting process. And it's all online. So we're in there a lot. It's like a part of our DNA. It's a product for creating and documenting process. And it's all online. So we're in there a lot. It's like a part of our DNA. It's something that you're expected to know

and expected to read. And also, if you're a manager or someone who reports to a manager that delegates this responsibility to you, it's something you're supposed to keep updated in real time as changes happen? So we have about 20 manuals and each manual is a hard manual that's put together and then it turns into an LMS and we've got our learning management system. So we teach courses on the manuals and then from there you get a workbook to work through the LMS courses. And the thing is we're always changing what's so nice about our courses is we can take a section out and say send it out to everybody learning we use learn dash and we can send it out and we can say we just changed the user interface it just changed on the crm so you guys got to go through this here's your training we can see everybody who's

completed it there's, there's tests. But more importantly, we try to make it fun. If you get it done by this date, we're going to do this for you and this and that. So if you can make it fun, I mean, how many times have you been through a driver's safety course or it's just crap? And it's like, are you freaking kidding me? This sucks.

And if you can bring in some fun stories and make it funny and interesting, and all of a sudden it just becomes so much better so the people listening out there courses to me sexual harassment training the most annoying things drivers training and we teach our guys training like i don't think you want to make sexual harassment funny but it just you know there's certain things that you could do to just break it apart and help them understand why we're doing it and the ramifications of if you do it. And because if you can make things like, man, I don't want to have to do this and it's a fun environment. What happens is when you treat

employers right and you've got a nice place to work, it becomes a recruiting. It's our whole building right now is a big recruiting, like our gym and our fun stuff and our games. I bet you got people lining up to work for you. Am I right? I wouldn't say that. Lining up is a strong word, but we have a lot of people in our world that are looking for those types of opportunities to participate in a community building type of experience, right? Who doesn't like bringing great people together and seeing really great things happen? So we're lucky in that regard. But recruiting is still, it's a struggle, just like any business. I think if anyone tells you that recruiting is easy, they are probably Facebook or they're lying to you. I think that recruiting is a very, very difficult task for

any business. So I'm actually bringing on a full-time internal recruiter. And it's funny because we hired a company to do the recruiting for a recruiter, which kind of sounds insane. But I said, the recruiter is the future of our company. And if we believe in a recruiter, and we're not just talking about a temp agency, we're talking about a company that literally understands your company DNA like you just described. And they ask all these questions and they find out. And the one thing, Ryan, that I'm starting to understand that I'm going to share here, I think a gold nugget is employees in the home service space, you don't need a great resume

because a resume, I hate to say it, but it's a blue collar industry. You're not supposed to be there with, you know, Harvard grad and this, that, and the other and work at these great. What I want to see is consistency. But more importantly, I want to call you up. I want to see what your desires are. I want to know what makes you tick. I want to see if you're competitive. I want to know your goals. And I tell people, you don't need climbers all the time. Sometimes you need campers, people that are content being a call center representative or a dispatcher. And then you want your climbers, people that have an aptitude to turn into a manager. But you can't do all climbers and you

can't do all campers. You need a little bit of both. But I'm going right now, I'm going to the youth ministry preachers at the churches. I'm talking to recruiters like on college teams that go in and they look for, what do they look for? They look for competitiveness. They look for an attitude to succeed. Who's going to give that extra effort? I look for the high school coaches that teach swimming and football and soccer and baseball. They know a lot of people. They're like, dude, this guy was the captain of the team. He stayed extra. He's a great teammate. And he's got a job paying $25,000 a year. It didn't work out for him. Send that guy my way. And it's not going on a job boards like Craigslist and Monster

and CareerBuilder and Indeed and ZipRecruiter. Obviously, you've used relationships. What other ways do you find getting great people has been for you? I mean, it's all referrals. I mean, that is the best source of really great people. But if I was to add something to the equation, I would say investing and telling a good story. It's really about making your company speak to someone else and to understand that you're not just getting a job, but you're a part of someone's journey and a part of a business that has a real impact and has values behind it. So if you can invest in telling your company's story, that's a big thing too. Got it. I'm taking notes, buddy. So if you could go back and change one thing.

You've been in business now since you were you were early 20s, like you said. And this is a tough question because there's a lot of things I changed, but what's one more philosophical, large thing that you could give to really kind of get you through a lot faster what you've been through the last 15, 20 years? You know, for me in community building,

especially, and I don't know how well this translates to the home services world or other entrepreneurs that are listening, it's a very hard world to be in where you can put a price tag on what you do. Because again, to the layman, anyone can go build community. Anyone can jump onto social media and build a network, right? But are they really building valuable connections? I think social media has been a blessing and a curse for all of us. It's a blessing because we're more connected than we ever have been before

and have access to so many resources and individuals in real time. But it's also been a curse because there's so much noise that you don't know where to start. And it's created an environment where it's easy for anyone out there to just be a huckster or snake oil salesman. And then for us, being in the business of building community, it's always been hard to put a price tag on what we do, which is create curated community and curated resources that you know you can trust. And I think many entrepreneurs early on

struggle with the value that they provide and struggle with putting a price tag on what they do or struggle with the concept of increasing their price point to where they think it should be to cover their costs as a business and charge way too low. I think if I were to go back, I would have loved to kind of tune in my confidence level and our product and what we sell a lot earlier than when we did.

I think we would have saved ourselves a lot of time and many, many months of really just fighting hard and being hungry, but not succeeding if we would have just had that confidence level at the get-go. And I think to translate that to other entrepreneurs who aren't in the community building world, because there aren't a lot of us, I think that means just be confident in what you sell and be confident in your product and know that what you provide is valuable. And if that someone doesn't believe that it is, they're probably not the right client to begin with,

to be working with. Feel confident in your prices and what your value is and i think for again most newbie entrepreneurs and small business owners that's something that we could all use a little boost for so again like think about your future self your successful self and what they would be telling you while you're in the trenches right now and i think they'd be telling you while you're in the trenches right now. And I think they'd be telling you to have more confidence in what you're selling and your product and not be afraid to put a price tag on thing. And even in some cases, a higher price tag on things

that you know are incredibly valuable to the end customer. I love that. I think that's super powerful. And a lot of times we under charge because we're afraid to charge. And quick story about that, interestingly enough, is I've got some things that, you know, courses and things I do. And this company that I work with, they said, could I help you sell one of these courses? They sold a thousand in five days. And it's pretty interesting that

what I would say on top of that is go out and get the help. Ask questions. Don't just accept, okay. Always be pushing yourself and know that hang out with the people that have already done it. They've got the formula. They've already been at the top. There's a reason why billionaires sometimes lose all their money and they go right back to where they were because they've got the formula to get back there. And always be learning, I think. And I look at guys like, what you're doing is like Joe Polish, Dean Gracioso, Ryan Dice, Roland Frazier. I mean, some of these guys charge $100,000 a year to be part of their

click. But if you're going to pay $100,000, do you think you're probably getting a million dollars out of that? I would hope so. I mean, just to meet some of these guys, and it's not about meeting them and knowing them, but it's about this. There's ABC if you connect the dots. So look at this. A is first place, B is second place, and C would be third place. If I could teach you to go from first place to the home plate, rather than skipping two and three, that's what it does when you get to meet these people of high minds, high thinkers. And a lot of it is being able to walk through the door when you do what you do and get right to the decision maker instead of going through all the gatekeepers and going through all these things. And I think it's amazing what you're doing. And, you know, there's a few more questions

I wanted to ask and we'll get through them here. But one of the things you've done, and I talked to you about this because you know me and I know you and you've helped me a lot, is we set up a page, and I'm not making any money on this, but Ryan, I think you guys cut their initiation fee on this. It's homeserviceexpert.com forward slash YEC. That stands for Young Entrepreneur Council, And it forwards into your, your yec.co and it goes through. I highly recommend that if anybody's out there, you might say, why would I want to be on ink.com or Huffington post? I'm just a window washer, Christmas light company, or I have a landscaping company or garage or HVAC or whatever it is. This is so powerful. This is the most affordable way you're ever gonna be able to connect with such a powerful mastermind, if you will,

of people that understand credit card processing, CRMs, learning environments like LMS platforms. I mean, you could go through and ask any question to this environment and these people on Facebook or on their site. And you guys give discounts for enterprise, for hotels. I mean, it's just a powerful tool. And if you go to homeserviceexpert.com forward slash YEC, you fill out the information. Ryan, you guys created a way to kind of get them fast tracks

through your system, right? That's right. So anyone who goes through your page, Tommy, is going to get initiation fees waived, meaning there's a one-time fee when you join on top of the annual membership dues. We're going to wipe that right off if you come through Tommy's site. And from there, we're going to have members of our team standing by, one of our directors of membership, to be able to schedule a call or hop on the phone on demand if you have time now to talk through the dues, talk through the benefits, learn about the community, ask questions. This isn't a click and buy type of opportunity.

This is something where every member that joins is someone that we want to have a great experience. So it starts with talking with our team and asking questions and knowing what they're signing up for. So we'll have people standing by ready to go for you to schedule calls and get to know the organization and figure out whether or not you think it's for you. And to Tommy's point, I think it's a great thing for people that are looking for more visibility, have really great ideas and want to build some thought leadership.

I feel like by having that thought leadership, it's going to create a higher authority and more social proof for their business and their clients and stakeholders are going to think that's a really powerful thing. And it's also just a great place to connect with a group of entrepreneurs that spans a variety of different disciplines and industries. And I think for me, one of the most valuable things that I've had in my professional life is access to entrepreneurs outside of my specific industry that can mentor me and provide me with access to experiences and knowledge that I don't have. which again is a lot of our listeners here, there's a lot of people that feel like their network of entrepreneurs is only very much tied to the specific industry that they're in. But I think that the most value you can get through building your own community

and your own network of entrepreneurs is through surrounding yourself with people that have strengths in areas that you don't know anything about. Because those are the people that are going to help you scale and help you build your business when you're ready for a new opportunity and ready to take on something that is just outside of your wheelhouse. So that's what YAC is.

It's a diverse network. It's not a group for just home services people. It's a group for everyone who's an entrepreneur to share their experiences and grow together in our variety of industries. And it's so powerful. I mean, I got to tell you guys, I'm the biggest innovator right now in the garage door space, not because I'm smart or anything. It's because I ask for help. I ask for help from the best guy that knows VoIP phones in the VoIP phone industry, voiceover internet protocol. I ask for the best pay-per-click guys in the industry.

I find out ways to do things. I really rely a lot on HVAC plumbing and electrical companies because they're light years ahead of the garage door industry. And I try to bring that to this podcast, but YAC has been a monumental, huge stepping ground for me. It's a great opportunity to meet people that think and they're trying and they go and they're all the time trying to better themselves. And they're all entrepreneurs to push their

business ahead. And like I said, I don't make anything. It's literally a discount because you're a listener. And I hope you guys get a lot out of it. If you don't join, it's no big deal, but at least go check it out. They're going to fast track you in the system. They're not doing as many, like you're supposed to make a million dollars or more. Hopefully a lot of you guys are, but they're willing to let it slide if you're looking in there and you're eager to get ahead. They're going to make that exception for you today. Ryan, the last couple of things I ask is, tell me a little bit real quick about your book, The Super Connector. Sure. Yeah. So Super Connector is really the culmination of a decade long journey of Scott and I,

my business partner, Scott Gerber, building community and learning the best ways to make connections that are valuable for both your life and your business. And we wanted to put out a book that was really about the anti-networking approach, right? Because I think networking has such a bad vibe right now. It just kind of draws up this idea of being in a crowded bar, smells like stale beer, everyone's trying to dole out business cards to one another, and you leave at the end of the night and you've got all these crumpled up pieces of paper in your pocket and a buzz and that's about it. You don't leave with any value. What it really should be is about making connections where there's mutual value and not just exchanging and transacting through a real life situation where you get to actually

meet someone and understand what they value and what it is their goals are. We put together a book that focuses on who we feel are the top super connectors, the top individuals that know how to go out there and make valuable connections and really consider those connections to be the foundation and the cornerstone of what their success is all about. You'll read about people like Lewis Howes, who's in the book, some really great people that have built businesses around just purely giving gifts, businesses around generosity. John Rulon, the author of Giftology, is in the book. You're just going to learn about the networking approach that you never learned

about from school and you never learned about from the jobs that you had because most people are teaching how to take advantage of your network in the wrong way. They treat it like a transactional thing and it's really about giving back first. And that's what Super Connector is all about. Learning how to rewire your brain to think about how to build real relationships that lasts and will continue to be there to support you throughout your life. I love it.

Well, it's about 16 bucks and it's ordered on Amazon already. It's a great big yellow book. So I just got that one and I'm sorry I didn't get it before. I should have got it. But so I ordered that. And then tell me a few books that you really think that are, they don't have to be about business. They don't have to be about anything. Maybe just some books that affected you and kind of helped you find your path. You know, right now I don't read a lot of business books because at the end of the day, I spend so much time consuming business knowledge through YEC and the other organizations that I

work with. But right now, some books I'm excited about that are coming out, a book called Start Finishing. It's by a fellow YEC member called Charlie Gilkey. And it's about how to take your ideas and turn them into real businesses. Most good ideas, they just end at the idea phase and don't turn into anything powerful other than that. He's written a manifesto through his years and years and years of helping entrepreneurs be more productive as a productivity coach that I'm really excited about right now. The follow-up book from my publisher, Super Connector, is a book called Back to Human by a very good friend of mine named Dan Schaubel. And Back to Human is really about this concept

of pulling ourselves back into a more human mindset. I think the social media era has created a more, again, transactional approach to networking. And although it's made the opportunity to connect to resources and people more possible than ever before, for a lot of people, the direct outcome has been less connection and more isolation. So his book is all about those side effects of the social media era and how to move past them and create a more valuable community around yourself. And then one of the tried and true books that I love that's really just about operational excellence and building excellent teams and delivering an excellent product is a book about a famous restaurateur from Chicago who sadly passed away a number of years ago named

Charlie Trotter. It's a book called Lessons in Excellence from Charlie Trotter. And he's really just this amazing anal retentive operations focused chef that's made a huge name for himself that has lasted beyond his life now. And this book about him is just an incredible way to gain inspiration into building your own systems and processes. And although it's about the restaurant industry, I found that there is inspiration in this book that can be tied to any service or any product

and any entrepreneur could get value from it. So that's a book I always have on my shelf. I always reference back to and I always recommend to other entrepreneurs. It's just sort of like foundational reading and a foundational guidebook to how to be successful. They don't have it on Audible, but that one's about $16 for the hardcover.

So that's cool. So I kind of like to leave it with one last final thought, one thing to give back to whatever thought you have right now, one thing to leave the listeners with to give back to whatever thought you have right now, one thing to leave the listeners with and give you the floor. Yeah. I think this is one of the things I learned early, early on in my career, and I've always tried to find time to do. It really ties in nicely to what we do now with some of our visibility benefits and the publishing stuff we talked about that's so valuable about being a part of one of our communities is just share your ideas.

And I think a lot of people have really great ideas and are scared to share them because they're not fully fleshed out, or they're afraid someone's going to steal them, or there's some other sort of feeling of not being ready. And I think at the end of the day, if we go back to people being the most important asset in your life, most good ideas don't happen based on just you alone. You're going to need to share your ideas and put them out there to other people. If you want to gain traction, you want to be successful. And speaking to that fear that someone's going to steal your idea. Most, if not all people could not take an idea that you came up with and execute it on their own without you. So really, best case scenario, you're going to find someone that wants

to work on something with you and turn it into a reality and create a successful business or whatever it is that you're dreaming up. So I think more people need to share those ideas, put themselves out there, and not be afraid of scrutiny or their ideas being stolen. There are a lot of great ideas. We all have them. If you're listening right now and you're just mulling on something, I think it's time to put that idea out into the universe and ask for help and see who comes knocking. And you might be surprised. I think that's a great, great thing. And there's a thing called an NDA and I use them all the time.

And you could just have somebody sign something and if you're that worried about it. But Ryan, I really appreciate it, man. I appreciate what you did for everybody by waiving that fee and just the fast track. And really, we've got a lot of great people. There's over 10,000 downloads a month now. And hopefully that's going to be 100,000 soon

because my goal is to deliver value and you brought a ton of value and I really, truly appreciate it. Tell me a little bit, one more thing. Tell me about the trips that you guys have and these get togethers and we'll leave it at that. Yeah, we do events around the country. Our events are really focused on creating collisions. And by

collisions, I mean having other entrepreneurs meet through serendipity and share some common bonds and build really great things. Through these events, I've seen members start new businesses together. I've seen members partner up and help each other just elevate their businesses because one entrepreneur does something that the other doesn't and vice versa, and they can be peer mentors. I've seen entrepreneurs just become lifelong friends too. I see people on Facebook now that have met through YEC events meeting up in other cities together. It's an amazing thing because, again, YEC was started because of this concept that Scott and I believed in,

which is entrepreneurship can be a lonely place. What's better than having entrepreneur friends that you can count on, as well as entrepreneur partners and potential future business collaborators? That's what YEC is all about. So through everything from intimate dinners in some of our city markets to our more exotic trips, our signature event, Why You See Escape, is coming up in February, which is a very amazing winter retreat at the top of a private ski lodge in Powder Mountain, Utah, where we connect and eat great food and just have a really great time and also bring some of our business coaches to the table to do some workshops. It's really a powerful thing. It's really just driven by the people there and the connections you'll make. And that's what keeps people coming

back for more. It's not transactional. It's all about people connecting and sharing good karma with one another and helping each other grow. So that's one of the benefits you have of joining YEC that continues to excite me. And I'm really excited for some of our upcoming events that are happening this fall. And then we've got escape happening in January of next year. Awesome, Ryan. Once again, I appreciate it.

I think a lot of people will take a lot out of this and we'll do it again soon. Thanks, Tommy. I appreciate it. Hey, I just wanted to take a quick minute and thank you for listening to the podcast. You know, most people don't understand this, but the way that the podcast has grown is when people subscribe and they leave a review.

So if you would please, please, please, Wyatt's top of mind, take a quick minute to subscribe and leave a quick review. It'll help me out so much. If you just took a little bit of time right now, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate the listeners and the feedback. And also when you subscribe, what I'm going to do is let you know the next guest coming on the podcast. And I'll let you email me anything you want me to ask that next person coming on. All the pros I have on here. I want your feedback.

I want you to subscribe so you can start giving me the questions you want me to ask and help us grow together. Also, I'm giving away my book for free now. All you got to do is go to homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast. You got to cover the shipping and handling, but I'm giving the material out for free. It's 200 pages. It's a hardcover book. Homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast.

I appreciate each and every one of the listeners and thank you for making this Home Service Expert podcast a success. I hope you're having a great day and thanks again.