The Home Service Expert Podcast - Practicing Proactive Leadership to Build and Manage a High-Performing Team

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

Julian Scadden is the CEO of Nexstar Network, a large company out of Minnesota that focuses on best practices and better buy rates. Julian has over 20 years of experience in the business operations side of plumbing, heating and cooling, and is an expert in training, team building and coaching. In this episode, we talked about effective sales coaching, building leadership, goal setting...

I love the saying, if you want to see what's important to someone, if you want to see what they value, just look at their calendar. Where you spend the bulk of your time is what's important to you. And if you're still having to pay the bills or run the sales calls, one of two things could be happening. Number one, you're either just doing it because that makes you feel important. You have a bias, like an adrenaline bias to doing it. It makes you feel good. It makes you feel like you're contributing. But the reality is, is you're not going to create a global monster like you're building over there, Tommy, if you're out still running the sales calls, or if you're out in the trucks, you're out, you know, you have to build a leader's will and power and create that

for others. And that's what we found is that the businesses that can grow, we've aligned with the owners and the leaders who understand and accept that they need to create pathways for others and they need to work on, not in the business. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Hey there, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. You guys know me, Tommy Mello. Hey there, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. You guys know me, Tommy Mello here.

I'm here with my really good friend. I had an opportunity to meet him in Arizona, spent some time in Minnesota. He came to Phoenix again, Julian Skadden. And we were on the phone quite a bit. I knew your last name, I just never pronounced it. I didn't want to butcher it. Not as easy as Mello. It but not as easy as mellow. Well, it's not as easy as mellow.

Julian's an expert with training, team building, coaching. He's the CEO of Nextar Network. So you guys probably heard of it. It's a monster company out of Minnesota. And what they do is they focus on best practices, better buy rates, anything you'd want to do in HVAC plumbing electrical. They're very focused in that niche. So those of you that aren't in those fields,

you might be able to learn something here. Julian was also part of an HVAC company in Atlanta. He knows the trades. He's been one of the top coaches. He trains on sales. He teaches people how to buy better, how to use software. So I think there's, what, 880 members of Nextdoor? That's right.

Yeah, that's right. 880. So he's the president and CEO. He had that last year. And he's a predecessor to Jack Tesser, who those of you that know who Jack is, he was on the podcast a couple years ago. He's an amazing guy. And he chose Julian to kind of take the next step, the next leap and the next growth spurt that they're working on. So great run company,

amazing what they do. And he's the founder of Breakthrough Mindset. And here's a little, some of his accomplishments. Julian has worked in the business operations side of plumbing, heating and cooling for more than 20 years and has found success all along the way. In 2013, Nextdoor Network hired him on a first training implementation coach, a role that he helped create. Then he became the president just last year. So I guess the best place to start is tell us a little bit about your history and everything that's led up to this new position at Nextar. Sure. And thank you for the gracious introduction, Nextar. We're truly proud of what's been built here and the honor to keep it going. And I love this podcast because home

service experts, any home service provider, many of you are going to have a very similar story from what I experienced. And I started with these right here. Started with our hands. We're out there in the field. We're making it happen. Fresh out of high school, I was a ditch digger for a sewer line crew and then became an apprentice and then moved into the office operations. So I've been around home services for a long time. And that's all Nexstar focuses on. When Tommy mentions plumbing, heating, cooling, and electrical, we help the residential service providers because we believe and we know that that's a great business model. It's a way to get cash right then and there when you're done. And I believe in it. So from the trades, I've run operations. I've been around the operations and then eventually hit a stage in my life where I

wanted to do some coaching and consulting myself. I was fortunate enough to team up with Nexstar. We created an implementation coach position. So all of the great ideas you have, all of the vision, all of that strategy, it doesn't matter unless somebody gets it done. So that's what that position was about. And now we have operations coaches that help you with your strategy and your budgeting. We have implementation coaches that make sure it gets done back home. And that's something I'm very proud of. And yeah, I've been at Nextar for eight years, an amazing organization and an amazing board of directors. We are member owned.

So our organization is a little bit unique. Every single one of our members owns one equal share of Nextar. And it is our mission to return any profit that we make in the form of goods and services to our members. So guided by our board of directors, which is made up of members, and then we execute the day-to-day strategy. So at a high level, that's how I got here, and that's what we do. And then you've been kind of all over the place. You've lived, go through your kind of history of where you live. Yeah, a few places. Denver, Colorado, just outside of Denver, Colorado's home, a little city called Commerce City or Aurora. Then I went to New York, had family in Brooklyn, spent a little time out there. Atlanta, spent about a decade in Atlanta, really growing a residential business. And now here,

just outside of St. Paul, Minnesota. So that's where I get around to. And then you and your wife one day have discussed possibly the beautiful state of California. Is that right? Well, that's what we were deciding right before Minnesota. I was just looking at different opportunities and we were set. We were looking at La Jolla, which is near San Diego. We got our minds all the way wrapped around that. And then Nextar calls me with this opportunity that I just couldn't pass up. She'd always known if Nextar ever called that I'd listen.

And so I kind of diverted. I took this lovely Jamaican woman from thinking she was going to be in Southern California. And now we're here in Minnesota, eight years strong. Cool. Well, that's awesome. You know, I have a guy here that we're trying to bring on to help with acquisitions and just really, really high level. And he said, well, where do you think you fit in the marketplace? A1 Garage Door Service. I've done a lot of research. You guys seem to be a big company in the space. And I said, I'm really proud of where we sit in the garage door space. But I got to tell you, the guys that I talk to every day that I surround myself with are doing two, three,

500 million. And we're not quite there as far as organized to the level of detail. And he said, well, what do you think that is? And I said, I give a lot of credit to the founders and what Nexstar has done over the last 30 years is really built specific things for those three trades, down from recruiting to software, to the buy groups groups to how to wrap your vehicles to every single aspect of it. And they've worked together because they believe they're stronger together. And I'd like to know from your perspective what you feel is some of the best strengths of building a group. You know, like I said, a lot of the people here, whether you're window washing, gutter cleaning, roofing. What's the advantages of putting a group like Nextdoor

Network together that the different people that are part of the group get out of it? Well, what I would invite is I would think that most people listening, if you're running a business, you have some form of what I would call a mastermind group. You have some form of maybe even like a personal board of directors, people that you bring around. There's a certain select inner circle. Tommy, you're amazing about networking. You know everybody, but you also have your inner circle is what John Maxwell calls it. The people you keep closest, the people that you learn from. And what Nexstar was able to do over time was to create an entire network or a community of people with that mindset of helping each other, of lifting each other, of being there

for each other. But it did start. It started with a very small, select group. It started with a very intentional, as you said, systematic way of how we meet when we get together. To this day, anytime we have a training or an organization, we do the icebreaker things. We get the meeting started. But we always, in every book we have, we have a code of conduct. And we talk about how we're going to behave when we're together and how we're going to communicate and just the rules of engagement. Because the other part of this, and you'll get this, it gets a little dangerous when you start to get these groups together, especially with what we're looking at here related to employment and needing opportunity. So let's just say I have 20 different companies in one training. And you're kind of looking around the room going, man,

these are the best of the best. If I could get them to come work for me, but we can't have that. We have to be able to host a party where everybody respectfully plays by the rules and acknowledges that we're here to become the best of the best. We're here representing either one brand or one uniform, whether they're your neighbor or from another state. But we have to have high ethics and integrity to maintaining what we said we're going to do. And that's really it. If we can treat this network as it grows, as we've always treated our small mastermind groups, and we have to facilitate those relationships, Tommy. You know, there's times, and you'd even mentioned, there's going to be shots fired and people are going to say,

hey, Nexstar has this person in the group and they're unethical. You know, I don't know. But if we find out about it, we're going to have that conversation. We have an ethics committee that will deal with that. Nobody's perfect. And many times when we have a concern with a member here and we bring it to a committee made up of their peers, it doesn't fall on Julian. That's the beautiful thing about Nextar too, is we have committees made up of their peers, of members who will hear the information, look for the facts, go over the detail and decide the consequence or the outcome. So it's a little bit in how we're set up to being member-owned that

really helps protect this beautiful thing that we have. Yeah, it's very special. I mean, you don't get a lot of 880 members. You know, I had an opportunity to be up in that beautiful building, see the Mississippi River and just, it's so organized. It's so structured. I love it. And I got to tell you, one of the things we walked in on and you gave me the opportunity is we got to see, you said, Hey, don't be ADD and don't bother anybody if we walk in. But luckily, it's the first thing you did. They were all standing up and they were all doing role play and recording themselves. So I really like what you guys do. And you were a coach for a long time. And I want to really get into this. Because coaching, I've been reading a lot of books lately on coaching.

I'd rather be a coach than a manager. I'd rather be working with you. The coach is calling off the plays. They're always worried about their players. They want the best for their players. They talk a lot about their personal lives. And coaches are friends. It's a lifetime relationship of a coach.

Whether it's high school, middle school. like you remember your coaches, you watch the film, but I got a lot out of that. They were role playing. They were recording it. They had some cool everywhere you go, you flip something up yet and you were posting it on the wall. Then you got one right behind you there. But yeah, why don't we go into what that looks like? Cause you told me the number one

thing that Nextdoor is known for is we go in and we do the sales coaching, help them learn conversion rates, stuff like that. And what you're touching on, you walked into one of our trainings and we don't want to lecture and just tell you what to do and go home and hope you do it. We have plenty of skill practice built in where you can get your boots on the ground and run through different scenarios. And many times when you come to training, people say, oh, you know, but what about the one time X happened? Well, let's practice the 80%, get some skillset, practice, understand the psychology, the sales psychology, and then we'll start throwing those wrenches. So it's a progressive buildup in the training. But coaching, that's where you really

got me going. There's something actually I'll show you here. This is my desk. This is how it's set up. This is always like this. So two of the things that I keep right here are five coaching questions. This is not ours. Okay. This is from a group. I think he's called Box of Crayons. He's a keynote that I've seen before. And these are just coaching questions, you know, instead of prescribing to people what they need to do or how they should be thinking. So the first one is what's on your mind. You know, it just opens up the conversation. Let's the person lead. What's on your mind? Hey, tell me what's on your mind today. All right. Then the second thing, you know, most likely people are coming to you for solutions. That's pretty common when you're the leader and they'll say, well,

you know, what's on my mind? Well, you know, we're running low on inventory and X, Y, and Z. Next question is what's the real challenge? What's the real challenge? And then you'll watch people work into that. Well, the real challenge is we need product. And what else? So number three is, and what else? Well, really, the guys are getting upset. It's harder for me to keep them motivated, and I'm worried that they're going to start looking at other places. Oh, okay. So inventory is a little bit of a symptom, and now you're really worried about retention. And then the fourth one, what do you want? What do you want? And then they'll tell you, well, I want an X, Y, and Z. And then the fourth one, what do you want? What do you want? And then they'll tell you,

well, I want an X, Y, and Z. And then the fifth one, what was most useful? What was most useful? And I believe this is Michael Bungay, and I forget his last name, Steiner. I forgot to pronounce it. But Box of Crayons, he's a great coaching organization. I'd say look him up. And then the other one that I keep close here is from a group, Fierce Conversations. And as you talked about a coach. Yep. Yep, you got it. Yeah, you know I saw it. I knew it. Yep, you know I saw it.

So Fierce Conversations, and when you talked about a coach, you know, when you say we remember our coaches and we love our coaches, part of the thing we love about our coaches is they say the things to us that people need to say. So we don't necessarily love them because they're cheerleaders, they're coaches.

So they're going to ask you the things that need to be said. They're going to have the conversations that need to be said. And that's what Fierce Conversations is about. Sometimes you being a leader of your business, and I don't care if you're the owner of the business, I want you to listen to this language very carefully. You being a leader in your business means that you will have the conversations that need to be had, the uncomfortable conversations, the tough conversations, the coaching conversations. That's what will separate you from others is your willingness to dive in. What Fierce Conversations taught us is even a failed conversation is better than no conversation.

So you've got to have it. But I have my coaching questions here too. They have a coaching model. They have a confrontation model. So we continue to learn. So the reason, two reasons I point out these resources. Number one, they work for me. I use them. Number two is it's not all about next star materials. Okay. That's the point. We don't have it all figured out. We continue to learn from others too. And we apply it. We eat our own cooking. We have our weekly one-to-ones with every

staff member. So I'll pause there because I can go on and on about coaching. I love it. You know, I'm going to have Bree bring in a sheet of paper in a little bit, but I got the opportunity, and I just want to hear your thoughts on this. I got the opportunity at Service Titan to actually sit through Jack's one hour, and he knows who I am. I'm honored to know him and you as well. And he's sitting up there at the front, and he goes, you know, my job as a CEO at Nextstar, this is several years ago, is to build leaders from within. And that's one of the things you said to me when you sat right here in the seat. You said, I just want to know how you plan on building leaders. With your growth, you got to know how to bring in leaders because you can't build them quick enough. And

part of that was having your employees and your management come in. And I say coaches come into you and tell you what they did well, what they need to work on, where they spent most of their time, what the goals that they got done that week. That's right. And we took what he built for us and modified it to A1. And it works. I got to tell you, Adam uses it and Luke and Brian use it more than I do. And I probably should be using it more. I never had the old-fashioned sit down with a CEO and get trained on how a CEO works. I feel

like my job is definitely the visionary of the business. I'm not great at integration, but tell me a little bit about what it was like to experience that firsthand and how you use those, how you build leadership from within the company. Thank you. And it was a privilege to really sit with Jack over the years and watch how he would allow me to lead. He would watch my thinking. And there's a few things that he talks about. So I am going to quote him.

You know, a few things that Jack talks about in that weekly one-to-one, when you're having that weekly one-to-one, number one, it never changes. Same day, same time, critically important. You can count on it like clockwork and you let the employee lead it. And he'll always say, here's a way to look at your direct reports.

The leaders are going to be talking about tomorrow and what they're excited about and what they can do next. The people who are looking to be directed are talking about yesterday and what happened. So just first off, just start to notice that in your conversations with people. Are they talking about yesterday and here's what happened and oh my gosh, because it's going to sound a lot like excuses and reasons. Or the people that just, you know, are they excited about what's next? Are they talking about the future? Are they constantly saying and bringing solutions? You know, here's what happened. Here's

what I think we should do next. That's a way of thinking into tomorrow, even if they mentioned yesterday. And here's what I think we should do. They're solution oriented. And leaders will also say things like, check my thinking. Hey, Tommy, you know, I have this idea. Or they say something like, what am I not thinking about? That was one of my favorite questions to Jack because I never liked just personally to be the person who would come in and have him solve it for me because I don't feel good about that. Why am I in this position? If you have to give me the answer, I'd say, here's the issue. Here's three potential solutions. What am I not thinking about? What else should I be thinking about? Here's another question I like to ask people. How would you think about this? And just get their perspective. Well,

I would think about, you know, the partners. I would think about the membership. I would think about your leadership team. So to your point, watching and developing leaders is so much about listening to where they're at today because you can't make someone something they're not ready to be. And so some leaders you're going to import and bring in for diversity, for different perspectives as your business is growing. As I talked to you about, you know, you're at a rapid ascension. So I think you'll be well-served to bring in a few leaders. And I know that, you know, if it's not for morale,

it's for operational knowledge that you need to develop. So that's the something that I had with Jack is he was always refining my thinking and he was always challenging my thinking, you know, things like the five whys, just asking somebody why five times. I remember one day I came in for a one-to-one, ran through the report. We had a great meeting.

Then right at the end, he just leans in and he just said, Julian, tell me why it's important for you to be extraordinary in the COO position. Why is it important to you that you must be extraordinary in that position? And I said some answer. And he goes, okay, why? So I said another answer. Okay, why? And I started to get frustrated. I said, well, you know this, and I started to get passionate. Well, why? Why? And we got down to my underlying why, and he got to know me and what drives me and

what my motivations were. And it solidified it for me by having to go through that exercise. So things of that nature are what a really great coach helped bring out of you. And those are the things they're looking for. I would presume from my experiences and it's worked well for us. You know, one of the things you told me was absolutely necessary. If you want to be part of next time, you said there's one main thing. You got to be out of the truck. You can't be the guy doing the work anymore. And I love that. And I want you to explain to the audience why that's so important. Well, it's critical. And, you know, I think we all can go back to the e-myth. I make a big presumption here that those listening would be familiar with that, you know, get you from technician to manager to a turnkey business. And there's some great resources specifically in our

industries where if you're still in the truck, that can help get you out of the truck. But Nexstar's resources are pretty broad and we do have a high demand of you. As you mentioned, Tommy, we're only, and I'm going to say only about 900 members, and we're not looking to be thousands of members. There's some models that that's great for, and there should be thousands of people or members in the network. That's good. We're hyper-focused, we're hyper-intensive, we're hyper-engaged. We have a 95% retention rate. So we want to get into your business with you and we really want to work in every function with you. So if you're out there in the truck, you just can't do it. I love the saying, if you want to see what's important to someone, if you want to see what they value, just look at their calendar. Where you spend the bulk of your time is what's important

to you. And if you're still having to pay the bills or run the sales calls, one of two things could be happening. Number one, you're either just doing it because that makes you feel important. You have a bias, like an adrenaline bias to doing it. It makes you feel good. It makes you feel like you're contributing. But the reality is, is you're not going to create a global monster like you're building over there, Tommy, if you're out still running the sales calls, or if you're out in the trucks, you're out, you know, you have to build a leader's will and power and create that for others. And that's what we found is that the businesses that can grow, we've aligned with the owners and the leaders who understand and accept that they need to create pathways for others

and they need to work on, not in the business. Just because, and I didn't mean to go this way, Julian, there's just an audience here. If Jack does watch this, which you need to make sure he does. Got it. Randy Ponson just said, Jack Tess was my manager before he went to Next Start. I still use things I learned from him every day. And Al Levy, the great Al Levy said, Jack Tess was my manager before he went to Next Start. I still use things I learned from him every day.

And Al Levy, the great Al Levy said, Jack told me, it's always the owner. Need to inspire and implement not one or the other, but both. And then Bree just brought this in. This might look familiar. Man, you've got some strong people listening here. What's up, guys? Thanks, audience. What are you in time with this week?

Significant activities. Observation insights or ideas. What did you spend time with this week? Significant activities, observation insights or ideas. What are you not doing that we should be doing? And then we've got our performance that are you implementing the A1 Garage things? And what did you do well this week? What can we improve on next week? What is the most important decision you're facing?

What keeps you from making it? What help or direction do you need? Key activities and priorities for next week. Just really cool to have that. And what I wanted to talk to you about was when I walked around and I went into your break room, there was all this stuff on the wall with goals. And you said, it's not that time of the year where we got everything underlined, anything highlighted in what you have, but was that like a six month plan? Can you tell me a little bit about what that was and why you guys do it?

For sure, for sure. Those are our 100 day plans. So it's broken down to quarters. And then we ensure that every person here, every single one of us has their 100 day plan posted in our break room where believe it or not, people are still coming together again. I keep mine right here.

So it's just a format. You know, it's your quarterly plan. It's what you're going to do. But then what we do is you go through, you highlight, is you complete. And either you do or you don't. And then at the end of each quarter, we get a spreadsheet. And I don't see the initiatives. I don't see exactly what you worked on, but I see green or red. And that's what you and I were talking about. If I see six months, so two quarters in a row, three quarters in a row, or definitely a year in a row, and it's all green, we have an issue. Because this is not your day-to-day activities. These are projects or innovative solutions or things that you're tackling and taking on. I shouldn't see green all the time. And of course,

inversely, if I see a bunch of red, you're either not equipped, supported, or in the right position with the initiatives you're taking on. So we do that public display. We highlight it. We go through it every quarter. So we can all stay focused. You can look at another department. How many times have you been in an organization? And I'll just make this up for an example, but you have this great idea and you say, you know what, in the next three months, I'm going to knock out a video series of 12 videos. And the videographers, they're over in another department and they've got their own idea of what they're doing for the next few months. And then who's going to win? You're going to win by title. And then they have some resentment towards you for bullying in on their plan. So that's the other thing is we go over it quarterly at our leadership meetings.

We look for what carries over, what aligns, what overlaps, and then we help our direct reports know what's coming. So it's really about alignment and direction as well as reporting. So when I went there, you introduced me to quite a few people and it was really cool how the place is set up and structured. I've had an issue that I think a lot of companies have faced in the past. And there's a good book called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. And what happened to my business, and it happens, it's going to continue to happen, is certain parts of the company get siloed. And what happens is as well, as you start caring about your own team, like the CSRs, and it's CSRs versus the dispatchers or dispatchers versus the technicians. But sometimes as leaders as well, we forget that the greater good is what matters.

Right. And unsiloing the company. And that happens through group activities, team building events, better communication, fierce conversations. Tell me a little bit about your experience with that kind of things that happen, I'm sure, as you start coaching businesses. For sure. And going along with Lencioni's work on the five dysfunctions, well, first you have to understand the five dysfunctions, learn how to read those symptoms, and then address them. And the foundation is trust. So you just start with trust. If that's not there, everything else, you can't build on top of it.

But the other thing that Lencioni talks about is he talks about understanding your first team. And I do think everything starts with you, Tommy. That business is going to move in the way you move. They're going to behave the way you behave. And your leadership team is going to do the same. And so if your leadership team, and here's what I mean by the first team by Lencioni, at least the way that we apply it, is that you're going to have service line managers, just to use that language as an example. So we've got Tommy up top, casting the vision, he's leading the way. Then we have our service line managers. But if our service line managers are so focused on their department goals, their budget, and they're just coming and reporting, hey, we knocked it out of the park, service is leading

and install's behind, oh well. And if they don't understand their first team is the overall organization's budget, it's not their departmental budget. Their first team is, hey,'s budget. It's not their departmental budget. Their first team is, hey, we're short people. How can we help every department? We need to get a message out. How can we cascade that through the organization? Their first team is that leadership team. It is not their department. They're serving that team before they serve any individual employee. Now, I need to be careful when I say this to ensure you hear it correctly. I'm not saying you discard or don't take care of your employees, but I'm saying it is your responsibility as a leader to help ensure

that the employees in your department understand the vision. And if you don't understand it, you got to come knock on this door and you got to get clear with the CEO or the VP or whomever, until you know it front, back and side. There was many times, many times in the course of, you know, four years where I didn't understand something clearly by Jack, the directive that we had, or maybe another leader. And I would sit down and get more information because it was so critical to me that I would be lockstep with him, that we would be aligned. And out of all those times I needed more information, we really only disagreed. And we talk about this in the course of three years together as VP and I'm being his right hand. There's only three things that I really remember I'd strongly

disagreed with. And I would encourage anybody listening here who has disagreements with the person they report to, you have a choice. You speak your position, you gain more information, and then you have a choice. Either you're going to fall in line or you're not, but you don't get to carry that on outside this door. And I feel strongly about that because I didn't. There were a few things that I strongly disagreed with him on. Few things, very few things, but I did completely disagreed. And then he would give me the context and he would support his decision. And he'd say, Julian, that's how we're going to move forward.

And I'd say, Roger that. We're locked in. Let's go. And that's the other thing about how you don't carry resentments. You have those uncomfortable conversations. And that's part of the five dysfunctions that people don't have those conversations. So I'll just pause there because I feel like I'm getting a little tangent. No, no, no.

It's great stuff. I think that I got a lot out of that and I was able to find this pretty quickly is the mission for NextStar Network is to guide and develop service providers to be simply the best in customer service profitability and employee engagement. But here's what I love, the vision. By October 31st, 2023, the median NextGen member will enjoy 10% revenue growth and 15% net profit. What I love so much about that is there's dates, there's timelines. Tell me why you guys decided to make the vision so intentional and do you always change it once you hit that date? We do. We do. And actually what's really cool about that vision is we actually, we hit it ahead of time. So number one, in Mission, we believe, you know, another

great read, which I know you're up on, but Simon Sinek talks about the infinite game and a just cause. A cause so just that people will rise up and work for it every day, even if they know they won't see it realized in their lifetime. That is the next star way. Our employees know that we will never see the day where the entire industry is perfect, professional, that every business owner and employee has achieved their ultimate life. But we will wake up every day and fight for that. So we have a just cause. That's our mission, to be simply the best in employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and profitability. And so now we know our true north. So we know our mission, we know our why, and we know how to measure it. But then our vision must be time sensitive and it must have metrics. And that's what we believe.

So you're right. And we actually changed it because it was that our median member would have 10% year over year revenue growth and 12% net profit. But we achieved that 12%. So we just went ahead and changed it, changed it up to 15. Let's shoot for that now. So yeah, we'll keep chasing it and keep driving it as our members keep growing. So one of the other things while I was at your office, and I got a lot to talk about, but we've got plenty of time. You've got staff personality profiles. I know that people can't see it, but it's a round circle with basically everything from accuracy, stability, support, collaboration, enthusiasm, action, results, and challenge. Then you got every employee where they land on that profile. And what I see here is it's all

over the place. It's a good thing. It's very well plotted out. It's not like it's all centered. And the more I talk with private equity companies, they talk about how they'll do the personality profiles of the leadership team. And what they'll usually notice is there's a big piece of the pie missing. And as they put in a person to take that role, they get infinite growth from there. Tell me a little bit about the purpose of understanding people's profile and personality profile. Thank you. First, I'll speak to the two profiles that we use.

One is DISC and one is Color Code. And the reason that we use those two is Color Code is your motivation. It's your motive, why you show up, why you do the things you do. And there's four different colors. And then DISC, many are familiar with, is your behavior. So there's a big difference between your motivation and your behavior. We can have people that have the exact same motivating factors and a different behavior style. So that's why we believe it's important, number one, that we can understand your motivation, the things that drive you, why you get started. It's important to know that what gets people going. And then the other thing that's important to understand is their behavior,

how they show up, how they react, how they like information presented, how they will present information. And the reason that we use these two models is not for, I'll say it this way, hey, you guys know how I like to be communicated with, do everything my way. No, it's about us stretching to the other person. It's that we should investigate the other person. Just having this conversation with a leader a moment ago in our one-to-one, we were talking about an initiative that they needed help from somebody else on, and we just stopped. I said, okay, now I think they're a D, you know, I think they're a D on the profile and I'm pretty sure they're a red in the motivation. How would you craft your message with that?

And they said, oh yeah, that's right. I think so. And they, you know, kind of changed their message the way, because we want to stretch to you. It's not about, you know, my style figured me out. It's about, I need to understand other, you know, it's the Covey thing. Seek to understand before you seek to be understood. And that's why we use it in that way.

I think it's really smart. You know, we did the color code. I got a book. This book was, there's not a lot of stuff on the color code. I'm sure there's online tests, but I found this book and Al uses a different one and then everybody seems to use, but it's so smart to personality profile your peers and to understand their strengths. When I first started with the predictive index, the CEO actually trained us. And he said, Tommy, you and I overlap perfectly. And he goes, it's crazy. So they overlap me and him. And it was like the exact same line. And he goes, Brian, Brian's one of the managers. He goes, I'm guessing you can't stand Tommy at certain points. And he goes, well, I like Tommy, but sometimes professionally.

And I said, well, what do you mean? And the guy said, well, look, Tom, Brian will work really hard on a project. And he'll want to show you the details. And you hate details. You just want to know does it work. Does the car run? Does it move? You're a big up here guy

he's down here going through each and every little niche and cranny and understanding nook and cranny and he's making sure it's perfect and you're just he wants to give you an hour presentation on why it all works the way it does and you're just because it doesn't work and then he's like he walks out on flag pages was it but here's the deal. He goes, let me explain myself and Tommy to you. And Brian goes, oh my God, that makes so much sense. He goes, the whole time I thought I was just being shit on basically. And he goes, no, no, no, that's not that at all. But once you understand his personality, you'll understand why.

And now he's able to explain that. So I think it's very powerful things that you guys have that. And the tools that you guys use and the things you guys have around there, with 880 or 900 companies that have been successful, and them all bring stuff to one company to endorse and get behind everybody, there's just so many tools you guys have developed. One of the questions that Greg had was, how do you motivate your team to achieve big targets when the odds are against you? I feel like everything's against us right now. And here's the thing, I don't necessarily believe in motivating other people. So go ahead and get excited,

get angry and do whatever you need to do, people. But here's what I say. And again, I'll go back to a Jackism. So I'm running a business in Atlanta. We're plumbing, heating, and cooling. and I remember on one of my coaching calls because he was my business coach too when I was a member so I was a member and I remember just telling him about you know just this person this person was really getting on my nerves you know they were always bringing me things and so I'm being vague right here to make a point is what I realized he listens to me and then he says, hey, Julian, would you rather guide a racehorse or kick a mule?

And what I realized is that one person who was getting on my nerves was actually a racehorse. They were bringing solutions is what they were actually bringing. They were bringing ideas and concepts and everybody else around me was waiting for me to be the answer person. And that made me feel good.

And so I was looking at this one person who was the racehorses, if they were the wrong person, they were the bad person because I felt good around everybody else because everybody else needed me to tell them what to do. And so that's just on the motivation point there, Gregory, is why I want to bring that up is that just hire people who have the motivation. And what you're going to find is you really don't need to motivate them when the odds

are against them. They're going to be scaring your pants off. I'm going to tell you right now, the people that we hire and the staff brings things to me and I go, I don't know how the heck we're going to do that. But I just ask a lot of questions. I follow what Jack modeled here and help build with us. And even Jack's predecessor, Greg Neamey, very similarly, big, big, our founder, Frank Blau. Frank Blau believed that we could raise the industry. And I mean, just, you can't tell this man otherwise. So then you just surround yourself with people like that. Now, here's what I will say though about motivation. I just wanted to

make that point first. Make sure that you have self-motivated people around you. Don't be the source of all energy. But here's what I will say, is I think your job as it relates to motivation is you can spark motivation. Okay, there's a time where you can come by, you know, an attaboy, a well-timed attaboy. You can create the environment for motivation, meaning ensure that they have everything they need. Ensure that you keep a pulse of where they're at when they're against all odds, because they're going to get fatigued. So it's not just the rah-rah, but it's also do they have everything they need. Keep your finger on the pulse and then recognize motivation. So then you circle back around again and not the

attaboy to get them going, but the acknowledgement that you're aware of what they're doing. So yes, even though I say I don't believe in motivation, there are ways that you can create motivation. And a book that I found really strong on this is, I think it's Brandon Burchard, The Motivation Manifesto. I know the book is called The Motivation Manifesto, but he talks about how you can facilitate, how you can spark it and how you can flame it, but you can't necessarily create it in someone. And I subscribe to that same thinking. So hire great people, but then support them and check in on them. Don't leave them out there just because they're motivated, because also they can take off down a wrong path.

You know, a racehorse without direction can be a real problem. So that's my quick answer to that and my thoughts on that question. So thanks. Thanks for submitting that. I appreciate it. I don't necessarily think, you know, motivation can be created, but I do think that it stems from passion. When I'm at the front of my room and I'm talking,

I said, you want to know what happens last? This was last Thursday. I said, I don't get on the phone and tell people who I am when I'm helping out or even when I'm in the garage, I don't announce, but there's a good likelihood, probably nine out of 10 times that they're going to ask me if I'm the owner. Why is that? I'm confident. I believe in the product. I believe in the company, but I'm passionate. You can hear it in my voice. You can see it in my eyes. There's a tear that bubbles up sometimes when I'm talking about people in garage doors and I'm excited about the smile of your home and what it's done for me and my family. So I think passion stems a lot of that. And when you left here, one of the things that I always do, and you were receptive to this

because you're a reader, is I always give people books. And I think I gave you The Sales Boss. That's right. And then Go For No. And I know you said you got through The Sales Boss, right? Yep. What'd you think?

Tell me a little bit about what you thought about that book. Yeah, Sales Boss was great. And I mean this in the most respectful way as an operator. I loved how basic it was. It gave me a framework. It gave me an outline. It told me what to do. Thank you. I don't need you to wax on poetic in your books and give me all, you know, it's nice. And I told you this too, because that's what I was getting mad at you. You had me like three different books and I go, Tommy, don't give me these books that are 500 pages. It could have been 100. You know, you get to the point, give me the red meat and tell me what to books. And I go, Tommy, don't give me these books that are 500 pages. It could have been 100. You know, get to the point, give me the red meat and tell me what to

do. And I really liked that one. That one was well outlined, well done, a very fundamental. And I mean that as that's a good thing. You know, look at the San Antonio Spurs when they had their run of championships, you know, they were called boring for their fundamentalism in the way that they ran basketball, but that's the point. The fundamentals don't lose. It didn't take a superstar to win all those championships. When you're counting on that one salesperson, that one superstar, or if we're going to count My invitation to you, Tommy, is that he doesn't need to understand your style. Yeah, great. He understands your style now. Now you need to understand his too.

And you need to slow down sometimes and honor those details and say, hey, you know, Julian, you know, you got 20 bullet points. Give me your top five. So, you know, always meet people halfway too, is what I'd encourage, you know, now that you know their love language. But yeah, that was a good one. Yep. All three books you gave me were great.

You know, there's a lot of good books here. I got to good one yeah all three books you gave me were great you know there's a lot of good books here i gotta tell you all these books i got alan roars over there obviously i got l's and l just said some of the best books he's read have been 150 pages or less and that's really you gotta cut the bs in them and and uh that's what i'm writing another book and i'm really gonna try to make it to the point like you can take a book and really write cliff notes and that's what it should be you know i wanted to i wanted to jump into some real life scenarios today what's happening and there's a couple of them that come to mind so we'll go through each of them number one in my industry specifically and it's all over the place

is um right now there's a real labor shortage now the thing is is there's only enough skilled technicians to go around so a lot of it one of biden's goals i believe was to raise the wages to get people to come and he's kind of subsidizing them saying until you raise your your rates they get to stay at home i don't really understand it it. But from my perspective, we've done good. We've got 19 guys here training. We've been able to get people through the door. We've got a good culture. We pay great. We do performance pay. We've got insurance, PTO. But it's definitely an issue. And I'm connected on a lot of social media. So I get to hear what's going on in other businesses. And it's devastating when you add on the price of product and the limitations of getting product on top of the labor shortage. I truly believe this is

definitely still a seller's market, but in my mind, in business, it's starting to change. It's starting to say, starting to be for me, there's a lot of guys I know in this industry saying they would like to sell right now. And in a place of vulnerability, I feel bad. I mean, I'm not happy. And Adam comes in and he's like, dude, we're screwed on this. This, this, I say, good, I'm happy. And he goes, what do you mean? I just said bad news. If we're having bad news, it's 10 times worse for somebody else. And there's going to be opportunities that are built from it. But tell me a little bit about what you're dealing with this on a daily basis, I'm sure. Yeah, we are. And I love the fact that you mentioned also the material shortages or price increases. So yeah, we are in a very lean market right now of product and talent. So what are you going to do about it? The most successful

members, and this is back when I was a member, you know, back in 2007, I used to, you know, kind of get after other members back then and said, stop hiring licensed guys. You know, not don't stop hiring licensed guys, but like, is that all you're hiring? What's your apprentice program look like? What are you doing to attract people? What are you doing to connect with the community? And our most successful members, that's what they're doing. You know, I'm seeing them take on technical training right there in their shop. They're bringing people in. They're knowing their retention number. To your point, if you bring in 20 guys, how many are really going to stick? And to this point, one of our flagship classes is called Service System. We did a super service system in Atlanta a few weeks ago. We had 200 technicians there. And I saw women in the uniforms. I saw minorities in the uniforms. I saw guys with

dreadlocks, with dyed hair, with tattoos. It's like, this is what our community looks like. Not everywhere. I get that. If I'm in the middle of Utah, not everybody looks that way, though some parts do. I get it. But it's really like, what's the identity of your business and who are you welcoming into it? And how are you building them? So our most successful members, they have these apprenticeship programs, they have these training programs, they're investing in the people. They're not asking the questions of, hey, should I pay him while he's training? And I'm already investing in the training. It's like, come on, man, build your right price and build it for bringing on apprentices and build it for the future. Because not only is it hard to find people, it's not attractive.

And you know this, and actually I've heard this on some of your podcasts before where these private equity people are talking about, I forget if it's the next 10 years, the number of businesses that will change hands just due to retirement or due to aging out. That's not even the workforce. That's the businesses changing hands. So we have a compounding mixture right now of many factors that are contributing to not just the labor force, but the changing hands of businesses to now the products that we can get and the pricing on them. This is a wild time. You know, it's interesting that you mentioned that

because I just had someone on the podcast last week and I bought his book. I started going through it, but he talks about millennials taking over baby boomers. And the deal about millennials, and I'm right on the border, is we want to feel valued. We want a place that we could grow.

We also want, and this is not me, I'm the opposite, but a good work-life balance. And so a lot of people are starting to experiment with four-day work weeks, four 10-hour shifts. You're seeing a lot of this. And the market is telling the home service to change. It's saying, sure, there's 24-7 demand, but you got to figure out a way to have that work-life balance. For me, I just enjoy business so much. So if I'm out, well, you know, we did it when we were out at restaurants and you were showing me around Minnesota. We had fun and we talked business, but we still enjoyed ourselves and had great dinners

and everything else. And you showed me around. So, but what do you say to somebody that they go, man, we're 24-7. The work-life balance is difficult. How do you change that dynamic and that culture in a business? I think it's interesting that you mentioned that the market is really demanding that. And more and more of our members being, you know, emergency services are shifting off of on-call.

Of course, you always need to have somebody ready if an existing customer, you know, has water coming out the side of their bathroom wall. Of course, you need to. But as far as on-call, just for the sake of on-call, of chasing the dollars and the revenue, I've been watching that change the past few years here. And our leading members are just not doing it anymore. They're not putting people on on-call schedules per se. And, you know, going out, if it's not an emergency, we're just not sending somebody out. So they can't have a quality of

life. I don't believe in work-life balance. I believe in quality of life. And I think that's where there's a little confusion, especially as we look back at our industry of plumbing, heating, cooling, and electrical, is that the baby boomers who built this, they saw the results of parents or grandparents of a depression and the industrial changes and the things that had to happen. I even remember my grandmother talking about rations. So it's just a different mentality as it related to work. It was protecting a country. We're at world wars and we're very far removed. We have all these conflicts right now, but they don't really impact us at home. And so we do have a different ethic. We do have a different way of thinking. We, myself included, have a certain

level of entitlement that my grandparents and great-grandparents definitely didn't have. And so let's just acknowledge that. Let's think about it. And let's investigate how we run a good business model, serving our customers top tier without chasing every doggone dollar. If Chick-fil-A can close for a day, completely close and still make more money than anybody else. So I think there's something about honoring your employees and also understanding that when you're on the clock though, you're on. And the thing that I've noticed about millennials, and this is always good for an argument at home or anywhere that I take it, I say, you know, they want to work less or they work different. And I think that for me,

this ties back to technology that I watch the veracity at which my children will research things on video. So it looks like they're on their phone, but they're researching, they're watching videos, they're learning, they're avid learners and they're getting after it and that's work. So just because it's not banging something with your hands, don't mistake the way that they're building their minds.

And I think if we could honor that and say, okay, here's the style and here's your strengths and here's what you're built to do and predisposed to do, then you can get after it. And I think you see this in your business, any kinesthetic learner or worker, they like getting out there. They like banging their knuckles. They like to know when they're done for the day and they don't want to be on call. And that's why I started there. See, the way I learn is just, I got a droid. I prefer PC. I just, everything about me is, is more structure. I'm not very imaginative. I could take something and make it a little bit better, but I don't,

I'm not a creator and it's good to know where you're at. And it's good to take these, these personality tests. And during college, I must've taken a hundred different personality tests to tell you stuff. And it's fun to learn. It's interesting, but then there's other people that got all of them. And that's where you get into trouble. You mentioned on-call. I think that the big thing for me is that there's nothing worse in my life than an on-call shift because I got a lot of restaurant history, whether it was busing tables or serving or bartending. You want me to leave this space open and not have fun, not go anywhere, not make an event or anything and be available. So it's almost worse than a work shift because there's a chance I'm not going to make money, but I got to be. So I think for me,

the way that I've combated that, and it's not perfect, but what I try to do is bring really good jobs. I figure out if you're a night person and a lot of people like to start at noon and finish at 10. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The staggered shifts for sure. Staggered shifts. And then I pull those on called hours. I'll call tomorrow's jobs. I'll call Wednesday's jobs and try to line up with good ones that night. And then I got both decision makers home, but I still got time with my dispatching to put in those emergency calls. Exactly. I mean, did you have any thing you wanted to add to that?

Well, how many calls? It's a perfect point. You know, staggered shifts. How many calls really come in after 7 p.m.? You know, and if they do, most of those people just say, hey, I have one clogged toilet. Okay. You know, it may not be an emergency tonight. This is the only toilet you have.

Just, you know, training your staff how to have this respectful conversation still give great service but truly identify an emergency need well done man take care of your employees randy said your comment about millennial work heaven's a spot on and uh l said get big enough to make rotating shifts starting from 10 a.m to 7 p.m you know there's one thing that i've always heard trumps everything in a business and i'm the living proof i was not very good before i met l and l l the seven power contractor levy taught us a world of knowledge but we were able to bring in a lot of freaking sales man we knew how to sell and the sales trumped our crappy accounting or our spend money on useless things. And just, we had so much revenue coming in from sales that we were blinded by a lot of

things. But I do believe sales is the lifeblood of every company. Marketing and sales go hand in hand with one or another. But I'd love to hear your perspective because so much of my life I've had, there was a time I've had really good sales guys that were poison, they were cancer. And they really, they held down everybody else. And there's so much to talk about with sales,

but I'd love to hear, you were a sales coach. I mean, this is what you do. You breed salesmen that actually don't take advantage either. You don't need a light sheet or steel, I always say, to get good sales. So give me your 100-foot view of how to build and develop sales within the company. Then we'll talk a little bit about marketing.

Well, and that's why I loved your book. Because again, it was a basic fundamental principle. And if you don't have a sales manager in place, because you're right, you can't outrun those bad habits. You'll never make enough revenue because you're going to start running through people. So that's the thing. So many people look at the top line and revenue can buy a new toy, revenue can do this, revenue can do that. But it's also, if you're having a high employee turnover due to those behaviors, there comes a day of reckoning.

And or you're just going to choose to live that life. If you're just going to be a leaking Sith, then that's your choice. If that's the business you want, and then you're going to be fatigued and you're going to be frustrated. So at some point you have to offset that. And to me, it does get back to the processes and good leaders. Because salespeople, look, you're crazy. I'm just going to tell you right now, I tell my salespeople here that I love,

you're just crazy. You're a different breed of person if you're out there selling. And so when you have a good sales manager, good sales leader in place with that good process, like the book you shared, then we have the rules. We have the rules of the road because most people aren't bad people. They're really not.

And all of us test the boundaries. I drive into the office about 4 a.m. I don't go the speed limit because I see that there's a low probability of an accident. I see there's a low probability of getting pulled over. And so I push the edges. And that's just the way that people are. But if there's good boundaries, if there's good management, if there's good leadership that's modeled, then people will find if they fit in or get out. And to me, it's really that simple. So I just think you have to have a good process, you have good leaders, and you have to have the same accountability for everybody that's on that team. Absolutely. And it really is. Lightning in a bottle talks about too, is you just can't have these guys that you think you're going to get on to save the company.

You know what I mean? You got to be able to make them and you got to have consistent overall is better than a couple of guys that are just, I've been propped up with a couple of good guys before in the history of the company. And it's scary to know that they kind of control you. And the scariest thing is when you're first getting out of the truck, if you fire somebody, you're back in the truck, not a good place to be. And you know, a lot of us have been there.

I like to use the phrase that falls up with our leaders. You know, if they lose somebody critical or something goes wrong, well, that falls up, you know, what are you going to do about it? Yeah. Well, that's the thing is, is, as I say, I always be recruiting. And then I was just talking to my buddy about some milestones I want to hit. And part of it, my attention goes to the biggest problem. And right now I believe the biggest problem always is how do you find the next great canvas with employees? Because if you're growing like I'm growing, we're going to do damn near a hundred percent growth since last year. And that's unhealthy unhealthy growth but we built the infrastructure to handle it but you know what's interesting too is i want to move on to marketing is

as i noticed something this guy named dale came in he works for kent goodrich and landon brewer was in town they both came and visited and they did a walkthrough and dale was pleasantly surprised and said this is awesome what you guys have done and i i really appreciated that but what i noticed was is i don't know when it was but they went to the wizard of ads roy williams and ken positioned himself differently he gives a flashlight of stuffed animal ghetto's hard to spell but it'll keep you cool they talk about his dog named sadie they talk about the right way not the easy way and they got this messaging all over radio, a lot of TV. But billboards and radio is really where he spends his money.

And the one thing that Dale told me that stood out is good sales come from a couple main things he said. And I'll go through a couple. He just said a couple of things need to happen. Number one, a big, big one is they need to know that you're the only company for them. They need to understand that there's not a price war. It's not like you go to these other places. You're the only right company for them. And that's through the marketing message. And he said, another thing that you need to have is it needs to be done today because there's not something we can put off any longer and here's why and a couple other things payment options and both decision makers

and stuff like that but but what i realized was their brand demanded that their brand shane company another guy roy williams the shane company you're familiar if you were at denver during the shane company is hello my name's tom sh. You know, I cut out the middleman and go direct, and none of my people make commission. It's the messaging and the marketing and the branding, Dan Antonelli would tell you, is everything to do with marketing. And you have no idea because I was a lead gen guy. Garage door repair Phoenix is what I went after.

Now I want everybody to search a1 garage door because what i noticed is they say i don't care what the price is i want it done right because you guys are the best i see you guys everywhere i know about the way you train your guys i know there's drug test background checks good driving safe around my daughters safe around my kids so explain to me a little bit about marketing and what you've learned through the years especially because you've got access to sales that i know you can't divulge right now, but you know the biggest, best companies. What are some of the secrets you've seen just by following it over the years?

It's really no different from the things you've shared. You just have to find your message, your story. I will share a resource that I found great value in here for us at Nextar, and it's StoryBrand. Donald Miller, you know the StoryBrand? Yeah. And it's really for us at Nextar. And it's StoryBrand. Donald Miller, you know, the StoryBrand. Yeah. And it's really about... Great book.

Yeah. It's not about you. And everything you just said is really not about you. It's about how the person... You're not the hero. Right. And it's how they feel about you. You know, Ghetto's whole thing is about how the person feels about the thing.

It's not, you know, I'm showing up. I'm number one. I'm this. I'm that. It's about, you can trust me and we'll get it done. You're taken care of. we're the right ones. So, you know, you just have to find your theme, find your brand, find your style, find your voice. But the most important thing is that, yeah, make the customer the hero, that it's about them. You know, I tell my guys,

I'm like, slow the hell down, connect with the customer. Joker Star Calls are magic moments. And when you're there with the customer after you collected the money i can't tell you how many times this has happened julian collected the money now i go through i teach them how to lubricate the door i run it four times i show them how the safety eyes work i clean the opener put new light bulbs in it i blow out the garage and i spend a time with them and then they go you know what remember that other door you mentioned that you wanted to do this stuff on why don't we just get all that done too because obviously you're the best home service guy i've ever hired anybody that's taking that attention

to detail after they collected the money that buyer's remorse that you know there's an old saying people love to buy but they hate to be sold that's right and when they go through that experience it really is something special when you're able to connect because the buyer's remorse that it's fun to watch when a customer says, wow, I'm impressed. I really enjoyed this experience. Is there anywhere that I could go leave you a review rather than asking for a review? You know, we talked about a lot of stuff, Julian. I like to close with a few things. This is great, by the way. I mean, mean literally i think with the inside knowledge that you have and so many companies that you've coached and just every you've seen so many different dynamic leaders this is amazing you just have

so much you've learned over the years but the few things that i i talk about is if someone wants to reach out to you i don't necessarily know if everybody listening is HVAC, plumbing, electrical, but obviously if they do reach out to Nextar, if they're looking to get into the best practices group, Nextar network, but if they just wanted to reach out to you, what's the best way to do that? LinkedIn. That's the only place I'm on in social media. Julian Skadden on LinkedIn. You'll find me very easily. And I appreciate it. I love connecting. Thank you, Tommy. That's awesome. You know, I do have one thing that I wanted to ask you. Uh-oh, and he's smiling. Well, there's a couple of questions I finished up, but this is

not a question I usually ask. You know, when I met you, you go, look, I love Jack. I love Nextar, but I'm Julian. This is who I am. This is me. I'm not from a privileged area. You know, I grew up and there were areas I lived in town that maybe I'm not proud of, but I'm proud of my past. I'm proud of who I am. And you said, I'm always going to be myself. I might not have the same opinion. I'm out for Nextar's everything. That's who I am. They hired me to do this job and I'm going to do the best of my

ability. But you said, I'm going to be myself no matter what. And I just, there's a lot of people that get into a room and they, they conform and they, they don't have their own personalities. And it's almost like they're trying to impress people. And that's the, although you were very impressive, that wasn't the vibe. You that's the, although you were very impressive, that wasn't the vibe. You were like, I'm going to be me. You know, tell me a little bit about that and how, because there are people that just act a certain way

when they're around different people. And that's, I don't necessarily like that. Tell me a little bit about your take on all that. Thank you. You know, there's a little bit there. And here's the other thing. I don't want people to, you know, there's always like the pendulum, it can overcorrect and swing one way or the other. The other thing is to don't get so caught up in things have to be my way and this is my personality. So it's and did it again. But I mean, those are just big shoes to fill. So when I think about it, and for those of you who

are listening or may not know who Jack Tester is or can't envision me, I'm about a five foot eight brown guy. All right. Jack is about six foot something white guy, Scandinavian. And so we couldn't look any more different. But my point was that he's college educated. He's brilliant. He's thoughtful. And he had his way of leading. And so when I said I'm going to be me, it was never to be flippant or to take away from tradition. It was simply to say, look, if I say things or do things a little bit differently, I want that membership, we shot a video. And the phrase that I used is that Jack's got some big shoes to fill. So I'm not going to fill them. I'm going to wear my own. But I will say we're going the same direction. So I'm following the path. I'm keeping the traditions.

I honor and I acknowledge your next story. So even when I'm saying I'm being myself, I don't want to be myself for the sake of myself or the ooh, look at me. It's just, look, I may communicate a little bit differently. I look a little bit different. And what I want to say is I want that to open a conversation for understanding where people could get to know me better because for many years,

it was all about me seeking to understand others. And now I want to ensure that I can create a model where people who might've come from a neighborhood like me or look like me can say, you know what? I can make it in that industry or I'm welcome in that industry. That's why I talked about at that super service system, it was so cool to me to look out over all those technicians and see the number of female technicians and minorities and just the diversity

in that room. And that's what family gatherings look like. We're not all conformists and we're not all the same, but also, I'm not going to go get a neck tattoo next week either just to show you guys I can do it because I'm different and I'm specially or you know maybe maybe I need to take up another line of work if I'm going to do that but as far as being professional you know and just doing things like even today is a very casual Monday for me I'm in a polo you know but many other days I'm in a tie you know it's don't be different just for the sake of being different I guess is my point but also embrace yourself and have difficult conversations you know I go in that bottom drawer right there I'm sure there's another pair of clothes in there for later.

Always ready. Yeah. I have, I have a change of professional clothes and a change of casual clothes because no excuses. You get results or you get reasons and you only get one and I'm all about the results. Yeah. You're just a fun guy. If anybody gets a chance to go hang out with Julian for a day, it's just a blast. You, you really do. You made me feel at home you know when i pulled into minnesota i came in at 1 p.m or 1 a.m

with brie and it's uh st paul and we stayed right downtown and i've never been to minnesota i thought man grumpy old men where the movie was shot and uh yeah and i walk in the funny story was and i'll share real quick is i'm driving around and you know it looks okay but it's kind of dark in certain areas and there's definitely homeless people and we're looking for a place to eat and even white castles was closed which killed me because i was looking forward to it we go to this gas station we just decided to pick up some chips and soft drinks whatever but i walk up to the guy as i'm checking out and there's this big glass shield it's a bulletproof you know thing or whatever and i go is this neighborhood okay

he goes no it's not because i'd get the hell out of here as quick as possible if i were you and i'm like we gotta go but uh anyways i really did enjoy i got to see the um i think that's a congress building and just next time i come i want to hang hang out on Mississippi River and see some of the lakes. Speaking of Jack Tester real quick, and then I'll go to the final couple of questions and get you done. Jack, he's still part of the company. He's doing succession planning, right? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So there's a good book called Built to Last by Jim Collins that he talks about a lot about Jack Welch and what he left GE in a better position than when he came and how great leaders, when they pass the baton, they pass it on in a better place to a better person to take it on to a better place to go.

Not saying who's better, but they say, I want the company to win. My legacy is how good the company does when I leave, not how good it was when I was there. That's right. It's interesting. I think right now, more than ever, people are trying to figure out succession planning. It's a weird time just in the world right now. So, Julian, you got three books to recommend.

Any three books doesn't need to be about home service, doesn't need to be about business, could be about anything. What are the three books? Yeah, The Slight Edge, which talks about the impact of small actions over time. It's very similar to The Compound Effect. So, you know, Slight Edge was just the one I read first. Success Principles, that was a book that changed my life by doing that work by Jack Canfield. And, you know, the book that I would just say that keeps me centered is Proverbs.

I read a proverb a day, and I'm not saying that I'm perfect. I'm not saying that I'm the example, but in my opinion, you should definitely have something that helps center you and just take you to a higher ground and think a little bit bigger than yourself. And that's what I would offer. And this is the last question. I went over a little bit, but the last question I'll always do is talk about a lot of fun things, a lot of good stuff with business, but there might have been something you wanted to talk about we didn't touch upon. So I'll give you the next few minutes. Anything you want, any go to action, go do this now, any principle, any final thoughts to get the listeners thinking about themselves. Yeah. The thing that I feel most passionately about, at least in this moment is, you know of our society. Let's open opportunities for people,

and I'm not talking about charity or giveaway or bring somebody into your business who's bad, but I do really invite you to look in places you maybe have never looked before, to look at people that you might not have thought of as leaders. If they don't have a haircut like Tommy and the good looks, it doesn't mean that they can't be leaders. And so I really invite, look at some of the females, look at some of the underrepresented populations. Right after we had an incident out here last year with George Floyd, and I got a phone call from a lot of our members, mainly our white members asking me, what can I say to my minority staff? And in the most direct way I could say it, I said, well, do you have any minorities on your leadership team? No. Have you said anything the past 10 years? No. Well, then don't say anything now. Now it's time to listen. And I'm

not saying anybody's right or wrong. I don't want to get into the politics of it, but I am saying, expand your view. Just step back a little, look at people a little bit differently. And I sense this in our membership, there's a hyper pride around the female service technician or the female comfort consultant. And that's amazing. That's great. And let's not stop there. You know, diversity comes in many shapes, forms, colors, directions, and it's diversity of thought too. And that's where I really want to close with. So look a little bit differently, you know, look at things a little bit differently, get to know the person and their actions more than the way they look and behave. But don't be afraid to surround yourself with

people who have diversity of thought. Just because you bring in somebody who's brown, who thinks and acts just like you, that's not diversity. Okay, you're just confirming the things you want to believe. Look for people that challenge you too in your business in a respectful way and look to build and learn from each other. So that's the thing I'm most passionate about is diversity, but it's not always the window dressing. It's not always the book cover. I'm saying diversity of thought, diversity of experience, and then create an environment where you can have those collaborative, uncomfortable, tough conversations, and your business will be amazingly grown, and you'll attract more people than you ever thought you could.

That's been my experience. It's a great message. I really, really appreciate you ending with that. I think creating the lures, lures aren't for fishing, the bait, of putting the bait out there in other areas that to grow in those atmospheres and you know what i've noticed is like in michigan is a little bit different than it would be in arizona because we've got more of uh hispanic community here right and i love it when we have all these guys training from all these different markets to get to know each other staying in the same apartment complex, going on their different food, different types of beer, different types of just music, everything. It's really been fun to kind of be able to witness that firsthand.

You know, we're in 17 states, so I've got to see it. And it's cool. A lot of women leaders are coming into the business. Just it's actually really interesting. The point of views. And I love it because I try to be the dumbest guy in the room. And most of the time, it's pretty easy to do so. But listen, Julian, you really know a lot, man. You know a lot of people. You're educated. I think you quoted about

27 books. I hope that people take the opportunity to get to know you a little bit and reach out to you on LinkedIn. But you're always welcome back out here. Got the keys to the house to get to know you a little bit and reach out to you on LinkedIn, but you're always welcome back out here. You know, finally got the keys to the house to realize I want to redo it, but appreciate it, brother. Thank you for having me. I sincerely appreciate it. And what I would say to the people that listen to you realize that Tommy is a learner. So that even as we go back and forth, complimenting each other, I can't just look for those behaviors, those attributes that people have. If they're hungry, humble, and smart, another Lencioni thing, the ideal team player, humble, hungry, and smart, they can do anything for your business. Go get them. That's what they say. You got a PhD, you're poor, hungry, and determined, right? Still. All right, man. We'll see you soon, brother.

All right, brother, man. Thank you. 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 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.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. you