EP28: Tenets For A Successful Small Business: With Brent Garrett CEO Of Sirius Plumbing And Heating

0:00Hey, well, welcome everybody to another venture of Shop Soup. Soup Radio here. I'm with Brett Garrett from Sirius HVAC, Sirius HVAC, right? Or heating and air conditioning. Plumbing and air conditioning. Plumbing and air conditioning, right? Out of North Dallas, Texas. Am I correct? That's correct. That's right. Yeah. And we just were just talking a little bit about, about, I guess we have a mutual hobby here called golf.

0:25And, you know, we were just going over some of the things that, that are, that we enjoy. But more so, we're here to talk about Brett, you got your new book out, 30 Days to a Better Business. And, you know, well, first off, tell the audience a little bit about yourself, what you do, how you do it. You know, we met kind of like through your assistant Kate, and all of a sudden here we are, you know, on a little show because I found it pretty interesting.

0:49But, you know, describe what you do, who you are, how you've been. Since you brought out— brought up Kate, Kate is the best, let me tell you what. And so I am a second-generation small business owner. My dad owned a plumbing and air conditioning business in the Midwest. And, uh, it was a smaller contractor, a couple trucks, that kind of thing. He was a Korean War vet.

1:12He was, he was in the National Guard when he was still in high school and got called up halfway through his senior year. And so, and he was, uh, he was on his way to play football on a scholarship, but, uh, life gave them a little different twist, came back and started a family. I'm the youngest of 4. I grew up in the business.

1:33I started on the end of a shovel at 12 and, and kind of learned it that way. My other 3 siblings and myself were all college graduates. And, and so I started my first company much against my dad's wishes when I was 26. I started a plumbing company, plumbing and air conditioning company here in in Richardson, Texas called Canyon Creek Plumbing and Air Conditioning.

1:57Had $5,000, a 50-page business plan, grew that in about 5 years and sold it to ServiceMaster. Got some corporate experience, did some mergers and acquisitions. My background's marketing and accounting, but I'm licensed in both trades and know the work. A little corporate stint, did some coaching and speaking and workshop training, all the while starting another plumbing and air conditioning business, which is the one we have today.

2:21And it was a lifestyle business. We, we raised our kids and I did get off the road on the coaching, speaking, that kind of thing. I'm now back doing that. And right on that other wall there is a really great team of people, about 30, 30 employees. We call them team members and 17 trucks. And we're in a 10-mile radius and we're just trying to keep people's homes safe, healthy, and clean and having a good time.

2:49I own a business. I don't, I don't work in it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I still coach the coaches, but it's at a different level. It's the operations side and the accounting side. Yeah. So, and, and I'm just having a great time. I, I hope that answered your question, but— Yeah, you do. I mean, you know, when we got together, you know, I wanna be able to present to my trade, the automotive, independent automotive repair section, sector, a different perspective coming from a same type of, well, a fellow tradesman, right?

3:23But a different type of trade. And you know, when I got to know you and read your book, I found it fascinating. There were a lot of parallels from, you know, basically I look at small business as small business. I look at trades as trades and you know what we do and how we do it. It's somewhat the same. There's different variations, but when it came down to your book and what, The fascinating part of it was, is that it was pretty agnostic.

3:52Like anybody who is in the trade, as you wrote it, could understand it even though, you know, you are from plumbing and heating and HVAC, something different. We on our side pretty much do the same thing. We have air conditioning, we have heat, we have plumbing, we have spark air and, and electricity as well. So we run the gamut. But I really like how you structured your book.

4:20Again, 30 Days to a Better Business. It's succinct. And how did you, how did you go from, I mean, your background, you started, you've got the entrepreneurial path, you're in that journey, one business fails. All of these things are part of your history, your journey, your experience. How did you come about deciding that, well, you know what, I want to write about that and I think I can help some Yeah, that's a great question.

4:45And I do think you're a skilled trade. We, we provide a service and a product and, and there's interaction with the customer. The, the lane I'm in is small business and a lot of these rules are, they, they transcend just any kind of industry. So, but to answer your question, you know, I want to say to your to your listeners before we start.

5:11Mm-hmm. I've been very blessed and had a lot of success, but I'm gonna tell you, I've learned far more from my mistakes and my failures than I did as the successes. I hope, hopefully over time have learned from 'em, but the book was written and it's written in a narrative style between a mentor and a mentee. In the first 3 weeks, each week has a theme.

5:33One is sales, one is leadership. The second is leadership. The third is business planning, and we talk about the other two weeks, but it's written in small little bite-sized pieces. If you wanna say what was the overarching purpose of the book, it was to share a connection with people who, man, they put it all out there, they risk it. And maybe from reading some of those things, there's a connection because being a small business owner is a lonely place.

6:03You talk to your friends that you have that don't own their own business and they've never had to make payroll, or they've stayed up late at night trying to figure out how they're gonna drive sales or solve a revenue problem, or it, it's a small, it's a small space. There aren't a lot of people you talk to about that. So true. Hopefully the book allows them to see their story in these stories and And, and I'm sprinkling in all those mistakes I've made in a hope that maybe you don't have to learn them in the physical like I did.

6:38Maybe you can be smarter than me. And, and I, I feel confident about that many days that you're smarter than me, but that you will see yourself in that and go, okay, I need to make a shift or a change on that. Yeah. And I start strategically with sales because mm-hmm. Nearly every business problem is solved somewhere, somehow, or is linked back to a revenue issue, a sales issue.

7:08So that's where we start. Well, I look at, I looked at, you know, one, the two characters that you have, Carl and Evan, where you have mentor and mentee. Does that parallel your experience and your mentoring under someone or somebody that was able to guide you through your trials and tribulations as, as you went through the entrepreneurial journey and you built, you, you built one business and then you closed and built another business and now you have what you call your lifestyle business and you've been able to be successful at it.

7:47So did, is that part of, was that part of your plan to kind of like give it a, I, I wanna say not so much like a human touch, but to put characters in order to have your understood a little better? It is certainly over 30 years, a melding of some really wise people that I talked to and learned from. And it's funny you asked that because it took me about 3 years to write the book.

8:13Hmm. Wow. The outline, it's just, you know, I'm not a writer. Mm-hmm. And, but I feel like I've crafted it now and I feel like I could write another 10. You know, they call it a learning curve or something because it's hard, but, but I would give the book to some folks and say, hey, give, read this and give me some feedback.

8:32And I really took a lot of time getting feedback from other people and they said, hey, I've got to ask you. The two characters are Carl and Evan. Carl is an older mentor and Evan's the younger guy that is that solopreneur starting his business, trouble with scaling and how do I blend family and new babies and run a business. And so the question from my friends are, hey, I'm just curious, kind of like yours, Greg, is are you Carl or are you Evan?

9:04Carl is a mixture of a lot of folks that I learned from, but Carl is me now. Okay. And Carl, the book I said was simple in its design was what would, what would Brent tell his younger self that's just starting a business what it's all about. And, and that's really the book for the, it, that, that first 3 weeks is a narrative.

9:29Mm-hmm. The 4th week is about accounting and KPIs. I promise you, I tried to write it so you wouldn't fall asleep, but it's, it's, it's often neglected, but very important in your business, especially as you start to coach coaches and, and, and own a business. And then that 5th week is a kind of a fun week because, and that was the most fun to write because it's, I, I got to do some research.

9:52What do great companies all have in common? Mm-hmm. You know, they have great sales and marketing plans. They have, and, and I should say processes, things that they can repeat. They have a great client experience. I bet, Greg, if I came to your business, you have a system and a process. When somebody walks in the door, they give you the keys and they say, hey, Something's wrong with my car.

10:14It doesn't work. You become a doctor and say, tell me a little more about that. Yeah. Tell me what's going on. What do you hear? That kind of thing. There's a client experience in there because you don't get to go to your tools until you gain their trust. Mm-hmm. To perform your service. Well, I think you're hitting on, I think you're hitting on something that's pretty important because, you know, the flavor, I wanna say it's the flavor of the month or flavor of the year.

10:39You know, we as small business. You know, we try our best to stay away from the transactional type of business that, you know, we're not a retailer. Like you don't buy a pair of jeans over the counter and you're off and, you know, goodbye. We need relationships to survive. And when you talk about the client experience right now, running through our trade right now is hospitality.

11:04How do we improve the experience of the client, you know, from education to being elevated in terms of them knowing about the problem, proving what is wrong through our technology and digital vehicle inspections and stuff like that. Much like you guys could go down into and have a borescope go into any kind of clog and see what's going on, make recommendations and do that.

11:26Well, we're as transparent and we do a lot just exactly that as well. So it's all about the client experience saying, look, we want transparency, we want trust, we want to be able to service and repair the first time in, those kind of things. We want your— we want We do not want to interfere with your lifestyle. Am I correct? Correct. Yeah.

11:45Yeah. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. It's what, it's, it's not just performing the service. It's what was the experience in that service. Mm-hmm. Because what we want in the long run are repeat customers. We want satisfied customers referring us and also coming back. My favorite business book that I've ever read. Was read to me between 3 and 7, it was the story of the tortoise and the hare.

12:14Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were talking about that. Slow and steady wins the race. Yeah. Slow and steady wins the race. Um, you know, we kind of, we kind of live in a, and maybe this is my Midwest upbringing, but kind of live in this right now. Mm-hmm. Everything's immediate and available, and we certainly have to to, to be relatively relative and current, right?

12:36With technology. But there is something to be said about slowing down and having a conversation with your customers and asking questions and not selling, but being an expert and providing options and help guide them to what's right for them. And I come back to, you know, what we want to do is help you make your best decision for your own home and, and keep it safe.

12:59Clean and healthy. Yeah, yeah, that's very true. And, and we can— I can parallel that with the same with your vehicles, you know, and, uh, and, and fleets as well. Getting on the book, it, you know, you talk about the pace of, of business and how we're all expected to, you know, the, you know, how speedy it is or how fast things are today.

13:21One of the things that I really— I mean, there's so many good things about this book, and, you know, you, you— it's so concise, within 30 days. I, I love your tips. I love how you break down each of the, the days into like a synopsis of what it was, what you should do, you know, uh, what was it, to fire it up, or now add something to where you should— the heat, turn up the heat.

13:47Thank you. I apologize here. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah. And then, you know, Greg, I'm just happy you read the book. Yeah, well, you know, I, I'll tell you, Brent, it's really a It's a great book. It's quick, it's easy. And as I said, I mean, I could see myself as a young tech working for a good firm and saying to myself, you know, I really think I can do this on my own.

14:12Not because I'm not happy here with who I'm working with, but because I really think I can make a difference. And yeah, and I look and I can tell by, you know, what your operation is. If a young person came up to you and said, Brett, you know what, I really wanna try this on my own, you would be the first to say, Good for you.

14:29You know, I have 5 folks that have great relationships with that came through our company. Yeah. I am not running a prison here. Right. Exactly. Our culture, our culture is to make lives better for our team, our customers, and our vendors. And we do that 4 different ways by serving each other, by focusing on progress, not perfection, by developing our team members.

14:49And sometimes we develop them out the door and that's okay. Yeah. And the fourth is to grow profitably. But, and, and what's great about those folks is they will call me and say, man, I remember you were always talking about this and I never really got that and why until I had this problem in my business. Yeah. Those are great phone calls.

15:13Well, they are. Yeah. They're really good. I know those are great phone calls and they're a lot of fun. And, uh, yeah, so that's, that, that's what it's about. I think that there's a misconception from a lot of people that your good small business operators are there to improve the lives. Like you said, we're here to improve the lives of our people, of our team.

15:31And if they decide to expand outside of our organization, then good for them. You know, that's what you're there for. It's almost like raising your own child. You want them to succeed. You want them to have a good life. And if they're better than you or become better or have become satisfied, hey, great. You've, you're not losing that relationship. You're actually intensifying it.

15:54Like you said, you take those 5 or 6 phone calls from people that had worked for you. But you know what? They're so appreciative of the opportunity to have known you or to be with you or to you to be that mentor to them. And that's, that's what I call being a good con— having— being a conduit of good. You know what I mean?

16:13I don't want to be a radical, uh, guest on your podcast. No, no, no. Can I— would you give me a little editorial latitude? Because I want Please do. I want to share something with you and that is that in our industry, the typical age is somewhere between 45 and 60 that are business owners that are at a certain level. I'm going to tell you what I found most, what I'm finding in the last 5 to 7 years.

16:42I'm 61 now. Working with young folks. Younger than you will keep you young. Yeah. I know that sounds so simple, but you know, there are things and guess what? They're really smart and they, and they, they really, I have a lot of hope for the future and I have a lot of hope in these next generations because there's the technology is really helping our business.

17:08But these young folks are coming, they're starting to come into our business because they're finding it. As a great place if, hey, if a 4-year college degree is not for you, we end up encouraging them to go back and get their associate's degree while they're working here. We invest in them. But if I could just say anything out there to folks who are at that point where they own their business, don't be afraid to bring some folks in, um, that are younger than you.

17:38And let them earn the responsibility to lead, but be their coach. Be their coach. Because I'm telling you, if you get to the level where you're coaching the coaches, and that's what I really do with, with, with, uh, business owners, you can go take a vacation with your wife and the business didn't fall apart. Isn't that amazing? And we're trying to move them to that point where, you know, the purpose of the business isn't for you to feel needed by it.

18:06It's for it to fulfill the needs of you and your family. You wanna say it a little louder for the folks in the back? I, you know what? I don't think I could say that again the way I did that last time. I don't think you could. No. But, but, but you flip the needs. The needs, if, when I work with business owners, I'll just tell you about Sam.

18:29Sam is, and, and Sam came to me. And he hit this ceiling of complexity and I call it the messy middle. There's a stage to business growth. You're a solopreneur. You're that, you hang that shingle out and man, it's a lot of fun. It's a great phase in your business. It's just like a honeymoon. I mean, and there's this excitement and you have control of everything and and things are going well.

19:00And then you start to go into survival mode. You start bringing people on, you have more business, you can say grace over. Sam reached what I call the messy middle, and it looks like a whirlpool. Okay. And, and you're swirling. And here's what the messy middle looks like. Yeah. I'm working twice as much as I did than the, the other stage when I was, when I was in the teaming stage, when I was adding people and growing, I could still handle it.

19:28Here's the other indicator of the messy middle. I'm making half the money now and working twice as hard. Yeah. And that's the point. So Sam, Sam got to a point where he said, I think I'm just going to go back to being at that size where I had control of everything. And you see a lot of small business owners Mm-hmm. I don't want to call it compromise because it's a survival mode, but it's just a few little shifts and tweaks to get to that next level in coaching the coaches.

20:03And it's really a lot of fun. But Sam also had issues with his marriage because he had a mistress and that mistress was called his business. Yeah. And he worked through it and we got the hats off of his head that didn't fit so well. And he started getting excited seeing things being done outside of him. But what Sam had to do, the first thing was he had to let go of how he thought he needed to run the business.

20:37And he had to trust some people, not blind trust. And today he's at a $5 million plus business. I got a note from him a couple weeks ago. He and his wife had just gone on a Med Cruise and, you know, look, it's not all cherry pie and ice cream. Right, exactly. I understand that, but you have to sometimes declare victory when you have a business and you were able to leave for 2 weeks and it was still there and you made some money and you and your wife got to spend some time together.

21:11That, those are the success stories. Those are the exciting times. But Sam had to make a decision because it was, it was, you know, that messy middle looks a lot like I'm inches from bankruptcy. I'm stuck. I'm working twice as hard. My only answer that I see is to work harder and, and my mind is working against that. So, yeah, I just thought I'd share that story with you.

21:36Well, that's a great story because it, it really, uh, does relate to a lot of small business owners., and both in and out of the trade. I know many shop owners and, you know, even myself, you get to the point where if you're not going to delegate or offer autonomy to your team, you're not going to train them to take on your responsibilities or some responsibilities that they can handle, you won't grow and you'll become frustrated.

22:00And you're in, before you know it, you are in that messy middle where you're, you're not doing anything. Your quality of life is, has been compromised. Uh, yes, you do have a mistress, which is the business. Your family suffers. Uh, you don't make the kids' ball games or the events that they do. It's important, like you said, to make sure. And I go back to, I think one of my, it was a coach or can't remember, but he said the first thing you do when you get into business is to learn how to get yourself out of the business, you know, to have someone there to do the things that you can't, you can't do

22:36at all. And I don't know, a lot of people quote the E-Myth, you know, in that book, the E-Myth, I believe I might have read it or reviewed it, but it does come down to the fact that you can't You can't do everything. You have to grow the business, which means you need people to do it and they have to have their responsibility.

22:51And then there's accountability with it. It's just, just the way that it is if you want to have a quality of life. And that's why we have started our businesses, because that's what our goal was, was to have a quality of life, to make our decisions on our own. Our, our, it's our field, our team, our goals, you know. So, yeah, you brought up, you brought up the E-Myth and I, I've read it and reread it.

23:12Michael Gerber has said it's such an impact. On small business, but my favorite line that Michael shares is, you're so busy working in it that you don't have time or think you have time to work on it. And you're in it and you're in it and you're in it and you realize you're working for an idiot. That's true. That's right. That's right.

23:33We've all felt that way before. Yeah. Yeah. He's a very direct man. I love, I love listening to him. Yeah. The E-Myth, great book. It really is. You know, I, I, again, go, going back to your, the book and, and, and how you've segmented it all. I think it might've been, I said, I recall the middle of the book, like day 15 or something.

23:57You started to talk about vision statements, mission statements, and the importance of them. I could tell you that I, I pretty much, I fail at that. And then I really started laughing at myself. I said, you know, you really gotta look at this. Look at this day 15 all over again, you know? And it was important that your, your mission statement is the path to your vision on how you want to— Yeah.

24:20And so, uh, I think that, that really, that really rang with me because, you know, like you, like Evan would say, well, what's the mission statement? Something I just put on the wall. And, you know, Carl said, no, it's, it's your path to the, to the vision. You know, where your mission statement is, how you're going to get there. And then you go into, I think it was like on day 18, how you start to put it all together.

24:44So I want to talk a little bit about that because I think that, you know, I know for myself, like I said, I'm not the best. You won't see a— I know my mission. I know where my vision is, but I still don't really share or put that out there. My team knows it. I verbally will communicate it. But for me to present that and to have somebody look at it every day, I really don't do that quite well.

25:06Yeah, I can, you allow me a little latitude and I'll use an example. Okay. So you got the mic, brother. I may have to take a little bit of a history lesson and I might lose some of the younger folks, but John Kennedy in the early '60s said in his inaugural speech, we're going to the moon in this decade. Do we think he knew how to put the rocket together?

25:33Do you even think he knew how we were going to— he went out, stepped out and said, and certainly he had enough information to know what the technology was and what was on the table. I don't think he just broad brushed this and said, you know what, this sounds good. I think I'll throw it out there. It was well thought out, but he said, we are going to the moon in this decade.

25:55That is a vision. It's big. It's broad. It's a, Big Hairy Audacious Goal, BHAG. Okay? And so when you look at how did they do it? Well, they had little missions to get to their vision. Okay? And so a mission, a vision is, is somewhere 10 to 20 years. So when you're thinking in the context of your business, where are we, where do I want to be?

26:26Sit down with your wife, sit down with your business partner and say, Where do we want to be? It's extremely important because if you don't know where you're going to go, any way or any route will take you there. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. So those little missions, well, the first one, I'm now, I'm probably going to get the history a little bit wrong, but, but the first mission was how do we get out of the atmosphere?

26:52Right. You know, well, Okay, so, so we knew that and we did get to the moon. Like, I think it was in '69. I'm pretty sure about that. '69. Yeah. Yeah. So they broke it down into little missions. You know, how are we going to get out of the atmosphere? How are we going to land back? How are we going to be able to orbit the Earth?

27:10How are we going to, how are we going to get outside? How are we going to launch and get to the moon? I mean, it was just incredible. What a feat. Well, every vision and mission has a strategy. What is your strategy for your business? Now, for mine, I can tell you it's a stated strategy. What I do is I help groups of people come together to a common goal and they're motivated and incentivized through pay for performance.

27:40That's my strategy. What was the strategy, Greg, to get to the moon? It was a rocket. That strategy is still used today. Mm-hmm. It made a trillionaire. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And guess what? That strategy was so sound that they're still using it today. Absolutely. For different visions, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So when you start to plan for your business, it all starts with a vision.

28:13You, you, your vision gets realized once in your head. It's what you can see. It's like a horizon line as far out there as you can see and imagine, right? You know it's out there, but you can't get to it. That mission's a little spot in between, and the strategy is what's gonna take you there. Then do you just break that down into dangers, opportunities, and strengths, or the SWOT that you'd say?

28:40What are our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Break those down into goals and tasks. And this is where I say to everybody, I break it down every 90 days. And so if our mission, I'm sorry, if our vision is to get to the ocean and we're on the stream, our goal is to get to the next bend in the river. That's all.

29:00And we're going to get there. Slow and steady wins the race. This was Management by Objectives by a guy named Deming. Okay. Um, MBO, he went over and studied manufacturing in Asia, pretty much Japan, but he came back with this process, said, we're gonna, we're gonna manage by our objectives. And, and so that's where it all starts when you're making a plan.

29:25If we're in New York and we're trying to get to LA, you know, we may end up in Chicago for a while. It may not always be a straight line. But we know where we're headed. Well, I like how you, in this, in that part of the book, when we talk vision and mission, you also, you know, Carl and Evan, and, and for the audience, if you missed the first part, we're using two, two characters are part of the book that, that create the scene here.

29:56So, you know, we'll try to explain a little bit better, but that exercise kind of stops you from the shiny silver objects that we're all attracted to. And I liked how you put it where it'll stop you from— if it doesn't meet your vision, then that's a distraction and it takes you away from it. So I think that exercise, understanding what the mission is, the path to the vision, kind of, it disciplines you.

30:28And as I know that Jocko Willink makes it famous, but you know, discipline equals freedom. So, you know, that's again, these are little things that I looked at and I'm so glad that you and Kate forwarded me a copy of the book. And I highly recommend that my colleagues, and I will have some links in the show notes here where you can pick it up at, but it's, it really was very, you know, coming out of the clear blue, how this all came about, how you and I got together.

30:56And, you know, it's been quite, it's been quite nice, you know, and I, I, I can't compliment you enough on, on the, on the book itself. So yeah, you're very kind. Very kind. Yeah. Really good. You know, you go into so many things. What's it, the, yeah, Maslow's need pyramid, you know, and how we go into that. Uh, explain how you, how your needs created, you know, like I said, going into the book itself, where your thoughts were, what you did to, I could say execute Maslow's pyramid, but where do you position yourself and what do you do with those basic needs?

31:35Yeah, I think you're speaking mainly of how I think Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, our most basic things are air and water, right? We can live what, 2 minutes without air, I think maybe 2 weeks without 2 days without, well, I think it's 2 weeks without food. Substance. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and so what Maslow says is that most basic need has to be satisfied before we talk about the next one.

32:07Mm-hmm. You know, and the next one's shelter. And, I'm, I'm giving you an inch deep and mile wide on, on Maslow here, right? Yeah, exactly. But it's in the context of managing and leading people. And it's also in the concept of helping people make decisions about what they want for their home. I don't use the word sales a lot because our sales process is something that is just a part of our client experience.

32:36So trust, if trust is high, communication is very fast, very fast. Stephen Covey said that. The higher the trust, the more they're going to want to listen to you about aspiring or seeing the possibility to getting past the most basic needs. The next, the next need is, is just a belonging need, right? One where we have friends and connections and relationships. Well, you can see how that goes, right?

33:09If I don't have air conditioning and I need a cool home. That's my most basic need. And by the way, it's pretty low to the Maslow. I mean, it has something to do with air. So my most basic need is that, but you know what? Also aspire to have less humidity. I want to feel better that we go on up and there's self-actualization.

33:36So as we ask questions to customers, What is it they really care about? Or if you're talking to a team member, what are their most basic needs? They gotta pay their bills. Well, you know what? People don't leave just for pay. They leave for how they feel, right? And so I think when I talk about Maslow, if we want to get into a deeper conversation, or if we want to get to another level with relationships, We have to be talking about satisfying those higher-level needs, right?

34:11So when I talk to a prospective employee, I'm talking way past— we get past the compensation thing real quick. I ask you a question, where do you want to be 3 years from now? If they don't have a vision for their own career and I can't define what it is, How do I as a coach help them get there? Yeah. It is a real disqualifier because unfortunately some people can't see a career path.

34:41We try to help them with that, but Maslow at its basic needs says people innately want to be better off tomorrow than they are today. Today. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, you know, to customers, where do you want to be? Where, where do you want to be? Is it the moon? Well, yeah, it takes a rocket. Yeah. I think that's a very clear way of using that pyramid and turning it into a series of questions and exploring what the needs are of not just your employees and team members, but your clients as well.

35:15That's all, and that's all part of the sales process that you have for the clients, but it sounds like it's also the interview or the team building exercise that you go through on keeping good quality team members and providing for them just not now, but in the future. You know what they want, you know what their desires are, and then you work together to try to fulfill them.

35:36Yeah. And, and when we work with other small business owners, mm-hmm, we want them to get to owning a business because then other people in their team can start to realize their own vision under their canopy. And there's some really exciting things happen in businesses when You open up the creative nature of the team inside your business and say, hey guys, where do we want to go in 5 years?

36:05You're a part of this. There's a buy-in to that. Maslow at the top says there's this concept of self-actualization. Here again, I'm going to butcher probably what the real true understanding. For me, what it is, is I, it's not just about acquiring material things. It's. I love what I do. I enjoy what I do. I'm getting to do the things that I love.

36:29I have spent my life working and doing the things that I love. There's a point in self-actualization for me that I believe it's when you are at a point where you are giving back, not because you feel like you have to or that you're going to get something in return, but you have gotten to a point as an owner in a business that you want to create opportunities for your team that's delivering this organism or this organization that is satisfying repeatedly in a repetitive process with a client experience that people are starting to be able to realize their dreams.

37:11It can happen and it does happen. It's happening right on the other side of that wall. There you go. Yeah. How do you take a tech, how do you take a technician who, you know, maybe on the down, not the downside, emotional downside a little bit, maybe they're a little fatigued, maybe a little, but yet they want to continue. How do you, how do you work with them in order to improve their place in not just the organization, but in their life?

37:38And I mean, are we talking about fatigue or burnout? Burnout. There you go. Thank you. Burnout. Okay. Yeah. Fatigue. We just give them a day off. And say, hey, thanks for a great day. And burnout's a much more complex thing because I think burnout is a feeling of being stuck. Okay. Okay. You know, one of the things that Carl would say to Evan in another book would be, you can't want something for somebody more than they want it for themselves.

38:08And, and so. You can be a coach, you can be a conduit, but a coach sits on the sidelines. They never play the game, right? And so, um, sometimes there's the reality of this is what I do. This is my job or my lot in life. I have to make a choice about working on myself harder than I do my job, but I've got to have a vision or an idea in my mind.

38:38And I don't think I finished my thought a couple minutes ago. A vision is created once in our brain and then realized in the physical. So you, you realize it twice. There's, there's, there's the vision or what you see, but if you can't see it, it's not going to happen. Right? So I guess what you have to do is help them identify what is it that they're stuck in.

39:03What can I do to help you? Or what is true about that? And that's an exercise where I go, okay, what's true about that? Well, if I don't do anything about it, nothing's going to move. Yeah. And so what's true about that? Well, I've got to decide whether I'm going to move or not. Okay. What's true about that? That's when we get probably either something thrown right at my head in frustration, which is job the coach sometimes.

39:29Or they say, you know what? I get it. Here's my next step. Mm-hmm. Right? Every one of these conversations is we've gotta get to the next bend in the river. Yeah. Okay. I like it. I mean, I, I, we all have those, those employees and team members that are going through a little bit of a, you know, a, a down spell, like you said, burnout or fatigue, one or the other, and trying to get the best out of them.

39:58Not just for performance and KPI measurement and all that other stuff. It's just for that they can start to enjoy themselves. I know that, you know, I hear a lot of chatter about how, you know, technicians in our field are, they are more than burned out. Uh, they feel, they feel sometimes like they're taken advantage of by certain owners or by a group of owners, or they don't, the trust factor in having an owner makes, making sure that they're that they have the technician's best interest at heart and not just the dollar sometimes is brought out in these online conversations a lot.

40:34And I know that it, there are some maybe owners who aren't as savvy in business and like you and I are discussing, making sure that, you know, the team is important. It's taken care of. You're building a life for them. It's, you know, everything that you possibly can. Give to your team members to improve their lives. Some, some owners in, in all fields, all small businesses may forget that sometimes.

41:00And it leads to a lot of bad feelings, you know, so— Smile, a smile and a thank you at a certain level in your leadership is, is really expensive if you don't share them. Yeah. Okay. And how it diff— yeah, it changes in the scaling. It's just this morning. Yeah. I still do coaching and training within our company, and it's one of the most fun things I do.

41:25We, this morning's training, it's on Wednesday mornings and, and they're like 30 minutes. And I, I was talking to the guys, I said, hey guys, how, how's the team doing on truck stock and making sure that you have things on the truck? Man, it's really gotten better. And I, I knew that we had worked on that. We'd heard from the techs, you know, hey, this needs to improve.

41:45I said, I said, you know, there's one individual in the company that took that personal. It's not me. Who do you think it is? And they named the individual. I said, have any of you gone to tell them thanks? And so, it's, it, it, it goes back to culture, Greg. Mm-hmm. I said, I think I said our why at Sirius is to make lives better.

42:09What we do, this is Simon Sinek, but But what we do is plumbing and air conditioning. Our why is to make lives better. Well, you can make his life better by telling him thank you. I mean, it's, it doesn't cost much, but it's very expensive to not do. I love, I love that right there. I love that word. Those, that series. Yeah.

42:32And you said, and you repeated it, so, you know, good. Cause that need and this thing, I don't think I've got that down. That's right. But, but, but it made his day. Yeah. Okay. We make lives better for our team first, our customer second, our vendors third. If the team isn't winning, the customer can't win. No, you're right. You're right. And so, and so, you know, our why is to make lives better.

42:59Those types of culture things can help. And I've, I've heard hundreds of ideas and things. I mean, Some folks have, you know, like periodically we have a food truck. It's a breakfast truck out and just say thank you and, and those kinds of things. A thank you can be said many different ways. Sometimes just being sensitive when somebody's having a bad day and going, hey, you know what?

43:26You're on your last call today, but I'm going to pay you through the rest of the day. Go surprise your wife that you came home early and And you know, that kind of thing. Just one of our culture things is do your best, do the right thing, and treat people fairly. I learned that from a football coach that recruited me and it's lived with me the rest of my life.

43:46Sometimes just some people just can't be nice people. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. You're right. Right. But, but if they can't do that, even after a little bit of training, sometimes you have to trade those players. I love your sports analogies. I really do. Cause I, I, you got a ton of 'em. I know I lean on 'em as well. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I get everything you're saying and especially as you talk about building your team up and, and if they should leave, that's like a, what do you call it?

44:15Like a, a coaching family where, well, it's not a family, what do they call it? Uh, a stable of coaches. Sure. Where, you know, like in the NFL, if one coach sets a culture All of a sudden he's creating more coaches that go to other teams to build that same culture or that same style, that same, you know, that, that same playbook.

44:36And it's really, it's really interesting. But so much of what I know that I have learned has come from sports, you know, and, you know, learning how to build teams, learn to work on military's been there as well. And of course my dad and the experience of having 60 years of business. But yeah, it's, it's always interesting when you get to mentor a young person and you're, you're, you're right.

45:00Thank yous are the most expensive, can be the most expensive thing if you forget to say them. Like, I gotta get, I gotta nail that because I really like that. They're, they don't cost a thing, but they're really expensive if you don't share them. They're the same. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's great. So, well, where do you think that you are in your steps as an owner?

45:23Entrepreneur, successful business person, father, um, all of that. You're into coaching again, correct? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If folks wanna find me, they can go to theskilledtradescoach.com. Skilledtradecoach.com. Okay. Skilledtradescoach.com. Yeah. Okay. And, and I work with a community of skilled trade business owners, small business owners. Mm-hmm. That have a burning desire to grow and scale their business without compromising their values. And I really think when you start compromising your values, different forms of burnout take place because you are working against what you believe is true.

46:07And the, the brain is amazing thing. It'll work on that while you're sleeping. It'll bother you, right? There are so many people that start a business and, and they're great technicians and they want to do the right thing by their customers. Mm-hmm. They're not in conflict. They are not competing. I am from the business and I'm not a consultant. I've done it for 30 years.

46:31I've made every kind of mistake more than once because I'm just sometimes just hardheaded. It doesn't have to be that hard. So What I do is, is I help people grow and scale their business, get out of that messy middle, and we do it a number of different ways. But the first step in that is go to the website. It's real simple.

46:51Grab 30 or 40 minutes with me, answer a couple questions. We'll schedule an appointment and you will leave that conversation with 2 or 3 things that you can go to work on your business. And I may never talk to you again. Right. Right. But you'll get a free ebook. Okay. Of the book. Mm-hmm. If, if we both decide that the next step is to go to a virtual retreat where you learn about sales, leadership, and business planning, you walk away with a 90-day plan in that.

47:21And then there's another group that I work with called the Mastermind, where we meet every week talking about their business. But here's what's unique about that group. You are in a fraternity of folks sharing. Not competing because you're not in the same city, right? But you're sharing and working together on business problems because it's a, it's a, a best idea wins. It's a best practices group.

47:49It's in confidence. What happens in that group? It's really an exciting group. That group starts to take on its own identity. And as you know, as a small business owner, You can't go to your friend who works at a corporation and talk to them about the struggles of making payroll or, or what software do I use? Or like you said, I've got this employee challenge, or what do I do with this payroll issue?

48:14Those, that, that ends up becoming a close-knit group. And so once a week together, and then probably 2 or 3 times or as much as you need. And what I do with that group is I share everything that I do in my business. I just open it up to 'em. So those are the ways I'm helping and coaching. Okay. That's great. Now it sounds like the group is diversified.

48:35I mean, you have, you said skilled trades. Do you have electricians and HVAC per people, you know, all that? Or is it, you know what? Mm-hmm. We might have a, at one time we had a closet organizer. I'm really, okay. The, the tent is small business, right? Yeah. Yeah. But my lane, because it's so big. And there's so much demand there that tends to stay in the electrician, plumbing, HVAC, but, you know, a roofer might be in there.

49:05It's because, as you know, and we both started the, the, the call today by saying small business or business in general, what we sell might be different, but the basic components of being successful are, are very, very alike. Yeah. That's very true. And really it's something to keep in mind that, you know, we may have different skill sets that we're using to satisfy a client, but when it comes down to it, it's all the same.

49:31You know, small business is small business and we have our, we have our struggles, which, you know, you can't deny them. Uh, but there's a lot of common things that we can talk about and all, but I, I really have enjoyed the conversation completely. So I will fit it. I just kind of wrap up with the book, but on day 30, the grad— I guess it's like graduation day, you know, what is to be expected?

49:55What could, what could the reader expect to have when they finish the book? Day 30 is over and they're ready to, you know, rip the COVID off and get going. Yeah, I think the, the book was designed, I think you mentioned turn up the heat. At the end of each chapter is a challenge. Hey, based on what I know now, so what?

50:19What do I do with that? What? And, and hopefully you saw yourself in Evan or Carl or both, and you saw that problem and, and there's a challenge at the end. What are the 2 or 3 things based on this that makes sense as you do in your own business? And so hopefully at the end of the book, if you're one of those real self-starters, You've got about 30 or 40 things that you need to go to work on your business in.

50:41Mm-hmm. And so you take those 30, 40 things. If you came to a retreat, we'd talk about those, boil them down into what are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and what are the most important objectives out of those 40 that we go to work on? Because guess what? I promise you, you know your business better than I do. And if you've identified 30 or 40 things that you need to do, Pick the most important one.

51:07It's a form of getting to the next bend in the river. Hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and, and, and believe me, when you turn that bend, there's another one right down the way, just like a horizon line. So, well, I'll tell you what, it, it, to, to my audience and, and everybody here in the automotive sector, really take, uh, Brent up on his offer and just peruse the sites that Skill Trades Say that again.

51:32Skilled— theskilledtradescoach.com. Okay. The skilled— theskilledtradescoach.com. I will have that link in there. I promise you. And get yourself a copy of the book. I really like it. And one other thing I like to inform the audience is that Brett and I, we realized that we share something about with golf and he's been giving me some good tips. As I said, I'm Sunday, this Sunday.

51:54Oops. This Sunday I leave for Ireland for week of golf and, you know, it's, uh, you were giving me some tips on where, where are you going in Ireland? I'm going to Sligo. So Sligo, S-I-L-G-O. Okay. That's where we're going. And, uh, we're about 2 hours away from Dublin is where, where we're south or north. You know, I think it's north of there.

52:17Okay. North of Dublin. Okay. And I still haven't figured out, I, I went for the emails and I said, where are we playing? Cause it doesn't matter to me. I just, you know, I'm just glad to be there. But we leave Sunday. We, we have a heck of a day. On, uh, we leave Sunday at 6:30 out of Philadelphia and we arrive at, uh, 6:30 AM Dublin.

52:36And then we play, I think we have a tee time either at 11 or 1, 1 PM their time. So we have a heck of a first day lined up, but we're really looking forward to it. So yeah, it's gonna be good. Have you been before? I have not been to Ireland. No, this is, oh, you're gonna love it. This is very special.

52:53Get yourself some good rain gear. That's fine. I got it. I took your tip. Yeah. I took your tip. Oh, I got some good rain gear. I got, in fact, uh, just before Before we jumped online here, Amazon delivered my rainproof, my FootJoy rain gloves, you know, and, and, and some other things. So I think I'm pretty set. I, you know, good for you.

53:12Yeah. I'd be looking forward to it. That's great. Yeah. With the buddies. Yeah. Yeah. We got 3 other friends of mine. We're all looking for, we all play, uh, one I play in the league with down here, the other I'll, we, we do some trips together. All, all 4 of us will go to trips together. Uh, this is the biggest one so far and it's been about 2 years in the making between all the other schedules that we carry.

53:36So when the opportunity came up, the, you know, my buddy goes, hey, let's, let's jump over. I go, all right, let's do it. So we planned for it and this is it. Uh, so I can't, I can't wait. It's gonna be a heck of a heck of an experience. Well, keep it in the short grass. Yeah, exactly. And learn to use your wedges and your, and your short irons.

53:55Yeah. So Brett, this has been, this has been great. I, I can't say enough how this all has, has just came together. Kate, thank you very much for reaching out. I hope you've enjoyed it. I really have enjoyed it and I'd really enjoy the book. I wish you great success. You know, you're, you, you got it going on, man. You really do.

54:15So, well, Greg, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. I feel like 50, 58 minutes just went by in a flash. It did. It really did. Great conversation. Yeah, we can do it again. You know, I don't have a problem. You know, things come up or you got something interesting, I'll always pop on here and I got the feeling we're gonna stay in touch.

54:32All right. I think so too. It's gonna be good. Maybe we'll hit the white ball sometime. Oh man. I'll tell you, you know, I'm, I will be in Dallas, uh, September 19th. I'm speaking at a conference at Union. Is it Union Square or Union Street? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, talk to Kate. Okay. Let me know when you're in town. Bring your sticks.

54:51We'll go play 18 holes. Sounds good to me. All right. You're my guest. Okay. Sounds great. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you, man. Really appreciate it. See you now. Have a great day.