Imagine mastering your craft for years, then discovering that running a business requires an entirely different skillset you never learned. That's the reality for thousands of construction business owners who find themselves trapped in what business coach John Neuenberg calls the "E-Myth" - the entrepreneurial myth that technical expertise automatically translates to business success.
Drawing from his experience coaching over 320 blue-collar businesses, John unravels why construction companies struggle to scale beyond the founding owner's capacity. The conversation explores a powerful framework: systems run the business, people run the systems, and the owner leads the people. Without this structure, construction companies find themselves perpetually putting out fires instead of building profitable operations.
The discussion dives deep into culture formation, revealing that "you don't get the culture you want; you get the culture you deserve." John explains how business owners who focus exclusively on customer acquisition while neglecting team development create fundamentally imbalanced companies. Through practical examples and compelling metaphors, he demonstrates why the complexity of relationships grows exponentially as teams expand - requiring systematic approaches rather than heroic individual efforts.
Whether you're running a thriving construction company or still working with "a truck and a helper," this episode provides invaluable guidance on building systems that scale, developing recruitment strategies that work, and maintaining your sanity along the way. Tune in to learn how to transform your construction business from dependent on you to working for you.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, John Neuenberg, how are you doing
today?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm doing.
Great Thanks for asking howabout you?
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm doing well.
You're in sunny Kelowna.
Is it sunny there right now?
Should be.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It is so sunshine, the weather's getting better and
golf is getting better as aresult as well.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Do you go to Sun Peaks?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
No, I don't ski anymore, but we spend three and
a half months in Scottsdalebecause the golf and the weather
are better there.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Oh, scottsdale, yeah, golf in the desert is amazing.
I love it.
I really do.
There's no more chunking shots.
You got that horrible turf uphere.
That's just like clayunderneath.
It's horrible.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah Well the thing about golf is that, no matter
what, there's always room forimprovement.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'll say so, yeah, well, the thing about golf is
that, no matter what, there'salways room for improvement.
I'll say so.
Today we're going to talk.
You are a business coach andyou've coached many construction
professionals on how to scaletheir business, how to do
recruiting, and we're going totalk about that because this is
something that people don'treally know that they need.
(01:05):
it's kind of like um massagetherapy people walk around
injured all the time, don'trealize you got to get in there
and uh work out those uh knots,yeah and um, yeah, so really
excited to talk to you aboutthat and you have been doing the
students since, so it's quite along time.
(01:26):
Got some history got someexperience.
Yeah, and 320 businesses ofexperience you've been doing
this for.
You were saying anywherebetween two to five years of
sort of account cycle that youhave with customers, sometimes
maybe a little bit longer, yourclients.
So, yeah, pretty interested totalk to you about a number of
(01:46):
things related to the bluecollar industry.
Yeah, so pretty excited.
Awesome, I'm glad to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Welcome to the Site.
Visit Podcast, leadership andperspective from construction
with your host, james Faulkner.
Business as usual, as it hasbeen for so long.
(02:10):
Now that it goes back to whatwe were talking about before and
hitting the reset button.
You know you read all the booksyou read the evening.
You read Scaling Up, you readGood to Great.
You know I could go on.
We've got to a place where wefound the secret serum.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We found the secret potion.
We can get the workers in.
We know where to get them.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Once I was on a job site for a while.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Actually, we had a semester concrete and I ordered
a Korean-Finnish patio out frontof the site show.
Yesterday I was down at Dallasand a guy just hit me up on
LinkedIn out of the blue andsaid he was driving from
Oklahoma to Dallas to meet withme because he heard the Favorite
Connect platform on your guys'podcast Own it, crush it and
love it, and we celebrate thesevalues every single day.
(02:51):
Let's get down to it.
Okay, john, let's talk coaching.
Why do people need coaching?
Like, what's the deal Inconstruction?
What are you finding, what arethe trends and what are you
noticing out there that peoplethink people either do or they
don't realize they need yourservices?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You know, there's a great book that every
entrepreneur should read.
Every blue collar businessowner ought to read the E-Myth.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, I remember the E-Myth.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
And the E-Myth is the entrepreneurial myth.
And the entrepreneurial myth isjust because you're a good
technician doesn't mean you'regood at the business of the
technical work.
So the story in the book isSarah loved baking cherry pies.
She loved it so much she openeda bakery.
Then she found out just becauseshe was good at baking didn't
(03:50):
mean that she knew how to run abakery.
So how long does it take tobecome a Red Seal certified
electrician?
Five years, something like.
How much business training didyou get during that?
Five years Zero.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So you're good as an electrician, but you've never
had any business training, canyou see what the problem is?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Oh, I totally see what the problem is so why do
you need a coach?
Because you need someone tohelp you become better at
business.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And how long do you find people have been in
business before they realize thething's on fire and they need
to find somebody, and then theycome across you.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know that's a great question.
It can vary a lot.
You know, typically whathappens is somebody gets a truck
and a helper and that becomestwo trucks and three trucks and
four trucks.
And typically what happens isthey get to a place where
they're stressed to the max,they have run out of ideas and
(04:50):
they don't know how to solve theproblems that are in front of
them.
And the question they askthemselves is when did I last
feel I was in control of thisbusiness?
How do I get back to that placewhere it seemed a little easier
?
Do I get back to that placewhere it seemed a little easier?
And a lot of times that's whathappens.
(05:11):
A lot of times, though, theowner then says well, that's not
going to work, that's not forme.
I need to figure this out.
How can I get some help?
And that's when they startlooking for someone to help them
an advisor, a coach, mentor,maybe someone who's been in the
industry for 30 years.
But at some point you can't doit.
People recognize they can't doit on their own, or what's the
(05:32):
definition of insanity?
Oh yeah, the same thing again,because it's not working.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, that's interesting, especially when you
said that you know they startwith a truck and then they said
that they start with a truck andthen they get another truck.
I always find that when abusiness is more rooted in the
actual trade, that specificskill, as opposed to a general
contractor, which a lot ofpeople are going to BCIT and
going to project managementschool etc.
(06:00):
There's more structure thereand there's more best practices,
if you will, whereas as a tradeyou can start with none of
those and just like go and dothe thing and the thing's going
to get you some money prettyquick because there's a big
demand for that stuff and youmight undercut just because if
you've got a smaller team.
But then when you start to, Ifind that on the sub trade side
(06:23):
side, there's a lot ofinventions that are going on for
process and those inventionsare not necessarily they
something that they have foundvia uh examples or going to
seminars, or these areinventions that they've made
(06:44):
themselves.
Yeah, ad hoc chicken wire, it'stotally ad hoc.
And what I find strange aboutit, as those processes become
deeper rooted over time, theystart to say and then when a
little bit of success startshappening and you challenge
(07:04):
those processes, they go oh, no,no, no, this is the way we've
been doing it for years.
Yeah, and those processes umcan sometimes be quite good, but
then they got to modernizethose things.
We find that a lot at sitemaxwith software is that they go
and try and find a software thatmirrors this thing they
(07:26):
invented, yeah, and they can'tfind it well, let me the way I,
sometimes you I use a metaphorto explain that idea sometimes.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So you're the captain of a boat in the navy and it's
50 feet in the cruise tenant,you're the most qualified engine
room guy.
How often is that captain inthe engine room?
A lot.
He's the principal guy.
He's the guy who knows the bestwhat the engine room guy.
How often is that captain inthe engine room?
A lot.
He's the principal guy.
He's the guy who knows the bestwhat the engine room needs.
So now let's make you a captainof 150 foot boat.
The crew is 50.
How often is that captain inthe engine room with tools?
(07:56):
Better be almost never.
Maybe with a fire.
Now you're a captain of aaircraft carrier.
There's 2000 people on board.
How often is that captain inthe engine room at all?
Well, maybe to give somebody a20 year certificate.
You know 20 years of merit.
Because now that captain has aguy who manages the guy who's
(08:18):
the engine room guy.
So the title is the same the.
You know you're a businessowner, but what business owners?
So the title is the same.
(08:47):
You're a business owner, butwhat business owners?
The point that you're trying tomake is that as the business
grows, 50 million Right, thatsystem is no longer adequate.
But to your point, that's theone I'm comfortable with?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, well, that was then.
Yeah, that is that, that wasthen.
And what do you also thinkabout the social, cultural
dynamic of companies that hiretheir friends and their
relatives?
And you know, we see that a lotis just because of the um,
(09:16):
especially in the trades, likethe actual sub trades and
depending on on how um there'sthere's, there's some trades
that are, you could call them,dirtier than others, some that
are more sophisticated I don'tmean sophisticated in a way to
insult any other trade, butthere's some fine specific metal
(09:39):
working or versus digging holesor just excavation, I mean,
like some.
Each of them have theirtechnical elements, yeah, but,
um, there are some things that,um, I always say shock creed is
one, because you know you, youstand in a muddy hole and you're
(10:00):
spraying concrete, right?
So if you start that and you'rejust going to go through all
the people you know hey, I got ajob for you on site.
The low barrier of entry to getin there, and then the whole
paradigm of using your networkto be able to hire, is good, but
it's also, if you're not anetworking person, you're going
(10:21):
to find the lowest hanging fruitaround your family
relationships or friendrelationships you have.
So what you end up with then isyou end up with, let's say,
somebody running the books, whois your friend's mom or who had
an accounting background, andnow you have this dynamic of a
(10:47):
kind of a professionalrelationship, but there's a
bunch of baggage there.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah, complicated.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
It's complicated, right, it's like yeah, so do you
see that?
A lot of complicated culturesof companies based on weird
relationships, that ensue.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Let me start by making this assertion you don't
get the culture you want.
You get the culture you deserve, the culture you deserve.
Take me through Double click onthat.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Pardon me Double click on that.
The culture you deserve.
Go for that.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Well, most people don't actively engage in
developing the culture in thebusiness, and so the culture is
a byproduct of a bunch ofdecisions kind of like the ones
you're describing.
So lots of business ownersthink that culture is kind of
this cherry on top of the cakething.
It's a nice to have, it'd begreat, but in fact it's just the
opposite.
It's actually the foundation ofyour business, most businesses.
(11:44):
If you've got the culture right, the rest of the business would
be a lot easier.
But here's the thing about alot of people.
A lot of business owners thinkabout recruiting as something
they do off the side of theirdesk.
It's something that's kind ofodious and I don't like to do it
and I'm not very good atrecruiting and I don't know how
to hire to do it, and I'm notvery good at recruiting and I
don't know how to hire.
(12:04):
But that same owner will put alot of effort into getting a new
customer into marketing, intosales conversion, and so what
happens is the business getstilted the wrong way.
So there's lots of emphasis onselling and getting customers
and not enough effort onbuilding the strength of the
business and, as a result, thatbusiness has a lot of stress.
(12:25):
The business owner has to getthat back in balance, and so
there needs to be as much effort, as much effort as you're
putting into sales and marketing, that much effort ought to also
go into managing the team,leading the team, creating the
culture that you want,understanding clearly what each
job is meant to be, what thespecs of the culture that you
(12:46):
want.
Um, understanding clearly whateach job is meant to be, what
the specs of the job ought to be, how to hire the right person,
how to create the onboardingthat brings them on in a
professional and qualified kindof way, um so when you, when you
talk about look, can we justchat a little bit about culture,
because I always find itsorigins within a company a very
(13:09):
interesting piece.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Right so let's say, john, you start a brand new
company, okay, yeah, and you'reemployee one of one.
Yeah.
And it's called John Inc.
Yeah, and it has 10 customers.
Yeah.
And there is a how you dothings.
Yeah.
So there's now a culture ofJohn Inc.
(13:34):
That your customers might saywell, you know, you should maybe
talk to John.
They do this and this and this.
Now we have employee number two.
Yeah.
So now it's your interactionwith this other person.
Sure, so now the culture is thenet behavior of both of you,
yeah, so, in accordance todifferent audiences, a to
(13:58):
employee number two and theirnetwork.
Yeah, and your customers.
So there's the HR piece andthen there's the customer piece.
So, but, as you go to employeethree, four, five, six and
beyond, you end up still withthe net behavior of the business
.
But you, as John, as presidentof John Inc now has to steer.
(14:24):
It can't, it can only steer aninfluence.
It can't actually be thatcherry on top.
Everyone expects you to be.
Yeah, and if you have the restof the corpus of employees are
not contributing to a.
This is how we do things aroundhere, mantra or framework or
whatever you want to call it.
(14:45):
It's going to be a dog'sbreakfast.
It almost always is yeah.
So when you, at what point doyou and it's hard to retrofit
the desired cultural outcomethat you're looking for, because
I think often what happens youprobably get into this when
you're coaching companies as anew client is you probably go in
(15:08):
, I would assume, and you do anassessment and you talk to
people and you do interviews andyou figure out what the hell's
going on there in order for youto get your bearings.
So once you do that, are youfinding that there is a huge
disconnect on what the businessowner thinks they have and then
(15:29):
what the result is from theinterviews you have with the
people that you're asking thequestions on?
What's it like around here?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Well, one of the hardest things about being a
business owner for lots of newbusiness owners is they are put
into the position of being aleader and they've never studied
or learned how to be a leader.
They've never learneddelegation.
For many business owners, whatthey think of as delegation is
(16:01):
actually abdication, and so allof that leadership stuff is kind
of on the side of what they do.
It's another one of the thingsthat they don't like to do, so
it's avoided.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Can we stop for a sec ?
Something you said there isreally really good and I think
it's worth expanding on.
So abdication versus delegation, so obviously one meaning hey,
this is person abc, this is yournew responsibility, there's
some new tasks you're going tobe accountable for, and the
(16:35):
other one is shit I don't wantto do and it's you're just, it's
tossed.
Here you go make it happen.
It's tossed withoutaccountability and without, so
can you just Without?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
accountability, so clear set of goals or KPIs or
measures of what success lookslike.
There isn't adequate coaching,right About training or support
or help, or there's anexpectation how come you didn't
get this done?
Well, what do you want me to do?
How come you didn't get thisdone?
Well, what do you want me to do?
I got a wonderful gift one time.
(17:07):
The first time I hired a VA, avirtual assistant, I spent about
10, 15 minutes with thatvirtual assistant.
What's a virtual assistant?
Yeah, on Zoom, showing hersomething I wanted to do,
something I wanted.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
This is a real person .
Yeah, Okay virtual.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
My virtual assistant.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
It means something else to you days, I think.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So she gave me a gift .
About 30 minutes after I askedher to do that, she sent me an
SOP, a standard operating.
She wrote out and documentedher best understanding of what I
asked her to do, and it'sbrilliant because it clearly
demonstrates that she knew.
(17:50):
She was able to give evidencethat she knew what I was looking
for.
She also had to learn theprocess, because she's the one
who wrote it.
I didn't write it, she wrote it.
And the third thing is that SOPis so good I can give it to any
other party-capable person andthey'd be able to reproduce it.
So let me put it a differentway.
(18:14):
A business, in principle, is athree-legged stool.
So the first leg of the stoolis systems run the business.
People run your systems.
You lead your people.
That's the leg one.
So how did they get thoseFrench fries to taste the same
in your town or mine?
And the fries are made by a16-year-old and the parents of
(18:35):
the 16-year-old can't get him orher to clean their bedrooms.
How did they do that?
They have great system.
Here's how we do it.
This is the recipe.
We reproduce it time and again.
So if systems run your business, the business is stable.
If people run your business,the business rises and falls on
(18:56):
the quality of the people.
People need to be led by you.
Okay, so that's the first leg.
The second leg is about 85% ofwhat happens in a business ought
to be routine.
This is how we make fries, butone day we run out of potatoes.
Oh my gosh, what should we do?
Well, james is getting a phonecall at 10 o'clock at night.
(19:16):
We ran out of potatoes.
What should we do?
And we figure out a solutionfor the emergency in the moment.
So then the third leg of thestool is we don't look for a
people solution.
We always look for a systemsolution, and what that means is
that we want an answer to thequestion what do we do the next
time we run out of potatoesBecause Jane's not going to pick
(19:37):
up the phone?
So that's, in essence, whatneeds to be in place as you
scale your business.
And let me give you anotherperspective how many handshakes
does it take for three people togive each other a handshake?
How many handshakes is thatthere's a formula for this.
(19:57):
So the answer is three, and theformula is X squared minus X
divided by two.
So three squared is nine lessthree is 6, divided by 2 is 3.
Okay, so you talked aboutscaling.
Let's now make it 10 people.
How many handshakes does ittake?
Well, 10 times 10 is 100, less10 is 90, divided by 2 is 45.
(20:19):
Wow, well, the group grew by 3.
We went from 3 to 10.
The complexity grew from threeto 45.
15x, 15x.
So tell me, why do your systemshave to scale?
Because it gets morecomplicated.
Very good point, guys.
(20:47):
Now we can't rely on havingcoffee meetings to make, uh, the
culture set or the expectationset systems have to replace.
You have to rely on yoursystems to deliver or get people
what they need in order to beable to do the work you're
asking them to do so?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
do you find that a lot of construction companies
are too reliant on the peoplepower part and not enough
systems?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
John will do that, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, so they don't recognize the value of systems.
Now I've been talking aboutSOPs and a lot of you know I was
talking to a group of cabinetmakers the other day and they
did cabinets for high-endkitchen homes, kitchens, you
know, and multi-million dollarbusinesses.
And I'm I did this thing about,you know, the, the three-legged
(21:35):
stool and the recipe and thefrench fries.
And guys said to me well, youknow, I'm not making french
fries every.
Every job's different, everytime is different.
And my, um, my response I liketo tell these kinds of stories,
but would you get on an airplaneif you knew the pilot didn't do
the pre-flight checklist?
Would you?
Would you allow a surgeon to dosurgery on you?
(21:58):
But if there wasn't apre-operation checklist, we
started with 30 scalpels.
I only see 29.
What do you think happened?
So even something, as you know,individual or customized as a
kitchen would be the actual, youknow, product can't be an SOP.
(22:19):
But the system we use todeliver that problem, the
checklist we use to make surethat we work through a
repeatable process to deliverthe quality product that we're
looking for, that can besystematized.
The kitchen's going to lookdifferent.
Okay, that's not the thingwe're focused on.
What we're focused on is can Ireproduce the method we use to
(22:41):
deliver that kitchen time andagain without me being there at
10 o'clock at night on a Friday?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yes, but I think do you think, a lot of systems get
cannibalized by people wantingto have personal value, that
they are needed.
So they tend to say, oh well,we don't need these systems
because if we have those then Iam Well not that this is factual
(23:13):
, but they might think that theyare replaceable.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Well, you can look this up the seven-step
architectural process architectsuse to deliver their product.
So the system is a routine waythat we do it.
But if you got five differentarchitects together, they each
produce five different versionsof a house, and so when it comes
(23:46):
to craftsmanship or thecreative part, that can be
different.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
The system should be the same.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
So there's a distinction there.
The individuals, the surgeontook 10 years to become a
surgeon.
I'm not going to, they're notmaking French fries, they're
doing heart surgery.
But how do we make sure thathospital a and hospital B are
going to deliver a healthyoutcome from surgery?
Yeah Well, that's where thesystem comes into place.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
So one of the notes I have here is boosting
efficiency via these systems andthe result is profits, and now
there's less wastage, there'sless fixing errors, et cetera.
Is that mostly it?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
So you know, the kind of business owners I work with
are in the $1 to $2 to $3 to $4million kind of space.
I've got a rant about thiswhich I'll share with you.
The small business community isvery badly served by the
accountants who specialize inthat area.
That's because they havemismatched expectations.
(25:00):
So the accountant thinks oftheir business as doing
compliance and tax reporting.
That's how they think of theirjob, and so they'll produce a
beautifully accurately preparedP&L and give that to the
business owner.
And the business owner looks atthat and has no idea what that
means.
And they ask the accountant,and the accountant often doesn't
(25:22):
give very good advice becausethey don't actually know.
They're not qualified.
Honestly, they're not qualifiedand yet the business owner
doesn't understand that that'sthe case.
Oh yeah, that makes sense.
And so lots of times I'd ask abusiness owner give me your
gross margin.
They don't know what's thedifference between gross margin
(25:42):
and markup?
What do you mean?
Well, they're two verydifferent numbers.
How do you do your quoting?
How do you do your pricing?
Do you use markup or grossmargin?
And so I have clients, I havecase studies of clients that
went to their account year afteryear after year.
How come accountants saying no,everything's great, you're
(26:02):
doing great, and yet they werelosing money.
10 minutes of talking to me,it's like well, tell me your
gross margin.
It was well below what itneeded to be in order for that
business to be successful.
What that business ownerlearned is that he was doing
work and giving it away in fact,literally giving it away and so
(26:24):
they they became better atunderstanding the mechanics, the
scoreboard of business.
So like going to the hockeygame and not having a scoreboard
there, that's how they'rerunning their business.
Yeah, I mean there's.
There's how they're runningtheir business.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, I mean, there's also like the operational
systems.
I can think of dealing withsome contractors and you have,
you know, two people coming tosite to do the job of one, and
one's just kind of on the phonewalking around and maybe they
were there for a site visit toreport something, but typically
(26:56):
not, um, and that's just justjust leaking money out.
But it's very difficult, Ithink, for a lot of business
owners and operators to be veryhard lined on that, as in no, no
, no, no, okay, mike, what areyou doing?
Why are you at that site?
What are you doing there?
(27:37):
Get a lot.
You should be at this othersite and maybe it's a.
I think there's lots of money.
That is, for instance, likeI've seen things where materials
, for instance, an entire rollof material will be purchased
and then, because the whole rollis into the cost of the job,
they leave the rest of the rollthere and you're like, why would
you not take that back?
It's not like the end userneeds that roll.
It's garbage for them.
They're going to stick it inthe dump anyway.
I think there's just leakageeverywhere.
(28:02):
Construction is very difficultto control.
And then you've got tools andtool tracking whether or not,
the people care about theirvehicles.
How many times are they drivingthem into the ground?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I mean, it's fraught with all this stuff, checklists
about that, but let me go backto the first part of your
question, which is what thatbusiness owner was doing was
crisis management.
He was going onto the job siteand wondering how come there was
two guys there and a moreproactive way to manage that is.
Does that business owner have adaily huddle?
(28:31):
Right.
And what's a daily huddle?
Huddle, right, and what's adaily huddle?
Well, a daily huddle is youropportunity to canvas your
workers and have them tell youwhat they expected to do that
day.
And your job then is to see ifwhat they're telling you, how
that, matches your expectations,so you can catch that gap that
(28:54):
you talked about before it everoccurs.
And so every job site, everyteam, ought to get a 15-minute
huddle.
What's up?
What are you going to do today?
What are some KPIs fromyesterday?
By what measure do we know thatyou did a good job yesterday?
And then the third one is whereare you stuck?
(29:14):
What's going to hold you backfrom doing what you need to do
today?
I don't have a role of this,that or the other thing.
Well, it's good to know thatbefore we get started, rather
than me getting a phone call 11o'clock hey, we don't have this.
And now you're running off tohome depot to put out another
fire yeah, at 200% markup.
Yeah, exactly, and so that'sanother example of a great
(29:39):
systematic way to ensure thateverybody's delivering what you
expect them to be doing that day.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, yeah, I guess, if you see commercial
contractors at Home Depot, skipthat one at Home Depot, skip
that one.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
That's the problem.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Especially if it's 11 o'clock in the morning, because
they're probably solving somefire that's occurred on a job
site somewhere.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, I know that's pretty funny.
Is there in your experience?
Do you found those?
Is there sometimes a bit of animposter syndrome with people
Like they don't like, they'relike oh, I don't really feel
like a bit of an impostersyndrome with people Like they
don't like, they're like oh, Idon't really feel like a leader
of this business, even though Iam on paper.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
They don't feel like they should even be there.
So here is a dirty littlesecret All business coaching is
personal coaching in disguise.
Yeah, all business coaching ispersonal coaching in disguise.
Now, I don't like to tellprospects that, because they
think that's going to be somekind of woo-woo thing.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yeah, get in a recliner.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, and that's not the case at all.
So you know, business coachingis about helping the business
grow systems, tools and strategyabout business but it's also
about helping that businessowner grow and that mindset if
that's one of the things that'son their mind clearly we have to
work through that becauseunless we work through that, a
(31:03):
lot of the systems aren't goingto work anyway.
So the getting the mindsetright or put a different way,
there's success is kind of thefoundation of success is on
three A's.
So number one is acumen Do youhave the right skills?
Number two is activity Do youhave the right?
Are you doing enough of theright things?
And then the third of the threeis attitude, or, more
(31:26):
accurately, mindset.
And mindset is often the thingthat's actually holding back the
business owner.
It's the way, that lens withwhich they view the world, their
beliefs, their values, who theyassociate with.
One of the interestingquestions I like to ask a
business owner is what are thefirst three words that come to
(31:47):
mind for you when I say the wordsalesperson?
You might be surprised to knowjust how many business owners
have very negative connotationssleazy, manipulative, pushy and
yet every business owner is asalesperson in some way, and
subconsciously, somewhere in theback of their mind, they're
going to be in front of a clientand the back of their mind is
(32:09):
going to be saying I don't likewho I'm being right now because
I hate being this sleazy kind ofguy.
So it's an example of well, youknow, how can you adjust your
mindset so that you'd actuallyfeel good about being in sales,
that you'd actually be proud ofit, that you'd consider it a
service to humanity?
Well, that changes entirely howyou'd go about doing it, and so
(32:31):
it's an example of a lot ofbusiness.
Coaching is about coaching thehuman, the person.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So we talked about, like on the hiring people part a
little bit there and touched onit.
Now you have this concept aboutbuilding a bench.
Yeah, so you have your currentworkforce and then you also have
people on the bench waiting.
How do you do the waiting thing?
Cause I would find that that ishard to do and somewhat, uh,
(33:05):
cause when you're recruiting youhave to have a funnel right,
cause it's it's kind of like anyprospect you have, you have to
prospect and then you have yougot a funnel and then you're
going to have a close to close,or you've sent a job proposal or
whatever.
On the prospecting side ofthings, I think it's hard with
(33:26):
the channels we have today, likeonce you've sort of gone out of
your network, let's say, right,you have to then either be in
order to get this bench thatyou're talking about, having an
active bench.
People's lives aren't going towait for your business and
they're not going to sit on thatbench for long.
So how does that work?
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Well, let me give you tell you a couple of stories
about that.
So the first time I learned thiswas in the seventies, so I was
in my early twenties and I was amanager of a men's store, a
tip-top store, in Calgary, andCalgary in the 70s grew from
about 100 to about 500,000people.
People were moving to Calgaryto work in the oil business.
Nobody was moving to Calgary towork in retail.
(34:07):
So one of the practices we hadis about once every three months
, I would walk with my regionalboss through the mall where I
was located in the tip-top storethat I was involved with, and
my job was to point out the twobest salespeople that weren't
yet working for me.
Okay, so how do you do that?
(34:30):
Well, I'd be bumping into thesepeople at lunchtime and having
a coffee, or I'd, you know, bepeeking around the corner to see
what they were doing, and Iwouldn't be there, you know,
talking about this jobopportunity, but something would
happen in three or six monthsand now I could go and talk to
them.
Hey, you know what?
I just got this thing openingup.
How are you doing How'sbusiness, how's life, how do you
(34:51):
like the work you're doing?
I had people that I couldapproach.
I wasn't starting from scratch.
So the other story I like totell about this is in the 90s I
had a job where I was veryvisible.
I was in business in VancouverMagazine.
You know, I had a public kindof profile, and this is before
the internet, where you couldeasily find people.
(35:12):
And about once a quarter I'dget a phone call from a
recruiter.
And the way the call goes ishey, john, how you doing, how's
the wife, how's the kids?
And then they would say hey,look, we've got this assignment.
We're wondering if you knowanybody, could you introduce us
to anybody who has this set ofskills?
And what became clear to me isthey were talking about me.
(35:32):
Now, what's the game here?
What's going on?
Well, they weren't poaching,they were just asking for
introductions to people on mynetwork.
And I didn't have to actuallyopen the door to that
opportunity if in some way Iwasn't motivated to do that.
But it was clear to me that Iwould just simply say hey, that
(35:54):
sounds kind of interesting, tellme more.
So if you're a plumber oryou're going to the Home Depots
or you're going to the plumbingstores or you're picking up
stuff, who are you meeting whoare the three, five, six best
electricians in your town thataren't yet working for you?
Could you hire a recruiter tobe making those calls?
(36:18):
Well, you can.
On upwork you can hire someonefor about 12 bucks an hour and
they're really good and they canbe making the phone calls and
they don't have to disclose thatit's abc electric company until
that candidate says I'minterested okay, so okay, I'm
totally.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
I'm digging the strategy here.
I'm just trying to think of howso construction in general is
transparent and opaque at thesame time.
It's transparent in terms ofthe job sites.
Often you can see into them.
(36:53):
They're transparent that way.
Maybe there's a site fence andeveryone comes out at a certain
time.
But, they're opaque in terms ofyour ability to be able to get
in there.
You're either on the job oryou're not, or you're not
getting through that gate.
And so, in terms of knowing whothe best electricians are, who
the best in class is and who,you should pay someone on Upwork
(37:17):
to go and find on LinkedIntheir contact info to say, hey,
can you give me some referralson people like this, which would
be, like them, hard to do?
Yeah, it is Hard to do now.
I just I think that thequalifying, the who, would be
(37:40):
tough.
It is yeah.
So the bench thing, and then,once you did get a contact with
them, I think it's almost likethe bench is not, is more of a
people that are Okay, you knowthe draft.
(38:02):
It's almost like having an opendraft all the time, because the
bench means that they're readyto play at a moment's notice and
that's not the case, whereasthe draft is you're basically
going and finding and you wantto draft people, but you have a
draft list.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.
So the other way that I thinkabout this is who's got leverage
?
So if you're a business ownerand you've got five, six, seven
workers, each one of thoseworkers has more leverage than
you.
Yeah, and what I mean by thatis, if they quit, you're hooped,
yeah.
Now you're in crisis mode.
So how do you get leverage onyour side?
(38:38):
You need options, and so whatthat means is, at any given
point, you've got something likea handful of replacements for
any one of the guys that youhave on your team, and so when
they come to you and say I wanta raise or I'm out, you're kind
of stuck, unless you, in theback of your mind, were able to
say, well, I've got five otherpeople I could replace you with.
(39:00):
And so there's an investment ofenergy, investment that you do
up front to be in a place whereyou have that option.
Or when you get the next bigcontract.
And now you need to add twopeople overnight and you don't.
How do you start that?
So I get your point.
It's hard, also hard gettingcustomers, and you're doing a
(39:22):
lot of work getting customers,but you're doing nothing about
building the bench or the, thebalance, the balance bar, to get
it, uh, in proportion for yourneeds as things evolve over time
.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah, I'm definitely in agreement with that strategy,
just as I would say tough to do.
Now, what do you see in themental health side of things in
the trades?
Do you coach your clients inthat respect?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Boy, that's such a big question.
I you know.
There's one story I want totell you about.
This is a guy, a client of mine, who ran a factory and the
factory had two shifts and so itstarted at 6 in the morning and
(40:26):
the second shift ended at 10 atnight.
And this guy had an hour'sdrive from the factory to his
home.
And so 10 at night, three, fourtimes a week, he'd be like why
am I going to drive home?
I'll get home at 11.
I'll be in bed 11.
And then I got to get up at 4,4.30 to be back in for six.
(40:46):
This guy was a tough, persistentguy, driven, willing to pay the
price.
And then one day his wife saidto him your business is your
mistress.
If you don't do something aboutit, I will.
And that's when this guy saidI'm willing to work 70, 80 hours
a week, but I'm not willing topay that price, I'm not willing
(41:09):
to give up on my marriage too.
And that's when this guydecided he needed help.
And then he started looking forhelp.
So you know, lots of guys Imeet are working 70 hours a week
.
Well, you know, but if youcould, how many hours would you
like to work 30.
Wow, that would be great.
What would you do?
You got the 40 hours back.
(41:30):
What would you do?
It would be great to see one ofmy kids' games.
Oh, let me ask you, when wasthe last time you went to one of
your games?
One of the kids games haven'tbeen there yet this year.
What's that?
Speaker 1 (41:47):
like for you?
How would you rate yourself ona scale of one to ten as a
father?
So you're you're touching onsomething there that, um, there
is a segment of the constructionpopulation that I don't think
is really being addressed whenit comes to mental health, and
that is the business owner.
A lot of economic uncertainty,especially when the interest
(42:16):
rate changes.
You got big crews and suddenlythe jobs are falling off and now
you, you know, legally you haveto give so much notice, et
cetera.
I mean there's lots ofpressures.
You have jobs going sideways,all sorts of things.
So many different factors ofwhere the business can be a
complex and a stress for thatbusiness owner can be a complex
(42:37):
and a stress for that businessowner.
And yet what we talk about isoften is only real mental health
issues.
On the site level there's not alot.
The question is, this is whereit gets very, very complex.
Is that we have high rates ofdrug addiction and suicide, et
(42:58):
cetera in in construction andmental health issues.
And as you work your way up thevalue chain, all the way to the
business owner.
At what point is there a no?
We don't actually think, wedon't actually consider that.
No, that's your responsibility.
You decided to start your ownbusiness.
That's your problem.
(43:18):
Oh, wow.
Because at some point there is,the government will be getting
involved in mental healthprograms.
They already are.
But at what point in the valuechain does the government not
care?
Well, I'm saying not care ornot recognize I guess of course
caring is a slippery slope butat what point does it not
(43:41):
recognize that a governmentprogram should get involved?
Just because somebody was anentrepreneur, it doesn't mean
they don't have.
They're almost like redliningand they're like oh my God, I
don't know if I'm going to makeit, and I've got a whole family
to pay for.
I've taken on all this risk.
I've got a whole family to payfor.
I've taken on all this risk.
I've got all thisresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Our medical system is oriented around physical
ailments, hospitals, surgery,medications.
There's very little about ourmedical system that's pointed in
the direction of mental healthis because it's so difficult.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
It is difficult because the definition is
difficult.
Yes, Because, well, it's, it'sso okay.
So what is the bifurcationbetween a mental health crisis
and life is hard?
So struggle, for instance, whatis the continuum on the
(44:46):
spectrum of struggle to it's amental health problem or it is.
Life is difficult.
So take the extremes.
One is situations are hard.
You have to emotionally dealwith yourself.
You might have other lifeissues and you're trying to get
to a point of clarity and peacein your mind, and the other one
(45:06):
is at the end.
Here I'm going to go crazy.
Here I'm thinking of ending itbecause I can't find a solution
and I'm just done solution andI'm just done.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah.
So I think it's when you loseagency or you no longer feel
like you have ability toinfluence or control the outcome
, that's a very good point, andso you give up in despair or you
resort to self-medication,alcohol drugs, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
So when you were saying that the medical system,
you know, is sort of fall shorton the mental health side of
things, I know that you know, atSightMax we have, we use RBC
for our health insurance.
Sure, and this year they didprovide a mental health
Component, yeah, component.
And you know, provide a mentalhealth Component, yeah,
(46:00):
component.
And you know, I didn't see thatbefore.
And it's for, you know, forcoaching and counseling, et
cetera.
And yeah, I like I wonder.
So I'll give you an example ofsomething.
We had a mental healthdiscussion in the building show
in Toronto and I had these twoguests on who were advocating
(46:23):
for mental health.
For, you know, field workers,et cetera, superintendents, all
the people that come on site andwork hard hours every day, and
it's tough, very physical, thatthere has been an attack on the
self-esteem of the tenuredworker, Like somebody who's in
their 40s, early 50s, maybeearly 60s, who has their output
(46:45):
per minute is super high becausethey have so much experience.
But now they're saying, well,okay, well, you're not a
minority, or you're not a woman,or you're not a, and we don't
value you anymore.
There's this self-esteem.
The attack on the self-esteemof the people actually built the
country in many respects and Ithink that that it falls, really
(47:05):
, if you, if you're listening tothe world saying that you
should be devalued, and then ontop of that you have other
complexities, like a job wentsideways or, um, you know you're
going to be getting less hourshere because you know whatever
reason, that can really start toget pretty dark.
It does.
Yeah, I mean, have you, haveyou seen?
(47:28):
Is this I'm not, I'm notsuggesting that you've seen this
within your clients, but do youshare that sentiment?
You can understand thatparadigm of where that could be
possible I don't know if youknow my entire story.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Do you know?
I did a TEDx talk.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
I did know you did a TEDx talk, but I didn't listen
to it.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Well, the reason I mention it is my TEDx talk is on
the cultural taboos of society,about mental health and suicide
.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Okay.
Well, you're right in there,then, okay.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
And that's based on my experience of attempting
suicide in 2011.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
You did.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yes, holy smokes, okay.
So I know the dark side.
I've experienced it personally.
And in preparing for the TEDxtalk I was very afraid for my
career.
I thought you know, gee, I'msupposed to be this kind of guru
or, you know, coach kind of guyand here, I'm talking about a
(48:30):
very difficult period of lifemental health difficulties and
what I learned is thatvulnerability is very scarce,
and so what I learned is thatlots of the clients I get show
up because of the talk, notdespite the talk.
Okay.
Because they want and recognizethey need that kind of help, and
(48:53):
so I mentioned it only in thecontext of mental health being.
You know you raise asignificant issue that you see
it in all the workers, and a lotof the work I do with business
owners often isn't.
It starts off talking about thebusiness, but it's often about
all the things that relate totheir worldview, the lens with
(49:16):
which, the values they have, thethings that hold them back, and
so all business coaching ispersonal coaching in disguise.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Yeah, on that continuum conversation of where
mental health is recognized inthat value chain, you start to
once you get sort of pastproject manager and into you
(49:48):
know an estimator or you know aVP or, and you start to move up
that value chain to the owner.
It's almost as though thatthose are the pressures that you
are expected to deal with forthe compensation you get.
And also, if we talk mentalhealth and construction, at what
point is it only the peopledown here that we're talking
(50:12):
about?
And there's that in lots ofindustries.
Oh, there is, I mean, in manyplaces.
If you look at the stock market, for instance, you know hedge
fund managers, like when it goessideways, man, I'm telling you
it's hard.
That's going to be the same.
(50:33):
Yeah, what I think inconstruction and maybe you can
add some color to this is do youthink, perhaps because some
disciplines in construction thebarrier of entry is low and
there aren't that many jobs thatyou can just like go to a job
(50:53):
site and then say, hey, who'srunning this job site?
And someone's going to point tooh, it's that person over there
, and then you have access totalk to that person.
Hey, I'd like a job.
Do you have anything availableI can do on site.
If they look reasonably capablethere at that time and that
moment, you can probably givethem something for the next day
to come and do yeah, definitely.
Whereas other industries arenot set up like that.
(51:15):
I can't just walk down to likethe Royal Bank and like knock on
their head, like is theresomething I can do tomorrow?
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Well, you talked about the spectrum of the kinds
of jobs that are on aconstruction site and you know
there's some that requirecertification.
So if you're an actor, you gotto show up, you got to be an
apprentice.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
No, I get that I get that.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
But what I'm getting at is, you know, at the building
, the house across the streetfrom me, I can hear the
hammering.
Yeah, there's two guys that aretearing off the roof, the
shingles of that house, andthat's exactly the kind of job
where a guy could walk up and,okay, you go, you got a safety
harness.
Great, you're in right, okay,start.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
so do you think that the reason that we have this
mental health focus on this jobsite and of the value chain
because of the fact that peoplecan come from anywhere and
(52:20):
everywhere and get intoconstruction?
Speaker 2 (52:22):
Yeah definitely.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
It's like a landing spot for lots of people.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Construction sites, by definition, are kind of
chaotic.
It isn't like there's a factory.
There isn't offices that areorganized around some kind of
scheme.
There could be 20 guys on a jobsite, each with four different
contractors and they're all kindof doing their own thing.
They often come from troubledor difficult backgrounds, so
(52:52):
there's lots of conflict thathappens day after day.
The supervisors aren't theremanaging the site, so it looks
easy but it's very hard.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
So do you think that we have this situation that I
mean, I always struggle with thetroubled background kind of
moniker of a group of people whowork in construction, because
it's a tough one, because it'sthere.
It's almost as if there's akind of an ugly truth people
(53:30):
don't want to talk about.
Yeah, for sure you know what Imean Because when I go on a job
site or I have, you know, I'vehad contractors at my residence
and you know when we and I'mgetting into my business a
little bit, but when we buildsoftware, I empathetically think
(53:51):
of the struggles that thosepeople are having on site and I
don't want to make their lifeworse by giving them a crappy
app that upsets them all thetime and makes it even worse.
So you know, I look at thatelement and I empathize with
(54:12):
those and I can kind of seethrough it.
I can see the kindness, I cansee the talent, I can see what
they're, I can see the talent, Ican see what they're trying to
achieve.
And maybe they weren't giventhe shot or maybe they blew
their shot.
A while ago they made a fewlife decisions that weren't
quite right, but I get this kindof a feeling like you kind of
(54:32):
want to take them under yourwing and help.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Well, that's the kind of empathetic leader that's
going to get the culture that heworked for.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
Yeah, yeah, very complicated.
I mean, you've got a.
You have a very complexminefield of things you've got
to deal with when it comes toconstruction customers, that's
for sure, or clients client,excuse me, yeah yeah, um, well,
that's um, I'm um.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
You know, I'll share this with you.
I'm 71, um, I work three days aweek.
Um, I tried golfing five days aweek and I found that that was
boring as hell.
So coaching is a verysatisfying kind of work.
It's meaningful, it makes adifference, and and so one kind
(55:28):
of description of it is verydifficult.
One kind of description of itis that it's very satisfying.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
That's good.
I mean, yeah, I've got oneother question how important is
it, do you think it is, forbusiness leaders to telegraph
somehow, via demonstration, thatthe people who work for them
(55:59):
would like to have their job oneday?
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Well, I might answer it a little bit broader than the
way you framed the question,which is I have a definition of
leadership that the best leadersare those that are most willing
and most capable of havingcrucial conversations, and so
the definition of a crucialconversation is anytime emotions
and stakes are high, and solots of leaders are not very
(56:28):
good at having crucialconversations, and many of them
avoid it, and so that's oftenthe root cause of the problems
that they're experiencing.
And so, um, by becoming capable, confident of having a crucial
conversation and having theskills to be able to do it, that
by itself will make you abetter leader and, as a result,
(56:51):
have a better business andbetter culture okay.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
So do you think that the that that is something that
by demonstration that the peoplewho I guess the point that I
was getting at was I've seenpeople in companies, in trades
that the owner's job they makeit seem so crappy that the
(57:19):
people under them would be likeokay.
So let me get this straight.
If I were to work my ass offfor X amount of years, I don't
even want to get there, you knowwhat I mean.
So I'm not going to stick aroundin this company because if I do
crush it, I'm going to end uplike that person.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
Well, that's obviously a case where the
leadership is very bad, isn'tcapable, and they're not
demonstrating what it means tobe a good leader, to be a good
owner and inspiring.
Yeah, you know you'd be wise,that worker you're referring to
to go find a better culture.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Yeah, all right.
Well, john, this has been verygood chatting with you.
I've enjoyed this.
How do people get a hold of you?
I'm used to find W5 coaching.
Speaker 2 (58:09):
I talked about the Socratic method of leadership.
So Socrates has the best way tohave somebody's help and figure
it out themselves.
And how do you do that?
You guide a conversation.
How do you do that?
You guide a conversation, howdo you do that?
Lots of questions, and what arethe five core questions?
Who, what, when, where, why?
So W5, so there's a little hookthat might help you remember
Perfect my website w5coachingcom.
Speaker 1 (58:33):
Good, and you're on LinkedIn as well.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Oh, I'm all, yeah, all the social platforms.
All over it.
All over it.
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
Okay, well, this has been awesome, john.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (58:43):
My pleasure, nice, to be with you today, james.
I've enjoyed the conversationas well.
Yeah, likewise.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Well, that does it for another episode of the Site
Visit.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to stay connected withus by following our social
accounts on Instagram andYouTube.
You can also sign up for ourmonthly newsletter at
sitemaxsystemscom slash the sitevisit, where you'll get
industry insights, pro tips andeverything you need to know
about the Site Visit podcast andSitemax, the job site and
(59:17):
construction management tool ofchoice for thousands of
contractors in North America andbeyond.
Sitemax is also the engine thatpowers this podcast.
All right, let's get back tobuilding.
All right, John Neuenberg, how are you doing
today?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm doing.
Great Thanks for asking howabout you?
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm doing well.
You're in sunny Kelowna.
Is it sunny there right now?
Should be.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It is so sunshine, the weather's getting better and
golf is getting better as aresult as well.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Do you go to Sun Peaks?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
No, I don't ski anymore, but we spend three and
a half months in Scottsdalebecause the golf and the weather
are better there.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Oh, scottsdale, yeah, golf in the desert is amazing.
I love it.
I really do.
There's no more chunking shots.
You got that horrible turf uphere.
That's just like clayunderneath.
It's horrible.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah Well the thing about golf is that, no matter
what, there's always room forimprovement.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'll say so, yeah, well, the thing about golf is
that, no matter what, there'salways room for improvement.
I'll say so.
Today we're going to talk.
You are a business coach andyou've coached many construction
professionals on how to scaletheir business, how to do
recruiting, and we're going totalk about that because this is
something that people don'treally know that they need.
(01:05):
it's kind of like um massagetherapy people walk around
injured all the time, don'trealize you got to get in there
and uh work out those uh knots,yeah and um, yeah, so really
excited to talk to you aboutthat and you have been doing the
students since, so it's quite along time.
(01:26):
Got some history got someexperience.
Yeah, and 320 businesses ofexperience you've been doing
this for.
You were saying anywherebetween two to five years of
sort of account cycle that youhave with customers, sometimes
maybe a little bit longer, yourclients.
So, yeah, pretty interested totalk to you about a number of
(01:46):
things related to the bluecollar industry.
Yeah, so pretty excited.
Awesome, I'm glad to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Welcome to the Site.
Visit Podcast, leadership andperspective from construction
with your host, james Faulkner.
Business as usual, as it hasbeen for so long.
(02:10):
Now that it goes back to whatwe were talking about before and
hitting the reset button.
You know you read all the booksyou read the evening.
You read Scaling Up, you readGood to Great.
You know I could go on.
We've got to a place where wefound the secret serum.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We found the secret potion.
We can get the workers in.
We know where to get them.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Once I was on a job site for a while.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Actually, we had a semester concrete and I ordered
a Korean-Finnish patio out frontof the site show.
Yesterday I was down at Dallasand a guy just hit me up on
LinkedIn out of the blue andsaid he was driving from
Oklahoma to Dallas to meet withme because he heard the Favorite
Connect platform on your guys'podcast Own it, crush it and
love it, and we celebrate thesevalues every single day.
(02:51):
Let's get down to it.
Okay, john, let's talk coaching.
Why do people need coaching?
Like, what's the deal Inconstruction?
What are you finding, what arethe trends and what are you
noticing out there that peoplethink people either do or they
don't realize they need yourservices?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You know, there's a great book that every
entrepreneur should read.
Every blue collar businessowner ought to read the E-Myth.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, I remember the E-Myth.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
And the E-Myth is the entrepreneurial myth.
And the entrepreneurial myth isjust because you're a good
technician doesn't mean you'regood at the business of the
technical work.
So the story in the book isSarah loved baking cherry pies.
She loved it so much she openeda bakery.
Then she found out just becauseshe was good at baking didn't
(03:50):
mean that she knew how to run abakery.
So how long does it take tobecome a Red Seal certified
electrician?
Five years, something like.
How much business training didyou get during that?
Five years Zero.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So you're good as an electrician, but you've never
had any business training, canyou see what the problem is?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Oh, I totally see what the problem is so why do
you need a coach?
Because you need someone tohelp you become better at
business.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And how long do you find people have been in
business before they realize thething's on fire and they need
to find somebody, and then theycome across you.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know that's a great question.
It can vary a lot.
You know, typically whathappens is somebody gets a truck
and a helper and that becomestwo trucks and three trucks and
four trucks.
And typically what happens isthey get to a place where
they're stressed to the max,they have run out of ideas and
(04:50):
they don't know how to solve theproblems that are in front of
them.
And the question they askthemselves is when did I last
feel I was in control of thisbusiness?
How do I get back to that placewhere it seemed a little easier
?
Do I get back to that placewhere it seemed a little easier?
And a lot of times that's whathappens.
(05:11):
A lot of times, though, theowner then says well, that's not
going to work, that's not forme.
I need to figure this out.
How can I get some help?
And that's when they startlooking for someone to help them
an advisor, a coach, mentor,maybe someone who's been in the
industry for 30 years.
But at some point you can't doit.
People recognize they can't doit on their own, or what's the
(05:32):
definition of insanity?
Oh yeah, the same thing again,because it's not working.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, that's interesting, especially when you
said that you know they startwith a truck and then they said
that they start with a truck andthen they get another truck.
I always find that when abusiness is more rooted in the
actual trade, that specificskill, as opposed to a general
contractor, which a lot ofpeople are going to BCIT and
going to project managementschool etc.
(06:00):
There's more structure thereand there's more best practices,
if you will, whereas as a tradeyou can start with none of
those and just like go and dothe thing and the thing's going
to get you some money prettyquick because there's a big
demand for that stuff and youmight undercut just because if
you've got a smaller team.
But then when you start to, Ifind that on the sub trade side
(06:23):
side, there's a lot ofinventions that are going on for
process and those inventionsare not necessarily they
something that they have foundvia uh examples or going to
seminars, or these areinventions that they've made
(06:44):
themselves.
Yeah, ad hoc chicken wire, it'stotally ad hoc.
And what I find strange aboutit, as those processes become
deeper rooted over time, theystart to say and then when a
little bit of success startshappening and you challenge
(07:04):
those processes, they go oh, no,no, no, this is the way we've
been doing it for years.
Yeah, and those processes umcan sometimes be quite good, but
then they got to modernizethose things.
We find that a lot at sitemaxwith software is that they go
and try and find a software thatmirrors this thing they
(07:26):
invented, yeah, and they can'tfind it well, let me the way I,
sometimes you I use a metaphorto explain that idea sometimes.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So you're the captain of a boat in the navy and it's
50 feet in the cruise tenant,you're the most qualified engine
room guy.
How often is that captain inthe engine room?
A lot.
He's the principal guy.
He's the guy who knows the bestwhat the engine room guy.
How often is that captain inthe engine room?
A lot.
He's the principal guy.
He's the guy who knows the bestwhat the engine room needs.
So now let's make you a captainof 150 foot boat.
The crew is 50.
How often is that captain inthe engine room with tools?
(07:56):
Better be almost never.
Maybe with a fire.
Now you're a captain of aaircraft carrier.
There's 2000 people on board.
How often is that captain inthe engine room at all?
Well, maybe to give somebody a20 year certificate.
You know 20 years of merit.
Because now that captain has aguy who manages the guy who's
(08:18):
the engine room guy.
So the title is the same the.
You know you're a businessowner, but what business owners?
So the title is the same.
(08:47):
You're a business owner, butwhat business owners?
The point that you're trying tomake is that as the business
grows, 50 million Right, thatsystem is no longer adequate.
But to your point, that's theone I'm comfortable with?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, well, that was then.
Yeah, that is that, that wasthen.
And what do you also thinkabout the social, cultural
dynamic of companies that hiretheir friends and their
relatives?
And you know, we see that a lotis just because of the um,
(09:16):
especially in the trades, likethe actual sub trades and
depending on on how um there'sthere's, there's some trades
that are, you could call them,dirtier than others, some that
are more sophisticated I don'tmean sophisticated in a way to
insult any other trade, butthere's some fine specific metal
(09:39):
working or versus digging holesor just excavation, I mean,
like some.
Each of them have theirtechnical elements, yeah, but,
um, there are some things that,um, I always say shock creed is
one, because you know you, youstand in a muddy hole and you're
(10:00):
spraying concrete, right?
So if you start that and you'rejust going to go through all
the people you know hey, I got ajob for you on site.
The low barrier of entry to getin there, and then the whole
paradigm of using your networkto be able to hire, is good, but
it's also, if you're not anetworking person, you're going
(10:21):
to find the lowest hanging fruitaround your family
relationships or friendrelationships you have.
So what you end up with then isyou end up with, let's say,
somebody running the books, whois your friend's mom or who had
an accounting background, andnow you have this dynamic of a
(10:47):
kind of a professionalrelationship, but there's a
bunch of baggage there.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah, complicated.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
It's complicated, right, it's like yeah, so do you
see that?
A lot of complicated culturesof companies based on weird
relationships, that ensue.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Let me start by making this assertion you don't
get the culture you want.
You get the culture you deserve, the culture you deserve.
Take me through Double click onthat.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Pardon me Double click on that.
The culture you deserve.
Go for that.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Well, most people don't actively engage in
developing the culture in thebusiness, and so the culture is
a byproduct of a bunch ofdecisions kind of like the ones
you're describing.
So lots of business ownersthink that culture is kind of
this cherry on top of the cakething.
It's a nice to have, it'd begreat, but in fact it's just the
opposite.
It's actually the foundation ofyour business, most businesses.
(11:44):
If you've got the culture right, the rest of the business would
be a lot easier.
But here's the thing about alot of people.
A lot of business owners thinkabout recruiting as something
they do off the side of theirdesk.
It's something that's kind ofodious and I don't like to do it
and I'm not very good atrecruiting and I don't know how
to hire to do it, and I'm notvery good at recruiting and I
don't know how to hire.
(12:04):
But that same owner will put alot of effort into getting a new
customer into marketing, intosales conversion, and so what
happens is the business getstilted the wrong way.
So there's lots of emphasis onselling and getting customers
and not enough effort onbuilding the strength of the
business and, as a result, thatbusiness has a lot of stress.
(12:25):
The business owner has to getthat back in balance, and so
there needs to be as much effort, as much effort as you're
putting into sales and marketing, that much effort ought to also
go into managing the team,leading the team, creating the
culture that you want,understanding clearly what each
job is meant to be, what thespecs of the culture that you
(12:46):
want.
Um, understanding clearly whateach job is meant to be, what
the specs of the job ought to be, how to hire the right person,
how to create the onboardingthat brings them on in a
professional and qualified kindof way, um so when you, when you
talk about look, can we justchat a little bit about culture,
because I always find itsorigins within a company a very
(13:09):
interesting piece.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Right so let's say, john, you start a brand new
company, okay, yeah, and you'reemployee one of one.
Yeah.
And it's called John Inc.
Yeah, and it has 10 customers.
Yeah.
And there is a how you dothings.
Yeah.
So there's now a culture ofJohn Inc.
(13:34):
That your customers might saywell, you know, you should maybe
talk to John.
They do this and this and this.
Now we have employee number two.
Yeah.
So now it's your interactionwith this other person.
Sure, so now the culture is thenet behavior of both of you,
yeah, so, in accordance todifferent audiences, a to
(13:58):
employee number two and theirnetwork.
Yeah, and your customers.
So there's the HR piece andthen there's the customer piece.
So, but, as you go to employeethree, four, five, six and
beyond, you end up still withthe net behavior of the business
.
But you, as John, as presidentof John Inc now has to steer.
(14:24):
It can't, it can only steer aninfluence.
It can't actually be thatcherry on top.
Everyone expects you to be.
Yeah, and if you have the restof the corpus of employees are
not contributing to a.
This is how we do things aroundhere, mantra or framework or
whatever you want to call it.
(14:45):
It's going to be a dog'sbreakfast.
It almost always is yeah.
So when you, at what point doyou and it's hard to retrofit
the desired cultural outcomethat you're looking for, because
I think often what happens youprobably get into this when
you're coaching companies as anew client is you probably go in
(15:08):
, I would assume, and you do anassessment and you talk to
people and you do interviews andyou figure out what the hell's
going on there in order for youto get your bearings.
So once you do that, are youfinding that there is a huge
disconnect on what the businessowner thinks they have and then
(15:29):
what the result is from theinterviews you have with the
people that you're asking thequestions on?
What's it like around here?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Well, one of the hardest things about being a
business owner for lots of newbusiness owners is they are put
into the position of being aleader and they've never studied
or learned how to be a leader.
They've never learneddelegation.
For many business owners, whatthey think of as delegation is
(16:01):
actually abdication, and so allof that leadership stuff is kind
of on the side of what they do.
It's another one of the thingsthat they don't like to do, so
it's avoided.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Can we stop for a sec ?
Something you said there isreally really good and I think
it's worth expanding on.
So abdication versus delegation, so obviously one meaning hey,
this is person abc, this is yournew responsibility, there's
some new tasks you're going tobe accountable for, and the
(16:35):
other one is shit I don't wantto do and it's you're just, it's
tossed.
Here you go make it happen.
It's tossed withoutaccountability and without, so
can you just Without?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
accountability, so clear set of goals or KPIs or
measures of what success lookslike.
There isn't adequate coaching,right About training or support
or help, or there's anexpectation how come you didn't
get this done?
Well, what do you want me to do?
How come you didn't get thisdone?
Well, what do you want me to do?
I got a wonderful gift one time.
(17:07):
The first time I hired a VA, avirtual assistant, I spent about
10, 15 minutes with thatvirtual assistant.
What's a virtual assistant?
Yeah, on Zoom, showing hersomething I wanted to do,
something I wanted.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
This is a real person .
Yeah, Okay virtual.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
My virtual assistant.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
It means something else to you days, I think.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So she gave me a gift .
About 30 minutes after I askedher to do that, she sent me an
SOP, a standard operating.
She wrote out and documentedher best understanding of what I
asked her to do, and it'sbrilliant because it clearly
demonstrates that she knew.
(17:50):
She was able to give evidencethat she knew what I was looking
for.
She also had to learn theprocess, because she's the one
who wrote it.
I didn't write it, she wrote it.
And the third thing is that SOPis so good I can give it to any
other party-capable person andthey'd be able to reproduce it.
So let me put it a differentway.
(18:14):
A business, in principle, is athree-legged stool.
So the first leg of the stoolis systems run the business.
People run your systems.
You lead your people.
That's the leg one.
So how did they get thoseFrench fries to taste the same
in your town or mine?
And the fries are made by a16-year-old and the parents of
(18:35):
the 16-year-old can't get him orher to clean their bedrooms.
How did they do that?
They have great system.
Here's how we do it.
This is the recipe.
We reproduce it time and again.
So if systems run your business, the business is stable.
If people run your business,the business rises and falls on
(18:56):
the quality of the people.
People need to be led by you.
Okay, so that's the first leg.
The second leg is about 85% ofwhat happens in a business ought
to be routine.
This is how we make fries, butone day we run out of potatoes.
Oh my gosh, what should we do?
Well, james is getting a phonecall at 10 o'clock at night.
(19:16):
We ran out of potatoes.
What should we do?
And we figure out a solutionfor the emergency in the moment.
So then the third leg of thestool is we don't look for a
people solution.
We always look for a systemsolution, and what that means is
that we want an answer to thequestion what do we do the next
time we run out of potatoesBecause Jane's not going to pick
(19:37):
up the phone?
So that's, in essence, whatneeds to be in place as you
scale your business.
And let me give you anotherperspective how many handshakes
does it take for three people togive each other a handshake?
How many handshakes is thatthere's a formula for this.
(19:57):
So the answer is three, and theformula is X squared minus X
divided by two.
So three squared is nine lessthree is 6, divided by 2 is 3.
Okay, so you talked aboutscaling.
Let's now make it 10 people.
How many handshakes does ittake?
Well, 10 times 10 is 100, less10 is 90, divided by 2 is 45.
(20:19):
Wow, well, the group grew by 3.
We went from 3 to 10.
The complexity grew from threeto 45.
15x, 15x.
So tell me, why do your systemshave to scale?
Because it gets morecomplicated.
Very good point, guys.
(20:47):
Now we can't rely on havingcoffee meetings to make, uh, the
culture set or the expectationset systems have to replace.
You have to rely on yoursystems to deliver or get people
what they need in order to beable to do the work you're
asking them to do so?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
do you find that a lot of construction companies
are too reliant on the peoplepower part and not enough
systems?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
John will do that, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, so they don't recognize the value of systems.
Now I've been talking aboutSOPs and a lot of you know I was
talking to a group of cabinetmakers the other day and they
did cabinets for high-endkitchen homes, kitchens, you
know, and multi-million dollarbusinesses.
And I'm I did this thing about,you know, the, the three-legged
(21:35):
stool and the recipe and thefrench fries.
And guys said to me well, youknow, I'm not making french
fries every.
Every job's different, everytime is different.
And my, um, my response I liketo tell these kinds of stories,
but would you get on an airplaneif you knew the pilot didn't do
the pre-flight checklist?
Would you?
Would you allow a surgeon to dosurgery on you?
(21:58):
But if there wasn't apre-operation checklist, we
started with 30 scalpels.
I only see 29.
What do you think happened?
So even something, as you know,individual or customized as a
kitchen would be the actual, youknow, product can't be an SOP.
(22:19):
But the system we use todeliver that problem, the
checklist we use to make surethat we work through a
repeatable process to deliverthe quality product that we're
looking for, that can besystematized.
The kitchen's going to lookdifferent.
Okay, that's not the thingwe're focused on.
What we're focused on is can Ireproduce the method we use to
(22:41):
deliver that kitchen time andagain without me being there at
10 o'clock at night on a Friday?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yes, but I think do you think, a lot of systems get
cannibalized by people wantingto have personal value, that
they are needed.
So they tend to say, oh well,we don't need these systems
because if we have those then Iam Well not that this is factual
(23:13):
, but they might think that theyare replaceable.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Well, you can look this up the seven-step
architectural process architectsuse to deliver their product.
So the system is a routine waythat we do it.
But if you got five differentarchitects together, they each
produce five different versionsof a house, and so when it comes
(23:46):
to craftsmanship or thecreative part, that can be
different.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
The system should be the same.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
So there's a distinction there.
The individuals, the surgeontook 10 years to become a
surgeon.
I'm not going to, they're notmaking French fries, they're
doing heart surgery.
But how do we make sure thathospital a and hospital B are
going to deliver a healthyoutcome from surgery?
Yeah Well, that's where thesystem comes into place.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
So one of the notes I have here is boosting
efficiency via these systems andthe result is profits, and now
there's less wastage, there'sless fixing errors, et cetera.
Is that mostly it?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
So you know, the kind of business owners I work with
are in the $1 to $2 to $3 to $4million kind of space.
I've got a rant about thiswhich I'll share with you.
The small business community isvery badly served by the
accountants who specialize inthat area.
That's because they havemismatched expectations.
(25:00):
So the accountant thinks oftheir business as doing
compliance and tax reporting.
That's how they think of theirjob, and so they'll produce a
beautifully accurately preparedP&L and give that to the
business owner.
And the business owner looks atthat and has no idea what that
means.
And they ask the accountant,and the accountant often doesn't
(25:22):
give very good advice becausethey don't actually know.
They're not qualified.
Honestly, they're not qualifiedand yet the business owner
doesn't understand that that'sthe case.
Oh yeah, that makes sense.
And so lots of times I'd ask abusiness owner give me your
gross margin.
They don't know what's thedifference between gross margin
(25:42):
and markup?
What do you mean?
Well, they're two verydifferent numbers.
How do you do your quoting?
How do you do your pricing?
Do you use markup or grossmargin?
And so I have clients, I havecase studies of clients that
went to their account year afteryear after year.
How come accountants saying no,everything's great, you're
(26:02):
doing great, and yet they werelosing money.
10 minutes of talking to me,it's like well, tell me your
gross margin.
It was well below what itneeded to be in order for that
business to be successful.
What that business ownerlearned is that he was doing
work and giving it away in fact,literally giving it away and so
(26:24):
they they became better atunderstanding the mechanics, the
scoreboard of business.
So like going to the hockeygame and not having a scoreboard
there, that's how they'rerunning their business.
Yeah, I mean there's.
There's how they're runningtheir business.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, I mean, there's also like the operational
systems.
I can think of dealing withsome contractors and you have,
you know, two people coming tosite to do the job of one, and
one's just kind of on the phonewalking around and maybe they
were there for a site visit toreport something, but typically
(26:56):
not, um, and that's just justjust leaking money out.
But it's very difficult, Ithink, for a lot of business
owners and operators to be veryhard lined on that, as in no, no
, no, no, okay, mike, what areyou doing?
Why are you at that site?
What are you doing there?
(27:37):
Get a lot.
You should be at this othersite and maybe it's a.
I think there's lots of money.
That is, for instance, likeI've seen things where materials
, for instance, an entire rollof material will be purchased
and then, because the whole rollis into the cost of the job,
they leave the rest of the rollthere and you're like, why would
you not take that back?
It's not like the end userneeds that roll.
It's garbage for them.
They're going to stick it inthe dump anyway.
I think there's just leakageeverywhere.
(28:02):
Construction is very difficultto control.
And then you've got tools andtool tracking whether or not,
the people care about theirvehicles.
How many times are they drivingthem into the ground?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I mean, it's fraught with all this stuff, checklists
about that, but let me go backto the first part of your
question, which is what thatbusiness owner was doing was
crisis management.
He was going onto the job siteand wondering how come there was
two guys there and a moreproactive way to manage that is.
Does that business owner have adaily huddle?
(28:31):
Right.
And what's a daily huddle?
Huddle, right, and what's adaily huddle?
Well, a daily huddle is youropportunity to canvas your
workers and have them tell youwhat they expected to do that
day.
And your job then is to see ifwhat they're telling you, how
that, matches your expectations,so you can catch that gap that
(28:54):
you talked about before it everoccurs.
And so every job site, everyteam, ought to get a 15-minute
huddle.
What's up?
What are you going to do today?
What are some KPIs fromyesterday?
By what measure do we know thatyou did a good job yesterday?
And then the third one is whereare you stuck?
(29:14):
What's going to hold you backfrom doing what you need to do
today?
I don't have a role of this,that or the other thing.
Well, it's good to know thatbefore we get started, rather
than me getting a phone call 11o'clock hey, we don't have this.
And now you're running off tohome depot to put out another
fire yeah, at 200% markup.
Yeah, exactly, and so that'sanother example of a great
(29:39):
systematic way to ensure thateverybody's delivering what you
expect them to be doing that day.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, yeah, I guess, if you see commercial
contractors at Home Depot, skipthat one at Home Depot, skip
that one.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
That's the problem.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Especially if it's 11 o'clock in the morning, because
they're probably solving somefire that's occurred on a job
site somewhere.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, I know that's pretty funny.
Is there in your experience?
Do you found those?
Is there sometimes a bit of animposter syndrome with people
Like they don't like, they'relike oh, I don't really feel
like a bit of an impostersyndrome with people Like they
don't like, they're like oh, Idon't really feel like a leader
of this business, even though Iam on paper.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
They don't feel like they should even be there.
So here is a dirty littlesecret All business coaching is
personal coaching in disguise.
Yeah, all business coaching ispersonal coaching in disguise.
Now, I don't like to tellprospects that, because they
think that's going to be somekind of woo-woo thing.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yeah, get in a recliner.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, and that's not the case at all.
So you know, business coachingis about helping the business
grow systems, tools and strategyabout business but it's also
about helping that businessowner grow and that mindset if
that's one of the things that'son their mind clearly we have to
work through that becauseunless we work through that, a
(31:03):
lot of the systems aren't goingto work anyway.
So the getting the mindsetright or put a different way,
there's success is kind of thefoundation of success is on
three A's.
So number one is acumen Do youhave the right skills?
Number two is activity Do youhave the right?
Are you doing enough of theright things?
And then the third of the threeis attitude, or, more
(31:26):
accurately, mindset.
And mindset is often the thingthat's actually holding back the
business owner.
It's the way, that lens withwhich they view the world, their
beliefs, their values, who theyassociate with.
One of the interestingquestions I like to ask a
business owner is what are thefirst three words that come to
(31:47):
mind for you when I say the wordsalesperson?
You might be surprised to knowjust how many business owners
have very negative connotationssleazy, manipulative, pushy and
yet every business owner is asalesperson in some way, and
subconsciously, somewhere in theback of their mind, they're
going to be in front of a clientand the back of their mind is
(32:09):
going to be saying I don't likewho I'm being right now because
I hate being this sleazy kind ofguy.
So it's an example of well, youknow, how can you adjust your
mindset so that you'd actuallyfeel good about being in sales,
that you'd actually be proud ofit, that you'd consider it a
service to humanity?
Well, that changes entirely howyou'd go about doing it, and so
(32:31):
it's an example of a lot ofbusiness.
Coaching is about coaching thehuman, the person.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So we talked about, like on the hiring people part a
little bit there and touched onit.
Now you have this concept aboutbuilding a bench.
Yeah, so you have your currentworkforce and then you also have
people on the bench waiting.
How do you do the waiting thing?
Cause I would find that that ishard to do and somewhat, uh,
(33:05):
cause when you're recruiting youhave to have a funnel right,
cause it's it's kind of like anyprospect you have, you have to
prospect and then you have yougot a funnel and then you're
going to have a close to close,or you've sent a job proposal or
whatever.
On the prospecting side ofthings, I think it's hard with
(33:26):
the channels we have today, likeonce you've sort of gone out of
your network, let's say, right,you have to then either be in
order to get this bench thatyou're talking about, having an
active bench.
People's lives aren't going towait for your business and
they're not going to sit on thatbench for long.
So how does that work?
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Well, let me give you tell you a couple of stories
about that.
So the first time I learned thiswas in the seventies, so I was
in my early twenties and I was amanager of a men's store, a
tip-top store, in Calgary, andCalgary in the 70s grew from
about 100 to about 500,000people.
People were moving to Calgaryto work in the oil business.
Nobody was moving to Calgary towork in retail.
(34:07):
So one of the practices we hadis about once every three months
, I would walk with my regionalboss through the mall where I
was located in the tip-top storethat I was involved with, and
my job was to point out the twobest salespeople that weren't
yet working for me.
Okay, so how do you do that?
(34:30):
Well, I'd be bumping into thesepeople at lunchtime and having
a coffee, or I'd, you know, bepeeking around the corner to see
what they were doing, and Iwouldn't be there, you know,
talking about this jobopportunity, but something would
happen in three or six monthsand now I could go and talk to
them.
Hey, you know what?
I just got this thing openingup.
How are you doing How'sbusiness, how's life, how do you
(34:51):
like the work you're doing?
I had people that I couldapproach.
I wasn't starting from scratch.
So the other story I like totell about this is in the 90s I
had a job where I was veryvisible.
I was in business in VancouverMagazine.
You know, I had a public kindof profile, and this is before
the internet, where you couldeasily find people.
(35:12):
And about once a quarter I'dget a phone call from a
recruiter.
And the way the call goes ishey, john, how you doing, how's
the wife, how's the kids?
And then they would say hey,look, we've got this assignment.
We're wondering if you knowanybody, could you introduce us
to anybody who has this set ofskills?
And what became clear to me isthey were talking about me.
(35:32):
Now, what's the game here?
What's going on?
Well, they weren't poaching,they were just asking for
introductions to people on mynetwork.
And I didn't have to actuallyopen the door to that
opportunity if in some way Iwasn't motivated to do that.
But it was clear to me that Iwould just simply say hey, that
(35:54):
sounds kind of interesting, tellme more.
So if you're a plumber oryou're going to the Home Depots
or you're going to the plumbingstores or you're picking up
stuff, who are you meeting whoare the three, five, six best
electricians in your town thataren't yet working for you?
Could you hire a recruiter tobe making those calls?
(36:18):
Well, you can.
On upwork you can hire someonefor about 12 bucks an hour and
they're really good and they canbe making the phone calls and
they don't have to disclose thatit's abc electric company until
that candidate says I'minterested okay, so okay, I'm
totally.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
I'm digging the strategy here.
I'm just trying to think of howso construction in general is
transparent and opaque at thesame time.
It's transparent in terms ofthe job sites.
Often you can see into them.
(36:53):
They're transparent that way.
Maybe there's a site fence andeveryone comes out at a certain
time.
But, they're opaque in terms ofyour ability to be able to get
in there.
You're either on the job oryou're not, or you're not
getting through that gate.
And so, in terms of knowing whothe best electricians are, who
the best in class is and who,you should pay someone on Upwork
(37:17):
to go and find on LinkedIntheir contact info to say, hey,
can you give me some referralson people like this, which would
be, like them, hard to do?
Yeah, it is Hard to do now.
I just I think that thequalifying, the who, would be
(37:40):
tough.
It is yeah.
So the bench thing, and then,once you did get a contact with
them, I think it's almost likethe bench is not, is more of a
people that are Okay, you knowthe draft.
(38:02):
It's almost like having an opendraft all the time, because the
bench means that they're readyto play at a moment's notice and
that's not the case, whereasthe draft is you're basically
going and finding and you wantto draft people, but you have a
draft list.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.
So the other way that I thinkabout this is who's got leverage
?
So if you're a business ownerand you've got five, six, seven
workers, each one of thoseworkers has more leverage than
you.
Yeah, and what I mean by thatis, if they quit, you're hooped,
yeah.
Now you're in crisis mode.
So how do you get leverage onyour side?
(38:38):
You need options, and so whatthat means is, at any given
point, you've got something likea handful of replacements for
any one of the guys that youhave on your team, and so when
they come to you and say I wanta raise or I'm out, you're kind
of stuck, unless you, in theback of your mind, were able to
say, well, I've got five otherpeople I could replace you with.
(39:00):
And so there's an investment ofenergy, investment that you do
up front to be in a place whereyou have that option.
Or when you get the next bigcontract.
And now you need to add twopeople overnight and you don't.
How do you start that?
So I get your point.
It's hard, also hard gettingcustomers, and you're doing a
(39:22):
lot of work getting customers,but you're doing nothing about
building the bench or the, thebalance, the balance bar, to get
it, uh, in proportion for yourneeds as things evolve over time
.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah, I'm definitely in agreement with that strategy,
just as I would say tough to do.
Now, what do you see in themental health side of things in
the trades?
Do you coach your clients inthat respect?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Boy, that's such a big question.
I you know.
There's one story I want totell you about.
This is a guy, a client of mine, who ran a factory and the
factory had two shifts and so itstarted at 6 in the morning and
(40:26):
the second shift ended at 10 atnight.
And this guy had an hour'sdrive from the factory to his
home.
And so 10 at night, three, fourtimes a week, he'd be like why
am I going to drive home?
I'll get home at 11.
I'll be in bed 11.
And then I got to get up at 4,4.30 to be back in for six.
(40:46):
This guy was a tough, persistentguy, driven, willing to pay the
price.
And then one day his wife saidto him your business is your
mistress.
If you don't do something aboutit, I will.
And that's when this guy saidI'm willing to work 70, 80 hours
a week, but I'm not willing topay that price, I'm not willing
(41:09):
to give up on my marriage too.
And that's when this guydecided he needed help.
And then he started looking forhelp.
So you know, lots of guys Imeet are working 70 hours a week
.
Well, you know, but if youcould, how many hours would you
like to work 30.
Wow, that would be great.
What would you do?
You got the 40 hours back.
(41:30):
What would you do?
It would be great to see one ofmy kids' games.
Oh, let me ask you, when wasthe last time you went to one of
your games?
One of the kids games haven'tbeen there yet this year.
What's that?
Speaker 1 (41:47):
like for you?
How would you rate yourself ona scale of one to ten as a
father?
So you're you're touching onsomething there that, um, there
is a segment of the constructionpopulation that I don't think
is really being addressed whenit comes to mental health, and
that is the business owner.
A lot of economic uncertainty,especially when the interest
(42:16):
rate changes.
You got big crews and suddenlythe jobs are falling off and now
you, you know, legally you haveto give so much notice, et
cetera.
I mean there's lots ofpressures.
You have jobs going sideways,all sorts of things.
So many different factors ofwhere the business can be a
complex and a stress for thatbusiness owner can be a complex
(42:37):
and a stress for that businessowner.
And yet what we talk about isoften is only real mental health
issues.
On the site level there's not alot.
The question is, this is whereit gets very, very complex.
Is that we have high rates ofdrug addiction and suicide, et
(42:58):
cetera in in construction andmental health issues.
And as you work your way up thevalue chain, all the way to the
business owner.
At what point is there a no?
We don't actually think, wedon't actually consider that.
No, that's your responsibility.
You decided to start your ownbusiness.
That's your problem.
(43:18):
Oh, wow.
Because at some point there is,the government will be getting
involved in mental healthprograms.
They already are.
But at what point in the valuechain does the government not
care?
Well, I'm saying not care ornot recognize I guess of course
caring is a slippery slope butat what point does it not
(43:41):
recognize that a governmentprogram should get involved?
Just because somebody was anentrepreneur, it doesn't mean
they don't have.
They're almost like redliningand they're like oh my God, I
don't know if I'm going to makeit, and I've got a whole family
to pay for.
I've taken on all this risk.
I've got a whole family to payfor.
I've taken on all this risk.
I've got all thisresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Our medical system is oriented around physical
ailments, hospitals, surgery,medications.
There's very little about ourmedical system that's pointed in
the direction of mental healthis because it's so difficult.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
It is difficult because the definition is
difficult.
Yes, Because, well, it's, it'sso okay.
So what is the bifurcationbetween a mental health crisis
and life is hard?
So struggle, for instance, whatis the continuum on the
(44:46):
spectrum of struggle to it's amental health problem or it is.
Life is difficult.
So take the extremes.
One is situations are hard.
You have to emotionally dealwith yourself.
You might have other lifeissues and you're trying to get
to a point of clarity and peacein your mind, and the other one
(45:06):
is at the end.
Here I'm going to go crazy.
Here I'm thinking of ending itbecause I can't find a solution
and I'm just done solution andI'm just done.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah.
So I think it's when you loseagency or you no longer feel
like you have ability toinfluence or control the outcome
, that's a very good point, andso you give up in despair or you
resort to self-medication,alcohol drugs, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
So when you were saying that the medical system,
you know, is sort of fall shorton the mental health side of
things, I know that you know, atSightMax we have, we use RBC
for our health insurance.
Sure, and this year they didprovide a mental health
Component, yeah, component.
And you know, provide a mentalhealth Component, yeah,
(46:00):
component.
And you know, I didn't see thatbefore.
And it's for, you know, forcoaching and counseling, et
cetera.
And yeah, I like I wonder.
So I'll give you an example ofsomething.
We had a mental healthdiscussion in the building show
in Toronto and I had these twoguests on who were advocating
(46:23):
for mental health.
For, you know, field workers,et cetera, superintendents, all
the people that come on site andwork hard hours every day, and
it's tough, very physical, thatthere has been an attack on the
self-esteem of the tenuredworker, Like somebody who's in
their 40s, early 50s, maybeearly 60s, who has their output
(46:45):
per minute is super high becausethey have so much experience.
But now they're saying, well,okay, well, you're not a
minority, or you're not a woman,or you're not a, and we don't
value you anymore.
There's this self-esteem.
The attack on the self-esteemof the people actually built the
country in many respects and Ithink that that it falls, really
(47:05):
, if you, if you're listening tothe world saying that you
should be devalued, and then ontop of that you have other
complexities, like a job wentsideways or, um, you know you're
going to be getting less hourshere because you know whatever
reason, that can really start toget pretty dark.
It does.
Yeah, I mean, have you, haveyou seen?
(47:28):
Is this I'm not, I'm notsuggesting that you've seen this
within your clients, but do youshare that sentiment?
You can understand thatparadigm of where that could be
possible I don't know if youknow my entire story.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Do you know?
I did a TEDx talk.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
I did know you did a TEDx talk, but I didn't listen
to it.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Well, the reason I mention it is my TEDx talk is on
the cultural taboos of society,about mental health and suicide
.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Okay.
Well, you're right in there,then, okay.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
And that's based on my experience of attempting
suicide in 2011.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
You did.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yes, holy smokes, okay.
So I know the dark side.
I've experienced it personally.
And in preparing for the TEDxtalk I was very afraid for my
career.
I thought you know, gee, I'msupposed to be this kind of guru
or, you know, coach kind of guyand here, I'm talking about a
(48:30):
very difficult period of lifemental health difficulties and
what I learned is thatvulnerability is very scarce,
and so what I learned is thatlots of the clients I get show
up because of the talk, notdespite the talk.
Okay.
Because they want and recognizethey need that kind of help, and
(48:53):
so I mentioned it only in thecontext of mental health being.
You know you raise asignificant issue that you see
it in all the workers, and a lotof the work I do with business
owners often isn't.
It starts off talking about thebusiness, but it's often about
all the things that relate totheir worldview, the lens with
(49:16):
which, the values they have, thethings that hold them back, and
so all business coaching ispersonal coaching in disguise.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Yeah, on that continuum conversation of where
mental health is recognized inthat value chain, you start to
once you get sort of pastproject manager and into you
(49:48):
know an estimator or you know aVP or, and you start to move up
that value chain to the owner.
It's almost as though thatthose are the pressures that you
are expected to deal with forthe compensation you get.
And also, if we talk mentalhealth and construction, at what
point is it only the peopledown here that we're talking
(50:12):
about?
And there's that in lots ofindustries.
Oh, there is, I mean, in manyplaces.
If you look at the stock market, for instance, you know hedge
fund managers, like when it goessideways, man, I'm telling you
it's hard.
That's going to be the same.
(50:33):
Yeah, what I think inconstruction and maybe you can
add some color to this is do youthink, perhaps because some
disciplines in construction thebarrier of entry is low and
there aren't that many jobs thatyou can just like go to a job
(50:53):
site and then say, hey, who'srunning this job site?
And someone's going to point tooh, it's that person over there
, and then you have access totalk to that person.
Hey, I'd like a job.
Do you have anything availableI can do on site.
If they look reasonably capablethere at that time and that
moment, you can probably givethem something for the next day
to come and do yeah, definitely.
Whereas other industries arenot set up like that.
(51:15):
I can't just walk down to likethe Royal Bank and like knock on
their head, like is theresomething I can do tomorrow?
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Well, you talked about the spectrum of the kinds
of jobs that are on aconstruction site and you know
there's some that requirecertification.
So if you're an actor, you gotto show up, you got to be an
apprentice.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
No, I get that I get that.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
But what I'm getting at is, you know, at the building
, the house across the streetfrom me, I can hear the
hammering.
Yeah, there's two guys that aretearing off the roof, the
shingles of that house, andthat's exactly the kind of job
where a guy could walk up and,okay, you go, you got a safety
harness.
Great, you're in right, okay,start.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
so do you think that the reason that we have this
mental health focus on this jobsite and of the value chain
because of the fact that peoplecan come from anywhere and
(52:20):
everywhere and get intoconstruction?
Speaker 2 (52:22):
Yeah definitely.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
It's like a landing spot for lots of people.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Construction sites, by definition, are kind of
chaotic.
It isn't like there's a factory.
There isn't offices that areorganized around some kind of
scheme.
There could be 20 guys on a jobsite, each with four different
contractors and they're all kindof doing their own thing.
They often come from troubledor difficult backgrounds, so
(52:52):
there's lots of conflict thathappens day after day.
The supervisors aren't theremanaging the site, so it looks
easy but it's very hard.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
So do you think that we have this situation that I
mean, I always struggle with thetroubled background kind of
moniker of a group of people whowork in construction, because
it's a tough one, because it'sthere.
It's almost as if there's akind of an ugly truth people
(53:30):
don't want to talk about.
Yeah, for sure you know what Imean Because when I go on a job
site or I have, you know, I'vehad contractors at my residence
and you know when we and I'mgetting into my business a
little bit, but when we buildsoftware, I empathetically think
(53:51):
of the struggles that thosepeople are having on site and I
don't want to make their lifeworse by giving them a crappy
app that upsets them all thetime and makes it even worse.
So you know, I look at thatelement and I empathize with
(54:12):
those and I can kind of seethrough it.
I can see the kindness, I cansee the talent, I can see what
they're, I can see the talent, Ican see what they're trying to
achieve.
And maybe they weren't giventhe shot or maybe they blew
their shot.
A while ago they made a fewlife decisions that weren't
quite right, but I get this kindof a feeling like you kind of
(54:32):
want to take them under yourwing and help.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Well, that's the kind of empathetic leader that's
going to get the culture that heworked for.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
Yeah, yeah, very complicated.
I mean, you've got a.
You have a very complexminefield of things you've got
to deal with when it comes toconstruction customers, that's
for sure, or clients client,excuse me, yeah yeah, um, well,
that's um, I'm um.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
You know, I'll share this with you.
I'm 71, um, I work three days aweek.
Um, I tried golfing five days aweek and I found that that was
boring as hell.
So coaching is a verysatisfying kind of work.
It's meaningful, it makes adifference, and and so one kind
(55:28):
of description of it is verydifficult.
One kind of description of itis that it's very satisfying.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
That's good.
I mean, yeah, I've got oneother question how important is
it, do you think it is, forbusiness leaders to telegraph
somehow, via demonstration, thatthe people who work for them
(55:59):
would like to have their job oneday?
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Well, I might answer it a little bit broader than the
way you framed the question,which is I have a definition of
leadership that the best leadersare those that are most willing
and most capable of havingcrucial conversations, and so
the definition of a crucialconversation is anytime emotions
and stakes are high, and solots of leaders are not very
(56:28):
good at having crucialconversations, and many of them
avoid it, and so that's oftenthe root cause of the problems
that they're experiencing.
And so, um, by becoming capable, confident of having a crucial
conversation and having theskills to be able to do it, that
by itself will make you abetter leader and, as a result,
(56:51):
have a better business andbetter culture okay.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
So do you think that the that that is something that
by demonstration that the peoplewho I guess the point that I
was getting at was I've seenpeople in companies, in trades
that the owner's job they makeit seem so crappy that the
(57:19):
people under them would be likeokay.
So let me get this straight.
If I were to work my ass offfor X amount of years, I don't
even want to get there, you knowwhat I mean.
So I'm not going to stick aroundin this company because if I do
crush it, I'm going to end uplike that person.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
Well, that's obviously a case where the
leadership is very bad, isn'tcapable, and they're not
demonstrating what it means tobe a good leader, to be a good
owner and inspiring.
Yeah, you know you'd be wise,that worker you're referring to
to go find a better culture.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Yeah, all right.
Well, john, this has been verygood chatting with you.
I've enjoyed this.
How do people get a hold of you?
I'm used to find W5 coaching.
Speaker 2 (58:09):
I talked about the Socratic method of leadership.
So Socrates has the best way tohave somebody's help and figure
it out themselves.
And how do you do that?
You guide a conversation.
How do you do that?
You guide a conversation, howdo you do that?
Lots of questions, and what arethe five core questions?
Who, what, when, where, why?
So W5, so there's a little hookthat might help you remember
Perfect my website w5coachingcom.
Speaker 1 (58:33):
Good, and you're on LinkedIn as well.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Oh, I'm all, yeah, all the social platforms.
All over it.
All over it.
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
Okay, well, this has been awesome, john.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (58:43):
My pleasure, nice, to be with you today, james.
I've enjoyed the conversationas well.
Yeah, likewise.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Well, that does it for another episode of the Site
Visit.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to stay connected withus by following our social
accounts on Instagram andYouTube.
You can also sign up for ourmonthly newsletter at
sitemaxsystemscom slash the sitevisit, where you'll get
industry insights, pro tips andeverything you need to know
about the Site Visit podcast andSitemax, the job site and
(59:17):
construction management tool ofchoice for thousands of
contractors in North America andbeyond.
Sitemax is also the engine thatpowers this podcast.
All right, let's get back tobuilding.
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Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Betrayal: Season 4
Karoline Borega married a man of honor – a respected Colorado Springs Police officer. She knew there would be sacrifices to accommodate her husband’s career. But she had no idea that he was using his badge to fool everyone. This season, we expose a man who swore two sacred oaths—one to his badge, one to his bride—and broke them both. We follow Karoline as she questions everything she thought she knew about her partner of over 20 years. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-3 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.