Ep 211 - "You Can't Coach What You Can't See"

0:00 Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head Heart and Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Hey, welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. Just every once in a while, it's kind of fun to try that radio voice on. Talk show host. Yeah. You know what? I got to turn on my do not deserve.

0:41 I grew up listening to radio. You did? Did you listen to talk shows, AM radio, when you're working on construction sites, stuff like that, like Rush Limbaugh? No. I'm not proud to say. I'm not necessarily aligned with all of Rush Limbaugh's stuff, but I grew up on that stuff. Grew up very conservative and Rush Limbaugh was like a hero. I have like two different versions of radio time. that I remember. One was my grandma in her kitchen had the world's oldest AM FM radio that I'm sure literally had it for 40 years. Just this POS, like old school. Anyways, she always had like some kind of Christian radio. And so there was like something between a sermon and like really old school worship music.

1:23 Oh yeah. Constantly sat up in a corner in the kitchen. It was over the top of the fridge. That was just kind of on all the time. Real low. It was low noise. Sermons and gospel music, right? Yeah, like all day. And it was all like super old school stuff. Probably, heck, you know, hella Baptist or whatever. But for some reason, it was comforting. Yeah. Like just the memory of it even. It's just like stability, no chaos, low, emotional, you know, just consistent, safe and consistent. Yeah, you know what it reminds me of is because when they were playing that, we were riding in their Chrysler Cordoba. The Chrysler Cordoba, imagine like those 80s old boat sedans. Oh, yeah. With the plush seats that were like really like couch seats, you know?

2:04 Poofy and upholstered with the velour, like the velvet kind of seats. Oh, I just remember. Yeah, it's funny that you say that. I think if I remember right, this is going to sound like they were crazy wealthy or something. Yeah, mine weren't. No, no. Yeah, mine weren't. They had a farm, you know? I mean, my grandpa was an entrepreneur though. He had, you know, by the time I came around, he had sold his interest in an HVAC company, Hunter Davison, actually. So if anybody's listening, yes, Hunter is my grandfather of the original Hunter Davison partnership. And I think the Davison boys now, maybe even third generation boys on the Davison side, are the primary leaders of that business. And they've become a massive commercial HVAC company in Portland. But in the early years, because my grandpa didn't build it nearly to the same size the boys did, but I think they had a Cadillac.

2:49 If I remember correctly, I think my grandparents always had a Cadillac. And they would, first off, they took care of it like ridiculous. Like no one takes care of their car as well as they did. But you know, they would do that. I remember my grandparents like maybe having one car my entire lifetime. Yeah, me too. You know what I mean? So my grandpa would buy like some really nice, probably paid cash. Yeah. And then they just drove it and took such good care of it, you know. So it was like a really nice car, but it wasn't like modern. This was not the era where business owners were like maxing out the deductions on their business and writing off their... He was so... I mean, everything... Buy a boat, buy a new King Ranch at the end of the year to write your taxes on. There wasn't a bone in my grandpa's body. The generation was savers.

3:30 Oh, yeah. They were squirreling away. For sure. Well, they'd spent so much of their marriage with nothing. Yeah. Yeah. So. Sure. I mean, my grandpa, when they started that company, they bought it. So it was a division of a larger engineering firm that my grandpa was an engineer at. So they, he and his, what was his name? Anyways, Davison, they bought it together. Or maybe, yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Okay. It was, I was so young that the downside, actually what happens, you know, still a side note is because I was so young when my grandpa was even close to that retirement, any of that, like he just retired so much young, you know, his kids are older. Like my mom is the youngest of, of the kids and the others are, you know, they've got her by a fair number of years.

4:13 So anyways, my grandparents were pretty old by the time I rolled around. And so he was already kind of done with all of that. But I often look back now and just wished that I had more audience time with him to share in what I've been able to do and accomplish and the adventures and the hard times and the good times. Just because he would have been able to relate, totally relate to every ounce of it. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a bummer. Like I do feel like I missed out on something special. I do too. I had, it's interesting. Like I feel a real sense of entrepreneurial spirit in me and it, I didn't get it from my dad or my mom, but my grandparents, my great grandfather in particular, and my great grandmother were very entrepreneurial. Like started a, like they started their career as a brand new married couple buying a herd of goats off the barges.

4:56 Yeah. It used to come off of the Willamette River here. Oh, wow. And they actually, this was like when they horseback. Yeah. So they would, they would go to the barge. They'd pay for this herd of goats. I think their first one was like 250 head on multiple barges. And then they, with their horses and friends and hired hands, cowboys, I guess, took it all the way 25 miles out into Kings Valley, kind of the coast, Oregon coastal range. Wow. And grew them up, sheared them, sold the meat, sold the fiber, and then put a down payment on a sawmill. They built a sawmill. And then, you know, they started using that. Then they bought timberland. That was how they started. Oh, wow.

5:36 And so there was lots of that. My grandma, it was interesting because they were, and this actually does kind of feed into our topic today. My great-grandmother was a pioneer woman. She was the sales gal for the mill. So she would call around to supply groups of builders. And as they were cutting boards, she'd already have them sold. Nice. And they'd have freight trains that are coming right past the mill picking up that thing and taking it to Eugene and taking it to Portland and Salem. And she was on the phone dialing for dollars. Just making it rain. Yeah. She was the account manager, all that stuff. And my grandpa ran the mill. Yeah. My grandma was the sales gal. And so she died when I was 12. Oh, wow. And she was like 86 when she died.

6:18 And so I got some of those stories, but I also was too young to appreciate it and mine her for just this entrepreneurial spirit. Yeah. Yeah, that's how I feel. It's like, it just is what it is. I was a kid. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing we could have done about it. But you know what's sad in that story is that when my great-grandparents died, the empire stopped with them. Like they had this really healthy thousands of acres of timberland and they had two mills at that point. But when my grandpa retired, they just, they parted it all out, sold it all off. And the next generation never carried the torch. And I've reflected on that a lot is that I think just based on bits and pieces from my dad and his stories and understanding is that while my grandma and grandpa were really good risk takers and entrepreneurs, they worked really well together, really remarkable couple.

7:04 By all appearances, they never mentored their children. Mm-hmm. in that ever. And they also had so much, and mind you, it's not a billionaire family or anything even kind of remotely close to that. Yeah. But successful enough that they created lots of comfort, you know, for their children, but never actually mentored them into the mindset and whatever, the growth, like the entrepreneurial spirit. So it died there. Well, and so much of that is like learning how to use that to create resources. Yeah. Right. Like that's a skill. Like it's, that doesn't happen by accident. Well, in risk-taking, unless you're mentored in it, it stops. I mean, I think it just naturally will stop with that second generation.

7:44 If you're not actively mentoring them into, this is how we make decisions. This is why we're making that kind of stuff. If they don't ever see that part, you don't ever invite them into that. Yeah. Get into the weeds with your kids about what we're doing and why and that kind of thing. Yeah. And I think that's just where they where they failed is it was all in my grandpa's and my grandma's head. You know, that is kind of interesting. I, you know, my daughter specifically has kind of started to sound off with some interest of, you know, what it looked like to get some more kind of coaching and mentoring for me. And it's, you know, it's a little challenging because I think most parents have experience where kids just have a pretty tough time hearing them. You know, for whatever, it was the same. When I was a kid, like my parents knew nothing.

8:24 So I'm definitely excited that she's reaching out. But you know, it's funny because up till now, I've never really had the pressure applied that I needed to like do a good job. Like we're super engaged. Don't life experiencing mentoring is happening all the time. Of course, yeah. Professional mentoring related specifically to what I've done or whatever in my career, little to nothing. And now she's kind of asking about it in her young 20s. And I'm like... Where do I go? Where do we start? How do I do that in a meaningful way? It's challenging. It's harder than I would have anticipated. Life coaching with my kids is pretty run-of-the-mill. It's just sort of everyday conversation, I think. If you give a crap about your kids, it should be fairly easy.

9:07 But this business one is different. It's because there's like all of a sudden now, you have business partners. So it's like you can't just all be bringing your kids in and spinning up jobs and job titles and... And then your spend is, you know, you're accountable to that. So you can't, you know what I mean? So it's just like, okay, I got to get creative. Like, how do I expose them to some of these things that will give them some skill sets and some tools, but do it in a way that's responsible because it's not, you know, it's not my decision alone. I'm in partnerships, you know? So this is interesting. This is actually a really good kind of intro into this topic of mentorship that you and I wanted to bat around. Mm-hmm. I think one of the first things I'm observing with regard to mentorship is with our clients and the kind of relationships.

9:50 And I think even all the way back to early days with you and I consulting, thinking about what was it about yours and I's approach? And I'm not necessarily going to imply that it was intentional because a lot of this was just instinctive. You know, that we inevitably, you and I maybe just picked up from people we watched and observed, you know, along the way, bits and pieces, right? Yeah. is that mentorship was kind of the magic sauce that you and I were bringing. And I was like, what was that exactly? And I think there's two components to mentorship that I feel like I've landed on that are like the biggest parts. One is a mentor in order for them to hold maximum value to you, they need to have walked the path that you are wanting or attempting to walk and already been through it successfully.

10:37 I think it can also be equally valuable. A mentor sometimes can be somebody that walked the path in front of you and failed miserably. You know what I mean? But they've walked the path. Yeah. So it's like a great mentor does not necessarily have to be a super producer in what you want to do. This is interesting, right? Did you know Bill Belichick never played the NFL? Did you know that like most of the top winning coaches in the NFL never played in that level? That's interesting. But they did play D1. Yeah. In fact, one, I think Belichick was a D2 or D3 school. But he played. Yeah. And he played at a high level. All of them played at a high level, but they weren't necessarily the best of the best. Yeah. And I think that's an interesting data point.

11:18 Yeah. I was reading that. I'm writing, actually, I did not intend to make such a great little hook, but I'm reading this book right now called How to Hire Elite Salespeople. Mm-hmm. It was recommended by my executive coach, Colin from Petra Coach. And he was like, this is, in a lot of enterprise environments, Nigel Green, who wrote this, is like the guy. He's the whisperer. When it comes to like high level B2B consultative selling and hiring the best salespeople and something stoked because we're going to be applying some of this stuff into our floodlight client stuff. Yeah. But he talks about this. A mentor, a really successful coach or mentor or leader does not have to be have come from being the best of the best in that role, but they have to have had the experience.

11:59 And so I think part of mentorship and why so many owners struggle to mentor their downline people, whether it's salespeople or otherwise, is it they don't necessarily have experience doing that thing. I can think of a couple of our clients right now that are franchise owners that came from finance. Yeah. They're really smart with the numbers of the business. They have kind of an entrepreneur's mind for business management, but they've never sold things. And so it makes it very difficult for them to mentor when they start to build a sales team. They're like, well, you can look up all the best practices. Like, okay, I got to have KPIs. We're going to do so many cold calls per week. So like what we teach in the master course, they hyper focus on the metrics and But the metrics without the mentorship being able to like, hey, so how did that meeting go with that chief engineer?

12:44 What did they say? And then when the sales rep tells them what the chief engineer said, well, in order for that owner to mentor the sales, they have to have a context for that. Like when a chief engineer says this, what do you say? Yeah. that gets them to call us, you know what I mean? Like somebody who's done it before has the ability to come alongside and be like, hey, oh, I've heard that a thousand times. Here's what I learned to say. Yeah, that's mentorship. You know what? Actually, that makes sense though. Like the whole piece of, you didn't necessarily have to be the best of the best. Because it's like, I hope if he hears this, this doesn't sound like a negative, but my nephew, ton of respect for my nephew. Yo, great. Just a rock solid young man.

13:25 Good dad. Just a good dude. played high school football and then went into the academy. So certainly not a slouch. He was accepted into the Air Force Academy. And while in the Air Force Academy, he actually played what would be the equivalent of D1 rugby, right? Yeah. So D1? Yeah, I think the military schools are D1. I think they are, yeah. Anyways, obviously a sports enthusiast, extremely athletic during his college career, Very capable and worked really hard. Doesn't have the same level of natural gifting that a lot of those elite athletes have. Instincts, whatever, sure. Yeah, it's like most athletes reaching some ungodly level of performance is because they're gifted.

14:06 And then on top of that, they adopt a disciplined work ethic that's insane. And it's the combination of both. And my nephew, if I was just kind of to call it out, honestly, is gifted with discipline, drive, and the commitment to work ethic. It's why he was their football captain of the team. Like, just amazing. They were a championship team. They did amazing in high school. Actually, Bledsoe was their offensive coordinator. Oh, Bend High. Yeah. Summit High or whatever. Yeah, Summit. Yeah, they were Summits. So, you know, lots of talent, lots of like ex-NFL and really tier one athletes are, you know, they're volunteers because it's bent. Sure. It's like the best of the best. So anyways, so he's coaching right now.

14:46 I will not be shocked if I find out over the next several years that my nephew actually decides to chase after a college level career coaching career. And he will probably do it because the way that he thinks about football, the players, the skill set, how to adapt them, the plays, it's unbelievable. Like it's special. Well, especially when you layer on his experience as a military leader. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So he's got that rich, right? And he was leading everything from personnel to assets. Super high level training. You go to Air Force Academy, of course. Yeah. But again, like him personally, he was not, you know, he didn't go to D1, didn't go to NFL. But his ability to coach is actually very remarkable. He's got enough context from being in the trenches and his work ethic allowed him to succeed at a high level.

15:33 But I get it. Like that makes sense. And I could see him having an unbelievable great career because he is a good coach. Like he's understands relationship. People want to follow him. Mm-hmm. well-spoken, very put together. He's just got all this gifting that makes him a great coach, even though he probably would have never been destined to go pro in any sport. You know what I mean? Okay, so that's part one, right? Is there has to be, in order for a mentor to actually mentor somebody else, they have to have experience in the thing that the mentee is trying to do or trying to be better at. Yeah. Right, firsthand experience, right? To be able to get down in the weeds. The second one is that I've observed, it's like the big, big thing, is they have to have visibility into that person's life and work.

16:19 So a mentor, of course, can be a personal mentor. Yeah. Not mentoring somebody, a man being a better husband in his marriage, whatever. But there has to be some level of connectedness, visibility. Like in that marriage example, like if somebody's going to mentor somebody in their marriage, one, they have to have like done marriage for a long time. Yeah. Somewhat successfully. Yeah. right, to be able to speak to it and provide guidance. But two, they've got to figure out a way to get some visibility into what this guy's current dynamic is with their spouse. And maybe that's having regular dinners together where the spouses come together and the mentor guy is able to observe, like the person in their natural environment. There has to be some visibility to be able to see how they're actually currently functioning.

16:59 Mm-hmm. And so it has to be a level of connection. I've just been thinking about this a lot relative to how, I mean, certainly because we're a consulting company over here at Floodlight. And what does this mean? And how do we get better and better and better at that position, that mentor position? You know, what's interesting about that, so even internally at FP, you know, this is something that, I mean, gosh, going all the way back, you know, to the beginning in terms of teams that, you and I have in tandem been a part of or individually been a part of. And there's these moments of engagement with personnel inside your company where there's something cool that happens. And it doesn't mean that it's always easy or lacks effort or that it's not complicated and maybe uncomfortable.

17:46 But when you invest energy intentionally and people receive it in such a way that it changes them, like it creates a skill, creates an understanding, maybe boldness through affirmation, like just this thing that changes their worldview and then thus, you know, the outcomes that they're able to produce, like there's something really cool about that. Mm-hmm. And I think if I just kind of think back in that roster of folks that I've had the honor to have some level of impact on, I think you're right. Like in the sense of what was different about that relationship is not just because we had some kind of relationship inside the org chart, directed by the org chart.

18:26 But it was more something unique happened, either the pursuit of me and my attention directly by the individual, which told me, hey, this is somebody worth spending your time and energy on, or maybe out of necessity because they were a direct report or something like that. But when you have those kinds of relationships where the engagement as a leader to that individual and that individual begins to succeed at a different level or stand out, it does require coaching and mentoring. It's not simply mirroring that has to be done. Yeah. You know what I mean? But there is this intentionality of walking them through an advancement in skill set or perspective. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of what differentiates those relationships.

19:09 It's interesting because I think if a company really wanted to, and just to be clear, I'm not saying that FP is doing any level of this yet. I think this is a very advanced approach. is I think that when a company feels like they've got the foundations really strong and they're really investing into the business, meaning that the full C-suite is really working on the organization and you're beginning to redeploy an excess of resources, I think there's an opportunity to invest heavily in creating that mentoring kind of relationship throughout the org and net some really powerful results. I don't know physically how to deploy that yet. Like, I think even this time last year, I probably would have had enough ego to tell you, I think I got a plan for that.

19:55 And now that I'm back in the trenches. Well, I have a little bit of a plan for you. So we could talk about that. So I can tell you what we've been doing and working on behind the scenes. It's like when daddy's away, you know, the mice will play. So I guess obviously you've been transitioning over to FP and are really primarily leading FP now. And since you've been gone, this is one of the things we've been playing with as a team is how do we deploy mentorship? Mm-hmm. inside a consulting, because typically consultants, and this is probably true of any consulting company in our industry outside is, you usually know a lot of stuff. Like that's why you start consulting. It's like, I've done a lot of stuff. We know a lot of things. Yeah. Right. And like in our case, you know, we have multiple consultants that had successfully owned multiple businesses and sold and done the things.

20:40 Yeah. And salespeople who've done all the things. But we talked about this, having the experience is one part. The other part is visibility. Yeah. How do we see? Because you can have, just in what you described at FP, like, I think a lot of times we think of mentoring as just, I know I did, it's just teaching them the things. Hey, I've been there, done that. This is what you do. Yeah. But unless you have visibility into what they're currently doing. Yeah, I agree. You don't know where the delta is. Like, where's the gap between what you're teaching them and what they're still doing? Sure, yeah. You know? Yeah. And so what we've been exploring is leveraging like really like magic technology for us to get visibility into what the tech or the AR account specialist or the PM is doing on that initial, you know, scope meeting with the client.

21:27 Yeah, yeah. We're leveraging technology now that's really, really cool, paired with our experience. So we can see and hear exactly what that PM is saying to Mr. and Mrs. Jones. And then from our experience, be like, hey, next time. Everything was perfect, except he forgot to set an agenda. And I think that might be why at the end they waffled and talked about getting a second opinion is because we just didn't lead them well at the front end. And I think if you just set an agenda next time, I think you're going to get a lot more closes. Like you're giving direct specific feedback instead of generalities because here's my plan for the day. Yes.

22:08 Are you a business that's under 5 million in sales and you're just now getting ready to try and scale your company up and hit some of those targets you've always wanted to hit, but now you've got to build a sales team? Or maybe you just hired your first sales rep, but you don't really know how to manage them. Like how do you manage, lead, train, develop a sales rep? Floodlight has a solution for you now. So we can actually assign your sales rep a turnkey VP of sales that will help them create a sales blueprint, their own personal sales plan for your market. They'll have weekly one-on-ones with that sales rep to coach, mentor them, hold them accountable to the plan. And they'll also have a monthly owner's meeting where they'll meet with you or your general manager and review the progress of that sales rep, their plan to actual results, what kind of performance improvement they're working on with them.

22:52 Also let them know, hey, you might, they're doing really well. Maybe we should think of hiring a second sales rep. They're gonna have that one-to-one advice for you as an owner or senior leader on the team as well. How great would that be to have a bolt-on sales manager for your one sales rep and it's only 2,500 bucks a month? If you're interested in talking more about that, reach out. Let's grab some time and let's talk shop. Our floodlight clients this last year in 2024 generated over $250 million in revenue. Supported by, advised by, an industry expert who's owned and operated a business just like you. So take action. Don't kick the can down the road. Start with our business health and value assessment. And let's unlock the next chapter of your success story.

23:35 And I think part of the reason is, and this has been a struggle for me, dude, especially leading salespeople. And they talk about this in this book is that average to above average, high performing salespeople, they don't really know how they do it. Yeah. And so when they try to tell, when they try to tell, this is what I did, their pupil, their student struggles to get from here to there. Like, how do I act? Like, how do I say it like Chris? How do I do all the Chris things? Yeah. When really the better role for me as a mentor is to understand what they're currently doing. And one by one say, hey, this thing you're doing over here, you'd probably get better outcomes if you did it this way. Just a little different. And I coach to what their current reality is versus what my reality was.

24:20 Does that make sense? No, it does. Yeah. And I think just, again, it's like kind of to affirm that message. The same thing applies when you've got like a meaningful operational relationship or whatever with a downline. You do have to coach to the specifics that you're seeing or witnessing, I guess is a good word for it. So what I'm hearing you say is that Floodlight right now is finding ways to leverage technology to have ears in the moment. Yes. Right? Which makes sense. Frontline staff talking to clients for the first time. Sales, you know, BDR routes, things like that. Get it. Love it. I think the equivalent to that is when leaders pay attention to the details of what the team is experiencing.

25:02 So for us, Steve, years and years ago, actually, I don't know when, but he was very adamant about adapting and adopting Slack as an internal communication system. And I have a love-hate relationship with Slack. There's things about it that I love because it does give us such a good view into a lot of the day-to-day cadence of things. But then it can also create a lot of noise if you're not careful. And so it definitely is a dance that you got to be really proactive about. But and... What you can see, though, throughout FP, for example, is a lot of mentoring and advice giving and coaching that's happening because we've made it mandatory for there to be a lot of transparency in schedules and what we're doing today and what things...

25:48 Note sharing, update sharing. Yeah, tons of shares on updates of job progress. So all day long, if you look at a markets channel at FP, you're going to see, for instance, technicians on site, getting ready to leave, blah, here's what XYZ was done today. And the opportunity for all of that, and for those that don't know Steve, Steve's background is hella engaged in the operation and the production of jobs. He's been a guy on the ground, commercial, you name it. And so he's able to jump in there. And he does because he's engaged at such a, you know, in the weeds level, really. You just see him jumping in there. And what's cool is that we're also able to set the tone for what we want to see more from our operations managers is that same thing.

26:33 Pay attention to what your techs are communicating in Slack because that's where you're going to have the opportunity to see what they're doing so that your coaching can be specific and valuable. So it's like our version of how we're able to do some of what you're talking about. Otherwise, I would not... Like if we didn't make it mandatory, and it can almost seem a little bit like, oh my gosh, really? You make your text do that? Yeah, we do. And honestly, the good texts that just get into a battle rhythm It doesn't take them long to speak their note in their phone and send it out. But the level of visual that we have into what they're doing, what they're doing, and the decision making. So you'll see Steve jump in and coach on equipment load because before the tech leaves, they're giving their update.

27:16 And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. In the living room, can't we go with XYZ in there instead of what you've placed? So again, it's... Okay. Yeah. So maybe you ought to think about hiring Floodlight because... I got to tell you, I'm like so itching to talk about this because this is just right now. We've been working with this enterprise client, $250 million company, 15 different locations. We've got 20 technicians in this program to raise close rate. Everybody in the whole industry, I would imagine also FP, is trying to raise their close rate, right? It's like for a lot of years, many of us enjoyed 80% close rate. And because of higher deductibles, more self-pay, all these things, like we've struggled.

27:57 But I think also, too, we've gotten lazy as an industry with technicians. There's so many reasons why, but I think we've become stuck in desperation brain. Yeah. Plugging holes with technicians, it's become progressively harder to hire technicians with experience and so forth as the industry has expanded. Yeah. And so I think we've just, you know, we've gotten a little lax at A school about our frontline training of techs. And all those factors combined, every single week we talk to clients that are in the 40, 50% close rate and the napkin math is disturbing. It's like, well, shoot, if we could just get it to 60%. Don't worry about selling new stuff. I mean, we love to help sales teams, but forget about your sales team.

28:38 Fix this. Yeah. And then you got plenty of runway to build an awesome sales team, right? So anyway, so we're doing this enterprise deal and we have recording devices we've deployed with all these people. And in the first week, we've listened to a hundred initial responses of technicians talking with Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Wow. In five different markets. Wow. So we're seeing, and what's so interesting about it is, these are relatively high-performing companies. Like, this is more of a good-to-great kind of scenario, which has been incredibly revealing. Christy is the other principal on this particular project. Yeah. She's doing a wonderful job in helping me process through all of these. We've been doing it collectively.

29:19 And I've been involved in this because I'm like, I want to hear this. It is absolutely mind-blowing as somebody like you, who's operated for over 10 years in the industry, It's the first time us, you could say industry veterans, have heard the real voice of the customer and the real voice of the technician in mass. A hundred recordings, dude. Almost a hundred hours. That's crazy. And of course, we're running it through the AI six ways from Sunday to understand and break down like what are the real questions? Yeah. What are the real talk tracks? And is there any uniformity across these 20 technicians in terms of a flow?

29:59 There's not. But you can hear the ones that probably are doing measurably better. Yes. Absolutely. And the cool thing is with this project is we already know which technicians have a higher close rate. Mm-hmm. And so now what we can do is we can take all of that data and mash it up against the high performers and say, okay, high performers tend to ask these questions, utilize these statements, and this basic flow to their inspection and their initial greeting One of the things we identified is the good ones set an agenda. The very front end of that visit, before they go into inspection mode and start walking through the house and start tech talk and here's what's happening and explaining and all that, they set some kind of agenda.

30:40 Hey, Mrs. Jones, I'm sure it's been a really stressful day. But I'm here to help you. This is all I do. My team and I, this is all we help people with. Did you steal my fucking talk track? I've stolen everything good that you've ever said. Well, I literally just did an internal frontline sales training. And literally the talk track for opening introduction is exactly what you just said. I'm pretty sure you had AI steal. I've tried to steal all your best stuff. I watch for it. I watch for it. I watch for it. My AI sold me out. I watch for the good ones. I grab the good ones. No, so, but it's just interesting. But my point is, is that visibility. Yeah. Christy and I, we get off of, on every one of our one-on-ones, check in on this project. We're both just like, this is so amazing because it unlocks the opportunity to mentor.

31:24 Yeah. Because mentoring, again, it's, and I probably didn't learn this until, bro. In this group, you're using Rilla. Is that correct? Yeah, Rilla is the backbone tool, but... But there's a lot of options. Lots of options. And then we've got betas right now with a lot of our other independent clients around the country and the $3 to $10 million, $20 million companies where we're deploying the same technology. And it is mind-blowing how it accelerates that mentor dynamic. Yep. Because for so long, and I think, sadly, in hindsight, a lot of our mentoring or the way we were thinking about it was teaching and telling. For sure. Yeah. You know, because we could only gain limited visibility. And it's part, it's ego.

32:05 Yeah. It's ego because all of us are trying to look good to our peers and our upline supervisors. Yeah. And so when we're shadowing people or we're doing a conventional, hey, I'm going to spend the afternoon with you. I'll visit, let's visit jobs together. They're on their best behavior. You're not getting the real thing. Yeah, for sure. And that's what we uncovered is every single one of the mitigation managers for these participating locations, they had or have like best practices that they've identified and like shared scripts with us and so forth. But then when we got into what's really happening, Oh, that's the bingo right there. None of it is getting consistently deployed. Yeah, that's it. So anyway, it's just like really rocking my world. It's like, okay, now of course, anybody has access to these.

32:45 So how to, like, what's so special about what we're doing? Well, I think part of it is we have the benefit of the law of large numbers, right? It's like, well, already in one week, Floodlight has listened to and assessed 100 hours of, of these moments across five different locales, time zones included. Which those in this particular project, those locations are also have fairly independent operations, right? In terms of what they're doing. A hundred percent different company cultures. It's a private equity enterprise. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes the data more dynamic too. It does. In terms of the scope of it. So finding ways to take...

33:26 what we're listening to and applying it to our knowledge base of best practices to then direct us towards, because that's a big scope. And you think of like, if you're a company like ATI, and I'm sure their close rate is rad. These big companies, right? They're probably rad. Belfort, best of the best. I'd say probably not, actually. I mean, you and I know this to be true because of our time at Belfort and anybody who's worked these big companies. We're all a work in process. We all struggle with the same fundamentals. And you can imagine how much more difficult it becomes. Okay, I'm going to, I think this is just interesting. Yeah, it is, it is. But here's trying to stay on track with like the mentoring portion of where you started here. This is actually something I think is a principle that you should consider like when you're talking about this idea of mentoring.

34:09 One of the things that I learned about Wayne very early on as an example is that there's a difference between probably you and I and him as an example and definitely a difference between he and I. And that is I'm more of an internal optimist. And what I mean by that is that I am quick to take somebody's word for it, which has been really great at times because it creates this level of respect and trust. It gives me the ability to delegate quickly. I don't try to overhold on to things, but then there's a dark side to all of that. I can have a tendency to delegate too quickly. And in the process of delegating too quickly, what I do a really bad job of, if I'm not careful, is inspecting what I expect.

34:50 Often enough. Often enough. And certainly at a very increased cadence in the beginning when you're deploying a new habit or system or process. Sure. Whereas Wayne is much more negative by default. Sure. And it causes it. And again, that's not a negative thing. but it causes him to do more inspection. And he inevitably... Trust but verify. Trust but verify and verify well. And he does have a default of being better at wanting to validate information for himself, which has been a really powerful tool for him. Here's where I'm going with this though. Yeah. Recording something is half the battle. Yeah. The point is, in this particular case, Floodlight's doing the heavy lifting. But for coaching inside a company, where I was going with this is that when I have someone who has given some kind of signal that investing in them is worthwhile... Yeah.

35:38 ...and they're... What it causes me to do is to do more inspecting and follow up on what are they doing and how are they doing it? Where by default, I wouldn't be, you know what I mean? Like that's a learned skill. Like I have to force myself to do it. It's not a default. But when somebody shows promise, like I'm more apt to do it because of my, I'm giving them more energy. Yeah. Yeah. So I think my point where I'm going with this is that part of what we miss the mark on as leaders inside our businesses is that we do a bad job of getting into the weeds alongside our personnel, whether it's through a device, technology, actually elbow to elbow, and see what they're doing. Because you hit the nail on the head.

36:19 that all of those companies that you're talking to and working with all have a system. I was talking to my CFO from Backbone, Melissa, she's the shit, intent, Backbone, yesterday. And, you know, she's grilling me and my ego wants to have good answers for everything that she's asking me. But I even verbalized to her several times, like, Melissa, I want to say hell yeah. Hmm. with conviction because my ego wants to say that, but I'm trying to slow down and actually assess what you're asking me and make sure that the answer I give to you is truthful. The reason I'm highlighting that is that she's asking me real questions. The reason she was asking those questions is because she's inspecting what we are doing after these sessions together.

37:01 When we're walking away and saying we're committed to XYZ, we're going to do these things, she's inspecting it. And so she can ask me really good questions, brush back. We fail to do that inspecting in the beginning. We think that if we send a really great message, that it's clear and concise, then our team's just going to absorb that information and go rock and roll. Here's how seriously we're taking this turn, as an example, at FP. you know, it's storm season. So this is the time of year that our company is doing lots of aggressive prep. Simulations. Yeah, just to make sure everything and everyone's ready to go. And Steve has done a good job of leading the charge on continued education and development on our ability to be comfortable in a commercial environment to include really understanding how to walk through the TNM process, okay?

37:48 And so we just did, you know, we'll call it an internal certification at FP. I'm not even sure the team knows that it's a certification yet. Because this is a brand new. Okay, sorry. What we've done is we've done live training so that there's hands-on scenarios that you are doing and it's being done in such a way that just like if it was a real job, for instance, Malia is receiving TNM documentation every day. She's validating it against photos and she's sending real-time feedback to the team. Well, you just sent me a picture of a guy with one glove on. I won't be able to charge for the appropriate PPE. I mean, she's coaching live as they're doing the work. And then they go through academic modules.

38:29 They take a quiz to validate learning. And then as long as they pass all their quizzes at 80%, they're going to get an internal TNM certification showing they're ready for storm season and really just professionally. development. Here's where I was going with all of that. It affirms everything you're saying already. There's got to be this multi-dimensional interaction. I can't just tell somebody about TNM and they're awesome. I have to have visibility into what is. How are they currently executing on the thing? Post the training. So we do the training, the initial. They go execute. Malia's taking their information, providing live feedback back out to the team. They're iterating the next day, changing the way that they behave, move, document, right?

39:13 And so that combination of seeing, validating, and inspecting, and then providing specific feedback as close to live as possible, that combination creates people with new skills and capabilities. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Here's one of the things, right? Like with salespeople. Yeah. Okay. Because this is obviously hugely applicable to managing salespeople. One of the things we've just begun deploying is after one of our clients hires a sales rep, we're using this technology stack, right? To observe and gain visibility into what they're actually doing. Yeah. Right. Post our training and onboarding the floodlight, you know, master course principles, all the things. Yeah. Yeah. And then we're gaining visibility into how they're actually talking to prospects and doing sales meetings and cold calls and everything else.

39:58 But then by the end of the 30 days, we're able to take all of that data, mash it up against interview screening data that we do in another area of our business. Oh, yeah. And our floodlight commercial sales master course knowledge base and everything else. And we're able to create this dimensional profile of that sales rep based on the real stuff. Like how are they really talking? How are they really talking relative to what their prospects are asking and saying? Yeah. Like real life stuff. We're able to create this dimensional profile at the end of just 30 days. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas it's like, how many of us, I mean, gosh, you and I have suffered under this so many times where you have a sales rep in this industry where on paper, it's like, man, they're doing five formal sales meetings a week.

40:42 That's good. That's like a solid success indicator, right? Success practice. Yeah. They're doing 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 fresh contacts, drop-ins. I mean, they're hunting. They have routine networking functions. They're doing all the things. Yeah. But the sales aren't coming in. But it's not moving. And you're just like, do I trust they're well on their way and the losses will eventually come? How long do I trust them? Yeah. I mean, there's a constant thing we feel from our owner clients is, gosh, I've had this gal or this guy on for five months. They've only brought in 60,000. They brought in like four jobs. And I just don't know. I'm paying them 80 grand. So many of us waffle. And what we're seeing now is we can identify in the first 30 days based on actual evidence of what they're doing.

41:30 And it goes beyond whether they're doing everything we're teaching them Well, like some of these recordings we're listening to, we're like, this is so terrible. They're still so far off. Yeah. But it's evidence that they're trying to do what we ask them to do, which is a very good indicator of whether or not we have the right sales rep. Yeah. Because so often, all of you owners out there that are frustrated with your sales reps and you don't know exactly why, in a lot of cases, it's because they're not putting in the activity. Yeah, right. And so what we're finding now with this tech deployment we're doing is we can identify not only that they're doing the activity, but we're listening in and we're able to give visibility. Yeah, we're able to see not only the activity level, but we're also able to see the quality and the skill.

42:14 It's huge. Yeah, we started doing that on call intake. Like our teams now are, is that the correct phrasing? I never, you know, our team will likely listen to the show. So I'm always guarded to make sure I don't say something that they hear and go, that's bullshit. It's good accountability, I think. Yeah, right. So we're moving into this. I think that's the safest way to word it. where leadership is doing more of listening of inbound calls. Oh, yeah. So the way they receive. So we have several ways that we're able to do that. And man, I got to tell you. It's humbling, right? Oh, here is why I think a lot of leaders don't do some of the inspecting. It's hella awkward. Sometimes it doesn't feel real good to find out what you find out. Yeah. You know what I mean? And again, like, is our team bad?

42:54 No. Like, is their intention right? Absolutely. Our team, dude, they're dedicated mofos. Yeah. You know what I mean? But, and. Yeah. Just like any other human being does. When there's a vacuum of direct guidance and system. Yeah. Okay. Because we still have our own baggage. They fill in the blanks and they're doing the best they can. And man, I'll tell you, sometimes when you listen to best you can, or best you came up with in current state, you're like, ooh, that's not going to work. We got to make some shifts there really fast. And so, again, the value though of hearing it specifically and not just one-sided, because if I sat in the room, I'm going to hear my team, I can coach to that. Sometimes though, you take for granted that what your team is saying is working.

43:38 Like it makes sense to me, right? So even if I sat in that room, I might kind of listen around and go, you know what, all in, this sounds good to me. Yeah. The client on the other line gets to tell you whether or not it makes sense. That's right. And having the recording, I get to hear them. Yes. And the insight that it provides where you get to see and listen to the frustration or the friction that your team's accidentally creating in the process, that's game changer. Oh, that's game changer. The opportunity to do something about what's really happening. Yeah. It is so huge. It is so huge. I just think, here's the other thing too, is we've been doing this big project with this large enterprise client is they were really worried about what the techs were going to think. Yeah.

44:18 recording us and all this kind of stuff. And within one week... Yeah, just over. Within one week, like completely overcame that. And I have a theory about why having been a salesperson who's been managed, you know, and like by some, by like micromanaging people, like tell me how this meeting going, like really getting into my stuff. I think what the technicians realize in the moment is just how pure the information is. Meaning... Normally, they're scrutinized by just, did you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this? And the technician is filtering those questions. Did you do the best practice? Don't you trust me? Yeah, they're filtering that, but they're also... You think I'm stupid? They're filtering based on their experience of that client. And I think sometimes our people make the judgment of, I'm not going to do this because the client's saying this or acting this way.

45:04 I see what you're saying. And they're kind of improvising in the moment. Yeah. And so when they're getting critiqued by their manager, part of what that tech is saying, well, they don't understand. Yeah. They weren't... there. And so now it's created this pure environment where no, everybody can just review exactly what happened. And I think they anticipated that it would be this judgmental thing. But no, it's like now the manager can be like, okay, I get it. And then coach directly to, hey, when the customer said this, I know that was a little bit of a weird question. Next time, maybe try answering it this way. Or maybe that's a good time to review this thing again with them before you leave the property. You know, and like they're able... And so I think the technicians are just like, they're so open because the manager has all the information.

45:49 Yeah. They're not making assumptions. Yeah. Like we often do. Yeah. They're not making judgments based on what their experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Jones have been. They can actually hear the Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Yeah. And the conversation that happened and then coach the tech to next time you get a weird one like this. Yeah. Right. Because they're all kind of weird. Yeah. And man, it's changing the face of things, you know, and I, I think what's so important about this in this time is we've been talking about this. AI and robots are going to take over. Yeah. Yeah. Now, whether that's three years, five years, 10 years, 15 years, we don't know exactly what that ramp's going to look like. But we know it's going to happen. Yeah. And at that point, what do we have left except our customer experience?

46:32 That's it. Yeah. That's all we got. That's all, dude, I'm so bullish on that. And I think as an organization right now, FP is very bullish. A lot of the training that we just did with our frontline staff, not like it's one and done, like we got lots to do, was very centered around like at the beginning of the training, we literally opened up with explaining the spirit of. Guys, don't sit in this room and go through this training with me to check a box and say that you nodded along with what I said. I'm trying to tell you right now, if you don't skill up in this, what you do in terms of tasking is losing its value at an exponential rate right now. And if you hang your hat that I'm good at doing something at a task, you're going to eventually find yourself not very valuable at all to an organization.

47:18 Because exactly what you're saying, AI technology is coming fast. And to do a thing, a task, AI and robots are going to smash. They're cheaper, faster, can go consistently, nonstop, blah, blah, blah. But humans in relationship with other humans is a special power. It is. And only people, I think, are going to be able to do that in such a way that it's mutually valuable, right? For that prospect, that referral source, or that client. So, so much of what we're talking about like now is... Guys, like your ability to answer the three universal questions is a human skill that separates you from technology, right? Radar on, antenna up. Like I must have said that phrase 4,000 times over the last week and a half because it's like that is the up and coming superpower that differentiates us not only from our competitors, but keeps us valuable when technology is so quick to not just augment, but to maybe potentially begin to replace.

48:13 Yeah. I'm in 100%. So I'm just for myself going to kind of reiterate a couple things I feel like I heard today. One, the idea of mentoring and the definition of what mentoring looks like and is requires this intentionality and engagement and relationship. And I would just say like, dude, from my limited perspective, I feel like that's some of the most game-changing leadership comes from people. that are either intentional and disciplined because they've learned this or they're accidentally or by default better at it. And so those ones, the relationships that they have a more coaching, mentoring type relationship with their personnel, very productive.

48:54 Yeah. But I think the other thing that I'm hearing you say, kind of again on the definition of what true mentorship is, like part of the opportunity we have as leaders inside our companies is, do the level of inspection that requires to create change. And that may mean I have to adopt some technology or some different practices to get in and actually hear or see the thing for real. Whether it be time on the road with your team, which you've alluded to some of the weaknesses in that because we get performance culture. But again, it's like just hearing that dialogue in both sides, right? Like you said, to remove some of those assumptions that we make about the quality of what happened. Yeah, it's two things, right? I think it always has to be two things and this probably applies with our children and every other mentor type relationship.

49:38 I have to first gain visibility into what is. Mm-hmm. And most of the time, I am making lots of assumptions about what is. Yeah, for sure. So I have to first gain visibility in what is in order to leverage my background experience. Yeah, I love that. And knowledge. Yep. So I can have the background experience and knowledge. Anybody can pay for that. Like I can freaking go on YouTube. I had somebody ask me recently, like, what do you think future consulting is? I mean, people can learn anything. They talk to Claude and... What do they need you for? Why are they paying you thousands of dollars? And I'm like, well, first of all, Claude is going to ask people questions, but Claude is only able to respond with the background knowledge and information based on what the person volunteers in their answers.

50:24 For sure. Claude has no visibility into what is. And I said, that's my value, right? Is my ability to take data. Knowledge is free. Is to use tools to collect data across lots of companies, not just one, but lots of companies, and then to identify what is and then apply. Yeah. Very specifically. Information is not the value. Information doesn't matter anymore. No, YouTube replaced, it feels like education a long time ago. You can literally access whatever information you want. It's so true. You can learn anything about a topic. You know, I think the other thing though, like kind of against, not against, but to counter like this AI conversation or question, because I think we can be in a habit of over utilizing it too in our businesses right now is, you don't really get true accountability from AI because I don't really honestly give a shit if it agrees or doesn't like or, You know what I mean?

51:16 It's much different when Melissa, my CFO, calls me. I don't feel responsible. I have zero. You know what I mean? It's like I could lie to Claude all fucking day. I don't care. But when Melissa calls me and asks me about how I'm in alignment or out of alignment with what we agreed to do as a leadership team, that's a different relationship. So that's humans being with humans, right? So that's another clear example of AI is not going to hold somebody accountable to execution. Well, again, and your example with Melissa is, Melissa has all the information. Yep. She crawled all the way up into FP's business. Yep. And gained visibility. So now she can apply her background, knowledge, and experience specifically to what is actually going on in FP.

51:58 Yep. Love it. Anyway, I'm so fired up about this. It's such an important topic. And yeah, so hopefully it was helpful. Share it. Share it with a friend if you're like, ah, this is, my buddy needs to hear this. My GM needs to hear this. Pass it around. But otherwise, and if you need help on this, you want to bring an outside partner that has lots of visibility data into many companies like yours that can come in and help apply this mentorship model to help you guys grow, reach out, Floodlight. We'll talk shop. Love it. Till next time. All right, later. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend.

52:43 Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.