Define the Problem, Fix the Fire

00;00;00;23 – 00;00;15;07
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;00;15;10 – 00;00;24;24
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Blue Collar Startup podcast, where hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the frontlines of life in the business of the trades.

00;00;24;24 – 00;00;41;26
Speaker 1
I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media, and I’m your other host, Derek Foster Daigle. Cleaning systems. Yeah. What’s happening? Mike I feel like it’s been a while since we we recorded. We got a little bit ahead and. Yeah, well, we took. What was it we took last week off for sure. Do we take the week off before?

00;00;41;26 – 00;01;05;17
Speaker 1
Oh, we did, because I messed up. Big shout out to our guests that we’re recording tomorrow because I yeah it happens. I get it running around doing what you got to do, running a business like it’s a it happens. So I’ll all of a sudden you’re in a bad position and you realize you’re supposed to be on, on a laptop in front of a computer on a podcast, and that’s not going to happen.

00;01;05;17 – 00;01;24;00
Speaker 1
So I am looking forward to that episode. We’ll, more to come on that one. But yeah, no, things are good here. D you know, I’m excited. We just had, we just had a lamb hit the ground the other day on Saturday. So we got our first lamb of the season. Nice. Yep. Got a couple more weight in the pop out any moment here.

00;01;24;00 – 00;01;46;01
Speaker 1
And we got pigs off to the processors and, lots of farm chores, man. Getting the farm open there is for sure. Spring. The list keeps growing. I’m sure as the weather changes, it’s not getting any shorter. That’s for sure. What about you, man? How’s things in your world? Things are good. We’re, we’re super busy. We got a lot of things moving on on some different fronts.

00;01;46;03 – 00;02;06;05
Speaker 1
We’ve, we’ve got a couple robot rollouts under our belt so far. So, you know, it’s it’s good helping people set those up. And you know, help, I guess, provide some relief to, to their staff and people who are just struggling to keep up with, the day to day maintenance tasks that they have. So, that’s been good.

00;02;06;05 – 00;02;24;28
Speaker 1
And, yeah, we’re we’re super fortunate, there. And, I don’t know, I think it’s going to be a, a very busy summer. Yes, sir. And we just launched you a beautiful new website. Yeah. You guys did a great job. And, shout out to your team, obviously, they they really put a lot of effort into it. And, you know, we’re super excited.

00;02;24;29 – 00;02;49;23
Speaker 1
I think that launch today from, if I’m not mistaken, it’s there yesterday. It’s live right now. I left with her because I was, on a doing some work earlier. So if anybody’s curious, check out our new website. That’s right. Dig WW. Eagle clean.com. All right, well, let’s let’s get on with the show here. I know, you know, we’re trying to shorten the intro a little bit here, guys.

00;02;49;23 – 00;02;59;25
Speaker 1
So, we’re going to get right into it. We’ve got one of our business live episodes today with Bill Tansy from the op shop. Bill, welcome back to the show, sir.

00;02;59;27 – 00;03;08;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, guys, speaking of taking some time off, I think we had a little gap to, thanks to. I think it was my end, some, scheduling difficulty. So here we are.

00;03;08;19 – 00;03;23;02
Speaker 1
I don’t know if it was your end or my end or if somebody’s end. Yeah. All good. Let’s see the rest of you. And all the time that, you know, you’re putting in here, Bill, obviously, you know, you’re a wealth of knowledge and, you know, we obviously look forward to having you back every time you can, can make it on the show.

00;03;23;02 – 00;03;25;08
Speaker 1
So, Welcome back.

00;03;25;11 – 00;03;36;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks. Good to be back, guys, I appreciate it. These are, this FYI, the first one I did, a it was such a weird kind of speaking engagement, the first podcast, but they’re kind of fun to, like hanging out with you guys on these things. So thanks for.

00;03;36;10 – 00;03;38;29
Speaker 1
Yeah, man. We’ve been told we’re fun to hang out with.

00;03;39;06 – 00;03;41;08
Speaker 3
Yeah, I.

00;03;41;10 – 00;03;43;29
Speaker 2
I tell people that I hang out with Derek and Michael now, you know.

00;03;43;29 – 00;03;59;23
Speaker 1
So it’s it’s yeah, I support that message and hopefully, we’re just about finished up with our kitchen here. We’re going to move back out to the garage, get that garage finished so we can start getting some live episodes back into play as well. So hopefully we’ll be able to be physically in the same room again here soon.

00;03;59;26 – 00;04;08;11
Speaker 2
Cool. Selfishly, I think I mentioned I want to be one, I want to be the first podcast in the new studio, so see if you can, you see if you can get them. I don’t know if I’m fighting somebody for that or not, but.

00;04;08;12 – 00;04;27;05
Speaker 1
We’ll well, we’ll make it happen. Bill will make good number one. And just for our guests too, if you if you’re not familiar with Bill, Bill’s been on the show a few times now. And now we do a special segment with him. But you can go back to the episodes. There is actually on our YouTube channel, there is a playlist of just Bill Tansey.

00;04;27;05 – 00;04;38;14
Speaker 1
So, you can check him out, all of his episodes and all the, the knowledge he’s been dropping on is here over the last few months. So check that out. And, let’s get in some questions. Bill.

00;04;38;17 – 00;04;44;08
Speaker 2
Cool. I gotta go back and listen to those. Make sure I don’t tell the same stories more than once, you know? But this.

00;04;44;10 – 00;04;46;11
Speaker 2
All right, so what do we got?

00;04;46;13 – 00;05;02;20
Speaker 1
All right, so first question, you know, and this is one we’ve kind of covered a little bit, but I think with some of the other questions we’re asking today, it’s kind of a good way to set the stage, when a small business owner comes to you and says everything feels like it’s on fire. And I honestly, personally, I think everybody can relate to that.

00;05;02;20 – 00;05;32;04
Speaker 1
But, no, I wasn’t. Yeah, right. What’s the very first thing that you do to figure out where the real problem actually is? And to give a little more context to that question? You know, it’s like as a business owner, we there’s so much stuff going on. And if you’re in a chaotic, hectic business, it’s like, I think, do I fix this first or I fix this first, you know, so I like well, how do they figure out where to start.

00;05;32;07 – 00;05;36;12
Speaker 2
But yeah, here we have. Now you mentioned I think we’ve talked a little bit about that before.

00;05;36;12 – 00;05;37;07
Speaker 1
And

00;05;37;09 – 00;05;55;14
Speaker 2
Man, I wish I went back and listened to it. So I knew, you know, could you give something? Yeah. Try to give a different perspective this time and not repeat either way, maybe maybe it’s a lot. So I’m not sure if this a different perspective or not, but what. Yeah. So anyway, so jumping into that, that some version of that statement, you know everything.

00;05;55;19 – 00;06;19;22
Speaker 2
My hair’s on fire. Everything a fire, the burning the place down. Some version of that statement is, is super common. Of course that’s a pretty emotionally charged, you know, response. And not to say that that’s inappropriate. We’ve all had those, you know, oh my goodness moments. But the first order of business is to to turn those emotions down and bring out some actionable data.

00;06;19;24 – 00;06;46;00
Speaker 2
So in an effort to bring out actionable data, what we do is it’s something it’s a formal process that we call problem definition. And forgive me, maybe we’ve talked about this before, I don’t know. But problem definition is, sorting through inference to get to only data. And we use that data to illustrate a handful of things.

00;06;46;00 – 00;07;12;06
Speaker 2
So the first is we illustrate visible symptoms or effects only we don’t speculate on cause. So what are the visible symptoms that you would characterize. Everything’s on fire, you know. Well, you know, only half my employees show up to work every day. Margins are down. You know, whatever. Right. So we we try and talk in terms of visible symptoms only for starters.

00;07;12;09 – 00;07;33;11
Speaker 2
And then as we talk about those visible symptoms, it’s really, really important. Again, we’re trying to get to data and we want to illustrate a performance gap. So a performance gap for example like let’s say we’re talking about your wife comes home and says, I can’t merge on the highway. What do you mean you can merge on the highway, check the car, slow, you know, can’t really work with that either.

00;07;33;11 – 00;07;34;21
Speaker 2
So what do you mean, the car slow?

00;07;34;21 – 00;07;35;22
Speaker 3
Well.

00;07;35;24 – 00;07;59;24
Speaker 2
The car is supposed to do 0 to 60 in four seconds, but it’s taking nine seconds to get to 60. Now that’s a performance gap, right. So we can think about that as well. If you say well none of my employees show up and then and then we get to the actual performance gap and we say, well, they’re supposed to be six at every station on every shift, and we only have enough to get four on every station, every shift.

00;07;59;24 – 00;08;03;01
Speaker 2
Now we’ve got a performance gap, right.

00;08;03;04 – 00;08;28;21
Speaker 2
So we try to illustrate visible symptoms, we try to illustrate a performance gap. And then kind of as I’ve been alluding to, we really try to get to quantifiable information. Right. So, again, employees aren’t showing up to we’re down five employees per shift or something quantifiable. And then finally, we want to time bound this problem definition.

00;08;28;21 – 00;08;47;26
Speaker 2
So when did it start? When did it end or when did it change. So the police started burning down yesterday or started burning down a month ago, or it’s been burning down since I started and I’m just sick of it. Right. So when did it start? When did it end or change? And then what’s the scope is the last component.

00;08;47;26 – 00;09;05;07
Speaker 2
So if the place is burning down, was the whole place burning down or only building one and not building two and building three years, it only third shift and not first and second shift. So the scope of the symptoms, where do they start? Where do they end, how broad or wider they are or how far reaching are they?

00;09;05;10 – 00;09;27;00
Speaker 2
So we’ll go through this process and sometimes it’s over. Sometimes I’ll have built trust with somebody and I’ll say, hey, I’m going to take you through the problem definition process. And other times it’s covered, you know, haven’t really built trust yet. Can’t really run them through this. They think I’m nuts. So we just kind of do it without them knowing.

00;09;27;00 – 00;09;42;27
Speaker 2
And I’m kind of going through this in my head. And then I’m able to brief back to them in meeting minutes or a summary later that says, hey, when we met, you know, you said the place was burning down. And if I understood correctly, you know, this is what I hear you saying. And, you know, I give them the visible symptoms, only the performance gap.

00;09;42;27 – 00;10;22;26
Speaker 2
We quantify it. We do the scope, we do the time bound. And and we kind of rough this thing in and, and if we can get to a quantifiable, data driven problem definition, then we can figure out the root cause and eliminate it, you know, so whether it’s me or somebody else can dive in and say, okay, now it’s really clear what the problem is, we can go eliminate it and the last thing I’ll say is, this problem definition thing, if you skip it or if you do a lousy job at it, all the work you do to follow is usually waste because you didn’t clearly define what you’re trying to go after.

00;10;22;26 – 00;10;50;18
Speaker 2
So if you take, you know, the half assed approach to this or what have you, and then playing whack a mole, whatever it is, you’ll spend a lot of time. And we’ve talked about waste before on the podcast, in, you know, creating waste. So the, you know, there’s an old adage and, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but like, you know, if you’ve got one hour, you know, spend 50 minutes defining the problem in ten minutes fixing it, basically.

00;10;50;21 – 00;11;07;23
Speaker 2
Yeah. Because it’s so, so important to, to get that right. So, yeah. So that’s how we turned that emotional response of the place is burning down into actionable data that we can then take action on, make decisions and drive of value.

00;11;07;25 – 00;11;09;17
Speaker 1
Start solving problems or.

00;11;09;17 – 00;11;09;26
Speaker 2
Solving.

00;11;09;26 – 00;11;26;09
Speaker 1
Problems or putting the fires out. Yeah. What are some of those common problems that, I mean, from business to business. You know, obviously we’re talking in the, the blue collar space, but are some of those problems consistent from company to company that you see?

00;11;26;12 – 00;11;47;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s a really good question. So the symptoms that you see can sometimes be very specific to the customer or to the business. I can give some examples. A service business, definitely, you know, blue collar style organization that they provide a medical service. Right. So, you know, talk about nurses, therapists, etc., that kind of thing.

00;11;47;03 – 00;12;08;02
Speaker 2
Definitely. I think falls in, in the blue collar designation. There is a change in Medicare reimbursement rates and that, as you may know, medical reimbursement rates govern kind of far beyond just Medicare. And they kind of govern that industry, in a large part. So there’s a change in Medicare reimbursement rates that changed their margin pretty much overnight.

00;12;08;04 – 00;12;36;28
Speaker 2
And, they found themselves in a really bad spot. So that’s, you know, one example of of visible symptoms. Another, is, post-Covid, a production facilities yield was way down. So, you know, yield is producing good products, not waste or products need to be reworked or scrapped. Right? So their yield, you know, used to be I’ll make up a number, you know, 96%.

00;12;36;28 – 00;12;56;12
Speaker 2
So they have 4% scrap or rework. And post-Covid that 96% yield was down in like the low 70s. And and again, I’m being a little liberal with the numbers. But to draw the picture. So changes in margin, changes in yield, those are common ways that all of a sudden everybody feels like the place is burning down. Right?

00;12;56;12 – 00;13;13;23
Speaker 2
Because they’re playing whack a mole. They’re running like crazy. They’re trying to fix this yield problem, but they can’t fix the symptoms fast enough. And that’s always the case, right? We have to define the symptoms and then go look for the root cause. And address the root cause. To get these, to get these wrapped up.

00;13;13;23 – 00;13;16;08
Speaker 3
So.

00;13;16;10 – 00;13;21;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. So that, that give you an idea, Derek, of kind of some of the stories are common.

00;13;21;03 – 00;13;41;16
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. No that’s perfect. All right, next question, Mr. Tanzi, a lot of blue collar business owners are still the ones answering the phone, quoting the jobs, doing the work and handling the billing. At what point does wearing every hat go from hustle to liability? And how you recognize that you cross that line.

00;13;41;18 – 00;13;44;04
Speaker 2
No one’s gonna like this. Answer days.

00;13;44;06 – 00;13;45;12
Speaker 1
Okay,

00;13;45;14 – 00;14;00;04
Speaker 2
You say liability, so I’ll say risk. So day one, that’s a risk. That’s a problem. And, yeah. So day one, it’s a problem. So so what do we do to navigate that liability?

00;14;00;04 – 00;14;02;06
Speaker 3
Right.

00;14;02;09 – 00;14;25;13
Speaker 2
I mentioned risk a minute ago. So day one, it’s a liability. What do we do to manage it? That liability if it’s not characterize is chance. It’s just out there. You’re taking a chance by doing everything yourself or wearing all the hats. The difference between chance and risk is we need to in order to get to risk, which is a good thing.

00;14;25;13 – 00;14;44;10
Speaker 2
We want to get your risk. We want to get away from chance. We need to characterize for quantify that chance. And when we characterize it or quantify it, then it’s understood. It becomes risk. And then we can decide whether or not we want to mitigate that risk or leave that risk out there just to loom as it’s right.

00;14;44;16 – 00;15;05;02
Speaker 2
So just like anything in life, like you could take a chance, you could cover your eyes and run a red light. Right? That’s chance. Or you can look to your left, look to your right, and then run a red light. Right. Two totally different circumstances because you’ve taken chance covering your eyes. Run the red light into risk. I looked and they’re straight roads on every side.

00;15;05;04 – 00;15;20;24
Speaker 2
There’s nobody as far as the eye can see. If I run the red light, there’s a very low likelihood that I’m going to hurt somebody or myself, right? Not that I advocate for running red lights, but I did just come back from downtown. And every time I’m in downtown, I see somebody with inflated sense of self-importance running red lights.

00;15;20;24 – 00;15;50;13
Speaker 2
So that’s on my mind. So back to your example of wearing every hat. If we one of the ways we could, like, characterize wearing every hat is, is we could say, well, as the business owner, what is it that you want to do or think you’re good at versus what is it that’s a pain in the ass to do, or you don’t like doing, or you’re not good at or takes too long to do.

00;15;50;13 – 00;16;12;29
Speaker 2
And we could kind of create this list, these two list, right? One list of the things the business owner has as their core competence, what they’re good at and what one less of what they’re not good at but feel compelled to do. And now we’ve characterized taking that chance or that liability, as you said, and we’ve created this risk scenario that says, okay, do we want to mitigate the risk or not?

00;16;13;01 – 00;16;21;13
Speaker 2
And when do we want to mitigate it? So now we should quantify it. So how do we quantify this one more. Maybe we say.

00;16;21;15 – 00;16;21;20
Speaker 3
All.

00;16;21;20 – 00;16;43;16
Speaker 2
Right. Of all these things you don’t want to do. Let’s set a series of milestones or triggers or something that when the business achieves a milestone or a trigger, this thing that you don’t want to do because you’re slow and don’t like it and aren’t good at it, gets outsourced for or hired for or sold with AI or sent overseas or whatever.

00;16;43;18 – 00;17;11;22
Speaker 2
You know, lever, we want to pull that off, load it. So I think a liability, like wearing all the hats is a problem from day one. And, and yeah, that liability, we need to treat it like risk in a business and in order for it to be a risk, we have to characterize and quantify it. And then once we do, we can we can make smart decisions around it and decide, you know, what we want to run after right after.

00;17;11;22 – 00;17;28;19
Speaker 1
First it is there like, a gauge or a meter that we know or a value that you like assigned a risk that says like, okay, this has become such a risk at this point. I really need to delegate it and get it off my plate.

00;17;28;21 – 00;18;08;19
Speaker 2
Yeah. So. To make those decisions, we like to quantify stuff. So for example, you know, how do we know? Well, we know because, let’s say we just do like a quick time study. Where are you spending all your time, you know, and and if you’re, if you’re, if you have a simple pie chart of your time spent all week, and if this one block is like 70% of the pie chart and then everything else is squeeze in, well, we got to ask ourselves, is that 70% the job of the of the leader of the business or is it not, you know, so that’s one way to kind of quantify it or like

00;18;08;19 – 00;18;10;28
Speaker 2
one trigger to look out for.

00;18;11;00 – 00;18;11;08
Speaker 3
You know.

00;18;11;08 – 00;18;34;12
Speaker 2
A big one is always money, right? Basically. So, if there’s financial goals that need to be met for the business to be successful or for the person that’s running the business to feel successful, are those financial goals being met? If they’re not being met, there’s another reason to go after it. And then it’s interesting too, because this probably kicks open the discussion about being self-employed versus running a business, right?

00;18;34;12 – 00;19;00;24
Speaker 2
So if you’re wearing all the hats, are you running a business or are you self-employed? And and what are your aspirations if you’re self-employed and making enough money, maybe that’s all you want to do is keep wearing the hats and fighting fires, and you thrive in chaos and you like to be responsive. But if you want to make more money or you have a desire to own a business and run a business for another reason, you know, that could be a motivation as well to, to chase after that problem.

00;19;00;27 – 00;19;05;02
Speaker 1
Okay. All right. Next question.

00;19;05;04 – 00;19;18;16
Speaker 1
There’s a difference between being busy and being productive. I actually heard this referred to recently as, How do they say motion does not mean progress?

00;19;18;22 – 00;19;23;18
Speaker 2
Oh, I love it. You’re setting me up because I know where I’m going with this one.

00;19;23;21 – 00;19;47;21
Speaker 1
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00;19;47;23 – 00;20;01;05
Speaker 1
There’s a difference between being busy and being productive. I actually heard this referred to recently as, How do they say motion does not mean progress?

00;20;01;11 – 00;20;04;13
Speaker 2
Oh, I love it. You’re setting me up because I know where I’m going with this one.

00;20;04;17 – 00;20;15;10
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, so how do you help a business owner generally can’t tell the difference anymore because they’ve been in the cars so long, it just feels normal, busy or productive.

00;20;15;12 – 00;20;33;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. So on the podcast before, I’ve mentioned, some of my mentors that I’ve had along the way, one of them name is Roger. And, Roger, talked to me about this in a slightly different context once, and it really stuck with me. So,

00;20;33;06 – 00;20;57;07
Speaker 2
He had a great way to characterize it. There’s what you’re talking about is busyness or emotion, right? You’re just going, going, going all the time. Well, there’s three types of motion. There’s rotation, there’s vibration, and there’s translation. So rotation you can think of as if you’re standing in one place and spinning around until you’re dizzy, right. That’s an example of rotation.

00;20;57;09 – 00;20;57;20
Speaker 3
And.

00;20;57;23 – 00;21;20;16
Speaker 2
Vibration. Might be standing in one place and jumping up and down repeatedly. And translation simply is moving from point A to point B. So if we start to characterize this busyness or this motion into those three categories, it’s pretty quick to figure out which one of those three actually creates value and which to dull. Right? So translating moving something from point.

00;21;20;16 – 00;21;20;29
Speaker 3
A.

00;21;21;05 – 00;21;30;21
Speaker 2
To point B creates value. But vibrating and rotating just don’t create value. They just make us feel busy and give us something to complain about.

00;21;30;24 – 00;21;47;07
Speaker 2
So just like we talked about characterizing risk before, if we characterize the motion, the busyness with, vibration, rotation and translation, we can again, if we build lists of, of our day and how it was spent, we can pretty.

00;21;47;07 – 00;21;48;02
Speaker 3
Quickly.

00;21;48;04 – 00;22;19;21
Speaker 2
Decide to focus our day on translation and now that we’re talking about, there’s a second component to it as well, not just focusing our day on translation, but leading our teams towards translation. And most importantly, rewarding our teams or ourselves. Patting ourselves on the back when translation prevents vibration and rotation, there’s a difference between responding and preventing. And so it’s one thing to understand the difference between those three types of motion or busyness.

00;22;19;24 – 00;22;26;09
Speaker 2
And then it’s another thing to use the translation to prevent the rotation and the vibration.

00;22;26;12 – 00;22;41;04
Speaker 1
So you mean like you if you’re focusing on translation, like say with your team, you’re focusing on getting them to move things from point A to point B, then vibration and rotation essentially becomes not possible.

00;22;41;07 – 00;22;59;08
Speaker 2
So it’s always possible to vibrate rotate. So I can example that is somebody somebody sitting at their desk worrying. Right. So they’re in their head worrying. And they can’t they can’t go. They can’t move. They can’t take the next step because they’re worrying. Right. So that’s one thing. I was working with a client this morning on exactly that.

00;22;59;08 – 00;23;07;14
Speaker 2
I had to get her some kind of actionable steps to get her moving again, because all the stuff in her head that she was managing.

00;23;07;14 – 00;23;08;13
Speaker 3
Was just.

00;23;08;13 – 00;23;22;27
Speaker 2
Had that look on her face, like she was sad and, like, needed to go sit in the sun for a little while, which is probably a good idea no matter what. But my job in support of her as a coach or an advisor is to get her those first steps to get her moving in the right direction. So.

00;23;22;29 – 00;23;42;18
Speaker 2
So that’s it. That’s an example. So it’s always possible, to vibrate or to spin but to rotate. But yeah, as leaders, it’s our job to make it much harder for people to fall into those traps. And eventually make it impossible, as you say. But, they always find a way nonetheless. And then we got to pull it back out again.

00;23;42;18 – 00;23;43;10
Speaker 2
So.

00;23;43;13 – 00;24;08;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, I’m sitting here trying to think about the things that I’ve been doing recently. And if I’m vibrating or rotating because I feel that way. Yeah. And I always feel like I’m, I’m moving things from point A to point B. I don’t know about you. The I’m in the same boat. You know, I’ve, I’ve had to sometimes step back and ask myself is this, you know, number one the role that I need to be doing.

00;24;08;27 – 00;24;41;10
Speaker 1
But, or can I be more productive with my time? You know, back to the question number two. But it’s constantly, I think, evaluating that. And sometimes we don’t as small business owners, we don’t always have the resources at our fingertips to say, hey, I should offload this to so-and-so when that individual isn’t there. So but I think, you know, definitely being aware of that and moving in the right direction to be able to offload those things that may not be, making you most productive.

00;24;41;13 – 00;24;45;02
Speaker 1
Think over time, it takes care of itself.

00;24;45;04 – 00;24;45;16
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;24;45;17 – 00;24;49;01
Speaker 1
So I’ll go ahead there, Bill.

00;24;49;04 – 00;25;06;29
Speaker 2
No, I was just going to say that with you know, what Derek said. I think the the biggest thing in that case is pat yourself on the back when you prevent the vibration rotation. So like when when you did something different today than you did last week and it prevented this whole circle of nonsense, right? That’s right. Pat yourself on the back.

00;25;06;29 – 00;25;23;08
Speaker 2
So I mean, maybe that’s as simple as changing your procedure. So when you show up to someone’s house to call a job, you’re one and done, like you’re right. You go back to your trough, you finish the quote you had to before pull it out of the driveway, right? Versus last week. You had to pull out of the driveway and and then you forgot.

00;25;23;08 – 00;25;27;15
Speaker 2
And then the person called because you didn’t get on the quote. And it started this whole vibration rotation.

00;25;27;15 – 00;25;28;04
Speaker 3
Right.

00;25;28;06 – 00;25;49;22
Speaker 2
So I think the biggest thing as a, when you work for yourself or as like a sole proprietor is pat yourself on the back when you meet that change and you prevent that, that vibration or rotation, that non value added work that you had to do last week, this week you don’t have to do any more because you were thinking ahead or because you learned from last week.

00;25;49;24 – 00;26;18;09
Speaker 1
You know it’s interesting I and we we we’ve kind of talked about it on the show before, but I essentially have my own like personal operating system as far as like the things that I do to keep the ball moving forward. And but what happened recently, essentially the whole month of like March was I got so busy with all the firefighting that I stopped doing all the things that actually helped me.

00;26;18;09 – 00;26;38;28
Speaker 1
Like, one thing is planning my day, the night before I create my, you know, my critical task list like Andy facilitates talks about. Right? Here’s my five things I got to do tomorrow. That’s a piece of it. That was one of the things I stopped doing, a couple of other components I stopped doing. And so like the whole month of March, as I’m thinking about it, I’m like, man, I just felt like I was vibrating and rotating.

00;26;39;00 – 00;26;53;19
Speaker 1
And then I just last week was like, I need to be more disciplined and do this every day and do this every day and do this every day. And I’m starting to feel more like I’m I’m moving it from A to B, but, it’s easy to fall out of it, man, and to not realize that that’s what you’re doing.

00;26;53;21 – 00;27;00;17
Speaker 2
It’s really easy to get sucked into that or to fall out of it. Yeah. The there’s a whole cross-section of people that I’ve come across throughout my.

00;27;00;17 – 00;27;01;17
Speaker 3
Life that.

00;27;01;17 – 00;27;20;23
Speaker 2
Pride themselves on being in that and like putting the long hours in to vibrate and rotate the shit out of it, like, pardon my French, but like, I can’t tell you the number of people that I’ve come across that take pride. Oh, I worked ten hours yesterday solving all the problems. Well, you know what, dude? That’s nothing to be proud of.

00;27;20;23 – 00;27;38;04
Speaker 2
Like, you should work ten hours at preventing the problem from happening again, you know? And then the next day, you don’t have to work ten. You work nine and a half, and you prevent them from happening again, and you work nine, and then the day off. Right? And then as time goes on, you know, you’re like that. There’s a whole book right before our workweek, you know, like, so here.

00;27;38;04 – 00;27;56;00
Speaker 2
Yeah. That should be what you’re proud of. The person that can pat themselves on the back as a person working little to no time and collecting big paychecks, right. That, you know, like, that’s that’s the answer. The answer isn’t rewarding ourselves or bragging about the amount of time we spend, you know, vibrating or rotating.

00;27;56;03 – 00;28;17;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting that you bring up four hour workweek. I don’t know if if Tim Ferriss says this specifically in the book. And by the way, for listeners, amazing book. I don’t know that working four hour workweek is realistic for most business owners. However, the idea is to work towards it are very, applicable.

00;28;18;00 – 00;28;40;26
Speaker 1
One of the things I realized in the month of March was I was doing so and I’m saying it this way now because of our conversation, I definitely when I thought about this in March, I didn’t phrase it this way, but I was doing so much time vibrating and rotating that I needed to, like, make some decisions on what I needed to let go of or what I should be doing with my time.

00;28;40;28 – 00;29;01;01
Speaker 1
And so I came up with this. I need to either automate it, automate, or delegate. Basically, as is my sentence right now, I either need to automate or delegate or just got to go as a company. We’re not going to do it anymore. If I can’t, if it requires me every single day to do this and I can’t automate it or delegate it, then that means it’s preventing me from moving things forward.

00;29;01;02 – 00;29;19;02
Speaker 1
Translation. And it means that I’m just sitting there rotating and vibrating and, yeah, it’s, automated delegate baby. But but that made me think of that because of the four hour workweek, which that’s essentially what Tim talks a lot about in that book is finding ways to do those two things.

00;29;19;05 – 00;29;32;08
Speaker 2
Yeah, sometimes it’s like an emotional pull to like, I’ll find that, you know, before I go to the next appointment, you know, I want to wash my truck. And I actually, I like washing my truck. Right. So it makes me feel good to wash my truck, but sometimes I have to fight with that. Like, is that translating right now, Bill?

00;29;32;08 – 00;29;40;29
Speaker 2
Like, is like, does it really need to be washers at just something that makes you feel good? You know, and it’s really vibration rotation in the context of what we’re talking about. So I think.

00;29;41;02 – 00;29;42;05
Speaker 3
You know.

00;29;42;08 – 00;30;04;11
Speaker 2
I think everybody has those things whatever. You know, they are and undoubtedly like some of that like going to the gym very healthy, washing the truck, probably not necessary. You know, like, you know, I get my haircut every week. Well, I don’t know. Is that necessary? Like, you know, can you do it every 2 or 3 weeks and take some, you know, like so everybody kind of as those, those emotional poles or those compulsions to, to vibrate and rotate are not everybody.

00;30;04;11 – 00;30;13;20
Speaker 2
But I think a lot of people do and can probably relate to that as well. So I like automate or delegate and sometimes you have to kind of check ourselves or what’s our own brand you know.

00;30;13;23 – 00;30;17;17
Speaker 2
Yeah. Doomscrolling is probably a worse version of it these days, you know.

00;30;17;20 – 00;30;21;11
Speaker 1
Doomscrolling. Yeah. It’s why I deleted all that crap though.

00;30;21;14 – 00;30;27;27
Speaker 2
Yeah I applaud that. I tell you that’s good. I’m reducing but I can’t, I haven’t separated from yet.

00;30;28;00 – 00;30;35;21
Speaker 1
I’m like I’m almost what? I’m a month and a half. I’m six weeks clean of social media. Doomscrolling.

00;30;35;24 – 00;30;38;14
Speaker 2
Nice. I you definitely need a little coin or something for that.

00;30;38;14 – 00;30;54;13
Speaker 1
I was. All right, next question. When you are trying to bring structure to a company that has none, what’s the one place you almost always start and why does that tend to create momentum in other areas of the business?

00;30;54;15 – 00;31;03;02
Speaker 2
All right. So what’s the place when trying to bring structure to play? I like I like the improved format the more rapid fire like. So we’re going to be faster with the format here.

00;31;03;02 – 00;31;05;02
Speaker 1
So yeah I’m trying to be more structured.

00;31;05;02 – 00;31;08;17
Speaker 2
Bill.

00;31;08;19 – 00;31;20;14
Speaker 2
All right. But we’ll see if it’s rewarded by the market for it. More, more and more I’m reminded of this.

00;31;20;16 – 00;31;43;18
Speaker 2
The place that we start is making sure everybody know who owns what. So what am I in charge of? What does success look like? And, when I say who owns what, by the way, I don’t mean like Michael’s in charge of this. Derek’s in charge of that. I mean, you know, the CEO is in charge of this, and the CEO’s in charge of that.

00;31;43;18 – 00;32;06;25
Speaker 2
If we take the names Michael and Derek off of it, you could replace it with somebody else. But it’s still the responsibility of that role in the organization. So, the way the way that we do that is something we have spoken a little bit about on the podcast before, and that’s making sure there’s a mature, standard organization design in place.

00;32;06;25 – 00;32;28;15
Speaker 2
And what that simply means is there’s a set of standard rules, for example, SEO, SEO, framer, electrician, roofer, standard roles. And those roles are organized on one piece of paper in a way that demonstrates the hierarchy. And, you know, there was a point in time and maybe it’s still is a case where, like, hierarchy turned into a bad word.

00;32;28;15 – 00;32;50;18
Speaker 2
And that’s a whole bigger discussion, probably. And I, I wholeheartedly disagree with that. I think there’s appropriate hierarchy in every organization, you know, can you overdo it? You bet. You can. Can you under do it? I mean, a lot of organizations tried like ten years ago and failed, right. So you can definitely under do it. But ultimately we want to know who’s in charge of what.

00;32;50;21 – 00;33;12;01
Speaker 2
And the way we do that is by organizing a set of standard rules in a visual chart that shows some level of hierarchy. And if we do that, if we do that successfully, it checks a handful of boxes, right? So and it starts to bring the structure that you’re asking about. The first box maybe is is it checks the door box division of responsibility.

00;33;12;04 – 00;33;20;06
Speaker 2
Quite simply, it means you know what departments are responsible for what and what is an effective handoff between departments. Right. So you’ve.

00;33;20;06 – 00;33;21;02
Speaker 3
Got.

00;33;21;04 – 00;33;41;13
Speaker 2
Maybe you’ve got the estimator and you got the people doing the work. Well what is the door of the estimator and what is the door of the doers doing the work. And what is an effective handoff. Right. Critically critically important. And then once you have that you can start to say, okay, well what does success look like at an individual level.

00;33;41;13 – 00;34;01;20
Speaker 2
So like we said before at at roles, at standard roles, not at not for Bill or Derek, but rather for the standard role that they’re serving in the organization. What does success look like? Does Bill know what is expected of them today? And if he leaves today? Having done this, he can feel successful and it moves the organization forward.

00;34;01;22 – 00;34;28;23
Speaker 2
And then that kind of thinking just continues. So what’s the role of leaders versus doers. Right. And and once you have leaders and doers, you can start to have clear expectations. Setting. Now expectation setting is usually communicated from the leader to the doer. Right. And something that’s often forgotten is you can have clear escalation from the doer back up to the leader, escalating successes as well as shortcomings and learnings so that we can do better tomorrow.

00;34;28;23 – 00;34;58;07
Speaker 2
So having that standard, establishing who owns what in really layman’s terms and building that out in the ways we just talked about division, responsibility, communication, escalation, standard roles. What success looks like in the role is, is more and more as I do this work, becoming obvious that that must be in place first. And that’s the first thing to create structure standard around.

00;34;58;10 – 00;35;17;01
Speaker 1
Now. We’re not just talking about an organizational chart. So right, like I want to make that if that’s not the case I want to make sure that we’re clear about that. So we’ve talked a lot about org charts. But it’s it’s not just that. It’s that with other things.

00;35;17;07 – 00;35;36;06
Speaker 2
Well so yeah so the the cool org chart is one small part of it. You know, that’s the one page that illustrates the hierarchy and how these roles work together to be successful. But and you have to have that in order. Let’s use for example expectation setting. If I come to you and I’m like, hey, Mike, today, I’d like you to do X, Y and Z.

00;35;36;08 – 00;35;57;08
Speaker 2
You could look at me and like, who the after you. Bill. You’re my subordinate. You’re my peer. Are you? You know, or you just don’t like me, right? I mean, like, it’s that simple. But if the org chart says I’m your boss, and if I’m the guy, quote, signing your paycheck and doing your annual reviews, and I’m the one that determines whether or not you get the raise, you know, six months from now, there’s a different response when I say, hey, Mike, I’d like you to do X, Y, and Z today.

00;35;57;08 – 00;36;26;01
Speaker 2
Now, that never replaces good leadership. And that’s a whole separate huge discussion. But at the end of the day, it’s really important that when I show up and boss you around, you know, my role in the organization, right? Otherwise asking you to do something is is a lot more challenging and a totally different thing. And likewise, if I come to you and say, hey, I need help with this, you know, your answer could be, yeah, it’s my job to remove roadblocks and help you because I’m your boss.

00;36;26;03 – 00;36;41;10
Speaker 2
But if you’re not my boss, you might say you know, piss off, dude. I got my own work to do, right? And so, so without that org chart, you cannot have it. Effective expectation setting or escalation. Like I, you know, kind of just tried to outline.

00;36;41;12 – 00;36;42;26
Speaker 3
Okay.

00;36;42;29 – 00;37;05;04
Speaker 1
All right. Last question. And then we’re gonna jump over to the YouTube only special segment. For our listeners, if you heard about the Patreon side of things that we’re doing, we decided to sunset that, take it out from behind the paywall, give it to you guys free, but you can only get it on YouTube. So you got to go to YouTube channel, like, subscribe, all those fun things, please.

00;37;05;06 – 00;37;16;19
Speaker 1
Last question before we make that jump, what is the biggest mistake you see small business owners make when they finally decide to get organized where they think they’re fixing things, but they’re actually making the chaos.

00;37;16;19 – 00;37;24;08
Speaker 2
Worse through this rapid fire thing. I got to get better at making my answer shorter. I feel like, as soon as I’m done, I can. Okay. Next question.

00;37;24;11 – 00;37;31;15
Speaker 1
It’s. No, no, I, I’m not I’m not. There’s not as much, massaging in between these questions, but. Yeah, yeah.

00;37;31;15 – 00;37;35;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s all right. So,

00;37;35;11 – 00;37;47;06
Speaker 1
I’m taking this. This is like, you know, I’m stealing this from, Sean Ryan’s playbook. You know, he’s got he’s got a specific question set out. He’s reading right from the quest. What I’m trying to do here, I’m. I’m trying to be like Sean Ryan.

00;37;47;08 – 00;37;57;17
Speaker 2
I love it. And but I’ll tell you right now, I’m not down for a 12 hour podcast unless you have a mistake like John. We can hang out on in the evenings. And do, you know, do the fun stuff that they do on his estate there. So yeah.

00;37;57;18 – 00;38;00;24
Speaker 1
Cool. We’ll we’ll go to your house or maybe we’ll shoot some guns. That’ll be great.

00;38;01;00 – 00;38;05;22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Shoot some guns. We need some heavy equipment to dig some holes, too. He’s got a bunch of heavy equipment there from that.

00;38;05;29 – 00;38;09;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, we’re I got it. I have it, right.

00;38;09;04 – 00;38;15;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. Me too, for that matter. It, it’s a hydraulic line. That’s another story.

00;38;15;08 – 00;38;18;04
Speaker 2
Biggest mistake, right? Yes.

00;38;18;06 – 00;38;21;23
Speaker 1
Trying to get organized. The biggest mistake they think it is. Biggest mistake.

00;38;21;23 – 00;38;39;29
Speaker 2
Getting organized. Yeah. So, Awesome. I, one of my first clients when I stepped out of my own years ago, was a guy running a business, and he had a senior team, and there was, like, 4 or 5 guys on that senior team, and I got asked to come in and support him and his senior team.

00;38;40;01 – 00;39;03;22
Speaker 2
So now fast forward like I don’t even know. A dozen years later, I recently, let this fall the fall of of 2025, I bumped into one of the guys from that senior team, and, that business has since been sold. The guy that I was working with exited. He made a killing. And, you know, all the guys in the senior team are kind of finding their way now and taking their chance at being the president of other companies and that kind of thing.

00;39;03;22 – 00;39;24;03
Speaker 2
So. And and by the way, this was, in fact, a blue collar company, in the energy industry. Guy’s name was Matt. So I bump into Matt and I’m excited to see him and curious how he’s doing, and he seemed genuinely excited to see me and excited to tell me what he was doing. And he’s like, Bill, Bill, I’m you know, I’m leading a team now.

00;39;24;03 – 00;39;49;12
Speaker 2
And that add on, I mean, he was leading a team then, but he he’s the president of the company, I should say now. He’s leading the company and he goes, and I just finish writing all the standard work for my guys. And, I thought, man, I wish what he had said is I just set new expectations of my leadership team and coached them to develop standard work.

00;39;49;14 – 00;40;25;02
Speaker 2
And and that was he really highlighted, I think, a really common mistake. The people that are ambitious, that are stepping out for the first time, leading a company like he was for his first time leading a company, they tend to want to do everything themselves or guide everything themselves, as opposed to grow and lead their team. And it was a big difference from when I was working for his boss, supporting the leadership team he was on a dozen years ago, his boss said, basically, Bill, come in and teach my guys, help me lead them effectively.

00;40;25;04 – 00;40;46;16
Speaker 2
When he got in his boss’s shoes, he just did the work. He didn’t teach and lead. And I think that’s the biggest mistake that when people see how good this stuff works, that we’re talking about underneath this operational excellence umbrella, when they see how good it works, they’re bought in and they’re excited. And in his case, he just ran and did it.

00;40;46;16 – 00;41;03;05
Speaker 2
He didn’t bring his team along and teach and coach them. And I think that’s that’s the biggest mistake when when when it’s people’s first time to lead, when they’ve had some of these experiences and they’ve listened to some of the stuff and learned and done, it is, they take off running full steam ahead and they wind up, like doing the work.

00;41;03;05 – 00;41;14;10
Speaker 2
And handing it to people. And in my experience, that’s, that’s a recipe for a major fall down. It’s not a failure. Unfortunately,

00;41;14;13 – 00;41;19;09
Speaker 1
I have an employee that’s going to be really pissed at you.

00;41;19;11 – 00;41;44;08
Speaker 1
And and the reason for that is because that as I’m listening, you say that it’s making me think about, project in our company that I just decided that we need to do. Which essentially, we’re we’re sun setting an old, server solution for websites that we’ve been using for a few years, moving to a new solution, making some changes there, better security Boulevard and I, I made the decision.

00;41;44;08 – 00;42;03;26
Speaker 1
We need to do this. And I told Kelsey, who’s going to be the team member that’s pissed at you. That I was I was just going to do it, that I was going to work with our technical team and make this thing happen. And as you’re saying, I’m like, oh, she this actually is in her scope of work, like she actually owns this project.

00;42;03;26 – 00;42;20;12
Speaker 1
And I’m now going to do it, for which I shouldn’t be doing it for her. Based on what you just said, I should be coaching her on her doing this. So yeah, she’s going to really not be happy about that, bill. And I’m totally going to blame you too, when I tell her about tomorrow.

00;42;20;15 – 00;42;22;27
Speaker 2
Yeah, we’ll tell her we didn’t have the episode. Yeah, you didn’t know. Now you.

00;42;22;28 – 00;42;24;05
Speaker 1
I’m Sarah.

00;42;24;07 – 00;42;38;16
Speaker 2
And I. I’ll. I’ll share this with you, too. You know, the one of the one of the best things you can do in that case, is sit down with Kelsey and build out an action plan with her. So that way you have input on the action plan, the steps she’s going to follow, and roughly the time it’s going to take to execute those steps.

00;42;38;22 – 00;42;52;17
Speaker 2
And then she can run and fill in the blanks, right. And actually do the work. So I think that’s one of the most it sounds silly, but it’s one of the most powerful things as a leader, to sit down, to collaborate with the person. And one way that you can do that and make it actionable, which is super important to me.

00;42;52;17 – 00;43;24;17
Speaker 2
Everything I do is focus on a actionable outcome that adds value, and that’s to rough in in action. By that, that action plan could be five milestones. It could be 50 at the high level, depending on the scope and depth of this project. But just sketching that in I think is the right way to hand it back or hand it off, or to engage them initially and, and look for them to, to deliver and then as you sketch out that action plan, there should be really definitive points in time where they come back and connect with you one on one, and then you can coach further and guide at those times.

00;43;24;17 – 00;43;36;01
Speaker 2
So, maybe that’s something to do with Kelsey is, is to sit down and rough in, an action plan and maybe bring it back to her and let her on, on parts of that. There’s still a way back. Okay.

00;43;36;04 – 00;43;41;16
Speaker 1
I forgot to ask you to tell people if they want to talk to you or learn more about you, where do they find you?

00;43;41;18 – 00;43;46;12
Speaker 2
Right? Yeah, I love it. I didn’t leave it. So the rapid fire I was, I was having trouble keeping up. I didn’t even realize that, you.

00;43;46;16 – 00;43;48;14
Speaker 1
Know, boom, boom, boom, tactical baby.

00;43;48;20 – 00;43;55;16
Speaker 2
So. Thanks. Yeah. The the classic way. William in parentheses. Bill Tansey Jr on LinkedIn.

00;43;55;18 – 00;44;16;16
Speaker 2
Or my website, the app x shop.com or old fashioned now email bill at the op shop uh.com to get me via email. And always welcome opportunities to talk to people. Even if you’re not sure, coffee’s cheap. You can buy me a coffee or a virtual coffee and we can meet online. It’s easy.

00;44;16;19 – 00;44;36;19
Speaker 1
All right. We’re going to jump over to the YouTube side of things here, guys, make sure you jump over with us. You can search out on YouTube. Blue collar start up. We’ve got to be on there somewhere. Thanks for listening. Of course. You know, thanks to all of our sponsors to help them make the show possible and help all the, work in the community that we do.

00;44;36;21 – 00;44;52;06
Speaker 1
Because of the show possible. You can find us blue collar startup, dot io, and of course, podcasts on Rumble, Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts. Thanks, everybody for listening, Bill. Thanks for, join us on the main show. Don’t go anywhere. You me. Next.

00;44;52;08 – 00;45;20;08
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;45;20;08 – 00;45;33;02
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;45;33;05 – 00;48;04;13
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;48;04;16 – 00;48;19;00
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;48;19;03 – 00;48;35;24
Speaker 1
Welcome, everybody back to blue collar start up here. We’re with Bill Tansey. If you listen to the main episode, you are now at the YouTube special segment. We’re talking about where to spend your time in the chaotic business. We got just, three questions for Bill here that we’re going to bang out real quick.

00;48;35;27 – 00;48;51;06
Speaker 1
First question, Bill, give us a real world example without naming names, of course, of a business that looked like a disaster from the outside that had 1 or 2 things working really well that you could build on. And what did that process look like?

00;48;51;08 – 00;49;08;16
Speaker 2
So I’ve always been able to find good things to build on, first off. So, and I think that’s really important. I think that’s important for anybody listening to know. So when you’re in it, when you’re running the business, a lot of times by the time people come to me, I mean, their hair is on fire and they’re, you know, everything’s a mess.

00;49;08;16 – 00;49;30;00
Speaker 2
The socks are ready, equipped. You know, like, I’ve had several of those kinds of, you know, new business developments, if you will. So you can always find good things to build on. I think that’s really important. And when we look at it objectively, those become evident. An example of recently I was working with a client. And this is they don’t offer a product for sale, they offer a service for sale.

00;49;30;03 – 00;49;49;18
Speaker 2
So, and also it’s a transactional, definitely, you know, blue collar service. And if I say too much more, they or other clients may be able to piece together who is I want to be sensitive to. We want to do that. Yeah. Yeah, I want to be sensitive to that. But, you know.

00;49;49;21 – 00;50;17;07
Speaker 2
They’re really, really messy inside. Like, really messy inside. And, they have a lot of the challenges that we’ve talked about all, you know, not like they have 1 or 2, but they’ve got all six or a dozen kind of thing. There. But they’re roughly 50% net margin in a service business. Like, you know, Derek runs a service business, 50% gross net margin, like they’re they’re printing money in this business.

00;50;17;07 – 00;50;25;08
Speaker 2
So you talk about finding something good, Derek, how hard would it be to have 50% net margin of service business? I’d imagine. You think that’s.

00;50;25;10 – 00;50;27;28
Speaker 1
Banal, right? I’m in the wrong. I’m in the wrong business.

00;50;28;01 – 00;50;28;13
Speaker 3
Right?

00;50;28;16 – 00;50;33;15
Speaker 2
Me too. Right. Yeah. That you of us, I mean, they’re printing money, right?

00;50;33;15 – 00;50;35;01
Speaker 3
So,

00;50;35;04 – 00;51;01;05
Speaker 2
So, anyway, you can always find good things to build on and for. That’s an example of one where, man, they are messy and, and it’s so messy that it’s literally destroying the leadership team. But they are printing money, so, so, you know, kind of re grounding of what’s going on and figuring out how to leverage where you can leverage, you know, to, to make changes is where I come in and and try and contribute.

00;51;01;08 – 00;51;20;01
Speaker 2
But I think. Most of the businesses that you guys, most of the people that you guys talk to, that run businesses and most of the businesses in that small to midsize category, they’re.

00;51;20;03 – 00;51;42;20
Speaker 2
They tend to kind of error in the other way. Right? They they tend to kind of seek an outside appearance, if you will, or the false bravado of, of, of success. Remember the people that run these businesses, a lot of them are predominant figures in their local community. You know, they’re dressed nice, they have a nice car. Everybody knows when they’re in the coffee shop and they leave, they go, oh, that’s so-and-so.

00;51;42;20 – 00;52;02;06
Speaker 2
They own this, you know, or they’re at a charity gala or whatever the case may be. They’re they’re predominant figures. And I think, you know, more often than not, those folks tend to try and put on a good exterior. And, and maybe the bigger lesson from your question.

00;52;02;09 – 00;52;02;19
Speaker 3
Is.

00;52;02;19 – 00;52;25;25
Speaker 2
That for people that are listening or feel like they’re struggling in their own business, don’t think that those people that owned businesses that you see around town are 100% squared away in their business? They never I mean, never like capital letters. They never are. You know, when someone like myself gets involved and sees what’s going on or anybody else involved closely in the business, they have challenges.

00;52;25;25 – 00;52;45;16
Speaker 2
They have significant challenges. So they may be the the well-off person around town is well respected and like I said, looked up to. But don’t think that equates to a 100% squared away operation or business. And and don’t accidentally set that as the expectation for yourself as you’re growing growing your business.

00;52;45;19 – 00;52;46;29
Speaker 3
Okay.

00;52;47;02 – 00;53;08;08
Speaker 1
Question number two. And I and I really like this question. I’m I’m really, looking forward to your answer on this one. I did a good job with these questions. Like I gotta say thank you, thank you. I you know, what can I say, guys? I got a gift. If someone’s watching this and they’ve got 30 minutes today, right now to do something that actually moves the needle, I’m getting their businesses under control.

00;53;08;14 – 00;53;11;27
Speaker 1
What do you tell them to do with that time?

00;53;11;29 – 00;53;14;02
Speaker 2
All right, I’m going to try and do this one. Rapid fire.

00;53;14;05 – 00;53;15;18
Speaker 1
Takes my business in 30 minutes.

00;53;15;18 – 00;53;41;10
Speaker 2
Bill. Yeah, just like your question. So rapid fire answer. Rewind this podcast to the early part. I think it was your first question. Maybe your second. Rewind to the main podcast, to your question that I started talking about problem definition. Re listen to the problem definition segment and go ahead and define the problem that is most, bothersome to you in your business today.

00;53;41;15 – 00;53;46;26
Speaker 2
And then once it’s defined, figure out, who you need to partner with or work with to fix it.

00;53;46;28 – 00;53;54;02
Speaker 1
Okay. Now I’m going to do that after the show. Not sure.

00;53;54;02 – 00;53;54;28
Speaker 2
My ringer off.

00;53;54;28 – 00;54;17;03
Speaker 1
Yeah I know, yeah, I know, I bet I’ll show up at your house. I know where you live, bro. So you have built a career around operational excellence, but what’s something about running a chaotic small business that you have genuine respect for? Something that the system in process world sometimes misses or undervalues?

00;54;17;06 – 00;54;43;22
Speaker 2
I think in, in, in big business, you know, the businesses that I came from before going on on my own, for example, and big business, I think there’s an illusion of security. And I think the refusal to trade freedom for that security is something I see. And, and I really value across many of these small business owners that we’re talking about, that we all engage with in our jobs.

00;54;43;22 – 00;55;04;17
Speaker 2
So I’d say that’s the thing that that stands out to me is that refusal to trade freedom for security in their day to day life. I mean, it can’t be more fundamental than that in the way you make your living is is something that, that can’t really be taught, you know, that you either kind of have it or you don’t.

00;55;04;19 – 00;55;08;21
Speaker 2
And, yeah, I don’t know. Does that answer the question?

00;55;08;23 – 00;55;30;22
Speaker 1
No, it does it. I you know, I always tell people when they when they don’t own their own business and they ask about their that, you know, they say the oh, that must be nice to own your own business. You know, those statements that I’m like, listen, owning your own business is like jumping out of a plane and packing your parachute while you fall, putting it on, and then hoping when you pull that ripcord, the chute comes out and deploys properly.

00;55;30;22 – 00;55;44;23
Speaker 1
Like that’s what business ownership is like. There’s it’s, you know, you’re always one bad decision from being out of business, being broke, not being able to make payroll, whatever it is, like you’re one decision away all the time. It’s scary shit.

00;55;44;25 – 00;56;06;29
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it’s funny you mention those, those, those. That must be nice. Comments. I, I, I feel like those always find their way in one way or another and, I try and be polite to that person and move on as fast as I can. And then pat myself on the back for not being that guy, because anybody that as that, that must be nice comment.

00;56;07;01 – 00;56;27;19
Speaker 2
They got to go back and do some major self-reflection and, and and have a better kind of global view of what’s going on around them and the choices they’re making because, yeah. And that again, that’s probably a whole nother discussion about choice of choices we’ve all made. And, whether or not we were conscious when we were making those choices and where it landed us.

00;56;27;19 – 00;56;33;05
Speaker 2
Right. So, yeah. Yeah, that’s an interesting discussion to,

00;56;33;07 – 00;56;40;11
Speaker 1
Bill, I’m going to have Taylor copy the next question in your answer and put it into the first episode as well, because I,

00;56;40;18 – 00;56;46;00
Speaker 1
I forgot to ask you to tell people if they want to talk to you or learn more about you, where do they find you?

00;56;46;02 – 00;56;50;26
Speaker 2
Right? Yeah, I love it. I didn’t leave it. So the rapid fire I was, I was having trouble keeping up. I didn’t even realize that, you.

00;56;51;00 – 00;56;52;28
Speaker 1
Know, boom, boom, boom, tactical baby.

00;56;53;04 – 00;57;00;02
Speaker 2
So. Thanks. Yeah. The the classic way. William in parentheses. Bill Tansey Jr on LinkedIn.

00;57;00;04 – 00;57;21;16
Speaker 2
Or my website, the app x shop.com or old fashioned now email bill at the op shop uh.com to get me via email. And always welcome opportunities to talk to people. Even if you’re not sure, coffee’s cheap. You can buy me a coffee or a virtual coffee and we can meet online. It’s easy.

00;57;21;19 – 00;57;23;29
Speaker 1
I’m buying you a coffee tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to that.

00;57;24;04 – 00;57;29;27
Speaker 2
That’s right. Yeah. And actually, in a chocolate chip cookie, because they’ve got DBA butter cookies at town. Just to be clear.

00;57;30;00 – 00;57;33;07
Speaker 1
So I didn’t know about. I was buying a chocolate chip cookie. Man, I got the.

00;57;33;07 – 00;57;35;08
Speaker 2
Heck yes you are. You can’t have it.

00;57;35;10 – 00;57;38;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s in the budget. Yeah. I’ll give them a shout out.

00;57;38;17 – 00;57;48;27
Speaker 2
Since Gordon’s a friend of mine as well. But we’re meet the nine miles east in Saratoga Springs if you don’t know. Now, you know, coffee and a chocolate chip cookie from nine miles east.

00;57;49;00 – 00;57;54;03
Speaker 1
They got great, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So dear babe, man.

00;57;54;05 – 00;57;55;08
Speaker 2
Thanks, guys.

00;57;55;10 – 00;58;05;28
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. That if you’re listening on the audio version, you should jump over to YouTube just so you can see Bill’s powerful mustache that we will continue to talk about as long as he has it.

00;58;06;00 – 00;58;12;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And please leave comments. I’d like to know. Thumbs up or thumbs down on the mustache. It’s very, very polarizing, apparently.

00;58;12;14 – 00;58;19;14
Speaker 1
Barely. Yes. Bill, thanks for joining us. D. Great to see. Of course, you two guys. Thank you for listening. Appreciate everybody.

00;58;19;17 – 00;58;20;18
Speaker 2
Thanks, guys.

00;58;20;20 – 00;58;48;18
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;58;48;18 – 00;59;01;14
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;59;01;17 – 00;59;11;14
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.