Don’t Get Stuck Self-Employed: Cashflow Quadrant Part 2

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Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

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Speaker 2
All right. Well, welcome everyone to Blue Collar start a podcast for hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the front lines of life and the business of the trades. I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media.

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Speaker 1
And I’m your co-host, Derek Foster Daigle, cleaning systems.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, you are doing Happy New Year there.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, happy New Year. I know when this comes out, it’ll be after the New Year. But, you know it is.

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Speaker 2
Here we are. Today is January 1st, 2026. At roughly a little bit after 2:00 PM. We wanted to make sure we kicked off the year with another episode so we can continue down the path of an episode every week. And I think I know we’ve got a couple in the in the can right now, so I want to say this might be like episode 111.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, we’re up at the 110 mark, which, yeah, we, we made pretty good on our, our goal from last year, but is that.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, we’ve got, I think on the website right now we’re up to 108, and then we’ve got a couple that still haven’t come out yet. So that’s very exciting. And I’m excited. I’m excited for some of the things that we’re doing this year. Guys, you know, before I tell you what we’re talking about today, just kind of give you a little teaser.

00;01;29;26 – 00;01;53;00
Speaker 2
We’ve added some episode formats. We’re going to be doing a monthly roundtable discussion with the crew over at Catamount. I should say we’re kind of leapfrogging. One month, it’ll be a roundtable discussion talking about some of the things that they work on with businesses. And then another month, Stacey’s actually going to be co-hosting with us and doing, women in the trades episode every other month.

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Speaker 2
So I’m excited about that. We’ve got, the let’s ask Bill or the business lab, episode coming up with Bill Tansy from the op shop. Of course, we’re going to be doing, you know, our, our standard format of, actually doing interviews with people that are in the trades currently, whether they’re, running, owning a business or maybe they’re, one of the support staff that help that business move and groove every day.

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Speaker 2
So excited about those. And we’re still trying to figure out what we’re going to call those. And then I think we, you know, we’re, interviews from the field or, you know, in the trenches. I don’t know, something along those lines. We’ll figure out what we what we come up with there. So really excited about that.

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Speaker 2
And of course, you know, also, I got to mention, you know, if you guys don’t know, we’ve got a Patreon side to what we do. This is a membership side. Very little money each month. It’s five bucks a month. But what we’re putting in there is a lot of additional content. You know, each episode we are recording an additional 15 to 30 minutes, specifically for that side of things and really trying to make sure that it’s information that is very actionable and will help, you know, business owners scale whether they’re small business owners, self-employed, or maybe they’re just going out on their own.

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Speaker 2
Or maybe they’re bigger businesses and they’re looking for their team members to get some sort of information training. We’re got a special marketing training coming up that we’re going to be adding to that. So very excited about that. So, there’s a link in the bio the tailor is going to put there for us. So make sure you check out the, the Patreon side of things.

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Speaker 2
And please subscribe. And of course, you know, New Year, we’re, we’re back on that sponsorship opportunity grind here. We’re going to be, you know, and if you don’t know, we use a lot of the sponsorship money that we raise each year, and we, we donate that to, local Boces. HVC, what we call the blue collar college.

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Speaker 2
And, you know, we donate that to some of the programs for kids in the programs for tools, tuition, kind of help make that more accessible. So, you know, we’re going to be reaching out to a lot of people, please answer when we call you and, talking to you guys about sponsorships, if you’re interested in sponsorships, of course, you know, hit us up on the email.

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Speaker 2
That’ll be in the show notes and, send it. So now we’d love to talk to you about it and see how, you can not only support the show, but also help support the kids in the trades with tools and tuition. So, and of course, our current sponsors give a quick shout out to those folks.

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Speaker 2
We got people these, Nick in the team over there. Martin. Electric mob construction, Pinocchio construction, Michaels group, of course. Scott, Stacy and the whole team over at Catamount Consulting. You know, shout out to, Pam and Doug, too, over the northeastern construct. I say northeastern, northeast Construction and Trades Workforce Coalition. All the great work that they’re doing to help support the trades.

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Speaker 2
Of course, Derek’s team over at Daigle Cleaning Systems and our team over at Five Towers Media. Thanks, everybody. Really appreciate that. What are we talking about today? D cash Flow quadrant, part two.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. We’re, we got a good topic here. Kind of relating back to episode 105 that we just recently shot. And, I think it’s important for, you know, our listeners and, and as you alluded to, Mike, with bringing on some of the different formats and bringing in some experts, you know, from the outside, the to be on the show and answer questions.

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Speaker 1
You know, if you guys have any questions, feel free to go to our website, drop us an email if you want to see certain topics talked about. We’re we’re open to you that we want to deliver as much value as we possibly can, for our listeners. So, please do that. And we felt that this was, an important piece to talk about, the cash flow quadrant.

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Speaker 1
Robert Kiyosaki, who we, we talked about on episode 105. There’s a lot of value there. And in how he breaks down and looks at the different phases of progression as somebody goes and starts a career and can eventually involve or evolve into, you know, one or multiple portions of the quadrant. Yeah. But we touched on, you know, the first two being an employee and, and going from being an employee to self-employed.

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Speaker 1
And I think today, Mike, we want to talk about self-employed and what that means. And then moving into business owner. Yeah. That looks like and some of the things that are necessary for folks to consider before doing that. And then all the problems and fun challenges that come with being in that role of a business owner and trans transitioning into more of a leadership role, and, and helping people reach their potential.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. I’m excited about today’s conversation. I you know, it’s funny because I’ve been doing what I do currently now for, honestly, almost 12 years. And it started out as being self-employed and, you know, I have employees now. I mean, we have a team of, eight full time employees and then a couple of, outside contractors that work with us.

00;07;04;12 – 00;07;32;23
Speaker 2
Occasionally, however, I still feel like I am straddling the line of self-employed and business owner. Just because of the true definition of what a business is. Right. And so, and I’ve been listening to Cash Flow Quadrant the last couple of days, kind of brushing up on the topics here and how he defines that. And I would highly, highly, highly encourage anybody listening to this.

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Speaker 2
Don’t just listen to this episode. Go grab a copy of Cash Flow Quadrant or grab it on audio. If you’re not a big reader, grab it on audible or wherever you get your audiobooks from and give it a listen. Because the information in there is, you know, I think the audiobook is 8.5 hours, talking about moving from employee to self-employed to business owner to investor and, gives a lot of great information.

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Speaker 2
But I guess maybe what we should start with, to get the discussion going here is kind of the definition of the B quadrant of being a business owner. You know, and it’s one of the definitions I think about a lot as I look at my business and how it’s running and what’s going on is that a business is really a collection of systems and processes that run mostly without you.

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Speaker 2
You know, I believe in the book, Robert Kiyosaki says that, you know, a true business owner can leave their business for a year or more. And come back to find that it’s not only profitable, but it’s more profitable than when they left. And I can definitely say that I’m not. I, I feel that I own a business, but I’m not quite in that category yet.

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Speaker 2
So let’s, let’s jump into that a little bit. D what are your thoughts about? Because I know, you know, you I mean, you you’re over. I think you said over 200 employees now. Right? And I would certainly say that you own a business, although you are very involved. Do you leave your business for a year or more?

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Speaker 1
D now? And I was laughing to myself as, as you said that, and, I saw it on the show notes and, and again, we’re talking from, you know, Mike, and in my experience and again, if any of our listeners know of anybody who would be a good person to come on and talk and share their story about moving from self-employed to business owner, please reach out.

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Speaker 1
But I definitely can’t, you know, I, I think there’s some truth to that statement, but I also think that that statement can be very misleading.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

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Speaker 1
And the reason that it can be misleading is if you’re actively pursuing growth, and especially in a business that is very heavily people oriented, where people need a leader, they need somebody to follow, and there’s problems that need to be solved. You know, whether it’s only a couple times a week or once a month, and that owner is the one who has the answer or who has gone through the self-improvement process to continue to self educate.

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Speaker 1
They may have the knowledge component that some of their employees don’t have necessarily. So although it sounds great, in my mind, from my personal experience, you know, it’s it’s hard for me to take a week away. And some of that is just me and and my own, you know, need to, be busy and be building. But it’s also the pursuit of growth and fulfilling our vision.

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Speaker 1
So if a company has a vision that is really, really large and we do have one and we I will touch on that a little bit later.

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Speaker 2
But yeah.

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Speaker 1
To fulfill that vision, every time that you get to a certain level and you add a different position or you create a different service line or offering for your customers, because that’s the feedback that they give you. There’s a new set of problems that comes along with leveling up.

00;11;20;21 – 00;11;56;05
Speaker 1
And every business depending upon the experience of the people that are working there, maybe it’s a large company who has folks who who have, you know, a lot of experience in building and growing businesses and they’re making, you know, multiple six figure incomes per year. And they’re they’re paid to solve those high level problems, you know, okay, maybe, but your traditional business owner or leader in a local small business may not even have that experience themselves.

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Speaker 1
So the learning process always is gradual and continues. And to step away. Sure, I’m sure you could. But what are you missing out when you do that? You know, what are the opportunities that you may have missed? Taking that step away where you could have continued to keep growing and building?

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Speaker 2
Let me ask you, do you feel that on some level you own a business? However you personally are also an employee of that business. So you’re you’re you’re kind of in both quadrants. You’re in the E quadrant and the B quadrant. And so saying that is, you know, day to day operations, things happening. You know, you’re not pushing the button to make one of those robots go in and clean a floor somewhere, or you’re not one of the people that’s going out and doing detail work.

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Speaker 2
You’re in the employee role, though, of being the president of the organization that’s making sure that the trains are running on time, that things are happening, that the right team members are getting hired, right team members are getting, rewarded. So in a sense, you kind of do have that, but you’re just you created a business with all these systems and processes, and you’ve hired yourself as the person up to to run the whole operation.

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Speaker 2
Does that make sense? But I’m saying that correctly.

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Speaker 1
So I yes, it does. I’m lucky enough, I think, you know, and and my mother, Michelle, has taken, you know, a lot of the responsibility, you know, of the day to day and has the knowledge of the cleaning industry and is out doing quality control checks and audits and making sure that the customer service process is running as it should, especially in a service based business, that that isn’t tight, then you’re going to have problems.

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Speaker 1
But I know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at. And. We’ve built processes for all of our field systems. However, even those depending upon what type of building that we’re servicing or what type of service offering that we have going on, you know, those need to tweak and change. So we’re constantly improving those processes, making mistakes, learning from them.

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Speaker 1
But in in our role, yes, we we know what we’re good at. So, you know, for me to work with customers and help develop sales process and, you know, working with some of our vendors, you know, that that falls in my wheelhouse and looking at best methods, systems. And then, you know, Michelle is able to focus on more of the field operations and what’s going on on more of a granular level.

00;14;54;04 – 00;15;09;09
Speaker 1
So, you know, for me, we’re we’re able to leverage the skill sets that we have to be able to take certain roles of oversight and management. But we both still contribute to the business on a day to day basis.

00;15;10;01 – 00;15;36;08
Speaker 1
And, you know, I think that’s valuable in, in some ways. And again, we’re constantly growing and learning along with everybody else in the business. So I think it’s important for for our team to realize that, you know, we’re still getting out of our comfort zone. We’re doing things that make or make us uncomfortable and taking on new challenges or projects that stretch that, you know, is it doable?

00;15;36;11 – 00;15;59;15
Speaker 1
And looking at robotics and doing some of those different things that that we are doing. So being more on the front and, we’re, we’re leveraging our skill sets, if that makes sense. Yeah. Now on a day to day, we also do have a lot of very qualified people who do have a lot of experience in the industry who are able to manage those field processes and some of the back office processes that we’ve put in place.

00;15;59;15 – 00;16;22;28
Speaker 1
I think I mentioned on episode 105, the bookkeeping and data entry and all of that is not not my my jam. It’s not what I like to do, and it’s not where I can add the most value. So when looking at that, we able to hire for some of those, positions to allow me to, to work on some of the other aspects of the business that I’m more value.

00;16;23;00 – 00;16;57;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, you know, you know, I to kind of bring it back around, I mean, it it’s I, I feel in from what you’re saying, it sounds more like the idea of your business running without you is more about. It’s like an idea that you’re trying to reach when you’re constantly working on your business with the idea of creating a process and systems and all these things that work together, trying to get to a point of where it could work without you.

00;16;57;11 – 00;17;25;05
Speaker 2
But it’s not necessarily the the pure definition of owning a business, right? Because there’s many businesses out there that are large businesses and the owners are still working in them, on them every day. It’s just more about that ideal of trying to get to it right. And moving from that self-employed to this idealistic, definition of business owners is the work.

00;17;25;05 – 00;17;48;00
Speaker 2
Right? And, I mean, I know I’ve found over the last over a decade now that it’s it’s probably the hardest part of moving into that, into being an actual business owner. Right? It’s so I mean, we talked about it a little bit as far as, you know, every time you add another position, which means another person, which means your team’s growing, it just creates all these different things.

00;17;48;00 – 00;18;05;22
Speaker 2
Right? Processes have to change and mix change, you know, not to mention the fact if you make a bad hire, you know, or you, you add a position and then you execute on that position and then you find out that, it doesn’t work right. And then you’ve got to recover from it.

00;18;05;24 – 00;18;34;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. And the again, being an employee is important, you know, and there’s always a need for that. And you can grow and develop as an employee and make a great living. You know, within the trades you can learn a trade. Nobody can take that away from you. And then you learn how to do that trade. And you have the guidance of somebody who is is more knowledgeable and who has set those systems and processes for you to learn and and grow within that system.

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Speaker 1
So nothing wrong with that. You know, for those who want to expand their reach, you know, once you learn the trade, you move to that self-employed piece which we talked about on episode episode 105, and there’s a whole, you know, transition process to be able to do that. And that’s where you really learn to you’re self-employed, but you may need help.

00;18;57;27 – 00;19;07;18
Speaker 1
So you have to hire a helper to help with the day to day. You’re still doing the work in the field. That’s how, that’s how I started. And I’m sure that’s how you start it.

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Speaker 2
Absolutely.

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Speaker 1
You know you have to learn from somebody else and then apply what you learned to your own system and develop and create based off of your own experience of what works, what doesn’t build the best thing that you can build. And then when you move to a business owner, you’re simply putting written process to that so that you can teach other people it.

00;19;33;04 – 00;19;39;14
Speaker 1
Create a system where other people can come in, learn, grow and develop.

00;19;40;25 – 00;20;07;11
Speaker 1
Which I think is very rewarding. You know, not everybody wants a challenge and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. But, for me, that’s the exciting part, is to see people, people grow and to help move them along the path and help them be the best they can be and coincides directly with moving to being a business owner and becoming a leader and and more of a figurehead for your business.

00;20;07;13 – 00;20;51;01
Speaker 2
I know I’ve, I and on the same I love, love, love the building aspect of a building process is building systems, putting them into, putting them into practice, executing on them, and then seeing what doesn’t work in fixing it. And I do love that part. I know that I think one of the biggest challenges for me, especially over the last year, because we’ve had a huge focus in our company over the last year to really, really level up and make sure that all the trains are running on time, that we have a very executable plan, systems that help people execute the plan, do the things that we do every day.

00;20;51;01 – 00;21;13;16
Speaker 2
However, I know one thing, I’ve that’s I’ve really been struggled with me, has been on the mindset side and it’s not so much the skill, it’s not the knowledge, it’s the application of that knowledge. Because I know for me, like one of the things that I’ve really been struggling with is, is getting out of the way. And I think, you know, in our show prep, you put it that on there too, right?

00;21;13;16 – 00;21;30;24
Speaker 2
Was like letting go of the things that you have been doing for a certain amount of time. And I know that’s been a big one for me. I actually I’m not sure if I mentioned that on this show or if it was another, podcast I was on, but like, just I mean, maybe two weeks ago, my team was doing something.

00;21;31;00 – 00;21;48;08
Speaker 2
They made the mistake of seeing me on emails for communications, and I started seeing these communications and I like butted in and I was like, hey, don’t forget about A, B, C, and D. And then they came back and they’re like, yeah, no, we don’t actually have to worry about this. And they they had a reason for it.

00;21;48;08 – 00;22;10;09
Speaker 2
But realistically I got in there and started getting involved and I shouldn’t have because all I did was I slowed them down. I gotten them way, I made them worry about something they didn’t need to worry about. And it’s it’s that mindset of being able to trust your team, let go of things. And I know you put that in the show notes, so I’d love to get your thoughts on that.

00;22;10;15 – 00;22;13;15
Speaker 1
Well, let me ask you a question like, yeah, we’ll flip it. I’ll interview.

00;22;13;15 – 00;22;14;21
Speaker 2
You.

00;22;14;24 – 00;22;25;17
Speaker 1
What, what? I know you have lofty goals for $5 media, and you’ve made a lot of progress over the years. What is your vision look like for the business?

00;22;25;19 – 00;22;57;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. So our vision is to have a and it kind of ties in with like our long term planning. But we each location we call market center. My vision is to have a market center in every state in the country, that is working autonomously and is executing to fulfill our larger mission, which is to give unwavering support to small business owners and entrepreneurs while they’re on the path of growing their business.

00;22;57;08 – 00;23;07;12
Speaker 2
So it’s, you know, we’re we’re going to execute on that vision through franchising at some point in time here. But it’s yeah, it’s big.

00;23;07;15 – 00;23;12;25
Speaker 1
So let me let me ask you a question. How many of your team members are aware of that and know what that vision is?

00;23;12;27 – 00;23;32;03
Speaker 2
All got? All of them? I, I in the hiring process, it’s it’s talked about in our hiring process. It’s talked about in our new employee onboarding process. About not just our vision of where we’re trying to take things down, you know, in 2033.

00;23;33;11 – 00;24;00;18
Speaker 2
Or what we’re trying to get to in 20 by 2033, but also our mission, but also the reason why we do things, which is, you know, like I my core belief is that there’s no truer path of freedom than being a small business owner or an entrepreneur. And that’s something that’s very, very important to me. And because of that, everything we do is built around helping other people do that and to achieve that freedom if they want it.

00;24;00;18 – 00;24;30;12
Speaker 2
Because again, it, as you know, and we’ve talked about on the show like that, freedom comes with a price, you know, and not everybody wants to pay the price and be a business owner or an entrepreneur. And for those people that don’t want to pay that price, that’s great. There are great positions inside companies like yours, like ours like and the people that we bring on the show that you can have a great career inside those companies and not have to have to pay the price that you have to pay to be as a business owner and as an entrepreneur.

00;24;30;12 – 00;24;37;23
Speaker 2
But, for any of the people that want to pay the price, we are here to give them unwavering support.

00;24;37;26 – 00;24;42;05
Speaker 1
So what what would you say you have company values, I would imagine.

00;24;42;08 – 00;24;43;25
Speaker 2
Yes, sir.

00;24;43;27 – 00;25;14;09
Speaker 1
Okay. So I think that in and of itself is is one of the biggest things that I wish I would have known 15 years ago when I was starting out, because I think every, every person who has a dream of owning a business and going off on their own when they hit that self-employed piece, they’re so focused on the actual work that they’re doing, servicing the customers, paying their vendors, just handling the day to day that they have that vision.

00;25;14;11 – 00;25;20;07
Speaker 1
I know I did. It was in the back of my mind. I’m sure you did as well, but it’s not communicated.

00;25;20;29 – 00;25;40;05
Speaker 1
And I’ve probably lost a lot of good employees over the years because I was not a great leader at 22 or 23 years old, and I didn’t do a good job of communicating the vision that we had for for the business. And I didn’t communicate our company values very well.

00;25;40;28 – 00;26;05;05
Speaker 1
So it left a lot up to the, the teams that we had in the field to figure out on their own and make their best guess as to what to do. Whereas if that would have been clearly communicated, then there’s a framework that all of those individuals that are brought into the company, they’re able to then think to themselves, okay, I have this problem.

00;26;05;08 – 00;26;12;00
Speaker 1
I have to make a decision. Does it align with my company values? Does it align with the vision of the business and where we want to go?

00;26;12;02 – 00;26;12;29
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;26;13;02 – 00;26;33;14
Speaker 1
And you know, I think that what you just talked about is one of the biggest things when you transition from being self-employed to a business owner, that you have to communicate and you should get right from the beginning. So that way you don’t have to play catch up like I did.

00;26;33;17 – 00;27;01;16
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Well and it’s I think too, you know, for a lot of us in the beginning when we’re self-employed, our, our vision is just making lots of money, right. And like, what we’re doing is kind of like the, the conduit to that money. And we don’t think about mission and purpose and and why we why we’re doing what we’re doing outside of making a living and, and because we’re still kind of in that employee mindset a little bit.

00;27;01;16 – 00;27;23;06
Speaker 2
Right. And so because as an employee, like you’re there too, you go to work, you do your job, you get paid, you have a 400 K or a pension, you invest, you buy a house, you know, you do all the things. But when you go, most people that I talked to when they are transitioning from cell phones or from employee to self-employed, it’s because they want to be able to make more money.

00;27;23;06 – 00;27;43;02
Speaker 2
They want to be able to have a different lifestyle, and they know they can’t do it as an employee. So then they shift the self-employed, but then when you’re making that shift from self-employed to business owner, to your point, like, you really do have to have a vision of what that company’s going to look like down the road and be able to communicate it to your team.

00;27;43;09 – 00;28;09;28
Speaker 2
You have to have a mission. It’s that, you know, I think mission is so important, and I think there needs to be something that people can get behind, like like when I am hiring potential team members. One of the things that I’m asking myself as a potential as a, as maybe their employer or leader is that are these people going to like, really get are they going to feel the mission, like, are they going to like get behind it?

00;28;09;28 – 00;28;26;18
Speaker 2
Are they going to want to support it? And are they going to hear it and be like, yeah, man, I like that. And if they are, that’s a good indicator to me that they’re going to be a good hire because they’re going to want to work every day to help themselves. And each other in our business to achieve that mission.

00;28;26;20 – 00;28;45;10
Speaker 2
And then obviously, you know, company values. I mean, geez, we use those for so many things. But certainly in the hiring process of, you know, are these people going to be able to adhere to our company values but not just adhere to them, but like, are they going to exemplify and just permeate those values out into the universe?

00;28;45;12 – 00;29;07;17
Speaker 2
And if so, you know, that’s a great hire. Regardless. You know, it comes back to character versus skill set. It’s I, I don’t know, I just think it’s so important. But I think that at a business to be a or to be in that B quadrant, you really have to identify those things back, back to your original point.

00;29;07;19 – 00;29;27;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. And when you, when you look at, you know, you as a leader, you have to live that vision and those values every day. Because now your responsibility is to make sure that you get these people who are following you where they want to go.

00;29;27;03 – 00;29;27;21
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;29;27;24 – 00;29;55;25
Speaker 1
And once they buy in, they’re watching everything that you do, every decision that you make. And if it doesn’t align with those company values and that mission, then you’re you’re sending mixed signals to those those people. Yeah. And you know, I think what process creation, you know, and and I know we’re going to touch on, on the Patreon side of things, what making a hire looks like, developing an organizational chart and how that works.

00;29;55;25 – 00;30;07;02
Speaker 1
But as you start developing processes for your people to follow, those should align with the values and the vision as well. So they’re getting a single clear message, all the way through.

00;30;07;04 – 00;30;07;22
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;30;07;24 – 00;30;09;17
Speaker 1
And I think that’s important.

00;30;09;20 – 00;30;36;24
Speaker 2
Well, and you know, all those things that we’re talking about, vision, mission values, they make decision making so much easier. Like it’s, it’s very easy for me on a day to day basis to make decisions. And I just ask myself, are are these is what I’m thinking about doing. This is aligned with our company values, is what I’m thinking about doing going to serve our mission right.

00;30;36;26 – 00;30;52;28
Speaker 2
And then is what I’m thinking about doing going to help our overall vision of the company and what we’re trying to achieve long term. And if the answer is no, then the answer is not. If it’s not going to. It doesn’t help with those things. It’s just an easy way for me. Like, no, I’m not doing that, man.

00;30;53;04 – 00;31;17;07
Speaker 2
And it’s or if it is a yes and it’s like, yeah, why wouldn’t I do this if it’s going to help on all those levels? It’s but again, just such a and that kind of comes back to that mindset thing of the mindset of being a business owner and identifying those things and working on those things and then getting out of your team’s way and letting them work and let them do it and do the things that you’re supposed to be doing.

00;31;17;07 – 00;31;40;07
Speaker 1
It’s like, yeah, as a leader, you you provide the cover, right? You know, you provide the cover so that your team can operate and, you know, you you move everybody in the same direction, get everybody rowing the boat the same way, and it amplifies the efforts, you know, and we had to do that where we sat down, I want to say about five years ago now.

00;31;40;10 – 00;32;02;18
Speaker 1
So after ten, ten years, you know, we sat down and I sat down with some of the people that, you know, we had at the time that were in leadership roles. And we define what that vision looks like. And I got the buy in from the staff. And, you know, since we put that in place and they had a say in it, what a difference, you know, now it’s theirs.

00;32;02;19 – 00;32;30;18
Speaker 1
They own it and it’s made a huge difference. And in people, people live it sometimes, you know, there’s, there’s people who are hired, you know, we have the hiring process and we look to fill a position or bring somebody on and, you know, you start to shape that culture with the vision and values. And eventually over time, the more that you emphasize it, your team starts to to live that without even realizing it.

00;32;30;20 – 00;32;37;18
Speaker 1
And when somebody comes into the organization that doesn’t align with those values of the mission, they stick out like a sore thumb.

00;32;37;21 – 00;32;38;00
Speaker 2
Yep.

00;32;38;06 – 00;33;04;02
Speaker 1
And the next thing you know, your team is coming to you and saying, hey, you know, this isn’t working out, okay. Tell me more. You know, and that’s the other thing with I was I wanted to bring up with all of this and creating that mission and values and your processes. It’s no longer about just you, the leader or just you, the self-employed individual.

00;33;04;05 – 00;33;33;08
Speaker 1
Now you have a few, maybe, you know, 3 to 10, 200 people looking at you, right? Yeah. And they have their own thoughts and ideas. That may be something that you didn’t think of. And if you give them that opportunity to be able to contribute to the system and to those processes, now they take ownership of that and it’s their baby.

00;33;33;11 – 00;34;02;08
Speaker 1
So, you know, it’s not all about the self-employed person anymore. And that was very probably the biggest challenge for me was was realizing that I can’t make all of the decisions and I can’t. There’s too many variables. There’s too many things that happen on a day to day. My team needs to be equipped to operate and be able to make decisions, whether it’s the right one, the wrong one, it’s the wrong one.

00;34;02;08 – 00;34;23;25
Speaker 1
We learn from it and move on, you know? And we do. And those happen. People own it and they’ll come to me and say, hey, I screwed up. And we sit down, okay, let’s talk about it. Good. Now we won’t do it again, you know? And the cycle is able to repeat itself in a more positive nature. So that was the biggest challenge for me, is realizing that not being able to touch every aspect.

00;34;23;28 – 00;34;47;08
Speaker 1
And then when something does go wrong, you got to take a deep breath and, you know, because I can tell you, when I was younger, I did not set the greatest example. Go to I could have been more calm and patient, let’s put it that way. But tended to be hotheaded and jump to conclusions before having all the information.

00;34;47;11 – 00;35;08;24
Speaker 1
And over the years that, you know, I’ve learned you have to listen to people. You have to ask the right questions, figure out what’s going on from the people who are closest to whatever that problem is, and then help them get it through making that decision or facing that challenge. And, trust continues to to build with your team.

00;35;08;26 – 00;35;28;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. It’s I mean, similar, similar obstacles for me and I and again, I think it speaks to the mindset, right aspect of maybe you have the skills, but I know looking at this year of what we’re trying to accomplish this year as a company, we’ve got a lot of big objectives this year. It’s a big growth year from us.

00;35;28;26 – 00;36;03;13
Speaker 2
We did a lot of set up last year to get ready for this year, and I know I had to look at myself and be like, so who do I have to become in order for us to achieve what we’re trying to achieve this year as a leader? Right. Like, what skills do I need that I don’t currently have, and what mindset or what what changes to myself personality wise management wise leadership, however you want to label it, I, you know, I’m defining what a successful leader in that role in my role is going to look like.

00;36;03;13 – 00;36;39;29
Speaker 2
That’s going to bring our team through what we’re doing this year. And it’s that’s hard, man. That is such a huge, huge lift. Because change is an easy obviously. Right. You want to be the same person, but I think, you know, especially going from that self-employed business mindset. And that’s why I say I kind of like I’m still straddling the line a little bit because some of my head is still stuck in self-employed land, right, of basing decisions on what I can do and what my skill set is on how, you know, like what would happen if I did the thing.

00;36;40;02 – 00;37;04;02
Speaker 2
And you really, as a business owner, you have to leave that behind, I think, and really start to say like, it’s not about what I can do, it’s about what my team can do. And to your point of what you’re just saying, right? Like they will probably do a better job at it than you will if you give them the room to do it right and and the patience and the calmness without getting your blood pressure up and screaming and yelling.

00;37;04;04 – 00;37;04;28
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;37;05;01 – 00;37;39;00
Speaker 1
Absolutely. You know, and going hand in hand with that, making that transition. You know, the the difference from being an employee and receiving the weekly paycheck. And I think this is important. We touched on it. You know, in episode five, if you are moving in that direction and, you know, moving from an employee to self-employed, you know, having a little bit of a cushion and a, and, you know, nest egg, so to speak, to help fund where you’re trying to get to is is very important.

00;37;39;00 – 00;38;16;20
Speaker 1
And then allocating those dollars properly, we talked a lot about that in terms of buying the right equipment, you know, when to buy, when not to buy. And you know, we can do segments on all of that. And it’s different for every business. It’s different for every individual. But you know, the the common myth of, you know, business owners being, you know, rolling in it, right, is, something that, you know, is a little bit misleading again, you know, and when you start to be self-employed, you can collect from a customer after you complete the work.

00;38;16;24 – 00;39;02;04
Speaker 1
Great. Now you move from self-employed to a business owner, and maybe you’re in a commercial setting where you’re working with other businesses rather than, you know, a home based business or a service company, a home based service company where now you have payment terms with your customers, with your vendors, and you’re managing all of that. And if you don’t think through the problem of, I got to make payroll next week and pay my two employees before any money goes to me, or I can reinvest any money back into the business is a whole nother set of problems.

00;39;02;07 – 00;39;22;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Because again, if if you’re not able to deliver and provide that cover for your employees, they sign up to work within your system, within your framework, and they’re trusting you with their families, their livelihood. Now you have to deliver a paycheck to them on a weekly basis. Their obligations to go out, complete the work. You handle everything else.

00;39;22;25 – 00;39;35;22
Speaker 1
So that is again, we should we should dive into this more, down the road. But there is, a lack of a guaranteed paycheck.

00;39;35;25 – 00;39;57;26
Speaker 2
Well, yeah, I, I it’s so funny to you because as you’re saying all this, I’m just thinking about how often I’ve had conversations with people where they’re like, well, I’m getting paid 25 bucks an hour, and my employer charges $175 an hour for that, for that work. Right? And I’m like, yep. They’re like, well, I should be getting paid more money.

00;39;57;26 – 00;40;18;21
Speaker 2
And if I went out and did it on my own, I could get paid the 175 an hour. And I’m like, yeah, absolutely could. And then you can also worry about what happens when you have to give money back to a customer, and vacation times and PTO and sick times, and, you know, all the things that go into running a business.

00;40;18;21 – 00;40;39;07
Speaker 2
I’m like it. It’s it’s not just what you’re charging for an hour and what you’re getting paid for an hour. There’s so much that goes into it. And I like you’re trying to make payroll each week and, you know, like you said, you’ve got ten clients that owe you a bunch of money. They haven’t paid you, you know, because they’ve got 90 day terms or whatever it is.

00;40;39;09 – 00;40;55;14
Speaker 2
And you’re like looking at what’s coming in and how much money you got, payroll and what money’s got to go out the door in order to do your next job. And it’s there’s so much to it and it’s so hard. And I think that the myth that business owners are rolling in is just wild to me. I hear it all the time.

00;40;55;14 – 00;41;11;25
Speaker 2
I remember back in, you know, 20 years ago, I owned a bar and restaurant and I people would say all the time they’re like, oh my God, you got your crushing it. Look at all these people. I’m like, dude, are you kidding me? Like, we’ll be lucky to make payroll next week. Like, I own a bar. Restaurant means I make no money, right?

00;41;11;25 – 00;41;34;24
Speaker 2
Like it’s, Yeah, it’s a it’s a wild thing. And or even in my current state with my current company. I mean, there was times over the last couple of years where even though our revenue was great, there were other operational problems that were we were just bleeding revenue and or bleeding money. And like, I had not paid myself for six months, like there’s no guarantee my team still got paid.

00;41;34;26 – 00;41;55;07
Speaker 2
But like because of the way cash flow is going to like, I guess I’ll maybe I’ll try to pay myself next month or next month or next month. And it’s, it, it comes with the territory. And I think it’s, you know, again, a big part of what people should understand and recognize, I guess, why we why why we’re bringing it into this is that it’s not all it’s not all puppies and rainbows, right?

00;41;55;07 – 00;42;20;20
Speaker 2
Like, it’s there’s, a big piece of owning a business. That is. And again, that price you pay that I talked about, I mentioned earlier. Right. Like, not everybody wants to pay that price. Not everybody wants to be willing to go without a paycheck for six months and not pay themselves because of whatever the reason is. Maybe you’re just trying to increase your reserves, or maybe there’s some operational problems that are, you know, you’re bleeding money.

00;42;20;20 – 00;42;49;06
Speaker 2
And, there’s a lot of reasons why it happens or you want to hire someone into a role to take stuff off of your plate, which I definitely have done in the last two years where I needed to have someone. And for scalability reasons, I needed to be able to bring someone on. You know, the only way that I could afford to do that was if I didn’t get paid for doing that job, and it but it so I went, I think I think in that example, I think I went four months without taking a paycheck.

00;42;49;12 – 00;43;07;05
Speaker 2
So that I could hire that person without going into debt, without using trade lines, without using money I didn’t have. And I bring that person on, get them trained up and have them execute those things so I wouldn’t have to so that then I could evolve my role in the company. And, you know, it’s it’s a big part of it.

00;43;07;05 – 00;43;30;03
Speaker 2
There is no guarantee when you’re moving self-employed, there’s a little bit more of a guarantee because it’s you show up and push the button. You get paid for pushing the button, right? You’re self-employed as an employee in theory, right? So long as you’re the place you work at isn’t being mismanaged, you’re going to get your paycheck each week or every other week, whatever it is.

00;43;30;03 – 00;43;33;07
Speaker 2
But as a business owner, it’s not always guaranteed.

00;43;33;10 – 00;44;01;09
Speaker 1
So that is correct and scary. Yeah, it can be. And I like, you know, for anybody who who is, you know, listening and, you know, wants more information on this topic, you know, feel free to, to reach out. But it can be challenging. And, you know, we’ve, you know, there’s different up there’s different opportunities to, to leverage financing and depending upon what business we’re in.

00;44;01;11 – 00;44;22;02
Speaker 1
But at the end of the day, the point being, your employees are there to do a job and go home. And at the end of the day, you know, if you’re personally guaranteeing that, no, it’s on you to make sure that the bank is paid back or the lender’s paid back prior to anything else going out the door.

00;44;22;05 – 00;44;24;11
Speaker 1
Yep.

00;44;24;13 – 00;44;38;23
Speaker 2
Yes, sir. All right. We’re going to jump over to the Patreon side of things here, folks. We’ve got, a few different topics. We’re going to talk about a little bit of kind of building a plan for the growth of your business. So, you know, you’re self-employed, moving towards a business owner. And you there are certain things that you need to do.

00;44;38;23 – 00;44;53;13
Speaker 2
We touched on a little bit, we’re going to talk about the dynamic nature process, and we’re going to, you know, get in a little bit more on the importance of vision for the future state of your business. I know that we talked about that a little bit already. But we’re going to get more deeper into it.

00;44;53;13 – 00;45;10;27
Speaker 2
And then, of course, you know, the importance of having a purpose, which I think we covered, but we’ll probably touch on that one more time. So please, everybody jump on over to the Patreon side here with us. If you’re not a member, please sign up. And of course, thanks everybody for listening. We really appreciate it. Hope that you’re getting value out of the content.

00;45;10;29 – 00;45;27;03
Speaker 2
You know, please help spread the word, share the show with someone you think might get something out of it. And of course, you can find us on Rumble YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. And our website is Blue Collar startup.io. Thanks, everybody for listening, and hopefully we’ll see you over on the Patreon side.

00;45;27;03 – 00;45;55;07
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;55;07 – 00;46;07;18
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;46;07;18 – 00;46;22;28
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;49;19;04 – 00;49;34;14
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;49;34;14 – 00;49;54;00
Speaker 2
All right, everybody, welcome to Blue Collar start up on the Patreon side. Welcome to our members. Really appreciate you joining. You know, just to make sure you’re you’re in the right place, I’ll reintroduce the topic real quick. Today, we’re talking this is, part two of our cash flow quadrant episode. Part one was episode 105.

00;49;54;02 – 00;50;15;19
Speaker 2
And, we’re talking specifically about moving from self-employed into business owner. You know, of course, the main episode, we got a lot of great stuff. We’re going to dig into a couple of other topics. We’ll try not to keep you here all day. We’ll try to be as succinct as possible. First thing we’re going to jump into is building a plan for the growth of your business.

00;50;15;22 – 00;50;37;21
Speaker 2
And as I said in the main episode, he wishes he’d done some of this stuff in the beginning. Right. And that’s things like having a vision, having a mission, having company values. And along with that, too, is something that, if you’re not familiar with, is called an organizational chart. I’d love to get your thoughts on the importance of an organizational chart.

00;50;37;21 – 00;50;40;00
Speaker 2
I’m sure you have one.

00;50;40;03 – 00;51;00;03
Speaker 1
So yes. And the reason why I mentioned I wish I would have had this from the beginning is, is again, back to the point of setting that clear tone for everybody. You know, the culture of the organization will take after its leader and whatever values and vision is set at the beginning, you know, that’s what people are going to follow.

00;51;00;03 – 00;51;40;26
Speaker 1
And everybody wants hope. Everybody wants to be somewhere where there’s hope, where there’s a way for them to grow, advance better themselves. And it’s important as a leader and a business owner to to be able to do that and provide that. So when you get into, you know, the, the, the move from self-employed to business owner and you’re ready to hire an employee for a role that you know, you need to fill, that maybe you don’t have time to do something that is a task or a set of tasks in your business that is not very productive, you know, for yourself or your own skill set.

00;51;40;29 – 00;52;00;13
Speaker 1
You know, you hire that individual well, you hire them, bring them in. What are you giving them up from? And we’ve had a few guests on the show that have brought this up. And it kind of puts the onus back on the company. You know, there’s that saying and nobody wants to work today. And, you know, okay, we can say that.

00;52;00;13 – 00;52;25;24
Speaker 1
But it may be the maybe the outlook is a little bit different. And maybe the generation that’s coming up has a different view of the world because they’ve grown up there. They’ve been taught different things and seen different things throughout their childhood that shaped where they are today. So, you know, in order to be able to give somebody a clear picture of what that organization looks like, have that mission vision values developed.

00;52;25;27 – 00;52;50;05
Speaker 1
If you already have employees, have them help contribute to it and make sure that everybody gets it when you hire them. So if you’re basing your hiring criteria on those company values and your your vision, right. If somebody that you sit down in interview doesn’t have any of their own personal goals, they don’t want to grow, they don’t want to advance, they just want a job and a paycheck might not be a good fit for your business.

00;52;50;05 – 00;53;13;05
Speaker 1
And if you can tailor those interview questions to try to find that out, you know you’re going to save yourself a lot of time down the road. But it’s also important that you’re clear during the interview process of exactly what you do at your company, not just from an actual production or service standpoint, but how you run your business and what what the goals of the business are and the direction that you’re moving.

00;53;13;05 – 00;53;39;11
Speaker 1
And the hope is to inspire those people from the moment they step. Step foot into your business, you have to provide them a clear picture of what’s there. And an organizational chart, something that I did not have in place seven years ago. And it was a really big task because we had at the time, I want to say 75 or 80 employees.

00;53;39;13 – 00;54;07;12
Speaker 1
And it was it was a lot of work. Yeah. Building out that framework and the picture of every job title or position in the organization who is in that role. And for us, it’s a very people oriented business. Our technicians are out providing and performing the service. So there’s a lot of moving pieces and a lot of people that need to see what that organizational chart looks like, so they know who to communicate with.

00;54;07;14 – 00;54;29;06
Speaker 1
They know who to take direction from, they know who to give feedback to. If they don’t have that clear picture, they’re lost. And when you have a lost employee who doesn’t have a direction or a clear picture of where the company is going and what it looks like, it can be very frustrating. And companies continue to lose people.

00;54;29;09 – 00;54;56;00
Speaker 1
So you know you’re spending money on recruiting and bringing people in and then you’re losing them out the back door because of your orientation process or your accountability chart or lack thereof, and then not being able to see the clear picture, you know, and then the job descriptions of whatever that position entails should coincide with that organizational chart, with their duties and functions and roles and all of that laid out.

00;54;56;03 – 00;55;19;11
Speaker 1
So they can very clearly see, when they start out, who they report to, what, what tasks they’re going to be doing on a day to day basis. And maybe that’s going to include some things that aren’t in that job description. So that should be noted. That will help cover you as the employer. But yeah, having that clear picture and direction really sets the tone upfront, and it shows the employees that they’re organized, they know where they’re going.

00;55;19;13 – 00;55;27;21
Speaker 1
They have a clear picture of what I’m supposed to do on a day to day basis to contribute to the overall good of the team.

00;55;27;23 – 00;55;48;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s it’s you know, I always think about a there’s a lot that we can use an org chart for. Right. And and to your point in that current state, here’s what the company looks like right now. It acts like a chain of command in the military, right where, you know, like, okay, here’s the people that are on my team.

00;55;48;23 – 00;56;18;06
Speaker 2
Here’s what we’re supposed to be doing together. Here’s who we communicate up the chain of command should something go wrong. We’ve got questions. We’ve got problems. But also it also identifies a path for growth for these folks, too, which everybody wants. Like it for anyone listening that has never had an employee. Okay. Very important. Every employee, every human on the planet wants to grow from where they are.

00;56;18;13 – 00;56;28;23
Speaker 2
They are always going to want more. And if you don’t show them what that growth can look like, you just like decide you’re going to lose, you’re going to lose. Not the back door.

00;56;28;26 – 00;56;54;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. So having hope, as I mentioned before, is a key component. And it I want to say it ties into what Scott and Stacy talk about. What Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are. Right? And, you know, having all of these things organized helps with that. And it helps meet that the basic needs of those human beings who are going to come in and work for you.

00;56;55;00 – 00;57;23;00
Speaker 1
But to your point, the career roadmap was also something that we’ve put into our company 5 or 6 years ago, and it has really changed the perspective that our employees have. And what it’s done is it’s put the responsibility of the individual and the employee to get to a point to where they can grow and move to the next level.

00;57;23;02 – 00;57;58;23
Speaker 1
So now it’s no longer on the leader themselves to coach and train that individual. They can and they should take that initiative and work on that on their own. So for example, Mike, just a real quick one and anybody can implement this into their business when they’re starting out. If you have somebody that’s starting out as, let’s say, a service technician and they want to get to an office role or a supervisor, well, you’re going to have certain criteria that they need to meet, whether that’s one year of service, whether that’s certain certifications.

00;57;58;23 – 00;58;21;25
Speaker 1
Right. And some businesses it might be a lift certification. It might be a professional certification. Like we have in our disaster cleaning business with Ikaika. And the requirements are then posted on that career roadmap. So everybody that sees it can sees all of the can see all the things that they need to do in order to obtain that promotion.

00;58;21;27 – 00;58;42;18
Speaker 1
So then you start really seeing, okay, well, who wants to put the effort in? And, and it relates back to aligning with the company values and the mission and the vision and culture. If you get a whole bunch of people who want to grow in advance, it’s still going to take them time to accomplish all of those things that are on the career roadmap.

00;58;42;21 – 00;59;05;07
Speaker 1
But they’re there, and it’s something that they can look at work through over the course of time and be able to grow within the company. It’s very powerful. Everybody comes into an organization. I want to make X amount of money, right? And we’ve always said it like everybody wants to make more money, but what does that look like in that business.

00;59;06;13 – 00;59;31;06
Speaker 1
Going back to the employee side of the cash flow quadrant and being a good employee and using the opportunity to learn, you’re just like Max Dory said when he was on you’re your own brand and how fast you want to learn and how much you want to absorb. And that might mean working extra hours. That might mean doing things that you don’t want to do at times you don’t want to do it.

00;59;31;08 – 00;59;53;05
Speaker 1
But if you do that and you’re able to fulfill those things now, you put yourself in a position to number one, get noticed, build your own brand, learn on the clock while you’re getting paid. Make mistakes that somebody else is paying for. I think that’s a big one too. Yeah, boy, you’re learning. You’re making mistakes, but they’re not on you.

00;59;53;05 – 01;00;04;12
Speaker 1
Like as if you were self-employed. Every mistake you make cost your money. Same thing is being a business or being a business owner. So having a career roadmap has been a real game changer.

01;00;04;14 – 01;00;04;21
Speaker 2
On.

01;00;04;21 – 01;00;13;21
Speaker 1
Our end, and we keep building and expanding upon it, you know, as needed. We haven’t touched it and five years.

01;00;13;23 – 01;00;44;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. We, we use our, we use our term as the career roadmap. Like and you know like we bring someone in like here’s, here’s where you are now, here’s the rest of the company, here’s what each one of these people do. And then we meet with our employees a couple times a year. And I think I’ve mentioned it before, we have our one, three, five year conversation, which means we’re talking about what their one year goals, three year goals, five year goals are, and looking at how that lines up with where they are in the company and where they’d like to go.

01;00;44;10 – 01;01;07;06
Speaker 2
So like if we’ve got someone that’s working over in the marketing support services side, but they really want to be over on the website side of things, then we work in that conversation. We identify that that need is there, and then we identify a path through the org chart to that side of the company and into one of those roles and what it’s going to take for us to make that happen.

01;01;07;08 – 01;01;27;20
Speaker 2
Another thing I really like about org charts too, and I’ve been knee deep in it for six months now of trying to figure out is using it as a growth plan because, you know, as we are looking at growing and we talked about this in the main episode, you know, we’re looking at trying to get in every state in the country.

01;01;27;20 – 01;02;00;27
Speaker 2
We’re looking at trying to do all these different things. Who who do I need? Like, I don’t even know what that looks like right now. So, you know, we use that org chart as a, kind of a planning tool for us for a future state of our business. Like, okay, here’s where we are now. If we add ten market centers, what position do we not have on the our chart right now that we’re going to need when we add those ten locations, right, to help manage the work and make sure the quality there do all the things that we have to do in training and hiring that add up.

01;02;01;00 – 01;02;18;02
Speaker 2
So it’s it’s funny because I went for years without an org chart, and then now I use it for so many different things. But again, from that moving self-employed to business owner, you really need one, even if there’s just two people on it. Have an org chart.

01;02;18;05 – 01;02;19;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, you can always build on.

01;02;19;09 – 01;02;37;24
Speaker 2
It and then build on it. Yeah. It’s again it’s it’s the visual part right. Of, of building your business is being able to move these pieces around. And what do I got to do. And I don’t know I love it I think it’s exciting. I think it’s a lot of fun, especially this time of the year when I’m doing all my yearly planning and, you know, getting all excited about what I’m going to do this year.

01;02;37;24 – 01;02;56;07
Speaker 1
But yeah. No. Absolutely. And and, you know, again, tying back into process and you know, this is you make it one of your processes and put it into play. And it’s never ending. So back to what I was saying about walking away for a year.

01;02;56;09 – 01;02;57;22
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;02;57;24 – 01;03;14;20
Speaker 1
Think of all the things that, you know, just from a, a growth standpoint. If everything was was perfect in the world and everything stayed the same, sure, I would buy that right. But things are constantly moving faster than ever.

01;03;15;04 – 01;03;44;00
Speaker 1
Right now in our society we’re exposed to so much information on a daily basis. It’s it’s somewhat overwhelming. So you have to know what to look at. And your processes are your processes for as long as they work when something comes up, whether it’s a new project, a new service line, whether it’s, just growth in general and a process that you had to work great for five years is broken.

01;03;44;00 – 01;03;57;06
Speaker 1
It doesn’t work anymore. Well, guess what? You know, ideally, yes, your team can help put a Band-Aid on that and create the process. But usually there there should be somebody there to help guide that.

01;03;57;25 – 01;04;22;01
Speaker 1
And make sure that everybody is communicating in the company that’s involved in that process. Because if you have we just went through it with our hiring process like so if you have a person who has an idea of what that process looks like, the new one, and then you have another person who’s also involved, and they have a completely different view of what that looks like.

01;04;22;04 – 01;04;41;10
Speaker 1
And the two aren’t talking to each other. You have a broken process because one’s doing one thing and it’s making the other’s life harder and everybody’s wasting time. So it’s pulling everybody back together and saying, as we sat at the table, this is what we sat here and agreed on. Why are we changing it now?

01;04;41;12 – 01;04;42;01
Speaker 2
Why are you.

01;04;42;01 – 01;05;07;06
Speaker 1
Over here not communicating, you know, with the people who need to have this information. You’re running your own race. It doesn’t do any good for the team. So you know that. That’s what I mean. With that. You’re constantly updating, constantly changing, and humans are our human beings. We’re imperfect and every now and then everybody will get an idea of, hey, I can do it this way.

01;05;07;08 – 01;05;18;07
Speaker 1
And this is a process improvement. Saves a lot of money, but they don’t see what that effect has on other departments. They don’t see what that effect has on the other individuals that are working around that process.

01;05;18;09 – 01;05;46;02
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well and and to add to that, so like so I have a I have a process for when things happen and they don’t go the way that they’re supposed to go. What I do is I pull the team member in. And my first question is, you know, what happened, get all the information on it. Right. And typically, if it is indicative of a process not working, what I’ll say, you know, my first question was like, did you follow the process?

01;05;46;02 – 01;06;03;23
Speaker 2
And there and if they tell me they followed the process and we didn’t get the end result of what we’re supposed to get when they follow that process, that’s an indicator to me that the process may need to be changed. Could be a one off, but if the process really is broken, you’re going to see the situation crop up more and more and more.

01;06;03;23 – 01;06;18;27
Speaker 2
And you want to be you want to work on it. The other question I always ask is, or I should say, if they say they didn’t work, they didn’t use the process into your like what you’re saying they did something different, they thought it would be better and maybe it was, but we didn’t get the result that we needed.

01;06;19;00 – 01;06;38;20
Speaker 2
Then it’s like, all right, well, why didn’t you follow the process? Yep. And if there’s a real reason there that is indicative of maybe our process is outdated and that’s why they didn’t follow the process. It’s like, all right, well let’s and we literally have just done this a couple times recently where my team did something different and I was like, why didn’t you follow the process?

01;06;38;27 – 01;07;00;18
Speaker 2
And we and they just they had identified to me that the process was outdated and it didn’t work anymore. And so in those situations, we know there’s some work to do. But I think we should also say, while yes, processes are dynamic, they’re not static. You do need to change them over time as your company grows and things change.

01;07;00;24 – 01;07;13;22
Speaker 2
However, changing a process just for the sake of changing a process is not going to get you anywhere, right? Like, if it’s working, don’t fix it. Yeah. Is that fair?

01;07;13;25 – 01;07;16;07
Speaker 1
Yes. Hundred percent.

01;07;16;09 – 01;07;39;24
Speaker 2
It’s, I just I’ve had these conversations with people about process and, and they just what they had said to me was like, well, every, every few months I just go through and I update everything and I’m like, well, I hope it’s working. Like, it sounds like you’re doing a lot of work for no reason. It’s great that you have the process, but if you’re continually just updating it and changing it just for the sake of doing it like that doesn’t that is tinkering.

01;07;39;27 – 01;07;41;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, they’re tinkering and tinker.

01;07;41;18 – 01;08;14;00
Speaker 1
Right. And that’s no change. That’s it’s very easy to do. It’s very common. And that’s part of what we talked about in the main episode about letting your team operate the process and you become the coach and the leader and every time you meddle in that process and change something, right, you’re you’re getting in the way back to your email that your team, you know, was already on because they knew what the what the values and the vision of the company are.

01;08;14;02 – 01;08;31;16
Speaker 1
They knew that something wasn’t right and they were already actively working to solve it. But as you know, a business owner and that being your baby, it’s very difficult to sit on the sidelines and watch what’s going on.

01;08;31;19 – 01;08;56;02
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, and to be fair, to like the damage I did by by tinkering in that situation wasn’t even just slowing them down. Right. I also made myself look stupid, which as a leader, you don’t really want to look stupid, right? You know what I mean? Because that can kind of shake the faith of your team and your abilities to do what you do.

01;08;56;04 – 01;09;20;27
Speaker 2
Yeah. Also, like when I tinker in that situation, I’m almost telling them that I don’t have faith in them to be able to figure this out. And by getting involved, I’m undermining their credibility. So it’s it was it was such a a lesson learned or a reminder of something I knew or should have known that, like let them work and if it breaks, it breaks.

01;09;20;27 – 01;09;41;08
Speaker 2
But let them do their jobs like you have to. Your people need to feel empowered. They need to feel that you trust them. They need to know that you’re willing to let them screw up, and then you’ll help them fix it. But like, but you got to let them screw up. You can’t try to fix it before they screw up because then they’re you’re just you’re tinkering.

01;09;41;11 – 01;09;55;10
Speaker 2
You’re a micromanager. Yeah. They don’t feel they don’t feel good about themselves or their position. And it’s just it’s not a it’s not a good thing to do. And I instantly regretted doing it. Yeah. I won’t do any more thing.

01;09;55;14 – 01;10;01;27
Speaker 1
The board thing is that you caught it and that your team got it. And, you listen to them, you know, that’s half the battle.

01;10;01;29 – 01;10;04;03
Speaker 2
Got to recover quick. They got to recover quick.

01;10;04;07 – 01;10;06;03
Speaker 1
It.

01;10;06;06 – 01;10;19;21
Speaker 2
I, you know, I know on our outline for the show, you know, we want to talk about the importance of vision. And we talked about it in the main episode, but we talked about it from my standpoint. I would love to hear how you. I’d love to hear what your vision for, for data cleaning systems is.

01;10;19;21 – 01;10;27;11
Speaker 2
And I love to hear you know, what you feel the importance of that vision is.

01;10;27;13 – 01;11;00;16
Speaker 1
It’s changed over the years and I’m actually working on redeveloping that with some of the things that we we so I’m going through this again now. Right. And again evolving and getting everybody aligned behind it. I don’t think our vision was necessarily large enough. You know what what we what I originally was looking at is to expand, on a national level, but we have some different things that, you know, we’re, we’re working on some different verticals.

01;11;00;16 – 01;11;08;23
Speaker 1
And, and they all kind of tie into each other. So we are actively, you know, we’re looking to revise that, for 2026.

01;11;08;23 – 01;11;14;16
Speaker 2
But and you just did this dude that you, you redid this stuff all like five years ago, right?

01;11;14;19 – 01;11;15;16
Speaker 1
Yes. Yep.

01;11;15;21 – 01;11;28;12
Speaker 2
And I just mention that because it illustrates the importance of not just doing it one time and then letting that be the vision for 20 years. Right? Like it’s something that should be revisited again and again and again.

01;11;28;15 – 01;11;50;03
Speaker 1
Was the leader. If you see an opportunity that or if an opportunity knocks that comes your way and there’s different and there’s good that can come of that opportunity for the entire team. You have to look at okay, well, how do we how do we incorporate that or tie that in? And really that’s what we’re doing right now.

01;11;50;03 – 01;12;14;08
Speaker 1
But ultimately, you know, we’d like to continue to grow and expand our franchise model and to be able to empower people who have been in the industry, who have grown a business, you know, for a certain period of years, to be able to rebrand and join our system and be able to grow their business just just as we did, that’s my vision for it.

01;12;14;08 – 01;12;39;25
Speaker 1
So becoming the coach and guiding and maintaining the quality of service that, you know, we’ve come to, to be known for and the reputation that we built here in the upstate New York, New York market. But being able to take that to different areas of the country, and we’re still very focused on that as far as, you know, marketing for that.

01;12;39;28 – 01;13;12;11
Speaker 1
I have not done that. I don’t I believe the right opportunities will, will, will come our way just from putting out quality work and doing the right thing. So again, we’ve talked on the show about, you know, the silver tsunami and some of the transitions that you know, are currently in process and playing. And we want to be able to help people fulfill, you know, their vision and be able to to do that.

01;13;12;13 – 01;13;15;17
Speaker 1
You know, with our systems and processes.

01;13;15;20 – 01;13;16;07
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;13;16;09 – 01;13;19;27
Speaker 1
But that’s, that’s really where we sit right now.

01;13;20;00 – 01;13;46;09
Speaker 2
Well, you know, I, I’m gonna interrupt you too, because I it you’re making me think about something I saw recently with, if if everybody’s familiar, you know, with the horse and buggy that, preexisted the automobile, and there’s a company that makes the buggy whips. Right. And their vision was, you know, above, you whip in every hand or whatever their vision was.

01;13;46;09 – 01;14;11;09
Speaker 2
But what happened was they didn’t update their vision based on the changes in technology and what was happening. And they got stomped by the automobile industry, and they could have pivoted their vision and changed their vision. And that this just kind of speaks to exactly what you’re talking about and what you’re illustrating about your vision has to change, not just about where you are as a company, but where you see your industry going like you have to.

01;14;11;09 – 01;14;42;24
Speaker 2
If if you’re originally or like with the audition, the or the addition of, the automation and robot technology that you you’re integrating and I mean, like, you have to as a leader, you have to stay at the forefront of that stuff, and your vision needs to be in line with that. Right. And making those changes. So it’s just, you know, I, I don’t know that we ever put an actual thing on vision, but I always think about vision of my company as a future state of my company and what it looks like.

01;14;42;24 – 01;15;12;20
Speaker 2
So if I was going to describe it to someone, what does it look like ten years or 20 years down the road? And you gotta you have to constantly be updating and same thing. I mean, I’ve updated my vision, how we describe it, I don’t know, probably eight times in the last 12 years based on, you know, everything that’s been moving and shaking and me growing, too, because I think as a leader, you know, the vision is indicative of who you are and what you’re trying to achieve.

01;15;12;23 – 01;15;14;10
Speaker 2
And, and that changes over time.

01;15;14;10 – 01;15;22;20
Speaker 1
But absolutely. And if you take a year off with how quickly things are moving today’s society, you might not have a business to come back to.

01;15;22;22 – 01;15;23;11
Speaker 2
You know.

01;15;23;14 – 01;15;40;28
Speaker 1
Your competitors will surpass you. So again, back to that point. You know, a bit a bit misleading. Sounds great. You should be able to take time off if your processes are running right and the trains are running on time, like Bill says, but at the end of the day, you still have to look out for what’s on the horizon and what’s next.

01;15;41;01 – 01;15;46;23
Speaker 1
You know? And if you don’t do that, you’re putting your whole team in jeopardy, not just yourself.

01;15;46;26 – 01;16;06;08
Speaker 2
I absolutely love how much that is stuck in your craw because like when we did the episode, I think it was when we did 1 or 5 or maybe one of our last, let’s ask Bill episodes. But after the episode was done, you’re like, hey, we should really talk about that whole, you know, business running without you thing, like, that’s misleading.

01;16;06;10 – 01;16;23;28
Speaker 2
And, and I 100% agree, I but I love how much it, like, kind of bothers you a little bit to make that to have that statement out there because it’s you’ve come back to it a few times like, hey, that’s not realistic. Businesses don’t really run without their owners. Right? And it’s and I.

01;16;24;00 – 01;16;36;02
Speaker 1
So I just I want to be and again there’s a lot to support that. But take for example and I was just reading about it last night, Warren Buffett’s last day at work was I think yesterday.

01;16;37;23 – 01;16;40;18
Speaker 1
The guy is 96.

01;16;40;20 – 01;16;42;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. He’s old.

01;16;42;13 – 01;16;57;08
Speaker 1
So runs one of the largest companies could probably sell off into the sunset and do whatever he wants right now. Why has he been there for so long and why is he not left there or retired.

01;16;58;04 – 01;17;25;02
Speaker 1
You know and there’s a ton of examples. You know the successful business owners who have grown and built and developed it, it was very successful systems. Right. Like look at I mean there’s a number of them Tony, Tony Robbins any of those guys. Right. But they’re actively they could take a year off. Yeah. But they probably work harder than anybody that we know.

01;17;25;02 – 01;17;48;21
Speaker 1
You know what I mean? So it’s you look at those examples and that’s why I say that, you know, I’m sure they they do get to, you know, do things on their own terms to a certain extent, but they’re working just as much, especially with the cell phone in the pocket. And how fast everything moves. And in today’s world, you know, being all in and being in a day to day is very important.

01;17;48;24 – 01;18;11;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. Someone’s got to steer the ship to if you go away for a year, who’s steering the ship? Right. Like I make those decisions. So I guess, you know, it may be possible to do it, but in order to do it, you’ve got to create the position and the processes and the systems for someone to do what you do while you’re on that beach, drinking those mai tais or whatever it is for that year.

01;18;11;12 – 01;18;19;26
Speaker 2
But it’s, it’s not just, walk away from it and come back to it kind of deal. Correct. Love it. I think that’s a great place to wrap it up.

01;18;19;26 – 01;18;22;17
Speaker 1
The sounds good.

01;18;22;24 – 01;18;25;06
Speaker 2
Any closing thoughts and closing comments?

01;18;25;08 – 01;18;53;25
Speaker 1
No, it’s just, I’m looking forward to 2026. I think it’s great. With all the different show formats that we’re going to have. And I think bringing in, you know, people who are working with large companies dealing with some of these exact problems that we’re talking about, even if it if it’s on a large scale, smaller scale and, you know, hearing it from, from them as well, and what they’ve seen across multiple businesses and multiple industries and the blue collar space,

01;18;53;25 – 01;18;57;19
Speaker 2
All right, well, let’s wrap it up. Happy New Year, everybody. Happy new year D enjoy.

01;18;57;22 – 01;18;59;00
Speaker 1
New Mike, happy new year.

01;18;59;00 – 01;19;27;06
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.

01;19;27;06 – 01;19;39;15
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.

01;19;39;15 – 01;19;54;25
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.