Ep 168 - Building Unshakeable Teams: Beyond Hiring Your First Office Staff

Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of Electric Pernur Secrets, the Premium Service Electricians podcast. We're here with you five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Joseph, would it be wrong of us to want to do that for these folks listening and tuning in with us today?

No, sir, it would not. Premium level service is what every person should be striving towards, because that is the place of electrical perfection.

I love that man. How was your weekend? You know what?

I love what I do, so I'm just going to say it was a decent weekend. I got some sleep, but I got a lot of family time, and that's what matters most. What about you, brother?

Yeah, definitely. You know what I started doing a little overlanding this weekend, maybe late in the season. I had to take care of us, the family side too. And you know what guys, if you're watching this, let me know if you like to go four by fouring and do a little camping even in the fall Up here in Canada. Joe, you know it gets a little cold but pleasant enough for me. The pleasant peasant and I had a great time. We were lakeside man watching the stars get up in the morning, have a dip in a cold lake. Nothing wakes you up, nothing better, man, I love it, absolutely love it. I get behind that.

It sounds awesome.

We got a great topic this week again. Exception to the first hires the name of today's episode, episode 168,. If you can believe that, Like we're going for, how many weeks are left in the year? Do you know that?

Honestly, I don't know off top of hand, but it's one of those things where I give our. I do have to give us credit, even though I don't like giving ourselves credit. It's one of those things where to say, to show up live 168 times in one year, it's pretty, pretty impressive, especially since there's no outtakes. People are just getting the. This is the raw, awkward selves that we are sending in full send.

You know, and if I'm proud of anything, it's the fact that we haven't edited a single episode yet Unedited. We're just here, like we said before, no band-aids here with the real fixes to help you guys through your journey and make the best out of your situation, which, of course, is likely on the path to becoming a premium service electrician. So this week we wanted to follow up last week's topic with that first hire the CSR and help you guys with that understanding of okay, well, where do we go from there? So if we could start with a little bit, just a touch of a recap, joe, I feel like that would be valuable for anyone that may have missed last week or had too great of a weekend, haven't been thinking about the podcast for a few days, which is totally possible too. So we were suggesting that office role first. Now, why was that again?

So the main reason was, when you look at the inverse org chart, you'll find that the owner is this precarious pyramid point that everything else seems to focus on and most businesses don't last very well because as you go higher and wider and wider on that, without widening the base, it starts to become able to topple very quickly. So when you hire your first office staff position, what that does is adds a second pillar at the bottom with you, because what you're able to do is delegate tasks that are not in your queen b role, so you can say things like all right, I'm having you answer the phones, but I'm also having you do outbounds, but I'm also having you now, even if it's not going to phones, you're gonna be coordinating with the utility companies, with the towns, with fuel providers, with any kind of permanent it all different things you can do that you would have had to do Now can get properly delegated to someone who will give a better experience to the client and Let you give a better experience as well, because you're able to focus within your lane best.

That three-dimensional client experience. I love that and so we even had a couple of clients and other people go. Well, I'm sorry, I hired in the field first. Now, just to add a little spice to this, if you had an office manager to help you with the second hire that we're gonna suggest All week long here and talking about your next hires, they'd be able to support that onboarding, support your specific SOPs for your business, support that that culture shift and embracing that new person on your team, and that's a pretty important piece. Otherwise, you're back to the inverse org chart, holding all the weight on your own and that's heavy on your shoulders alone. Yeah, thank you for that, especially now to go out and train your next hire, train that person in the field, while still trying to manage coming back to all the weight Of all those office work on the business tasks that are crippling you essentially and being the vampires to your livelihood. Here was the exception. If you knew someone that you had worked with a bunch before, if someone already knew your style, if someone already Understood your culture, if they already understood your vision, your mission, if they already understood your standard operating procedures that you haven't even articulated yet, then could it be a good idea, joe, to bring that person in to help you start installing and start training up the ladder in your business.

I mean yes, that person does sound like a unicorn for a lot of people who are listening. So I just want to play devil's advocate for all those who are listening, because a lot of that argument could be well, yes, if we found the perfect person, where would that person be Right? But what we've seen from a lot of our clients already is that, hey, I have an apprentice that I worked with that in old shop. Hey, I have a supervisor who wants to come and work for me. Hey, I have another person that we used to train together and they now said hey, you're on your own, let's do something. So if you've had that previous touch point, that's where these people usually are. They're not all under a rock. They're out working for someone else.

Yeah, exactly, and you likely didn't have to do a bunch of recruiting for that person, which is where we suggested before we're a lot of all-stars lie the people that would be congruent with your future, that would be congruent to help you with your day-to-day Operations. That's a really important distinguishment. What I'd like to point out is, from that perspective, people can come together almost like yourself and myself, joe, and be partner to an operation. Yep, now I've heard lots of people say partnerships are the fastest sinking ships. But you know what? Don't listen what we say, watch what we do. There's tons of evidence suggesting that partnerships can be powerful too, when done correctly, correct. So in this shift, in this exception to the first hire, I almost want to apply some of the partnership principles to help people decide whether that first hire is an acceptable risk or not.

Mm-hmm, I think it's a great way of going into it.

One of the reasons I can say that we work together so well and this will work you Generally, unanimously across the board is Joe is not me, I am not Joe. We're very different people, but we share values and share division and emission. So if you have that congruency, that's actually really powerful. The reason I started with us not being the same people is if we were the same people with the same strengths, how effective would this company be as a well-rounded venture?

It wouldn't. It would literally be like a single edge to knife. Yeah, it'll work, but it's not going to be as effective as if you had that on the range.

Even I've contemplated this with the podcast and actually I spoke to this and about this with my partner over a campfire on the weekend, well, looking at the stars, and it's very interesting. But I've said, you know, even the podcast would be different if we shared the strengths, if we had the same experience, same strengths. This podcast would actually be a debate channel and we would go back and forth about the technical and we'd be making our audience actually more of the technical jargon perfectionist electricians than less than in the more strategic electricians, with simple language that I feel we encourage today.

I agree.

That makes sense.

Yeah, no one wants to be in a situation where, like you're just listening to people argue about technical specifics. I mean, some people are into that and I wouldn't blame you for it. But we're not here to make you tighten the screw better. We're here to make you communicate your service better, so that you can achieve the premium service company you've always wanted to be in.

Definitely. I love that, and so we've had people even come forward and ask well, are partnerships a good idea? And I always start with a big smile because, again, we're in one. If they weren't, I wouldn't have put my bed on it, nor would Joe have so important distinguishment right off the bat. And again, if I could just highlight, if it's value centered and you have a difference in strengths, let's go into the strengths difference for a minute, if we can. Sure but I mean, let me involve you and not do a monologue even here. Put you on spot and see if you come up with the answer that I'm thinking right now.

Okay.

When you think of me and our differences, where do you see the complimentary difference that we have, Joe?

I see that you and I compliment each other in that we complete one whole pie. Now, what I mean by that is this you are the person who loves getting to 70, 80% of a particular topic. You can see it from the 30,000 foot view but your level to complete it is you can get it to 80% and then you typically like to move on to something else. With me, I am the hyper analytical OCD nut bag that I am. Where it's like, I complete one task to its 100% capability and I don't leave that task until it's my level of perfect. So, whereas you can initiate the initial topic, I then can fill in and make sure it's perfect, so that we're always in tandem. You start it, I complete it, you start it, I complete it. So that would be the first thing that comes to mind.

Yeah, I think you nailed it. You did extract that rape from my brain. It's like I buzzed it over to you on the airwaves that people aren't hearing. Okay, so you nailed it Exactly. If you know and I've heard this actually from one of my favorite podcasts, ed Milette, who was a big influence for me for many years, and he would jump on and do the odd solo one and he did this 15 minute spiel about where his company, world Financial Group, was going in the early years of it and he said I'm doing these team huddle meetings, right, like, get everyone amped up, let's go, have a great day, have a great week. And he looks around and realized that everyone is like big buff guys like him. He had built a football team, essentially right, and so everyone's yeah, yeah, let's go, and they're pumped up. But it was a team of yes, men. Everyone just loved Ed and being like Ed and they were Ed. So they just followed like Ed and brought the exact same strengths and all had the exact same vulnerabilities and so there was giant gaps in this company. This topic gets so big. I should be careful here because it really ties into kind of diversity and inclusion here too. But ultimately I want to challenge our listeners, our viewers, to recognizing the strengths, not just the experience and educations, that people have as assets on their resume. Does that make sense, joe?

I would agree. I think that it's one of those things where, if we can look at people based on the people they are and not the experiences that they've walked, it'll allow us to understand them better and better allocate people's abilities 100%.

And so one of the huge takeaways from, obviously, this exception to the first hire if you have that person in your network and they're able to come into your company and really, with a grain of salt, almost because you're not well organized yet, you're still figuring things out, you're still building this up and there's someone that can come in and be appreciative of that and help you build it up, those are often some of your strongest players that you could have. I mean, fundamentally, it's one of the reasons I think that even the office position sticks around so long is because they're often starting in that era and helping you build it up and having such a strong anchor role in this organization, I agree with you. Now, that said, if we're putting someone in the field something we're going to talk about this week, big time is and, of course, if you're following us and picking up all the pieces of our sales process, this industry is only premium service electrical process that actually identifies and solves the problems of homeowners to the extent of truly having a demand call process, the opportunity call process and differentiating the two and everything that's important about that. If you're following our lead on this stuff, then wouldn't it be difficult to bring someone in and say okay, go run a call, go sell to that person. What are your thoughts on that, joe?

So I see that that's a problem that so many people run into in our industry, where they're usually just getting someone off the like, off whatever hire they are, and their first thought is to say, all right, I'm going to get this person, get him in a van, let him go. They're already adjourned in a three, four years. They should know what they're doing. And then they send them out and then they don't understand why the customer experience isn't as stellar as if when they were there Doesn't quite click. So it's good to hire for skill I mean, it's good to hire for ability and train for skill but even when you hire for that skill, you've got to inspect to make sure that they have it on a well rounded and a facet that you could serve it to your customer on a platter.

Definitely, definitely, and that's what we're going to dive into all week, guys. So, first off, if you've got one of these people in your network and you know that they're complementary to your business and they're going to help you build it up A you don't need to make them a business partner to build a bright future. So if we can just say that and have that out of the way. Do you have any questions or additions to that piece, joe?

I would say you don't necessarily need a partner to have a better and bigger future. You need to always make sure that you leverage your abilities and the abilities of others, as long as your vision is going in the same direction.

Yeah, definitely the vision values big, huge piece. Now, if you're able to create a situation and again we've talked about it before using tools like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, recognizing what people need in their life and the journey that they're on, then you can create a congruent future for your business and for their personal life where you develop each other. You both get better and have so much to gain from that experience. This is a huge statement. I can't I cannot say it enough how important that is as a leader of a team. There is an example I'm thinking of in our client group where we encourage this exact tactic to actually keep a personal journal and check in with your people. Our client checked in with one of his young apprentices and it turned out they hadn't had a lot of connection before, but it turned out that this guy was doing a huge amount of lifting for his family at home and broke into essentially a bit of an emotional moment with our client. Now I know what a lot of you are thinking well, I don't want a big emotional moments with my people, but the fact that one of your guys could be that close to just breaking down and having one of those moments and you being the one to make them feel safe enough to have it, that's a huge relationship builder. Not to mention what our client gained from that engagement was knowing that, wow, this young man is actually staying at home and supporting his family. I know that this is someone that would be loyal to me too, that I could build a position around, a future around for that person. Go ahead, Joe.

I wanted to touch on that, to say that there's also an additional benefit to the actual relationship that you have in your culture, because you need to be the person that allows someone to come to you. Like, have you ever heard the concept they wear? Someone says my door is always open? Yes, your, physically, the door is not. So the main problem that comes down from this is that your client is no different than your employee. They need to see you in the same light. So, to stop doing a roundabout answer to this, what I'm trying to say is that you need to be the kind of person that your team can look at and say, yes, I trust this person being emotional with, because if you can get to that point now, there's an actual differential reason why they should stay with you, not just go someone else. So it's just an extra facet where, if you have a better culture, you can talk to your boss. You're more likely going to be able to explain things that aren't going right, which both improves the company and keeps the relationship with that tech longer.

I love that. Yeah, I think you hit it spot on, and Ben does too. Ben Davis, with us saying this is so good. Thank you, ben, for joining us. Thanks, I love you, brother. Keep rocking out there. Now, this whole week's built around this. We've given you the exception to the first hire. You can do it, and the reason that this becomes something that's more doable is because they can act more autonomously, meaning they can act more without you, while maintaining congruency with your vision, your mission, which means they'll be able to better pivot and act on impulse if the situation arises where they're still aiming to serve at the highest level, like you are. When putting the wrong person in this role, they don't quite have your values and vision. Down the level of micromanagement, you couldn't even leave them alone with the customer without knowing securely that they're not going to essentially fuck over your business land. You, the one-star review, jump on in, joe.

Yeah, no, that makes complete sense. A lot of times I've heard this and I've also experienced it myself. Where you can hire someone who you believe has all the skill, We've hired people in the past that were like, oh, I've been in electrician for 15, 20 years. It's like great, but when they're not delivering the experience, what they can physically do doesn't matter to the customer. It's like, yeah, you can hire the best person in the world, but if they don't make the customer so happy that they want to call them back, what good was that amazing quality work? Wouldn't it be more important to say I've hired someone that can stand out to an ability to say you know what? I would come back because of John. He was a great person. I felt like I trusted in my home. We had a great relationship. Compared to, he was all right, the work came out nice, but I was okay 100%.

Yeah, as you're saying that, I can't help. But you know what? I've never said this out loud before and maybe we'll get some people coming after us for this one but quality of relationship over quality of work. It's not to say that the work isn't quality, but it is to say that that relationship training's got to be in place, and I think that's a huge piece of this. If you want the kind of business that's able to charge hundreds of dollars an hour, beat all the value price objections, convey and build rapport and have long, lasting relationships where people review, refer and repeat with you, then you've got to have a process in place. Otherwise you'll never be consistent enough to delegate that, and this week I have a feeling we're gonna be touching on a bunch of that as well, as why even a rock star sales person can't come in and just be your sales person. There's no way that would work well, and we're gonna talk right through that, starting tomorrow with the problem around that, how to solve it and the benefits of doing so. I see you stemming, joe, ready.

I'm already pumped about this week. As I think about it, I can already hear people going what do you mean? The sales person is not gonna be right. What do you mean? That you have to like? I was the guy who did great quality work but still couldn't sell because we couldn't communicate. So you can be doing the best work ever, but if your values are communicated to your client, they're not gonna buy. And I'm literally having to reel myself back in for all these things, because I know those three topics. We can talk hours on.

Definitely, man can't wait. Let's end this one, though. We're over the twenty minute mark. We gotta shut it down, for we get too long. Couple action items, joe. What do you think you want? An all star? Do you want an action? Do you have anything in mind?

Give me the all star, if you're okay with that okay, here's the action for today.

I want you guys, I want to encourage you To really think about this leadership piece. Okay, thinking time, something we've touched on before. But think about what we said just moments ago. Good leaders know their teams, they know the individuals of the team and they know how to enact the individuals to become and work towards that team. If you currently have people out there who are not at their best, I want you to use this acronym and explore why and what's going on With the simple four letters are you okay? Are you okay? How do you start that conversation? Pretty simple make time for a sit down. Hey, can we talk for a minute? Yeah, what's on your mind? Hey, what's going on? How are you doing? Are you okay? Is everything good with you? It's that simple. A trusting relationship will begin to break down and allow some room there to deal with the stuff that makes them not okay and that stuff that was going to get in the way anyway. I think that's really helpful for people to understand. Joe, you got an all star yeah.

so first of all, I was certainly just nodding in the background because I love what you're saying and I really can imagine so many people in the background wondering like well, it's got a more complicated than that, right. So my all star action is to counteract that argument, right? So a lot of times people say how do I initiate that conversation? What do I gotta do? How do I break it down to that point If you didn't take the time to build the relationship, it would already be hard. So my all star action to you is actually a moment of reflection. Is there anyone in your company that you feel that if you were to call them out to lunch today to say, hey, and today I'm getting some lunch, I want you to come with me. With any employee in your company, think of that as they're getting punished. That's the all star assignment right there. Because if you can recognize that if you were to call someone to take a month to lunch and they think they're getting in trouble, that's the first time you actually haven't built a relationship enough to where you couldn't actually do that. And if that's the case now, at least you know where you need to follow, where you solve that.

Definitely, man. Really good, really good stuff. This has been another episode, episode one hundred sixty eight of electric printer secrets, the premium service electricians podcast that became a month a mouthful when I put the premium service in there. Guys were here for another four days this week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. To join us again tomorrow To unpack this a little bit more and really dive deep on it. Cheers Joe, cheers everyone. All the best, you all take care.