EP90: How To Be A Recruiting Powerhouse With Nathan France

Yeah, my dad came back from Vietnam, adopted 13 of us, and I'm one of those 13. So, you know, just kind of grew up that way, kind of that Catholic, Christian, integrity, hard work, military. You know, while my dad was in the Army Reserves, he was also a police officer. You know, we were trying to do a little farming. My dad had met my mom in the army. So my mom was a nurse, just the best, hardest working, best people. You know, that real salt of the earth, Midwest work ethic and integrity. But man, I remember having patches on my clothes, right? I remember getting picked on at school because, you know, you just weren't dressed very well. And I remember thinking to myself that, look, I need to find a way through the skills that I have to be able to earn more money. Right. I need more tools. It's like going to the job site and going, man, I could make this happen with a flat bar and hammer. I can make a lot of things go. But if we if I had a chop saw instead of a hand saw, man, this would be going a lot easier right now. You know, just that kind of feeling. So fast forward, I met my wife in high school. My wife went to school to work in pharmacy and I went right into the trades. It was the first time for me that you could point in a direction. And the harder you work, typically, the more you got paid. And I loved it. That led to construction sales because you're seeing these guys pull up in the big lifted trucks. They're never dirty. Like, man, they're making more money. And I was never jealous by that. I'm just like, look, these guys have information that I don't have. Right. They know something that I don't know. And in that 18,19 year old window, I started just asking better questions. I actually got recruited by one of the owners. He's like, look, it's pretty simple. If you're coachable and teachable and I can show you a process and you're willing to do it, it's no different than hanging drywall. You don't not hang it in studs, right? You don't hang it into framing. Now, are you using screws or nails? I mean, there's just a process to it. Are you using four by eight sheets? Are you using four by tens, four by twelves? You know, what's the process? So I remember working with him the first two weeks going, I'm not doing this right because I'm not making any money, right? I hadn't made any money. There really wasn't a per diem or anything like that back then. It was just, you needed to learn this and the faster you could catch on, the more money you made. But I remember just asking the other guys that were doing it that were older than me, right? I'm late teens now and I'm going, dude, does this work? They're like, it works for everybody if you just do it long enough. You just got to be here excited long enough. And my third week, I finally hit my stride. And the only reason it worked was all of the other sales guys had left to go deer hunting. It was about this time and they're like, look, there's a stack of leads. There's nobody left to run them. And I love to hunt too, by the way. I was going to go deer hunting with my dad and they're like, well, look, there's nobody left to run them. Do you want to stay and run all these leads? I'm like, I got to figure this out. I got to make some doubt. So hit my stride, worked that entire weekend, ran all the leads and it just finally clicked for me. Right people, right time, right process. And man, I haven't looked back since.

Well, you know, I think my story is very common in what we do, right? Great people raise great people. Now, side note, right? My dad had some challenges coming back from Vietnam, right? And those challenges definitely spilled over into me. But those things like the drive piece, the don't quit, the man, this seems like it's hard. but it's never going to really be as hard as that was. So the times you were like, look, man, this is pretty tough, right? Like this, man, I just don't know how we're going to figure this out. You're like, ah, this is nothing compared to some of those stories, if that makes sense. So I'm really thankful that actually all that stuff happened to me because it really happened for me. Because it like, man, you probably would have just given up a lot sooner because you just didn't really know what hard was. So growing up in that hard environment, I mean, there were times in the summertime, there's all these farms out by where we live. And my parents would be like, look, I remember being 12 years old and they're like, look, if you really genuinely want the stuff that you keep asking us for, go work on one of these truck farms. So my brothers and I would be out on the truck farm and I'm 12 years old working with adult Hispanic males. And the first thing that they would do is kick eight kinds of dog crap out of us every day. I mean, man, you'd be loading a truck and you'd get a rock the size of an apple winged in the back of your head. Right. And when you kind of came to, it was those males, right? Those adult males. Cause you're like, you're taking away from them, right? You're out there working on the farm. But once those guys saw our work ethic and they kind of heard our story, right? They're like, okay, I'm just going to beat on these guys a little bit less. But the why in the drive was so high because I'm like, look, I was picturing in my head. not getting picked on at school anymore for my clothes, right? I was picturing in my head all of those pieces. It's like, dude, you guys are going to have to light me on fire and leave me for dead in a ditch for me not to do this because I know why I'm doing this. So those things moving forward, those farm kid work ethics, right? Those great parents instilling you, it paid massive, massive dividends in the business world.

Man, I can tell you some of this stuff. We've made these mistakes. And some of the things, it's not really happening to you. It's really happening for you to teach you the lesson. And once you got the lesson, you can scale this out for the next 20,30 years. So the faster you can catch some of these lessons, the faster you can make it go. One of the things with recruiting, you know, let'd be an example. Let's use a dating example. Let's say a guy is a one, right? We'll pick on him a little bit, right? This was me back before I had any soft skills. right? I literally had three hairs growing off of my face, didn't wear any deodorant, right? Kind of had, you know, the shaggy top, maybe a little bit of a mullet even growing in the back, you know, wasn't worried about wearing a clean shirt. You know what I mean? I just wouldn't worry about any of that stuff. And when I wanted to start, you know, noticing all of these gals, so like my gal that I married, Jen, was the homecoming queen at our school. And actually, the school we went to had about a thousand kids in every grade, so it was a big school. And I remember the first time I actually called her, I had to tell her who it was. And she's like, I don't know who that is. Right. I mean, she wasn't picking on me. She's like, I don't I don't know who this is. So that those are like those defining moments where you're like, all right, I need to become a person that can attract someone like that. So in your business, if. you're trying to attract, let's call them, you know, zero is the worst,10 is the best. You're trying to attract sixes, eight, you know, sevens, eight, nines, and tens. You yourself have to become the person that will attract those people. Because if you're not that person, you're not going to attract those people. I mean, they may even come in for a little bit and go, look, I like what you're doing. I can see the money here. But, you know, Nate's never on time, doesn't ever pay me on time, puts me last. I can just see this stuff and I see how he treats his subs. I see how he treats his trade partners. I see how he treats his wife and kids. I see how he treats his house. I see how he treats his truck. I see how the guy treats his tools, right? Like, you know, if it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. And what begins to happen is they start to build these, these beliefs in, I call them like these five core beliefs of recruiting. So they look at their industry. I'm just going to pick one roofing, right? A lot of times when you say roofing, people are like, oh man, dirty, scuzzy, beat up truck, taillight warranties. These just aren't good dudes. However, the roofing industry in the last 10,15 years has gone radically different, right? But if they have those core beliefs built into them about their industry, now they're coming up again to meet me to go, okay, do I want to be part of this industry? And again, they're looking at Nate's got this. Beautiful truck. He's got a beautiful house, presents himself well. His customers love him. The reviews are great. They're like, man, I've got the wrong belief about this industry. The next thing is about the company. Again, people have predisposed notions about the company. So let's just go again roofing. Let's say the guy's already selling or installing or project managing for a different roofing company. And they look up and then the first thing they do is maybe they go look at Better Business Bureau. They look at Google for the reviews. They look at their Facebook and social media. And they're like, look, the guy's got one one star review, says he's been in business for 10 years. Right. No branding for the company. Man, I'm supposed to go out and work for these guys. The first thing I do, I'm going to pull up in a beat up old Dodge ProMaster and it's going to be harder for me than it has to be. Now, let's go to company B. And company B has. you know, let's just say 25 five-star reviews, right? They don't have to have a million, but they've got a handful of five-star reviews. Their website is crisp, right? Their vehicles are wrapped. They don't have like a magnet stuck on the side. And I'm not picking on the people that do. But at the same token, when the guy pulls up and they're like, this guy ain't going fishing this weekend and pulled the magnet off, right? This is what they do, right? That's like when the plumber pulls up, he's got the vehicle wrapped, he's dressed right, he's got his tools in his hand. You're like, okay, this guy's here to do business, right? This isn't, I'm not even sure this guy's even a plumber, right? The next thing is going to be the products. The products that they sell, believe it or not, matter, right? I'm just going to pick on the upper Midwest. Every time somebody comes out with a product, let's say like fiber cement, when they started coming out with fiber cement up here 20 years ago, they gave it a 50-year warranty on labor,50-year warranties on materials,50-year warranties on the paint finish. Now they've changed that warranty seven, eight times and they've actually discontinued the product completely in Canada. Right. So again, let's say somebody's had a bad experience with that type of product and your company is selling it and telling everybody how great it is. And they're reading the install manual and going, you guys aren't even putting this stuff up. Right. The belief goes down. And again, I'm trying to attract these type of people. So last two that are the easier two are the people in the profit. Profit can be. on these five core beliefs for people. It can be how they get paid. It could be a spiritual connection. It could be they love to work with veterans, right? Profit doesn't have to be money, but it has to be compensation drives behaviors, kind of what we call this. How are they being compensated? I actually have a pastor of a really big church who works with me and he loves the integrity of the company, right? He actually had a bad experience in the industry. So we worked on that. He loves the products we sell, right? He loves the company. He loves the people that we work with and the profit. The reason that he's here is he used the funding that he makes in construction and in the industry to help fund his church, right? To help fund more mission work. So the profit though has to be clear on how people are being compensated, right? They want to know two plus two is four. It needs to be crystal clear. And the last one is the people, right? It's not just the CEO. It's not just the install team, right? It's like everybody. moving on a common purpose and common beliefs and common goals and these core beliefs that can really move it forward. So not only does that help with recruiting the people that you want, but it really helps them stay.

Well, especially right now, because what's happening in this space, let's call it 2023, because we're right on the precipice, right? Of 2023. What's happening right now is people are just grabbing at straws, right? They're like, look, I could scale my business. If I had 10 solid people, I could, man, I could, we could really blow and go. but they can't even get two people necessarily to apply. So of the two people that applied, they're like, look, I'm going to take the better of the two. I'm not even hiring the right guy necessarily, but I need a body there. It's kind of like if you're an NFL fan right now, right? There's been so many injuries this year that some of these teams have like the guy who was hanging groceries last week is now on the field on a professional sports team, right? And the rest of us get out in the field and believe it or not, it's like you almost shouldn't hire anybody, right? You should almost go back into your existing team and go, look, what is balance for you? Is that more family time? Is that more work-life balance? Some of us, that's more checkbook balance, right? They need more checkbook. I mean, I've got guys that instead of hiring more people, we've gone inward into the team rather than bringing on that man or woman who just, you can feel it, right? I mean, you can almost see it coming a mile away. And you say to the team, you go, look, option A, we can hire more people, but we may not have the right talent pool. So that could disrupt the team. So is there something that we can do as a company, maybe flip the hours, right? Maybe they have Monday, Tuesday off so they can get the kids on the bus. But then Saturday, Sunday, when they weren't going to be busy anyway, they can work a 16 hour day, Saturday and Sunday. And we're all going to do some of this as a team. We're going to stage materials. We're going to bring the heat. But you're 100% right. I mean, sometimes in this economy, you're grasping at straws. So hiring the wrong person, but I haven't ever seen that work. As a matter of fact, it seems like it almost hurts those five core beliefs, right? The belief in the company, they're like, they hired this guy, right? So the belief in the company goes down. Belief in the quality of the product we're installing, belief goes down. Belief in the people. And of course, belief in the profit goes down because the first thing that they do is ask that guy, how much are they paying you? Right. And of course, they can't ever keep that to themselves. Like, oh, man, I make 25 bucks an hour. And the guy who's making 30 is like, are you kidding me? You know, this guy shouldn't be working here. So really putting some thought into who we're working on attracting almost pays better dividends than just bringing somebody in. So to flip that, how we countered that is we're like, look, we want to start with the right people. So literally we didn't have like the disc assessment or, you know, anything cool like that back. We did it like construction guys would do construction guys, sit back and go, look, okay, if I'm going to build a house, you're like, what kind of house, right? How many square feet is it going to be a walkout? What kind of foundation, what part of town? Right. So we just started going, look, let's draw these people up on the board. You know, it's not a race thing. It's more of a culture thing, right? If I'm trying to have a guy who can carry. iron, like if you've ever carried iron, just the buckets of rivets alone can be 75 to 150 pounds. Well, I can have the guy who weighs 75 pounds right out of high school, like I used to weigh. And they're like, dude, this guy's got the best intention. He's out there working hard. He's trying to make it happen, but he's just not strong. And I mean, you know, they'd give me maybe a little sand bucket, like they'd give a little kid to carry these rivets around it. Right. So you didn't necessarily hire the right guy. Right. So you're like, look, what attitude traits did these guys have, right? Or even women, right? What size did they need to be to do this job, right? If I hire an old school guy who hates computers, and I'm trying to, let's say, get them to use a CAD program, they're going to be frustrated. And so am I. They're like, look, man, I needed a job, but I hate computers. Well, you probably don't want to hire somebody into your CAD program company, right? If they hate computers and engineering, you might have hired the wrong person. If you can nail that piece, here's the second piece that's awesome. When you nail that piece, birds of a feather tend to flock together. And one of our companies, we got this amazing dude. He actually leaves the company on a regular basis because he's an NFL player. He actually gets on scout teams, gets a chance to play here and there. He's just this massive 6 '3",350-pound muscle guy. who loves to play college and high school and then onto the nfl so we love him because he's got the right work ethic but we've got a flexible program and support for him because he comes in and out of our company on a regular basis to go play in the nfl now guess what all of the guys who have gotten out or gotten injured he's constantly recruiting those guys into the program he's like look man i'm i'm making great money these guys support me They're hitting all of these five core beliefs. I know how we're making great money. They're great people to work with. It's a great company, right? They sell great products and install great products. And they're in an industry that maybe you haven't heard of. But man, you need to come take a look at this thing. So he's one of our best advocates. But now he's also recruiting people that already have the attributes, the attitude, and the aptitude that we're looking for.

Yeah, you could get lucky. You could get real lucky. Let's use law enforcement as an example or farm kids, right? Or ex-military veterans, right? You're already digging into a talent pool where they're looking for camaraderie, right? They're looking for, you got my back. I got your back. You're looking for, look, If you're on time, you're late, right? They're already thinking that way. Now, you ever heard the draft horse analogy where a draft horse, like the big Budweiser type draft horse, typically can pull about 1,000 pounds by itself. But if you put two of them together, you're like, well, that's 2,000 pounds. The synergy that's created from those two horses, typically they can pull 3,000 pounds. You're like, well, that doesn't make any sense. One can only do 1,000. Why together can they do three? So that's that camaraderie and that mentality and that attitude. And then the aptitude that comes with it, because these people want to learn, they want to grow, they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. And the whole company can generally, all of a sudden, it just goes to the moon.

You know, that's a great question. So it's almost like a master business mastery level question. You know, let's just throw it back to dating. You know, my wife and I, I've almost been married now for 30 years. And that's almost in 2023, impossible to say. Unless you've got somebody who's, you know,60,70 grandma, great grandma, they're doing that. very few people under the age of 50 do you run into somebody who's like that anymore. And one of the things that I've focused on is for me first, my physical health, right? My mental health, my spiritual health. I focused on those pieces because you really can't give something or influence something that you're not doing or have, right? It's like trying to tell your kids, hey, right, don't do that. I don't want you to ever smoke or drink. And there's dad with a Marlboro Budweiser in one hand and a Red Bull in the other, right? They're going to watch what you do. So it's hard to build trust in the people that you're trying to keep if you're not trustworthy. If you're trustworthy, your people will come to you first and they'll go, look, here's reality. You know, I was at a networking event. I know this other company on the end of town. They're already offering more money. If there's trust there, you can lay it out, you know, almost on a bar napkin presentation and go, look, here's what we pay you to do, right? And by the way, that shouldn't be just on a bar napkin, right? Like once a year, we should be sitting down with them going, look, five years from now, where do you want to be when Jesus comes back, right? You can't sometimes control the wind, but like Jim Rohn says, you can control the setting of the sail into the wind, right? Name it where you want to go. So if they've got bigger aspirations, I know I did. I just didn't know even what they were. I'm 18,19 years old getting started in this deal and I'm going, man, all I need to know is how I can work harder and make more money. I wasn't into personal development. I wasn't CEO having done all of this great work all over the country for almost three decades. I wasn't that person. I didn't even know that person existed yet. So if I could give you some bullet points, one of those things would be having that person, one, having what their outcome is. and what the company's outcome is. So we've agreed to this. We put it in writing. Again, think of that core belief of the profit. That should be crystal clear. You're doing these things. We do these things. I got your back. Company's got your back. Here's how we pay. Here's why we pay that way. And oh, by the way, you told me that over the next one to three years, you want to become a person that can lead a framing crew. You don't want to just be a framer. You want to lead a framing crew. You don't just want to be a project manager. You're watching guys in our company lead 10,15 other project managers, right? Now, here's what that means. And oh, by the way, next month, I want you to intern with our number one guy so you can see what that actually entails. Kind of a funny story. When my daughter was younger, she pulled me aside when she was about 12 and says, look, dad, I want to be a marine biologist. I'm watching these shows, right? This is just awesome. Go out and change the world. And I'm like, well, look, we went and lived on a 65-foot sailboat. for almost a month with a group of marine biologists. When that got done, my daughter's like, there's no way. I ain't doing this. There's things I love about it, right? But what they think is going to happen oftentimes isn't what happens, right? Like if you pull that person aside and they go, oh man, I'll give you $10 million to come work here. All they heard was $10 million. Now they've never had $10 million. So they don't know the type of person you need to become. to earn $10 million. It's like the gentleman that just won that $2 billion lottery. God bless him. I'm so excited for him and his family. But now you have to become a person that can keep $2 billion, right? You don't have the skills. They're instantly attracted to the financing and the significance of a great vice president of the universe, all these great titles. But when it comes to, we call it in the farm, nut cutting time, right? Like you're neutering hogs or whatever, right? It's nut cutting time. You ain't going back. Well, a lot of times the company they were with, the grass wasn't greener on the other side. It was greener where you water it. So they're at the company with great integrity. They just didn't get clarity on the profit side. If they'd just taken a minute and got some clarity on the profit side, they're actually probably working at the company that they want to be at.

Yeah.

What's interesting is that as a leader in your business, it's almost like you're the admiral of the Navy, right? You're not just running a ship, you're running all these different ships. And what quality people appreciate is you seeing almost like if you're playing baseball, the stitches on the fastball, you can see it coming in. So like that gentleman just said, he goes, look, he probably said to the client, he goes, look, this is how we do that. So you don't come out here on Thursday and go, what the heck? It's Thursday. Why aren't there any guys out here? Right? Well, remember we talked about that. Hey, our four day weekend's coming up. So this week it's going to be gorgeous Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but right the guy's busted hump so they're not gonna be there so the client has the right expectations right they're not like well what a bunch of slackers they're not here on the job site uh from a leadership perspective i don't have to lean on my guys very often to say look we have to be out there on your day off because we didn't get this done matter of fact let's say hypothetically bad weather we're two weeks behind you're gonna say to the team you're gonna go look we're two weeks behind on this everybody knows it So we got to get this done. That's the outcome for all of us. Now, option A, we can work an extra two hours a day for the next week. Option B, we can work extra on our days off, right? Here's option A, here's option B. You guys tell me what works the best for everybody. And you know what? We're going to agree that we don't like it, but it is what it is. This is the business that we're in, but we're going to decide as a team how we do this. Now, granted, sometimes just the boss needs to be the boss and you got to tell people, look, this is just how it is. But in 2022,2023, if you're trying to keep high caliber teams, you're building it collaboratively versus like a dictator, right? Gone are the days you come in and tell everybody, hey, this is what's up. They're like, look, I don't need it. I'm just going to go work somewhere else.

Well, look, we do it already. in the construction space with our clients, right? Clients love options, right? Let's say a plumber comes out to a house for a leaky toilet, right? Okay, that's a $300 service call. But properly trained plumbers give in the homeowner options. They're like, look, I know you called me out here for this call. This isn't an upsell. I need you to show you everything that's going on with your beautiful property. You know, can I do that? They're going to say, sure. So you do a water quality test. And you're like, look, just so you know, it's coming. There's so much chlorine and coagulants in your water. The reason that your toilet is failing is your water for your house is eating your plumbing. So here's option A. It's $20,000 for a new water quality system. Option B, I can just put in a carbon filter, let's say for six. Option C, I can replace your toilet. It's $1,000 because it's already eaten the guts out of this thing. Option D, right, I can put a new flapper in for 300 bucks. And that's actually why you called me. Which option serves you best? And some of the clients are just going to go with the 300 bucks. But what the plumber who's been doing it a long time figured out is, look, I don't even care which one you pick. I'm not trying to sell you. When you call me in a month and say, look, that flapper you put in my toilet is junk and you ruined my toilet, I think, when you replaced it. See, that's what they're thinking. The right plumbers think that they're going to get that call. And they're going to say, hey, Mr. Jones, take a look at that option sheet. Remember when we did the water quality, you're just confused, right? You look at that water quality test. Again, that's why that new flapper. Now I'd be happy to come put the toilet in or the carbon filter, the water quality. But no, I'm not sending out one of the guys for free to do that because remember, it's the water wreck in your house. It's not the plumber. Again, that stitches on the fastball we just talked about. So now translate that to your employees. you can come in there because you are the boss, like a herd of stallion. And look, sometimes it's an emergency. You know, the furnace is out. It's minus zero degrees, man. We got to go, right? Sometimes that does happen. But again, if you're giving your employees options, you're doing some planning, you're doing some forecasting for your business. And you say things to your team like, and sometimes this has to even be individually. Some of these young guys don't, they don't care about a retirement plan. They don't care about medical benefits. They're like, look, I want to see commas and zeros on my check every single week. I ain't married with the kids and I don't care about any of that stuff. I want as much money in my pocket every single week. Well, they're basically like a client. They're telling you how to serve them. There's another guy who's like, look, I need a 401k. I need medical benefits for me, my wife, my two kids. I'd love to have a work vehicle with a gas card. Right. How do I do those things? Because that may reduce my taxable income as an employee. There's other guys that pull you aside and say, look, I don't want to be an employee for you at all. I want to be a 1099 sole proprietor, right? I want to run a small business inside your business plan. How can we do that? So is that more days off? Is that like you were describing four tens? I know guys, they've got a almost like a special operations construction team. That they're like, look, the last week of the month, everybody is tapped. But if you're not tapped, we're going to go hit another 80 hours. Right. We're going to go in on like four 18s at the end of the month. And we're going to go hard, knock some of this stuff out. And here's how much it pays. Right. Compensation drives behavior. And there's a lot of guys who are like, look, with the holidays coming up, they're going to pull their wife or girlfriend aside and say, look, you know, instead of buying more lottery tickets. I've worked inside this compensation plan. They've got a program that I can go put in extra time and we're not stressed out over how we're going to pay the gas bill this month. Right. We're not going to pay the grocery bill because they've laid out options for me to go do that. And here's what's interesting. When you lay out those options, what I find most of the time happens, people that want to leave, they leave. Why did they leave? They just want to leave. That's OK. That does happen. Sometimes people that stay, you're like, man, why did that guy stay? He just. He loved it. We listened to him. He loves us. We love him. They just stay. So people that go, go. So people that stay, stay. But if you've laid it out this way, I'm not giving them any reason to go. Plus, they don't have any time to go research another company. If they're fulfilled, their needs are being met. They're probably realistically going to stay.

Well, the word's probably transparency. I remember doing this in the nineties, right? Like, okay, we're going to sit down, have a negotiation. You know, you don't ever have to lie for me, but you know, don't share this stuff. This isn't, this is proprietary. Don't go to the job site and talk about this. Well, guess what? The first thing they do after you get back is they talk about it. Right. Yeah. And sometimes it's a little braggish. Right. So what we started doing is we started going, look, full transparency. You guys can talk about this anyway. Here's full transparency. Here's what everybody gets. There are no secrets. Here's what every single person gets. It's like on Instagram or TikTok, they have that guy who does the welding. Right. So he brings in a welder and he goes, look at this weld. How much should I pay you? And they're like, I don't know,32 bucks an hour plus a per diem. Right. It's so transparent that if all of a sudden that guy starts to suck or he's the best, they move them up in the process. They move them up in the system. Now, here's what's interesting about that. Compensation does drive behavior, but the speed of the leader now becomes the speed of the pack. They know the guy that's making 45 bucks an hour. He's got a brand new vehicle that he drives home every day with a gas card. His phone is paid for, right? I mean. Dude's always got the best swag. He's got a great per diem. Well, you don't pay that guy, right? It's almost like he's your Walter Payton, right? He's your top guy on your whole team who's dragging the team with him every day. As a matter of fact, we're lucky to have him because usually those guys have a great attitude because they, you know, it's like Arnold used to say, he doesn't pick fights with people because the biggest guy at the gym already knows he can beat everybody up, right? He's not out picking fights. So that guy typically on the crew already knows. that none of these guys can compete. You know, I love a Kobe Bryant quote. When he would, Kobe would get there early, he'd work his face off, right? And then the team would show up. He'd work his face off with the team. And when they were coming out of the locker room, all freshened up, right in the suit, looking good, Kobe's still out there playing. So one of the players came over to him and just like, look, man, I just, I got to know. What's your deal? What's your shtick? Why are you doing that? Kobe looks him right in the eyes and he says, you know what? I'll tell you why. I want you feeling like you feel right now, no matter how hard you work, you will never be as good as I am. Right. And just stone cold. I mean, that's a, that's a pretty, uh, pretty confident statement, right? The difference between cocky and confidence ability to back it up. So those people, they already know that, right? They already know that they're working hard. They can do a great job. They're coming in early. They don't mind coaching and teaching, right? So they're at the top of the pay scale. Well, I want what that guy has. That guy goes, look, here's what I did for the last 10 years. I studied our trade. I watched YouTube videos, right? I went to symposiums. I went to class. I worked for free. Back in the Bible, what they would do is say, in like biblical days, if your dad wanted you to be a Mason or you thought you wanted to be a Mason, you went and lived with a Mason for two years, made no money, and you ate, slept, and dreamt Masoner, right? They gave you room and board. That's it. So you could just learn the basics of masonry. So if a guy in our comp plan comes in and he's like, look, I'm the best guy you've ever seen. We're like, that's awesome. We're going to bring you in for two weeks, right? You're going to get a normal industry standard wage. And after two days, if you're supposed to move up, this isn't a deal. After the first day, if you're supposed to be moving up, we're thinking about moving you up, right? But what we found is the guys usually who are blowing hot air. They come in, hey, I'm the best thing since sliced bread. Rarely is that ever the case. And as a matter of fact, they're usually we don't hire those guys because they're a disruption to the team, right? They spend more time working their jaw muscle than they do their regular muscles. So to back to that question of, you know, how do we compensate people correctly? Well, if you've got full transparency across the team, again, Bill's our best guy, right? It's hard to compete with Bill. That guy could run a crew, do everything that four other guys can do. Well, Bill deserves to be compensated for that. And now you can also say to Bill, you go, look, we're actually going to add a little bit more to your comp plan because we know we're putting you with three guys that are not at your level. But we'd like you to work with them for the next 12 months and help us bring up not only their attitude, but their aptitude. Right. We want four bills in the next one to three years. But it's going to take probably one to three years to get them at that guy's level. So every day they come in and say, look, I want to raise. Like, OK, well, let's let's grab a genuine conversation with Bill and see what the last 30 days have been like. Did they come on time? Well, they don't. They have to leave early every day. They sure do. You know, this is the pace, how many square feet they were doing, how many they're doing now. Oh, they're actually doing less. So actually. man, we either a, we're going to give you a chance to fix this or B I have to move you down or move you out. Right. It's like real time. It isn't like, almost like you're watching a professional sports team because they watch the matches. They watch the sport. They find out real quick, right? It's full transparency. You got 50 cameras on you every day. They know real quick if you're delivering or not, or if they're supposed to be looking for somebody else.

do. We try to keep our business very, very transparent, very clear. We use the words from Tony Giri. Tony Giri is just a success coach. Tony has about a hundred books on personal development and he breaks it down to three words, clarity, focus, and execution. Every person on your team down to the guy who's just a courier, crystal clear on what they're supposed to be doing, right? From the 50,000 foot view as a company, the courier drives a certain way, right? He washes his truck a certain way. At the gas station, he acts a certain way, right? Because you're branded, right? You're an extension of us. So the lowest guy in the totem pole from the 50,000 foot view knows our values and knows how to act and knows what's a deal breaker. down to what is the next delivery? How do I park? How do I present myself to the homeowner? How do we knock? Our company uses the old shave and a haircut knock. We all do these things the same. Now, on clarity, focus, and execution, is there always going to be somebody most likely that's in charge of a project? Of course there is. But again, every piece of that puzzle is crystal clear on what they're supposed to be doing, what their outcome is. the execution. So we try to stay very linear, right? Literally, let's say we've got four guys on a job and there is a foreman on that job. The foreman really doesn't have to do much. Like, Hey, what are we doing next? Well, what, what do you think we're supposed to be doing next is very common for our guys to say, we're supposed to be doing this. Well, why are you asking me? Right. It's like the, you bet you got, right? It's like, we're not going to holiday for more monsters and, uh, and lunch, you know, the next step in the process. Now, here's where it gets fun. When you've got those people executing at that high level, the projects go really clean. They go really fast. There rarely is something that gets left behind or missed because they know what the next step in the process already is. Leadership can be a tricky thing because if they're constantly having to rely on the leader, what happens when that guy is late? He calls in sick. Well, I got to wait here until Bill tells me what to do. Well, if Bill wasn't here, what would you be doing? Well, I'd be doing this. Well, man, get started.

Yeah, common sense just isn't as common as it used to be. So again, clarity. A job site starts this time of year at 7 a. m., let's say. Okay, so you're arriving at 645, right? You're on the clock, but the arrival time is 645. Here's how we park. In the summertime, let's say you get a lot of condensation off your vehicles. So a homeowner or a property owner may construe that as a leak in a vehicle, right? Rather than just water and dirt coming off. So here's how you park. Here's where the bathroom goes, right? We live in a digital world now too, where everybody's got a camera, everybody's got a smartphone, they got... 50 smartphones on their house. So all of this data is being recorded, right? So again, if you're the guy who pulls up and you got 50 Red Bulls laying across the top, right? You're having a cigarette. It's just, it's so prototypical of every Instagram video that they've watched. So they're like, okay, here we go. This is why I hate having people come to my house. Or when you pull up, they're like, okay, this is different, right? This guy actually looks like for a change, he knows what he's doing. So you go to ask them for a... the sale right you go to ask them for hey let's do that final walk through as a tradesman they're like whatever this guy tells me i'm in these guys are phenomenal so if you have that culture in place and you have those philosophies people can still be themselves right don't not be you you have your beliefs you have the way you like to do it you have the way you like to present but don't miss the forest for the trees right like these common sense practical treat people the way that they would like to be treated, it just, man, it just pays itself in spades. And if you flip that back to compensation drives behavior, you're like, look, there's the guy on our team, right? There's the top guy in the NFL, whoever that is today. That guy makes $50 million a year. Do you want to be that guy? Okay. Well, that guy works 90 hours a week. That guy doesn't leave a job site. If there's a speck of dirt on there, that guy doesn't leave, right? That guy does a final walkthrough. with every, oh, I don't like to talk to clients, right? You know, that isn't what I do. I'm a painter, man. I don't talk to people. I just go in and paint. Well, the top painter in our company, he doesn't leave the job site. Matter of fact, he's had us come up with the process sheet that he wants them to sign off on it, that every single thing was right. He went through it. He turned on all the lights to the house. He brings the lighting system in. So there's no stone unturned. That guy's doing a real walkthrough. Well. If you want to get paid the way he does, you just got to do what he does. It's not like any of this stuff's a secret.

I usually start with my psychiatrist joke. I go, how many psychiatrists has it changed a light bulb? And they're like, you know, don't know. Well, one, right? Now it's going to take a long time. It's going to be expensive. And the light bulb has got to want to what? Change. So if you're satisfied where you're at, then keep doing it, right? Most of us have figured out, though, that when you're green, you're growing. When you're ripe, your business is starting to rot. I remember getting introduced to Think and Grow Rich. early, early on in my career and reading about this lumberyard magnet, right? This huge conglomerate guy, and he's trying to sell lumber during the depression, right? So obviously not going very well. And literally he's like, look, here's how I got out of it. I would sit in my chair for 30 minutes every single day. And all I would think about is five years from now, when this depression's over, how are people going to be doing and growing their business five years from now? And if you like the results of your business, put it this way, you're never going to change, right? People hate change for some reason. Those of us have figured out like, what is the one thing that's actually consistent in your life? It's change, right? It's going to change. So if you're green, you're constantly going to grow. Most business owners that you and I sit with, they come to me and they say, look, I'll tell you all the problems. I'm like, well, look, are you actually open to the solutions? Because it sounds like this is an impossible task that nobody can figure out. Well, then it's going to stay that way. It's almost like, especially with guys, we lose our keys, right? Or we can't find something around the house, right? So I catch myself doing this. Go to my wife and go, hey, like, where's the salt, right? I can't find the salt. She's like, hey, it's in the cupboard. I'm like, look, I got the cupboard open. I can't see the salt. It's not there. I can't find it. Can't see it. It's like, look, second shelf behind there. And I'm like, look, I still can't see it. She'll walk over, pull it. Here's the salt. You're telling yourself that you can't solve something. Your body and your mind will react to that, right? Whatever you speak is what you're going to speak into existence. So fortunately or unfortunately, if you just change that mindset into a growth mindset, I hear this all the time. Look, there's almost 400 million Americans now and I can't find anybody to work. There's not one person in 400 million, right? It's like the guy who pulls it or a gal who pulls aside and say, hey, there's no good guys out there. There's 200 million guys. There's 3.5 billion men on the earth. and there isn't one good one, you see them go, well, that can't be true. Right? See, you have to be careful what you think about you will bring about. But they got to want to.

Yeah, so Nathan, N-A-T-H-A-N-J. France, like the country. So NathanJFrance. com. Basic email that I probably checked the most or my team checks the most is just Nathan at TJ, T like Tom, J like John. So TJConstructionMN. com. That one gets checked on a regular basis. I do want to say this, brother, as we tie that in. What I love about Hammer and Grind is collaboration is where the world is going. It used to be, look, just in Minnesota alone, In the Minneapolis Twin Cities area, there's over 16,000 guys that are licensed to do any type of general contracting. And yet there's plenty of work for everybody. So having a podcast like that you have and the information and bringing these top people in the industry together so we can collaborate just makes us all better, brother. So I really appreciate you having me.

You know, books are like diets, brother. It's what's the best one? The one you're actually going to read. So right now I'm reading Scars and Stripes from Tim Kennedy. Believe it or not. Uh, John Stryker Meyer is a guy that I look up to. So John was part of the Mac V SOG group. So like the real, like not the attitude and the muscles, but the real John Rambo guys in Vietnam. So he's got a book called over the fence and it's about the secret war in Cambodia and Laos and the training that they would do to get their guys ready. I mean, literally they would take, so like you'd get started. You'd been in your green beret for crying out loud, right? You've been in for years. and now you get part of this elite group they would have you start with a bb gun like you didn't know how to shoot and they're throwing up clay targets right because they're running into guys in triple canopy jungle so a lot of times whoever would draw miss and reload and then shoot again is who won those firefights that's how fast it would happen so they're taking bb guns literally and throwing clay pigeons and when you could hip shoot a clay pigeon with a bb gun from your hip They would move you on to something else. And I just reflect on what you and I do in the construction space that guys come in and they go, look, I just want to come in and do my job every day. Very few teams are thinking about it that way. Like, look, these are the type of craftsmen we want to be. And again, reflect that on the guy who goes, look, I only want to do this for the next three years. I want to make enough money to go live on my sailboat. Well, something on your sailboat is probably going to need a craftsman too, right? So the things that we learn how to do here together. You can use them the rest of your life. Maybe you won't get paid on an hourly or per job basis, but you'll get paid on this type of work the rest of your life. So let's change that mindset in what we do. So those are a couple of great books that one Tim's book is just an autobiography of a U.S. soldier. We love our veterans, right? Two of my boys are veterans. And then the other one from John Stryker Meyer just, again, got me a new level of clarity on what type of training somebody that's a professional or a craftsman would have to have. And again, to have that their whole life.

In a way, yes. But it was called MACV SOG. MACV SOG was they would recruit out of the Green Beret program. And they would take, you know, there was typically three guys and then they would, like the Montagnards, right? They would recruit usually nine to say 27 Vietnamese. And they would go out and they would drop them into Laos. Cambodia where they weren't supposed to be. So they're not supposed to be there. Right. So they were completely sanitized. Right. They didn't carry U.S. anything. And they went in because obviously what was happening during that war, the North Vietnamese weren't playing by the rules. Right. So they would go into these other countries where we couldn't go in and get them. Well, these guys would figure out supply runs. They would have the Air Force. Right. It was wild. And just until recently, they could start to talk about it. Yeah. Because it was all just reclassified. That's right. Yeah.

I appreciate you too, brother. Appreciate what you're doing for the industry. It's wonderful. And if there's ever something I can do to back you up, just let me know what it is.