Improve Your Leadership Skills and Empower Your Teams | Podcast Ep. 194 | Toolbox for the Trades

Hello, contractors, and welcome to Toolbox for the Trades. My name is Jackie Aubel, and today I am speaking with Jeff Plant, lead head coach and trainer at bdr. We spoke about the five levels of leadership, eight ways to connect with your team, and how to create a disciple. I hope you find this episode as inspirational as I did. Jeff Plant, you are the lead head coach and trainer for bdr. I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. Welcome.

Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be here, too. Can't wait to dig into the subject today.

I know, and we're going to be covering a ton today, so we're going to be talking about the five levels of leadership. We're going to be talking about using eight core connectors to connect with your team, and we're going to be talking about how to build a disciple. So all really fun leadership stuff. I know that you guys are going to be excited about this interview because when I did my pre interview with Jeff, I was just taking down notes furiously. But before we even get to your expertise, Jeff, I want to get to know you as a person, so I'm going to give you this icebreaker. I would love to know, since you're an outdoorsy guy, if you could tell us your most memorable kayaking story.

All right, well, so my. I guess this one, my youngest son, who is going to be actually 12 in a few days, but he was 9 at the time. All of the whole family, all the kids have kayaks, but he was nine, got his first kayak and was able to do, you know, start kayaking on his own. And we've got some really nice rivers around where I live and not. Not huge rapids, maybe class one, class two type stuff. So anyway, so we're on this. We're on this river and we're cruising along, and my wife and I hear the, you know, you hear the rapids up ahead and bends up a little way and. And we're all like, hey, Ben, just keep your. Keep your kayak straight. You know, because he was a little bit ahead of us with our. Our youngest daughter. And so we see him getting close to the rapids and we're like, oh, here he goes. And he just throws his oar up in there and goes, woohoo. You know, just navigates down through there. And it was just. It was pretty funny because he's just, you know, we're. We're all sitting back there as parents going, keep it straight, buddy. Paddle, paddle, paddle. He gets up. There's, you know, no, no fear at all. Just, you know, and then, of course, you know, anytime I'm out there with the family, it's just. It's awesome. So I love it. And. And oddly enough, it was. It wasn't that far after that. That here I'm giving instruction how to navigate around a corner. He goes around it, fine. I hit it. My back of my cat gets a tree and flips me over.

So, oh, my goodness. You were so busy giving him perfect instruction that you neglected to take that information, that advice for yourself. Very classic.

Yeah, perfect.

Classic, classic. It must have been such a cool moment for you as a dad to be able to share that. This sport that you really love with your son and him being on his own solo. That's such a great story.

Yeah, yeah, he loves it. They. They all love it. And he's. He's actually quite good now, so.

Amazing. All right. Very, very cool. So, like I said, you're the lead head coach and trainer at bdr, which stands for Business Development Resources. You guys are specialized in business coaching and training. I'm curious how you got here. So tell us a little bit about how you got to the trades and how you eventually found your way to bdr.

You know, starting off in. In this trades. When I was young, I didn't. Coming out of high school, I didn't really want to go to college at that time. So I went into electrical apprenticeship with IBEW and got through that and ended up having a friend that started a very small AC company. He goes, hey, you can come be my pookie guy. Which sounded pretty cool. Well, that was not cool at all. Those painting ductwork in the attics of houses in the southeastern part of the United States, actually down in Florida. So I just kind of cut my teeth there. And with the electrical background, I navigated into service. I've done installation service. I've worked residential, commercial, industrial, so all pretty much all levels throughout there. And then ended up getting into management, navigating through that. And then once I started going into management, I started seeing, you know, seeing how management affect the field. Field effective management. And I went into larger, larger management roles up to. I held a position as chief operating officer for a company at one point in time. And I've seen revenues with the companies I've worked for. Like, the first company I started, they were probably doing $500,000 a year. I've worked for large corporations as a regional manager that did $1.6 billion a year and then revenues in between. I've been blessed to see how a lot of Those different positions affect the different fields. Whether, again, whether it's management, whether it's field and doing that and having, you know, having some. Having some interest in some companies myself, I learned how to be a coach. So once I got out of, once I got out of that, I started helping some friends that were in the industry work directly for their companies and helped them get some process procedures in place, how to build teams. And then lo and behold, I ran across a guy that I had known in the industry that was working at bdr. He called me up and said, hey, what are you doing? We need some help and would you be interested? So one thing led to another. I met the team, I met, I met the, the management. I saw the culture. And here we are nine and a half years later with bdr. I love the company, I love the culture. My experience has led me to this where I can help other people navigate the mistakes that I made.

So, yeah, it sounds like your background is really classic example of someone who's done it all in the industry and now is spending their time giving back and helping folks avoid the mistakes that you once made or you saw other people make. So that's, I think, such a wonderful character arc for you. So for those of the, for those listening who do not know, can you tell us a little bit about what BDR is and what you guys offer? I know I kind of gave a little bit of a precursor, but you can probably go into more detail.

There's a. Yeah. So we truly are a coaching firm. You know, there are consulting firms that can help you in your business, but we are truly a coaching firm. What that means, we come alongside the owners, we come alongside the managers, the team, and coach them through processes. We don't just come in and say, hey, here's what you should do and then leave. So we're with you guys or with the company, with the owners on a regular basis. You know, an example of a coaching relationship would be having a couple of conference calls with the manager, the owner, the team each month and, and really getting down on the implementation of step by step of what to do as a company as a whole, what to do in each department and really building that platform of building that plan to where a company can truly scale and grow. Because a lot of, A lot of, a lot of people in our industry came out. They, they were technicians. You know, they started off in the field just like me. They were technicians and they know how to fix things. But sometimes they struggle on the business side or struggle with the vision side. Or struggle with that growth, what, when and what step and when do I take it? So we come alongside them and help them with that. And bdr, just a wealth of experience. We have coaches all over the nation that can help with, you know, the overall performance of the company. Service, labor, sales, leadership, accounting. You know that the books, the financial piece of business is a mystical animal to a lot of people. So we have some great team members that help get your financials in place and again, just work alongside of you. And I've got clients that's been part of the program for 12, 13, 14 years. So it's not like it's just an overnight relationship, it's a long standing relationship. So looking back, I, I'm thankful for the mentors that I had in my life that helped me through business. And that's really what this is. It's a coaching mentor relationship that we provide.

So amazing. And we've had BDR on the podcast before. They are an official partner. You guys are also going to be at Pantheon this year. So it's a perf. Perfect opportunity for me to get on board, chat with you, learn a little bit about bdr, but also to share some of these core playbooks here that are all that all pertain to leadership. You know, it's so crazy. I've been doing Toolbox for the trades for almost 200 episodes now, which is insane. And no matter who I speak to, regardless of trade, if they're, if they're residential, if they're commercial, if they're new construction, if they're partners, if they're contractors, if they were born in the trades or if they came to it later, everyone, it always, always, always comes back to leadership. So I'm so excited that we're going to be talking about that today. So with that, can you tell me about the five levels of leadership and how BDR defines them?

Absolutely, I would love to. And, and the five levels of leadership that I teach, these were developed by a gentleman by the name of John Maxwell. So John is, I mean, you probably know John, he is one of the world's most renowned leadership teachers. And I'm actually a John Maxwell team member. I'm a coach, speaker, trainer under John's, under John's training. So he developed these levels of leadership. There's five of them. There's, there's position, permission, production, people development, and pinnacle. And what I find in leadership as I'm teaching it and working with people is they don't know where they are in the journey. They don't know how it, how it applies to the journey. And they don't know what, they don't know how they got there, and they don't know what steps to take to get to the next level. Because there is defined things that you would, you would need to do in each level. For instance, position being the first level, everybody gets, everybody has to start there. Everybody gets a position of leadership. The challenge with that is a lot of people stay at positional leadership and that's not where you want to be. Positional leaders are the ones that have the mindset of people, are expendable. You do what I say because of the position I hold. They hold their position over them. They are very unlikely to hire people around them that's smarter than them. They think they need to have all the answers. And you know, this sounds very negative, but it's negative in the sense that it holds the company back, it holds the team back, and essentially it holds the leader back. So these type of leaders typically have high turnover in their companies because somebody will come in, want to grow, want to advance, and there's no room for them because the leader won't allow that. So how you get out of that is going from position to permission is what I call a trust bridge, is you have to earn the trust of the team or you have to earn the permission of the team to be their leader. So you have to build relationships. You have to start knowing your team, you have to start finding out, hey, what do you guys want out of your positions? And then follow through with things and not be scared to develop those relationships. And I don't mean hanging out with them every weekend on a barbecue at their house. What I mean is, is understanding what their needs are and then start providing those needs for them in their positions. So once you start earning that permission and they can trust you, they see they can trust you. And a lot of people have been through the gamut of leadership to where they're gun shy. You have to earn that trust. But once you earn that trust, you start seeing your team meld and you start seeing your team move as this, as this organism moves forward. And you, and you start stepping into that third level, which is production, and you start getting things done. And that's the fun part, because things start getting done, your team starts moving. They're starting to not bring in so many problems back to you. They're starting to bring solutions back to you. So they're starting to work and start to think and you're starting to develop the people. It's an exciting spot in production, but it's also a dangerous spot. And the reason is a lot of leaders, when they get to this spot, they don't know how to get out of this spot. The things are getting done their day to day, they're working an insane amount of hours, but they don't know how to get out of the spot. And it's another trust bridge, which is, which is one of the things, this is probably the most difficult step that I see when I'm working with leaders to take. And what it is, is just as much as you had to earn trust from your team or get that permission to be their leader, this level to go from production to people development is another trust bridge. But you have to give it. You have to give trust to your team. And I find people at this level, they'll make statements like, well, it's just easier if I do it myself. I can't trust anybody to do this, so I have to do it. So this bridge, you have to give trust to your team. And that's where you start picking out. You start finding those leaders that you can multiply your influence. So you start embedding that vision into them, embedding what your expectations are into them and allow them to make a mistake. So some of my friends, they told me, they said, jeff, you have such a weird way of managing your companies or managing your business, because some of I would make, because I gave my team permission to make a mistake. As a matter of fact, there was several times I told him, I said, go make a mistake today. You know, don't burn anything down. We can fix the rest of stuff, but go make a mistake today. And what I was doing is I was relieving the pressure of making a mistake because they knew mistakes were okay in the business. And I was fine with that.

Well, if I may stop you, there you've been. I am writing notes furiously. I have so many things I want to follow up on. But giving the permission to make a mistake, when I reflect back on my career and how I got to the position I'm in, I learned things by mistake. I learned things by messing things up and then learning how to fix them. So while mistakes I think can be scary, they're such a, I think, great learning tool to understand how to problem solve in real time and understand how certain systems work together.

Yeah, well. And because people, people mistake mistakes for finality. Mistakes aren't final. Mistakes aren't fatal. Their opportunities. So I said, listen, this is an opportunity for us to fix something so that we don't repeat it doesn't mean that we're not going to repeat some of them. Because sometimes it takes two or three times for you to learn something. But you know, this is an opportunity for us to fix something. So when you find something, you make a mistake. Let's talk about it, let's bring it up. And that goes into that people development. Because people are very shy or very timid, I should say very timid about offering up solutions because they've been shut down before. So what I. So what I coach people, I said, in this people development role or this people development model, as you take this step to the next level, one of the things you do is let's say you have an opportunity or something you're trying to fix inside your business. Instead of asking them for one idea, what I do is I get a team together, I cast the opportunity or we talk about the situation we have. I'll tell them, I want each of you to come back with two or three ideas. We're going to meet next week, two or three ideas of how we can solve this. And we meet next week and they come back with two or three ideas. And what I tell people is if you've got somebody that comes back with one idea, they share that idea and you say, you know what, I don't know if that'll really work. Then you've just shut them down and you're risking them not bringing any more ideas back. However, if they come back with two or three ideas opportunities or two or three ideas, I can probably take a piece or two out of each one of them, blend it with a piece or two from other people, put it together. Because my job as a leader is this. My job as a leader is to rely on the people around me that smarter than me, pull their ideas out of them, put it into this cake, I call it a cake, put in this cake and then feed it back to them. And I tell them, now you guys go get this done. And what it is, is I'm getting their buy in. They come up with a solution. I don't have to come up with every solution. The implementation of that is mid to high 90s. Because it's their idea. I don't come in and have to have every, every idea. And leaders think that just because you hold the leadership position, you have to have all the answers. And my goodness, I got to tell you is if my company depended on, on the level of answers that I had in my head, we were in trouble. We just were. Yeah.

Can if I can just interject here. I'm loving everything you're saying. I am going through a personal moment right now within my team, which is a small team of four, myself included. And I said to my colleagues the other day over a zoom call, I said, I just want you guys to know my brain isn't working right now. I couldn't come up with a good idea if it. I couldn't tell you a good idea if it came up and slapped me in the face just because of where I'm at in my life and different priorities and everything. And I think what you're saying is so accurate. Like if you as the leader, if you're stuck at that position phase, that first level, and you think like, well, I'm the big boss, I'm king of the castle and it's up to me to figure out how we move this ship, then you're alienating your employees and you're taking on all this work for yourself, which is just going to burn you out.

Yeah. And what you're going to be left with is team wise because again, the people that want to advance in career, want to grow, have something to offer. They're not going to stick around. So you're going to be left with a team. If you're a positional leader and you decide to stay there, you're going to be left with a team that doesn't care. They're going to show up at 801, leave at 459, they're going to be super inefficient in the middle. There's going to be no culture there. And it's a shame, but it happens. I mean, I've actually been part of those organizations where you can you go in, it's like, wow, it's like you said at the beginning, everything rises and falls on leadership. You know, the attitude of the company reflects leadership. So if you don't like the attitude of the company, then I'm going to run down to the, I'm going to run down to the store real quick and buy you a mirror because that's where it's coming from, you can change it, that there's good news. So, you know, you start developing those people and you start identifying those people and you're starting to relieve yourself, you're starting to multiply yourself. The only way you're going to be able to scale your company and truly grow it is you have to multiply your influence at the. Multiply yourself. So you start developing those people. And once that happens, without even really Trying you slip into that highest level which very few people get to the pinnacle level, even less people stay there. But once you get to that level five of pinnacle because you developed your people and you've, you've started to turn some of that stuff over. Now your responsibility at this level is to make sure that all of your team members, all of your managers have the tools they need to be successful because you've empowered them. That's what empowerment means. People use those, use those words like empowerment and culture. And I don't know that they really understand what that means. Giving your team member a job is not empowerment. Allowing them to be successful in their position is empowerment. And that is, that is, I'm going to ask you, the expert in that position to come up with ideas and I'm going to allow you to go put that in place. That's empowerment. You're empowering your team to, to be successful. So once you get to that upper level, a lot of people in leadership say, well, the higher level, higher I go in leadership, the more people will serve me. And that's not right. Actually, the higher you go in leadership, the more of a servant you become because you are making sure your people have the tools they need. So that's, I mean, that's a 30,000 foot view. There is, we have some really, really super defined steps of how to get, you know, that I can give you that. You go do this for the next three months and you'll go from this level to this level. And you may be at, you may be at different levels at that, on that leadership graph or chart or, or, or hill with different people and in different situations. But you need to understand where you are so you can take those steps to get to that next level with that situation or with that person. It's really interesting when I, when I'm talking about this, when people just kind of sit back and they go, oh my gosh, I see exactly where I'm at.

Yeah, if I had to do a, if I had to do a assessment of myself right now, I would say I'm in the production phase and then also pushing to the people development phase. So just to recap here, we've got position as the first very ego driven position where you're like, I'm the leader, I'm the one who's in charge of this. You're not really working collaboratively with your team. You move to the permission stage. When you earn the trust from your teammates and they believe that you'll be able to help them achieve what they want to achieve. You get to the production stage when you guys are rocking and rolling and you've kind of like, you've blended in a space where you guys are creating, you're being effective. The next stage is people development, where you. You give some of that trust back to your people by saying, I trust you to do this. You know what you're doing, and this is you multiplying your influence. And then the final stage is pinnacle, where your team is now essentially on. I don't want to say autopilot, but they're running their own thing and you're really there coaching and offering assistance wherever you can. I think of this as, you know, these leaders in the service industries who have grown these multi, multimillion dollar organizations and are at the top and are just. I've had people come on the show who have said my job is to get obstacles out of the way. And I think that kind of aligns with what you're talking about here. I think it's a really fascinating way to look at leadership. And one thing you said to me when you were describing this to me first is some people will say, you know, if you're lonely at the top, they're like, oh, yeah, it's lonely at the top. But in your opinion, if you're lonely at the top, you did it wrong. Can you give me an example of that or dive into that a bit?

Well, so, I mean, you know, when you're at the top, you may feel alone sometimes because you have to make hard decisions, but the overall statement of it's lonely at the top. I feel that if you, if you really analyze this, the five levels of leadership, and you just go straight to four and five, if I'm developing people and then I'm. And then those are my leaders and I'm engaging them, I can't say that I'm lonely at the top. And I tell people, I said, listen, if you're a leader and you're lonely at the top, there's a good possibility you did it wrong. And what I have found, not in every case, but in a lot of cases, is they say, well, it's lonely at the top. And those are the same people that think they're at the top when actually they're positional leaders. And a positional leader will be alone because he doesn't need to work with anybody, or he or she doesn't need to be around anybody. They're going to do it all their own. You guys just do what I say, and they're not leading by example. So when I talk with people and they make those statements and I show them, I say, you know what, you think you're here, but you're actually here. And, you know, some of them respond positively and some of them respond negatively, but it's true. I don't think the statement rings true in every case where people say it's lonely at the top. I think if you did it right, you've got people around you and you are supporting them. So.

Awesome. Awesome. So let's talk about the ACOR connectors. So you mentioned these trust bridges, right? In these five levels of leadership. And I know that this all kind of everything you just said about the five levels of leadership really requires leaders to really connect and communicate effectively with their team. So talk to me about the eight core connectors and how leaders can use these tools to connect with their team.

Yeah, and this. These are difficult. These are difficult because it's super uncomfortable. Especially when people don't. They've never been in this environment or never been trained. This. This is where it gets super uncomfortable. The eight are availability, openness, listening, likability, questions, humility, thoughtfulness, and adaptability. So if we look at each one like availability, I tell people, make yourself available. Now, this does not mean allow people to steal your time. This does not mean. I'm sure you've heard the open door policy. Well, I had an open door policy. I told them, I have an open door policy. But what that means, it's not open door. So you can come in here and just rob me of my time, rob me of my energy. What that means is I want an open door policy from a standpoint that you are comfortable enough to come talk to me. And that's hard for employees sometimes because they're intimidated by their leader. That's where you have to build those relationships. So what I mean by availability is communicating with your team more often than once a year. My goodness. If you're still. If you're still doing reviews once a year, stop it. You got to do at least every quarter, put them on a career path, put them on a success path, communicate with your team. So how do you keep them from stealing your time? And I would just ask them, listen, you can absolutely come talk to me, but if you're coming to me with a challenge, come to me with solutions to that challenge, and let's talk about it. And then come in with bullet points that you want to talk about. I don't want to sit down and just waste your time. And when I was talking when I was telling him, I don't want to waste our time, which I didn't, because their time's valuable, I was actually protecting mine. So be available for your team. Don't be absent. That's the big thing. Openness, being one of the connectors is realize that you aren't the smartest person in the room. Again, if you're the smartest person in the room, what's the old saying? You're probably in the wrong room. So be open to the fact that you're not the smartest. And when I'm doing training, I. I talk about the mistakes I made. I'm very open. I don't. I don't mind talking about the mistakes I've made in business or in life, because some of those shared experiences helps other people learn. So some of those shared experiences, when the. When the team members see that you're actually real and you're not a robot or you really care about their. Their outcome in life, they're going to respond to that, which leads to the next one, which would be listening. And I heard this term not long ago, and I've heard this before, but when this young lady said it, it really just kind of hit me pretty hard. When I was talking about listening, she goes, active listening. I said, yes, active listening. And it's not listening to respond. It's listening to understand. But listen to your team. One of the things that John has taught me was if you help others achieve their dreams, they will help you achieve yours. So if you don't know, if you don't know what your team's dreams are, if you don't know what their goals are in their career or in their life. I mean, we had somebody that worked at our company that, that was their. That was their sole responsibility was to create a life path for people and show them how this career could help them achieve those things. Because I didn't want people to just come in and have a job. I wanted them to come in and be part of a family and have a career. So we listened to. But listen. Listen to your team. They've got the answers that you're looking for questions. Ask them questions. Let them ask you questions. If you have a. If you have a challenge. That was. I remember, I remember one of my mentors, he said, ask questions of your team and get the input from them. You know, they're the ones that have the answers to those positions. So those shared questions, the next one will be humility. You know, and this is not. This is not Walking around in humiliation. You know, I, I tell people, I said, you're not thinking less of yourself, you're just thinking of yourself less and care about your team and be humble in that aspect to know that there, there are people attached to your team members that, you know, they, they, they bear the brunt of them working long hours. When's the last time? So for instance, we had a, we had a. This, this. And this leads into thoughtfulness too. We had a, I had a technician that this young man worked long hours. Long hours. So I sent a handwritten note to his wife and said, hey, Melissa, I just really appreciate Corey's efforts at work. He's just a, he's a fantastic part of this team. We are so blessed to have him here. We know that he works long hours. I know this puts an impact on your home life sometimes and puts a little bit more pressure on you, but I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you. And by the way, please find this $250 enclosed gift certificate. He will be off at 12 o' clock this Friday. If you need somebody to watch the kids, we'll take care of it. You guys go have dinner on me.

Amazing.

Yeah, so it's, it's thinking, you know, it's thinking that it's realizing, man, there's other people that's attached to these people and I, I don't want to, I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of people.

Well, I want to pause you right there because you've gone through quite a couple of the cores here, but like the humility component in the example you just gave, I'm thinking about that positional leader who is just, you know, kind of by themselves and are thinking very highly and not really thinking about the team that puts them there. I feel like leadership just so much involves effective leadership, involves leaders acknowledging that they would not be in the position they're in if not for their team and the sacrifices their team makes every day by showing up to work and whatnot and working those long hours, especially on really extreme weather days to be there. So I think something like that can really go such a long way. I bet you that that technician and his wife, Corey and Melissa, you said their names were. I bet you they still talk about that.

Oh, I'm sure they do. And Corey is now a, like a regional over several counties trainer. So amazing. I talk to him every great once in a while and it's an impact, you know. What kind of impact are you making on your team? I Know, the biggest challenge for those positional leaders is they. They didn't get any of this stuff, so they don't know how to give it. It's very hard for you to give something you've never gotten. It's very hard to give encouragement when you've never gotten encouragement. So I. I recognize that. You know, I recognize that, and I try to help people understand that and get off that. But there are some people that just choose to be that way. I told you, the example of I was doing a conference and there was some older, Older gentlemen there that was. This lines up with the likability deal here is they were talking about this one guy being older, and he goes, well, you know, I've earned the right to be grumpy because they were all calling him grumpy because I'm old. I'm old. I've earned the right to be grumpy. And I said, you didn't earn the right to be grumpy. You chose to be grumpy. Who aren't. Who wants the right to be grumpy?

No one.

Nobody.

Someone who doesn't want any friends or family, I guess.

Yeah. So the last two being likability and adaptability. Will. Likeability. I just tell them flat out, listen, if. If you're not likable, get likable. Figure out a way to get likable. Don't be so. Don't be so grumpy. Don't be so mean. This might be why people's not responding to you in a positive manner, but it could go deeper than that. You know, of course, it could be something that's under. Under a root for them, but these all affect, you know, an adaptability is. We have to adapt to the. To the changes. We have to adapt to the changes of our team, adapt to the changes of leadership, and we have to. We have to be that common ground in our company. You know, when things are going crazy, when things maybe not going so good, whether it's the market, whether it's the economy, whether it's just team or whatever, you have to be that stable leader that comes in and does not instill a sense of panic, but a sense of urgency. There's a huge difference.

Oh, yeah. There is such a huge difference. I've certainly had leaders that come in all panic, hair on fire type of thing. And I've had leaders who are more even. Even with their tone and more urgent about it. And the difference is palpable.

Yes. Yeah. Because your team's gonna pick up whatever you're putting out.

Yeah. So I just want to read off these eight core connectors again, because again, you're just shooting off information. I wonder. A lot of people I know listen to podcasts on double speed or a speed and a half, and I'm like, I wonder if people will actually slow this one down because Jeff is just spitting out hot takes here. Great takes. So it's availability, questions, openness, humility, listening, thoughtfulness, likability. You probably don't know this, but some of our listeners do. I have a therapy background, and as you're going through these eight core connectors, I think about these. And you said before, if someone was never given these things, it's hard for them to give it to someone else. So it just made me think about how it's so important for a leader to exemplify these connectors and to practice them daily. Because even if someone you work with did not have. Does not have the experience in their home life or in their upbringing where they had these qualities modeled for them, I think it can still make a really substantial difference if their leader does that. So I think this goes even beyond effective leadership. This goes into supporting people the way that we want to support people, being a good person. So I just wanted to make that comment. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

It does, it does. And my brother coached a little league baseball team for 26 or 27 years, and that's nine to 12 year olds and was in a. A good populated area. So it wasn't, it wasn't lack of talent there. So there was a lot of kids in that area. And he never had a team finish lower than third place, which was amazing. And, and there'd be young, young girls, young boys come out there. Just never touched a baseball, never touched it, never grabbed a glove. And in a couple of years, he turned him in all stars. So I asked him and I. And he was my coach coming up through baseball for. For a short time. And I asked him, I said, how, how in the world did you do that? I mean, you know, you think about skills test, you think about practice. He said, there's a baseball player in everybody. You just got to find it.

Wow.

And yeah, and when he said that, I was like, man, that's. He said, jeff, it goes beyond skills, you know, it goes beyond swinging a bat, catching the ball, running bases. He said, a lot of these kids are coming to me and they're coming out of broken homes or coming out of here. They're coming out of there. He Said, but there's a baseball player in them, and you got to flip the switch. You gotta. You gotta turn the light on for them, and they see themselves as a baseball player. He said, you got to help people see themselves as what they can be. I said, man, that's powerful.

That is powerful.

Yes.

Wow.

That's leadership, man. If we can just. If we can help people see themselves for what they could be and not. Not how they think they are right now, that's huge. That's the leader's job. And I know, listen, I know we're in the H vac industry. I get it. But think about. Think of your team. If you could do that and you can help them flip the switch on how. How much better it would be for your customers.

Yeah, that's pretty incredible.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. All right, again, I'm just. Now we go into baseball metaphors, which I did once on a podcast a way long, way, long time ago, if anyone remembers the Margie Baker episode. But let's talk about building a disciple. What is a disciple? And how do you build one?

So a disciple to somebody that is going to understand your vision, they're going to talk like you. They're going to be somewhere else doing something, and you're comfortable with the fact because they. They are out there speaking for you, acting on your behalf, and you're not concerned about that. So that takes time. That takes that. That takes that training. So I always tell people there's three steps. There's three steps to building a disciple. The first step is, you're gonna watch me do it. The second step is we're gonna do it together. And the third step is I get to watch you do it. So I relate that to raising kids. Like. Like my oldest. My oldest daughter, my oldest son. I'm talking about my oldest son because he was the most recent that. That left the house. And, you know, the whole time that he was in the house, he was watching me how I treated his mom, how I treated his brothers and sisters, how I treated people. So that kind of set the stage for him of how to conduct himself. And then he graduates high school, and he's, you know, he's figuring some stuff out. We get to do some stuff together. We're. We're talking about budgets, we're talking about this. You know, we're. We're. We're getting him prepared. And now he's moved out, he's got a great girlfriend that's probably pretty soon going to be his fiance. They're talking about Budgets. They're talking about this.

Hopefully she doesn't listen to this show or, like, spoiler alert. Oh, yeah, Well, I doubt she does, but if she does, if somehow she finds this, please let me know, because that would be hilarious. And I don't know, I'll send, like, a toolbox for the trade swag box or something over to say, sorry, I wrecked the surprise.

No, no, no. I think they both understand that that's probably going to happen someday, but so now Tsunami and my wife, we get to watch them do it. So in business, I take that same model to business, you know, you're going to watch me do it. We're going to do it together, and at some point, I get to watch you do it. But if you line that up with the levels of leadership and, oh, by the way, whoever's watching this, you may have to tell somebody more than twice, oh, my gosh. Say it ain't, say it ain't so. But you're going to watch me do it. We're going to do it together. I get to watch you do it. That lines up with the levels of leadership, because when you're going from position to permission, they're watching you. They're watching you do it. You're getting that permission. And then to get to production, you're doing things together, man. The team is rocking and rolling. And as you go through people development and you get to pinnacle now, you get to watch them do it because you've developed them along the way. So it lines up perfectly with the levels of leadership of how to build that disciple. And it takes effort, and it takes time. It takes focused effort, but it also takes a plan. So I would encourage people out there that if you don't have a career path for every employee that you have in your company, get them a career path so they. They can see, hey, if I do this, this, and this, I can go to this level. Technicians, installers, people in the office. You know, BDR has those career paths written out. We help people all the time. Put those in place, and that's how you can help grow those people inside your organization.

So amazing. All right, so I feel like I just got a personal, personalized leadership lesson. So thank you so much for that, Jeff. But I do want to talk about how these skills that we discussed at B that BDR teaches, they're not just helpful for business, actually incorporate this work with local nonprofits. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that, because I think this is just so cool.

Yeah. So I Actually had a young lady that was in. So we have a leadership academy at BDR that I wrote and it's a four hour class every other month and there's homework in between and you go put these things in place. She actually finished the second year, was going into the mentorship program and I saw her at one of our events and she said, she goes, you know what? She goes, my business almost went under. If it hadn't been for the academy, I would have not known how to handle myself. She goes, also, my daughter was going through leadership training in high school. I think it was ROTC or something like that. So she goes, I showed her some of this stuff, she took it, she started applying it and she finished first in her class. She goes, so Jeff, I just want to let you know this leadership thing that you're teaching is going beyond business. It's hitting people in their personal lives, which is pretty cool. So we take that. And my wife and I are part of some, part of some non profits. And really this is, this is my passion. I mean, my passion is leadership training. My passion is bdr. I love the trades. My heart's passion is some of the non profits that we work with. Helping people that's gone through addiction. And we help them come from that state of addiction and all the way up to. We help them get jobs and apartments and all these things. And we have several different nonprofits that they, they can navigate through and we work with, but we, we train them up to be leaders and, and through that process and, and you talk about people that's never heard stuff before, never heard words of encouragement or whatever, you know, you can imagine that we run into that quite a bit. And we see in the 90 percentile of when these people come through this because they've gone through it, they come right back around and they say, hey, we want to be a part of this. And they're, and they're working now and helping the people, helping people where they were, you know. So we, we put that in place and we have teams that, that help with those things. And you know the same thing that I said, when you multiply your influence, we have people that go out and speak on our behalf and we are totally comfortable with it because we multiplied our influence. That's a pretty amazing thing. But inside the, inside the trades, inside business, you know, this, this piece is what's missing everywhere. Leadership. Because people really don't know what it means. They think it's management. And although you have to have a good leadership, management balance, leadership is a separate animal altogether.

So I know I was inspired by this conversation, Jeff. So thank you so much. If the folks listening want to get in contact with you or bdr, what's the best way for them to do that?

So they can go on our website@bdrco.com. that's bdrco.com. the phone numbers on there, they can reach out directly to the office. If they wanted to contact me direct, they just call the office, say, hey, I watched a podcast episode that Jeff was on talking about leadership, and I would really like to. I really like to reach out to him. My email address is jeff, plant. Plant. Plnt. Just like a plant in the ground@bdrco.com. so I would be more than happy to answer any questions. I would ask, though, for a little grace if you. If you do happen to send me an email. I do a lot of training, a lot of traveling, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can. But. And if I can't get a hold of you, there are other leadership people here at bdr. Somebody will respond. Absolutely. We'd love to answer any questions or help you any way we can.

Well, Jeff, thank you so much for your time and for sharing this incredible insight with us. It was great chatting with you, and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day.

Thank you.