Overcoming Roadblocks in Your COO Career | Joseph Galeas (Podcast 233)

I didn't want to become a leader. I didn't want the title of manager because I wanted to be able to give orders or because I wanted to have the title of boss. It's because I genuinely wanted to make a difference. I understood what it's like to be a frontline employee and kind of feel like you're on an ilus and I wanted to change that. I wanted to bring my own sauce to the table and say this is how a team should today is precision.

Painting +COO Joseph Galeas Joseph is considered a people manager with a proven background in developing and leading teams with building relationships and engaging employees in business related decisions. His experience in operations from the front line to the boardroom has brought him repeated success in building successful teams from the ground up and in inheriting underperforming teams and turning them into success stories. As the COO of Precision plus Joseph organizes leadership and strategic vision to drive operational excellence, improve management competence, optimize administrative processes, simplify reporting structures, and bolster the company's internal control systems. He's tasked with revamping the company culture as they prepare for an aggressive expansion professional journey that began at the age of 22. In the it industry, Joe took on an array of frontline operations roles, eventually progressing to managerial positions. At the age of 35, he earned his PMP certification and went back to school to gain a bachelor's degree. At 39, he made a drastic career change from telecommunications to parking systems, taking on the demanding post of Vice President of Service and turned around a struggling organization through effective leadership and Six Sigma principles. Soon after, Joe returned to school once again to attain his MBA and in the years that followed advanced his career through the ranks of EVP operations and then to COO Joseph, welcome to the Second in Command podcast.

Thanks for having me Tamon.

I love your your kind of bio or the timeline of you getting to coo. And I know we talked briefly before hopping on that. You wanted to talk about kind of brief progressing from the front line to coo, but I'm curious about the desire to go back to school a couple of times through the career as well. That's not a normal quote unquote normal path that we often take, but I love that you did it that way. It seems more beneficial to have done the schooling the way that you did it versus the graduate high school go to college. What was your why was your path set that way?

Well that was an intentional, but it definitely worked to my advantage. And I'm going to take a page from Your book Vivid Vision. And I've always operated like that for my career. I've always, you know, pictured where I wanted to be in three years. Right. And what seeds that I have to plant today to be there in three years. And, you know, over time, as I attempt to take on opportunities to advance my career path, I was hitting roadblocks, right. I had the real world experience, I had the resume experience, but I didn't have the piece of paper that would validate that I'm an expert, you know, in managing or operations. So that's part of the reason why I did go back to school. And. And I'm glad I did that because going back to school, I got to bring a lot of real world experiences into the classroom and not just provided myself with a lot of aha moments and connected dots, but I also got to give those to my peers as well.

Was it said to you by employers that you needed to have the piece of paper, or was it something that you felt, or was it said to you by search firms that were trying to help you find career moves? How did you identify that?

It was said. It was said. And I remember that moment very, very vividly. You know, I went for a director position of operations, and I really wanted to of this position with Comcast. Right. I looked at them as a powerhouse and I wanted in. And I went through many, many layers of the interview process all the way up to the vp. So I'm thinking to myself, I'm at the fourth round. Definitely my. We're just checking off boxes.

I got this.

A couple of weeks go by and I'm not hearing anything. And they say they're just going through the rounds of one more candidate. And when they came back to deliver me, you know, the bad news, obviously my first question was, well, what did the other person have that I didn't have? And the answer was flat O. The only difference was he had the degree and you did it. Wow. And I kid you not, Cameron, it was that day where I had a conversation with my wife and I said, I'm never gonna allow myself to be in this position again. I'm never gonna lose a role because I didn't have a piece of paper. I don't. I don't feel like I need that piece of paper.

Yeah.

But if I want to get to where I want to be in three years, I need to go back to school. And within a few months, I was enrolled back at Wentworth Institute, getting my bachelor's.

What year was that roughly?

That was around 2012. 2013, I'd say.

Okay, so still current enough that we're hearing now that the tides are slowly changing for companies. But I mean, I don't know if that's urban legend or if it's really happening, but we're hearing that companies are no longer looking for the degrees. But I'm not really convinced that that's the truth. And if, if that was 2012, 2013, that's recent enough that, yeah, the piece of paper is still required.

Yeah. And I'll tell you what, there is some truth to that. Right. And some of that truth is within my own process when I hire. Right. Because of that experience. I don't hold that against an individual. I'm more interested in what their personalities are like. Are they going to match the culture, what's their drive, what's the progression on their resume? You know, are they targeting advancement? Have they been involved with large organizations or have they managed teams? Yeah, the piece of paper certainly helps because it solidifies that they have that classroom, that education and that experience. But I don't hold that to them. I don't. I don't mark that as a necessary criteria.

Was school tough for you in high school?

I wouldn't say so, no, not at all.

And so why did you not go from the high school into college, back in that kind of normal again, quote, unquote, stream? Was it just because you had an opportunity to go work and grabbed it?

I did go, actually. I did go straight to college right after high school. I went for my ARC, my Associates in Architectural Engineering. And around, I'd say 19, 20 years old, I started young to build a family. So that kind of took some of my time away from pursuing my. My college degree. Took some time off, but, you know, lo and behold, I was able to make up for it.

Okay, makes sense. And the reason I was asking was I was curious whether school got easier for you when you went back more as a mature student and with the actual experience versus coming in as a younger. But I guess it's not relevant because you were probably, if you were doing architecture, you were already a smart student in the first place.

But, you know, at that age, you're kind of going through the motions because you feel like, you know, this is what needs to be done. Right. I'm supposed to graduate, I'm supposed to go to college. I'm supposed to, you know, go after the role that I want, you know, which at the time was to be an architect. This time around, it wasn't the I'm supposed to It's, I'm going to get in there, I'm going to do this. This is what I need because I want to be somewhere else in three to five years.

Yeah, I have to do it for sure. So curious what it was like for you in the workforce days. I remember when I was building 1-800-got junk as their CEO. I was the first executive at the. Actually, I think I was the first employee at the company to have kids. And I remember the shift that happened for the team when they realized we couldn't have, you know, 7:30 in the morning meetings anymore. We couldn't consistently count on Cameron being there for beer at 5 o'. Clock. We didn't have the desire to go away for weekend retreats. We wanted to do the retreats during the week. And then once the rest of the leadership team caught up and were having kids, that became the norm. Was it difficult for you in the earlier days in building your career and kind of getting to where you are today to have kids at a younger age?

Not necessarily. I have a very good support system with my wife, you know, she definitely held down the fort as I pursued my goals of wanting to get my degree, you know, so that certainly helps. I mean, when you have that kind of a support, that kind of foundation laid, you know, definitely, definitely eases the kind of stress that you wouldn't be carrying, you know, trying to juggle two paths at once.

Yeah, makes sense. All right, let's go back and go through the front line to the. To where you are today. So give us kind of your journey. And what experience did you layer on each other? Layer of experience to get where you are.

When I was a field engineer for Sprint, that's when I was really introduced into the world of operations because, you know, that was my introduction to working with all these various departments and witnessing just how connected they are, you know, witnessing just how the business is reliant on all these various departments to get things done. And so it was at that time when I, when I worked as a field engineer that I got to work with, you know, so many facets of a business. And that's what I took joining because I had so much variety. You know, it wasn't every day where I was just working with the construction team on a new site. I wasn't just working with the commissioning department on bringing sites on air or working with the RF department to address some call drops and degradations. Every day was a unique experience. Every day has something new to deliver. And it was at that point where I Realized operations is what I wanted because of the variety that I introduced during that experience of being a frontline employee. I also expressed a lot of the downsides of poor leadership. You know, not having a mentor or, you know, asking for, you know, instruction and being told to go get it elsewhere, you know, telling my superior that this is what I need in the field to be more successful and just being given the answer, well, listen, this is just on the budget. This is how it is, and no discussion for an alternative solution. But, you know, I also experience the other side of that, having a great mentor that showed me the way of how you want to support your peers and how you want to support your subordinates. But it's because of those experiences that, you know, I told myself I didn't want to become a leader. I didn't want the title of manager because I wanted to be able to give orders or because I wanted to have the title of boss. It's because I genuinely wanted to make a difference. I understood what it's like to be a frontline employee and kind of feel like you're on an eyeless. And I wanted to change that. I wanted to bring my own sauce to the table and say, this is how a team should.

You're right. There was a massive gap of leadership and empathy to employees. It would have been really intriguing to have seen what you saw from. From the frontline, because I saw it from a very different perspective and it was broken.

Yeah, you know, I mean, it was, you know, you, you. It. I mean, it was a massive corporation. Right. You know, I mean, and I'm talking about. I was operating in the New England market, never mind, you know, across the country, you know, but I didn't see the leadership levels at the CEO, co, VP levels. You know, I was at the front line. I saw up to maybe director, maybe VP of a northeast region.

Yeah.

So that's where I witnessed the gaps in leadership. And what I, you know, what I always told myself, when I get to that point, I'm going to make sure that things are completely different from myself.

So what do you think you saw that you wanted to do differently, and what did you pull from there that you wanted to emulate, and what did they do well, that you kind of continue to do today?

It was during those years working for Sprint that I was introduced to data analytics, and something about numbers just grabbed my attention. It was a language that I understood. I would much rather read a bunch of math problems than a couple of words on a page. I started using data analytics to really identify a lot of flaws in the system, a lot of issues. Putting together predictive analytics of here's what's going to happen if we continue down this trend. And that was sort of my self introduction into management. I would bring these reports and bring this information to management and tell them that this is what's going to happen to these cell sites if we don't make certain changes and here's the changes that need to happen if you want to see a certain result. And it was, and I truly believe that it was because of my desire and my utilization for data analytics that that's what drew the attention of management to say okay, let' see where he can take this. And you know, gave me the opportunity to become a manager of my own region.

That's interesting because that was something I definitely saw with Sprint that they were doing quite well. They definitely had the data and understood the data and understood how to apply it and how to reason with it. How do you work with companies today where you have so much data in helping the companies decide what data to really look at and what to ignore. It's almost like, you know, if you plug in your car into the computer system at the dealership, there's a million data points but they only really need to look at 10.

Right. Well and really the way that I narrow that down is, is, is asking the question, right, like are we reacting to something or are we looking for something? You know, that's how I always narrow it down and then I'm able to identify, well here the data source here the information that I need. And that information might come from a single data source or five data sources. And, and I'm really good at, you know, bringing the data together, cleaning the data, merging the data and analyzing it and then actually packaging it up into some visual analytics for, for management and executive team. But really that's what it comes down to is, you know, asking the question, what's the answer that we're looking for?

How much time do you spend on the people side of the business when you're running, you know, at the C level or even as an executive versus, you know, in looking at the data and the reports and the numbers and the analysis?

I would say it's almost a 50, 50 split and it shouldn't be. But that's, but that's by choice. You know, it's a passion that I have, you know, the, both the people and the data. I don't think I would want to give up either board or trade, either workforce. So it's actually almost a near split. 50, 50.

I'm not sure that it should be different. I think when you have a unique ability to understand the data and you're spending that much time on the data, you might actually bring a different perspective into the people side of the business that executives who are so people focused but don't look at the data enough are completely missing. I wouldn't ignore your unique ability and say that it should be different. I'd almost disagree and say I think you actually have it probably nailed because you enjoy it, because you understand it, because you can extract it. And then I think you probably bring that into the people side in a more focused way. I've often been on the far other side of the pendulum where the data to me gets a little bit overwhelming. So because I have this add, I see everything. So for me, I have a very, very clear perception and a lot of intuition from my years in business and I carry the intuition and perception in to the people side of the business. So I don't think what you're doing is bad at all. I more go, wow, I wish I could do what, what Joe does.

So, yeah, no, and whenever I do, you know, come across, you know, data, the whole purpose is to bring an answer to the question, right? Like, like that's, that's the, that's the purpose here. But what I get out of it is the 15 things that I learned through the process that the untold stories that have been lying in data this whole time. You know, you, for example, let's just use a sales team for an example, right? You look at a sales team and you say, oh wow, you got 10 sales guy, 10 salesmen, and this guy is knocking it off the park. He's number one in sales, you know, consistently month after month. But then there's 14 pieces of other data that might question whether he's the top salesman, right? What's his close rate? What, what's the value in his losses? What's his cancellation rate? You know, what's his growth rate? Is he progressing month after month, year after year? And if not, those other answers are tilting on the positive side of the scale. Then, and then is he really your top salesman? Because what about the salesman that is only generating half of what he's half. He's only generating half of what he's generating. However, his close rates are progressing, his losses are decreasing, his cancellations are near, you know, not are non existent. That then tells me that's your true top salesman and that's the one you want to invest in. So that's what I. That's where I get so much joy in data, is the information that I wasn't even necessarily looking for, but then stumbled upon. And then you just keep peeling back the onion.

Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about Precision Painting plus. And I want to just find out a little bit of what that industry is. I've been involved in the painting industry, but I don't know where your business fits in terms of the industry itself. Then I've also coached a couple people that are in the painting industry. So I'm very curious as to where does your business fit you. Focus on.

So we're considered a nationwide home improvement company. 80% of our business is interior next to a painting.

Okay.

We're in six states across the country, all the way from New England to California. Okay. You know, and we call it Home Improvement Company because we do, you know, we do cabinetry, we do, you know, decking, we do staining, we do wallpapering, slate, you know, slate renovations.

I love the painting industry. How did you drop into painting and into a business that you didn't. You didn't come from that industry at all?

Well, and see, and I think that's the beauty of being, you know, in operations, right, Cameron, is that, you know, you can take that operational expertise and leadership, and you're a chameleon. You're basically a chameleon. You can hop from one industry to the other. For me, it was just time for a change, right. I was with my previous company, Shanghai Backman, who is a former leader in parking services. And for me, it was just time for a change. I had double. Just everything I could have done for that company. I turned things around. Improved revenue, improved cost, you know, reduced employee turnover. Just about everything that you expect an operations executive to do. And, you know, what motivates me, right. And what gets. What fuels me is having something to put together, having something to fix, having something to clean up. Right. So I was looking for that next assignment.

So it's got it.

So Precision Painting plus presented that opportunity. By the time I interviewed with Precision Painting Plus, I had already known, you know, all the types of issues that would come with being an operations executive leader. And so they checked all the boxes, you know, everything I was looking for that needed help, you know, what kind of process you have in place. Well, you last, you know, what's your culture like? What's your systems like? They had basically had the opportunity that I was looking for to take my career and My skills to the next level.

Makes sense. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned the chameleon in my next book, which is called the Second in Command. I actually talk about the COO needing to be a bit of a chameleon because we really do have to adapt to the situation, to the industry and then also to all the different business areas that we have to often oversee that we don't really often have the depth of experience to run directly. Like often the CEO couldn't run marketing or couldn't run it or couldn't run finance, but we have those business areas reporting to us. You know, what do you work on in terms of your skill set to allow you to have that breadth of oversight and that breadth of connection with the different business areas.

So my approach when I get into an organization, Cameron, very specific, right. I want to document their end to end process, right. How they generate revenue, right? From a lead all the way down to closing a project serving so many purposes, right. I'm learning about the business end to end. I'm having to interview every department. Well, what's your role in this and when do you hand things off and what department do you hand it off to? Then I'm off to the next department and I'm asking them the same questions and I'm identifying if there's redundancies in the process, right. I'm identifying if there's bottlenecks in the process. My approach really is to go in there, do my homework and document the process from end to end. And then I have that map in front of me and that's all the knowledge I need to know where all the bits and pieces lie within the organization.

Just speaking yesterday with one of our CEO alliance members and she was saying that she does a lot of the same idea, the business process mapping and what her focus is is the automation and the kind of leveraging text the tech stack to automate a bunch of the processes. Are you doing that as well and how are you keeping up on or staying ahead of the curve or understanding what tech to bring in or are you bringing in consultants to help you with that stuff?

We don't have any consultants to help us with that stuff, but definitely always looking to automate something. But in my studies of six sigma, one of the things I learned was automation doesn't necessarily improve the process. Right? It doesn't necessarily improve the process. So that's one thing you have to be careful for. You know, it'd be nice for everything to be automated, but there are some things that you need to keep out of that circle. But yeah, I mean, that's why you put together that business process, right? Because that's where you're going to identify, like I said, your bottlenecks of redundancies. And is this where we want to flirt more? Experiment with automation? And if we do, how do we implement that automation?

Can you simplify Six Sigma for us? What are the nuggets from Six Sigma that you can bring into a business or that a leader thinking about their business today can think about?

So it's really taking my approach that I described, right? Documenting it from end to end with the processes, but not just documenting the steps. It's, you know, historically, how long does it take from step one to step two and step two to four or five, six, seven, eight. Right? How many people? Now you talk about, how many people does it take for each one of these steps? What's it costing? So then you start collecting all of this data, and your goal is, how do we reduce that waste? How to, if there's waste, how to reduce waste, how do we reduce the cost and how do we increase efficiency? That's really, at the end of the day, what Six Sigma comes down to. Because once you have that process mapped out and you have all that data, there's what you can call your baseline. All right? It takes roughly, you know, three and a half months for this to happen. From pay to Z. Is that acceptable? And if it's not acceptable, and the acceptable rate is two months, okay, now we have to shave 45 days off this. How do we get there?

That's funny. I. So after I went through this program, this is, again, this will be dating myself. So years ago, I used to sell DVDs of my speaking events. So after I did a speaking event, I would sell DVDs of them, and the people could show the rest of their employees later on. And I realized I was getting orders and then packing the orders and then going to the post office a few days later and mailing them out. And then people would, you know, get their DVDs and that process would take like two weeks from the time they got the order to. So I'm like, I need to ship them faster. I need to run up to the, to the post office. You know, I need to reduce time. And then I realized that's a terrible process. What I need to do is, is have my videos available online, and you can click a button and you can buy them and you get them instantly. And I don't have to go to the office. To your point, I didn't need to automate me running up to the post office and packing them. I just needed to think about the process differently.

Correct.

Automating a process we don't even need. Do you ever find that companies are working on stuff that just doesn't need to be done anymore?

Yeah, I've identified that a few times during, you know, my mapping of the entire business. Right. You know, I identified things that, like, why aren't we just handing this off to another department? You know, if they're already handling 30% of this activity, why are we holding on to these two activities? That's what I did out of documenting these processes is that you're actually uncovering a lot of the business that they probably wonder where it was going on. Right. And another thing, you know, being a people manager, you know, myself, because I'm going through this process. Right. Unintentionally, you're creating an environment, a culture of collaboration and engagement. Because now you're interviewing these employees, asking them, how does your role work here? What would you do differently? What's challenging for you in this segment of the process, and where do you see as the most efficient? You know, and right there off the bat, you know, you're getting people and you're getting the employees involved, you're getting them engaged. They're part of the process now. They're part of the decision making. And, you know, essentially they're part of something bigger now where they are taking part in mapping out this process and how do we improve?

And I think you're talking about the whole workout process, right? GE calls the workout process, where they come up with all the solutions and pick them. And I think it's such an elegant, beautiful process to bring into organizations. I also think that companies have opportunities to find there's probably certain products and services that they have that are so massively unprofitable because of the way that they need to deploy that product or service, that it sometimes just makes sense to kill it versus even have it in the first place. Right?

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's not just for products and services, Cameron. But I mean, in some cases, you got to think about, is this the right customer for our portfolio? Right. I mean, at the end of the day, you're a business, right? You're here to make money, you're here to make a profit. And so you have to analyze the numbers and the data to find out, okay, this customer might be contributing to the top line, but how are they affecting the bottom? You Know, is it really a profitable contract to have with this customer? So it's not just products or service, it's all the customer. But you need it all in data and you understand the process to be able to make those decisions.

Are you guys doing that with your customer base now? Identifying, like which psycho demographic profile to go after or which hundred percent?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Our marketing team has a very, very specific set of criteria based on suburban area, based on the average value of the homes. Not just that, but that very specific geographic area. You know, majority of the dwellings are homes. Right. And not apartments, where people aren't going to invest in an apartment as much as somebody who owns a home.

I was just about to ask you that. Like, are you doing much about the commercial and industrial coatings and the apartment blocks and office towers, or are you really focusing on the residential market as your core?

The residential market is our core. Out of the entire portfolio, I'd say, well, 70 to 75% of our business is all residential.

What are the lessons do you have for us from dealing with such a high touch, high customer experience business, like where, you know, we talk about how important it is to have that connection with the customer, but you're really, really in with the customer. Can you give us some systems and some thoughts around the companies can extract from that?

So we have four touch points, right? The way that we operate, right. The first touch point is our call center that collects all the information from a customer. Right. You know, that's basically the lead. Second touch point is it goes to a project estimator who is the first point of contact to face the customer. Right. And so our sales management team, you know, focuses immensely on that very first interaction, you know, and I think it's sales 101, where you hear all these kinds of saying, these cliches like, oh, the sale is made in the first five minutes of a conversation. Or, you know, perception or impression of somebody is in the first five, 10 minutes of a conversation. So they've crafted a very specific pitch to when they, how they reached themselves and how they introduced the company when they meet that customer. Because, I mean, you're a consumer of products and services, Cameron. Right, I'm a consumer of products and services. Somebody shows up to your door, you're already starting to judge them and judging the car that they pulled up in. You're judging, you know, how they walk into your, your door. Are they shuffling with their hands in their pockets looking for a pen? Are they walking the beeline, what their first words are out of the moat. Hey, are you Joe? Yeah. And call for an estimate. Like that's just not a very good beginning to a conversation. And at the very end, how did you get in that conversation? Did you give them a very formal and detailed estimate or did you just take a business card and put a number behind the card like, yeah, it'll be 5,000. Here you go. Call me when you're ready. So that first meeting is the most important out of every step in our process. And we invest a lot in making sure that not just that the staff understands how important that is, but even in the interview process. Cameron, we're already, when we're interviewing these individuals, we're already picturing them in front of the customer, how they're articulating themselves, how they're responding to objections.

Of course.

So there's a lot that goes into again, it's that one, what, 30 to 60 minute visit that could make you a million dollar company or $50 million company.

It's good that you were focusing on it right. At the interview as well and thinking about like, what's this person going to be like? So go back to some of the people stuff for me. How do you know if the people that you're hiring are going to match the culture you're looking for? What do you look for in the interview to know if they're the right culture fit?

Well, I'm looking for, hey, why they're looking to make a change now, right? Is it something to do with their current role or is it something to do with the environment they in what's driving them, what motivates them and where they aspire to be in the next three to five years? Are they okay with just a nine to five or are they looking for growth again? And also it's really in, because these are positions that we're hired for. They have to be in front of the customer. It's really on how well they articulate themselves. I mean, and when I interview somebody, I'm throwing objections out like, you know, why should I hire. Tell me like in two minutes why you would be better than the next two candidates have to interview in the next hour, you know, to see how they can react under that kind of pressure. Because customers will say the same thing. They will ask you that same question.

Sure.

I've got two more contractors coming in the next hour. Well, why should I pick you? It's not silence, meaning, you know, so to speak. Right. There's also because I'm a manager of the people, you start to Learn body language, you start to learn tweaks and the tweaks of what they're doing when they have a conversation with you and you pick up on that, you pick up on what these nervous tics are. You pick up on. Is this person distracted? Why am I not getting eye contact? If I'm a customer, I'm not going to appreciate that. So there are all these little things that they could also be answering all the right questions. They could have all that experience in that background. And this has been the case several times where on paper this is the guy. But after a 15 minute conversation, that's no, we'll go to the next.

I want to know on the Frontline staff, the guys and women that are out there painting houses, you know, there's all of this stuff now that employees want the, you know, you have to hire people that this is their core purpose and that, you know, it's going to be their mission to, to do this and they have to find value. And at the end of the day, like it's also just painting a house like where it's hard, it's hard to find somebody who wakes up in the morning and go, like, I want to do this or maybe we do, right? Maybe we find them. How do you help the people that are doing the frontline blue collar work, you know, manufacturing painting houses, working in a, in a production factory or you know, a shop floor or warehouse. How do we help them feel good about the day to day and, and feel a part of the organization or are we pushing rope and is it more just okay that we make sure they enjoy their job and they go home and enjoy their family?

Well, no, one of the things. So there's, so there's two answers to that question, right? So for the painted itself, you know, we hire contractors, right? So we're subcontracting them. But what we are willing to do to make them feel a part of the company and, and the growth is we'll wrap their vehicle with our brand and we'll pay them for that. So now they're part of the organization, you know, so, you know, and that consistent flow of business, we already know in advance where the business is coming from and where it's going to go in which markets. So we can already identify with that crew. This is how much business we're going to be able to bring to you in the next month or two. Now for our other Frontline employees, our internal Frontline employees, we have, you know, like a franchise sort of model in place. You know, we're bringing you on board as an estimator, as a project manager, but with the ultimate goal that in 12 to 18 months, we want to make you an owner of your own business. You're a territory. We want to coach you and mold you where you net out. The territory that you've been operating in for the last 12, 18 months is now yours to own. You'll have access to our. To our brand. You'll have access to our resources, to our leads. But it's going to be your business to run. And we're. And we did that for you. We're here to do that, to create that partnership.

That's interesting. I like that part of the model as well. So that. That starts to give them some value and some focus as well. Then talk about, about your growth again. What have you had to focus on for yourself as an executive? Where have you focused on growing your skills?

The one thing I focused on was, you know, the people side of it. It was. That wasn't always the path that I walked. Right. I used to have a hard time, you know, understanding that we're not all the same old. I had a really hard time understanding that, you know, I would lose patience because it would take you an hour to do something when I could just use my own two hands and do it in 15 minutes. You get a nickname for that, right? You become a showboater or you become somebody who just wants to operate on his own, you know, they want to operate in a team, though I learned early on that I could easily just coach these individuals to operate the same way I do, or I could just surpass them, right. And then not have that team. So, you know, and I was fortunate to have a mentor that pulled me aside. And he's. He's the one that told me that. He's the one that said, listen, Joe, you're a rock star, right? But do you want to be a rock star in your own or do you want to create rock stars? Do you want to create rock stars, you know, like yourself? Why have you looking for the next joke? And I. And it was never, never put out there like that.

Oh, interesting.

And so from that point on, he was always like, just always look for the next joke. It's not going to be out there in the open. You're going to have to chip away at a few rough edges. But trust me, it's out there. When you find that other Joe, then you start to build other jobs around that Joe.

That was.

That's when I adopted that, that people mentality that, okay, team building mentality from.

That point forward, that was the core thing that I learned at college. Pro Painters as well was the leader's job is to grow people. Right. And it was my job was to grow their skills and grow their confidence. I created an entire course called invest in your leadership just to focus on growing people. So you talked earlier, it was in your bio, about taking underperforming teams and making them higher performing. And the teams are effectively like a group of individuals. So what do you do to take that underperforming team and to help them scale? Absent of firing them all, one or.

Two individuals can really take down an entire team. It's the truth. Right? So, yeah, so that's the first step, right? And you identify, you know, that bad apple and you get rid of it. Secondly, as you start identity, start figuring out what weren't they receiving from, from prior leadership, you know, what were they missing? Was it. And a lot of the things I would hear is, you know, just simple transparency. We don't know what management's doing. We don't know what management is up to. We're told we have to do this, but we don't know why. We don't know what purpose this serves. My philosophy and what I've adopted is full transparency and full access. Right. There's no such thing as confidential data unless it's in a confidential file. Right. But I have no issue sharing with our employees. This is what our profits are this quarter. This is where we lost money. This is where we're struggling. This is where we're strong. Because it's going to help them understand why you're making certain decisions, why you might be reducing work in a certain area versus another area. It's not that you're taking the work away from them because you don't think they're doing a good job. It's because the data is pointing you in a different direction. And so, you know, a lot of the time they're just missing that access and that transparency of what management's true intention is. And it's very easy, Cameron, to make a promise and break it. Very easy to do that. And I think it happens in a lot of organizations where management comes in and says, well, here's what I'm going to do. And then all of a sudden it can't happen for whatever reason. And I've just never been a fan of that. I'll make the promises that I know. Joe can joke. If Joe needs to get permission from somebody else above him, Joe's not making that promise.

Wow. Good for you. That's highly insightful, too. And I don't think I've even heard anyone explain it that way before as well, because you do. As soon as you break your own trust. Right. We destroy our own trust. We destroy our own, you know, tear away at our own fabric of our own core values. All right, let's go back to the 2122 year old Joe. He's just kind of, what advice would you give yourself back as a 2122 year old that you know to be true today, but you wish you knew back then?

Follow the lead. I had a hard time taking orders in my younger days. You know, it's. It's funny because I'm in a position now where I give all orders, you know, but I had a hard time taking orders, taking criticism. I was really stubborn in my 20s because I knew it all. You're only 21 years old. There's no way to hell you know everything. There's no way that you're the best at what you're doing right now. You want to be the best, and you might think that you're the best, but what's better than that is everybody else knowing that you're the best.

I love that. So, yeah, I think back to when I was 21 and what I thought I knew versus now what I do know. It's. And I imagine that'll be again. Right? Add another 20 years onto this. Joe Galeas, the CEO for Precision Painting plus, thanks so much for sharing with us on the Second Command podcast. Really appreciate the time today.

Thanks for having me. Tamara. Loved it.

You can't build a great culture by ripping into each other and allowing other people to rip into each other, because as soon as they actually realize that that's okay, then all of a sudden you got a bunch of people around, and then that just starts to really ruin the beauty of a culture and productivity starts to fail and people aren't happy. And if people aren't happy and motivated, they're not going to thrive.