The Cost of NOT Having a Sales Background | Aaron Getty, President of Joe Taylor Restoration

If you don't have sales, you don't have a business. You need to sell. And if you're not good at selling, hire somebody that is awesome at selling. Luckily, Joe and I are both salespeople. I've had to develop more into the operational mind, but sales, sales, sales, sales all the time. Building a sales team takes time and developing sales processes, client lists, and ensuring that you've got a CRM that can support the team, all that takes time.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Second in Command Podcast. I'm Lindsay Smith, your co-host, and I am so excited today to be here with our special guest, Aaron Getty. Aaron Getty is the president of Joe Taylor Restoration, a Florida-based emergency mitigation company specializing in water, fire, mold, and biohazard response. He joined JTR in 2010 as the director of sales when the company had only one office and 7 employees. Today, JTR operates 7 branches with over 100 team members, and Aaron runs every aspect of the business day to day, working closely with founder Joe Taylor. Aaron's path from salesperson to president under a strong founder gives him a unique perspective on the number 2 seat, what it takes to earn it, how to hold it, and how to build a leadership team underneath of it so that the company can keep scaling. Yeah. Faith and family come first for Aaron. Outside of work, you can find him on the jiu-jitsu mat, traveling with his wife and their 12-year-old son, serving at church, watching F1, boating, fishing, or reading a good leadership book. I am so excited to welcome our guest, Aaron Getty.

Before we continue, today's episode is supported by our trusted gold partner, Redirect Health. If you've ever felt like you're overspending on healthcare and your employees can't even afford to use it, Then listen up. Redirect Health offers healthcare benefits that finally make health insurance optional. It's a 24-hour online primary care and Rx membership that protects your business by guiding employees before problems happen. That means you're not overpaying for coverage that you don't need. It's like your mom is your doctor. You'll always know the healthcare you need, where to get it, and when it makes sense to use the insurance so that you can pay the least. Redirect Health, protection for business and guidance for people. Go check out redirectcoo.com. That's redirectcoo.com. And if you're talking to them, let them know that Cameron at the COO Alliance recommended you go there as well.

Welcome to another edition of the Second in Command Podcast. I'm Lindsay Smith, your co-host, and I am so excited to welcome Aaron Getty as our guest. Aaron, thank you for joining me today.

Thank you. Excited to do this.

Aaron, one of the things I really enjoyed when reading your bio in preparation for today's episode was learning about the way you work with entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

Having come from that environment myself, I know it can be both rewarding and challenging. So talk to me a little bit about your experience in the entrepreneur world.

Yeah, so I'm fortunate enough to work directly alongside the founder and owner of the company, Joe. You know, it's exciting because as an entrepreneur, he has a ton of energy, a ton of ideas, and, you know, typically runs at 1,000 miles an hour. So as an operator, I get to execute on his ideas, but it's also important for me to be realistic with, you know, what are we working on? What direction are we heading in? Does this fit with the business's goals and ideas? And You know, it's a yin and a yang. There's definitely a fine balance to throttle him back but not be the brake, like Cameron says all the time. And then also to park some things if it's not the right time. So as an entrepreneur, he's again running at 1,000 miles an hour and it's my job to try to execute on a daily basis.

I love when Cameron says you need to slow somebody down but not put the brakes on. I always They used to say that the COO or the operator needs to be both the left and the right hand.

Yeah.

Of the entrepreneur, because at any given time, you don't know what hand they're gonna have something in that you're gonna need to kind of grab and move forward with.

That's right. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's very similar. You know, and I, I think that's something that has worked really well for our business is, you know, Joe and I balance each other really well in, in that, in that respect, you know, it's earned. I've been here for 16 years and so, you know, we like to say production before perfection, but we've really perfected our relationship. And so, you know, my goal is really to intake his ideas. I very rarely say no at first pass. Take, take everything in, ingest it, chew on it a little bit, and then reconnect with him at a later date to revisit some of those ideas. It's, it's one of those things that's worked really well for us.

That's incredible. One of the things I think that people take for granted is the relationship that exists between between the visionary and the operator. And it's, they operate in a way that's different than any other relationship I've ever seen in life.

Yeah. You know, it's, it's unique. So I've, I've been married for 17 years. I've worked for Joe for 16. And, you know, just in my marriage, you know, communication is key, right? The having the right expectations and communication is what's, you know, led to me having a, a very happy marriage for as as we have, and it's the same in business. And so, you know, Joe and I have a unique relationship. It's important for us to sync up and be on the same page. And I think that's something that gets missed in a lot of entrepreneurial organizations where the entrepreneur, the founder is still involved in the business and there's a president or a COO that's running day-to-day ops. There's a fine line between getting the entrepreneur involved and engaging them on their business, right? But at the same time, not allowing them to be the bottleneck to the business growing. And so that's something that Joe and I have developed that we've worked on. That's probably been one of the hardest things over time is to develop that cadence, the what do I loop him in on? What do I not loop him in on? How do I keep him informed but not allow him to slow us down? So, uh, it's something that we've invested in very heavily, the, the relationship between the two of us. Yeah.

I'm smiling because I lived that life very clearly and remember those conversations and the decisions that you have to make and conversations that you have to have. One of the things as the president in the organization that you have to do is make decisions that are best for the company, for Joe, for your team. How do you go about doing that? They weigh heavily on you at times, I can imagine.

Yeah, it's super tricky, right? Because this is his business. He owns the company. And so in my seat, I, I probably, I joke with my wife, I say I probably have the loneliest seat in the company. And, and, uh, what I mean by that is not nobody else in the business has the visibility to the business and to Joe's personal life the way that I do. So there's a lot of times I'm making decisions and to others, to people around me, it feels like it's an incomplete decision or, or, or, um,, you know, maybe the decision gets second-guessed, but I've got Joe and his goals in one hand, and I've got the health of the business and our team in the other hand, and somehow I have to make a decision that benefits everybody involved. So it's a unique, it's certainly a unique position to be in, but I love it. I feel blessed to, to be in the role.

And you moved from sales into the operator role, and we always had a joke about how sales and ops usually don't get along. There's some clash.

Yeah.

So I'd really love to understand what was that transition like? For you?

We still say it in the business today, you know, sales, we joke sales is out there selling the dream. Operations have, has no idea what we're selling and somehow they're supposed to execute on the promises and dreams that we're selling. Right. You know, but for me, when I came into the organization 16 years ago, we were very small. We had 7 or 8 employees total, 1 location. We serviced only 5 counties in Florida. Now we're up to over 105 team members. We have 7 large physical offices located throughout the state, and we service all of Florida and 23 counties in South Georgia. So we've grown a lot over 16 years. I give you that context because ultimately, you know, as we've grown, we've had to make decisions and go in, in, you know, different directions from sales and operations. When I was in sales, I was out there selling, but sometimes I'd see operations miss. And so when you're in a small business, we have the, the ability to touch operations because we're sitting all in one, everybody's in one office. So it kind of naturally progressed for me because I wanted to make sure that we were delivering on the product that I was selling. So I just started naturally getting in, started getting involved in ops. And to me, I saw a massive opportunity and that was, okay, how do I bridge the relationship between sales and operations? Connections. And so, you know, I started doing that over time and that led to different promotions and, and growth. But absolutely, we still, again, the bigger we get, the more of a disconnect it becomes. And it's part of my job to ensure that we're connected at, at all levels of the organization.

So Aaron, moving from 7 employees to over 100 employees today in 1 location to 7 locations, talk to me about the leadership team you had to put in place to make that manageable to scale.

Yeah, that's probably the thing that I'm most proud of is building the executive leadership team and then, you know, watching them build our, our middle management team. And, you know, the more the business grows, obviously the more oversight you need. And it's not just about oversight, but it's about putting the right people in place to make the best decisions possible. And so something that I've always believed in, and some organizations do this really well, like Ritz-Carlton, But something that I've always believed in is the decision for the customer needs to be made as close to the customer as humanly possible. Right?

Correct.

And so often I see decisions made 2 to 3 levels away from the customer. And I think that's a major opportunity for most businesses because, you know, look at, at, at our stage of my level now, Joe and I are not out in the field doing jobs anymore. You know, we obviously have goals and ideas of how things should go., but the person that is probably best equipped to make the decision is our team member in the field or their direct manager. And so building the, the mid-level management of the team that has now evolved into our executive leadership team, um, it's been extremely fulfilling because not only have we been able to have promotions and team members grow professionally and personally, um, but it's, it's, uh, obviously a better experience for the customer for that decision to be made as close to them. them as possible.

So I wanna talk about two things that you touched on. First, I wanna talk about your customer. Mm-hmm. Who exactly is Joe Taylor servicing?

That's a good question. So, so we're a water, fire, mold, and biohazard remediation company. So our end user is gonna be the homeowner, but we don't sell directly to homeowners. We don't have a B2C sales structure. We, we are B2B. So we partner with all the major insurance companies in Florida and all the major multifamily property management groups in the state as well.

And how are you connecting with those insurance companies?

So, you know, it's interesting. There's a cool founder story there and I'll summarize it. So long story short, about 22 years ago, right after Joe started the business, he obviously had to generate sales. So he started calling on insurance agents, right? And an insurance agent he called on every month, he'd stop by. The business was getting smaller and smaller. And so finally he went into the owner of the agency and he said, are you going outta business? And the guy goes, I actually am going outta business. He goes, but if you want to get in with an insurance company, contact this person, see if they can help you. And Joe started cold calling a claims manager for an insurance company over many months. Long story short, one of his vendors dropped the ball and called up Joe and We got on our first program about 22 years ago. And you know, as we've grown, we've obviously maintained relationships. We have a phenomenal sales team, boots on the ground, working with our referral partners throughout the state. So that's one thing that, you know, because I have a sales background, was really important for me coming in was to diversify our portfolio of referring clients. and then to build up a, a large customer base so that if we lost a customer, it might be painful, but we're not solely dependent on any one client. So having a sales background, I, I know how important it is to have a good strong sales team in the field, and that's where we've devoted a lot of our effort and energy.

I think that's incredible. And a, a really good lesson in there for all of our listeners. Sales isn't an immediate process. And I think that with, the ability to be instantly connected on social media with people from anywhere in the world and to get a response in seconds.

Mm-hmm.

I see a lot of people get frustrated.

Mm-hmm.

But yet your client came after many, many, many months and because their number one messed up.

Mm-hmm.

So you were able to step in. And I think that that's a great lesson for anybody out there to, to really just consider you're not gonna make the sale in the first, call or the second call. But if you can be there always, you'll be there when the mistake happens and it will, and you'll be the first call.

You know, Joe and I say that all the time, right? Be, um, all places all the time. And you know, many of our great relationships took years to cultivate. And so when I talk to people in our space or other businesses or other business owners that never really built up a sales structure and maybe they landed a big client, right? So they build operations, but they didn't build sales. And then that big client goes away and they're like, oh, Aaron, what do I do now? And I'm like, well, you have a little bit of a long runway, right? Because building a sales team takes time and developing sales processes and, you know, client lists and ensuring that you've got a CRM that can support the team, all that takes time. So, Joe and I, I was in New York last week for meetings and a client that we've been working with for many years, I had a meeting with them in New York and finally the conversation that we've been having for about 3 years landed. And so again, just, if I could encourage anybody, it would be operations sales, right? That's like the old adage, like what comes first, the chicken or the egg? I'm biased because I have a sales background, but To me, if you don't have sales, you don't have a business. So you need to sell. And if you're not good at selling, hire somebody that is awesome at selling. You know, luckily Joe and I are both salespeople. I've had to develop more into the operational mind, but sales, sales, sales, sales all the time.

I find myself that being of the sales mindset, it's easier to dive into operations than being in operations and trying to dive into sales.

I couldn't agree more. We have great ops people on our team and they're so personable and so well communicated. And you know, when I say, all right, hey, we have a client coming over, can you please run the meeting? It's almost like a ghost jumped out of the closet sometimes. I'm like, no, no, no, we're good. Be yourself. You're good. You know, everything's okay. But yeah, sales to me, I think that's one reason I did transition so well because in sales you have to get to yes. And so it's about providing solutions and answers until you hear a yes. And in operations, it's, it's very similar solving problems.

Absolutely. So the next thing I wanted to touch on was building your team. So you build a middle management team that eventually became your executive leadership team. How did that happen and when did you know it was right to make them be executive leadership versus middle management?

So, Gosh, about 11 years ago we read through the book Traction by Gino Wickman, and that was a major catalyst for the business because it gave us the entrepreneurial operating system, right?

EOS.

And it allowed us to look at the business a little bit differently. And that's when we really started growing up. And so part of the book is, you know, creating the inner circle or the leadership team, right? So Joe and I kind of looked at the business and we go, all right, we've got it. We've got a handful of leaders. That we see in the business, let's invite all of them into the leadership team meeting, if you will. And so structurally, we, you know, EOS has a weekly leadership meeting for 2 hours and in the book, and so we read through the book as a team and in the book it says, you know, look around because the leadership team is gonna change. And at the time I'm like, how is this gonna change? You know, like these are people that have been with the company forever and then Uh, and then you could see things start to happen. And so you, you could see people, um, maybe slip a little bit or not step up to the plate a little bit. If they had to come in and give a report on their department, um, it would be incomplete. So I, I share that information because a lot of times, you know, we look on at the company and we say, okay, this is the team that's going to be here forever. And it's not. Of the original team. So I've been here 16 years. Rod, who's our VP of production, is, he beats me. He's been here for 21 years. And we have one other person, Jay Tesmer, who's been in the company for, I think, 18 years. Other than that, the executive leadership team, there's only 3 people that are, that are still here. And so what I like to explain to people is, you know, when we bring somebody into the company or somebody steps into a leadership role, Ideally, we're on level playing fields. Ideally, maybe they're a little bit more equipped than where we are. As the company grows, our skill sets need to grow or outpace the company's growth. If at any point the company grows and we have a team member that stays stagnant, that gap might be okay for a season, but when we grow again, the gap between where we are and where that employee is, at some point it starts to become undeniable.

Yeah.

And that's ultimately what ended up happening for us. You know, we didn't sit down and have some grand idea of who's gonna be a part of the leadership team. We just said, okay, we think that these people are leaders within the company. Let's get 'em involved in the meeting. And then that, that team has evolved over time. And this year we went through one of our biggest changes where we separated out field leadership from executive leadership. It was a hard decision to make, you know, so ultimately, you know, we had to ask certain leaders to step out of the, the weekly leadership meeting and, and basically step into their own leadership meeting. I promoted Rod this year, so he became the VP of production. And I changed the reporting structure. So now all of the branch managers and the field team reports directly to Rod and Rod reports directly to me. And I did that because ultimately they needed a leader that was closer to them. And the bigger we're getting, the more disconnected, and I'm not saying this in a negative way, but the more disconnected I become from field. Now, you have to fight that, right? I need to try to stay connected, but The reality is I've got different expectations and client demands and vendor relationships that I have to manage. And so it just starts to happen naturally, which is why Rod then steps into the VP of production role, right? So I see a lot of times businesses are trying to get their leadership team right from day one. And, and again, like the production before perfection, you know, pick the people that you think are leaders in the organization, put 'em in a room. Go through a book like Scaling Up or like Traction together, and it's amazing how things kind of start to sort themselves out. It's not easy. You know, some of those conversations were very uncomfortable at the time, but ultimately it's what has led to where we are today and, you know, has created the opportunities it has for our team members.

I love creating opportunities for team members. Sometimes in organizations you find that people think, tenure equals opportunity.

Yeah.

You don't realize that it, it isn't just a tenure thing, right? You, you want it to be a skill level. So, I love talking about the leveling up of the company and of the skills of the team members and just seeing how they're able to move themselves and what tools you can provide to support them. And then you either move them up or you move them over or you move them into a role that's better suited for them.

Right.

Yep. So, that they can thrive. Do you use any training programs within the organization to train your leaders right now?

We do. So, um, uh, we actually use Invest in Your Leaders, you know, through Cameron Herold. That's great cuz it's so common sense. You know, I think sometimes we overcomplicate leadership or we overcomplicate management or some of these terms that, I don't know, have gotten weird over time and it's not that complicated, you know, and that's why I resonated so well with Cameron in the very beginning is 'cause he just takes a very common sense approach to this. And so yes, every person in our company that is in a leadership role is going through or has gone through Invest in Your Leaders. And then we launched our own LMS, learning management system earlier this year. And so now everybody from Technicians to senior level production team leaders have to go through courses to kind of stay up to date on trends and industry changes. We've also done, you know, the brain dumps of all brain dumps to create JTR University. So now we have, you know, our proprietary training that's run through our LMS so we can track it and measure it and ensure our team members are growing. And that's a big challenge that, you know, any growing organization has is, Um, you know, what is the responsibility of, of the organization to help their team members grow? And then what's the responsibility of the team members to be proactive in their own personal and professional growth? Right? And I'm probably not the best to speak on this only because I, I'm an extreme ownership person. I, I believe that we're all solely, wholly responsible for our, our own growth. Um, but at the same time, running a business, clearly if we don't invest in our team members, if we don't give them the opportunity to learn and grow, are they gonna be learning and growing the way that we want them to? Right? And so, so this year was a big year for us because we, we launched that in Q1, uh, and it's been awesome. It's been great to see.

Well, I know firsthand that that is a huge undertaking, so kudos to you and to the team. So now we're thinking about, um, where you are as an organization and how you're looking towards the future. What changes might you see needing to happen either internally or externally in the marketplace to help you with that growth?

So I think the market's primed for growth right now. There's been a lot of consolidation specifically in our industry and in Florida. A lot of PE money has come in recently and gobbled up a lot of the smaller competitors. You know, that's really good for us. I'm probably telling tales here, but you know, running a Wall Street firm versus running a blue-collar organization, Those are two different experiences. So we, we see it as nothing but opportunity right now. What's gonna have to change? I joke with our team, everything, you know, everything has to change and we can't keep doing the same things because we're gonna keep getting the same result. So I'm a big proponent of change and growth. You know, we've completely changed our entire CRM. We've completely changed how we produce reports. We've completely changed everything this year. So now we're at the stage where it's just, you know, How do we pour gasoline on this? And so we're continuing to build the sales team, continuing to redevelop sales processes and marketing processes and ensure that it aligns with operations. And a big push of mine for Q2 has been just like we started out talking about aligning ops and sales and making sure that operations understands what we're selling and understands what they're delivering in the field when they get to that property. And so, yeah, no, I personally think everything's gonna have to change. In order for us to hit the, the levels of growth that we're projecting and that we're really shooting for, you know, according to, to Joe's vision.

And there's nothing scarier in an organization than having the leadership team talk about change.

Mm-hmm. 100%. You know, we joke and say, you know, iPhone, we all have iPhones, right? You know, we're on iPhone. This is a, I don't even know what this is anymore. 17, 18, whatever the number is now. But you, you know, even each 17 has 4 or 5 different versions and 4 or 5 different software updates, right? And so, you know, JTR 1.0 was when Joe started the company out of his garage. And then there's a JTR 2.0 and 3.0 and 4.0, and there's going to be a JTR 10.0. And so the one thing that I harp on our team is, guys, we always have to push the needle. We always have to look for the opportunity and we always have to try to grow. And growth does mean change and it's scary. You know, it's uncomfortable at times, but ultimately it's up to us in leadership to try to de-risk the change as much as possible, to try to put as much effort and energy into researching what we want to change so that we're not undoing and redoing things. Because that, that's expensive and you kind of lose credibility and trust with the team members. So that's something that we're highly focused on is, you know, being not, not just intentional with what we're changing,, but super methodical and, uh, thinking through all of the different outcomes that could potentially happen when we're changing.

How do you communicate change within the organization in a way that both de-risks it and allows for there to be buy-in?

So I think the first thing is talking about it regularly. You know, we don't have a company meeting where we're not talking about what we did change or what we're gonna change or what's gonna need to change at some point. So, Our team members will joke and they're like, man, if things go too well for so long, Aaron's gonna come in and change things. You know, I take that as a compliment only because, you know, like, hey, look, they, they get it. At least they understand. But we have credibility because all what we've changed over time has worked. So I think, um, the de-risk comes in the work that the leadership team puts into exploring the opportunities that are before us. If that makes sense. So before I even bring an idea or a thought to my team, I spend a significant amount of time researching it and working through it. I use Claude extensively to just run ideas by it and, hey, here's what I'm thinking. Here's my expected ROI. I use a project template. And again, it's a methodical approach. And so once I've vetted it, or once a team member has vetted it, then we kick it around in the leadership meeting. A lot of times that'll go back and forth for weeks or sometimes even months. And then when we're finally ready, we'll communicate it or present it to the team. And then we've got cohorts that we get involved within the company. So we're not doing it in isolation. So we're getting them involved once we've vetted it and we're running it through them. So nothing, no ideas or changes made in isolation within our company., we vet it at the executive level. We then get the next level involved all the way down to the people that it's gonna ultimately affect. And so when we went through this CRM change and our project management tool change, obviously we went through all the vetting at a corporate level, but then we got our in-the-field, boots-on-the-ground team involved in it and we ran a trial prior to launching to get feedback. And so a lot of times I see the de-risk to me is in getting feedback from the end users of the ultimate change, right? So depending on what the change is that you're gonna go through, get feedback from them. Even as something as simple as changing our vehicles. You know, we've got about 90 trucks on the road. If we have a, if corporate has a great idea that we're gonna change trucks, we'll order one truck, put it in somebody's hands, let 'em drive it for several months.

Yeah.

Before we order 90 new trucks.

Right.

So, the de-risk to me is letting the end user play with it and getting feedback from them.

I love that. The second in command seat is by far the loneliest seat in the organization.

It can be, that's for sure. Yeah.

How do you balance doing the things that you need to do, but also being able to be present with the different organizations?

I recently heard somebody say, The distraction isn't a distraction, it's the thing. And I allow that to resonate with me because as a father, as a husband, as a leader, sometimes I would get frustrated with distractions. Like my son would distract me and I'm like, what's going on, buddy? Like, can you not see I'm doing something? And ultimately I was missing the real opportunity and the real opportunity was the distraction. So I think having the support structure I have with my wife has been like, that's the only reason I am where I am is having that support structure and being able to run things by her. You know, there's a lot of times that I've got things on my desk. I can't talk to Joe about it. I can't talk to our leadership team about it. I've gotta marinate on it and decide what direction do I go with this thing? Do I want to get Joe involved? Do I just need to make a decision and move? Do I need to delegate this to another team member? Do I need to get our attorneys involved? Right. And, and there's a lot of weight in, in deciding what do you, what direction do we even want to go in? So having a wife who is patient enough to listen to me talk through these things is invaluable. And then, you know, looking at our team members and saying, all right, I'm in the seat that I'm in. I have the opportunity to affect, you know, people's lives in a, in a positive or negative way depending on how I handle certain things. And so I see the opportunity, I try to see the opportunity. But yeah, no, distractions are a real thing and the decisions that we have to make, the weight of those decisions are real things. And so I try to slow things down as much as possible and I don't let time influence me in a negative way., and, and just try to make the best decision that I possibly can.

When you're thinking about the things that are most critical for your team members, mm-hmm, right? Uh, what is it that you feel you can provide to them that's gonna best help them personally and professionally?

You know, it's funny, I was thinking about this very thing this morning. Um, and there's a, a balance between pushing and pulling. And so I think it's my responsibility to kind of set the pace. And encourage and coach and lead and guide them. But ultimately it's up to them, our team members, to execute and get to where we need to go. And so, you know, for anybody that played sports, it's, I think the analogies between sports and business are so very real because we're playing a team game ultimately. And, you know, in sports we know where the team wants to go, And as a member of the team, I know what I have to do in order to be the best member of the team to get there. And in business, it's, it's very similar, right? As, as the president or the coach, it's my responsibility to set the, the goals and the strategy based on Joe's vision, and then coach and lead and guide my team members, the team that reports directly to me to help us get there. And then ensuring that, that they're doing the same things with their team. So, you know, I don't, I don't like to pull or push too much. Sometimes you have to pull and push a little bit, but ultimately, you know, ensuring that we've got the goal set, everybody knows what we're shooting for, and then we're striving every single day to achieve that goal.

How often and in what format does Joe share the vision?

So Joe earlier this year, took some time out and really wrote his vivid vision for the first time for the business. And I, that was probably one of the best things for our business because then I had absolute clarity on what Joe wanted. And it made it a little bit easier for me in my role because now I say all I have to do, but what I did after I had Joe's 3-year vivid vision, I went and wrote a strategy for every single department head that reported to me for my strategy for their department. And so now there was no guesswork. It wasn't, where do we want to be in 3 years? Joe clearly and plainly laid it out. And so as the second in command, it made my job a lot easier. And so now for our team members that say like, oh, you know, why is Aaron asking for this? Or why are we doing this? I just point to the Vivid Vision and I go, guys, this is where Joe wants the business to be. Oh yeah, yeah, I got it. I remember now. So for any second in command out there, if their visionary founder, owner hasn't done a Vivid Vision, I would strongly encourage them, take a couple of days. I physically made Joe leave the office.

Yes.

And get out of the office, go somewhere, take some time, write it out, you know, Joe and I collaborated on it and then ultimately we rolled it out to the team. And so we had kind of the Vivid Vision launch party, got it into our team members' hands, and then I met individually with each of my direct reports to say, okay, based on Joe's Vivid Vision, here's the strategy for your department and now let's go execute. And so, so super helpful. Probably will be one of the more transformational things when we look back in 3 years. When we look back, I think that Joe taking the time to do that will be one of the single biggest movers of the business.

I couldn't agree with you more. I love the book and I love that you made him leave the office.

Yeah.

I think that's so important when somebody's writing a vision to just be in a different environment completely.

Mm-hmm.

So you can't be distracted.

Yeah.

When you went to the different departments, Aaron, and shared with them their strategy, how did they feel? Did they feel like you were coming in telling them what to do, or did they feel, you know, how'd that, what'd that look like?

So it's interesting, and I was thinking about that. So I wrote that over, so Joe did that, I wanna say in November, December. I always take a week out of the office at the end of the year and I do an audit of my every meeting, every calendar, uh, Every appointment, I audit everything. All 52 weeks, I audit every single meeting for the year. I write down all my thoughts and notes, what worked, what didn't work for me, and then I re-audit it with my notes. And then I set my own personal goals for, for myself and for the business. After Joe did his W Vision and he put it in my hand, I then took time out of the office like he did and I said, okay, I have this, what do I do with it now? And so as the president, my goal is strategy, right? So Joe's goal, Joe's role is vision. My role is strategy, and then our teams have to execute. So when I, when I wrote this strategy, I then sent it to the department heads. I said, hey guys, here are my thoughts. Give me feedback. Let's work, work on this together. Right? So they provided some really good feedback and ultimately we ended on the annual strategy for each of the departments. The feedback I received was overwhelmingly positive. And the, and it wasn't, we feel like we're being micromanaged. The sentiment and the exact words were, we've been freed because now we know, we know I didn't tell them what to do. I told them what I expect their department to accomplish for the year. I don't care how they do it. Right. So they said, now I know what your expectation is. I'm, I'm gonna run as fast as I can. And what be— I'm not saying because of that, but as a result of that, the things that we've been able to accomplish so far, you know, we're gonna be ending Q2, has been, we've never accomplished this much as a business. We've launched a brand new CRM. We've launched a brand new learning management system. We've launched a, a brand new onboarding and training and recruiting system. And it's, I feel like it's a result of them being able to now be unburdened by having to run things by me. They can now just run as fast as they can because they, they know what my expectation and goal is for their department, and now they just have to go execute. So the feedback that I received was overwhelmingly positive, and, and I think the results are speaking for themselves.

That's incredible. Sometimes when businesses are in a growth mode or working towards achieving something, Everybody thinks they know what is best and what they should do.

Yeah.

Right? But as you touched on earlier, you are really the only person in the organization who has insight into all of the aspects.

That's right.

So, you know what IT's doing, you know what finance is doing, and you can make sure that inadvertently they're not butting heads or doing things that are going to undo whatever the vision might be.

That's exactly right. And I told our leadership team at the start of the year, I want them making decisions. I only want to be involved for one of three reasons. If the decision is cross-departmental, if the decision is over X dollars, or if the decision is irreversible, meaning that we can't undo something. Other than that, I don't want to be involved in the meeting. I don't want to be involved in the decision. You guys know the direction that we're heading in and we just need to run as fast as we can. So yeah, for any second in command that is thinking about it, I would strongly suggest, um, that it's, it's been super helpful for our team members.

Before you ended up 16 years ago at Joe Taylor, what were you doing?

So I was a director of marketing at Chick-fil-A. Not a crazy high-level role. I really enjoyed it, you know, and I knew Joe personally. We originally met at a Bible study at church and, you know, out of the blue one day he called me up and said, hey, I may have this opportunity. I said, well, I might be interested in the opportunity. And we did our first interview and I called my stepdad and I said, hey, I'm working at a multi-billion dollar company. I think there's opportunity here, but at the end of the day, I'm still a number. What do you think I should do? At the time, our revenue was way less than even 2 million, way less than $2 million at JTR, like tiny, tiny.

Right.

7 people.

Right, right.

Um, I'm like, man, this is a big jump. And he said something to me, he goes, I think the only chance you will ever have to truly impact the business is to go work for a small business. And that really resonated with me at the time 'cause he'd done the same thing. He went to work for a small business, similar situation to me, 40-something years prior to even that conversation. And, and I saw kind of his trajectory and career path. And so I said, all right, well, let's give it a shot. Joe and I decided to, to make it, you know, make it happen. And, you know, 16 years later, it's just not even the same business. It's hard to believe and hard to imagine that we've come this far.

Did you ever have visions of becoming a second in command, or is it something that just organically happened?

I've always wanted You know, I'm the kind of person that likes to make decisions. I feel very comfortable making decisions. And, you know, if there's 1 second left on the clock, I've always wanted to be the person with the ball in my hand. I'm never scared to take the shot, never scared to take, you know, of the moment. So, no, I always wanted to kind of be the person making decisions to a certain extent. Coming into an organization though, where, you know, the president, founder, owner, CEO, uh, everything was Joe. You know, you don't see it initially, you know? And so I'm like, all right, can I build a great career for myself here? Yes. Can we grow the business 2x and is life going to be good? Yes. But then you start, you know, really producing results and really putting up big numbers and really starting to solve problems. And the bigger the problems I solve, the more closely I worked with Joe. And I, and I'm like, man, I could, we could do something with this thing. And so seeing Joe's willingness, you know, 'cause it, it's a two, two people play this game, right? Just like a marriage. There's two people that, that are, you know, a part of the equation here. And so Joe had to be willing as well. And so, you know, I'm so grateful, beyond grateful for Joe's willingness to give me the opportunities as well. I see so many businesses stay small because the owner won't relinquish control or they won't allow other people to step leadership roles and even big businesses, you know? Um, and ultimately, you know, you end up being the cap on the business. And so, yeah, I mean, it's just been such a cool ride. Um, but having an owner that was willing to relinquish control, that's a very big deal too.

And I'm sure it wasn't easy, even if he was willing. The act of actually relinquishing was a hard thing for him to do.

It was brutal, you know, and it wasn't this beautiful linear growth that everybody's like, ah, it must have been so awesome. I'm like, there were times where I'm sure we wanted to kill each other, you know, like going home. I'm like, I can't do this anymore. And I'm sure he did the same thing. Um, but you know, to me, there's a lot to be said I've kind of got an old school mentality and my mentality is always give me the opportunity, I'm going to prove myself, and then you're going to put me in the position. I never expected the pay or the title prior to my performance. So before I even got promoted, uh, to become the vice president of the company, I did the role for over a year without the title or the pay. And so by the time I asked for both, I could go to Joe and say, hey, I've been doing this for a year. And the conversation was very straightforward because it was easy. He's like, of course you've been doing it. Now the negotiating over the financial component, especially with an owner, is always challenging, but I never asked for something I didn't do. And so I see it today too often where people will ask for the comp and ask for the title. But not be willing to at least have done some of it prior to that. And I don't know, I try to not be, you know, too closed-minded to it, but to me, you know, I think we have an amazing opportunity as employees to prove our worth and our value prior to asking for the title and the money. I think, you know, it's like, well, I need to get paid what I'm worth. And it's like, Yeah, but let, like, let's do the work that way when you ask for X, you have a track record. You know what I'm saying? And so as a leader, I want to always give people the opportunity to step into that role. If they want to take on more, let's give it to them. Let's see how they perform. And if they kill it, then we're good. And if not, we tried, no harm, no foul. And even with AI, you know, I don't know where the conversation goes. AI has been a topic of every conversation I've had lately. But, you know, my position on AI, 'cause a lot of people are scared out there. Will AI take jobs at scale? I'm sure it will. I'm sure it will in some capacity, right? But I'm a believer that for team members, for departments, for employees, if your team, your department, or you as an employee provide so much value that the company has no option but to not replace you. I think we almost look at it backwards sometimes, you know, it's like, what is the minimum amount that I have to do to not get fired? And I've always said, well, what is the maximum that I can do to just knock this thing out of the park to the best of my ability? And to me, it's just, it's a, it's a value, right? Like we have members on our team right now. There is no technology in the world that will replace them, period, end of story. That can't happen. My executive assistant Carly, listen, with all the technology that exists right now, from calendar VimCal to Plod plugins, it can't do what she can. You know, like, so I don't know. I, I see, I, I see things a little bit differently maybe, but I think that we all have tremendous opportunity to just add so much value that we become undeniable in whatever role or department that we sit in.

As I've heard you speak today, I just feel like you and I must have known each other in another life because everything you've said, everything you've led with, everything that you've done in the organization, I mean, even your trajectory from sales into operations mirrors exactly what I did in my career. And so it's just so refreshing to hear somebody say the same things. I'm like, yes, I know I've done that. Yes, That all makes sense. And with regard to AI, people are people and you cannot replace people.

That's exactly right.

You can replace tasks. And when the people are focused on the tasks and not the relationship, then it's going to be something that is replaceable, no doubt.

Exactly right.

Yep. But you don't wanna have a relationship with a phone, right? You wanna have a relationship with the people that are making your life better and allowing you to do the things to provide opportunities for all of the people and all of the things.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, I think that's incredible. One of the things I'd like us to wrap up on today is that you mentioned earlier that you are a believer that you should be the one responsible for your own personal growth and development. And so should everyone else. And I know that part of the way you do that is through reading and indulging in leadership books. Let's talk about a few of your favorites.

So Extreme Ownership to me is kind of one of those non-negotiables. The premise is everything's your fault and everything's yours. So, you know, as a leader, it's super important for us to communicate the idea of accountability, right? And ownership of whatever it is. And so I would say Extreme Ownership is definitely, you know, probably my top 5. Good to Great. I've got Jim Collins behind me and then 10X is Easier Than 2X. You know, the thinking in both of those books, specifically 10X, is you, in order to go 10X, you have to think completely differently than you ever have. If you want to grow by 2, add a new client, you know, like it's, that's not hard. But if you want to truly multiply your revenue or the size of your business by 10, you have to think completely differently. So, you know, leadership, personal, professional growth, that's kind of the sill box that I stand on in the company. You know, if there's any one thing that team members will kind of roll their eyes on with me, it's, there's Aaron and personal professional growth. But I truly believe in putting yourself out there, being uncomfortable. I started jiu-jitsu 5 years ago, you know, because I just wanted a challenge and to try something new. So I think that, you know, as humans we have such capacity, like we have such an amazing capacity to accomplish things and to do things and for empathy. But like we stop learning and stop growing and stop being uncomfortable at some point, you know, you settle, you kind of like settle into life and it's like, no, it, I can't do it. It drives me crazy. So, uh, you know, if I were to leave our listeners with anything, you know, just keep learning, keep pushing, you know, be comfortable being uncomfortable. Let's challenge our teams to do the same thing. And I think that that's when, you know, you can really start transforming businesses is, you know, by growing yourself and growing your team, that's how you grow your business.

Everything good in life and in business happens outside of your comfort zone.

100%. 100%. You know, I used to hate traveling. My wife would force me to travel internationally. Now we were talking this, this year we're like, oh, do we go international? I'm like, it's not even an option. We have to, we have to go international. We've traveled internationally almost every year since our son's been born. He'll be 12. And you know, just the experiences, experiencing new things, not speaking the language, having to figure it out. I don't know. There's just something so refreshing and human about that experience, about growth, about challenge, about struggle and pushing and learning. Um, yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And if you do the same things you've always done, you're going to get the same results. So if you want to grow yourself, family, and your business, I mean, come on, international. Where are you going to go this year?

Uh, we'll be in Italy for almost a month coming up.

Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful. Have some great pizza and some wonderful wine. It's gonna be wonderful.

That's right.

Pretty wonderful.

That's right.

Aaron, I can't thank you enough for taking time to be with us today. I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.

Thank you, Lindsay. It's been great.

You're very welcome. And that is all for today's episode of The Second in Command.