Growing as You Grow with Tom Self CEO of Proliance

Hey, everybody, it is Jim Josin here, your host with Contractor Radio, the show that helps contractors get control of their business, lead it well so that they can then grow their business and hopefully achieve their dream, which is usually to find some personal and financial freedom to do what they want with who they want, when they want. And in today's show, I have an awesome guest. I'm so excited about this guest, it's not even funny because I've gotten to know him for a long time now. He's actually been one of our clients for seven, eight years now. And I got to meet him right in the beginning, which was really cool. He took a leap of faith, and things went pretty well for him. And this is part of our Contractor Success series. We're doing the series throughout the summer so you guys, as contractors, can see what others have gone through so that you can relate a little bit to some of the struggles that you may have and then some of the things they did to overcome those obstacles and challenges and really grow their businesses and in an exponential way. Super excited for this guy. His name is Tom Self. He is the utmost most positive, hardworking client that I have ever dealt with or individual I've ever met. I'm super excited to bring on board. Welcome to the show, Tom. What's happening, brother?

Hey, how are you? Thank you so much for having me.

It's awesome to have you. So owner of Proliance, Public adjusters, and general contractors, you're in one of those odd states, Illinois, where you can do both at the same time. But, you know, things have turned out to be pretty good for you. But let's. Let's go back to the beginning. Why don't you tell us, like, how it all started for you, like, how you got in the industry and then why you started your own thing.

Totally. Yes. I've been in the industry for going on 18 years now, if you can believe it. Yeah, that's been a lot longer. I didn't even know that it's been about 18 years. Yeah. I started initially, one of my friends in high school, like, early on in high school, maybe even late in middle school, told me that they were knocking doors and they were loving what they were doing out talking to people. Like, at that time, I was on Craigslist on the free section, looking for things that I could put in my mom's garage sale, and I was flipping things on Craigslist. I was doing lemonade stands early on. So I really was always entrepreneurial, and I was working a job, I believe, at Menards, and then eventually went to Red Robins, where I was a server. I love talking to people there. But what I really wanted was what I got from the position when I showed up. Freedom of being able to, based off the results that I put in, get paid back from the actual results that I get. So that's the part that I love. So I showed up day one, fell in love with it. The. The crazy thing was, was that I actually sucked at it. I was, like, not good at all. So you know how I said, hey, we get paid for the results that we put in? That's what attracted. Attracted me to it. I actually didn't mind that I wasn't getting paid a lot because I didn't deserve a lot. I wasn't very good at it. But what I noticed was the more doors that I knocked, the bigger my paycheck would get. I just had to put in a lot of extra work. So I fell in love with that. I actually, after several years, became good at it because I didn't give up. I learned that from my parents. I learned that my dad, he. They are some of the. My dad and mom, they're some of the hardest workers that you would ever meet. And I think that's what has been the role model for me, you know, is, hey, I had my parents who taught me that. I also was never given money. I always had to earn it. So with those couple things, you know, I have to give the credit to my parents. They raised me really well. I worked for my employer for seven years. Eventually he was like, hey, Tom, I can't really afford to pay you more. Do you want to partner? So we partnered up for three years, and then now I've owned Proliance for seven or eight years.

Wow, that's quite the story. So you're like, hey, I think I could go do this thing. I'll knock doors. My activity that I do. If I get some results from it, I'll get paid for it. And you like the idea of it, but you weren't very good at it at the beginning, but you kind of got that whole 10,000 hours thing in, right? You did it so many times that you became good at it. How long did that take you to get good?

Yeah, so for a couple years, like, literally, I would have to pay my friends who are working at the company to put my name on some of the leads so I wouldn't get fired. Like, I was like, it really was bad. It was that bad. And I mean, it took me probably a good two Years to get to the point where I could independently do it. Like, I really, really struggled.

That's an incredible amount of persistency, discipline, that kind of. What were you doing to try and get better?

That's the thing. We didn't really. And that's, you know, jumping way ahead. That's why I'm so passionate about training people and providing a really great experience for people. Because we didn't have any training. They came in. There were people in the office who, you know, were doing the pitch. The first day that I started, you know, there'd be, like, one day of training, and then it was like, all right, go off and do your thing.

So there was.

Yeah, figure it out. So, yeah, we didn't really. And personally, I didn't even think about, like, the training and practicing. It just. I wasn't even aware of it. I was just like, hey, this is a job. I'm here. Like, I need. I need to work harder. I was probably 16.

Oh, wow. Yeah. You were just a kid, so you're still living at home. So if you didn't make a whole lot of money, wasn't that big of a deal.

Right, Right. And I did other things too. Like, I was flipping things on Craigslist still. I was finding ways to. There was a crazy story. A crazy Craigslist story was there was a company that was given. They actually were trying to ship 5,000 gallons of paint to Africa. And they were like, hey, the shipping costs were too much. So they were like, we're looking for someone to take all the paint. But that's the caveat. Like, you need to take all the paint. You'll probably need a few semi trucks and 10 to 20 men. I told them that I had one friend who's on crutches and a school bus, but I will take all the paint. And they. We talked them into it. So I, I, I was. I. It's interesting because in some things, I was good at sales, so, you know that it's just real interesting. At the door, I kind of. It was like.

We gotta talk about this for a second. I love when I do all these interviews and I don't know.

This is great.

Somebody need to get a bunch of paint to Africa.

Yeah, they were donated.

So where did you need to get it to?

I needed to sell it. I was trying. I wanted to get it so I could sell it because I wanted to flip it. I was on the free section of Craigslist.

Oh, so you, you. And how'd that go? Did you sell the paint?

Yeah, we did really, really well. Like, people were coming over every day just grabbing paint. I, I, I filled my parents garage, my friend's garage, like it was everywhere.

So I'm confused, though. So whoever this was was trying to get paint to Africa.

That didn't work.

That didn't work out, right?

Correct.

So now they got these 5, 000 gallons of paint that they got to get rid of. You say yes. Did you pay them a portion of what you got or just take off their hands or.

Zero? I paid them zero dollars because they were, they just wanted to get rid of it out of their warehouse. They didn't want to deal with it.

Because they weren't able to get it to Africa.

Because they weren't able to get it to Africa. Yeah, they were donating it, but they're like, oh, this is too much money to donate, so we'll just get rid of it on the free section of Craigslist. It wasn't that easy to sell because it was all mix and match. Yeah.

Oh, man, that's a, that's a heck of a story. You know, that's doing whatever it takes. That's, that's really cool. So, you know, you go to, you go to work for a guy, you're struggling for the first two years. What, what clicked?

What, what clicked was the ability that, like, my effort and my results generated my income. And that did click initially as well, which is why I stayed for so long, because I knew that with enough practice, with enough dedication, I saw other people and I'm like, these other people are doing well. There's no reason I can't do well. I just have to keep persisting. So I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and I really liked the person that I worked for. He gave me a lot of freedom, which is why I really value that. There weren't people breathing over my shoulder or anything like that. And I just stuck, I stuck with them. And I saw a lot of people quitting, and that kind of motivated me. I'm like, oh, all these other people are quitting. I can do this. Like, I'm never gonna give up. So I saw the, I saw that I would be able to rise in the company and really be able to do something there with the owner of the company because of that.

So at some point, did you just gradually get good at it, or was there like some kind of light bulb went off and you went, ah, I get it now. This is how I'm messing up.

It was very gradual. Very gradual. Yeah. But then Once I was good, like, I had a lot of confidence that I could do it. And then it was like. It was almost like. Took a long time, but once I got there, I really shot up. But it wasn't a light bulb moment. It was more of gradual to get there, but then I stayed there.

That piece, this piece, that piece, and they finally kind of all came together, started having success, and then it was just like confidence was there now, right?

Yeah. And I just talked to so many homeowners. That was always my thing. Just talk to as many people as I can, hit as many doors, work morning to night. I like, I didn't like, I valued working out, but I wouldn't work out throughout the year because I wouldn't want to spend that one hour working out when I could spend one hour.

That's like.

To me, that's like, who would go work out when you could spend that hour working?

Every. Every person listening to this right now is going to. I want to hire Tom. I don't get Tom to come to where I need more Toms in the world. I really hate interrupting these videos, but I've got some important information for you. If you haven't tried out Atlas Shingles, you should, because they put you first as a contractor. They want to give you a competitive advantage out in the field so that you can win more sales and be more profitable. Check out Atlas in your local area, find your local rep, get hooked up with them today, and start making more money tomorrow. That is an incredible amount of discipline. I can't imagine that most anybody that you started with was still there by the time you figured it out.

Yeah. And I don't get it, because in my head I'm just like, this is just such an amazing opportunity. Like, who wouldn't be excited about going and getting someone a new roof where the majority of it's replaced through their insurance?

Yeah. It seems pretty simple.

Right.

But harder than it may seem on the surface. So you go to work for this guy and things are going well, you're selling a lot, and you become partners. Is that. Is that how it went?

Yes.

Yep.

About seven years in.

And so you did that for about three years. Was it good? Like, becoming a partner is a bit difficult. This. This idea that you're actually kind of like getting married. It's like a marriage and the only way out usually is you sell it and everybody goes yay. Or things aren't going so great and we have to have a divorce or separation.

Right.

How would you describe it in your world? Was it something different than those two.

I was so pumped. I was so proud. I was, like, so excited. I really, really love the guy that I partnered with. He always treated me so well. And it was awesome at first. Like, the first year was awesome. Just so. I mean, I was pumped. Like, we were crushing it in sales. The next year was okay. We actually noticed, like, we're not really making that much money. Like, the sales were insane, but we weren't really making that much money, which was interesting. And then we were like. Our eyebrows were. Both of us. We were just like, hmm, this is interesting.

Is he a young guy, too?

He is probably 15 years older than I am. I'm 33.

Okay. So he should have had a little bit of knowledge going into it, hopefully.

Yeah. I mean, and that's what I learned was we're both salespeople. Like, we are both on the sales side, which probably wasn't the most advantageous partnership. Right. It's not like he was all over the operations and the. The books and, you know, it's like, we're both just great salespeople.

Gotcha.

And so that's what happened. We. Since there were two great salespeople, we weren't really looking at the numbers or understanding the numbers, and we were like, I don't know if you'd even call it lose. And I still to this day, don't know, because it was. It was like, were we losing money? Were we making a tiny bit? Whatever it was, it was as good as not even close to what it should have been. And we kind of realized that together, along with the number one reason that we separated after three years was we just had different visions. He wanted to grow a small company, but make it as profitable as possible. Where my vision is, I want to employ as many people as we can, create the largest company that I can, and make the most impact that I can. That's where it comes from. I want to impact as many people as possible. And it was such a different vision that. And now looking back, I'm like, oh, our visions were totally not aligned.

Right? Yeah. And when they're not, it's like you start bumping heads a little bit. Right. One's pushing, the other's kind of pulling back. There's. We're trying to figure some things out, and the one guy's going, okay, figure it out. I'm gonna go sell some more.

Right.

And that can be, I don't know, create a lot of tension. Did you feel that?

I'd say, near the end, like, I definitely Started to feel it like when we both weren't making the money. And on top of that, we weren't seeing like one of my big things constantly the whole time was okay, like, I at least want to be providing an amazing service, right? So. But he was always trying to make it work with what we had. And I was always trying to add more people. And I'm not saying that either one of us was right or wrong, but it was. Yeah, we were clashing and it definitely was creating some tension. But he was so good at selling. Like we were so close. Like, he was just so good at selling me. Everything's okay. And I was so good at selling him. Like, you know, it was just like we were always so happy, you know. But yeah, I'd say after years of it and not seeing the changes that we both wanted, we both got frustrated by like year two and a half. We just had one conversation. We're like, hey, we should split up. And you know, the other person was like, yeah, we should split up. And it was. And we're still like, we love each other still. We talk on a regular basis, everything's great. But yeah, it was very frustrating for both of us.

That's pretty cool actually, because it doesn't usually go that way. You know, it usually gets pretty like, well, you know, how much is this business worth and what do you owe me versus what do you owe me? And all that other kind of stuff. And you guys were both like, you know what, why don't we just go our separate ways and still be buddies? Which is. That's big of both of you. Now I have a question. Did you figure out why you weren't making money?

Did I figure out. Yeah, I figured out why we weren't making money. We weren't making money because we weren't taking our overhead into account when we were job costing. And we were just like, yeah, that was a big deal. Like, yeah.

Cause overhead can be pretty dramatic sometimes.

Yeah. But one thing I wanted to add real quick. Cause it was on my mind and I think it'll bring people a lot of value, is that like, I'm really proud of the fact that we still have a great relationship. And I work with my family, I work with a lot of friends. And I worked with this individual who we had been friends for so long. I worked for him and I'm really proud that we still have a relationship. I mean, it's been, what is it, 18, 20 years now. I've known him and we're friends even after so much Stuff like this. And the reason that I'm able to do that is because I never put business over relationships. And I want to just send that message out to people that I believe. I've lived, like, way happier of a life because of that.

Yeah, I've noticed that about you in a variety of different. And sometimes it plays well for you. Sometimes it can be a little bit of a challenge. Right. As we're dealing with folks that work for our business. So, okay, we decide to split, and you're going to go do your own thing. Who are the first people you talk to? Like, okay, so I'm going to go do my own thing. I need some help. What does that look like?

So we basically had probably about 15 people at the company. My partner, he wants to keep it lean, so he's like, all right, like, these are my three, four people. I'm like, all right, come on, the 10 or 11, let's go over here. And I think, if. I think back, I believe that we started with like seven people that were from the company we had before.

That's pretty awesome. So they followed you, so they must have liked you for some reason or another. So that tells me probably some good instinctual type leadership skills, those types of things. Probably pretty decent culture. Who are some of the key people, like bringing leaders or anything like that?

Yeah, we have still some people today that are here. My mom, first of all, she was running the whole office, and she still runs our whole office. We also have Kim, who does our supplements. I also had several of my friends, so none of them work here anymore.

Yeah, Kim and your mom still work there, right?

Yeah, Kim and my mom do. And then I had several other people who came. But, yeah, those are the only two that still work here. Out of those seven.

So you start at zero. What's your first moves? What do you do?

First move was we. I mean, there was time, right? So we split up in the winter. So I had the whole winter to plan. We created the company. I. As soon as the company got approved to do business, I immediately went out and started generating sales. We had the team already. Everyone was excited. Everyone was pumped up. We went out and we started generating sales right away. Like the day that we were approved, we were knocking on doors.

About.

Right. And we were so pumped and we were really, like, talking to our clients, getting referrals. We were just. We really hit the ground running. I mean, we did over 5 million or I think we did 5 million flat our first year.

Wow, that's pretty awesome. So you did 5 million your first year. What challenges and obstacles did you run into in achieving those kind of numbers in your very first year?

Honestly, it wasn't really that challenge. It was very much business as usual. There was a lot of excitement.

Why would you like. Okay, so that's unusual, right? So most people started go zero to 5 million. Now you had some past experience, so that helped in the sales part of it.

Yes.

Like there's process and systems and accountability and leadership and culture and all these other things. What did you do to like get that kind of stuff installed to do like. Because if you do five minutes, that's cool.

Yeah.

But then you got to do again next year or more what you do to like get those things where it was smooth that first year instead of it being chaos like most people would deal with.

Yeah, we were at this time, we. I wasn't probably doing the best with that. I think that we just had a lot of people who really, really cared about and we. I, I think, I don't know if we were still in my parents basement at this time. I think we might have been in my parents basement. I'm having a little trouble remembering. But yeah, I mean, as far as the processes, we were just, we had, you know, everything from the, you know, we took our time to make processes at the previous companies that we were at and we had access to all of that. So a million percent. Like, like there's no way we would have been able to do 5 million and run everything the way we did without taking all the processes that we had from the previous company and all of our previous documents and everything like that. So that, that was so, so needed.

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I mean, you start talking about processes, and it's, you know, I start fumbling my words right away. It's not my forte. I love sales. The process has always been kind of my weak spot.

How did you get to help you with that?

So my mom. Yeah, my mom is who I put it on. She's very much like, she'll get it done. She might not be the best with, like, putting it all together and the whole strategy behind it, but if you tell her what to do, she'll do it. And I'm very much. I'm good at knowing what the result is that we need. So I was very good at saying, hey, here's the result that we need. And then the team, because we had an amazing team, everyone cared so much, everyone wanted to win, they would figure it out. So we empowered people to figure it out. And we had all the processes from before, and I encouraged them, hey, now, make it better. Make it better. So I come a lot of, like, the encouraging and telling them, hey, here's the result we need. And the team really puts those things together behind the scenes. So a lot of credit to all the team.

So, okay, five million first year. What has it looked like since then? What have you gone through of those seven or so years that you've been in business?

Yeah, it was very similar to how now I'm seeing a correlation. I've never actually drew this correlation before, but it's very similar to how it was when I started knocking. Like, we didn't do a ton more every year. It was, like, very much like a little bit of growth. A little bit of growth, A little bit of growth. As far as my understanding, we've grown every single year a little bit. And last year, so we went 5 million, probably 5 million again, 6 million, you know, 7 million, 7 million again. Then we hit 8 million, and then last year we hit 13 million.

Ah, something changed.

Something changed.

So what changed?

I'm not sure. I really. I do know. I do know.

It really was.

Be honest, I believe that it was a commitment to holding people to higher standards.

That's pretty awesome.

Yeah, that's been a struggle for me.

Why?

It's been a struggle for me because I care too much about what other people think, and I don't want them to not like me. Yeah, I have always struggled with that. I actually think that's why I struggled my, like, first several years even doing this because, like, I didn't do my job of even asking for help because I thought that would make me, like, not as worthy like, I should do everyone else was. I just always have had this thing where I think other people are better, and if all these other people are out doing it, what's wrong with me? Right? It's like, I didn't want to ask for help.

Ah, it's. It's funny because when we first met, you asked for help, like, right away. It was really cool. So go from 8 to 13. That's pretty impressive. Number one, accountability was a big key of it. You were always, like, you wanted people to like you. What do you want them to do now?

Right now I want to drag them to success. I want to drag them to greatness. I want to make them great. Like, I don't want. I don't even care if they like me anymore. I still absolutely have it internally. It's a battle I fight every day, but it's a battle that I'm committed to fighting and winning.

Ah. And so. So what does that mean to you? Like, I get the part of, you know, dragging them to the bank and probably dragging them to some success, too. Right?

We got that from you.

Yeah. And so what does that look like?

It looks like saying, hey, here's the standards. Like, let's go over your goals. Where is it that you want to go? And let's have an action plan. Every week, I meet with the team. I actually have a tool for the team where every single week they put, hey, what are the action items that you're committed to that are in line with your goals? And my job is to make sure that at the end of the year, they took the correct actions every week to where they are achieving that goal.

And then what happens when they don't?

What happens when they don't. If they. If they're talking versus walking, then they're gonna walk out the door. Ooh.

I like it.

Because I can't have the culture be just words on a wall. And you've told me this many times, and I've heard the words, and I, you know, had the knowledge, but I didn't apply it. And when someone comes in our building, they're watching as you. You've told me this before, too. I've got an amazing coaching. People come in the building, and they know if what we're saying is they're. And they're trying to test us. So if they see that we're just saying something, but we're not following through, then they're just gonna live based off of whatever they want to do, not the standard that we set here. So it takes. I have to be true to my words that, hey, if you say you're gonna do this, I'm holding you to it, or I'm going to push you out, or I'm going to have to let you go if you're just talking and not doing what needs to be done.

So what changed? I've had the opportunity and joy of being able to coach you over the years. Right. And like you said, we've talked about these things a million times. We've talked about this leadership, being love and love sometimes being hard instead of trying to be everybody's best friend all the time. Hopefully, if we do things right, they'll respect us, they'll understand us, they'll see why things need to be done the way they need to be done. Because it affects the whole, not just the individual. Yes, but what changed? Like, it was several years of, like, still wanting to be everybody's friends. So what. What changed that?

Yeah, I. There were two major things. One of them was, and this really did help, I went to an event recently. It was an. It was. It was Closer School Live, and one of the speakers there and his team really, really encouraged me because I saw that it was possible. I saw his team. His name is Andy Elliott. He had a team of, like, 40 or 50 people with him, and he has a very specific culture, and you could feel the culture from his whole team. He had an army of, like, 40 or 50 people with him. And I spoke with them all. I was, like, trying to pick them apart. They all work out together. Like, they're all like. You can tell that they're just, like, on their game. They're all working hard. They have a very high positive energy. So I think one thing was, like, seeing it, and it really, really showed, showing me that it's possible from other companies. That was kind of the first time I saw such a electrifying, like, culture that really, really, like, excited me. And then the second thing was I was just laying back. I was, you know, getting ready to go to sleep, and I was thinking about my sister. I was thinking about people in my company that work for me. My sister works for me. Just for context, several other people here. And I was just thinking. And I was thinking about my age. I'm like, I'm 33 years old. In 10 years, I'll be 43, then I'll be 53, then I'll be 63. Tom, how long are you going to keep holding all of these people back? Because you are not Doing what needs to be done because you're not holding people to high standards, because you're not dragging people to success. Like, dude, Tom, you're the leader. Like, you have. It's your responsibility to help these people be successful. And that really woke me up, those two things.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah. You can't imagine how excited I am. It has been like somebody turned a light switch on from the hard, like, going and crushing sales every day type person to the real leader type person. It's super awesome to watch and take understanding the responsibility of that. Everybody that works for you, you have them as somebody that you're responsible for. And sometimes we just have to gain the experience. Got to go through some of it before it finally clicks for us. You've mentioned a couple times now your mom.

Yes.

You work with family. You have actually several family members that are involved. You mentioned your sister a little bit.

Yes.

Who else? Anybody else from the family?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I can list it out real quick. I got my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, my wife.

Oh, wow. Five people from your family. And how long have. How long have they worked for you?

Man, my mom worked for me even before proliance company rise to heights. I mean, that was probably another two or three years. So 10 years. 10 years. My mom. My dad was probably. Probably still about eight, nine years. My dad actually got laid off with his company. They went out of business. After he had been working there so many years, my mom came to me crying, like, oh, my goodness. Like, this happened. And literally I perked up. I'm like, opportunity. Like, we need a production manager. And I was, like, so pumped. And that's how I've always been. I always see the opportunities. And, like, one of the opportunities is, hey, if I can work with my family, like, the thing that I do the most, I work the most. So I didn't real man. I guess I did recruit my mom and my dad. That situation happened. But my sister and brother kind of just gravitated here. And my wife, I met her at Chipotle. I went in and I just instantly, I'm like, wow. Like, this woman's beautiful. I love her accent. She's cool. We hung out, and, you know, 10 years later, here we are. And. Yeah, well, what happened was a storm happened in a Mexican area. So I was like, oh, my goodness. If I could have Claudia come out and translate, I'd get to spend more time with her.

Conniving thing that you are, huh?

That's how we met. And that's how we connected even more.

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I absolutely love it. I love it. It's had its challenges for sure, but to me, it's absolutely worth it. And the challenges have actually grown my relationship with my family. Like, it's. It's actually made it where I get to be more real with them because I had grown up, you know, with a lot of, like, surface level stuff, kind of back to the caring what people think. You know, I grew up, my family is very, very, like, by the book, black and white, and I'm very much gray, like, trying to push around things. And I've always tried to make them proud, and I've. I've, you know, haven't always been 100% myself with them. So, like, in. In business, like, I've always been real good at separating business and separating family and once again, and always putting the relationship above the business, so there's never any risk there. But my parents have been able to see my growth and me just growing with, you know, not allowing people's judgments to really affect me as much and like, a lot of transparency, even if it's hard things to hear. So we've just all been growing so much together, and it's been so, so beautiful. Like, I don't know if this would have happened the same way that it would if I wasn't constantly, like, in these tensionous situations with them.

That's pretty cool. It's not easy to work with family because the lines get blurred, right? We got business here and we got family over there, and then the family type stuff starts to come into the business, create some drama. Maybe there's some. Maybe there's some belief by the family member that maybe they could get it easier because they're family. Have you ever dealt with any challenges like that?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, without a doubt those things come up, and that just pushes me to be a better leader and to not let those things happen. Like, we have to take business very seriously. We have to be ethical. We have to be transparent. We have to do what's right. Like, we can't do favoritism and those types of things. And I get to have those conversations with my family. So it teaches me to be a much better leader working with family because I do feel that it's harder. Like, it's harder for me to have a tough conversation with a family member where I can hurt their feelings. Right. Versus someone that isn't my family member. It's just. It is easier, I think.

Has it had any effect on, like, because you'll hear things like, oh, they're getting special treatment because they're family and stuff like that from the rest of the team. Have you seen any of that or. I don't think so because I know your family well. Like, you guys outwork everybody else.

Yeah, yeah. I've never really gotten too much of that. Like, we're very in that regard. Our core values are care, honor, accountability, maximum impact, and positivity. We've never struggled with care. And I have been a pretty good leader with positivity. That's something that just comes so naturally to me. And I feel that that's kind of translated through the whole company. So we don't really hear any of those things. The accountability has been the hard part. And you're right, like my family, that we just have that hard work in us. So, yeah, that's pretty cool.

So this has been a great podcast, Tom, and I want to finish this one with what were the two or three biggest decisions that you've made along way in your business that you feel like have had the biggest impact on the level of success you've achieved so far and maybe even into the future?

Okay. Number one is going to be the recent one like this. I can't think of anything that's better than holding people to high standards and holding people to the culture. When I say standards, I mean, like, we know what our culture, I mean culture and I mean high performance. So culture is our purpose. It's our core values, it's our mission, it's what we're going after. And it's also, it's also our standards. Like, hey, what is the work that we expect? What's the level of performance that we expect? So holding people accountable to that changes everything. And being willing to let go of anyone who does it. Like we hire and we fire based off of our culture. So being truly dedicated to that and it's not like in a fear based way. I want to also say that I hope none of it's coming across that way like it should be in an exciting way. Like, hey, like, high performers want this. Like, people want to know what the culture is. Right. So it's confusing to people if you have these core values on the wall and these standards, and then a bunch of people aren't doing them. And then some people are like, people don't want that. They want to know what it is. And that, hey, we stick to this. That's one. Number two is. And it actually fits exactly with that. It's no matter how great a performer is, no matter how great of a friend they are, no matter what family member, if they're bad for the culture, being willing to let that person go. Because early on in the business I mentioned I had a lot of friends and other people who started with the company, and a lot of them weren't great for the culture. And I took way too long to let them go. I let them run the company. I let them. I mean, I was making decisions based off what other people wanted and not sticking to the plan. And a lot of the coaching that you've given me. I know you've gotten frustrated with me, frustrated with me many times because you've repeatedly told me to do things, and it takes me years and years and years to do them. And that's because of that, I was letting other people run the company. I was tiptoeing around instead of sticking to my guns of what I have been coached on and know that will work, because I was letting other people run the company. And third one, and this is another huge one, was knowing the numbers. That's something that years and years and years and years, it would have saved us. So, like, we just were working so dumb. There's really no other way to put it. We were working so dumb. And when you don't know your numbers, you can't make great decisions.

It's difficult. Yeah. You tend to be guessing, right? Yeah.

There are so many improvements we've made with knowing our numbers. Now when it comes to, like.

For.

Example, the overhead, your profit and loss, like, you have to know those things. I wasn't looking at my profit and loss and I wasn't looking at my expenses. And we were on pace to almost lose a million dollars that we were going to overspend in labor and material that was in one year. So now I am always looking at my numbers. Ever since that happened like that. That was one of the biggest lessons that I ever had. But I would have. Wouldn't put that one even over the other two that I. Oh. Especially over the culture and, like, high Expectations part, because you can always fix your numbers. But if you get poisonous people in your company, that's almost impossible to recover from, that's spinning on a hamster wheel. That's what I've realized is it's so important to get that down because if you keep, like, being unclear about what your culture is and sending all these signals, like you keep hiring and working so hard to bring new people in and you keep having to let them go because you don't have a real culture in your company and you're just turning people over and it's really bad business.

100% agree with you, Tom. This has been a great episode. You've shared a lot of really good stuff. I think these are some of the key things that these guys need. Like the high performance example comes from you. Like you are a high performer. You're constantly at it. It's on your mind 24 7. They see the example you set and how hard you then this culture thing and how important that is to the overall success of our company. And finally this knowing your numbers, like if. If most people would go into it with that approach, I'm going to perform at a high level, outwork everybody else and be that example. People will follow, have a culture that is not compromisable. And then finally knowing my numbers, they probably have some pretty dang good businesses.

I agree.

Well done, brother. Thank you very much for being on the show today. Thank you very much for your trust in us over these last or so years. I'm excited for what you're going to do this year. It's been fun in our recent conversations to see kind of this shift in the way that you're approaching things. And I think we're going to have another one of those big growth years. I'm pretty excited for you.

We're super excited here. And everyone else has reacted the same way. The entire team has thanked me for holding them to the standard and for like, not letting things go unnoticed anymore. That's cool. We're excited to make it happen. Thank you for having me.

All right, brother. Hey, we'll. We'll see you later. Thank you for being on the show. And we'll see you next week in a coaching call, I think.

Awesome. Looking forward to it. See ya.

All right, man. Hey, everybody. That was Tom Self, the owner of Proliance Public Adjusters and General Contractors in Chicago, Illinois, and also in Indianapolis, Indiana. It has been a bit of a journey, but it's been awesome to watch the growth, to watch him become that leader that I knew from day one meeting him that he could be and still growing, still working. But the just seeing this is so fulfilling. It's why I do what I do. So I am so excited about what we do as a company and how we help people. I don't want this show to be a pitch because the hard work was by him, it's not by us. We have some advice, we give some good coaching, but the hard work is done by our clients. It's just giving them the knowledge they need to do it faster than they might have otherwise. Appreciate you guys hanging out with us on this episode of Contractor Radio and the Contractor Success series. We'll see you on our next episode. Sam.