Invisible Forces Create Massive Results with Shawn Busse

Foreign. Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to Contractor Radio. I'm your host, Jim Johnson, the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, where we help contractors get control of their business so they can grow their business and achieve that personal and financial freedom they were after when they started their business. We have an awesome guest on today, Sean Busse from Kinesis. We're excited to bring him on. We're going to talk about some really amazing pieces of content for you and some of the things that we see that hold contractors back. But before we do that, let's go ahead and get started by keeping the lights on and hearing from one of our sponsors, Hail Trace. You're not using Hail Trace. It's definitely worth the money. That money invested was one sale was already bought. We've got from deny or declined 2x of being bought just because of Hell Trace and the storm reports that they give us. Not only do I know where the storm's at sometimes as they're happening and I can already head right there to the storm, but also after the fact, when I'm out knocking on doors, I can show homeowners the map and what kind of hail was in their area. We've seen a huge return on our investment, and I have no doubt that you will, too. If you're not using Helltrace as a restoration contractor, it's time to get started. Contact them today@helltrace.com, get set up for a demo. Reach out to our boy Brandon Williams, and he'll help you out getting set up with Helltrace so you can optimize any of the storm events that happen in your area. Today we're going to be talking with Sean from Kinesis. He's going to tell us a little bit more about that. But he's also an author. He wrote the book Marketing from the Inside Out. Welcome to Contractor Radio today, Sean. How are you doing?

I'm good. Jim, Nice to. Nice to see you and thanks for having me as a guest.

Yeah, I'm super excited for this. We were introduced by another one of our podcast guests and I was excited to talk with you because you do something a little bit similar to what we do, which is working with people to help them achieve their dreams and accomplish their goals and their business. Tell us a little bit about how you kind of got started in it and what's brought you to today.

Yeah, yeah, thanks for the question. You know, we've been around for a little while. Started Kinesis in 2000, so been been through a lot, a few, few recessions. Some, you know, pandemics, a few crises here and there. But you know, through all that, I would say that our commitment has been to the owner operated business, you know, the small business that's, you know, really run by the owner of the business. And the thing we do is we help them find an untapped potential that's in their business. So a lot of times folks are so busy running the day to day that they don't look up. They need a little help to see what's possible. And a lot of what we do is help them uncover that.

Do you think people are open minded to this idea of looking into what's possible or are they sometimes seem pretty happy with where they are?

Yeah, you know, that is a great question. I don't know if you found this to be true, but I often find the best customers come after a moment of crisis. So, you know, in 2008 we got a ton of business. In the subsequent years, I'd say the Great Recession was really hard in the, in the moment, but afterwards was, I mean, we grew super fast, you know, 30, 40% a year, you know, on the fastest growing awards list for many years running. And you know, that, that was a really interesting time because folks were going like, wow, maybe I need to do something different and think about the business differently. So I think, I think that about 20% of business owners are always in that mindset, like, you know, kind of 80, 20, classic Pareto rule. And then 80%, I think, need something to kind of knock them into a new state. You know, sometimes that's a hardship, but sometimes it can just be like, man, they look up and they're like, I've been on a plateau for years. And then they might call somebody like you or somebody like me.

Yeah, you know, just real quick, I'm familiar with what you're talking about. With Pareto's Law 8020 rule, we hear that kind of bounced around all the time. Could you explain a little bit of what that means?

Yeah, yeah. You know, and I was introduced to this idea probably about 10 years ago too, and I'm glad you asked. You know, it can be expressed in a lot of different ways, but things often break into these ratios of 20% of one thing and 80% of the other. So examples might be 20% of your clients are responsible for 80% of your revenue, or 20% of your employees are doing 80% of the work. You know, it's just, it's, it's all over the place. When you really start looking for it you can see these ratios showing up. And so, you know, the idea being, like, focus on the 20%, not the 80%, and most of us focus on the 80%.

Yeah. I was fortunate enough to, like, I believe in coaching. I believe it's something that's important. I've had coaching in marketing, finance, business, sales, you name it. And I've invested a lot of money into those things. And one of the great pieces of information I got was this 80, 20 rule and what's called Pareto's law. And Pareto was a very observant individual. He noticed that, you know, 20% of. I'm sorry, 80% of the results were coming from 20% of the activity that was going on out there. And he wondered if that was just human nature or if that was nature in general. And he did a study. He actually planted an acre of peas. Have you heard this before?

No. Bring it on.

So he planted an acre of peasants, and he then counted every pea pod from those pea plants. And funny enough, 20% of the plants produced 80% of the pea pods. So it's natural order of things. Like, it's just kind of how we are. And ever since I learned that, it's been my whole challenge in this world to break that law. I want to break that law as much as possible. It's the only law I can break and probably not go to jail over, you know, probably liked quite a bit if I help people break that law. And so we do things that we put in place to put accountability measures in place that. And we incentivize and do things to hopefully prevent it from being 20% of my sales team, generating 80% of my business. I'm glad you brought that up today. That's not something I've talked about on the show before, but I think it's super important to understand that that's the natural order of things. But we do have some ability to manipulate that a little bit. So when you're working with your clients, you know, these people coming to you, I agree with you. I see a lot of the same things that you do. You know, there's either this small group of people that are always constantly trying to get better, or there's this larger group of people that, oh, my God, the sky is falling. Please solve my problems. I need a coach.

Yeah.

Could you describe the difference between those two people and some of the things that you've seen whenever you're working with your clients?

Yeah, that's another good question. I see why you have a podcast. Yeah. Great.

Questions.

You know, I think it's a mindset piece. Like the 20% view themselves as having agency, you know, having power to influence the world around them, and they're looking forward to what can be changed and what can be better, what can be different. And then I think that 80% you're talking about, they, their mindset tends to be more of a. Like the world is acting upon them. So that group, in my experience, tends to look too hard at things like what their competition is doing or like what the economy is doing, or, you know, like what. What are customers saying about them versus like, what can I impact, what can I do, what can I change, what can I control? And then making themselves better. And, and I think that's really the kind of the fundamental difference. And I think in the construction space, you know, oftentimes when the economy is pretty good, like I think it is right now for, for folks in construction, they're just sort of like, the 80% is just sort of like feeling whatever's coming in and not actually looking to the future to improve things. They're just sort of trying to kind of stay afloat. And I think that's the difference is the, the 20% are building but building better boats, and the 80% are just trying to stay afloat.

You know, that's. It's interesting you brought that up because it's something I've been kind of delving into myself is this difference between what makes a great contractor or business for that matter, and one of the big factors that I see in that is this reactive versus proactive.

Yeah.

If you took that same concept that you just said and you applied it to 20% of contractors or 20% of businesses are proactive and thinking in advance, and 80% are more reactive, reacting to what's happening to them, would you say that is a pretty good description of what you're talking about?

Yeah, it's spot on. I mean, I guess I'd be curious to ask you. Let me flip the table here a little bit. You know, when folks come to you for coaching services, you know, are they reacting to something or they're being proactive. And like, what makes a great. What. What makes a great candidate in that.

Case, I would say 80% or more are being reactive.

Yeah.

They're either having market share taken away from them, somebody that's doing it better, they've had a traumatic event that causes a triage situation, maybe that something is an emergency and needs to be resolved. I see a lot of that type of thing. Whereas, and I Think you actually use these terms, transactional versus curiosity. When we were talking about doing this show last week, again, the 8020 rule kind of falls into play. A lot of people are looking for this transaction to solve their problem, where the other folks, the ones that are really getting ahead are the ones that are curious. Curious about how can they have a bigger impact, how can they cause change that will dramatically not only impact their business or their customers, but the people that work for them.

Yeah.

So whenever you're working with a client and you're talking with them, where does it all start for you? Like, they contact you, they say, hey, we're looking at getting some business advice, thinking outside the box, kind of maybe getting the blinders off. Where does that start for you guys?

Yeah, so I'd say, you know, since we've been doing this for a while, we built a really strong reputation in the realm of marketing. And so a lot of times folks will come to us for that. You know, I wrote a book called Marketing from the Inside out, so it's logical that people would come to us for that. And the funny thing is, if you actually read the book, the book is very light on marketing and it's really heavy on people. And the first chapter is about mission, vision, and values. And the idea being that that's the foundation of an organization, and to have clarity on those things is probably the most important thing you can do. So for our clients, and probably not dissimilar to how you work in your coaching experience, I'd be willing to bet, is helping folks understand what. What it is they stand for, what their purpose is, what their values are. Because everything really, I'd say, flows downstream from that.

But, Sean, like, that's all the fluffy, feel good stuff. That stuff doesn't pay the bills. What do you say to contractors that respond to you? Because have you ever gotten that response before, like, yeah, yeah, I get it. Tell me how to sell more. Tell me how to get more leads. Do you get some of that?

Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. I definitely get people coming in the door looking for transactions, right? They. They say, you know, how do I get more leads? How do I get more leads? How do I get more money, you know, in terms of revenue? And, you know, I'm. I'm a big believer that those tend to be symptoms and not necessarily the root cause. So, you know, I mean, the easiest line I can draw for somebody to understand about roi, you know, if they're asking for that. Right. Is, you know, if you believe you're a company of People, meaning the business cannot be done without people, which just about every business is. The better those people are working, the more engaged they are, the more motivated they are to win with you. The lower your costs will be, the higher your profits will be, the more recurring revenue you'll get, the more customers will be delighted. So I would say starting with the soft stuff is actually the hard stuff, because we're talking about creating a culture where folks are in it to win it along with you. And I find folks that come in the door looking for transactions like give me more leads, they are actually often ignoring those other things. And so I've had clients as an example called the leaky bucket phenomenon, where, you know, you pour water in the top of the bucket and you just keep pouring more and more water, but the bucket never fills up because it's got this huge hole in the bottom. And, you know, I would say that values and purpose and vision, that's. That's how strong your bucket is. And if you have that set, then you can pour a lot of water in it and really fill it up fast.

So I kind of relate that to this. This concept of being a physician, you know, a doctor. You come in, you've got a cough, and they say, all right, you have this cough. Here's what I prescribe to treat that cough. But they don't really look at what's causing the cough. Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is how we have to look at businesses as coaches and consultants. Is what's the root cause you mentioned mission, vision, and values. Right. Is that the root cause, or is there anything else that might be a root cause of why they may be experiencing some of the symptoms that they are?

Yeah. So we have a framework in the book that outlines the process of going through this. So at the root is mission, vision, and values. And the reason we put that first is that the people you hire really should be a reflection of what you care about, because if they're not, you're going to be at odds with them. And being at odds create friction slows your business down. So that's a sort of simple idea. Right. So if you get the mission, vision, and values right, then you hire people who are aligned to that.

And.

And if those folks are aligned to that, then they're going to delight your customers in a way that you expect them to. And then your customers become your biggest fans and your source of referrals. So that system is a sequence. And if you have the sequence right, you're. You're maximally efficient. It's like building a house, right? You would never start framing it before you've poured the foundation. And a lot of folks, they want to put the roof on before they even have framing or foundation. And I've seen this in action, right? So we talk about it in the book. We have this customer who came to us like, give us more leads, give us more leads. And he actually had the data to show the leads coming in. And we're looking at it and we're like, this is crazy. You have a lot of inquiries, you have a lot of folks asking for your help. And so we just started digging into it and we realized that one person was answering all the inbound inquiries and started looking a little closer and that person really was not in it. Like they were disengaged. They were actually grumpy.

And so they were just doing their job.

They were just doing their job. Right. Soon as that person got replaced, business took off. So, like we didn't get them more leads, we just helped them align their people to what they were expecting.

Yeah, so, so why do you think that person was, was failing at that particular position? Was it because they just weren't the right fit? They weren't bought into this mission, vision and values? It was just they didn't know why they were doing what they were doing. What, what was maybe the problem there?

Yeah, I mean, these things are, you know, often complex, but usually they boil down to something as simple as that the owner has hired for skill set and they actually haven't hired for purpose and values because skills can be taught, but purpose and values, it's really hard to get somebody to learn that. So if, if, for example, you know, you have the expectation as an owner, hey, I really believe in a high touch customer experience. I really believe in high follow through. I really believe that every customer should feel special even if they don't buy from us. Like that's a clear expectation. You actually have to hire for those characters and traits. Not can you answer the phone or can you lift 50 pounds, or can you write in word or whatever the skill is. You got to get that stuff first. If you have that, then you can teach them, you know, how to answer the phones in the way that you want them to answer the phones and just that alone. Honestly, we've done that with businesses where they don't spend any more money on marketing and then suddenly they're making more money. And I'm sure you've seen this too, right? I'm sure you have seen this in your business.

Yeah, we've Seen it in a variety of different ways. One, like you're talking about just having cultural alignment throughout your business. As a matter of fact, that's where we used to start with our coaching was culture, getting this dream vision, purpose and core values, which is similar to what you're talking, just maybe a little bit different vernacular in place so that everybody's aligned with it. When everybody's aligned with it, everything else becomes a lot easier. But then there's the skill part of it too. You know, hey, I bet you that you've helped companies generate a bunch of leads, but they may come back to you and say they're bad leads or they're not ready for us or we're not closing them or any of that kind of stuff, which then they go, hey, it's a bad lead because we're not closing them. When the reality could be that maybe they just suck at sales, maybe they don't know how to sell them, maybe they don't know how to create a value proposition. Maybe, maybe they're just putting themselves across as a commodity versus something valuable that somebody should purchase. So that's always our thing is trying to figure out which one of those things it is. And it's not real hard. It's just being on the outside, not having the blinders on. Every day that you have in your own business, a coach or a consultant has this ability to see things in a different perspective. You find that to be true with you guys as well?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I emphasize purpose and values kind of to the moon and back, partly because so few people get that right. And if you don't have that right, it's impossible to offset it with skill set. You know, like the worst thing you can have is an a hole salesperson. Right. You know, like, oh, but they produce, they produce, they produce and meanwhile the whole company hates them. Right. I've seen that.

You would absolutely love our podcast on the Hero Sales Coach. You'll love it.

Yeah. I am such a. I am not a fan of superstars. I'm a fan of teams. And, and I think that the skill set piece is super important and often misunderstood, you know, So I see this a lot in sales. Like you said, it's like they don't necessarily know what a great salesperson looks like as an owner. Maybe the owner has never had training in sales. Maybe the owner is intuitively a good salesperson. I've seen that. But they don't know how to like transfer that ability to somebody else. And that's A training thing. That's a skill thing.

So that's a whole different skill set.

It really is. Yeah.

There's a big difference between being a great salesperson and being a. A great leader that people want to follow.

Yeah. I think, you know, Jim, honestly, that that could be a whole show, which is what it takes to be an entrepreneur, to get the thing off the ground. Is that okay? You know, like, not amazing, but okay. And then what happens is you actually have to transition into a different type of a leader as the business grows.

This is a great segue because I was just about to ask you this question. Have you ever experienced, like, sitting down with somebody and you dive into it with them? You create this mission that's super powerful and impactful, These core values that they believe in, a vision that they can share with everybody, but then they just don't exit very well on it. Have you ever dealt with any of that?

Yeah, and I would say that's usually my fault if that happens. And what I mean by that is it's my responsibility if I'm selling to a customer, to be really clear with them that they have to be willing to lean in and do the work and that it's not just, hey, write me a bunch of checks and things will be amazing. That there's actually a collaborative thing that happens when good work gets done.

You mean, it's not just some kind of silver bullet thing that, you know, you sell them on, they take it, and it automatically works.

It's work, you know, and it's not to say, like, for example, I'm not great at execution. You know, I'm probably like a six. You know, maybe I tend to. My skill is that I can keep track of everything, but I don't execute and get them all done. Like kind of boom, boom, boom, boom, like a really skilled executor does. And so if, you know, you're that way, you gotta hire somebody who's really good at that stuff, you know, who's really good at. And that's. That's been my, you know, success is, you know, 10 years ago, I, like, recognized this. I was like, oh, my gosh. And then we hired just a key person still with us today, you know, who just was really good at getting things done. And then the business really took off, you know, and that was about, you know, really recognizing what I wasn't strong at.

Yeah, I. I can relate to that very much. Yeah. I've got a dozen people here now. Eleven of them are good task executors. And One of them is not and probably guess which one. Yeah, it's one of the first things that we teach people is we've got to surround ourselves with the people that handle the things we're not great at. I think that's one of the biggest concepts that we can learn as a leader is this idea that I have strengths and weaknesses. They could be that you're a good implementer or maybe you're a good visionary, but whichever one, you're not, while you can improve those a little bit to get the first pieces off the ground, to really take your business to that next level, you're going to have to take that risk. That risk that says, okay, I'm not good at this. The time it would take for me to get good at this is going to cost me too much on the things that I am good at. By investing in that other person, it's going to afford me the time to go out and build the business the way I want to. I think that's a big leap for most people. Do you find that in your business, like getting them to be convinced that, hey, you're about to go spend 60, 70, maybe $100,000 on this person and them not feeling like the risk is too much?

Yeah, I. I kind of want to turn this to a question to you since you know the contractor mind really well. I know it a little bit, you know, like we've had a few contractors over the years as customers and a lot of subcontractors, H vac, electrical, plumbing, that kind of stuff, and a lot in the commercial space. So I'm going to fire this question in just a second here. So one industry where we have struggled a bit is manufacturing. And manufacturing, it seems to make a ton of sense, right? It should be a space of innovation and creation and untapped opportunity. It's a people space as much as it's roboticized. But one of the things I found is that a lot of the founders of manufacturing companies are really good at making stuff, like, really good. And so they kind of apply that mindset to everything, like, well, I can do it. And then they do everything. They, you know, they're running QuickBooks, they're, you know, fixing things on the floor, on the shop floor. You know, they're building their website, you know, on and on, and they're really resistant to have people come and help and augment the things that actually they aren't that good at, or somebody else can do it way better, way cheaper and faster. So, you know, that's kind of my leading question, what do you see in the contractor world? What is their Achilles heel? You know, what do they hold on to like that they don't realize it's their blind spot they should. They probably should let go of.

So it's almost the flip. So people in manufacturing tend to be that engineering mindset. Right. They can build stuff. Like you said, I can put part A with part B, part C and get to Z and build this amazing product and probably build a great process to build that amazing product and build the assets that are needed for that product.

Yep.

But the idea of taking their business to this whole other level and seeing that picture clearly in their head, you know, three years, five years down the road might be out of their wheelhouse. It's tough for them. The charismatic aspect of sharing a vision and those type of things might not be in their wheelhouse either. And being this magnetic leader that people want to follow most engineers is not how I would describe those folks. Right. They're not usually wired that way. Where the contracting world is like the flip reverse for the 80, 20, 80% of them are the altruistic kind of visionary. I can do this better than anybody else and I know exactly what we're going to be in three to five years. But the ability to put all the things in place and the steps in place and the devil and the details of the foundation of their business, not their strength, but their blind spot is they think it is. They think that it is something they are good at and that they'll just fight through until they solve it. Because that's who visionaries are. We tend to be this. We can solve any problem and we can at a high level, but when it gets down to the. The details of it.

Yeah.

We lose interest. We're not as excited about that. We're not like sitting down and writing out a process is the last thing in the world that a 80% of the contractor owners want to do. Yeah. And they need some help to do that. And that help can come from a coach like us and walking them through it, which is going to be a painful, long process. Or they could hire somebody that, that fits their wheelhouse. And they love to. I do this test and that test and this test, this amazing, beautiful thing at the end. It gets them all excited. You know, most contractors are not excited about, hey, let's build a training platform or training program. Yeah, yeah, I want one. That would be great. Because I know if we do, it would be, we'll have an awesome company. But God, I gotta do it.

I bet it manifests too, in, like. Like, I remember a while back, we were working with this contractor in Palo Alto, and we did all this research on project management software for his business. So this is like 2010, 11. And, you know, he ended up putting it in place. It was hugely transformative. Right. But I'm betting that a lot of contractors, like, have binders and, like, scraps of paper and like, you know, like, he. He was really keen on operationalizing things and scaling it. And I'm guessing that's a leap for some.

Yeah. Most of them, it's really kind of in their head. They're sharing what they believe they want things to be and act, like, verbally in most situations. And while they think they're saying it the same way each time, it's just a little bit different. And the larger the organization gets, the more that communication breaks down, less accountability to it, and you start to deal with drama, chaos, and all those things that we want to avoid as good business owners.

And the costs, I mean, the cost, dude, they must, like, go crazy. Like, I bet the costs go exponentially up as the company scales, because, you know, in the back in the day, you know, if I'm the customer, I'm talking to my contractor, I'm like, hey, don't forget, we need to have that thing done over the window. Okay? He's working on the job site. He remembers it, he does it, but then fast forward, he's no longer on the site. I talked to him, I'm like, remember, we need to have the thing done above the window, whatever. He forgets to tell that to somebody else. And so then somebody does something differently there. And then I go back to him, I'm like, dude, you were supposed to do this thing. You said, yes. Oh, yeah, we'll undo that. So then they pay to undo it, right? And it's just like margin leaking all over the place.

Yeah. CRMs have been a big help in the contracting industry to resolve some of that. Although people are a bit resistant to it and they're a bit lackadaisical in the use of it. They're starting to understand the value. I actually built a piece of software for my own contracting business back in 2006, and that got bought by another software company, and I got to be their director of sales for five years. And going and talking about these things with contractors was like, for. It's a whole new concept. I had to sell them on the idea that they needed to document things, and then I had to sell them on the idea of using the CRM to do so, we have a little saying like, if it isn't in the CRM, it doesn't exist. It's just how it is. So you better make sure it's in there. And that does help to solve a lot of problems for these guys from a documentation aspect, because even if you said it, if it ain't in there, you didn't say it.

Yeah.

And so that, that blame game and that drama stuff can kind of go away a little bit in that area just because you've got some hard and fast rules to it.

Yeah.

What's the, what's, what's the most important attribute that you see from clients when they come to you? This thing that they've got that you go, I know this is going to be a good one.

You know, I don't know if this is true for you, but for me, a client who's really curious, you know, a business owner who's curious and tends to ask more questions versus that they have all the answers. And I work on that myself. Like, here you're asking me questions and I'm giving you answers. And, you know, it's like I have to kind of resist that urge to kind of be the expert. But when I get a client who clearly is curious and wants to learn and learn and learn, that's a great customer because, you know, they, the curiosity is what brings new ideas into the business. And I think it is underappreciated how commoditized businesses are these days that, you know, whatever it is you do, somebody else is doing it and they're trying to do it for cheaper. And somebody's trying to do it, you know, online and outsource it. And there's all these forces trying to take whatever it is you do, make it cheaper, faster, easier. And, you know, how you escape that, and that's kind of our business is like how you escape that is usually through creating new things. It's creating new ways of doing things. It's through innovation. And, and I think curious people are the innovative ones and they're fun to work with.

It's interesting that you say it that way. Let's use an analogy. If you were going to ask a hundred people and money was not an object, what vehicle they wanted, what brand do you think they might say?

I mean, the first brand would be something they're going to be most familiar with, probably, or it's going to be something they aspire to. So it's going to be one of those, you know, like the last truck I bought was a Honda because I was familiar with Honda. They made a unique truck that was good for my city dwelling self and wasn't too big. But you know, now, you know, the automobile industry has been commoditized for so long. I, I think it's good that you bring that. That's a great example. Right. It's been commoditized forever and the cars actually didn't look that different. And then, you know, Tesla comes along and like really upends that and then that becomes the aspirational brand. Right. That's the brand people want to be a part of. So I think that's, that's an example of creation. Right. Instead of saying we're just going to slog it out and beat the other car companies at gas engines and make our gas engine go.003% better than the other gas engine, or we have leather interior and they don't. I mean they're like fighting over the wrong things. You know, they just changed the game.

Yeah. It was kind of like one of those wake up calls for me is just watching what the iPhone did to phones, watching what Tesla has done to car. I mean people wait in line to get an iPhone on the day that the new one is released. People wait months and even years to get a new Tesla and they don't even get to test drive it. It's like you order it, it shows up, it's yours. Right. There's no test drive.

Yeah. Right.

Some of the other things I really like, the new Bronco that came out like Ford redid the whole entire. I mean people are ordering those online before they ever even get to drive them and saying I'm going to pay for that thing.

Yeah.

It proves to you that price is not the determining factor of why somebody buys something and that they apply value to things, which is how we've tried to position what we do is you're going to get more value from us than you're going to get from anybody else. With the way that we work with you and, and the level of intenseness that we're going to put into it, not just on our end, but on your end to make sure that it becomes something that's of true value to you.

I think honestly that's the best service you can do for the people listening to this podcast is helping them understand that buyer. There are buyers out there that buy on price. There, there will always be those buyers like that.

Just not my customer.

They're just. Yeah, they can't. You can't afford to have those people as your customer in general. Like, they, they generally cause you to not have a margin centric business. And so I think if you want to have a business that has margin that allows you to like, put your kids through college and to like, pay off your house and do all the good things in the world, you know, pay your employees properly so that they're not constantly struggling or leaving you, you know, I think it's, it's about creating high value with customers. And, and I would say that that value creation is often done through creating a different way. Like creating a way that you are unique in the, in the marketplace, I think so.

So what are some of the most unique businesses you've worked with? What, what, what have they done to position themselves as like this, I don't know, value proposition that nobody else is.

Yeah, I mean, something your listeners will relate to. So in 2010, I was, I was studying high performance home building pretty aggressively. I was curious about it and alternative building techniques and just all the stuff, you know, so.

So explain that a little bit. What is high performance building and alternative building?

Right, so we've been, I was joking the other day. There's like two industries that have been around forever. You know, the first is construction and the second is prostitution. And, and prostitution actually is much more sophisticated in terms of how it operates. You know, at least it's gone digital, so maybe that's inappropriate, but.

No, not on my show. Okay.

So, you know, construction has really been slow to advance, you know, in terms of how it, you know, handles sales and marketing, how it presents itself, how it, how it treats its people, even like. Right. So I was looking into high performance home building, which is, which really says, why are we paying all this money to heat and cool our buildings? Why don't we look at making the buildings so efficient that we hardly have to put any money into them? Right. And you know, that's air sealing. That's, you know, super insulated walls. You know, it's, it's things that cost a little more money, but not crazy. I mean, you can go crazy in this space, but you don't have to. And, and they've been doing it over in Europe for a long time. And it's, and at the time it was starting to make its way into the States. And I found a contractor down in Palo Alto who had been doing some energy efficiency work with the Department of Energy, and he had gotten, you know, kicked in the shins from the recession and was like, we got to rethink Our whole business, you know, this whole building spec homes, that's a terrible business. And so he wanted to pivot into high performance, really, luxury homes for all the wealth that was coming, starting to come out of Silicon Valley. And so he repositioned his business entirely from we build spec homes to we build high end luxury homes that are really efficient. Like they're like amazing technology. And it was a cool move, right, because all of his competitors were still just like, yeah, give me a set of drawings, I'll build it. And he was saying, hey, you know what, we'll help you build a home like you've never seen before. And then suddenly these high tech executives who care about technology were seeing him as like totally different than the rest of the market. And the scale that he saw in terms of growth by having something different was phenomenal. Talking, you know, 10x growth, crazy growth, crazy, crazy growth.

That's a cool story that, that's taking your market, having an understanding of your market, thinking about it in a different way, and applying a value proposition that applies to your market.

Right, right.

So we got to take a quick break, but I want to come back and I want to talk to you about this concept of a two year barrier with you. It's something we talked about before we hopped on. I want to make sure that we get that in today. You guys will not want to miss this. We'll be right back after this message from get the Referral.

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So if you guys aren't using get the Referral. If you haven't heard of get the Referral before, Sean, it's an amazing tool to not only reward the people that are sending you referrals, but allow them to track them, engage with their clients. It is the best thing that we've been able to find for optimizing the amount of referrals that you can get. And so, you know, today we've been talking a little bit about these intangibles, I think you call them invisible forces in our business. Could you talk about that a little bit More what, What you mean by those invisible forces.

Yeah, sure. So in your business, there are things you can see and measure pretty easily. Right? You can see and measure revenue margin, employee turnover, number of applicants you get for an opening. You know, these are all the things that you can measure and you can work on improving them. And you should. You know, a great example is the sales process. You can map it out. You can see like how many people come in, how many people convert to that next stage of inquiry, how many people convert and write a check to us. Those are all really cool things to work on and oftentimes are woefully ignored. There's another set of things in your organization that are the. The in invisible forces or you might think of as the potential in your organization that you can work on that aren't measured in a spreadsheet easily. They're not often. They're not kpiable. So, you know, things like, do your employees love coming to work? Would your employees refer your business to their friends? And I've seen businesses where they would not. Like, I've literally seen that. Do customers say good things about you out in the community?

Right.

You know, you can't really measure that. I mean, you can sort of count your Google reviews and all that stuff. And that's important. That's a measurable thing. But, like, do they know your brand? Do they really champion your brand? Like, these are all those invisible forces. I would say strategy is one of those invisible forces. You know, who are we selling to? What are we selling? How are we doing it? And I think that's generally the visible forces you can change incrementally and it's kind of a line. Invisible forces, or the untapped potential tends to be geometric in its growth. Right. So it's the hockey stick, like usually like the contract. I was talking about his hockey stick growth. Those are invisible forces that he was tapping into.

Yeah, yeah. You know, you talked about the tangibles, these measurable things, and we can move the needle with those things if we understand what they're doing, how to improve the process, how to improve our skill. Those type of things will allow us to move the needle a little bit. These intangibles, these things that are really how the customer or how your employees perceive working for you or with you, I think have a more dramatic effect on the overall results for revenue and profit for your business than anything else. Would you agree?

Oh, hands down. There's no. I've just seen this so many times. Like, the hockey stick is rarely ever tied to incremental improvement.

It's.

It's not. Yeah.

So. So what holds people back from pursuing that line of thinking? Like, you know, God, if I just made a place where my employees were happy to come to work, it would raise our revenue and increase our profit.

I think there are a number of reasons for this. It's a great question. First, there's entire industries dedicated to having you look at tangible things. Right. Your CPA is not going to teach you to think differently about how you price things and how you structure value in the sales process. They're. They're just not. They're going to look at the measurable stuff and say, well, your margin is this. Your revenue is this. I would say a lot of consultants are really structured around measurable things. You know, you think about, like, lean. Lean improvement, right? Which is like reducing waste, which is a really great thing. I mean, it's awesome. You can measure it. And so if you're a consultant, you can come in and say, hey, for $40,000, I will help you realize $100,000 in savings in two years, and then another 50,000 for every year after. Who wouldn't sign up for that? So it's a really easy thing to sell and to buy. Changing invisible forces. Realizing the potential usually involves risk and unknowns. And, you know, a lot of business owners are not comfortable with unknowns. They want certainty. And a lot of folks tell us, you need to have certainty. What is the KPI? What is the. What is the roi? What is the measurable thing? And honestly, a lot of stuff, like, I bet you 10 bucks, you starting your business. You know, Jim, like, there was a whole lot of risk and a whole lot of, like, this could work. It could totally fail, too, and I could lose a lot of money. Right. And that's what separates entrepreneurs from business operators.

Yeah. You know, it's. It's funny that you. You put it this way, because I think it's the number one thing that holds contractors back, this ability to take a risk with those intangibles. And I think one of the biggest intangibles is actually Karen showing this, like, I genuinely give a crap about you as the person coming to work for me and you achieving your goals while you're here, But I also care about that customer. Not just the check they're gonna pay to us, but how they're gonna feel about us after working with us. What are they gonna say to their friends and neighbors? What are they gonna say if somebody asks us about the service that we provide, about us? I think that is worth far more than. Can I save a point on the materials that I buy this week in the long run?

Yeah.

Now, let's say a contractor was to take the leap. And this is one of the things I think could be the problem with why they're so scared to take the leap is it's not an instant gratification thing. I can negotiate a better deal with my materials from my supplier. That's instant gratification. I got that point today. This investment in people, this care, this empathy, this connection that we have to create with people, that's aligned with the whole group so that we're a team, all rowing the boat in the same direction. It doesn't instantly pay off, does it?

No, no. I mean, you've probably seen this with your clients. I mean, it's like I can kind of put folks into two camps, right? The believers and the doubters. And the believers, they have enough belief to where they can go the distance through kind of those valleys of death, Right? Like, gosh, I haven't had water in a long time. I'm not seeing anything, but I'm going to keep going. And those are the ones who see, like, these big returns on the other side. But the folks who want this silver bullet quick turn, even for us, I've seen this with our business. It's like the really big transformations, they don't happen in, like, six months. Maybe a few do, but generally, I've sort of been observing this anecdotally, and I think it's two years. I think it's two years at least. You know, the businesses we work with, which are kind of in that three to $30 million range, they. They've done something well.

They.

They figured a few things out. And so, like, the easy stuff's been picked up already. Like, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna come in there and be like, you know, hey, you know, have you thought about hiring this role? You know, a lot of that stuff's been figured out. So they're. They. They need, like, you need to believe in something and put energy into it for a while before it actually manifests and that stuff, you know?

Yeah. Because they have earned credit at this point, up to this point. They've been a certain thing in a certain way for a period of time. And that's the expectation, right? Then you come in and you say, hey, you need to adjust the way that you approach the people that are coming to work for you. You need to adjust a little bit of your leadership skill and Style, you need to adjust how you interact with your clients and you're not going to get an instant reward for it. But if you do and you stay consistent with it for the next two years, you're going to see that hockey stick break. It's going to take that curve up. That doesn't mean you won't see almost immediate results just in the demeanor of your people. But until it's ingrained, until it's the real thing, not just a thing you're playing at for a little while that is truly believed in, I would tend to agree with you. We work with contractors and we can get some pretty amazing results in the first six months to a year right away. But we're also dealing with guys that we can pick up. Some of those simple things that maybe you're not having to do with some of your clients that move the needle pretty fast. But the real breakthroughs, the real breakthroughs come, you know, a year and a half, two years down the line, where now everything is as well oiled machine. We've been consistent with our actions and behaviors, we've been consistent with our systems and processes and through that consistency. And they don't even really realize it, I don't think. How about you? I mean, do you see that? Like, they don't really realize that it's taking off, but it's just taking off and they can't really pinpoint what it was that made it happen.

Yeah. You know, and you remind me, Jim, like when we built the model we have today, initially like 10, 10 years ago or so, we were in a smaller size client base. We were in that kind of like million to 3 million dollar business. And you're right, like we could come in and be like, hey, do you have well written job descriptions? And they didn't. And we would write them for them. And that, that in and of itself would actually change the candidates that came in like right away. And we could, we could hit those like quick wins. It was great. But now that we've kind of, we've moved upstream a little bit in terms of the client base. And so a lot of those what were easy for us back in the day are not no longer there. And I think there's two factors that take time. One is a willingness to recognize the culture you're trying to build and then to do something about it. Right. So a lot of times somebody will come and say, we want to be different. But there's a lot of legacy employees in there. Right. And some of them can make the journey and some of them can't. And it is hard for owners to let people go. And some I've seen, you know, feet drag, feet drag, feet drag. And then finally they let that person go or that person finally opts out because they feel so alienated by this new culture. And then suddenly it's like everybody's like, boss, why didn't you do that a year ago? You know, so I see a lot of that. And then the other piece is selling to a different type of customer. So a lot of times big change happens by getting a different type of customer. You can't just like flip a switch and suddenly you're good at selling to this new customer or they even know you exist. And so I'm really careful when I tell that story of that contractor down in Palo Alto to say to go from he was roughly 4 million a year to $42 million a year. That took about two years. And it was hard and the market was right. And he invested like crazy. Because I have gotten clients in kind of related industries and they're like, we want that. And I haven't done a good enough job of saying, are you in it for two years? At least. Because then they get the expectation that in six months they're going to do what that client did. They're going to have that major change of market, new type of customer, new positioning. It actually took two years. And that's on me in the sales process to say, look, I've shortened this for you because I only have so much time to tell this story, but it was really a two year journey and are you in it for that? And then if they say yes, great. But I think that's something I need to work on.

Yeah, you were talking about those legacy folks. You get involved with a company and they have all this historical culture that's already there. Right. Like everybody says, oh, we're going to help you build a culture. Well, you already have one. Every company has one. But you're going to shift a culture and when you do, that's going to affect everybody. That was there before. One of my favorite stories, and this was early on, probably my second year coaching, I was going through that culture, exercise and what we do with it. And I had challenged him to really think about his vision, think a little bit about what his mission was going to be for that year. Because we look at mission as like this military style thing of we're going to accomplish this plan over the next year. I said, I want you to think about how that's going to affect the people that currently work for you? And are you willing to make that change knowing that it could affect that relationship and you might lose a couple of people? And I want you to come back next week. Let's talk about it. I want you to go think about it, and we'll come back next week and talk about it. So. So we hop on the next week. And I'm like, I'll keep the names separate so we don't embarrass anybody. But I'm like, hey, you know, how'd your thinking go? You know, did you come up with anything, have any epiphanies, you know, any feedback? He goes, yeah, I fired everybody.

Whoa.

And he was consistently about a three and a half million dollar business and had been for the last several years.

So what, like eight to 10 people? Something like that?

It was seven people. He fired seven people. I'm like, what do you mean he fired everybody? He goes, no, I fired everybody. I said, your wife works for you? Yep. Fired her too. I'm like, well, first off, that was not my advice. I want to be really clear about it. I was supposed to think about this. And he goes, well, I did. I thought about it, and none of those people are going to be prepared to go where I want to go. I let them go. I let them know this is where I'm headed and that I didn't believe that they were going to be the people to help me get there. And we're going to do that. We're going to do that right now. So for the next three months, we got all of that kind of stuff in place. And he hired an entirely new team. Did 7 million that year, 14 the following year. And he does where he wants to be, which is about 20 million every year, because he decided to do something he fully believed. I mean, that's a level of conviction that is far beyond what we get from most folks. It's absolutely one of my favorite stories about belief and conviction and what it takes to actually like, hey, I'm going to make a shift in my business and the risk that goes along with it. But like you said, it took two years for him to get to where he actually wanted to be with it.

Yeah, that's, yeah, I, I think that is a tough one. And I don't, you know, there's no, you know, there's no right answer. Right. You know, sometimes clients want to make the shift and you're sitting there and you're looking at him and go like that, that person or these five people are not going to make the journey and they just like should drag their feet on it and they should take action. And then other times that what happens is like, you should, that's very rare because I think, yeah, it takes, can.

You, can you tell though when the person that you're speaking to has achieved that absolute belief? Like, I'm in, I'm in it. Let's go.

Yeah, we kind of built our business model around that to kind of factor for that. So it took us a while to figure out that we, we can identify it in the sales process a little bit, you know, like, you know, I can intuit it a bit, I can ask the right questions, but it really, the rubber has to meet the road. And so what we did is we built our process to have this like four month engagement. And at the end of the engagement you're, you can be done, you can be like, hey, you know what, we're out of here. And, and we give you all this stuff, tons of value. You can take it to somebody else. We don't, we don't have any of that like IP bullshit, you know, we only want you to be in it. It's like an engagement period, right? It's like we're really getting to know you and you're really getting to know us. And then that way you get to the end and then there's another journey ahead. And that really is the two year journey. And so it's a good break point. And some people don't sign up for that longer journey. I think they will. And then I realize, oh, they're not, they're, they're not. Or sometimes things happen, you know, sometimes things happen and for whatever reason they can't. But I've tried to build the model to allow for, you know, things in the sales process to not be quite spot on and then for the client to depart and feel good about it. You know, that's the idea, right? Is that they had a good experience with us, they've got something of value, but they're not, they're not in it for the two years. That's okay. I'd rather that they say that I'm not in it, you know, then say, yeah, I'm in it, but then not really be in it. That's the worst. That's the worst. Say you're in it, but not really be in it. So anyway, that's, that's what we've done to try to solve for that.

So, so why are you doing all this? I mean, I'm assuming You could do just about anything you wanted to do. Why this?

I, I, you know, I'm a small town kid. I grew up out in the woods. My, my dad was a lifelong entrepreneur. I saw how our family thrived when he was successful with his business. And I also saw how we struggled when he did not succeed. And you know, we went from like having several houses, he was in real estate, he was doing his own development. And we went from like prosperity to like bankruptcy. And you know, my parents, they tried really hard to shield us from that. But you know, when you're pulling out the food stamps in the grocery line and you know, you're, you're not able to afford new clothes, the whole thing, you pick it up as a kid. And I really believe that opportunity is created by small businesses. And small business owners can do really good in our community and to help their families, but I think they don't have the right information to do it right like that. You know, they aren't told, go get a coach, or you know, they aren't told, get somebody to help you, or here's the playbook. They just start doing stuff that's entrepreneurial, entrepreneurism.

But where, that's that whole take massive action thing.

Yeah, yeah. And, and I thought about this like, well, where do small business owners get their advice from? Well, a lot of times they're getting it from Corporate America, a book being written about corporate America. And then they translate that and try to make that work in their small business. And I just don't think it works. Like, I think there's a specific way a small business has to operate that's kind of a hybrid of a little bit feeling like a family and a little bit feeling like a corporation. And in that space, you have to behave differently than say, Apple or than, you know, NBC or any of these large corporations because they're like machines, right? They're just these plodding, lumbering boats sailing through the ocean. Where small businesses are nimble, they can change, but you're also super accountable to your team. And I don't think that's communicated well in the kind of business literature for a long time. That's changed in my, in my lifetime. But so I think that's, that's what's holding people back, is they need help. And for years the advice they've gotten has been out of corporate America, which is crappy. It's terrible advice.

I would say about 30 to 40% of the contractors we work with have had some kind of business schooling. Maybe it was a course that they signed up for or maybe they even went to college for it. And they come to us and we talk to them. We're like, well, most contractors, they're good at one of two things. They're either really good at the application, like doing the work, and they do quality work, which gives them more people by word of mouth, or they're really good at selling, but they're not great at the business aspect of things. And so we start teaching them these business things. I go, I never learned any of this in college. This isn't the stuff I learned in college. And it's those intangibles, those invisible forces that I don't think our education system really does a great job of applying with the tangible things like the tangibles are absolutely important. I think they probably do a fair job on teaching finance and stuff like that. How to keep your books, maybe how to measure some KPIs. That might be something important. But how do I get somebody to believe in me? Yeah, there's not a course for that.

There's no course on that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if they're lucky, they got a course in leadership, but not many business programs have strong courses on that. And, and you know, like you said, it's. Where is academia getting its lessons from? They're getting it from corporate America. Right. That's what those, those professors are studying. Even Good to Great, which is a book I loved for years and has a lot of great ideas in it. Like, it was a study of corporate large corporations. And many of the corporations that were cited as, as great corporations have subsequently, like, flamed out. And. Yeah, so I think, I think for small business owners to start to think about where they get their advice from, you know, and what they're seeking. You know, like guys like yourself, like, you've been in the trenches, you've done the work, you kind of know how to strike the balance between the hard science of business of, you know, finance and operations etc, and then the soft science of business, which is culture, leadership, values. Yeah, that's, that's, that's it.

Sean, this has been an amazing conversation today. So amazing that I want to invite you back in the future. There's some other things I want to dig into, but it. We're at about an hour right now. I know your time is important. I know the listeners time is important for them to hang out for an hour. We are so appreciative of. Is there one thing that you'd like to leave the listeners with today that you think might be Impactful for their business.

That's a good one, I think. I think that I'll just share my experience. Right. And I ran my business for many years, sort of thinking that if I could dial it down into numbers, I would, you know, it would be successful. And I was really focused on the metrics all the time. And because there were correlations. Right. If I saw this number go up, this other number would go up. And what was. What's interesting is we hired someone a few years back, and the role she's in is what I would call a people champion and not hr. I don't like the word hr. It's two words, but neither of I like the human one. I don't like the resources word. And. And so we're really rethinking how people are thought of in an organization. So we never use words like human capital. Like, capital is a thing. We don't use words like human resources and bringing our people champion into our organization. And her job is like, her one job is to make sure that the team is excited to be there and, wow, what a great investment that's been. And I'd say our business has shifted to become more human and less of a mechanistic, less of a machine. And I think that. Back to the advice piece. A lot of the advice business owners are given is to think about the thing like a machine with numbers and dials. And there's a. There's a place for some of that stuff. But the more. The further along I get, the more I realize, like, actually it's a place made of people. And what do people need and help them to get what they need out of the business. If you can do that, they can do amazing things for you. Like, amazing things. And I think that the potential for your people is vastly underestimated. I would challenge people to rethink that. That.

I don't know if I could have said it any better if I could change one thing about every business that we ever work with. It's how they treat their people.

Yeah.

We don't call it human resources either. We call it employee experience.

Nice.

Because that's what it should be. Whenever they come to work with you is an experience. Just like the experience you want your customer to have or you want your vendor to have with you, you should also want your people to have with you. That was solid. Well done. I hope everybody hung out to the end of this. I know.

Powerful. Maybe that can be your teaser.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Hey, Sean, if somebody wanted to get a hold of you. How would they get a hold of you in Kinesis?

Yeah, yeah, check out our website at Kinesis Team. Also, I'm really active on LinkedIn and, you know, if you've got a LinkedIn profile, which I would highly encourage you to do, I think. I think LinkedIn is the really the untapped opportunity for B2C businesses right now. Yeah. So find me there. Sean Bussey. S H A W N B U S S C Happy to connect and, you know, make new connections.

Hey, thanks for being on the show today, Sean. It has been a pleasure. It's been really good. I appreciate it.

Thanks for the opportunity, Jim, it's good to meet you.

All right, hang out for just a minute. I'll be right back. Okay. Hey, everybody. That was our show today, Contractor Radio with Sean Bussey. Amazing. Really solid stuff. This idea of.