The Entrepreneurship Elevated Podcast - Steven Bousquet: Maximizing Employee Engagement

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Yeah, you are.

All right, I'm going to start recording over here. Okay, we're recording. Steve, get ready, brother.

Yes. You can hear me all right?

I can hear you perfectly. Good. We all ready?

Ready.

Okay, here we go. Clock has started. Hey, we're not. Why was that, Kelsey? Was that like a riding a horse? What was that?

Getting ready dance.

That's a good. It looks like you're riding a horse or something. That's weird.

That's not how you ride a horse.

Is that riding a horse now? Oh, my God. Everyone, welcome to the weirdest show ever, starring Kelsey, the horse riding heirs, and me, Mike McCallow. It's an author on a mission. A mission to eradicate a entrepreneurial poverty you're about to hear how to do on this episode and every episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. That's how you get jacked up. Is there a song, Kelsey, that you get jacked up to in the morning? Like, is you excited and fired up for the day? Was it a rage against machine like yesterday?

No, it's not rage against the machine.

So we're sitting here, we have a very serious review that's happening with Amy. Kelsey sinks down. And you know, these are tough times right now. The corona virus, the impact on the economy with adjust the business accordingly. And I think I said I'd like to hear some music just to get some inspiration going on in here because it was silent. And Kelsey's like, I know the perfect song. And you start playing something and it's like this thrash, metal, raging, angry, rage against machine music.

Yeah, that's what we needed at the time.

Rage is.

I never, never expected that in you.

That's not how it went, guys. Mike asked for inspirational music from Alexa, and that's what she played.

Okay. That's the truth.

Can I tell you how excited I am about the new new music? It's I've listened to it just for fun because I like it so much.

As we transition the show.

Yeah, yeah.

So we're gonna go to a brand.

Actually, I have it loaded on here.

This show as we're. We're exploring a bl. Brand new format.

You make fun of yourself.

We've decided to go bland, like super bland with our show. And so we have a new show coming out called all up in your business, which is going to be these intense investigations on what it makes, what it takes to be successful in a bland way.

It's very bland.

Amy, I want to welcome you also to the show.

Thank you, sir.

It's always a pleasure to have you.

Thank you. Thank you.

And Jay, you know, we got the expert of the century on with us today. I didn't even know he was the expert named Stephen Buskay. You know, we were down in the Louisiana at the bayou. You know what the bayou is, by the way? Do you know specifically what the bayou's?

No.

A bayou is any river going through Louisiana that's muddy and brown.

Okay.

That's basically what I imagine.

So I thought the. Well, maybe it doesn't have to be Louisiana specifically, but I, I thought that the bayou was one specific river. So I think I thought the Mississippi was interchangeable when I got to Louisiana with the bayou. But there's other bayou.

Yeah.

So, yeah. So we do this event called the Breakthrough the Bayous. It's hosted by Dr. Sabrina Starling. It's an amazing event. Steve and I got together and I asked him a big question, but we're going to reveal that in a second. He's got to hang on tight because I do want to thank our corporate sponsor. Makes the show a reality. It's nextiva. And I think there's a couple others, too. But we're going to do read ins with them. Is that how we're playing? Okay.

We're doing it.

Okay. So we want to thank our other sponsors that we won't mention right now because I have no clue who they are. His name is Stephen Busquet. He is the owner of Land of America. Of Land America. To Brandon. His name is Steve Busque. He is the owner of American Landscape and Lawn services, serves over 3,000 clients and has a team of 25, folks. Stephen and I were talking at this Mastermind retreat and I posed a question to him. I said, how do you get maximized employee engagement, particularly in an industry like his, where it's blue collar work, potentially high turnover? And he goes, it's all in the Cubicles. And I'm like, what, Stephen, when you said that, what the heck were you referring to, sir?

So I was talking about our cubbies. Our. The lawn technician cubbies. So we have. We created a tech room just for the lawn technicians. Each tech gets their own cubby, has their name on it, has a shelf in it, has things where they can store stuff, hang up their jackets and dry their. We even have boot dryers for them. So if their boots get wet during the day, they can dry them overnight and they come back to dry boots in the morning. We created that room just for them, and they take care of that room really well because their name's on their cubby and they. They take a lot of pride in that space.

Yeah, you said. I think even said was the cleanest room in the entire facility. And you got a massive facility.

Yeah, it's. It's one of the cleanest rooms in the. In the whole building.

And you attributed some of that or all of it to names. Like, people put pride in their names. Can you share a little more about that?

Yeah. So we. The cubby has their name on it, and we put names on tools that they use, even wheelbarrows and gloves. And each team member has their own parking spot with their name on it. So everybody knows exactly where they're going to park. And most of the people that. I mean, all the people that work here and have their own parking spot with their name on it, it's the first and only place they've ever worked with their own named parking spot. So they take a lot of.

That's cool.

Pride in that.

Well, it's usually the president. Right. So we, outside in our parking lot, Kelsey change things around. It says, Kelsey Ayres, president, It's the best spot.

And.

And no one else has a spot. So we all, like, aimlessly try to find spots. It feels like she's an authoritative type of character here. What's you.

Can I. Can I add something?

Yeah, of course.

So I just want to point out I worked at a place where parking was a complete nightmare. And it was anxiety producing because you never knew if you had to leave 45 minutes early or, you know, 15 minutes early because you could never find a place to park.

Oh.

And so it was. It's seriously having a parking spot. I can imagine how amazing that would be.

Steven, is this a great equalizer? Does the entry, brand new guy have his name, his own spot, and he feels that he can talk to the president yourself because you have your own spot. Does it have an effect like that too?

Oh, absolutely. Everybody gets their own spot as soon as they start. And there's no waiting time. We don't even when people join our teams, we don't have waiting times for like starting for benefits.

Oh, interesting.

The first day they start, they're on the team, they get the paid vacation, paid holidays, any of the benefits they get right away in a parking spot. And it does take a lot of stress out of it. So instead of starting the day with their cortisol level high because they're trying to find a place to park because they're running a little bit late, they know they're going to roll in and they're going to have their own spot right away.

You know, there was amazing cost savings you were sharing with me. You're like, you wouldn't believe how many uniforms we go through. I think gloves you were talking about and you did something very simple and the wear and tear on your uniform uniforms, I mean, even equipment has gone down. What were you talking about there?

So we also do snow plowing in the winter, a lot of sidewalk work. And so we were going through gloves every storm. Each team member was going through two to three pairs of gloves because all the gloves looked the same and they wouldn't want to grab someone else's gloves. So we just wrote their names on the gloves and it cut down glove usage by 75%. So we still have boxes left over from two years ago because we have not been going through that many gloves and on wheelbarrows. So every team member on the landscape install crew has their own wheelbarrow with their name on it. And what happened was people used to break wheelbarrow handles off, throwing the wheelbarrow off the top of the truck. And then we started putting their names on the wheelbarrows and that broken handle problem just went away.

That's unbelievable.

Really interesting.

Yeah. Is there a psychology going on? Like, why do people often take ownership over it and such care for it when they could have done the same thing just earlier without their name?

Once their name is on it, I think the pride level goes up and they just take ownership of it. And they're also not going to touch somebody else's wheelbarrow or somebody else's gloves. And so things just. When there's ownership in anything, you just have higher quality and higher accountability.

One thing we did here is we took the strength assessment. It came out of Darren Verasami's company strengths finder. Amy failed it somehow. I don't know how that's possible. I know you've implemented the strengths finder. How does that work and how are you using it?

So we've tested about 75, 80% of our team at this point. So we use it to support our team members so they're staying in their strengths. And we actually, what we found from the strengths finder is that we had people kind of operating as a silo and they weren't completing everything quickly or high enough quality. And we found by doing the strengths test, we can match people up in teams. So projects are getting completed at a higher quality and much faster. Because if someone struggles with something, that's where the quality goes down and that's where the procrastination and delay takes place. But if they're on a team where people have complementing strengths, it just goes so much faster.

Hmm. One thing that was super impressive, you actually shared a tour, a virtual tour of your office. When we were down there in front of the masterminders and you were talking about the importance of one on one meetings. I'd like to really break this down and how it's enhanced engagement of your employees.

So we do one on one meeting weekly with the executive team and then monthly with the production team. And it's not like a review process. It's really just engaging with the team members to make sure that they have everything they need. And it's just simple questions we ask them about wins and successes. One big win and success for the past week or past month, challenges that they're facing. So a challenge is something that they control and they can do something about. And then an issue that they're facing, an issue is usually something they have no control over, like weather or bridge closing. And then what they're learning and what they want to learn. So they share something that they've learned in the past month or week and something they want to learn more about. And we go over a big goal and a small goal, so we're supporting. The big goal is to move toward the quarterly big goal. And the small goal is really this week I want to get this accomplished. And then the last question is one that I developed last year. In our safe and supported culture. We asked them one to five, one being not at all and five being completely. How safe and supported do you feel? And safe and supported is not. It's not a kumbaya thing. It's like, do you have the people to get the work done? Do you have the resources? Do you have the time? You know, are you clear on the expectations? And do you have enough communication on your team to accomplish that. So that has really improved morale and productivity.

You know, I think of a company doing that. Most companies don't. If they do once a year, how often are you doing your one on ones?

Executive team is weekly. And production is monthly.

Weekly. Okay. And production means the, the force out there doing the actual work.

Right.

The field guys and an executive would be in house. Okay. So weekly or monthly, that's a lot of frequency. If, if you're asking about your challenges, opportunities, big goals, small. It sounds like it gets pretty repetitive.

So I thought it would too. And I really held back on doing these. But some of it might get a little repetitive, but it helps people work through the process so they're not stuck in that same conversation month after month. The weekly is my lawn care manager, landscape manager, and my office manager. I meet with them and then the production is monthly, but my office manager is meeting with her office team weekly also. It just helps move people along and not feel alone in their. In their process at work.

How about rolling this out? Were people reticent, resistant?

I was. I was probably the most resistant.

The guy who brought it about.

Yeah, I was. I was the most resistant because I'm not a big meeting guy. And this was more meetings, but they're only about 15 to 20 minutes. And everybody was. It was a little. It was a little stiff at first until we kind of worked through the process. And now people come prepared. They have a little parking lot during the week. They'll write stuff down so when they show up to the meeting, they have a lot of good stuff to share.

Do innovations, new ideas come out of those meetings too.

So what we, you know, I'm a big fan of clockwork. So trim, trash transfer. So that's the kind of stuff we're looking to do. And they'll come up with, you know, we just don't even need to do this report anymore. No one, we go over it and nothing happens with it. So. And then we'll, you know, hey, can I transfer this over to someone else who has these strengths? And because it's taking me so long, I just don't. That's not my strength. So that's where the innovation comes.

I love the trashing idea. I think, Kelsey, we got to think about that because when we do the. Our weekly meeting where we're going over all the numbers, I'm wondering half those numbers, if they're even necessary anymore. You know, now think about. She did make it, but you can't hear because she's not even near microphone. There she is. She's like, she was fixing her hair. She had no time to pay attention to me.

I was paying attention.

Oh, were you?

Yeah. And that's part of, like, everybody doing their procedures, because then you can figure out what are. Are you actually using this? Are you doing this?

Yeah.

Do we need to be doing it?

Yeah, I think it'll be some interesting conversation. What about getting employees to act like owners, Steve? Like, how do we get that ownership mentality? Is it just these things? Is there more to it?

I think it's a combination of all those. You know, it's their own parking spot so everyone's treated equal. It's the one on ones where we're actually sitting down, listen to them as people and not just. It's not a review. We talk money in the company.

Oh, you do?

Always talking. Numbers are not in money so people understand what their production dollars are.

Do you do profit sharing company? Do you do profit sharing?

We do. We're profit. Profit. We do. We do bonuses based on production.

Okay. Which. Okay. Okay. How's that received? We do profit sharing here every quarter. Does that affect. Do you see it affecting people's participation in the company, or has it become a precedent and expectation and doesn't influence the way they behave.

It affects the teamwork because the like. For lawn care, there's only a bonus if the whole entire lawn care division meets their goal.

Okay.

So. So we. Our business is a route business. And some guys will have good routes, and some guys will have routes that are not so good. Yeah, but the guys whose routes are not so good, they'll. They're willing to take that bad route or that not so productive route so the other guys can go be superstars.

Oh, that's super smart. Yeah, that's super. So someone will sacrifice themselves knowing it's better for the team because they all win in that case.

Exactly.

Yeah. Did you. Did you before do individual bonuses? I mean, is this. Do you have something to contradict what you're experiencing now to see which ones work better? Have you tried just individual.

Yeah, I had done individual bonuses at another time. And it just. It's somebody loses either and loses, the company loses or the client loses.

Okay, but with team bonuses, it's a win all around. Yeah. Huh.

It's just that has not bit us at all every time we did individual, it bit us every time we've done team. Everybody's won.

With all the stuff you're doing, how's been the retention compared to your contemporaries?

So we have 25 team members. And over the past 12 years, we've had two people quit and four people we've had to terminate.

Hold on, hold on. 25 people. And this is in lawn care. So this is men and women out there doing hard physical labor.

Right?

And you've had, you've had only two people quit, right?

We've had two people quit. And we'll debate the quitting because they were like, they went to college, they worked for us in the summers, and then they went to grad school and then when they were done, they left. Okay, so I call it quitting. But you know, as far as like walking off the job, we've had no one do that.

Wow, this is so interesting. We just did a call with the founder of Jancoa, Mary Miller. Mary Miller, thank you. And her sister Nancy. And when we did this call, she has 650 employees doing janitorial work. And there's the funny thing she said, and I'm curious about your take, Stephen. She said, no one dreams of being a janitor. She goes, but the retention is because we care for our folks, because it's like family. Very similar strategies as you do. You know, this work is hard physical labor. I presume people are dreaming of some different future for themselves, but maybe not. So tell me about that. What's your perception?

It's very hard. So the thing is, from the one on ones, maybe a little bit like a half an hour, 45 minute one on one, we'll do twice a year. So you only come to work at American Landscape, Lawn Science if you want to better yourself and you want a better life. You don't come here to treat lawns.

Oh, interesting.

That's why people say, because I have at the meeting I explained to them, you cannot be the same person next year that you are right now. So what are you going to learn? We send a lot of people to Skill Path Training for Communication. We send people through Dr. Sabrina Starling's leadership Coach approach programs. So we're always moving people forward. So even though it might be the same job, they're not the same people.

I love that. Are you at risk or maybe it's not a risk. Some of these people may say, you know what? I've discovered a new path for myself and I love it here at American Landscape, but I'm ready to go on to something else. Has that, have you approached that at all? Sounds like no, but we haven't seen that.

But I mean, if they're, if they're going to Move on based on what they learned here. I mean, I would be happy for them if they found something that was going to give them more life. Then that's what we're about.

So if one of your employees comes to you, says, you know what, I want to start my own business called US Landscape and Lawn Science, that would be an issue. But otherwise, well, I don't know.

You know, it's because we share numbers and we talk numbers. They know that. They know what the gross profit margin needs to be, what the net needs to be. And when they start looking at, you know, all the licensing and the insurance and the sales tax and all the filings, it, it doesn't become about lawn care anymore. It's a whole nother business issue.

I found the same thing. And sharing the numbers, people are blown away. And I found. Stephen, I'm curious on your feedback on this is that if I didn't share the numbers, my colleagues were assuming the numbers anyway and totally wrong. Like, oh, a million dollar business, Mike's taking home $900,000. Clearly. Do you find that sharing the numbers gives people a reality check?

It gives them a reality check and it also gives them a respect for like the materials, the vehicles.

Yeah, yeah, there's real cost there. Steven, we got a rock and roll. Before we let you go, where can our listeners get more information on your organization and you yourself?

So our website is lawnscience.comww.lawscience.com awesome.

Stephen Bosquet of American Landscape and Lawn Science. I actually feature him and fix this. Next you'll hear a little shout out to Stephen, a fascinating story on how to build a business with where employees are acting like owners. Stephen, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you. Appreciate it, guys.

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Yes, we have a game. And another question.

Game in question. And I want to talk about an issue happening here at the office. But before we do all that.

Yes.

I first want to give a big shout out to next Diva. Next Diva. Nice.

I had the volume turn.

Dude, you're so close. You're getting good, though.

Yeah.

You're getting better by the minute.

Fast fingers.

But you can add that in the editing. You could just fix that.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's true.

So nextiva's a voiceover IP phone system. We use them here. Countless small businesses use them because they give you the big business advantage at small business prices. Nextiva.com check them out. We are big fans of this organization. Here's the issue. Yeah, I believe in Amy. I'm asking you. We had an event here last Friday. It was excellent. Thank you for coming in early and doing.

I had help. Just.

I know you did. I know you did. But I'm giving you all the credit.

Thank you.

And the food display was wonderful. I noticed that people eat very little.

Yes, right.

And we notice that. But every time we buy a lot of food and then I see it here in the fridge and then I think we are eating it, but we're not eating like, like all the, the fruit and the healthy yogurt, all kinds of things. Like the cookie consumption is massive. And I've noticed that here in the office, like, oh, no more cookies. We really got to avoid this stuff. And yet we get overwhelming amounts of cookies and muffins and then we consume them. Do you think subconsciously we're hurting ourselves?

No.

Do you think we're doing that really to feed our own appetite as an excuse?

No.

It might be. I might be. I feel like I'm being jerky. I. I called you out by playing with your hair. What's going on with me?

It's hard times.

Do I have COVID 19. I'm angry.

Are you angry at me for the muffins? No.

I don't know. I just, I'm just, I'm raging out. I'm lashing out at people. I'm sorry and I apologize.

I. The thing with the hosting, you have to provide food whether they eat it or not, you have to have it.

There's a rule of thumb though.

Truth.

If so, and this is from doing catering.

I should be talking to Jeremy. Yeah, Jeremy should be doing.

So you always, as a caterer, you would always do extra. Like 10 to 10 to 15 over what you would anticipate. But if you're doing it yourself, you go 30 lower than what you think you need because it's always less. It's always less than.

Wow.

So I had 12 people, I bought 12 muffins thinking that's, that's just one muffin per person.

So we should have gone down to eight or nine.

Not even for how many people? 12.

12. I should have done 30%.

Six muffins.

50%. 50%.

Oh, now I know.

Now we know. And I, I. And I'm big believer in the wrapped goods. So we have you wash my hand. Chester, you're like.

He's.

You're so covet aware. I just put my hand out just to, Just to demonstrate something. She wins and she's like, hand down six feet.

I think it's crazy. Everybody else is using the term coronavirus and you're like, Covid. No.

You know, teenagers are calling the Rona. Yeah, the Rona.

I actually loaded music cuz I was going to dub over for. For. I had a whole thing for the coronavirus. Oh, I was excited. I got it right here if you want to hear it.

I heard all the babies that are going to be born are going to be called coronials.

Oh, my God, that's good.

So this is the thing. Corona.

Oh, nice. Okay, I like that. That's nicely done. All right, let's talk about what we learned today. You want to hit the little buzz for that?

No, I gotta go.

Oh, see that? That's what's wrong with this board. No.

Do you know what it is? I have too much stuff on.

Yeah, I gotta take some stuff off. Okay. What? Amy, why don't you start us out?

Sure.

What'd you learn today?

I love the names on things. Giving people and creating a culture of inclusion and importance. You have a place at work. You have. You belong there. You. You're. You're part of the team. I love that. I think that's really great. I also love that they use the strength test to reveal good teammates.

Right.

That's interesting and. And kind of unique instead of just like, okay, this is what you're good at. Hey, you're really good at this with this person.

That's. Yes, yes. As we grow, we got to be super cognizant of that. We're so, so tiny. That doesn't matter yet. Everyone's. It is one team, but we get bigger, probably pockets of teams. Jay Colone, what you learn?

There's a lot that I would like to unpack.

Like the chocolates in front of you?

Yeah. So I actually got yelled at. I worked for this company, and the. The owner got really mad at me because I printed out the numbers for each department and then had a meeting and talked with everybody about the numbers.

Oh.

And he didn't want any of that financial information shared. And I was like, well, they don't know where they're at. Then how do they know where to. Where to go?

Yeah.

And it all. It became like a little competition. Like, each department was kind of competing with each other. So I think it's really important that, you know, to have that transparency. And then also, he said they're not just a lawn care company, you know, so they. They train them to learn about the bigger purpose of the company and the bigger vision. And so that gives ownership to people, and then they. Yeah, they want to perform better.

Yeah. Some of stuff you're talking about Jeremy Ryan. So you have extreme ownership. That's a book I'm, like, just really into right now. And it's. It's these two Navy seals just talking about what they translate from the. The military experience into business experience. And I do talk about educating around the why and giving people the facts around it so that there can be decisions in the moment because someone that tries to control every decision, it knows all can't. But if every employee knows, like, the numbers and why we're trying to achieve, certain things can move and adjust dynamically. So it sounds like it was a good move.

You can make decisions, you know, based off of the direction that the company's going and not just, you know, the information that you have at that second.

I see the first number you plumped down was this is what the boss makes. Your boss.

Yeah.

I was imagining you after he was talking about putting name on everything. Come in next week. And there's going to be label maker.

Mike does get a little enthusiastic with the label maker.

I do. Is it too much?

No.

Okay. I'm getting jacked up over that thing. What'd you learn today?

Oh, so I really loved how he said, nobody comes to work there unless they want to better themselves.

Yes.

And better their life. Like, I feel like that's amazing. I feel like that's. As employers, you know, that's a responsibility that we have as well. It's not just about the mission that we're serving as a company, but, like, all of the ripple effect that we have. So everybody that we relate to, including.

Our employees, one thing I'm going to do is I'm going to run over to my office right. When we're done with this podcast recording, take notes for a future book I'm writing around employee engagement.

And.

And he said, you may have the same job, but you'll be a different person.

Yeah.

That is the quote of the century.

Yeah.

That's. And that's why people have stayed for, you know, upwards of 25 years now, or however long they've been in business. As long in 25 years, since 1991.

Yeah.

That's even longer. Pretty amazing.

1983.

Why does it say, oh, added the law and Science in 1991. What the heck does that mean?

They just added to the. To the company.

The company.

Why would you do that? Now the whole interview is ruined. Why would.

You should have asked them that. I should.

I should ask that. You're. You're doing lawnscaping, landscaping, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, now we do lawn science. What's lawn science? Is that like. What is that?

It's bigger than landscaping.

Is it like the.

They understand the chemistry.

Chemistry.

And it's organic, so did they not know that before?

They wanted to make sure people knew that right off the bat.

Oh, I got you. They just wanted to educate people. They were already doing this.

Yeah.

So we add the name.

Yeah. It's their differentiator.

Okay. It's won me back over. I feel so aggressive. Why am I so.

Yeah, that was a little judgy.

I'm so judgy.

It could be the sugar.

Oh, my God. I had two pieces of chocolate. I'm telling you, now he's gonna throw them out.

Amy.

So I don't drink. Yeah, throw those out. I don't drink. For God's sake. When she says throw them out, don't jam them in your mouth. It's like that. I hope that's on camera. It's like the Lucille Ball episode when she started hiding a little chocolate in her mouth. Did you jam another one in? Scoop it out. Scoop it out.

Not doing it.

Scoop it out. Amy. Amy. I almost did for Kelsey. I will do it for you. I will scoop that out of your mouth.

No, no, no.

Okay. Okay. We want to know what you learned too, today, so share it in the show notes. What you learned from today's episode. We want to hear in the show notes in the. In the ratings and reviews. I should say. We want to hear it there. All right, what else got.

Jeremy, I got a question.

Okay.

This is from David Harrison. Do you know David? It came in from emo.

I don't know.

So anyway, he says in three years he has not taken a salary from his business, but this month he'll be taking a paycheck and a bonus. And I think that's to the profit first testament. Okay, question is, if there's clearly enough cash left over after dropping expenses to start the owner's comp account, can we load it with 30%? If the tap is 50%, can we speed up the cap?

Okay, so let me be clear for our listeners what these things are. So TAP stands for target allocation percentages. We ran diagnostic of fiscally elite companies and determined different. Different revenue ranges what kind of percentage they were allocating. CAP stands for current allocation percentages. And what David's asking here is, can he increase or enhance the speed that they grow the cap in their rollout? So say you're targeting a 50 allocation of your income to your pay, and you're planning to do this over two years. Well, you may move in increments. That's eight iterations of about 5 to 6% increases each quarter. What I hear him asking is, should I do this faster? And the answer is absolutely, you can. Absolutely can do it faster. But when you set the new cap, setting the current allocation percentage, David, just sit there for a quarter. Don't keep on ramping this up. See if the company can settle in, adjust the expenses accordingly to support that new standard, and then step forward, forward again. It is a step process so you don't leap to the new number. You step to the new number. Did I explain that well or is that confusing? Okay, well, enough.

Okay, it's time for everyone's favorite game show. I don't know if you're ready. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

I love this. Look at Jerry's smile. I love Jerry's smile.

That's awesome. Wait for you guys to say, this is.

That's awesome music.

So one fake, two real products.

Okay. Okay.

Ready?

Yes.

Okay. The first product, Mr. Chalky.

That'S a good product already.

This is for old school teachers that still love the blackboard.

Yeah.

Mr. Chalky will turn old tiny pieces of chalk and dust into usable chalk sticks. Using an internal grinder, Chalky crushes the old chalk into a powder, then uses a little bit of water along with a patented compression system to create and expel a newly formed chalk.

Okay.

Like a reverse destroy a piece of chalk and then make a chalk.

Like, you know. You know how like. Like the little nubs, it's like milk. Like the nubs left over.

Like they've nubby fingers and they can't grab the chalk.

Did you ever go to school?

What?

What do you do when you get down to the nub of chalk?

Oh, the nub of chalk. I thought you meant like, the teacher has, like, nubs and they need a bigger piece of chalk to write with both hands. Wow.

Okay.

The obvious assumption.

Yeah, well, he said nubs. When you hear nub, what do you think of someone's fingers?

No, I.

Actually, there is no. There's the word nubs does not appear in here at all.

Oh, okay. That's important. It should have nubs in there because that's clear.

That's Mr. Chalky.

Yeah.

Okay, next product. Defibrillator Toaster. Man, I can't say that. Are you a fan of McDreamy and a fan of breakfast? Try the defibrillator toaster. Looks like a real defibril. Defibril. I can't do it. And uses teflon plates to toast. Place the bread on the plates and then add the defib pad over the bread and yell clear. Within minutes, you'll have heart stopping toast.

Dude, if you invented that one, that's well done. If someone else invented that, good to them.

All right, the last one. This is ridiculous. Emergency mustaches. Ever been in a situation where you thought, damn, I wish I had a mustache? Well, now you can. With emergency mustache. Combine in a discreet pouch, you will find three styles and five colors of mustache with water resistant adhesive. They're there when you need it.

Look at Kelsey's face.

Perfect. Perfect for spies or on the go porn stars.

And you. You took poetic license too. You can add your own. So if these are real products, you can add your own description. Yeah, good. That's how you play the game.

All right, that's it. Those are the three. So we got Mr. Chalky.

Cannot believe any of these are real.

They are.

I wonder if any women have ever used the emergency mustache. Because if, say, some guy is hitting on you. Amy.

Yeah.

And you're like, oh, sky won't leave me alone. If you had a mustache, it would probably stop that.

Sure.

But if they run to the bathroom and put a fake mustache on, they.

Would look too obvious.

Yeah.

You know, like, they'd be like, you got a reel? I'd be like, why are you wearing a face?

I have a solution. Next time you're talking to anyone, you always approach them like this. Your finger over your nose. Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're like, oh. And then when you're like, oh, this person's not hitting me, then you can open your hand and expose the non hairless lip. But if you're like this, and you're like, this guy, this creepy guy's hitting on me, you can slowly tap on the mustache while. And then look, now I just have.

It at like my fingertips.

Yeah, that would work. It's a deterrent.

Yeah. All right, so you guys discuss amongst yourselves.

All right, who goes first?

Oh, I don't know what to say. I'm going to say the defibrillator toaster.

I think it's a super novel approach. I'm not a fan of the defibrillar toaster as being a. It's not even practical. But emergency mustache, they make those. Those are called costumes. So, yeah, it's got to exist. And then Mr. Chalky, if it was nubby fingers, I thought it would be a real product, because that is a real problem. If you. If you very short fingers. How do you grab chalk, Amy? You need bigger recompressed chalk. I just think now that the chalk, though, is ridiculous. Who would take existing chalk to remake chalk? It makes no sense. I'm with the chalk being the fake product. I think the defibrillator toast thing is actually real.

I'm going with defibrillator.

I said two for the toast.

Yeah, I think that's fake.

Okay.

Okay. So you both think that the toaster is fake.

Yeah, Mike, you're correct.

Yeah.

Mr. Chalky's fake. The defib toaster is real. It's crazy. And then emergency mustaches. Yeah. They're just like a pocket full of mustaches.

Yeah.

It's probably the greatest safety mechanism of all time. Least utilize is the mustache.

Definitely the most safe.

I'm telling us.

Better than my grandma's Acme whistle and my.

Yeah. I will bet you this, you know, dark alley down the side of our building. Building here. I challenge both of you to walk down there, you know, one dark stormy evening, and one of you carries a rape whistle. And then one goes later. With a mustache based on. Yeah. And see who feels safer.

Feels better.

Yeah.

Who feels safer.

Oh my God.

Mustache. I'm telling you mustache is the greatest safety mechanism.

All right. We good? Yeah, Rabbit up.

So I do want to encourage people to if you have questions, we want to hear the questions sitting send your question to ask mikemicalitz.com and your question and your name may be featured on air while we talk about mustaches for women for an example. And I want to do one more thing. I want to invite you to check out Mike Michalowicz.com it's actually mikemotorbike.com is the shortcut to get there. Brand new tools are there and my brand new book fix this next you get all the details@mikemotorbike.com as shortcut and I hope it helps you through these challenging times. Wishing you tremendous success. And let's do this. Let's eradicate entrepreneurial poverty together.

Together.

There it wasn't.