This $1.7M/year Landscaping Business is DROWNING in DEBT!

All of it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I've been doing. None of it matters. None of it's making a difference. None of it's moving the needle. It's just getting worse.

Today we're in Ohio visiting Luke with J and L Landscape.

I've described what I've been through the last three years as trying to change the tires on a car while it's driving down the road. Everyone who works here is either going to get fired or quit. This is where all landscapers come to die.

Luke made $1.7 million in revenue last year.

These guys have a clue what I'm dealing with. No matter how much effort or time and money I throw at it, I'm still running into the same brick walls constantly.

But right now has more credit card debt than he has money in the bank. I get the impression that you almost want to quit.

Oh, yeah. Y. Yeah. Just completely burned out. My wife wants me to quit. My brother who used to work with me tells me I should quit.

And employees are leaving.

I don't enjoy managing people.

Employees are stealing from him.

I'm just not sure if it's worth it anymore. We had a zero turn stolen yesterday.

Honestly, he wants to give up and his wife is kind of losing faith in him.

This is hard to watch. Luke, can you do something? Like, is this even worth it?

It's really started to feel like it's never gonna turn around.

We don't make money. I don't trust them. I hate my job. I don't wanna come to work, and they don't wanna show up either.

It's never fun being told you're the problem. I know I'm the problem.

This is the business Turnaround show. My name is the founder of Augusta Lawn Care, where we have over 175 locations around the world. And I travel the country fixing struggling businesses. Let's assume for a moment that you don't have bad intentions and you want what's best for them. Why would we not tell the truth?

I have told him this. This has been a ongoing conversation. You're the reason I got high blood pressure.

We need to stop the poison in its tracks.

What if I am the poison?

Our goal is to give Luke a strategy to turn around the business in the next six weeks. Okay.

What you just said is why they don't trust you.

I want to see the team rolling out because I need to see their dynamic with him for a second to validate what I think is happening. But I want to. I Need to see it. All right, we're here, we're here. There's the Civic that we owe money on. Oh, oh, oh, oh. We got employees sitting in cars beforehand. That's what I was looking for.

Hey, Luke.

What's up, brother? How you doing, man? Good to see you. This is a great shop.

Thank you. Work right next to where I live.

Yeah, yeah. There you go. Well, that's good. There's good and bad, right?

Yeah, but I like it. It works out good for me. My kids get to come over and.

Bring me L. And you have nine kids, right?

Nine kids, yeah. Ten is due next month.

Oh, my goodness.

Hi, my name is Luke Dickerson. I'm from Dayton, Ohio. I run J and L Lawn and Landscape. We currently have changes all the time, but I think we currently have about 12 employees in the field. I have an office manager and I have a part time shop guy. But our annual revenue is hovering right around 1.7 million.

The issue that he's actually facing right now is the reason why I tell most business owners to grow at 800 maybe to a million dollar business, because you can run or one general manager with one person in the office.

We have a lot of AR right now. It's over 100 grand. So if we can start collecting on some of that, which is like, that's why I hired an office manager to.

Do stuff like that.

That was her job and she just wasn't doing a very good job of it.

And right now at 1.7, he's requiring a mechanic, an operations manager, him as a salesperson, an office manager, et cetera. And it's just a harder entity structure to sustain.

We're in a huge transition right now. So there's only two people here currently who were here last year. Really at the beginning of the year?

Yeah, really. Okay.

So.

So most of them this as of this year, yes. I'm not against it. He's obviously been successful, but it's a fact of he's being burnt out because the size of business he has built demands that he work 14 hours a day.

I don't enjoy my business anymore. I used to love what I do. I still love the idea of what I'm trying to do, but I kind of just wake up every morning and I just hate my job.

I always think about from the owner's perspective when we show up. It's like, okay, he was very humble to allow us to come and that's pretty amazing. I really respect that and I'll probably establish that right off the rip Like, I'm amazed that someone would be grown this size, very established and well known and connected, and be willing to publicly talk about, like their lowest moment. Right.

Like this, what we have right now, we could make something good out of what we got. We have a serious people problem and we're trying to turn that around. It's just right now I'm paying our landscape operation to exist. It's not making me any money, so I don't know how to turn it around.

We're trying to then somehow think that I'm going to come help them in like a couple hours. Like, I don't take that lightly. First off, egotistical to think I can change 25 years worth of pain and like, and like, just flip it around. Second, secondly, is there has to be something dramatic change. Is there a lot of customers unhappy just because of customer communication drops?

It's getting worse. Yeah, a lot of unhappy customers. And that's some of my angst is like, my business was built on good customer service and I'm really getting discouraged with the emails saying your prices are going up, your quality is getting worse. But I just, I hate that there's unhappy customers. It's just the worst thing ever.

I was thinking about this morning is like, this is not just like, oh, we need to do a couple little things, little tweaks to the business. Something is dramatically wrong. For 25 years, you've been growing a business and you cannot step away from it for a day. There's something really wrong with the company. How long you been here at this, at this place?

We've been on this lot for two years. We've been in that office since last May.

Okay. Oh, wow. So this is actually pretty racing.

It's actually pretty recent. Yes, for a while. That's my shop next door.

Okay. So you were up top there.

Yes. And we were on my driveway for years playing Tetris with trucks. I don't enjoy managing people. I don't enjoy dealing with issues constantly. We're not meeting our goals that I'm setting for the company. No matter how hard I work at it or how hard I try, we're just not able to meet our goals. I'm just not sure if it's worth it anymore. I'm kind of looking for someone to tell me that it is and how to fix these issues.

I get the impression that you almost want to quit. Oh, yeah, I know. It feels like I'm not judging.

Last year was total burnout for me, and I made the decision last year that I was not going to have another 20, 24. I promised myself, if I had to go through that again, I'm definitely done. My wife and my kids are my number one. And if the business is taking from that, then something's got to give. I had tried to hire four different production managers, and I made off. I interviewed dozens of people. I was spending so much, I was running hundreds of dollars worth of ads to try to attract the right guy. And I made offers to all of them.

Those two guys went and then back to the other company.

Yeah. And they were just taking my offers. Yeah, they were just taking my offers and going back to other companies to get a raise. I was just. I was done. I was so over it. I was like, I am buried under the load over here and balls are being dropped everywhere. And I hate my life. I just hate where I'm at right now. I hate it. I went out so bad, but I can't quit. I come into work and I hate it. I'm just putting out fires all the time. This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I imagined myself doing.

And I don't want to be the downer dog, be like, okay, just get out of it. But he's always complaining, and I'm like, okay, why are you doing this? Why do you want to do this? You said you want to run a business, but this is what it is. It's all the stress, all this frustration.

Right.

Really?

Do you really want to keep doing this?

And I've been telling myself for years it's going to change. You know, I'm going to get better people, we're going to get better staff, we're going to be more efficient, we're going to be more profitable. And I mean, no matter how much effort or time and money I throw at it, I'm still running into the same brick walls constantly.

We got a Ventrac loan, we got a US bank loan, we got truck loan, we've got another truck loan. We got two more other truck loans. We got a mini excavator, we got a Honda Civic loan, we got a cash flow manager US bank loan. Whopping 332,758, 000. With $52,000 worth of credit card debt in the bank right now. Cash total, including savings and checking, $50,000, one credit card, $52,000.

And I think our numbers are okay. We actually are turning a decent amount of profit. Last year especially, we had a 19 EBITDA. But I guess. I guess the biggest personal Issue that I'm dealing with is just I've got complete.

But realistically, even though on his P and L, there's a whole bunch of profit, you look at his balance sheet, and we're in a. We're in a bad spot. We have hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. We have credit card. More credit card debt than we do have cash in the bank, and we have substantial amounts of loans.

We just got the mulch mule last year. This is our first spring with it.

Okay, nice.

That's a frustrating story in and of itself.

Really.

Yeah. Just how long it took to get it. And it was supposed to increase our productivity by 30%, but we're slower this year than we were last year without it.

Really?

Yeah. We got to fix that.

Why do you think that is?

Personnel and I seem to be constant, constantly attracting people who don't care. They don't care that, you know, they left something out in the rain and it got soaked. They don't care that they didn't lock up their truck at the end of the night and things get stolen. I don't understand that. It's just I don't relate to these guys at all. And the lack of being able to relate is. Yeah, I don't know how to solve that.

Like, there's always a hundred different things inside of a business that are going wrong. Things that could be improved. It doesn't take a rocket genius to point out areas that could be improved or changed inside of a business. Anyone can do that. It's identifying what's the one thing that if fixed, would solve the other 80 problems inside the business, or a big portion of them. You know, we usually talk about the 4L framework, and it's like, hey, liquidity. And then if we get money, we turn into leads and we go advertising, get a bunch of leads. We need more labor and we get more employees. And then we talk about leadership. Once you get enough employees, you need leadership. And once you get leadership and overhead and an admin person, then you need more liquidity. And we talk about the cycle, and that's the 4L framework. But identifying where is the current constraint in the business and deploying all energy towards is the only way to fix it. So the. The mechanic gentleman, you have to let him go last year or last month.

Yeah.

And then.

And then we just let our office manager go Friday.

Really? So who's in the office now? Is there a production manager?

Brian. That's it.

So emails, phone calls, he's just handling that.

Mostly me. Okay.

Okay.

That's insane. Brian, where you going? And actually, he worked here when he was younger.

Oh, really?

Six years ago, for a short while.

Brian, how's it going? I'm Mike. Ryan.

Nice to meet you.

Good to meet you, man. Thanks for keeping everything afloat.

Of course I'm trying.

Anyone could have showed up here today and like, yes, the business owner doesn't want to show up. Employees are leaving, he's firing everybody. No one wants to be here. There's so many areas of, like, where we could point out problems, like, what's the one thing. It's leadership that's the constraint to the business. Unless the leadership changes here, this business will not grow. The reason it has not grown for three years and it's stuck at 1.7 million and the business owner doesn't want to show up every single day is because there is a lack of leadership.

But he's not here, really? Is he not here on purpose?

Well, let's put 2 and 2 of that.

We had a. We had a zero turn stolen yesterday, and he left it at a job site and somehow didn't realize that he.

Did when all these ears running around. I'll tell you what I think.

Okay.

Okay.

It's been a very interesting couple of weeks. Yeah.

The situations on that. The guy, we weren't even gonna fire him. He's not here today. He sent us a picture of truck wires that are trailer wires and said they got cut. It's just stuff like that. We're not even. We weren't even gonna let him go.

He left it two days ago at the job site. Yesterday morning, came out here and told us that they had left it in the hoop because it wasn't working. Well, I checked all my security cameras. They never put it in the hoop. So then I. We have dash cams in the trucks. I checked his dash cam. So he left it at a large commercial property. So they went back to look for it yesterday, another crew did, and of course it was gone. I don't believe that someone snipped his wire story. I don't know. Those wires were trailer wires. I know wires when I see him. Those were not truck wires unless someone wired his truck with trailer wire. We called his bluff yesterday. Yeah, I mean, how do you leave him? He left one of those. The 36s. How do you leave one of those at a job site, Come all the way back to the shop, unload your stuff at the end of the day, and then the next morning, think you left it over there when you actually left it at the job site, that's either a serious, like, lack of intelligence or I don't know. I don't know what you call that.

But what I try to tell him is they don't think like we do. They don't care that it's a legal matter. They don't care.

And it bothers me that they don't care.

They're not going to care. They're never going to these. No matter. I think they're great guys, but no matter what, they're not going to see things how me and him see them.

And we have another crew leader who didn't show up today because he's in court.

So his crew, that would usually, they are good to go though, without him, still no.

And the thing is, he told me, he said, I take full responsibility for it and I'll help, you know, I'll help you replace it, whatever I have to do. He just had that conversation with me yesterday and then he doesn't show up today. So they're in the middle of trying to figure all that out right now.

They're juggling.

Yeah. This is part of my frustrations. Like I'm trying to have a 15 minute from circle to roll out. And no matter how hard I try, it just never happens.

This is where I think when the 4L framework most. This is a leadership problem. There's labor problem and there's liquidity problem, but those are downstream effects of the leadership. And that's why as the company grows, the role of the leader is much less seen in the financial. It's hard to see a good leader. Like, oh, I look at these financial statements, I see a good leader. It's hard to do that. But like, as a company scales, you have less and less leverage of doing more work. And so when I see someone working 17, 18 hours a day on manual tasks like answering the phone, doing emails, et cetera, and they're at this size, they've forgotten the fact that they have a higher leverage use of their time, which is work through other people.

Like I said, we have two guys who are still here who were here at the beginning of last year and that's it. Yeah, everybody else is new. That's part of my stress is how do you train that many people that fast? I can't be watching bank accounts, running reports, managing dispatch, selling jobs, ordering product, looking at the numbers, like taking care of Mrs. Jones's gate that got left open and her dog got out, handling clients that are mad and upset and threatening to sue me and all kinds of Stuff.

Are you doing sales and estimates at all?

Yeah, all of it. At the size we are, I find myself constantly jumping back into that role because someone has to do it, and I can't expect one person to do three things. Even that's what I'm expecting of myself because it's what I've been doing, and that's why I'm so burned out. I'm just trying to do so much. I'm trying to be all things to all people and failing at all of it. I tried hiring a salesman, spent a lot of time with him, and he ended up taking an offer to another company that beat mine. And I was offering over 100 grand. So I just. Yeah, everyone's offering a ton of money. It's ridiculous.

Because if he can do a Good job, great, 100%. But if you can get everyone else to work from 80% to 90% and you have 12 people, that's 120% increase in output.

In order for this group to. This business to grow, I have to grow. I've. We've reached the limit of what I can do, where I'm at.

And so you have to start focusing and thinking about how do I work through other people instead of how do I just do the work myself? And that's a very. It's a different mode to operate in from when you're going from a labor and grind hustle mode to now I need to be a leader. Very different. Like, your schedule should look different. The way that you approach people should look different in the business because you're thinking about how do I operate through the time of others.

So when he would address the crews, since I've known him, it's at this level. They don't comprehend this level. So when you go to the lower level of them, it's more like if he was to say it at a lower level, well, now he's calling them pretty much stupid.

I've been afraid to go to them and be like, hey, guys, here's the problem. Because I feel like they're not gonna understand the problem. It's above their pay grade, so to.

Speak, When I say it at a lower level. And this is why I've told him, luke, grow the business. I got this worry about that back there, because since I've been here and he's even said it and seen it, they take what I say a lot differently.

They respond to him way different than they do me. I have to create a layer between me and the crew, because no matter what I do and What I say there's a stigma that you're the boss. Like, even if I'm going to say something positive, just approaching them, you can tell they're like, oh, crap, it's the boss. You know, it's like, I mean, Brian can attest this. I don't yell, I don't scream, I don't chew people out.

When you're smaller and you're a solo operator out in the field doing most of the work yourself, it's mostly physical stress. Then as you get employees, there's stress of being a manager. Now he's stepping into. As you grow a larger organization above a million, like, you're looking at the stress of the psychological 1.7, the exact size my. My first location was at when, like.

I decided to franchise.

No. Well, we decided to franchise, but that's when I decided, like, everything had to change. Oh, I remember. Like, it's a very critical point. Yeah, just like, same kind of breaking points in so many areas, every single day, there's something wrong happen. And so as you grow the business, the type of stress changes from physical stress to financial stress. As you get employees and your margins get collapsed and then eventually become psychological. He's going through right now where you're working tons of hours every single day. There are employees walking on the job, unhappy customers. Things are breaking down, and that can just get wearing down, especially after 25 years. The fact, though, that people close to him are telling him he wants to quit makes it really hard.

Yeah. Just completely burned out. My wife wants me to quit. My brother who used to work with me tells me I should quit. I don't want to be a failure. I'm terrified of failure. I want this to work. I know that it can. I just don't know how to reach that.

Yeah, well, the thing is, look, if you as the leader are broken and you don't want to be there every day, your team knows that. And so if we can't fix that.

Why are we surprised when there's churn and we can't get anyone to work here? That's really good to stay if the owner doesn't want to work there. Like, if the owner loses passion for the business, they should close up shop. I kind of get a lay of where everything's at. I understand it because I've had the mutiny. I've had the whole crew pull me into a meeting and say, we're gonna. Here's our list of demands. Otherwise, we're leaving. I had a general manager go start another business pull the whole team with them. Like, I get it. So I get the problem. Now let's think, like, where are we going from here? If I was coming to you, Brian, I was like, what needs to change? Your. Your current thought is he kind of needs to step back from the team. Let me cook for a second. You need to pull in an admin person and a salesperson, your operations. And then he steps back from the frontline team. Is that your current thought process?

Yes.

Your thought process is that way because you feel anything he says to be taken incorrectly and wrong right now?

Yes. Because it's been proven so far. Yes. But based off what I've been told and based off what I've seen and.

When did you move over here?

So I worked for him in like, 2018, 2019.

Got it.

I said, man, you're making a lot of money. So I opened my own company. I scaled it to about 700,000, and then the big dog around there that buys all the little guys gave me an offer I couldn't pass up on. He's just a legit guy, and that's why I'm willing to swing for him.

And I can attest to when I let Jason go last year, when the crew got here, I updated them on what happened. I didn't divulge into the reasons why. I just said, jason's no longer here. I don't need to get into details. But it doesn't matter what I'm saying. They're not hearing me.

And assuming. Let's assume for a moment that you don't have bad intentions and you want what's best for them. Why would we not tell the truth in order to keep the lies from spreading?

I guess it's because I feel like the truth is going to be misconstrued anyway.

It will be misconstrued if they don't trust you. And right now they don't trust you.

No, they don't.

If you don't have trust of the team, no matter what you do, pay for performance will not work. Open book management will not work. Hiring more people and a different office person, a different. Will not work if they don't trust you. Yeah, you don't trust them, by the way. That's why. That's why the cameras went in the trunks.

Well, I have told you that.

That I.

That trust is a big issue. Even, like, with some of the guys. I don't trust them to do this, this, and this. And I say I have told him this. This has been a ongoing conversation.

Yes.

Because I Do I will take. We have a guy that's been here three weeks. I promoted him today. He would not do that.

And we have new working interviews coming in all the time. The guy who's being promoted to crew leader, who's driving this truck today, has only been with us for a week and he's already being promoted crew lead, not because he's not good, but simply because we have no better option.

But he just called me, so I will call him. Gio, I don't need my phone. No, come here.

I need you.

Where's landscapers? Geo is officially a foreman. Letting everybody know that congratulations. I will take a swing on these guys. I will show them things. Things. If they're showing me things, I will risk whatever. And until they prove me, like, wrong, like, hey, they're not to be trusted, I'm going to.

I think that in the short term, you getting away from the crew would be a really easy way to make things go better. In the short term. Yeah, because Brian, they like Brian more. The reason is because they know he doesn't have equity in the business. In their mind, Brian will advocate for what's best for the employee. He's going to advocate what's best for the business. There's only way, one way, in my opinion, to break that, that thought process, and that is to prove them wrong. Brian is certainly a great ying to his yang. The challenging part is Brian has also been here for two weeks and he has more credibility baked in because he's not the owner. Any other employee, you are inherently on the same team. When you join an organization where there's an adversary relationship between owner and employee. And so when you have open book management, profit sharing, P4P, these are things that are meant to get the owner and the employee on the same page. You just, you create the notion that, like, oh, it is all of us versus that guy in the back that doesn't know what he's talking about.

Yeah, 100.

Right. That is one way to deal with it. And I, I think actually in the short term, if you disappeared for a second and let him just kind of cook, especially the next few weeks, it would be better. But eventually he's going to move on. He wants to move on. And then there's gonna have to be. There's gonna be another leadership vacuum and we're gonna have more problems. And so, like, the leader has to be leading. And if there is no trust, trust going to the leader, no one will be led.

They have asked questions like, obviously, as you know, they've asked and I was.

I was really hoping that the people I had here in the office or Brian or Brandon in the shop, I was really hoping that we were a team and that we were pulling for the same things, only to find out that in my absence, it was totally different.

Hey, everyone, I just want to interrupt. It's Mike Andes here. I'm in the studio and I just want to say a quick thank you to Luke for even allowing us to show up. I know there's going to be a lot of people in the comments that will bash him him, but the ability for a business owner like himself to allow us to come be vulnerable and share so that everyone here can learn. I just want to say a big thank you to him and to his team. Also, the whole problem of having team members not show up every spring and having a new team constantly turning to the business is extremely hard to build any successful business. That's why actually I created this book called the Off Season. And if you don't want to buy on Amazon, which is totally fine, you can go to mikeandy.comworkshop and get it completely free in video training format. But one. One paragraph in here I want to read to you. It says off seasons will keep you poor. The goal must be to fix the off season, to get steady leads all winter long. By doing that, you'll keep your labors through the winter. When spring comes, they'll be ready, trained and experienced, not newbies. These employees have prepared to handle the busy season, and that's what J and L is struggling with. This constant turnover every single spring will kill your business.

We're still in the process of organizing this. My recent fleet manager who works up at the shop, he's not there anymore. We fired him last month. Yeah, I really want it to feel like a team, not like it's me doing all the work and I'm dragging them along, you know, and they don't want to feel that way either. Nobody wants to be in a company like that. You find out a lot about people after they leave. And I found out after he left that there was things he was saying, saying to the crew, and it just wasn't a good culture fit anymore. Unfortunately, that's been our story for three years.

Same thing with the office person last week.

Yeah, Joy, our office manager. We would talk about doing things like, we should probably get cameras in the trucks because we don't know what these guys are doing. Or we'll have clients that call up and say, my lawn never got cut and yet it Was recorded that it got cut. Did it or didn't it? How are we gonna know, you know? So if we have cameras in the trucks, well, we'll just go back to that day and see. Oh, there we are. We're parked right in front of Mrs. Jones house. We did, in fact, cut her grass. Here's the proof. Yeah, I'm afraid of giving people, People information that could be not helpful. Like, sometimes giving people. Arming people with information just allows them to wreak havoc, you know, so you have to be careful who you give information to, because they. They could use it the wrong way. And she was all about it to me, but when the guys would come in and they were talking to her about it and I wasn't here, she's like, yeah, Luke's putting cameras in the trucks because he wants to spy on you. And it's like, no, I don't sit here in my office all day watching truck cams while drinking kool aid. You know, that's not what I'm doing. And yet that's the image they have, is that Luke's sitting in here watching me all day to catch me doing something. I'm not trying to catch you doing wrong. I just happen to notice someone's not wearing seat belts. You kind of tend to not want to go back there. You know, you've been burned before, and it's painful. You don't want to go back to where it's painful. It's our natural reaction. Right. We want to retreat from pain.

Everybody's valued in a company, but as an office person, office manager. Do office manager stuff. We found tons of stuff she was neglecting recently. The past 72 hours.

I needed to promote somebody, and I wanted to promote organically from within. So I felt like my office manager's husband was the best bet for production manager. So I promoted him, but I ended up having to let him go. May of last year. And it's my office manager's husband, so you can imagine that was. That was rough.

But her priority was to be out there and turn everybody against a bug in their ear. And I told him from the jump of being here when you fired her husband, that you should have never hired. When you fired her husband, she should have walked with him. You should not ever hire family. It just doesn't work. That's why my family that owns companies, I don't work for them. I can't. It just doesn't mesh. And I invest.

Employees from a work. From a work perspective, though, have been family members. I'm one of 13 kids. So I have a ton of brothers.

Yes. And that's how he views things. And I tell him the same thing every day. They were good for certain parts. The guy that was in here, he's a culture destruction.

Is it just burnout.

Or there structural issues? The business, he's been doing it for 20 plus years. Like that's in and of itself exhausting. Especially when you can't keep people and if you've been burned a bunch by managers. So I know all the feelings I've built. Like the first location it was at 1.7 the year I left. So I know exactly where he's at.

It feels like it's constantly a struggle between you either have guys who are excellent technicians but terrible for the culture or people who are great for the culture but terrible technicians. Can't find the unicorns that are both here.

I'll go prescriptive mode. I rarely do this in a turnaround. I'm usually mostly listening. I try to guide you. So this is my prescription. Okay. You stand up in front of them and have extreme ownership and say the reason this business isn't doing good financially. Here's the numbers. And people aren't staying is my fault.

Yes it is.

And empty your chambers. If you allow them to do that on you, you now have down the road after time has gone on the ability to hold them accountable to the standards that you, you anticipate for them to have. Like the reason there's no extreme ownership of your team is because you're not taking extreme ownership of the business. Like that's just facts. Like extreme ownership of the leadership position is why did I have an admin person that allowed. I allowed them to be a cancer. Why didn't I fire them sooner?

I should have.

These are the things we know as leaders and the only reason they don't take extreme ownership of the their, their actions out in the field is cuz we don't as leaders take actions at the top. They are simply a byproduct of the leadership that they have. And the reason people leave businesses is because of bad managers. It's not because of the pay. Your pay is decent. It's good. Yeah, it's comparable.

Yeah, we're. We're very competitive.

Good trucks, good equipment, nice shop space. Been around for a long time. There's. There's stability in the position. It is simply a function of. They do not want to work for Luke.

Yeah. Yeah.

So then it just becomes.

I've said, I've said in the beginning there's something about me, me that they're reacting to. And I know, right?

So we can fix it. Leadership is a skill. I keep going back to that, but, man, it's a tough one to learn. And it's, it's an infinite game when it comes to leadership, because I stink at certain elements. I. I just not good at leadership. And that's the constraint to many of our growth. And that's why so often at times when you look at the 4L framework, we talk about liquidity, we talk about, you know, getting more leads, we talk about getting more employees. But like, ultimately, if you fix leadership, it has a reverse effect. Like your labors get more efficient. All of a sudden you do better marketing because you have great leadership and like, people want to work for you. There's lots of word of mouth. So leads come in fast. Liquidity, you get better margins because people are more efficient out in the field. So leadership is the stem of almost every single issue. Whether you're one employee, whether you have no employees and you have a family. Like, if he can just get his wife on board. I can't even imagine having someone that for 15 years doesn't really want you to be in the business. You're pouring yourself into it every single day, and the person that you love the most is actively wanting you to leave that place. And so I would say this is my $0.02, and you will have evidence to prove me wrong within a year. If you did this, I would take the cameras out of the trucks.

If I knew I could count on my team, yes, I would not do it right.

So we have to take the first step in building a trusting relationship because they do not trust you and you don't trust them and they have evidence.

Would you think I should just shut the whole camera thing down right now?

I would use that as a good faith measure to show that you tried. Trust them.

So how do we handle a situation when it arises there's a traffic accident and we don't know what happened, and it's just their word versus the person who, the other person who's involved.

If you want them to trust you, you will have to trust them. And yes, there will be times there's an accident and you don't get it on camera. So my location has been in business for 11 years now. Had one accident cost us $6,000. We don't have any dash cams on trucks. There's 15 trucks. And the reason for that is because they trust that I'm going to back them up and if they make. If they damage something, something they will tell me. And it's only. That's always been the way. That way it's been where there has been mutinies. And in that culture and environment, we don't make money. I don't trust them. I hate my job. I don't want to come up to work, and they don't want to show up either. And if you don't want to show up to work, they don't want to either.

Yeah.

Like, if you don't love what you're doing.

Yeah.

And you lost the passion for J and L, you've lost it. The number one thing for a founder and entrepreneur to do is stay in love with the business. Because if you're not in love with it, no one below you is going to love it. No one else is gonna have the passion, and that purpose statement will not be fulfilled.

How do I stay in love with it when my wife hates it?

The same way that you get your employees to fall in love with it, and that is align the incentives of the business with theirs. It says 20% profit, but, like, if you take out his wages, let's call it 12% profit margin business. When people start thinking about quitting, even when they're profitable like that, what they're comparing it against is, is this really worth working 70 hours a week for? You got a family of 10 people you're responsible for. You're not spending any time with them. You've been doing this for 25 years, so you feel very much, like, stuck. Like, if I haven't been able to figure out in 25 years, what's gonna change?

She has an idea in her mind about what an ideal life looks like.

Is it 9 to 5? Is it, hey, I just need to be able to text you and you respond.

She said before, she's like, I just wish you could come home at a somewhat reasonable time. Whether it's 5, 30, whether it's 6. And when you're home, you're home. My problem is when I'm home, the wheels are still turning. That's, you know, every day. I'm a professional firefighter. It's like, how do I solve this problem? How do I solve that problem?

And I don't have bandwidth to be thinking about Michael's, you know, math problems. You know, I just. I need more bandwidth for that.

You know, I'm usually against whoever says to quit because, like, especially someone like your spouse or your brother or someone close to you. Especially because his brother worked with him in the past to tell you to quit is like a gut punch. You've been doing this for 25 years. This is all he knows. He's been doing it since he was 14. And you can tell them that, like, hey, guys, the business struggling financially, like, just say these words. We have more credit card debt than we do have money in the bank.

Yeah. I guess I've always been afraid if I expose stuff like that, that's gonna make them feel like their job's at jeopardy.

It is. Because if you quit, they are losing their job.

You like to be true, truthful. That's the truth.

That is the truth.

And you don't say it with spite. You don't say, like, hey, guys, I'm proving you're wrong. Well, this is a matter of, like, hey.

I feel like they're like, if I tell them that, they're gonna feel like it's their. Like, I'm telling them it's their fault because they're not getting enough.

That's why you start off with, this is all my fault. I've messed up. I've allowed things in my past, my family, past employees that burnt me to affect the way I lead. And I'm sorry. I don't think they've ever heard those words come out of your mouth.

No.

And this is. The next part is like, once you've done that, then you go to your wife because you're not giving her what she wants, which is not the business. It is your time. And the reason you can't give her that time is because you don't trust anyone here to run it the way you would if you were here.

That's because I had office managers literally stealing money.

Right. But if we take ownership of his, like, we allowed that to happen. We created an environment.

Well, I didn't know it was happening, but, yes, I allowed it to happen unintentionally.

We created an environment that it was in their best interest to do those things instead of support the business.

Yeah. I really don't want them to feel like this meeting's about, hey, guys, we're going under. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Like, it's. That's not what it is at all. It's a. I have a. I have a clear path in my head about how we can go up, but I'm the bottleneck and I need help, and I'm asking for your help.

Every single negative thing that comes in.

Whether it's true or not doesn't matter.

You want to thank them? Everyone should be There. There should be no lines. There should be no walls. We're gonna open up the organization or if communication flows freely and we don't have silos of poison happening where we don't trust. And when they're there out there, stuff's not going on. We don't know if they're not answering the phone because they're on lunch break, if they're at a job, we don't trust, there's no trust. And so the only way to fix that is do something radical, and you will get one or two people that will need to leave. I think you've actually gotten most of the cancers out. But the problem is, even once a cancer is cut out, it can still spread throughout the body that's got the bloodstream. And right now, it's in the bloodstream. So you're just going to create other cancers that are going to pop up in the business because no one trusts you.

I'm so afraid that no matter what I say, it's going to be taken wrong. And so then I'm afraid to say anything, Anything. And. And then my silence is taken as. He doesn't care about me, he doesn't notice my work. It doesn't matter if I do a good job, he doesn't care. It's like, it's literally because I'm afraid to say anything because I'm afraid, however, whatever I. However I say it, it's going to be taken wrong. And I don't know how to fix that.

I think most of the problem is between his ears, honestly.

So this one's gonna be fun. You know, Francis, this is.

This is what I'm good at. You know, there's some people, it's like, they're really good at sports. I'm not great, you know, I'm small, Not gonna work. Some people good at music, I can't. I'm not really that good. Can't really sing. I. I think I can help him. And so, like, this is. This is one of those cool things. Like, I woke up this morning all jazzed up and ready to go, because it's like, this is what I was. I'm made for. And, like, you know, maybe in 15 years that'll be different in my life, but, like, currently, like, everything is optimized for helping people like lick. And, like, I'm glad I have the money and the infrastructure to be able to make it happen. I'm glad we have the team to be able to capture it, to help other people. But, like, this is why I exist.

Currently.

And the radical thing that, in my opinion, needs to happen is you humble yourself. You take extreme ownership of the problems inside the business and you don't address them as the problem. They are not the problem. And the way that you phrase that meeting is extremely important. It's not like, hey, I want to fix the business. I think I'm the problem. Guys unload it on me. Like, tell me what, what's up? It's not the way that'll be an act.

They'll see the horror act from a mile away.

Yeah.

Yes.

We're going to be humble about it. We're going to thank them for their feedback. We're going to ask them that over the next week that you're going to create a plan based upon their feedback to make changes in the business. And the reason. Because we're going to align incentives, the reason we're doing this. I want a place where you guys want to come and work, that people don't come here and then leave after a couple weeks. I don't want you guys have to deal with drama when you show up. I want you guys to trust me. I don't blame you guys for not trusting me because I've been putting cameras in your truck. Trucks. I'm gonna down your throat about a bunch of stuff. I'm gonna take the. I'm gonna take the cameras out. I trust you guys to do what's right. And that's just the first step is the meeting. Then it's a week of you actually going through the feedback. I just can't stress this enough. If that meeting goes poorly, you lose your whole team. This is why no one does. It's a very high risk move.

Yes.

Very high risk. And so the. The. The way that meeting goes hinges on how you react to the feedback. How this meeting goes. It's either it's gonna go horrible, like, literally the entire elite team leave. Like, it's such a high risk. When you take off your belt, take off any facade that you've built up for years, and you let your team say whatever they want, you are massively vulnerable. And this whole team could be gone in one week. It could also in one week be 50% more efficient and a place where an admin person comes in and thrives. Any poison that's being injected from past employees completely gets repelled. Everyone wanting the entrepreneur and the business owner to win. Everyone wanting the entrepreneur to get home, be with his family, and support his wife. That's what you need in a team. The same way that he cares about making them when he needs them to want him to win. And right now that's not happening.

That is a big factor in all of this because of what his beliefs are. Everybody here knows Luke's beliefs within him.

Touch on that. Personal beliefs. What are you referring to?

So, okay, the thing is that we know with Luke is it has been a Persona that he brings them over here as far as who he hires, how they look, how their hair is.

So let's just say it the way it is, because I've been accused of the same thing. You. They think he discriminates 1000%.

Like, I feel like I've already been so, like, cautious about what I say and do because I'm afraid I'm going to be misinterpreted or misunderstood or. Or accused whether it's true or not. And maybe that's some of my Building the shell, building the defense.

Example. Give me example. Like, is it like X, Y and Z or what?

No. So I'll give you a straight up example when I hire Gio. Gio is African American. American. There was a huge spiel by guys that if this was. If this was in Luke's control, he would have never hired him. That it was based off his color. Even the guys, when I got here, like day two or three, they're like, luke put you in a position of power with those tattoos. And I was like, I mean, see.

To me, that's proving to them that it's like I have a preference about tattoos. You know, just like I have a preference that you don't let your hair, you know, look all bed hair every morning. You know, I have a preference. But I'm not going to micromanage that.

Yes, I grew up in the same way, in the same style and same places as these guys. He did not.

I've had to compromise a lot on what I think is. So I've been described as an obsessive idealist. I know I can't. I can't force people into my mold. I feel like there's constant battle lines being drawn where they just. But it goes back to the whole. They don't care about this company. They don't care about the image, so why would they care what they wear? You know, we wear uniform pants because guys were coming in with holes and they'd wear the same pair of pants for a week. They're stained and I mean, I had one guy who was zip tying his pants together with zip ties and holding him up with a trimmer line belt. Like, it Just, we looked like homeless guys, Moe.

I mean, but from my point of view, is at least the guy. My point of view on a personal level, I'm never. We haven't discussed this part because I'm not going to bring my personal beliefs here because mine are not in line with his. And that's okay. He can believe what he wants. I'm gonna believe what I want.

Some.

Some of the guys, they can't afford the same things that I can. I'm not going to knock them. Some of these guys, I do. I'm again, smell like marijuana when you show up. I'm against smoking on job sites. I'm against smoking in trucks that are $100,000 at you. I mean, technically they're paying for. Because they're doing the work, but you get the gist of it.

But I'm.

They are never going to know in a negative notation that I think these things. I'm just going to say, hey, it's company policy to not do these things.

And.

But no matter how much I stress that, it's not moving the needle. They don't care. And. And it's easy for me to have the offensive. Like, that's the problem. They don't care. So. So my, My mode of operation has been to then put the pressure back on the guys. Because. Because in my mind, I know if we were hitting these times, I know we'd be profitable. And I know the profit that we're bringing in would more than offset the debts that we have from, you know, just finding ourselves in a spot where it's like, oh, it's payroll week and we don't have the money. So now we're to dip into the line of credit just to make payroll. Which is fine because we'll make it up next week. Well, next week we find ourselves back in the same boat again and again and again.

I need them to trust you and to love this brand. Everything we're talking about is a downstream effect of that. Cause it's the only root problem right now. We have a lot of gap. We're behind on work, and we hire these people. If you get a team that's pulling in the same direction, you will double productivity. Double. Yeah, especially because they're not on P4P now. Like, you could double efficiency. Lunch breaks get cut, they immediately get on time. Like, there's so much juice to squeeze from just some traffic. Trusting you. So I. I did this originally. My business was like 1.4, 1.6. At the time. We were still going up and we weren't making money. And so I had anonymous peer reviews. They all did peer reviews on each other and I was included on it.

Who said they do that?

We took all the reviews. I had a whole page of all the negative stuff. And I spent three hours with my operations person going through every single one. And that was painful. I was crying. It was emotional. I knew that there was a lot of things in my past I was allowing surface up from family, religion, et cetera. And ultimately, if that purpose statement doesn't, doesn't require someone to look a certain way, act a certain way, be a certain way, I don't care. It will take a level of humility that is currently not in the organization. And that starts at the top.

So I did one on one meetings with everybody here. When I got here, I pulled everyone one on one and I gave them a few questions. I said, I want to know what you're liking, what you're not liking, and what your problems are and how can I fix them. Every, pretty much every one of them said one, Luke is not a man of his word.

And it's like, I hope I can fix it, you know, because I still kind of feel like, can I fix this? Like, is this something I can fix, you know, for my company, for my wife, people I work with, for my own sake? I do want to fix this bad in a big way.

And they're also saying he micromanages. He tries to father, not like, hey, you know, you need to make better choices outside of work. To a sense he does, but he tries to micromanage.

So as we're going to discover today as we talk. So people. People skills are not my strong point. I'm not a people person, apparently. So I've been told.

Who told you that?

Pretty much everybody.

Okay.

Okay. I've been described as the nicest boss they've ever worked for. So this is the current crew we have now. I mean, most of them, I don't really know that well. They're new. We have just. Since Brian's been here, we've let four people go.

What we've noticed, even in the morning meeting, meetings, if you saw the morning meeting with just me today and not him, it's a totally different mentality. The guys are more into it. The couple that I've done where he's in here, totally different mentality.

Just their body language, they were just like, this is a complete waste of time. Why are we doing this? This is stupid. And I had to call those guys out separately. I brought them in the office. And I'm just like, you know, we're trying to make a team here, you know, and you're. You're totally communicating that this is a complete waste of time. It's like, do you not want to be on the.

The team?

Because if so, just, you know, there's the door. I'm not making you be here, you.

Know, even today, I had to tell him. I don't know if you heard it, but as they were talking, I said, shut up. Like you guys are. And it's only when it's him, if I'm talking, they're. They're like, okay. Like, they'll listen.

Yeah, they relate to him because he's not the boss, I guess. Jonathan's not here today either, is he? Yeah, yeah, He's. He's normally exercising. All right, guys, get on circle.

All right, Chris, let's take it out. Say something you love about landscaping.

You can make a lot of money.

Stripes is nice. Pretty much have to. If he is speaking, I have to go back through every person and say, hey, he meant it this way. Or they're automatically like, if we sent him out today, tomorrow, and I didn't go out and he just talked. You can even probably tell their efficiency in the morning is going to be different because they're sitting there talking about what happened. They're contemplating choices and things of that nature.

I've been a believer in building trust over time. I give you this task. You succeed, I trust you with more. You succeed at that, I trust you with more. And then you take on more and more. And the more you're able to take on, the more I will trust you. And the longer we're at this, the more you've shown a pattern of faithfulness, then I'm going to continue to trust you. I don't know why they're so intimidated by me. I guess it's just. Just because I'm the boss, it doesn't matter what I say. I can't approach them and then take it. Well, I've even done. I've done infield training with guys where I go with them, and it's. From my perspective, it goes great. Like, we had fun. We joked. I, you know, I pointed out a couple things that could be better on the job site, and at the end of the day, high five. You're doing great. Keep up the good work. Two weeks later, they quit.

What did I do? What did I say? You know, like, I don't.

I do believe that the leadership is the constraint of the company. Company, We've identified that. Now we're going to fix it. And we're to do that, we need to be humble. Listen to the team. We're gonna have to actually apologize for cutting people off. Actually apologize for coming across condescending because you do, like a lot, I'll be honest.

Wow.

The way you talk to the guys comes across very condescending. Just when you're giving basic instructions.

Wow.

And it is in part just like you give your opinion before asking a question. You. You cut them off, you roll your eyes back a little bit like this and it just. They just feel like left then.

Wow.

These are little things. Yeah.

So, I mean, I'm genuinely shocked when.

I tell you what you do when you get to a job site. You never. You never say anything positive. It is always what is going wrong. Well, they do something good after you.

Do that, thumbs up. But they don't hear the good. All the.

Hang on after you do that, thumbs up, 10 minutes later, it's something that's going wrong. Hey, how fast did you. Oh, that's not fast enough. And into a sense. Some of the things that he says, not out of being malicious who he is, they do come across wrong now. And that's why I wanted. And we agree that there should be the gate. Because everything he says, I get what he's saying and I do not think he's being malicious at all. I do not think he's doing it to be a bad person.

Like, there's so many little aspects that can make you feel to your team that you are disconnected from them. And whether it be saying a compliment and then putting butt after. Like, if I say, hey, you did a really great job on the edging. But as soon as I said but I just disqualified everything that was said before that I could just replace the word but with and and we'd be okay. Or just don't say the negative part.

Yeah, I know a big problem. And you. I don't. Tell me, tell me straight if you feel this way. But I know a big. Going back to how I was raised, my dad was way quicker to jump on what we did wrong than what we did right. I didn't get the atta boys growing up. It was, you have to perform or else. And I know, I know that because my dad's this way. When you say something condescending, that's not what you meant. I didn't mean it in a condescending way, but it's how I came across anyway. And I have to own that. And that's not fun, because my intentions were right. My actions were communicating something else. And that's frustrating.

I feel like if he did leave, he'd feel like forever. I'm just a failure, and I didn't make it work. And his dad was very entrepreneurial, but he didn't. He's never complimented Luke on anything. He says business, and it's got his heart, and it's bad.

And is that, like, from a religious side of things, too? Yeah.

Being poor is like, somehow you're closer to God.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of it's.

In fact, from his past and his dad and just thoughts, mindsets.

Two days ago on Monday, I told a guy, you're doing an awesome job. He said, I've been here two months, and you're the first person to say that.

I've said it a lot like that. Number one there to enrich lives of continuous improvement. Whether you're doing that here or doing somewhere else, I don't care. I just want everyone who comes here to be better off because they were here. Like, maybe you're. Maybe your life's dream is to party in your basement playing video games the rest of your life. I don't care. Whatever you want to do is fine. I just want you to be successful here.

So that's what you say in that meeting. What you just said there is what you say. I don't say the I don't care part because to them, that's their life. That is important to them.

Yeah. I say I don't care because I don't want them to think, like, I'm trying to make them live a certain way outside of work.

So instead of saying, I don't care, I support that.

Well, there's certain lifestyles I don't support, and I'm not gonna lie about that.

So that's where you cross personal business.

Yes, but I would never tell them that. But I do believe that.

Here's my question. Do you want them to hit their goals?

Yes.

Okay. What if their goals is that they play more video games?

Then that's. That's their personal life choice.

Support them. Like, there's. There's people that, like, they like music. I don't care about music, dude. I don't know a single artist. I'm. Movies. Like, I don't. I want you to hit your goals. And I'd love to know what those goals are.

But if them trusting me is me caring about what they have going on in their personal life, their personal goals, I'm sorry. I may have forgotten which I. Personal goals are.

It's not about knowing what they are. It's about them knowing that if they.

Shared those with you, then I would care.

You would care, and they can trust you enough to even tell you.

I struggle to communicate that to them, obviously, because they feel like I'm the guy who just shows up and wants to criticize. And it's like, deep down, I do believe my heart's motivation. My criticism is coming from a place of, I sincerely want you to grow in your skills. I want you. I want you to be good at this. I want that client to come out and tell you, you. What a great job you're doing.

I think you're. Ms. Like, understanding what is trying to be said. Can I say something that will help with this and help you understand? Peter has been here five years, right? I told him more about Peter after.

Being here two weeks than I knew about.

Than he knew about Peter in five years. Peter's been working here since the first time I was here, before I even opened my company. I told him more about Peter with knowing Peter for a few hours compared to five years.

And I've asked these guys this question, but they don't give me a response.

Because they don't trust you.

They don't trust me.

It all reverts back to one thing.

All we're talking about, every single thing. There's no trust in the organization.

And I guess it's because I hold myself to such a high standard that when someone does something right, I almost don't notice it because it's expected of you. Like, I expect guys to show up on time, but if they're late, it's like, this is becoming a problem. We need to address this. But I tend to not address them being on time because. Because, like, well, that's what's expected of you. And I don't even know how to address that without sounding cheesy or weird, like, hey, you're here today, man. You know, Because I feel like what they're gonna hear when I say that is, I'm always here, you know, why are you praising me for being here? I'm always here. You know, I'm so afraid that no matter what I say, it's gonna be taken wrong.

Your wife wants you to win. She just doesn't. She just has no evidence for the past several years, right? She wants you to win, but she sees that the bottleneck is the way you are.

Like your dad and the way he raised. Like, obviously there's been the Way that he raised you caused some trouble. Yeah. Like, my grandpa is probably very much like your dad, and it has trickled down to our family like crazy. And the very hardcore religious and bringing up ideologies. There's no way he could ever have a woman wear pants in front of him without calling her out and saying.

Horrible things about her.

I have a feeling I know what that's. Yeah, I. I grew up in that world.

And so, like, we can't allow that to impact the way we're leading.

I try not to. Like, obviously you can't. You can't deny your personal moral standings, you know, but you can't impose those upon other people either. It's. It's been a fine line to have to walk. Running a business, pulling people into the business who don't share your morals, don't share your beliefs, and yet all still have a cohesive team where everyone's pulling together for the same thing.

But when I look at the purpose date, none of those. None of that statement aligns with personal values or morals. All of those things we accomplished with people that are very different than you believe, very differently than you. Like, the way. The way that, like, you were managed as a kid.

Yeah.

You're reflecting on them. Like, the ability for someone to say, like, good job. You crushed it. And like that trust factor and be proud of what you've built here. That stings. And, like, it's coming over in the team. Like, in my opinion, you are Santa Claus to this business. You only talk positive things. You should be the one handing out bonuses at team meetings. You should be the one giving promotions. He's the one that takes escape. He's the one that tells the truth. This is not right. This is wrong. It's wrong. They're all looking to use the negative because you keep dishing it out.

I've been the only one to dish it out. There is no one else.

Let him do it. So in my opinion, having him be the bad guy and you the good guy is very good.

Well, Brian's been so good for me in that way because he. Because he is super blunt. And that's. That's what I'm used to, is blunt. So when he's blunt with me, he helps me to see he's willing to say things to me that other people would never say. And when he says it, then I. Then I get it. Whereas someone might hear something, be offended at how I said it, and then walk out because they. Because I was. I was offensive. He's just gonna look at me and be like, dude, did you hear what you just said? You know, and then I'm gonna be like, oh, did I say that?

Yeah.

And I think a lot of us.

Fact from his past and his dad and just thoughts, mindsets that. And we're so. I don't know, we're so assuming good.

Of people in general.

Like, people come in like, you know, like, with a hangover. You know, they're throwing up on the Monday morning, and we're just like, huh, I wonder what's going on.

Yeah.

They're like, guys, he's having a hangover. We're not used to, like, we grew up conservative Christian. We're not used to thinking of people.

Doing that kind of stuff, you know.

So it's been a lot of people pulling things because they can.

Yeah.

Because they know not gonna catch it. So it's kind of good to have someone like Brian here to catch what these guys are doing, since we're not catching it.

From your perspective, you like Brian? He's more skeptical. He's been here a little bit in the past.

He seems like he's a good opposite.

Of what Luke is.

He does seem like he's a good complimentary counterpart, which is good.

And I don't want people to come in here and walk on eggshells like, whoa, who's next? No, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, it's not who's next? Just, you know, don't do anything worth fighting. And I think there's a stigma and I don't have to fix this. But I've even heard people say that. Relay back to me what an employee said in a situation like, oh, Luke is so gonna fire me. You obviously don't know me that well. You know, I don't just jump on you the minute you make a mistake and fire you, even though that's maybe that's what I've communicated. We talked till 9 o' clock last night about this, about the guy who lost the motor. It's like, I'm not gonna just fire him.

He naturally quit on his own. I just gave him the opportunity two hours ago for me to pick him up. He was supposed to send me his address right when I. When he got off the phone, he blocked my number because my messages are no longer going through. So there's your answer on that one.

Yeah, it's. It's, it's, you know, it's that times 100 and I. I don't. I don't know. I. It. It's really started to feel like it's, it's never going to turn around and I'm not going to not trust you the moment you make a mistake. Even though somehow that's what I've communicated. As soon as they screw up like, like this issue with this, the stolen mower, this isn't the first mistake he's made. But it's like I wasn't ready to, to ax him over it. I wanted to work through it with him. I wanted this to be a growing process for him. However we were going to approach it, you know. But instead he chose to quit. Which is really discouraging. What do you think, Brian? Why, why do you think he quit?

Why do I think he quit? Because he doesn't want to be accountable for a five thousand dollar bill. First off. We'll start with that.

And then.

But we never even told him that he was going to be responsible for it.

But these guys know you and they, they know what's going to come out of that. He already knows. I don't even have to be your mom position.

Literally never happened in the history of this company. Why do they feel that way? Because I've never made anybody pay for a wrecked truck. I've never made anybody pay for a stolen blower. I've never done that. And the only time I have is when they voluntarily came to me and said I dumped two brand new wheelbars.

What you just said is why they don't trust you. He brought up a point and you immediately defended it.

What did I just tell you the past week? Stop explaining yourself to, to me. Stop trying to defend. I've told him this all. Haven't I said it the past two weeks?

I guess I'm just trying to understand.

I tell him, trying to understand.

Stop defending. I'm trying to understand why they feel that way when it's where, where's that, where's that coming from?

So say that instead of defending. So instead of you're saying that's never happened before, but say, hey, okay. Why do you feel like that? Like, I'm curious as to why you feel like that.

We had a guy wreck a truck this past winter. He drove it. He. We think he fell asleep at the wheel. We don't know. I never even had a chance to drive it with the employee. Before I could even walk through how we're gonna bring this up or talk to him about it or anything. He quit. I wasn't prepared to fire him. I wanted to work with him.

But the inclination is anything negative is brought up to You. You defend and you go against. That's why they don't feel like you're in the same team, because you go against immediately. Instead of being curious, listening, wondering, okay, how do you see it that way? And it's from him who's on your team and is fully supportive when he gives feedback. I'm not. I don't need to defend. I'm curious as to why they feel that way. And I need to make changes.

Well, it's like I'm confused because my mo. My MO in the past is I haven't fired people fast enough.

So if you're confused, the only way to understand that is to ask.

That's what I was just doing.

No, no, you were defending. You're saying this has never happened before in the history of the company.

You're defending everything. You do it. You do that all the time. Me and you've talked about this. Without this around, we have had the same conversation that every time I say something, something, you, Lazarus, whatever. You defend what was done at that time, or the guys do this. You defend about something like, well, for the past seven years, I've done this, this, and it's been correct or whatever. It's always like.

It's always, Luke's right there.

Both you're having two guns shoot at the same time and smack in the middle. I know that he wants to help, but some of the stuff that you've said, I know that he's been told.

For 10, 15 years, man.

And maybe just hearing it from somebody, that's a different caliber, you know, opens the.

Yeah.

Opens the eyeballs and things of that nature. And I just hope he follows along. Well, he's gonna have to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because everybody's been trying to tell him that.

Right.

You know, there's no reason that me and him are here till 10 o' clock every single night talking about the same stuff.

Yeah.

Like, you gotta do something.

Yeah, yeah.

You can't just run in circles every day.

I would say this. First off, it feels like I'm like, we're both, like, shooting at you. That's not the objective. We want to win, and we are Team Luke. So one thing I would recommend is when someone even has a problem, instead of giving them solution, ask a question. Instead of telling him what to do at the job, say, what do you think's next to happen at the job?

How would he even know?

So then he would ask you. He'd say, so what should I do next? What should be the.

Tell him?

Right. Instead of, you just jumping in and immediately saying your thoughts and opinions and coming across as someone who just breathes down their neck and tells them what to do. Versus I asked my boss to what his opinion is and he gave it to me. Now, you're a resource. You're not a dictator. I would say, like, you want people to come to their own conclusions. You don't want to have to tell them what to do. So when he said.