Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Horrom Talks for the Silver Stars tonight. Tonight.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Welcome back to Love and Business, the show where we dive into the real stories behind building a life you love, both at home and in business.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: We're your hosts, Mick and Britt. Whether it's just us or sitting down with incredible guests, we're here to unpack the highs, the lows, and everything in between.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: In today's episode, we're going to give a bit of a life update and we're going to talk about navigating crossroads in our life, both at home and in our professional careers, which I know is something many of you can relate to and it will resonate with you.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: So wherever you're listening, from your commute, your kitchen or the gym, we're glad you're here. And hey, if you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe. It helps us grow and reach more people just like you.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Let's get into it.
Well, it has been quite a while since we've done, I would say, a solo episode, meaning we haven't had a guest on which our guest series has been so much fun. But let's talk about just, we've been away for a while, just some life updates. And specifically, as you and I have been at home, we've been having a lot of conversations about crossroads in our life transitions. I think both are good words to use. And I know a lot of people, a lot of you at home in the audience are, are going through the same thing and we're working through navigating them and figuring out what our next steps are, both at home and in business. And they're also driving one another.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: And I think the part for me that just hit me, it's funny, is we have these conversations sometimes. I'm not always exactly what we're gonna say. You'll say something that triggers. And what was just triggered for me was also the idea that it's not in our control. I think some people had this idea that because your name is on the building and our names are literally on the building, that you somehow have this control over things as a business owner. And, and nothing could be further from the truth. Certainly get home with a 14 month old.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: 13. Don't push it.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: 14 month old. 13 month old.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Kelly.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: No, 14.
May, June, July.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: You're right.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: The little sticker keeps getting older and older. What's that refer to?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: They're a.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: But that part, certainly with a four team on both, she's calling the shots in a lot of spots. And we become much more captive to her schedule and her needs. But also too on the business owner side, there are pressures that are external market conditions. Things would happen from a competitive situation. I'll throw in one for us. There's a massive push in the state of Maryland as it relates to sustainability. And just in a moment's notice, things like that, that are earth shaking in, in a business like packaging, those are out of your control. And just in a moment, you have to allocate a lot of time, resources in a certain direction. And maybe you saw it coming, maybe you did. Such as something too that I recognize is, man, I don't know that I felt further from calling the shots than I feel in this, in this boat or at this part of our trajectory or evolution.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And let's look at this for the moment. Holistically, we're going to get into the weeds. But as we've been talking, as we say sitting on our couch inside our home and if you pull back that curtain, what would it look like? And we're talking about, as I'm going on nine years in the business of running Taylor Construction and Supply, I'm starting to look at what I'm calling the transition stage where I'm delegating more responsibility, I'm putting new leadership in place. We're looking for the next build. And that part of the build has me out of the weeds more and making top level executive decisions so we can grow the business. And also I've talked about this a lot, but that other D.C. entity working to get that up and running finally, and I have not been able to do that, has been stagnant for so long because we haven't had the right team in place. And until you have that, it's impossible to build where we want to go. But we finally do. So now we are in the mode of growing that team and getting them to a point where we are transitioning a lot of responsibility and a lot of leadership to them. And I'll get into what that looks like and what we're doing on a day to day basis to make that happen.
But interestingly enough, you're almost. And correct me if you think this is inaccurate on the other end of the spectrum where you find maybe you're being pulled back into the business a little bit more than working on it than you have in the past. Is that. Yeah, right.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Yes. And I would just say that despite being 92 years old, that's not something I've ever really had the exclusive benefit of is working on the business. You know, in a business Our size and business is quite a bit larger than ours too. I don't, I don't think this is just an Arnold packaging event or condition.
Never really had the pure ability to do that. And I think a lot of times I'll say, is it me? Am I doing this?
At some point when you don't seem to be able to escape a certain pattern or a certain path, then you have to look at yourself and say, well, are you not escaping? Because either you're not capable of escaping. Seriously, do you not want to escape? That could be another one that, that maybe people don't think about. But you know, despite being the president of the company, I've always had a territory, right? I've always had some type of direct responsibility for customers and that's been as few as two or three customers. And then, you know, knowing as many people as I do and being fortunate beneficiary referrals, I might take on a customer that look just looks natural. Or at least in my made up story I feel like they're insistent on working with me. If I think I have bandwidth, I might take that on. But.
So I've always had a rather significant production responsibility. Right now it's about $8 billion. So it's, it's, it's a big chunk of business. And then most recently due to some shakeup in our sales organization, now find myself directly managing the sales force and why I call it the chief revenue officer role.
That's because it's how I approach, you know, that's how I do it. So I think right now I'm even considering structurally what the right moves are for me in my role. You know, what am I good at?
What does the company benefit most significantly from Vic Arnold and his superpowers versus some of the other responsibilities? It's had me pull this back even further than I have in quite some time to say, wait a minute, if we are where we are, then I should take a look structurally and decide or agree that I'm going to do the same thing I've done historically and go and rehire for some spots that are empty.
Or do I, do I pick and stay in one of these spots that I'm in for this moment in time and that's, that's where I am right now and on today with subject to change, without.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: So in this position, are you feeling overwhelmed? Are you feeling like it's a step back? Are you feeling invigorated? Like how do you feel at this moment in time where you are? You're you're in sales right now. You are a salesperson, sales manager, sales leader.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So I've always been in sales. But right now in this moment, I also have direct responsibility for support seven or eight, eight other salespeople. So being their immediate go to a question needs to be answered. There needs to be counsel or coaching around a negotiation, a product recommendation. I will say that fortunately after 42 years in the business, I know that part.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: From a subject matter, expertise, perspective, I know the answer. So it'll take me less time to get there than it would someone else. But it's still not a timeless event. There's still time.
So I would say that I feel all of the words that you just said at any given moment. I do know that right now I'm struggling to keep up with my inbox, which is a very new phenomenon. I mean, between spending time with Mox in the evenings, which is new, right? I mean fast forward 15 months ago, we had all that time, you know, we could come a little bit from work and knock out a few more things from let's just say five to eight. The exact time that we spent with Mock now. So I am noticing that it's hard to keep up with my inbox and I find myself getting, getting into people by the next day versus closing the day. And I think, and we can talk about this too, some of that pressure, I think were they actually looking for that day? Is it the same event if they get it by the time they get to their desk the next morning? I've definitely been working with and trying some different things out from a response perspective.
But yeah, it's a lot.
I feel the pressure and I think one of the things I'm trying to understand is is it legitimate? Is the world around going, come on Arnold, what's wrong with you? Why are we waiting so long? Or is like we have tendency to do self imposed, which ultimately takes a little bit of a physical toll, whether it's sleep or different things along those lines. But Jason probably should feel all of it.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I can relate to that.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Let me add to that and I will say one thing I've gotten better at in a moment. I have leaned on some people that I have not leaned on either at all or as hard as I am now. One is Kenny, who's in the room. One is Tommy, who's in the room.
Their direct leader, Lara. I have really invited them into.
Please help me. Can you take some of this load?
Our director of sales for Automation Day debt leaning on him Much harder. And looking at delegation that I might have just done on my own or extended the day will stand right now. I mean until someone makes a 25 hour day or a 26 hour day, I don't have a choice but to lean on trusted teammates and try some and do some delegating that I might not have done historically. Which probably is exactly what you're experiencing, but in a little different mode.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And as we're talking about moxie, you know, being 14 months now, that was a lot of the driver that got me to where we are now. So I have decided this, this was never, never a decision really. It was just like family's always going to come first, you always come first and that's, that's it. So how do you figure out how to be just as good as a business person, grow a great business and be a great parent? And it's very possible And I think now we're at a state even now to when we were talking about the six months ago. We're in a way different period because now she's sleeping that I have structure. Like I know that I can wake up at 3am, 3:30 and she's going to be sleeping and if I'm telling my run by six she'll be, or 550 she'll be sleeping. Like we're able to adapt to a new structure. Like before it was complete chaos. We had no idea what it was going to be and she, whatever her schedule was, that's what we did. It's not like that. So it's even like every step of the way is different. But I knew that being a great mom was, was going to be the priority. So I needed to get to the business to where or start to at least get it in the process of where I could be able to do that. And that was a driving force behind saying okay, I, I'm not going to be able to work the necessarily the same hours and quite frankly like I don't think I need to. I don't think that's necessary. We're eight years old, we've got established business, you know, all relative but we're established, we're doing well. I need to find the right people to be able to put in the right spot to grow the business so I can take a step out of doing the project management, being in the weeds and be the leader that I need to be to grow the business. And that's what I have been working on so hard for the last year is the interviews, the Hiring. And now we've got this team in place that's really strong. And so what I've implemented is called transition training. And I was first leadership training. And then we had a conversation and I think you suggested what about transition training? And what that is, is as a business owner, founder, you realize that you just take on so many things and you just do them. You know what we were talking about? Insurance or bonding or just like taxes. So many things that you just do and you're so used to doing. But then you realize, like, nobody in the business knows how to do any of this. So if I left tomorrow, it would be hard for the company to survive because so many critical pieces, I only have the knowledge. I only have the key to that door.
So in this transition training, which we're doing about bi weekly, I take the team and we come up with like this theme or this particular topic. And sometimes it's inviting one of our partners in like a Reggie, our bonding beach. And he's sitting down describing it, but I am pulling back the curtain and showing them, hey, guys, this is exactly what I've been doing for the last nine years. And it's on a monthly basis or it's on an annual basis, or, you know, we're talking about the key to. We're talking about what it looks like, we're talking about how you actually do it. And then we're assigning ownership to that thing. This is not like, okay, you know, all. All of you have to understand it. It's like, no, Chris, you're the lead on it, and Josh, you are the support if Chris is not there to do it. And this is your responsibility moving forward.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: What are you doing from a documentation perspective? Because that's great. And one thing that's occurred to me, that's what I think. You know, the part of our subscriber base that are small business owners, you still know that you're only one departure away from that being in total turmoil.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, Right.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: So the key is it's so to not backslide. Let's just say that something happened and one of your very valuable people found themselves somewhere else. The key is the documentation. So you would have some type of plug and play capability and you wouldn't backslide all the way back to you being the only one with that tribal knowledge. At least Bonnie isn't tribal, but Bonnie uses litzy, tailored instructions.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, and we're all just doing. We're just doing like shared folders and making. It's called transition. We have one big Transition folder, transition training folder. And we're doing all subfolders that have exactly what it is. We have a whole spreadsheet of everything we're working towards. We've actually, in typical construction fashion, Chris has created like a Gantt chart of the timeline to get it achieved. What, like that deadline, milestone, or check him off as we go. We're assigning leads and supports, all of that. It's very organized.
If it requires, like a video, we're putting that together because we also thought this would be really. It's going to just be helpful if we. If we're onboarding and somebody comes in to take on one of these, like a lot of these, we might transition. We're going to be hiring soon for an administrative coordinator, and a lot of this they'll be able to do.
So. So, yeah, we're. We're trying to document it as much as possible, but it's easy to share folders like we've tried to. We've overcomplicated in the past, and it's so not necessary. Necessary.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: I only mention that because as a small business owner, it would be easy to make the assumption for a second that everybody will be there forever. And you would glance over that. That's the part that sucks. Like, a documentation part sucks. And it's not fun. And therefore it could miss or not execute in a moment and then something happens or there's turmoil or change and you think, oh, my gosh, I can't believe that I didn't put those breadcrumbs in place for the next person to follow and catch up to where we are.
Simple, but. But missed.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: And I'm not. I'm not naive. Like, I do realize people can go any. Anywhere they want at any time. But one of the reasons I'm doing this now is because I feel really confident in the team we have. I think we're. We're all very aligned and we all want to build this company. And. And hopefully I've been very intentional about, you know, being. Giving. Giving everybody on my team, like, incentives and hopefully a great quality of life where they want to be here. And I think we've achieved that. And I could see this team building this thing and do something really special. And that's why I decided, like, this is the time I feel confident to be able to do this. And I also need to take one step back, like, before you can really do transition training. If you're a small business owner and you're thinking about, like, wow, that's a good idea, like, all this knowledge I have that nobody else knows, and I gotta get the team involved.
One thing is like, first of all, I had to delegate all my projects and take on no more projects. So, like, before you can do like this big picture stuff, you need to take care of your own, like in our business projects. So, like, I delegated all. Anything new coming, I don't see anything new coming in. And then I will take some of the projects I'm working on till the end because they're close to the end and anything in the middle I've already transitioned off of. So, like, that was number one.
The other thing you've got to accept is that you have to be willing to open everything up. So you're showing your books, your financials, like, you. You cannot do this if you're not open and honest.
And really, if you have something to hide, there's probably an issue there in general. And every business owner is different.
Maybe some aren't comfortable with opening that up or maybe only want to do certain pieces, which I get. But for me, I have to show the team everything because that's really the only way you can let people in and allow them to do the things I'm asking everyone to be able to do in my absence. Because what I'm going to be able to do in this process is really, to a degree, I will always have my finger on the pulse, but be a little bit absent to be able to build dc. It's the only way we're gonna get there. It is literally the only way.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Let's call it adjacent. Absent. No, adjacent.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah, adjacent. And all I'm doing is getting back into the weeds of another organization.
Right back. Ground level.
But we've gotta know that this great thing we have in Taylor Construction Spy in Baltimore is. Is very secure and very stable.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Stable. I heard a great word today in a podcast. Sturdy.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Sturdy.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Sturdy was the one we were talking about in the podcast with. With Tim Ferriss.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: And they were talking about words for leaders. And one of the words that was brought up was sturdy. And the reason was there's a very strong visual component. So when you think of sturdy.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: That's what you have to have.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And the last point I will make, like, in this ideal world, I would.
I would be adjacent. Yes. I would do like. I would always be. Have Monday meetings. I will always be on that Monday meeting to get updates. Then maybe Tuesday I. It's all Tangler Construction Supply. If I have to have 10 meetings with the team, it'll be 10 meetings then Wednesday through Friday. It's understood that like I'm working on D.C. and keeping that schedule until we get where we need to be. And that's something I'm going to look to implement.
Something that's very structured, the team knows we're all in line and that's how we're going to get to the next question.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Oh, I think what happens to just thinking this through is when you're, and I don't mean, I don't mean younger in age because there are some companies that are very old or have long duration of years, decades even, that doesn't mean that doesn't guarantee you a certain amount of evolution in your business or a certain amount of progress. But when I think about businesses that have gone through that progress, what you realize as the sole proprietor, right, that's a word that's used for the business owner, the entrepreneur, the founder, all those words are in and around the same thing at some point. Each of those roles, like right now, I have three. I'm still the president of the company. I have an eight million dollar territory. And momentarily, or maybe not momentarily, I also have the chief revenue officer piece.
When you're growing the business or evolving a business, there's a chance that none of those are exactly full time jobs yet onto their own.
When you get to to this point or our evolution, regardless of nine decades in business, that really doesn't matter all that much here. Those are all full time jobs to give them the proper attention. And I will tell you, the one that ends up suffering, if you will, or getting the least devotion, is the president role. The other ones are very doer in nature and they have demands of that. One are direct customer demands. The other ones are the demands of supporting a sales organization who are also responding to customer demands. They're just voice of customer.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: So what I end up finding is.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: That a quick 20 second break from the podcast, if you're enjoying this, please do us a quick favor and hit that subscribe button. It really helps more than you know and we're working hard to get to that 1000 subscriber mark. Thanks for helping us and thanks for being a part of this. And now back to the episode One of those Roles.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Right. In the absence of unlimited bandwidth, which nobody has, that one of those something is going to be shortchanged and it's going to be the one that has the least amount of demand associated with it, right?
[00:20:27] Speaker B: No, absolutely. And that's, I think that's something I subconsciously realize, which is when I'm PMing on when there's just deadlines everywhere. Like that president role gets completely neglected because has to take a backseat.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: For the business to grow.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, which until something gets sold, nothing happens. Right.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: So that's exactly.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: That's an important one.
Yeah. So huge, huge transition. And I think I will say too, just back to the home life piece.
While Mox is getting more consistent, another word in her scheduling and the way her little body does things as it relates to sleep rhythms and whatever, she's also becoming a lot more demanding at the same time. So if you think about weekends, a year ago there was lots of sleep Vermont. So we had to be generally around and available to support service, if you will.
Now she's active, you know, and the ability to find. What would we work on a typical weekend prior to mox being born? 10, 12 hours.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: 14 hours. It wasn't uncommon to do six hours. Of course, on Saturday and Sunday, not all together, get up, knock on a couple of things, enjoy the day, swing back by. Before it would be nothing to work 3 and 3 on Saturday and let's just say 3 and 3 on Sunday.
Now I find myself going into Sunday night having not opened the laptop and looking, you know, going back, reviewing the Friday, making sure that I'm prepping for Monday. It's a whole different look to it than it did prior, where it's like, oh, I'll always go into money prepared. Now there's some scramble moments.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: There is, but I want to get into that because I don't want that to, because it sounds almost like that's a negative or that's like hindering our ability to run a great business? And I was fearful of that. I really was like, how am I going to be a great business leader and pursue other passions and then also raise a child the way I want to? And it can be done. And you. And now I've realized that and I've been able to allay a lot of those fears that I had.
But you have to realize, like, what your priorities are. Time management has to get so much better. And then I think too, because you have to do things at certain times, like you've got to do this one thing before. You've got to get everything done before 5pm or it's not going to get done, period.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: You get it done. That's right.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Or it's going to get done after eight. And you and I know that we don't thrive after eight. Having gotten up at three, 3:34 depending on what that morning looks like. Sure.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: And I've told. Because family is my priority. And one thing like, but I really love running and you know this. And I said to you, like I, if you can give me any gift in the world, like I don't want a material thing, I want nothing. It's just like the support and of running, that's it, like that's the only that will make me so happy. And you have done that. But I've been really clear on if I don't get up by 3 or 3:30, I'm not going to get that run in during the day because it's not going to come. And we really talked very little about the running because it's like I'm getting up, I'm back by the time she gets up and there's nothing to talk about.
But that is, But I know if I don't do that, like I don't get that. I'll call it a luxury for me. So having a child actually makes you stick. It makes you so much, in my, at least in my experience, way more accountable because I would have had the luxury to push that run anytime I wanted during the day. So there are many times it might not have get done at that time or like you can procrastinate. And it's not just worth running. This is work, this is anything that's important in your life, you have the flexibility. You don't. When you become a parent, you don't, you just don't. And it, and not so surprisingly, you become very, very consistent because you have to be. So I think that there is, I think there is a lot of advantages of being a parent that comes with that if you care enough.
And also, and I've said this before and I want to reiterate it, I know that I've become a better business person because I understand people better when you have. I have, you know, one of my employees has kids that are very involved in sports and sometimes, hey, I want to catch their game by four, you know, they only have so many high school games left. Or when I was just going to a concert with his kids, like, hey, I want to get out of here early. I would have gone home probably and bitched to you like a year or two ago and been like, oh God, does anybody work anymore? Does anybody truly? I'm just being honest.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Here we go. You become my father.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: But now I'm like, yes, please go. Like, don't. Why are you telling me? Get out the door. Don't be late. Because I understand it and I know like this is, that's what it's all for. Like if you just work and don't enjoy any of that, what do you, what are you working for? And it's so cliche. But once like you experience like that the greatest gift ever, you realize like this is to support that.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: That that is it.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Well, it's not. I don't think it's cliche at all. I think if you say it this way is that that perspective engenders emotional intelligence and empathy. Right. You actually have that perspective or experience that perspective. You're almost incapable of that type of empathy. Then I think equates to emotional. That ultimately grows into emotional intelligence. You're not capable until you have that perspective.
I'm not sure that I haven't learned a heck of a lot more on my side my second time around the track, you know, to three older daughters and having a different position. A big part of this, talking about the love part in this, in this segment, a big part of this too is the relationship that we have. Right. When we talked about this idea of doing 100% of half versus half of the whole and each of us do half of the whole and therefore it becomes easier to support running. Right. You were very intentional about telling me that that was something that was important and that and goals that you had. And then once I know, then I know, like I'm in full support mode. Like I'm, I'm a great warrior if you just tell me what the mission is going to be. And that's a big part of it.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: And see so much of it is just the recognition. Not a bad thing about tits or whatever. Just, you know, that recognition which then hopefully going this way into self awareness.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: And what you have to do and the demands.
So yeah, all the good stuff. But. But still challenging to get it all done in spots.
It is.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: And crossroads are challenging if you're going through it. It's so hard to know like you're at this transition period, am I going in the right direction or should I be pivoting back to where I came from or is moving in this new direction. Right. And it's so hard to identify that and figure out like, am I doing the right thing? And I think there are sometimes it's like a feeling or it's intuition and it's just totally subjective, which is. I always lean in that direction where you're a lot more analytical objective numbers.
But, but I think finding both of those things like, and making sure you're checking both of those metrics, as I will say is important. And one thing you said to me the other day, because I. Sometimes it. No, no, no. It freaks me out a little bit because I'm like, I'm not.
I'm not working 15 hours a day. Sometimes they're very long days, don't get me wrong. But I was just doing that every single day. And when you're not doing that, you start to be like, am I losing my edge? Is the business not growing all these things? And you're just like, have you looked at the numbers? Like that? That's it. Have you looked at the numbers? Are you as profitable as you were this time? You know, before Moxie was born? This time to see me, and I say, I actually haven't exactly. This sounds crazy, but look at that. Like, I haven't just looked at where our profit margin is or where our profitability is this year compared to the year before Moxie was born.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: And I looked at it, and we were literally. We were 30,000 within $30,000.
But our expenses have gone up tremendously because we've added great people.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: And so some, if they were to say differently, then maybe like, hey, I'm. I'm trying to convince myself of something that just simply, you're not working as much and the business just isn't growing as much. And those numbers tell you that.
But this was not the case. It just confirmed that the business is doing great, and you've worked really hard to hire great people, which have allowed you to spend that extra time with Moxie and still have a growing business. It's all I needed to see. But for some reason, it failed. I failed to just look at that so simply. And then it also begs the question, which we talk about all the time. Well, were we working sometimes just to work? And I think that is true. I also think that sometimes, you know, the first eight, nine years, it required that. And we've just been. Now we have a customer base and a vendor base, and, you know, so I don't want to.
I don't want to say that, like, I could be doing this. I could have been doing this five years ago, and it would have been the same results. Because. I don't think so.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: No, I don't. I don't think so either.
[00:29:28] Speaker B: But I will say I do think, you know, the last two. Two years, I probably was doing just work that didn't need to be done right, just because it felt right to me. And if I wasn't so overwhelmed and so busy and so tacked and still dressed. Which I am sometimes still. But all the time something felt off.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Which is just like this. A made up story that I lived in.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it is added. But I do believe, I think the word that I'm used for talking about it is additive. You know, I don't know that. Could we would the demands that we have now made us be more productive? You know, could we have gotten more output for less input? But if you have the input then you have the luxury of squandering it.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: I think you generally will. Yeah.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: And so you used to get super serious about the time limits and what becomes your disposable time. And that was another word. You know, we had a tremendous amount of disposable time and we disposed of it how we wanted and still had some leftover. We told out work then that's not here anymore. That's changed quite a bit. But I think it's all very additive. I mean this, this is not telling our audience. Yeah, don't worry about it. You'll get there no matter what.
It's very additive. Especially depending on where you are in the evolutionary cycle of your business. It's incredible.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Because you build a customer base. You have the following. Right. It comes back to my. What I said to you was well, go pull your audience what your, your sales are they still voting with their fee and showing up. And the answer is yes, they are.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: But you built that following, built that audience through the grueling aspect of building a company and you are able then to reap those benefits for a moment. It's also not indefinite too because each slack somebody will come in a competitor and meet your bunch. So you have to be super smart.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I'm not any less intense or taking my foot off the brake. In fact now I just have more responsibilities. But they're just spread across home and business have a lot more responsibilities. It's not like there's. There's anything that looks like pulling back.
I've just got to be smarter, way more intentional and also say like I'm not painting this picture that now I we've got this balance between home life and work and everything else. I mean things sacrifice and my thing that sacrifices because. Because I choose to run, I choose to run a business and I choose to be a great mom and wife and family member is sleep. That, that for me is a sacrifice. So I, I will get. Because I know exactly the amount of sleep I get on aura like around 55 hours, 15 minutes of sleep. That is the average I get period, every single day. Weekends don't matter.
My weekend schedule doesn't change and that's that. And like on the weekends, you know, we used to be able to. If you want to take a nap, we don't have anymore. So there's no rest in between. So that really, for me, sleep, which and thus is also recovery, that really, really suffers. And that's a choice. I could use the three hours in the morning that I run to sleep and I don't. So I'm not complaining about it, but I'm not trying to paint a picture. You're pursuing a career and parenthood and also a passion on the side. Like you got to make a choice. What's the most important to you?
[00:32:31] Speaker A: Still only 24 hours. And still I wish they'd make a day extender. I buy that.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: Yeah, me too.
Exactly.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: But the question is, would we use the day extender to sleep?
[00:32:41] Speaker B: I know. We fill up something else.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Exactly. That's the terrifying part. Okay, no, no. Day, et cetera, then forget that.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: So I'm curious where, for you, and this might be a good ending point here is where now that you're in this transition and you've diagnosed that you're there and you're looking towards the future, now you're living in the present, working towards the future, where do you think your next step is? Where do you want to go? How are you going to navigate this?
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Good question. I'm only three weeks, I'm on week four of having to take back over the Chief Revenue Officer role, which, by the way, I have served in any number of times in my career. It's not my first time doing this. I think I've done every job directly, not accounting so much, but the other jobs that I've had to step into in spots, whether it was starting the automation division before we had a great leader and teammate like Kevin.
So what I'm doing right now, the short answer is I don't know because I'm sitting in this moment very intentionally. I am continuing to run and grow my territory that I'm directly responsible for.
I am continuing to be Chief Revenue Officer, but also learning about some things that we could do a better job. If I elect to hand that off and not keep it, that I want to make sure that I leave it in a great spot. There's some things that I don't think would be done as well as we could do them. And if I were to hand that back over, I'd want to make sure that that was cleaned up and tight and I could train around what rate was like.
And then also to my. And as we talked about, of the three things, I think my president responsibility is probably the one that might be going with the least amount of attention. But I'm leaning on teammates for that. I'm leaning very hard on Rob Goldstein, our cfo. Right. There's a lot of overlap on that side of my life about doing the sales stuff directly.
In doing the sales stuff directly that has me hooked up hyper engagement purchasing hyper engage with the operations groups, whether that's distribution, manufacturing, automation. Because I am there, I am part of their pipeline now. So I'm already hyper engaged.
So I'm getting to watch those up closely. So by virtue of that role, I'm actually doing some of my presidential responsibilities in and around it and the vast majority of those. The rest things I'm pushing off to CFO and the accounting side of the business. But in this moment in July, I'm sitting in this spot and I am using it to collect data for the period of time. I don't know how long that is. I have not put a timeline on.
Could be that a person presents for one of the roles that are open. And by that I mean I'm open to anything. It's crossed my mind that I might hire a chief operating officer and keep the chief rep, the officer role.
And boy, I started to invite people in to help. Kenny, for example, has been in the field that's going to help support certain sales activities. So I will be sliding some of that direct sales responsibility off. It falls into using this trending opportunity in my personal goals that I talked about with our executive team. Spending more time coaching and teaching is a big one. What a great way to be working in the business. And then also coaching and training by inviting someone along like Kenny or Jordan who's a program inside group inviting them along to experience it and learn and train at the same time and then also helping out with bandwidth. What a. What a great dual front attack I think. But. But right now I. I'm intentionally sitting in this spot and. And watching. I think the. The challenge will be overstaying in any one spot. You missing me out.
So I'm hypersensitive to that. That's the point where I might jump too soon. But I'm also sensitive to. To lingering which. Which would retrospect people lingering is not moving when you should have moved.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's. That's a. Thank you for that. That's a great, great summary of that, your outlook. And I think it's really important to just remember that although this could potentially from the outside looking in, look like a bit of a backslide, nothing's linear. We know that. And sometimes these moments, because I. The same thing happened to me. I got thrown back into a lot of project management because my VP left.
Those touch points within your company are great because you learn so much. And when you come out the other end, you're like, okay, I'm ready. I've got the people placed. I'm ready to resume this president role, be the visionary now. You have so much more personal connection with people, inside knowledge, just things that you wouldn't have had. I do not have to reengage really hard inside of the business. So although I don't love the PM role and like, you know, I was trying to get out of that and found myself back in was an opportunity to learn so much. So if, if you, if you don't go into that, like resentful or being pissed that you're there and take it for what it is, a learning opportunity, it can really be beneficial to the business. And that's gonna happen along the way, inevitably in different ways.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So in a very open way, if you would also grab your fort hat, which would be chief visionary officer, then that's the ultimate. You're doing all those jobs and you have all those inputs and you're seeing all those intersections. If you'll just pull on your chief visionary officer hat or have it on full time while you're experiencing it at three, you should really make some progress.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: And that's the difference.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: And ultimately possibly even change the business.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Could change the business. As a founder, owner, you know, the visionary that started it or at least has stewarded the business for the next period of time, like I have for 30 years. It could be the thing that takes you to the next part. So if you, if you approach that way, it's not really. It's not, it's not a grind or anything like that. It's a cool challenge. It's an opportunity to learn more, do more, and maybe even set your organization up for exponential success by seeing employees.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: And I think that's the difference between CEOs and founders is there are a lot that are far removed from the business. A lot probably more than the opposite.
And I think when you get too far away, those are the things that you're just not going to be able to do. And in my opinion, I think it's the CEO, founder, president, whatever, whatever label you have that stick it, that are willing to go through, that want to be involved, that are true builders and creators and are able to.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And I love being closer to our team, too. Younger, obviously. A lot of. Lot of younger team members. This gives me, you know, removes the filter in certain spots where I get to engage with younger, to our teammates directly and they get to see some of why we are who we are. And I get stroked directly, which is fun.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And then from. From my perspective, for me, what the immediate future looks like is building my team, pouring every ounce of energy at them, opening up, as I said, like the curtain and showing them everything I can and giving them added responsibility and ownership and knowing that, like the understanding that I really trust them, that empowering them and getting to them to a place where they can.
I'm always going to be right there. But where they can feel comfortable. Comfortable that they, they can run the business not. Not without me. I'm not gonna say that. But, like, they're. They're confident in their ability to run a great business and I don't have to be over top of them all the time. And then that can allow me to go build this new business that they too, are going to be all a part of and all benefit from. But it's really just pouring, like, all that trust and energy and time into building, like, my team into leaders because we finally have that team in place to be able to do that. And, and I'm learning what that looks like because I've never been in a position where I have had a team that's capable. So it's. It's a learning experience for me too. But that's what my immediate, immediate goal and mission is.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, this has been fun. It's been, you know, we've had a lot of great guests. It's been fun to take a minute to catch up, talk about some of the transitions, because while we're, you know, meeting for guests, we're still running the business. We're still doing all the things we did in the first 52 episodes that we shared with everybody. So it's good to get back and talk to viewership and have some intimate moments and some updates, but super excited about the guests that we have coming up, too.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we will still continue to throw so many solo episodes in our guests, but we do have a great guest lineup still, so coming. Coming your way, so.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: So subscribe, come back and see us as quickly as you can.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: Cheers. What's your drink?
[00:41:21] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: Come on.
We don't have our cups either.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: We'll get our shit together and see you next time.
Welcome to H. Robbie Talks for the Children. Stars tonight. Tonight.
Incredible.
