Lend Me Your Ears

In this follow up to last week I explain how to Lead, Inspire, Fuel, and Train your employees. You won't want to miss this one.

To have a truly great company you need two things: happy employees and happy customers. Lend me your ears as I explain how I strive for both.

I used to brag about how different this industry was from other trades. We used to help each other. Now it seems we would rather argue. Lend me your ears as I wonder about what happened to us.

I have already talked about the need for putting safety first in our industry. Lend me your ears as I explain what happens when you have a run-in with OSHA. 

Two years ago my company was the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor. The case was finally finished in December. Lend me your ears as I explain how it all went down and how you can learn from it.

It was such an honor to sit down and chat with Anthony. Watching his company grow and thrive over the last few years has been a pleasure. His story and advice is something everyone in this business should hear.

To have a well-oiled machine of a company you need to build a team so strong that anyone who sees it won't be able to tell who the boss is. 

This statement might be one of the most ignorant things I hear people say, and here is why I think that.

I'm back and I'm coming out swinging! This industry is dangerous, and we need to start acting like it. The same week that pictures of dangerous activity are getting proudly shared one of our own fell off a roof and is in the hospital. Let's smarten up and start cultivating a culture of safety in our companies, no matter the size.Also, please click this click to donate for Dion: https://gofund.me/06e9cc68

The key to taking your technicians to the next level is not just delegating tasks, but giving responsibility, too. In order to achieve greatness you have to remove their "employee mindset" and turn them into Mini Business Owners. 

This is my favorite topic and much needed. Lend me your ears as I explain my journey through advertising and what I have learned.

I love competition. I think too many people are fearful of it when they shouldn't be. In my opinion, competition is not just good, but necessary.

If you want to have a company of any size, you have to have quality control. More importantly, you need to learn how to control the quality of the work that gets done. I know they sound like they same thing, but they are not. Lend me your ears as I explain what I mean.

Seems like a weird time to be burned out, but I am. Mostly of my own doing. But I figured this would be the perfect time to talk about it. Lend me your ears as I discuss why we get burned out.

I think too many of us business owners try to do too much and end up frustrated with the process or the results. I learned early not to attempt things I wasn't good at, and that my is my advice this week to you: find your lane and stay in it.

When you talk to your customers, don't confuse them with code language or chimney jargon. Explain everything to them in words they will understand. A confused customer won't make any decisions. An educated customer will.

I have a ton of stories about toxic employees, but they all share one common theme: they were only toxic because I hired them too fast and waited too long to fire them.

The secret to life and business can be found in video games. That's right. Lend me your ears as I explain how.

This week I have a special guest - my friend, Tommy Nelms. The more I have gotten to know Tommy, I have realized we share a lot of similarities when it comes to running our businesses. Liners and bricks and caps are not the most important things to us - our people are.

Problem solving is a huge part of our job, but how good are we at actually solving problems? More importantly, how do we react when a problem arises? One of my favorite sayings is to just say "make it work - figure it out" but what does that mean? Lend me your ears as I explain.

So if certification doesn't make you an expert, what will? You may not like the answer, but it's the truth.

This topic is near and dear to my heart. I have put off recording it for a long time but I think this is the time for it. Please listen and take my words seriously. We can make this industry great again.

The new year usually means people making changes. My business is the same. At the end of every busy season I re-evaluate how everything went the year before and make the appropriate changes.

I don't really have a theme this week. I had had a lot on my mind and this episode is me trying to turn those thoughts into words. Hopefully you get some words of wisdom out of my ramblings.I will be taking the next two weeks off due to the holidays. I will be back to my regular schedule on January 8th. Happy Holidays!

 We might be called Chimney Sweeps, but our job goes far beyond just running a brush up a flue. We are actually called to inspect the chimney, and then sweep if necessary. How you do that will decide what kind of professional you are. Lend me your ears as I explain how and why we inspect our chimneys. 

To me, the phone call is the most important part of your customer's experience. That sets the table for their entire experience with your company. So why is the office the most underutilized and undertrained part of most companies? Lend me your ears as I explain our phone process.

How do you price your sweepings? I don't mean what do you charge - I mean how do you come up with the prices? I have tried several different methods of pricing our jobs and finally figured out the missing ingredient - our standard of care. Lend me your ears as I explain how we price our sweepings.

The most important process for any company should be how they train their employees. How can you expect to have a well oiled machine if you don't show and tell everyone you hire how to do their job well? We haven't perfected it, but we are very intentional about how we train our employees. Lend me your ears as I explain our training process. 

Hiring is not as simple as putting an ad on Indeed or Facebook. Timing matters. We hire when you least expect it and it has worked wonders for us. Lend me your ears as I explain the mindset behind our hiring.

As a business owner I expect a lot. A lot of it comes from the fact that I have done the job that I am now entrusting to my employees, and I have high opinions and standards for how it gets done. However, that can be damaging if expectations are too high or unrealistic. Lend me your ears as I explain how I have managed to screw up the art of what to expect.

Everyone is business got into business so they could have two things: more money and more free time. So why do I hear so often that owners can't afford to train their techs or don't have the time to attend educational events? Lend me your ears as I explain how I have been able to shut my company down numerous times for trainings, events, and improvements. It is more worth it than you think.

People ask me all the time how I got the company culture I did. The answer is simple. I put my employees first - over me and my customers. I treat them the way I wanted to be treated when I was a technician. If you put your employees first and become a Servant Leader, magic happens.

Sorry to leave you hanging last week, but here is the conclusion to that episode. In this episode I explain why it's more important to know YOUR numbers rather than learn someone else's, and how some of your numbers can impact others and even some of your big business decisions.

You've probably heard a lot that you should know your numbers, and you should. But what numbers should you know, and why? This week I discuss why you should learn your numbers and how they can help you.

Growth can be fun, exciting, and rewarding - but it comes with it's own share of troubles. The bigger a company gets, the bigger the more headaches it brings. Growing a company should be done carefully and with lots of planning, so you can make the headaches smaller. Lend me your ears as I discuss the Why, When, How, What, and the Where of working ON the business, instead of IN the business. 

We all know how important documentation is in a customer's home, but how many of us are documenting our company in the same way? I wasn't. Today I talk about 16 different forms and documents we now use to keep a paper trail in our business - from the day an employee is hired, to the day they become a Lead, and even if they get into trouble. If you don't have some of these forms you may be in for a massive headache. Lend me you ears as I go over some of our company's paper trail.

I have my first guest on the show this week! My Office Manager, Jill Valade, joins me to talk about how she started in the industry and how she went from creating an office to someone else, to creating my office in her house to running the well oiled machine we now have at Ceaser Chimney! Lend US your ears as we dive into the ups and downs of creating a CSR!

When I talk to most new business owners I find that most of us are missing the same key ingredient that will take our business to the next level. Without this piece of the puzzle it is very hard to grow and scale the business, and as an owner we end up with more on our plate than we should. So lend me your ears as I explain how to connect the dots by finding the missing link in your business.

Accountability is the key ingredient in all aspects of running a business, doing your job, or living your life. In this episode I bounce all over the place showing how important it is to have accountability at all levels of your life and work. And if you think you're an "Alpha" or know someone who thinks they are, you're gonna love this one.

How can I pay commission to my technicians while telling them not to sell? Because I paid a technician hourly to sell and that is a mistake I will never forget. Lend me your ears while I take you back to a dark part of our past when we hired for experience and not character and paid hourly with no accountability.

Coming from a sales background it was very hard for me to learn how to SERVE my customers instead of SELLING to them. But once I learned how to serve them everything clicked. Home Service Trades, and Chimney Sweeping in particular, is a Service Industry - NOT a chance to become an in-home salesman. In this episode I discuss the very stark difference between those two worlds.

This is another hot button topic. This episode we talk about money! How to pay employees. How to charge customers. How to learn your numbers. This one turned into a long one but there is just too much info here to go over. So lend me your ears as we dive into all kinds of money matters.

Leading is fun! Having the new title, maybe a fancy desk, better pay, what's not to love? But if you don't know how to lead, it can be a nightmare. And if you create more leaders like you, it can be a complete train wreck. Lend me your ears as I explain the impact of leadership (good and bad) on a growing company.

I was asked how I built the culture I have at Ceaser Chimney. The answer is Servant Leaders and Empowered Employees. It is not an easy thing to do, but once done it will transform your company. Lend me your ears as I explain how to build a culture of leadership in your company, regardless of the size.

Sometimes one of the hardest things a business owner can do is to let go and give up control. I went through that pain but came out stronger on the other side. In this episode I talk about why it is important to delegate and how it can improve your business - and your sanity!

This episode is a BIG one. Not just in the length of time, but in what I cover. Training and education is near and dear to my heart, and is the reason we have the company we have today. In this episode I cover what happens once we have hired a new employee and how we take them from Green to Gold.

This is a question I get asked a lot but the answer is not so simple. I find my employees the same places you do. The difference is our hiring process. In this episode I take you into hiring for a job at Ceaser Chimney.

In this episode I take you into Ceaser Chimney's dark past with a few examples of the struggles I went through once I decided to grow my company. Hopefully I can save you from making the same mistakes.

A quick introduction into my beginnings as a chimney sweep and business owner.