Roofing Success
The Roofing Success Podcast is a show created to inspire roofing contractors to achieve optimal success in their roofing businesses. The host, Jim Ahlin, is the co-author of the book, "Internet Marketing For Roofing Contractors, How to TRIPLE Your Sales and Turn Your Roofing Website Into an Online Lead Generation Machine", and Co-Founder of Roofer Marketers, the Digital Marketing Agency for the roofing industry. On each episode, Jim will be sitting down with industry leaders to talk about their processes, the lessons they learned, and how to find success in roofing.
Roofing Success
Why Roofing Teams Fail: Ignoring the Power of Coaching with Rosalynn Verges
You hired the best roofing team—but are you coaching them to succeed? 🏆
In this episode, we explore the #1 reason roofing teams fall apart: lack of coaching and performance management. With expert insights from Rosalynn Verges, an HR powerhouse, you’ll learn why ongoing coaching is critical for getting the best out of your team.
Discover: ✅ How to properly onboard new hires with 30-60-90 day plans.
✅ Why ongoing feedback is the key to unlocking full potential.
✅ Strategies to avoid underperformance and keep accountability high.
✅ How to set measurable goals and give meaningful feedback.
Don’t just hire all-stars—coach them like one! The difference between thriving and failing teams is the commitment to consistent coaching and feedback.
Ready to turn your team into a well-oiled, high-performing machine?
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Imagine this you've built a team of all-stars in your business, but something feels off. Productivity isn't where it should be and you're left wondering why aren't they thriving? Today's guest brings a game-changing perspective to this common challenge. In this episode, we're diving deep into what it really takes to manage performance and build a culture where every team member can reach their full potential. From onboarding to ongoing coaching, rosalyn Burgess of Refinery is here to share her expertise.
Speaker 1:Rosalyn is more than just an HR expert. She's redefining what HR should look like for business owners. Known for her innovative approach, she's helped countless leaders transform their teams by bridging the gap between hiring top talent and nurturing them to success. What sets Rosalyn apart is her belief that great leadership starts with meaningful feedback and intentional coaching, all while staying true to the unique culture of your business. She even ties it back to her experience as a mom to a little leaguer, reminding us of the power of coaching at every level. In today's conversation, you'll learn actionable strategies to improve team performance, create accountability and foster a thriving work environment. Let's dive in with Rosalind Burgess from Refinery. Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. Our favorite HR person, roz, how are you?
Speaker 2:Hi Jim, I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 1:Awesome, I had to have you on again. If people haven't listened to the older podcast, go back and listen to that. I've had a few recruiting people on recently, right, I've had Jonathan Wistman and I've had my friend Jody Underhill on, and both of those, both of those gentlemen, are unbelievable at getting people on your team. They're the recruiters, right. But I wanted to get you back on because there's a gap, right, there's a gap. Now it's like great, I have this person, now what? And that's where that's where your voice comes in An actual fun HR person who knew, who knew?
Speaker 2:that they existed Good enough to be asked back. Thank you for having me back.
Speaker 1:We were just talking about this from a recruiting standpoint and you know, your son is a little leaguer and you know, like he's a, he's a ballplayer and you know a hockey player, because we're in Minnesota Minnesota, because it's cold outside right now and you had an analogy. What's that analogy?
Speaker 2:yeah, I said when you, if you recruit all of the best people, right, and you have them on your team, uh, and let's say you're a major league baseball team and you've now got the best players in the world, right, if you own a baseball team, do you stop coaching them, do you just we've got them all? Because I think that's what we're doing in our businesses. Sometimes we recruit the best talent or maybe we already have some really high, high performing individuals, or maybe even just some people that are kind of the middle of the pack, and we have them on board and then we just kind of leave them to their own devices, right? Maybe we did a little bit of orientation, a little bit of that initial training, and then it's good, you guys are good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I hired you for a reason You're the best. Why aren't you doing what I imagined in my head and never told you what I wanted you to accomplish?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine how that happens. But yes, like back to the sports analogy. I mean there are coaches at every level, right, like it doesn't matter if it's the dream team on the NBA. You know, the NBA dream team in the Olympics, best of the best, of the best of the best playing together, the all-star team. Every team has a coach and every team needs to be coached along the way. How do we do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, what's interesting about this, jim, and like where I think, why I think this matters is? I hear so often from you know different business owners, leaders, you know whether it's the sales manager or an HR person, or the business owner or their production team leader, whoever. It is just kind of this feeling of like, oh, people are just they're not doing their job, or you know, it's not going as well as it should be, or people are there's like this sense of underperformance, and so what we're talking about, I think, is this idea of performance management. How do we help people really succeed and be their best? We want that. We want that for them, we want that for our organizations, and I think, when we have this feeling of like people aren't reaching their tops, we just refer to that word as accountability. Right, like, oh, we're just, we need more. Accountability is the word that I hear people talk about.
Speaker 2:But really what we want, what we desire, is for people to be able to be achieving at their full potential, and I think that's like our heart in this, as business owners, as leaders, is that we want to see people have success, because when they're successful, we know that our organizations are successful. Our company or I mean our clients are happy. You know, we know we do a good job for them. When people feel like they're achieving at their best, our employees, our culture is happier, and so I think that's where we're trying to go and what we say. What we mean we want is for people to be responsible, for people to be following through, but really, what we're talking about is we're talking about performance management. We're talking about coaching and helping people go from where they're at today to that next level where they're at today to that next level.
Speaker 1:That's a hard thing, right, especially, you know, in roofing businesses. Most roofing businesses are small businesses. Even if you're a $15 million company, you're still a small business in a lot of ways, right, and so you're wearing a lot of hats. If you're the owner, you're doing a lot of things and you're responsible for this thing over here and that thing over there, and so the corporate structure to me gets lost, right. Like a little bit, like if you go to like corporate America, there's very strong cadences and tracking, and like there's this. It's a very formulaic way of managing people. Yeah, a lot of times it's not to me it's not the greatest thing, right, but but I think that we can learn a lot from from that and put it into our businesses. I used to be more, you know, I guess free about what I thought. Like I was, I was that person. I was like yeah, I hired you for this, why aren't you doing it?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, but there's man, there's more.
Speaker 2:Well and you know what's interesting about that, jim right Is it's kind of a trap too. I think there's like the sense as leaders where we're like we hired you for this, why aren't you doing it? And so then we feel kind of this resentment a little bit. But then, if we're being honest with ourselves, we also feel a little handcuffed because we know that there's probably something we didn't follow through on in order to help that person be successful. And so then, even if we have somebody who's quote underperforming and we want to get them, you know, moved on from our company, sometimes we feel handcuffed to that person or handcuffed to that outcome, because it's like we know, if we're being honest, there was something we didn't do. We didn't give them feedback, we didn't give them training, we didn't really be clear.
Speaker 2:You know you talked about the job clarity. We weren't clear about what our expectations were from the start. And so now, even though we harbor this resentment toward that employee of like, why aren't you just doing your job? We're also kind of. I think, under the surface there's these lingering feelings of like I know I didn't really do all the things that I could have done to help this person succeed, and so I think that that makes it challenging, right, and then did you give the person essentially simplifying it, as you didn't really give them a fair shot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you didn't do your part Right. And yeah, and people, I mean, it's hard enough to find good people, but it like I think that you have to know if they're the right person. That one of my favorite quotes is hiring is guessing, firing is knowing. Yeah, how do you know? If you didn't train them properly, if you're not measuring their success properly, if they don't know what their ultimate goals are Like, what is their, what is their real goal of their role and are they? Do they see a clear path to being able to succeed at that? How do we do this? Yeah, how do we performance manage these people?
Speaker 2:Well, one caveat to this I think you named really well is that I think a lot of times, as business owners, we don't want to lose. What we feel like is this great culture that we have as a being, kind of that family oriented business that like high, you know, highly agile, active growth business. High, you know, highly agile, active growth business. That's usually what helps us get energized about our businesses as business leaders. You know, as we're growing them, a lot of times it's what attracts people, and so there's this kind of tension point there, jim, of like well, how do I take these corporate ideas, these corporate practices and principles while not losing the heart of who I want to be? And I feel like that's why, you know, when we talk about HR, that's always what we're kind of talking about is like we do the HR stuff and still like keep our our true flavor Right, and that's that's always my hope for our organizations that I work with is we, we really want to keep authentic to who you are.
Speaker 2:But I think with that, we also have to be honest about the places in our business that need some consistency, that need some structure, and that's a really important part of this, this step, and so I think the how really starts with understanding what those corporate practices are and how do we kind of fine tune them a little bit for our business, our authentic culture. So the first thing I think is we need to understand what our expectations are of people Like. Do we know? Do we know what they are? Have we communicated them and you know? Really that should be starting from day one in the orientation process. What does our onboarding and training piece?
Speaker 3:look like.
Speaker 2:Because, again I come back to, if we get to that place where we're like we know somebody's underperforming, a lot of times what I hear people say to me as a coach is like they know they want to get rid of some of the employees that just are not a good fit. The reality is not every person that we hire for sales is meant to be in sales. It's just not. It's just not true. You know, it's not a great fit for everyone, and so how do we help those people find the right fit, whether it's in our organization or somewhere else? But a lot of times it's like oh well, we didn't train them, so we have to have a really good, consistent onboarding, training process and practice.
Speaker 1:What does that look like? What does a successful onboarding process look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you should have some check-in points. So you mentioned like a 30, 60, 90, for example that's a great point of clarity is like what will success look like in this role at 30 days? What will it look like at 60 days? What will it look at 90 days? These are just really kind of milestone check-in points to identify how is this person coming along to be checking for their understanding of the job, their understanding of our company and culture and their understanding of our customers and their needs.
Speaker 2:So I think if we start with kind of those areas in our training practices, it can be simple Do they understand their role in how to perform the work right? What's your process? What's your step-by-step? Do they understand that that's their role training piece of it right? Do they understand our company and our culture, who we are, what sets us apart from the company next door, the company that they left to come to you? Why are we special, what are our values and how do they play out in their job? And then, like I said, the last piece is the client, and sometimes that's our internal clients. You might have an administrative person who doesn't really work with your external clients a whole lot, but they serve, those customers that they serve, so that they can best understand how all those pieces work together.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting thought. I've never thought of that from an internal perspective. Like I would just train them on our external customers, even if they didn't interact with our external customers, but they need to know who their customer is. So thinking of that internally, that's a good one. I like that one. I like that one. This is why the podcast is fun, because I get to learn stuff. I'm like this is the fun.
Speaker 1:So you had mentioned so in this, in this onboarding process. I feel like you're you're measuring for two things. Like. One of the things is are they in EOS? It's get it, want it, have the capacity to do it as part of the people analyzer, right, eliza, right, and so like, are they the right fit from a cultural perspective and from a role perspective? Is that what you're? And so what are your thoughts on that? Like, so in like, let's say, a 90 day training period. When we're looking at that, what are some things that you can look for from a cultural perspective? That's like oh, this is the right person culturally, yeah. And then what are some things that you can look for from a role perspective to say, is this person right for that seat?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, I think from a culture standpoint, I a lot of times look to see this idea of like, how does the work is? How is their work being performed Right? Are they that that type of person in your or in in your organization, again, that really understands the culture they're? They're responding in ways that are consistent with how the team would be expecting them to respond. Right, you know they. It's not a, I didn't know it's a. Oh, can you help me and can you help me understand this Right? Like, do they?
Speaker 2:Do they kind of model and ask the questions that you would expect them to ask if they're embodying your culture? It's so unique, jim, because each company has that different culture, but I think it's looking at. Do they demonstrate and behave in a way that's consistent with the way that that culture looks and sounds? I think maybe we talked about this before, but I always come back to those questions of like, what does that look like? What does that sound like? So, if you have a culture that's focused on respect, what does respect in your organization look like? And what does it sound like If you can write down some statements that can kind of help give you a framework to assess whether or not that person's starting to embody those different characteristics.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. In that process, in that onboarding process, we're going to hopefully be training them for their roles, right? Yes? And then I would assume that in most cases, we're going to be training them on an ongoing basis, right, hopefully, hopefully, right. So we're in that onboarding process, we're moving them, we're training them.
Speaker 1:Now, once we feel, like I, if we think of that 30, 60, 90, like we used to have in Roof Remarketers, like those 30, 60, 90s, after that 90, we, you know there's ongoing things, but it's I don't want to put it, it's more maintenance management at that point in time, like it's more like, how do we, how do we continue to manage this person on an ongoing basis to make sure that they're still living up to the, the expectations of the role, that they're still the right fit, that they're still a cultural fit, and so there's the like, there's the onboarding and ongoing. Maybe that's a good way to put it. So now let's move more into the like. There's the onboarding and ongoing. Yeah, maybe that's a good way to put it. Yeah, so now let's move more into the ongoing. Like what you know, we're getting them up and running. Now, what does the ongoing look like from a performance management perspective?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well, jim, I do want to touch on too because I think it overlaps is that other piece that you asked about is the role piece, and I think how you you know how you assess whether or not they're performing their role you need to understand the metrics that represent success in that role. You know one of the best phrases is you measure what matters right. Measure what matters and understanding the difference between our lead measurements and our leg measurements right. Measure what matters and understanding the difference between our lead measurements and our lag measurements right. Are these metrics the actual behaviors and actions that produce the result, or are we just looking at these lagging metrics, the end results?
Speaker 2:So the example is if I have, you know, a sales goal for my, for my sales person of a million dollars their first year, that's a. That's a big goal. That's also really hard to conceptualize, like, I know I have to get to that number. But when do I decide whether or not they're there? Is it at the end of the year, when now we're looking at okay, you're at a million, that's a leg measurement, right? We want to be looking at the leading indicators, the leading behaviors and actions that produce the results, right? So now we're looking at what are the behaviors and actions of our successful salespeople. Is it a number of referrals that they get? Is it the closing percentage that they're at? Is it their average ticket size? Are those what we're measuring in order to actually get to the 1 million? Are those the things that matter to us?
Speaker 2:I would say, in your business, probably, yes, your NSLI, right. Do you understand that If you don't know what I just said, if you don't know what your NSLI is, you're not doing your metrics, friends, like you got to have it. So I think it starts with that piece of. We need to be measuring what matters and so again, kind of coming back to this initial stage, is we have to have those metrics clearly communicated for our people. They need to know what the bite-sized pieces that lead up to that million-dollar goal, what those are going to look like for them, and we need to be intentional as business owners to understand what those are and communicate what those are and be measuring what those are. We need to have data that we trust reflecting back those numbers, because that's part of good business.
Speaker 1:I've been having this conversation a lot recently, or a few times recently. I've had this conversation especially with new hiring new, or you know, new sales members to the team and to me. You really want to be focused a lot on the leading metrics, especially in the early phases, right, like it's. You know, if they're knocking doors like how many doors did they knock right? How many inspections did they get from those knocks right? And now you're going okay, are they doing the activity that will lead to the million dollars in sales, and that's then it may take a while to start being able to properly measure if their closing percentage is up to par, and then so you're.
Speaker 1:If you don't, you really have to do the leading and then, like the lagging comes right. That's the ultimate goal. But, like those leading metrics along the way but those may change over the course of onboarding into that ongoing. What about more from the salesperson? Is the easy one to meet all the time, right? How does that? How do you do that with a new production manager or job site supervisor? What are leading indicators, maybe from those type of roles that someone could look at?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I come back to really understanding business, and you know, every company that I've ever worked with would like to make more money, would like to be more efficient with the dollars that they have, right. So understanding, for example, your profit margins and your gross profit, like what are the measurements that you use in your actual business to determine success? What are the levers that you pull in order to become more efficient, in order to become more effective? So production has a sphere of influence, right, and there are things that you look at to say, okay, within this production area, how do we know that we're doing good work? How do we know that we're moving the needle toward more profit, right. How do we know that we're moving the needle toward better customer service? How do we know that we're moving the needle toward those things? And so those become the areas that we focus in on.
Speaker 2:I would say the same thing with an administrator Right, like you can have your admins. There's measurement there, because they have a customer that they serve, they have tasks that they're responsible for doing that make an impact on the business. We all have kind of day-to-day ancillary things, but what are the specific pieces that, if they just didn't do that part of their job, the business is not going to function right. So if we focus in on those areas that matter, we can start to put a number to it, even if it's just. You know I made I spoke to 27 customers who called in and every single one of them got connected to a sales rep. I set X number of appointments, I followed up on X number of activities, right Like it can be measured, and a lot of times we have systems that are already in place that are pulling that that data is there, it's there.
Speaker 2:We just didn't pull the report, or we don't know how to pull the report, and that's what our customer service reps at our software companies are for right. If we tap into those resources, they can help us utilize the data that we have more effectively.
Speaker 1:Definitely One thing about it, too, from a software perspective and something to think about. When you're setting up, when you're using your CRM, if you're using JobNimbus or Acculinks or any of them like is in software it's garbage in garbage out. Like is in software it's garbage in garbage out, and it's like it's so. So you, if your team, is not utilizing things that will give you the metrics that that you may want to be watching that as a metric also, right, Like so, for example, if you're, if you're in your job Nimbus board and you're moving from moving through the stages of your job Nimbus board, that's going to trigger data. So it's going to trigger how long it was sitting in that materials need to be ordered stage for too long. Now, that's a metric that you know that shows that that person may not be doing their job properly, or maybe they're overwhelmed or whatever it is, but if they're not moving the jobs along in the software properly, just know that you're not going to get the right answers on the other side of it, right? So making sure that you're watching for the things that lead to the right data, because you could get misinformed at the same time. But that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So now we've developed metrics for them. Right, We've trained them, We've on board. Okay, this is the right person. I feel like they're in the right seat. Here are their metrics. How are we continuing this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's where feedback becomes really important, and I think there are two pieces to this. One is being consistent in your feedback. Are two pieces to this? One is being consistent in your feedback. Asking for feedback for yourself as well during those conversations is really an important part of it. You know, it's great that we want to give feedback to people, but we as leaders also should be asking for some feedback on how we can get better. But I think being able to have those feedback conversations becomes really important, and a critical component of those feedback conversations is making time for them.
Speaker 2:I think too often, you know, we either kind of blow it out of proportion and we think it needs to be this like huge sit down and we have to, you know, spend a ton of time going through all this information, or we think we're going to do an annual performance review. I always make the joke like if my husband told me how I'm doing as a wife one time a year, or even quarterly, I probably am not going to be a very good wife. He's for sure not. He's getting more performance reviews than that for me, right, I'm?
Speaker 3:sure you are too, Jim.
Speaker 2:We would never do that in our normal relationships, and so people need and desire more feedback than they're getting in the workplace, and we have to be making the time for that. But we need the feedback to be meaningful and we need it to be focused around something that can actually help them get better. Be meaningful and we need it to be focused around something that can actually help them get better. And this is where I really think it's important for us, as leaders, to identify ourselves not just as managers, but truly as coaches. We are a performance coach. If you were a leader, you were a performance coach, and a good coach actually helps people get better. They give them meaningful feedback.
Speaker 2:It's not enough to just say like, hey, you're doing a great job hitting the ball Right. That is not. The major league baseball players know that they can hit the ball far. They need specific, meaningful feedback to help them change their swing, whatever right, to get more power, to make those fine tuning adjustments. We have to be specific with the feedback that we give, and the reason I see people kind of you know, falter in this a little bit is one, they're not making time for the conversations in the first place, and two they're not making time to prepare for the one-to-ones. They're not making time to prepare for the one-to-ones. They're not making time to prepare for those conversations.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that. So what is a like? What's a good cadence for these? And are we talking about like one-on-ones, like this is what we're talking about. Like direct report one-on-ones. Do you think there's a cadence for like a skip level where you're like, where you're doing one on ones with people on the team that report to the people, that report to you? What kind of structure and what kind of cadence for these things would you recommend?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know, at a minimum you should be meeting with your teams. Every person on your team should get a one toone conversation at a minimum on a monthly basis. And again, that's just like so little. I mean making time. If you're a leader or a manager of a team, that should be a weekly practice. There should be weekly feedback to your team members. Again, I'm not talking about a full hour conversation, but you should be looking at the metrics of your team's performance on a weekly basis, because if you're a manager or leader, that is your job. It's to help those people be successful in their role. Right, you might have some other pieces that you're doing and you might have strategy planning and things that you're called into, and a lot of times we get distracted by the fires we're putting out, when really we're like not addressing the root cause and the thing that's causing those fires, which is usually a training gap. Right, it's usually we didn't take the time to look and figure out where somebody was missing it, right.
Speaker 1:And this is that it creates a great feedback loop to understand where those gaps are. Yeah, yeah, this is it's. You're actually trying to create the feedback loop, like, if you can intentionally create this feedback loop, it's extremely powerful. So you're meeting with people weekly. What is that? What is a what is that conversation look like? What is a good example of that, of a structure of that conversation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think having a simple scorecard is a great way to have that conversation. So you should have something that looks at their performance, their metric Right. So you should have. There should be some element of the metric. There should be some element of the metric. There should be some element of the how they're getting the work done. That's your culture and core values right. So there should be some kind of measurement on the culture and core values pieces and then there should be some conversation around their personal goals and desires and how those pieces are connected, because if you don't come back to what they're chasing, what they're motivated by, you're missing a piece of it.
Speaker 2:Right, and that is a great way to have that personal connection with someone, to get to know them more, to continue to come back to their family, their friends, whatever is important to them during those conversations, keeps those conversations focused on why these things matter, why their performance is important. It's not just about getting that end million dollars. That million dollars means something for them. It means an income that allows them to chase the thing that's important. And so we got to like, help them zoom out too and focus in on those things. So I mean it can be a simple score sheet that looks like you know there are three key metrics that are going to help them move that needle forward help them chase the million dollars, or help them, you know, decrease their or increase their production velocity, for example, help them turn the dial on the gross profit.
Speaker 2:If we're looking at those three factors, it doesn't take a lot of time, if you pull that information, to just go through and run those numbers and show them where they're at on a weekly basis, and you should want to know again as a leader where they're at on a weekly basis. And so you've got your metric piece. You've got the piece again of what are those? Bring an example, bring a specific example of something that they did that embodies your culture and core values this week, right, hey Jim, when you started this call, you did such a great way of embodying our culture of fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. So identify something but be specific about it. Too often again, it's like you're doing a great job. Okay, well, that doesn't help them. We don't know what they're doing a great job at. So we have to be specific, and I think this is where having clarity on those job roles from the start of like, what are their responsibilities?
Speaker 3:That's a great tool.
Speaker 2:Too often we write those job roles from the start of, like, what are the responsibilities? That's a great tool. Too often we write those job descriptions we think they're going to be the silver bullet. We give it to them and then we're like okay, you have your job description, do your job right. A practice that I like to use is pull out that job description, do a red, yellow, green exercise, go through and highlight what aspects of that job are red, orange, yellow and green. So now you have something specific in their role that you can actually say hey, you know you're doing an awesome job at talking to customers, but you're really struggling at helping our production team understand where you know where their materials are going. Team understand where you know where their materials are going, whatever it might be. But you can actually give them specifics within their job that you want them to continue to focus on getting better.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. What do you think the a good time for this meeting is on that weekly basis, cause like an hour a week, like you said. I think you mentioned like an hour would be a long time for everyone, right? Like, is it 15 minutes? Is it a half an hour? Is it five minutes? Where do you think and I'm sure it will it would vary some right, based on what needs to be said in the conversation and things like that. But what would you shoot for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think 30 minutes is a nice amount of time 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how experienced your people are. But again, even your experienced people like, we kind of get away from, we get in this habit of like, okay, they're good, and then what happens is we see them kind of just being satisfied with where they've been at and not turning up the dial. And this is what I mean by those MLB players Like, of course, they're already good. It's not only the brand new players on the team that are getting coaching, it's every single person on the team should be able to expect and count on feedback to help them get better. And I mean do more with less. Right, we all want to do more with less. You've already hired these people. If they're there for two, three years, they are already bought into your culture. They're already a part of your team.
Speaker 2:Why would we not want to help those people find even more success? I think sometimes you know we, we, we get into this belief that our people don't want more. Have you ever heard somebody say that, jim, where it's like oh well, my salesperson, they don't. They're happy, they hit that number and then they're good and they don't want any more. Have you ever heard somebody say that, jim, where it's like, oh well, my salesperson, they don't, they're happy, they hit that number and then they're good and they don't want any more.
Speaker 2:There's something that we are missing as leaders. If that's our belief about our people, we are not activating a piece of what is actually driving them, what's most important to them. And it may be that they don't want any more money Maybe that's true, but they probably still want more of something maybe more influence, maybe more opportunity to probably still more opportunity to be more effective. Right, I bet they'd love to. If their number is a million five, I bet they would love to make that million five faster is a million five I bet they would love to make that million five faster, easier, with less time away from their family.
Speaker 2:So don't we still want?
Speaker 1:to help them get better as professionals. That's a good point. There's. There's always something to work on, and sometimes it's not money. Like the people, that's not their only thing in life, right, like, and and if you can help them become more efficient with their time, now they get more time with their, with their kids at little league. Right, they get more time with the. Like, maybe that's what you're optimizing for. Okay, well, let's train you up or get you get your skill set even better on this or that, and then and now you're optimizing for Okay, well, let's train you up or get to get your skillset even better on this or that, and then and now you're more efficient and you get that time back. What about? You know you have your weeklies and, and you know you always hear about more of the quarterly and sometimes the yearly reviews. Yeah, how do those differ from the weekly and are you a fan of them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if you're doing weeklies, it changes the dynamic of those quarterly or annuals. If you're a company that's only doing a quarterly or only doing an annual, a lot of times, by the time that person's getting feedback, it's all a surprise to them, right. Annual a lot of times, by the time that person's getting feedback, it's all a surprise to them, right. So instead, your quarterly or annual to me that's more of an extended time for you to talk about their future, now that you're having this kind of maintenance model right, where you're consistently meeting with your people and you're helping them kind of see where they're at.
Speaker 2:And you're focused on this year, probably, right, it's a little more granular, it's a little more annual plan, utilizing your quarterly time to zoom out more and think long-term what's your three-year plan and how are we going to help you get there? How do you want to grow as a professional? Where do you want to grow in the company? That's a great time to talk about the organizational goals and where you guys are at and the contributions that they've made in the last quarter. So that's how I would utilize those times. Instead, I would utilize them differently to help them look at not just their individual impact but really like how is that moving the needle organizationally and where do they want to go long-term at that annual standpoint?
Speaker 1:I think of like the, maybe the weeklies, that's like you're really kind of you're being very attentive to keep things going in the right direction. Right, the bumpers are up, right, you're, we're okay, we could get you moving this way, get you moving that way, and then the longer term ones, the quarterly moving that way, and then the, the the longer term was the quarterly or annual lease would be more of now let's look at where you want to be in down the road, right, like this. Those weeklies are for a purpose of like more around the actual roles and responsibilities that you have right now. And then you're thinking of the bigger picture, with the, with the longer term ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You guys work with a lot of the bigger companies in the industry through the private equity side and things like that. What are those companies doing that others are not?
Speaker 2:Around performance pieces. Yeah, around performance pieces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, around performance management mostly, I see them starting to get consistent that's a big piece of it and having more resources dedicated to pieces like training and to the auditing of these things being done. It's no longer acceptable to just talk about one-to-ones and say, okay, let's do them. Somebody's actually tracking and checking to see that they were done. Somebody is actually following up to say you know, did this actually happen? People are we talked about that word accountable. People are accountable to someone else now, and so there's more expectation for personal accountability from these leaders.
Speaker 2:I think again. I think it's best intentions right. I really believe that people have the best intentions. Jim, that's always been my heart and I think that it just gets lost. We're not responsible with our time and we lack some of that personal accountability of setting boundaries for our team members around how they access our time, so that we remain steadfast in committing to the one-to-one time and committing to the training time. So I think that's what I see from the private equity side is there's kind of an additional commitment to follow through on these things and to make sure that people are not dropping the ball on the training, not dropping the ball on the performance conversations, and that they're documented.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that that's a big deal. And we've had this conversation about accountability and owners. Like we, like I've had this like thing with me like I know, like I've come to this realization that owners are truly not accountable to anyone. Yeah, until they are right, like until thing. And maybe you know we become very accountable when things start going wrong. And maybe you know we become very accountable when things start going wrong, if we take accountability for it or not right, like it's, you know, but it's a challenging thing. And so what is it? Trust, but verify is a good way to put it right. So how do you, you know so, of the metrics that you create? Do you only create metrics that you can like verify in a secondary manner? How would, how would you look at that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, like I said, the metrics piece you should be. You measure what matters, right? So you want to have metrics that you can actually track. You're an EOS person, so L10 is a great way to make sure that your metrics are following up on.
Speaker 2:So what we mean by that for anybody who's not familiar with EOS or the L10 meeting is just having a consistent scoreboard. Where do you put those metrics and talk about them as a team on a weekly basis to see how we're progressing along through those metrics, right? So a lot of times in our scoreboard conversations we're having those with our team or our department, right, you might have a sales scoreboard, you might have a production scoreboard, and those are probably a bigger number that you're looking at. But again, as a leader, we should be looking at the individuals that are making up that number and contributing to it so that we understand who on our team are making the biggest impact toward those numbers. So I think coming back to that scorecard becomes really important to kind of trust but verify, right, that's a great way to do it is the verification is the metric.
Speaker 2:Right, that's a great great way to do. It is the verification is the metric. And then, as leaders, you know, if you have multiple leaders on your team, that layer depending on how, how big your business is perhaps you have a layer of managers who are responsible for that. So if you are a leader overseeing leaders, you should be checking to verify, like, hey, where are they at? There should be somebody on your team, whether it's it's kind of an HR champion, or if you don't have an HR champion and it's you, somebody should be checking, or an admin, something that those one to ones are being done, that they're documented. A great way to do that is just to have a consistent template. If you have a consistent template that you use where you're providing that feedback back to the employee, I have, for example, a one-to-one email that I have set up that I coach on, and I think it's a great tool because you can send that follow-up email.
Speaker 2:How many times have you been in a conversation with your spouse where you walk away and we're both like, oh okay, I had some very different takeaways from that conversation than you did. Right, and it works that way with employees too, where we have one-to-one conversations with them and we don't always walk away with the same key takeaways. So I think following up with an email that says, hey, here are the three things we talked about, you know, here are the three things we talked about, here are the three key takeaways. That's your documentation right there that was completed, doesn't take a lot of extra work to say that that one-to-one has been done. But the one-to-ones are the metric that the leaders are responsible to. That's one of theirs.
Speaker 2:If I'm a leader and I'm responsible for a sales goal, I'm responsible for a production goal. I should also have a metric that says how many one-to-ones did I do this year for my team members? That should be one of my metrics is performing that one-to-one Same thing with the training. Whoever's responsible as that trainer I should be measuring did they actually complete and conduct that training? So somebody has to be kind of tracking the accountability of the leaders as well. And if I'm the one at the top to your point, jim it is really hard if there's nobody checking up on us. And that's where I do think having a coach that you're responsible to, or a group coaching setting other mentors and executive board, other voices, someone else that you are responsible to, can really be a game changer if you're focused in on those right things.
Speaker 1:Definitely we need something. We need to a higher level of accountability. Now, in those conversations, what I think of is sometimes you have to have hard conversations.
Speaker 2:What are?
Speaker 1:What? What are some? You know we talked about prep too. I want to go into prep and and having harder conversations, the harder conversations in those in those weekly one-on-ones. So first of all, you mentioned prep. Is that just okay? Go look at the metrics, make sure that you've seen their metrics and now you know, or do you go beyond that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I yep, you should see their metrics. And then you have to do the part of analyzing, right, you have to do the critical thinking piece for them, because a lot of times your employees like you can tell them hey, you're, you know, your closing percentage is down. If that's all you say, like that's great, if I'm a, if I'm a hitter and I just struck out the last you know three at bats, and you come up to me and you just said you're striking out. It's like okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I noticed that.
Speaker 2:Do something about that. You know your employees are looking to you as the coach, as their performance coach, to tell them what they should do differently, what they need to work on, and so I think that's the piece that a lot of times is missing in the preparation for those conversations is what's the thing you want them to change? Now, a lot of times, the reason we don't have that is because we don't actually know what they're doing, especially on our salespeople right, or even in our production, like we sent them out to do their jobs, and we don't actually know where they're missing. And so, if you don't know, that's where it becomes your responsibility as the leader to find out, to investigate that.
Speaker 2:You might need to sit down with them and watch them how they're moving through that production order. You might need to sit and watch them and see, show me how you do your estimates. You have to become the investigator and ask questions to figure out where the problem is right. So, for example, if my closing percentage is down, I might need to go and sit and listen. There's some great, you know, there's some really great programs, tools, resources, ai technology out there that can help you do some of that identification, but a lot of times again I come back to like, if you don't actually use it, if you don't actually go back and look and listen, those tools are only as good as you know the tools in your garage. How often do you use them? How often do you take them out and put them to work for you?
Speaker 1:and then, in that, like you have to be able to give constructive feedback I think you'd you, we were to, maybe that was from when we were talking before they, like, how do you give constructive feedback? Because, and Because not everyone takes it the same way, not everyone hears what you're saying correctly or what you're trying to, like, you had mentioned, like, we walked out of this meeting and we both thought different things, like what are some tips on giving that on you? Okay, here's the metrics. We've looked at the metrics. Now we figured out oh, maybe this is. Here's the metrics. We've and we've looked at the metrics. Now we figured out oh, maybe this is the why behind the metric, this is not just that they're striking out, but they're striking out because of, potentially because of these three reasons. Yep, how do we turn that into a constructive conversation that helps coach them to the next, to to get to better themselves?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think this is where I'm going to get a little super nerdy on you, jim is, I think, understanding the brain. Science of what's happening in those conversations is actually really important. So we've all heard of kind of the idea of like fight, flight or freeze right. What happens is in your brain this part of your brain, the front of your brain, is where your frontal lobe is, it's your prefrontal cortex, that's the smart part of your brain. It's the part that processes decision making. It's the part of your brain that's able to think strategically. This is where you think critically.
Speaker 2:In the back of your brain, in your limbic system, is where your flight and freak out and let's act fast. It's the part of your brain that tells you if I threw a pen at you, jim, you'd know to dodge right, like that's your limbic system helping you react quickly to do that. So what happens is when we come into a conversation and somebody feels defensive and they feel like they are scared or intimidated, the blood in their brain, in their prefrontal cortex, actually draws away and activates that limbic system. Because we are programmed to be able to respond quickly to things. Right, we're programmed to be able to be on that. Let's go, and so what happens is we've now taken this person that we're trying to engage with, trying to help them get better, We've moved them out of their thinking brain and we've moved them into this reactionary defensive mode.
Speaker 2:So I come back to this neuroscience piece because it's so important for us as leaders to understand that we have to make our employees feel safe. The number one thing you need to do when you are having a conversation that's hard with someone is you need to make sure they feel safe. The number one thing you need to do when you are having a conversation that's hard with someone is you need to make sure they feel safe, because if they don't feel safe, their brains literally will not think the same way, and so creating that sense of safety for them becomes really important. How do we do that? We have to make sure that our people know we care about them. And how do we do that? We have to make sure that our people know we care about them right, that we have their best intentions at heart. That's something that we cannot just show up for that conversation, for If we haven't already set the foundation for that, that one-to-one conversation, it is not going to be meaningful. So having effective feedback conversations with employees starts with our daily interactions with them, our daily communication toward them. So how we show up as leaders really matters. It really really matters, and if we make a mistake, being willing to say sorry, I probably shouldn't have said that to you the way that I did. It creates that sense of safety for people. So our daily actions lead into whether or not those conversations can be effective. And then, once we have that piece, if we're like, hey, yeah, okay, my team knows that I have their back and I'm coming into that conversation and I know they feel safe, we really can come at it from this place of being specific Again, identifying what is the specific thing that we want to help them get better at.
Speaker 2:Just like a good baseball coach is going to tell you hey, you're, you know you got to get that elbow up a little bit more or your timing is off. Right, there's something specific that you want them to change. And if you help them with that coaching, it's not a defensive conversation. There's no reason for them to be defensive. Right, because you're taking the focus off the person and you're putting the focus on the process. You're, you're putting the focus on the problem where. What do we need to change? Right, it's not a, you're bad at this, it's a. This is what we're going to do to get better at this that's awesome, rosalyn.
Speaker 1:it's been a pleasure. As always, this has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast.
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