Want to build a formidable personal brand in a cut-throat market? Our guest in this episode, Joseph Hughes, the founder of Contractors Dynamics, grants us a masterclass on how to stand tall in the crowd. He shares invaluable insights on simplicity in marketing, authenticity, and consistency. Joseph's experiences and knowledge shed light on the power of effective branding.
One of the key highlights of our conversation is the profound importance of teamwork and content marketing in today's digital world. Joseph explores the critical role of a clear 'why' in our actions, which can foster a potent company culture. We tackle common fears and hesitations in content creation, demonstrating the need for persistence and consistency. We unravel the significant impact of social media and the ripple effect of individual actions on the team's success.
This episode is not just about marketing strategies; it's also about growth and adaptability. We venture into how to stay updated with new technology, how to differentiate your brand, and the art of building a robust brand through consistent content. We share the success story of Braga Brothers, a young contracting company that has defied odds with social media and branding. Lastly, we touch on leadership growth, personal development, and the power of storytelling in recruitment and branding. Tune in for an insightful conversation with Joseph Hughes, packed with precious nuggets of wisdom.
Want to build a formidable personal brand in a cut-throat market? Our guest in this episode, Joseph Hughes, the founder of Contractors Dynamics, grants us a masterclass on how to stand tall in the crowd. He shares invaluable insights on simplicity in marketing, authenticity, and consistency. Joseph's experiences and knowledge shed light on the power of effective branding.
One of the key highlights of our conversation is the profound importance of teamwork and content marketing in today's digital world. Joseph explores the critical role of a clear 'why' in our actions, which can foster a potent company culture. We tackle common fears and hesitations in content creation, demonstrating the need for persistence and consistency. We unravel the significant impact of social media and the ripple effect of individual actions on the team's success.
This episode is not just about marketing strategies; it's also about growth and adaptability. We venture into how to stay updated with new technology, how to differentiate your brand, and the art of building a robust brand through consistent content. We share the success story of Braga Brothers, a young contracting company that has defied odds with social media and branding. Lastly, we touch on leadership growth, personal development, and the power of storytelling in recruitment and branding. Tune in for an insightful conversation with Joseph Hughes, packed with precious nuggets of wisdom.
Oh, and we're live. Welcome back everybody to behind the tool belt, episode 206. We have another phenomenal guest. Stay tuned for these brief messages.
Joseph Hughes:Welcome back to behind the tool belt with your host, ty Cobb backer.
Ty Backer:Welcome back everybody to episode 206. Behind the tool belt we got Joseph Hughes with contractors dynamics marketing training for roofing contractors. My man, Joe, how the hell is it going, brother?
Joseph Hughes:It's going well. Man. Those ads and your jingle and everything gets me pumped up. I got the energy flow in here on a Wednesday night.
Ty Backer:Good. It does mean too, we're actually working on well. Vic is working on something special for this holiday. I guess I could let the cat out of the bag just a little bit, but we have something special coming that should hopefully get on everybody's nerves and burns it onto the retina of their eyes and their brain, is melting out of their ears because they hear it so much and it just gets stuck in there. It's the first thing we want them to think of as soon as they wake up every morning. If not, we will do our damnedest to make sure that that does happen. I love the commitment.
Ty Backer:Yeah, I'm out to get you. I'm out to get you. Anyhow, joe, my man, I look up to you a lot. I just want you to know that, in my opinion, thought leader, influencer, coach, mentor, entrepreneur, an extremely talented and successful person, thank you, thank you. Thank you for always committing to coming on the show and sharing our stage with us and our platform and stuff. Man, it's an honor and a privilege to have you on the show, man.
Joseph Hughes:Yes, thank you. It's an honor to be here as well. You guys have built something amazing, awesome. I love what you're doing. Our values align. It's always a pleasure Appreciate it For sure.
Ty Backer:man, I saw that you just got back from the best of success. Do you mind telling us a little bit like what that's about? Unfortunately, I've never been there. For those who haven't been there, if you don't mind, fill us in a little bit like what that's about.
Joseph Hughes:Sure, best of Success is a conference run by Roofing Contractor Magazine. This was their 19th year running it. They have an amazing team. They have everything pretty much everything dialed in. It runs really smoothly. It's very professional. I think there are about 400 contractors there, probably about 15, 20 sponsors we were one of the sponsors vendors.
Joseph Hughes:It's different from a RoofCon. It's different from Roofing Process. It's smaller, it's a little bit more intimate. It's a professional crowd, really good speakers, no pitching or anything like that. Really good relationship building. I would characterize it as not like from a vendor sponsor standpoint. You're not generating lots of leads and sales right there, but you're building those long term relationships, which is exactly why we went to hang out with clients, had a client dinner, met with some of our strategic partners. Roofle was there. It was very good. What I liked about it is that it was a Sunday evening. It was all day Monday and then half day Tuesday and then you're home. It was pretty quick For someone who travels a lot like myself being able to get be at a great conference like that and only begun two nights. For my family, that was pretty cool. We loved it. We'll be back next year. Next year is the 20th year. It's going to be in Naples area, southwest Florida. We'll be there.
Ty Backer:Okay, okay, good. This year was like the 20th anniversary, correct? Is that how long that thing's been going?
Joseph Hughes:19 years this year and then 20 will be next year. Yeah, they've been running it for a while. It started as a small 70-person conference in Florida and it's grown to this. Yeah, it's really well run.
Ty Backer:Yeah, that's crazy, man. I mean I've heard of it for a long time but I don't know why I just never cut out or carved out enough time to make it down there, because all those people that you had mentioned and the networking and the relationship building and stuff like that, we both know how important that is for all different purposes and reasons of developing relationships, partnerships, network, today's network is your net worth, is your net worth? That's been one of our topics of discussions and has come to mind a lot lately. For me, looking back over the years of being in business and those that we still do business with today, and the relationships that we forged with them but not just with them but their network as well and how that's blossomed into or morphed into where we are today.
Ty Backer:It's crazy, your big time into marketing, branding, relationship building and things like that In a highly competitive market. I'm going to dive right into it if you don't mind about what your expertise is. I think and I know it is because not just that, but Joe, again going back to the nuggets that you drop every single morning, I look forward to like whoops Joe got to say today with my morning cup of Joe, no pun in time.
Joseph Hughes:Thank you, thank you. Last night I got in late so I slept in a little bit so I didn't do my morning post. So hopefully your day was okay, ty.
Ty Backer:I did make it, I made it through it and I reregid the one that you did yesterday. Yeah, all good brother, but yeah, to dive right into this and to the highly competitive market that we're in, what strategies or qualities do you believe can help an individual or a company stand out from their competition? I'll try to keep it simple for you.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, there are many. I'll give you a little bit of a story. We were at the event yesterday, best of Success, which is in Frisco, texas, right outside of Dallas. Naturally, there's a decent amount of Dallas roofing contractors there. There's a few of them, as you might have heard. We have a few clients that are in Dallas and there's another one that was at our booth and asking same thing, like oh man, it's so crazy, how do I stand out? They're younger companies. They don't have the big budget like some of the big dogs do. I think it's their third year in business.
Joseph Hughes:And I was like two things. When we sell everyone, no matter if you're in Dallas or if you're in Northwest Iowa, it doesn't matter. Number one is don't try to focus on your entire market, right? So don't try to focus on Dallas or Atlanta or Tampa, whatever that might be. Pick out your little pocket, like your suburb we call it five mile, famous like your little area, and get and focus your firepower there and get everyone in that area to see you over and over and over again, just like you were talking about a few minutes ago, with like burning your brand and your song, your jingle, into everyone in your market. Focus on that five mile radius or 10 miles, whatever that might be. Just get everyone familiar with your brand. So that's number one. So pick your geographic area.
Joseph Hughes:And then number two is kind of like what we're doing here, ty, is get your face on video. We talk with contractors every day that are looking for some guidance with their marketing and we'll do my team and I'll go through and do just a little bit of an audit on their content, their Facebook, instagram, website and, like pretty much a 97% of cases, the recommendation is we need more faces on video. That's what's going to stand out. People do business with people. Don't hide behind your stock photos and, you know, generic like drone flyover videos, like that stuff's boring. People want to see who you are. Authenticity is huge. The BS meter is, you know, is very active in everyone's mind these days. So that's that's it. Those those two things. Of course, there's more than that, but those are the two major things I tell everyone.
Ty Backer:Yeah, so what you're talking about is personal brand, right? So personal brand. In today's competitive landscape, what step should an individual take to establish a strong personal brand?
Joseph Hughes:Sure, yeah, it can be personal. I mean, and you know, there are companies clients that we work with, roofing companies that we work with where the owner is behind the scenes and nowhere to be found on social media. So it's completely your choice as an owner. Yes, it's an accelerant. It helps, as you know, tai, like it helps accelerate pretty much everything from marketing to recruiting to relationship building, other opportunities that you might not know even exist yet. So, like, building out your personal brand is, it's an option, it's a huge opportunity.
Joseph Hughes:However, if you don't want to do that, you got to be able to find people in your company that are going to get on video and to share that story, and to get your clients on video sharing their testimonials and things like that. So personal brand is really just it's again authenticity. Shout out to our boy, eric Oberhems, for being authentic. It really is and don't obviously don't try to be authentic, right, like, just be yourself and you're going to, you're going to attract those people that that identify and align with you. So what was your specific question about personal brand? I kind of went into.
Ty Backer:Like that's okay, like the importance of it too, and I like what you said because, especially for a salesperson out there trying to brand themselves the importance of that, because I heard what you're saying like the drawing photos they're cool, but but putting yourself in front of the camera, the importance of that like, even if you're on the job site, you're on the roof, you're doing a tutorial how to installation, you know, things of that nature tend to attract people's attention, at least in my opinion, is that. Is that what you were talking about?
Joseph Hughes:Yes, yeah, yes, and a lot of people are and, like we get this question a lot. It's like, hey, what's the best video that I should do? And I, I was helping someone out, my DMs yesterday he was there they're running some kind of promotion and he's like sending me a video, and not a client, just someone that I, you know, look for some guidance. And I was like, yeah, like he was like, should I do this one or should I do another one? Like, yes, like run this one, check out the data, see if it works. You know, in the meantime, do another one.
Joseph Hughes:So, like I think a lot of people are looking to like, ask, like, what is the video that I can create that's going to generate all the leads? And it's really not that you mentioned already with consistency. It's about just you know, every week, every day, getting out there and sharing what you're doing. You know it could be a project client testimonial Inspection that you're doing. You know, whatever the team meeting, whatever it is. So just being consistent with that, just so people see you over and over.
Ty Backer:Yeah, no, I 100% agree with the. Consistency is key to just about everything in life, you know, and especially when it comes to to business and marketing and lead Jen and getting out there and showing your value, I would say that's probably one of the biggest pain points that we have Within our company. I wish more of our team would go out there and do it and I say, simply, just start with a picture of the job site until you can start feeling more comfortable, because I think when the problem lies is everyone thinks that they're gonna look and sound stupid or say something stupid, but, but this is, this is where you may. You might at first, you know, but, but continuously you know the, the consistency of doing it. You get a little bit better at it. You start to hone like that crap.
Ty Backer:There's no science to it, but I think I think it's more of an art right and being creative and opening up that creativity in your mind. Whether you were good in art class or not, there's there's still some kind of like, like art to it, and there's so many YouTube tutorials on how to use your iPhone, and an iPhone man can capture so much Stuff and so many things that you can do with it. Just it's just just do it. You have to do it, and I think that's the hard part for most people to get over that hump, to just just go out and do it.
Joseph Hughes:Absolutely. Yeah, everyone has. I mean, you know, you've been doing your content for a while, I've been doing mine for a while and right here, right now, like we're not perfect, like we're tripping over our words here and there, but, like you know, you work through it right. So you don't have to be perfect to start, but obviously you got to start to in order to be good. And I would say and we coach our clients on this it's like you have to understand and get clear on why you're doing it, or else you're not going to do it when it gets hard, right, just like with anything else, like going to the gym, getting fit, like you've got to have a strong why. Because it is, it is hard and it's not something that you're normally doing and it's you know you're busy, we got a lot of different things to do, but you remember your why every morning when you wake up and it's like, alright, I'm gonna do this thing because it's that important to me.
Joseph Hughes:You know, whether that's you want to make more money or you want to build a brand, to impact more people, hire a lot of people on your team, like you do.
Joseph Hughes:Or you know, the motivation for a lot of contractors is that, hey, I know that we're a good company and I know there are a lot of like shady companies out there. I need to do a great job at marketing to prevent homeowners from working with a shady company and not getting the best service right. That's, that's the motivation behind a lot of my content I put out. It's like the more I can educate people on how to you know how to do their own marketing or how to how to understand marketing, hopefully we can, like you know, save people some time and money and frustration. You know they might go down a wrong path if they're not educated and work with someone that's not gonna have their best interest at heart. So yeah, I'm so sure, like, get clear on why you're doing it. Don't just do it cuz hi's telling you to do it or Joe's telling you to do it Right. I understand like the big, the big picture here.
Ty Backer:Yeah, and there is a bigger. There's a bigger, even bigger than that. Joe, when it comes to your why, it's like we're not out here Actually doing this for ourselves. If you work within a company that has a great culture, camaraderie and fellowship, it's like we're all in this together and I'm not necessarily doing this for myself, but I'm doing this for you as well. So if you can get everybody rowing in that same direction and and create the value in the content, like think about it. Like this isn't about how dumb I sound, like all my way here today. It's like, man, I want to make sure that we're kicking out the best content, so somebody on their way to work tomorrow can get something from what Joe and I are talking about tonight. Like that's that's my why behind this, like if it, if it's and I'm not even trying to plug the show right now but it's like that's why we're doing this. So if I can hit the play button and provide value to a homeowner Right of like we do such great work, we have all the warranties, we have all of these things and we're right here in your neighborhood.
Ty Backer:And if you can get each one of your salespeople or, doesn't even matter the production team, you know, posting photos, doing videos and tagging each other, and it's like Facebook picks up those algorithms and that's free. Can you pay for? For ads? Yes, you can pay for ads, but then within itself, while you guys are all tagging each other, people don't even talk about this much. But that helps Forge a stronger and deeper culture, because then you guys are all tagging each other all day long and stuff and it's like when I Look at my Facebook feed, man, it's it's TC backer stuff all day long that my team is tagging me in and imagine what the algorithms is doing on somebody else's feed that may have even just spoken the word roof in their living room one night. All of a sudden it's like they're getting, they're seeing our, our free stuff that we just posted for free on their feed. And I don't think enough people know of that. That that strength of One, of the power that Facebook can have for free and the culture building that that creates when everybody's out there rowing in the Same direction and doing it for each other and those in the office.
Ty Backer:It's like you know, I market myself so well that the phone rings. The girl that's answering the phone is getting paid because the phone rings. She sets the appointment for the salesperson to go out. The salesperson's getting paid Because he's gonna close that job. The roofing crew that goes out there that does the job is getting paid because of the salesperson and in that ripple effect. But then they're doing such a great job that the phone's gonna ring again. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Ty Backer:It's like I don't think people understand that. It's like I think everybody just goes to work because they're they're going for a selfish reason, like I need a paycheck at the end of the Week. But if they understand that they're doing so well at their job that the person sitting next to them also has a job because they're so good at their job, not to go offbeat, but it like Personally branding and and and professionally branding the company. It takes the entire team to put it out there. Because, let's face it, one of them, one of the number one marketing Strategies, is your team screaming from the rooftops on how great the company is that they work for and by them posting stuff, even if it's just like another homeowner's getting a roof. I love the place that I work come and it's helped us recruit, it's helped us retain, it's helped us hire. It helped us, you know generate leads. It does so many things and it's so powerful. Not enough people take advantage of it.
Joseph Hughes:So much in there. Yeah, and I love, I love the ripple effect that you talk about there. So, for example, you know what, if what it's tomorrow morning? You're, like you know tie backers. Like you know what, I just want to sleep in, hit the snooze. I don't feel like doing my content like you're, you're holding back your team from from having the Success that they could have for making that money, from closing that deal, right. So, yeah, you're right, it's got to be bigger than you. That is. That's such a great point 100%, and that's the thing.
Ty Backer:Like so, stop thinking about how stupid I'm gonna sound. You're screwing it up for your co-worker right now Because you're not hitting the go button.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, I mean it's selfish, yeah yeah, it really.
Ty Backer:It really is. If you think about it, it's like, why else are you not doing it? I know you're capable of doing. I know everyone's doing it because you're you, you like. You're on Facebook all day. Just go into your photo setting, hit the video and just do a video.
Ty Backer:Yeah and and then, if you know, some with cap, cut like, cut it like, like, edit it like it's. So they've made it so easy for us today and I'm not bashing anyone that doesn't do it because, believe me, I get the insecurity, I get the fear I get, I get the low self-esteem. I get all these things. I understand, I deal with it. I'm an entrepreneur. I fight these demons every single day in my head. But, but I've muscled through these things and and you know how many nights that I didn't want to stay consistent.
Ty Backer:Over 206 episodes. Over half of them I was sick, I was getting married, I was on my honeymoon, I was laying in bed, I was in a hospital bed like but it the show must go on because of the consistency. I didn't know where this was going. I had no idea it was gonna turn into this, but I just knew something was gonna good, something good was gonna come out of it, because if we impacted one person that's driving on their way to work or listening live right now, get that win. That's a win. I.
Joseph Hughes:Absolutely. Yeah, we enrolled a new client today and I don't do sales, but he wanted to talk with me, which is, you know, sometimes it happens and it's like, yeah, I'll make time for that. I'm never too good to make time for someone that wants to talk with me and potentially give us money to help them. And he's like, yeah, man, I listen to a lot of your content, I watch a lot of your videos and I'm so grateful. You know, I'm thinking, man, I'm so grateful for that. And he's like, yeah, I just been, you know, taking advantage of so many times not necessarily by marketing people, but by roofing company owners that he's worked for.
Joseph Hughes:Obviously, it's a big thing in our industry, unfortunately. But he's like I just wanted to chat with you and kind of, you know, feel you out a little bit. And I'm like, yeah, man, that's awesome. So, like this guy is young, he's 27. He's trying to find his way with his life and his business, and like I'm so appreciative of the opportunity to help him and that wouldn't have happened without our content, so it's cool.
Ty Backer:Yeah, and the shelf life that it has.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, yeah.
Ty Backer:Yeah, totally, I've had people. We, one of our team members signed a deal on someone who subscribed to our YouTube channel for behind the tool belt.
Joseph Hughes:Awesome.
Ty Backer:You know what I mean, and it was a pretty significant job. So I mean, we didn't even plan that. But that's just putting content out there and I don't even know how old the video was. It was probably one of our earlier videos where we're not doing so good and hopefully didn't drop obviously didn't drop too many F bombs or anything in it like that so I'm more aware of that. Today too, it's like oh my God, we are, people are watching this and again going in and we didn't really know how many people were going to dig it. But change gears here a little bit. In your opinion, how crucial is it for an individual or company to stay up to date on the latest industry trends and technologies, and how can that effectively incorporate these advancements to stay ahead of their competitors?
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, I mean it's. It sounds cliche what I'm about to say, but it's true. Like things change so quickly that you've got to stay on top of it, whether we're talking about the algorithm, whether we're talking about the way that consumers purchase these days. I mean, man, we used to, we used to run ads for our clients, so it would be basic like Facebook ads, like, hey, free inspection, even in a crowded market, is like Dallas and Denver, and that stuff worked really well. It was like almost too easy, and nowadays it's you know, you can't do that. That does not work. Take, for example, reels that you know. Reels started getting popular like about a year and a half ago with the captions and all that stuff, and we were one of the first ones, I think, in our industry to start to do them, because we have an awesome video guy, john, who's always coaching me, and then, you know, I asked for just three months and everyone's doing them. So it's like all right, well, everyone's doing it. So how do we stand out? And we're just talking about this today in our content meeting. It's like all right, well, we need to tell better stories, right? So you always need to be just, you know, adapting because, like, things move so quickly and these tools like CapCut, you know, now anyone can like. I was editing videos myself on the plane last night. I'm not an editor, but I'm using these tools to edit these Reels from the show and posting them real time Like it's crazy. Yeah, so you have to stay on top of it.
Joseph Hughes:Consumer buying behavior is a big one, right, it's like what do people, what does that home owner need to see in order to feel comfortable enough to contact TC Backer, right? What do they love? What do they hate? What do they fear, what do they desire? And they're doing all their research. 70% of the research is done online before someone reaches out to a company for the first time. So think about, like what that say husband and wife or whatever your avatar is that commercial property owner. Think about the research that they're doing. What types of questions are they asking? Like, what do they want to see? So you've got to adapt to the way that people are buying these days.
Joseph Hughes:And then the tools yeah, I mean, of course, ai is the big one and chat, gpt for, and all that stuff and people might be and I'll admit, like I'm not, I would say I'm not an early adopter when it comes to that stuff, like I'm not going out and getting the newest iPhone. I'm not. I'm not the first one to download chat GPT, but I've started to incorporate it into some of the things that we do and it creates a lot of efficiency and leverage, right. So you know we can do these manual things as business owners or anyone like. We don't have unlimited time, obviously. So if we want to create more output, more results from the work that we're doing, we need, we need efficiency, so these tools can help us be be more effective at what we're doing. So, absolutely, there's a lot of tools out there.
Joseph Hughes:I'd recommend just investing, you know, 10 to 20 hours to learn about. You know whether it's your own CRM. I mean, we learned things about our. We just migrated CRMs this year, so we learned things about our CRM like every week, like, oh, we can do that, that's awesome. So invest the time, like carve it out, put in your calendar just to learn about some of these things. You know you have guys like Adam Sand putting out webinars about AI and roofing and things like that. Like, carve out the time to educate yourself, because I resisted it for a little bit the AI thing. I was a little skeptical, to be honest, and it took me a little while to kind of get into it. And then, once I did, I'm like, oh, it's not that scary, it's not hard and it can really like help me be more efficient, you know. So, yeah, like I said, I edited like three videos last night in the plane, probably in a total of a half an hour, and I was like, yeah, that's awesome.
Ty Backer:Yeah, I haven't. Yeah, I'm not either an early adopter of it, but I do know that within the organization people are using it. So I'm not against us using it. I personally just haven't used it. You know, I messed with it a little bit. I can't even get the chat GBT, for I guess it was too late to the punch or some shit. It's down now, or something. Somebody had said hey, you need this. So I went and I looked at it. I was like, okay, I'm done.
Joseph Hughes:Well, that's all you got. You got enough people on your team. You got some young, young people on your team, and so do I like we've got some, you know, several like you know, 20 something year olds. I'm always going to them in our Slack channel and make a guy's like you know, just ask them questions and they help me to stay, to stay ahead of it too.
Ty Backer:Absolutely you have to to, you know, differentiate yourself and stay, stay on top of the technology because, let's face it, we wouldn't be where we're at today if we didn't take advantage of the new technology that's coming forward, whether it's, you know, roofers, all their new products, roof, all their new products, shit, eagleview, going back as far as that, right, there are, believe it or not, still people that don't believe in things like that, but it's like you almost have to for efficiency and for time, time purposes of you know, being able to cover more ground. But but speaking on differentiating, can you provide an example of a company where an individual who has successfully differentiated themselves from competitors and what strategies do you think that they employed and what can others learn from their approach?
Joseph Hughes:An example of someone who's differentiated. Yeah, yeah.
Ty Backer:Yeah, who does a good job? What's that who does a good job.
Joseph Hughes:All right. So there's a lot of examples. One I've been using lately, maybe because they're, you know, very close to me geographically, and he was just over my house on this weekend Braga Brothers, contracting Lucas Braga and his two brothers. They're here in New Jersey. You just look up Braga Brothers on Instagram or Facebook.
Joseph Hughes:So these guys, three Brazilian brothers, they're like 25 years old and they are second generation, you know, kind of taking over what their dad kind of started, and I think this is their second full year in business. We've been working with them since day one, and so these guys come out of nowhere. They're young, you know, they're. You know they're Brazilians, are not, you know, not from around here, and they have been able to build a pretty standout brand in a very short period of time by leveraging exactly what we're talking about focusing on their geographic areas, getting on video consistently. And I recently interviewed him in my backyard of my podcast and he said he's like it took us, like you know, six months by the time we, you know, from when we started doing like videos on social media, so when we first got our first project. Now that's as a startup company as well, so they had really not much else going on, but they got that flywheel going. It can take a little bit to get that flywheel going.
Joseph Hughes:It's like a merry go round, right, you have to push it a little bit, but once you get it going, it's a little bit easier to keep that thing going. So those guys have had an awesome year. They've been able to like their video. Content is great and they're doing exactly what I just said, like it's consistency. It's out there three to five days a week, you know, doing videos showing off their projects. They do a lot of James Hardy, a lot of GAF. They're always showing out showing off what they're doing.
Joseph Hughes:They've got well branded. You know vehicles and yard signs and things like that. So it's not all online like the offline stuff, like making every job site a billboard. I mean, they're yellow and black, so they have like Teslas that are yellow and black. They have the yard signs. They use the big metal yard signs, not the like like the cheap paper ones, which I'm a big fan of. But yeah, those guys have been able to do a really good job at being intentional about their content and really intentional about everything with their business, you know, from their vision to their you know their annual planning and things like that. So I just love those guys. They inspire me, even though they're like half my age. They inspire the heck out of me all the time.
Ty Backer:Yeah, you know, and that's that's what you have to do today. To differentiate yourself, you have to be bold and step outside your comfort zone and I think a lot of that that's what plays into a lot of that A lot of people are uncomfortable with, with doing things like that. But we're in the process of kind of revamping our training process and and we're leaning heavily into canvassing right along with social media and and when you go out and run a lead, an appointment that might come in. Our standard is is take three yard signs with you, strategically place them throughout the community, like obviously not in somebody's front yard but at a stop sign or a state owned piece of property that looks like it hasn't been mowed for a while but has good visibility, where you can park. You know a yard sign. And then we created post it notes that you can actually write as you're canvassing the neighborhood. If you're, if you don't want to knock, just canvas, right. But but the the you know the opportunity. If you're not there doing it, you're not going to, you're not going to catch the opportunity. It's almost like you're putting like out of your five fishing poles. You only have one line in the water right, so you got to put out all five fishing poles.
Ty Backer:When you go into the neighborhood, right down, whatever you see wrong with their home, stick the post in note. It's got a QR code. Hey, it looks like your three tab shingle is nearing the end of its life expectancy. If you want to free, you know, inspection, give us a call. But you go out there and you do that and then you put that in your database.
Ty Backer:We use the app lead scouts so we can keep track of everything that we're doing. We qualify it that launches a campaign that triggers a Facebook ad. You geotarget that neighborhood along with three postcards, two handwritten notes, one postcard Like I feel like he who gets the most touch points first wins. And if you're not out there doing that and putting yourself out there, I feel like and it's because it's the convenience of it, right, why people don't call even though they know they need a roof.
Ty Backer:I don't know if it's because they don't have enough time, they don't know who to call. But by you being in that neighborhood and exposing yourself like that and having putting yourself in that situation to have the opportunity to talk to somebody that's taking their trash can down to the end of the driveway or whatever the case might be, your van spark there and then going back in two weeks and doing it all over again. It's like you got to work for it. If you want to stay relevant, especially in a turbulent economic whatever we're in right now, I feel like you need to really get yourself out there. And again, those post it notes, the geo targeting all that stuff has shelf life.
Joseph Hughes:I hope people are really listening to that because Ty, like so many people, as you know, are looking for, like you know, what's that, what's that one, you know marketing channel. Like what's that, what's that one thing that I can do to like get all the leads and double my business? Right, it's never just one thing. And like what you just talked about is, it's just, it's awesome. Yeah, it's so cool.
Ty Backer:Yeah, I just talked about 11 touch points. If you want this over bullet, that's the silver bullet. If you want to be relevant come spring, that's what you have to go do. You can't just sit around and wait for the phone ring. It doesn't happen by ass motions, by sitting on your ass.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, don't wait till spring. Like we're in December right now. Like start doing this stuff over the winter, even if you live in Wisconsin. Like, build up that brand, got people to know who you are. Don't wait until spring.
Ty Backer:Absolutely, and that's that. I think that's going to be the game changer. I think those who may have gotten complacent about the phone calls Now, in a storm region, again you can. You can still do retail. I mean Greenville, south Carolina, didn't have a hail storm up until nine months ago. Three years, that was three years that went by. There's only so many homes and that that market down there so saturated.
Ty Backer:So for somebody to not brand and market, and that's the biggest thing in a market like that. So in that market, what do you do? Do you market or do you brand? What's more important? I feel like branding, and there's a difference. Some people don't understand the difference between branding and marketing Branding. You can't always figure out what your return on your investment is, but when you go and knock that door, in six months and if you branded the shit out of yourself, they're going to know who you are. You're no longer a stranger. Oh, and one more key point when you're going out and canvassing, make sure you're carrying a yard sign with you in your hand, especially if you're knocking doors, so if they're peeking out the windows, they can at least see who you are.
Ty Backer:Oh, I like that, I like that, yeah, yeah, I just yeah, I came up with that a little while ago.
Joseph Hughes:I never heard that. Yes, it's like who's this creep coming up to my door If?
Ty Backer:you're cruising around the neighborhood strategically placing your yard signs out there with your little post-it note pad man and you're kind of like looking at their house and you're out on the sidewalk and they see you out there. They probably see you out there. Yeah, you got your yard signs, you got your post-it note. You go walking up to the door, you knock on the door, they answer. They don't answer, doesn't matter, you're going to leave a post-it note, you mark it in your your, your lead scout app and then you just move on down to the next one, and that's what we've been doing for quite some time.
Joseph Hughes:I love that.
Ty Backer:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you just got to think outside the box, have fun with it. You don't even get creative with it and, like I said, there's not yes, it's science, but mostly art. There's like an art form to it. Just you got to nerd out on it.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, a lot of times like and I love all that stuff, it's like putting yourself in the shoes of your, of the homeowner, like what again? Like what's going to make them feel more comfortable? What's going to make you stand out from the other. You know eight roofers that might be knocking that door right. So yeah, I love that.
Ty Backer:Yeah, yeah. So storytelling, what, what role? What role does storytelling play in differentiating, and how can an individual or companies effectively leverage storytelling to connect with their targeted audience and stand out amongst their competitors?
Joseph Hughes:Love it. Yeah, facts tell and stories sell, right.
Joseph Hughes:I don't know the stats behind this, but you know we are so much more likely to remember a story than like a, than a set of facts. So a quick example like you know, you're out, you're out, you know, doing a bill, doing a roof and maybe some siding or whatever it is. And the natural thing for someone to do and maybe you said this to your team at TC Backer like, hey, guys, make sure you're doing videos or taking pictures. The natural thing would be to take a picture and be like, hey, look at this awesome roof we just did. Or a video like, hey, look at this monster we just built today and that's cool for other roofers. Or maybe internally to get everyone jazzed up and excited and all that stuff, but the homeowner doesn't care about that, right? So it's very simple to tell a story. You know there's a few different frameworks that we use, but simply just like, hey, the homeowners called us out because they had this issue and if you're, if you're not sure exactly what that is, we we just had Chuck Toki in our in our group today giving some sales training to our group and I love what he said. He said take the homeowner for a walk around their house. If it's not, the roof is siding or something like that. And let them tell you why they call what they think the problem is why they called you out, right, so they can almost sell themselves. But on your video like, hey, these homeowners called us out because they had this issue. We did an inspection, we did an evaluation, we found this, this and this. We gave them these three options. They went with this brand new tip, relying HDZ roof and the charcoal color and now they have a 30 year warranty and peace of mind before winter comes right.
Joseph Hughes:That's like a 30 second story, like sit, like the stuff that we learned in like third grade that we probably forget, but you know beginning, middle and end, and that's like just keeping it simple. That way, you know, a lot of people will get out there and be like, hey, I'm Joe from contractor dynamics roofing and you know blah, blah, blah, and here's who I am. And you're wasting that 1015 seconds like telling people who you are. They don't care about you, right? They care about themselves. So just tell the story of that project and do that over and over and over again. Another way to tell stories is to get your clients on video talking about their experience, right? So not every homeowner is going to be open and getting on video. You might find that 10% of your customers are, you know, good candidates. There might be outgoing and they might be comfortable with getting on video. But get those. Like those videos. Testimonials are huge.
Joseph Hughes:For sure, for sure, and that's storytelling for recruiting as well, because you mentioned social media content and branding.
Joseph Hughes:In terms of, like attracting people, you know, get your team members to tell their stories on video, whether it's like a face on, like a talking head video, or you know, you have an event like you guys have a ton of events out there and you're just getting some video footage of what it is and it's like man, like this company has a lot of cool stuff going on, they're involved in the community, they're giving away turkeys. Like I want to be a part of something cool like that. So so, yeah, I mean storytelling just it's for everything and even even for retention, right, like that's another challenging industry. Like attracting people, yeah, retaining them. The bigger the better. Like culture and brand and stories that that you have as a company, the more likely people are going to want to stick with you because it's you know you have that culture. Even if the guy down the street is promising them an extra couple of bucks, they're going to want to stick with your company because you got some cool stuff going on. So that's all part of storytelling.
Ty Backer:Absolutely, absolutely, joe. I mean, you nailed it to everything. And in the last part, that last piece, the community involvement. We've, man, have been able to recruit more people through our community involvement and that wasn't even intentional, that was by accident, it was just from the passion of having empathy and wanting to do. Having an impact on the community is where that just began.
Ty Backer:But so many people I can, I can, I can't even count on both hands and feet that have came to work for us and still work for us, because they look forward to those community involvement because of you know, the fellowship and the camaraderie that I talk about all the time. And that's the way that we get to pull off something amazing like that, together as a team, and not someone else setting it up for us where we just show up and kind of serve the food, but, like, we made 73 turkeys together as a team you know what I mean and and fed we served 888 plates this year. I mean that's like. And then we beat the Guinness Book of World Record too, while we were at it Deep frying, deep frying 24 turkeys this year simultaneously, at the exact same time. We you know what I mean. So, like, think about what that has done for our morale around the office, right, like the morale.
Ty Backer:And then they're all posting it and their friends and their families are seeing it. And it's like everyone says, like I got to meet this guy, I got to meet him, who's your boss, who's your boss? And it's like I don't know how to take a compliment or anything. So I'm, I know he is, he is not. I just showed up today, I, that's it. I just I showed up and that was it, you know. But it's, it's so cool how those things work out and from that experience we look for that next dopamine shot, that next morale booster, that next like what can we do to top this now? And it's like we get so involved with those things food drives, diaper drives, you know. And then then what happened was and this was so unintentional we had news, we had Fox 43, we had CBS 21, we had WGAL, like all these local and national news outlets that showed up this year, and it was like yeah, and like that was not the intentions behind it, but it was like, and then the team to see these news people show up out of the woodwork was like oh my God, like we're on camera. I was on a TV commercial, like has doubled down. I couldn't pay for that kind of marketing. I couldn't pay enough money for that branding, that brand awareness that now the entire community, whoever watches whatever news channel in York County, harrisburg, dolphin, adams, franklin, the list goes on you know what I mean.
Ty Backer:You talk about being five mile famous, but that didn't happen overnight. Right, you got to start somewhere. You know, this year was our fourth annual for that. But but going back many years ago, right, it was the consistency of it. I didn't, I didn't see the results right away, I just knew I was passionate about this. I wanted to make an impact, I wanted homeowners to feel safe. I wanted to provide a good work, safe environment, with with great culture and benefits and and all those things in a retirement plan someday is like what I set out to do. And then all of these mistakes along the way and bad behaviors and outburst and crying and tearing and blood and sweat and all these things went into it and it's like but I stayed consistent, we stay consistent, we stay consistent. And the next thing, you know, it's like we became five mile famous, but it didn't happen overnight.
Ty Backer:But if you never start that, you never step outside your comfort zone. That's the thing, I think fear holds back so many people. Right, it's like you're your own worst enemy, like you get out of your way. Get out of your own way, take some advice, step outside and if you can't do it, find those around you that will do it. You mentioned that earlier Right and and and that if you can find a team of people or attract a team of people because you're doing the right, the next right thing, no matter what, no matter what, no matter, no matter how many roofs you have to eat, no matter how many windows you got a reorder, no matter what, no matter, you installed the wrong color gutters.
Ty Backer:And if you haven't done anything, any of those things, you haven't been in business long enough because it's going to happen. Right, and it's way beyond integrity. It's way beyond that. If there was another word that I could think of right now, it's just doing the next right thing, no matter what. And all of these things start to come to fruition.
Ty Backer:Facebook ads, start doing Facebook ads, start doing a podcast, this podcast itself. We have. The people that are probably watching it right now are my co, co, co workers, our teammates that are probably watching this thing right now, because this alone has strengthened our culture. This alone has helped us recruit people. You know, just by doing this and I didn't want to do this. Right, I enjoy doing it today, but for for the first 12 months I did not want to do it. I was scared, I was terrified, but I was. I didn't know my why. You talked about that earlier. I thought it was all about how cool I looked and how stupid I sounded and all these things. But when somebody had pointed out to me it's like dude, you're not doing this for you.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah.
Ty Backer:You're doing it for your team. You're doing it for homeowners. You're doing it for the next person that wants to come work here. You're doing it for their families. None of this has to do with me None of it. And every day, though, when you suit up and show up and you open your eyes, you take your first breath and you put your feet on the floor. You're shooting up and showing up. Yes, a number one your family. But then you have your extended family when you walk into that office. You show up for them every single day. I know that you said that earlier, that we're cut from the same cloth. We have the same values. I know that's why you do this, but that's why you've become so successful Over time.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, yeah, I mean you got it. You got to trust the process. You know, maybe trust me, trust Ty, trust someone else, trust God, trust your. You know your community and sometimes we don't believe in ourselves enough and we need to kind of I'd talk about like borrowing that belief from someone else, right, so that might be, you know people that your community, locally, or you know we're both a part of Revolt. Give them a shout out, just people that are going to believe in you and encourage you because, yeah, it's hard, it's hard and most days you don't want to do it and I can only imagine how much money it costs to do your show, especially when you're doing it on the road and man that's. It's not an easy endeavor, I'm sure.
Ty Backer:Yeah, it's not. It's very painful. But you know, and this, I said this to somebody and he was like you should probably post that I got a coach. I finally hired a coach a couple of months ago, my first coach and, by the way, that's why I'm so good today. No, I'm just kidding.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah.
Ty Backer:It has helped. But I said to him, you know, and I, because I feel I can feel, I feel like I can get very vulnerable with him, and I said to him I said inspiring is tiring, sometimes it's very draining and I'm not saying that to be a martyr, I'm not saying that to Well, it was me or anything like that but but it can be very tiring and there are times that you need to be at 100% and there are times that that you can be at 70%, but that's when you, kind of like you, you touched on where where you need to lean into somebody else and Hope, in hopes that you've inspired enough people that at one moment in time, that they, they can inspire me to be like lift your head up, buttercup, because we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. And it's like I got to remember. I got to remember that some days because I mean I've been doing this for a little while, right, whether it's the podcast, the roofing industry, the Deciding industry, the window industry, the gutter industry, this is all I've done, this is all I know. And it's like I Went out on a mission.
Ty Backer:I had had a previous employer and when I left there, I've been on that same mission Since day one. It wasn't about me. It was like I took everything that I've saw wrong and I took everything that I thought was good and and and half the stuff that I thought was good wasn't any good anyhow to come to find out. It's like until until I got in the trenches and Really dove deep and this is where it all began for me.
Ty Backer:It all began right here, the the moment I started to really intentionally start working on me and and and what I needed to do and become the person that I wanted to become. Then I was able to start working on on my leadership skills, become a better leader, right, because I really didn't know what what that meant. Nobody really pointed me in the right direction of what that was gonna be. I wasn't introduced to John Maxwell yet, even though he's been around for for decades. An amazing person and Do and to I don't know. Just to be a better person and how to Um work on myself. So I guess I'm sorry I'm losing my steam. Air started spacing out a little bit. It's been a long day and that's the thing it's like. You know, I'd rather be on the couch collecting cheeto dust in my belly button tonight, but I'm, I'm here.
Joseph Hughes:Look at that on video, please.
Ty Backer:Yeah, yeah, I might you never know, I might get the clickbait on that, but, um, anyhow, I guess that the Hopefully you can inspire me. Let's start talking about leadership, because I know you're you're a grandiose leader and a coach and a mentor and all those things and the Things that that you do to become a better one.
Joseph Hughes:Man, you will. You mentioned John Maxwell and I talk about that often. Like I, you know, I never considered myself a leader and I always, I guess, thought it was something reserved for you know, once you get to X amount of revenue, that maybe you're a leader, right, but we're all leaders, whether it's in our, our family, our community. We lead ourselves, and when I was at roof con 2021, I sat front row when John Maxwell spoke. I mean, I was so close. He was, like you know, spitting on me and I had actually never read one of his books. He's written like almost a hundred books and I really exact.
Ty Backer:What's that? 88 to be exact.
Joseph Hughes:All right, cool 88, just like the number of the piano keys.
Ty Backer:I read every single one.
Joseph Hughes:No way, holy cow.
Ty Backer:Sometimes half a dozen times yeah okay, wow, all right.
Joseph Hughes:So that was like I, for some reason maybe, was on proximity, that I was in like with him and he's like a big dude and and like it just really hit me and I'm like man, I got a. I got to focus on my leadership.
Joseph Hughes:It's nothing like the, you know two and a half year journey I would say. So, yeah, we have a leadership team at our company. I, I, I, you know I read books. I I'm not a fan of reading as many books as possible. I like to. As you just mentioned, I reread a lot of books. I think it was like September of this year I said no more new books for this year. I'm just gonna reread some of some ones that I have, and I have a half a dozen books on my desk. I always have notes. I'm implementing things.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, just learning from others and being confident in yourself, being confident yourself that you, that you are the leader. People, people need to be led. You know, whether it's your family, whether it's your team, people are looking for a leader to kind of step up and not, you know, not not yell at them and tell them what they got to do, but just like lead by example. Right, that's that's the thing I try to do is lead by example. One of our core values here is that we are impeccable with our words. So what that means is we do what we say we're gonna do. When we say we're gonna do it, we follow up, we follow through and so like, yeah, last night, flying home from Dallas, I landed at, I think, 1130 and on the plane, you know, after a couple days of a conference you're exhausted.
Joseph Hughes:I wanted to like maybe take a nap or watch a movie, but I got the Wi-Fi, I'm working, I'm catching up and you know, making sure that I have, you know, the team, the team is, they have what they need. I'm responding to people because, you know, those conferences, I think I don't check my email for a few days. Yeah, so it's like catch up, people are waiting on things. I want to make sure they're successful.
Joseph Hughes:So you know, being a being a person that leads by example and a person of your word is that's like a basic. If you're looking at, anyone listening, watching, is looking to, like you know, quote-unquote. Get into leadership or start being a leader. Lead by example and follow through on what you say you're gonna do, on your commitments.
Ty Backer:Yeah, that's huge. That's huge because people, people learn what they what they catch, not what they are told.
Ty Backer:You know, yeah, exactly, you know what I mean and you know, and and seeking their feedback, and taking your team members and listening to what they have to say and and and taking their perspective. And one of the biggest things that I found, too, is taking responsibility for, for my actions and being Accountable for my decisions. If I make a poor decision, hey, team, we got a DVA from that and and owning that I made a mistake and and delegating right. So delegating has been probably one of the biggest forms of my growth Right, either personally or professionally right, because I was a piss poor delegator and then then I had discovered that you know that we I'm screaming go, go, go, go, go, grow. And it's like I'm the one holding us back.
Ty Backer:I'm the one that had become the bottleneck and everything was up here and it was doing nobody any good If it was up here until we started to document it and then training other people and and leaving some of my Responsibilities. Those 15 tasks that I was doing on a daily basis actually created 12 full-time jobs Right, and and that's a true story I spoke about that at my breakout. I was, you know, and I remember that moment clearly was it was my mom lived with us at the time. We were taking care of her and Everything came through. This we're camera. I can't see there.
Ty Backer:Yeah yeah, everything emails, phone calls, text but everything came through it. Every single call came through 7 30 at night. We're at a restaurant here. My poor mom's dying of cancer and I'm already kicking the shit out of myself because I know if I'm president, I'm not even present. And then when I'm not present, I'm going for hours at a time trying to run a business that was actually running me into the ground.
Ty Backer:Oh, yeah and the phone rang and I was about 7 30 at night where we were at a Texas Roadhouse and my eye red button it. For like the very first time in my life I read button somebody. I didn't like get up and take the call. And my mom, she said two things to me which I've heard all my entire life, but it hit differently. She, she said two things one tie life is entirely too short and two tie, you need help. You need help with this. And of course I've heard those two things my whole entire life. But listening to her that night, that hit differently than that. And I went on a mission.
Ty Backer:This was probably about nine years ago and at that point in time if I told you the numbers that we were doing at that time, you probably wouldn't believe me and you would say how the hell were you doing that amount of volume by yourself? Now, don't get me wrong. I had Kim, I had Perry, I had Jan I think was still in the business at that time. There was a handful of us right and then I had field guys, I had gutter installers, I had window installers. So the production, I managed all the production. I managed the service department. I took every single call. I ordered every bit of material that came through the building that went out on the job sites. I called all the subcontractors, because we still use subcontractors. We do have subcontractors, I won't lie about that, but they have worked for us for over a decade, most of them.
Ty Backer:I did all of that. You know what I mean. It was like I was killing myself. I wasn't a very good leader. The law of the lid it stopped way down here, way down here. Then I realized, the more I started to work on myself, I started to raise that leadership lid and I started to learn how to leverage our assets because, let's face it, our people have become our economy. They're not a commodity. They're not a commodity, they're our commodity, they're our economy. You know what I mean. When I started those and then it was the impact, because I thought I was impacting these people. Yeah, we got health insurance. Yeah, we got these things with unemployment, all this stuff but it was like I'm killing myself and I'm a miserable mess until I reached out. I'll be honest with.
Ty Backer:What opened my eyes was a win the storm. Jen and I went to win the storm conference. It was our very first conference that we went to and it was like wow, I didn't know there was this many people and this is really cool stuff. And I networked with a lot of people. I heard some really good stuff and it really started to open my eyes to books, podcasts, courses, mentorship. You know what I mean. I was getting mentored from a distance, I wasn't really calling anybody, but it started to open my eyes. It started to read more books other than the books that I was reading at that time, because a lot of them were self-improvement books, but it wasn't the right business. Self-improvement type of books, like the John Maxwell's and people, napoleon Hill and the books that have been out forever, the writers that were writing books back in 1909 that we're reading now today.
Ty Backer:You know, what I mean the revision of it. You know what I mean. I started to really dive into those books and, like you said, I've read them six times. There's highlighters and I got post-it notes to mark pages and stuff like that. But then when I started to work on me, I learned how to delegate and trust, and when you can start trusting in your team and they know that you trust them, they're more willing to do more than what you gave them to do. What I was doing was I was training them on how to think, but not what to think on their own or how to think on their own. I was training them the wrong way. They were waiting for all the answers to come from me. They didn't know how to make decisions on their own because it was like I was a mess. Sorry, I went on that little tangent there.
Joseph Hughes:No, dude, it's so interesting. I was talking catching up with Aaron Christie and his business partner Adam today at Indy Roof Company. You probably knew. Aaron and we were talking about that exact thing. Then Aaron said I realized that when I was trying to do everything, I was holding back other people from learning and growing. It's almost like an ego, like an arrogant thing. I am better at this thing than everyone else. The reality is that you're not. You think you are and you're holding other people back from developing their own leaders.
Joseph Hughes:You've done it, I'm doing it. The best company is out there. I'm not saying I'm the best company, but I try to emulate the best companies. The best leaders create leaders within. That's what I try to do every day, 100% yeah 100%.
Ty Backer:It's really cool to watch that, to watch other people grow and then practicing empathy and understanding the needs and motivations of your team members. Figuring out those people, because it's not always money that motivates people. You got to figure out who they are, what they're good at and set them up for success, because just because they're not good at something doesn't mean they're not good at something else. You got to navigate those things of like okay, they're very strong at IT. They're not very strong at scheduling or finding out who they are. What makes them tick, what are their children's names? Things like really getting down there and finding out where they're at right now. Do you know what I mean? Where do they want to go? How can I help you get there? Does it continue its education? Is it a different department that you want to work in? What are your goals this is the biggest thing is creating a atmosphere of comfortability If they make a mistake or something where it's not, because this is what's crazy about mistakes they need to make mistakes.
Ty Backer:I need to make mistakes because what happens is that's experience. Now I have I've gained experience in this. I can only get better from this mistake that I made, because it's a learning. This is almost. It's a part of the training process. It's almost like go make some mistakes, come back, tell me what you identified and how did you rectify it. Don't come to me because you made a mistake, but also come to me and say hey, this is what I discovered and this is what we did to rectify the situation. It's like bingo win-win.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, that constant feedback loop of like all right, you messed something up, either coaching yourself through it or getting someone else to coach you through that. The very next day you go out and get better, not waiting until January 1st, but the next day you go out and you improve upon that thing.
Ty Backer:Absolutely.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah.
Ty Backer:Absolutely. Another reason. What has happened to me, too, is surrounding myself around other leaders and listening to how they may have handled certain situations and opening up and asking questions and being vulnerable with other people like at a mastermind or even at Revolt. This past November, a month ago or so, three weeks ago, whenever it was I got more out of the relationships that the new ones that I created when I was there and the discussions that I had with those people and with the older relationships, forging and making them stronger with the side conversations without the podcast were more informational to me than any other conference that I'd ever been. I don't know if it was because I was more open and more willing to. My ears were open. I don't know what it was, but there were so many people that had came up to us and they were asking me questions, but I was getting more from them than they were probably from me because I was asking them questions, because I need to hear the guys in the woes that are one or two or four years in the business.
Ty Backer:What are you guys doing now to adapt to situations like this? How are you hiring people? How are you recruiting people? They're looking at me like well, we walked over here to find out how you are doing that. What have you done to this far? They got some good nuggets in there and we're telling me things that just astounded me on how they were recruiting people or their training process.
Ty Backer:Because, let's face it, sops and all of those things documenting things, getting it documented so then it's easily duplicatable. That was probably one of our biggest things, because it was all up here for the longest time. It changed all the time based upon emotion, and it was like nothing was set in stone. What's not documented can't be measured, and if it can't be measured, it can't be scaled. I didn't understand that either. I just thought I woke up this morning, I just don't feel like doing that anymore, so we're not going to do that anymore. I never even gave it time to let it come to fruition, or, without it being documented, we couldn't find the deficiencies.
Ty Backer:And then the other thing that I discovered too, by allowing it to play out and make mistakes, was there's only two things that you need to identify Is it a personnel issue or is it a system issue? Does the system need documented, or was it lack of training? Or is the person incompetent or they disrespect for it? Or what is it Without it being documented and setting that expectation and casting that vision in the goals and the expectations and the accountability? Everyone thinks accountability is a negative word. It means success. So does expectations, expectations and accountability only mean success. That means in unison.
Joseph Hughes:Yes, and I'll add to that whether it's a process, a system problem or a people problem, it 100% of the time, in my opinion, comes back to the leader to take ownership over that.
Ty Backer:Say right.
Joseph Hughes:Well, if Ty is on my team and he screwed that up, well okay. How could I have helped him to be more successful? Could I have provided more training? Could we have provided better processes? Was something that I make an assumption when I made that SOP doc that only I knew, but Ty didn't know that. Right Taking ownership I think there's a lot of that in the contract in the roofing industry. It's like man, I can't find good people, I can't hire, I can't keep good people, and there's a lack of ownership. That's part of leadership too.
Joseph Hughes:It's really like looking in the mirror to see how you could have set that person up for success in a more effective way.
Ty Backer:Absolutely. It comes down A lot of that is communication. Working on my communication skills was huge. I'm a stuffer, I'm a bottler I'll get to it later I'm a procrastinator All those things. You know what I mean. But if I'm not communicating it or working on my communication skills and I'm not afraid of conflict or something that might come out of that communication, but without the communication, I think that's where most issues rise is due to the lack of communication and it not being documented or knowing where to find the documents to be reviewed. So I know what my job is to be today.
Joseph Hughes:Thank, you that communication and like immediate communication, like I don't know. I just like telling stories and examples. Today we had a. We had our weekly marketing meeting, our level 10 marketing meeting, and there is something. It went well. But one of the one of the people in that meeting texted me after. He's like hey, do you have a, do you have a few minutes to talk on the phone. I'm like, yeah, yeah. So he called me or I called him and he's like hey, you just want to.
Joseph Hughes:You know, that was a little awkward, the way we're kind of working through that, and you know, this person seemed a little bit combative in the meeting and the way that we were going about this thing and I'm trying to be vague here, of course and I was like, dude, I appreciate you bringing that to my attention, because the person that he was talking about was like is like above him, so maybe that was uncomfortable for him to do, but I'm like man, I really appreciate it.
Joseph Hughes:I don't know if I have all the answers, but I'll just, you know, share where I'm coming from with this particular situation. You know I'll meet tomorrow and I'll get back to you by the end of the week. So that was really cool that he did that, instead of waiting till our weekly meeting next week and just letting that fester, because that that helps the organization just move not that's all about moving faster, but like move more efficiently. And you know, he didn't have to sit there for a week and wonder about it, he got right on it and I'm so grateful that we have this environment where people feel like they can just, you know, no matter what level they're at, they can reach out to, to me or whoever it is, and just like voice their concern.
Ty Backer:That's huge.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah.
Ty Backer:Yeah, and that's that's the environment of safety and security, right Like, that's, that's that openness, that, and you have to remain approachable, right yeah, that's that's so big is is the, you know, being approachable and this is the deal, bro, like leadership is a journey man, and it requires ongoing, you know, commitment to self-reflection, the willingness to adapt and learn from our experiences and others, you know, and developing self-awareness. You know that's probably one of the biggest things.
Joseph Hughes:Awareness is yeah, it's huge.
Ty Backer:Yeah, understanding your strengths or weaknesses and the impact that you have on others, you know reflect your leadership style, communication skills and decision-making process. Like you got to be decisive. You can't be indecisive all the time. They even if you have to say, let me get back to you on that, but make sure you get back to them.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, clear. That's something I've worked on this year. If anyone's done the disc profile D is is decisiveness, and I'm not that high on it. I'm not a high D, I'm a highS. I'm all about structure and systems and stability. So I've had to work on my decision-making because a lot of times I found that I was when I became more self-aware, I would procrastinate on making decisions because I I had all the info I needed. It was one of those. You know. I'll just, you know, let me sleep on it, let me think about it and you know our other leaders on our team would encourage me. Like, no, we need to make decision now. And so for anyone that thinks they're not really good at leading for decision-making, don't worry about it. Those are skills. Sorry, I'm getting. Those are skills that we develop. It's not like, oh, I'm just not decisive, all right, whatever Skills that we develop, just like content just like anything else just like everything else.
Ty Backer:I mean, you might be born with empathy and sympathy and things like that, but everything that we reviewed is definitely a skill that you can work on. You get you, we get the opportunity to work on this, you know, and that's the beautiful thing about that, but it's the willingness to to work on yourself, because it's only gonna have a better impact on others and Remaining teachable has probably been one of my biggest things. And and you know, and not allowing my team to outgrow me, because at some point in time, if you're in business long enough, you you breach these little like. I gotta stay sharp here because I don't want to be the lid and I'm not saying that I still need to control everything, because, thank God, I don't today. I don't have to and that's what's cool, I don't have to do this by myself today.
Ty Backer:Yeah, I don't have to do it. I don't have to do it by myself. I have a great team of people who have, you know, I've learned a lot from I've. I've seeked, you know, feedback from the team. I asked them whenever there's a meeting. We have a meeting. Usually it's a. We call it the business meeting. It's every other Tuesday and it's like you know, and and we have a Sales success success meeting. I don't know why I'm having such an issue. Speaking to a.
Ty Backer:Sales success meeting, which is kind of like a pop-up meeting it's not with. Sometimes we have them twice a week, sometimes we have them once a week, sometimes we have them at every other week. But within that meeting, I asked more questions than than anything else because I want to hear what, what they are thinking, what are you thinking? How does this make you feel? What if we do this and not that? What's your opinion on that? And it's like, when you do that, then you're empowering them and you know what. And then what's even cooler is is, I would say, 87% of the time. It's such a great idea, that is such a great idea and even know that 13 other percent. Sometimes I know it's not, but we still go with it.
Joseph Hughes:I love it. I do the same thing. Yeah, I Like cuz. At the end of the day, it's like, well, what's what's if I would have chosen a and you would have chosen B and you and we go with B? What's the big deal? Like? It's not, you know, hopefully it's not life and death, right, we're not brain surgeons here. No, yeah, I love that. I love Sitting back knowing, knowing the answer that I would give, but just being silent and letting other people step up. That's, it's awesome, it's exciting.
Joseph Hughes:That's a big dopamine rush for me.
Ty Backer:It is just watching them grow right in front of your eyes.
Joseph Hughes:Yeah, yeah.
Ty Backer:Yeah, that's good stuff, it is. What time is it, victor? We're an hour and 11 minutes in then wonder I can't talk. Right, I Talked all day. Yeah, yeah but but, joe, this, this is great. I appreciate our conversations always do. I wish we were a little bit closer, because I would like you to be that that, that's the sum of the five that that make me who I am today, and and you would be probably number four on that list.
Joseph Hughes:Oh man, wow, Wow, yeah, thank you.
Ty Backer:Yeah, I always dig our conversation, so, thank you, thank you everyone For watching and if, joe, if anyone wants to reach out to you and and I'm assuming you're, you're you're seeking or Taking on new clients or you booked up?
Joseph Hughes:No, we're. We're always growing. Take on new clients. We're hiring new people. So, yeah, I reach out on our on our business website, contractor dynamics comm, or on my personal website, which is relatively new. I haven't really shared it much, but it's Joseph Hughes dot co Without the comm because someone else owns that. So Joseph Hughes dot co got some you know the events that we're doing and things like that.
Joseph Hughes:So it's got all the all the socials on there and the content and the podcast. So I love connecting, I love helping people, I love getting to know people, building relationships. So, yeah, let's connect.
Ty Backer:No doubt. Love it man, love what you do. You're killing it out there. You're helping grow contractors and individuals and which is helping Communities and families abroad. So thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for everyone for watching tonight. Hopefully somebody gets something out of this on their drive to work tomorrow, on their way home. But check us out on Spotify, check us out on YouTube, check us out on Google, check us out on Apple. Now, we appreciate everyone that listens, likes, loves and share. So check you guys out next week for episode 207. Have a great night everybody.