Mark: Today on PowerTips Unscripted. We talked to Steve Baker, vice president of the Great Game of Business. The high cost of replacing employees means it’s important to find ways to retain the best performers. And studies show that transparency from the top can be a solution, boosting employee engagement and motivation. Steve says the level of transparency should include showing employees the company’s numbers and teaching them the business.

Mark: Your goal should be to create a business of business people. And he’s going to tell us how to do it in just a minute.

Steve: Come on. Surely you can’t be serious. I am serious.

Steve: Don’t tell me from here all.

Victoria: Hi, I’m Victoria Downing and welcome to PowerTips Unscripted, where we talk about tips, tactics and techniques to help you build a strong, profitable remodeling company. And I’m here with my co-host, Mark Ferrari.

Mark: Hey. And you actually physically are here with me today. You who.

Victoria: I know.

Mark: In the studio.

Victoria: Yeah. It’s kind of rare that we’re both in the same place at the same time.

Mark: It’s great. We measured it. We’re actually five feet, 11in apart, so hopefully that last inch doesn’t do me in.

Victoria: Yeah. Really? Yeah. You’re more. You’re more at risk than me, man. Yeah. So I’m excited about today because we get to talk about one of our favorite topics, open book management. Well, you know, I really love open book management. I think that it is just such, I mean, you know, how I love the numbers myself, so I guess I, I love it because I assume everybody else love them as much as I do.

Mark: Maybe, I don’t know. I like keeping everybody in the dark.

Victoria: Why is that?

Mark: Because then I’m the smartest guy in the room. Yeah. Come on.

Victoria: That’s true.

Mark: I’m just kidding. I’m fun.

Victoria: Yep. All right, well, let’s get going, shall we? So today I’m really excited to have with us, as Mark said Steve Baker, vice president of the Great Game of Business. And this this company is the one that really brought open book management to the conscious of all small business people. It was launched by Jack stack many years ago, and they’ve been successfully working on developing this process for companies across the country since then.

Victoria: So welcome. Thank you for being with us, Steve.

Steve: Well, thank you, Victoria and Mark. It’s good to see you. Yes, sir. Is, going to be a fun session today.

Victoria: I think we we try. So, Steve, you know, I talk a lot about open book management with our people, and I certainly practice it. We practice it here as well. But you’ve had a lot more experience with different companies than we have. So what are the reasons that a business owner should teach their people the business side?

Steve: Well, the biggest reason to me is that, you know, why does the owner have to carry all the burden? I mean, all of the when you say you’re the smartest guy in the room, Mark, I know you’re kidding, but, a lot of times we end up putting ourselves in that position where we aren’t really tapping the the collective wisdom of the crowd, so to speak, and we carry all the stress.

Steve: What if we could actually say to people, hey, look, this is what we’re trying to accomplish. We’re trying to build a nice company, a great company, in fact, something that will last over time and give you all the stuff you want. Job security, raises, bonuses, career path, right. All that stuff. But in order to do that, we got to we got to create a great business.

Steve: Well, unfortunately, if we’re not open with people, they’re going to be guessing. And ten times out of ten they’re guessing wrong. So that’s the biggest reason people should consider it is what if we could just get on the same page as the owner is not to?

Victoria: Have you noticed in the years that you’ve been in business doing this, have you noticed that there is more acceptance of open book management among the owners of small businesses in particular, than there used to be?

Steve: Wow, what a great question. I will tell you, I joined 15 years ago and I will. I tell you, feeling that I have I don’t know if I have data to show it. We do feel like we’re at an inflection point. I think you’ve heard that around now about, a lot of different things in our society.

Steve: But, the awareness of the fact that, you know, very few people actually have the knowledge they need to, to create a successful business that will last over time. I do think that even our younger generation is expecting more transparency. The question is will it be accepted? You know, transparency is one thing. Understanding totally different thing right.

Victoria: Okay. So what are some of the most common perceptions that employees have of ownership when there isn’t that transparency.

Steve: Well, one is that, the owner probably makes way more money than they really do. Personally and professionally, right? I mean, the thing is, I, I talked to so many owners and entrepreneurs, even management folks that, you know, they drive a nice car, they live in a nice neighborhood, this sort of thing. But but the story that’s not being told is all the years they, they put in to getting there.

Steve: So the assumption is and I remember doing it when I was in college, I worked in an outdoor store. I knew the owner of that store. He drove a Lincoln Town car, which, by the way, in the 80s, that’s what you drove. If you needed it for like eight bodies in the truck. Yeah. Right, baby. And I knew he was loading that thing with gold bricks every night.

Steve: And it wasn’t until years later when I became a quote unquote adult, you know, and learned something about business that it’s really hard to make money. So the thing is, the big misconception is, that they make more money than they do and that, what I do doesn’t really matter anyway. And so I think people are basically good, but sometimes they make not so good decisions just because they don’t understand that it’s tough to make money in a business.

Steve: It’s hard to generate cash. And what we’re really trying to do, I think most of us, small and mid-sized business people, are trying to create jobs because we’re the backbone of the economy.

Victoria: Yeah. No kidding. Right. I you know, I think about the owners of the remodeling companies with whom we work and how many lives those businesses impact. You know, it’s just amazing when you think about their families, their employees families, their subcontractors families. It just goes on and on and on.

Steve: Yeah. And those dollars typically stay local. And there’s research that shows that dollars that stay local roll through the local economy, through the community. 6 to 7 times. Whereas the, you know, the bucks that go out to the big box stores or whatever. And I’m not judging. I’m just saying with a remodeler they live here, like you said, the jobs are here, the labors here.

Steve: You know, the families are here. Let’s keep it local, because local is really just national when it’s added up.

Victoria: Right? Right. Exactly. So how can employees benefit from this open book policy?

Steve: Well, the first thing is at work. I mean, I will tell you, working with Jack stack for all these years, the one thing I know for a fact is he is about job creation. It’s not making engines, which is, of course, our back story. It’s about creating jobs. And that requires creating great companies that can last. So at work it’s job security and it’s raises and bonuses.

Steve: And that sort of thing. And I think it goes beyond this, idea of just a job just punching the clock. It’s education. It’s understanding how to make money and generate cash in the business. What I do personally to affect that. And the fact is, the more they learn, the more they want to learn, and the more they want to move up in the business that creates our sustainability.

Steve: At SC and great game companies, then now please tell me if I start to sound like a communist or something here. But we believe that if people do better at work, they do better at home. In other words, we see our people every day taking home this knowledge of money. And oh, wait a minute, you know, like Dave Ramsey says, you know, money flows from people who do not understand it to people who do.

Steve: We want our people to be the people who do when they go home. They do. They do better. And when they do better at home, they do better in the community. So it’s kind of better to work better at home, better in the community. So it it is a, a bit selfish because we feel like smarter people will make smarter decisions and we’ll be more competitive.

Steve: So that’s the selfish part. But on the other hand, that’s where that virtuous cycle begins, right? Is, hey man, if we’re better, we could last longer. We could be more competitive. We could grow, we could grow, we could grow.

Mark: Steve, what about the the thought process that if I teach them everything about owning and running a business and everything that it takes to do it, they’re going to just leave me and start their own.

Steve: Yeah, well, especially in the remodeling business, because I could see someone go, well, you know, how how smart do I make them? Because, you know what? If I make them so smart, they leave. But what is your alternative? What if they’re dumb and they really stay a long time? You know, rather, I read the book. There’s always going to be that risk.

Steve: And I will tell you that talking with owners over the years that have actually had that happen, first of all, it’s pretty rare because the more you learn about business, you, the more you understand the risk of ownership versus reward, right? Risk versus reward, that that ratio or that balance. A lot of people don’t want it. They may have the entrepreneurial spirit, but they may not have the entrepreneurial guts.

Steve: So I’m going to tell you that the more you treat people with that respect and say, here’s how it works, the more you, you know, let’s say you share the numbers with them. It really should be. You show them the numbers they create in the business. Chances are they’re the ones creating the numbers in the business. You just happen to be aggregating them.

Steve: Well, that’s respect. And a lot of times they don’t get that anywhere else. It’s do your job. Nothing more, nothing less. Right. Punch the clock. You know. And then it’s an adversarial relationship, especially with our subs and that sort of thing. What if we just showed them, hey, man, everything counts. Yeah, you’re a big part of it.

Mark: I love it. That’s that’s definitely the sound bite of the episode. What if they’re dumb and they stay.

Victoria: Out all right now?

Steve: But you don’t know me either, I apologize.

Mark: No, it was fantastic.

Steve: Here’s full disclosure to talk about transparency. I joined 15 years ago. And now I write books and and teach business all over the world. You know, this is our new book. Get in the game. And, I have an art degree.

Victoria: Oh, wow. Oh, is like.

Steve: Anyone can learn it. So I’m telling you, your people can and will learn it. In fact, don’t they do math every single day in their head, you know, as they start to measure things out, measure twice, cut once and all, this sort of thing. They’re dealing with these things all the time. And in fact, is there great cash flow managers?

Steve: Well, I shouldn’t say great, but they’re creative. When they go home, they’re like, well, if I don’t pay this, I could float the cable bill. I could get the utilities paid, whatever, you know, get the car payment and these days it’s so uncertain. They’re really watching all the pennies. So all I’m saying is let’s teach him. Let’s make him better.

Steve: And the more we teach him, the more we will learn.

Victoria: Now, what do you do if you have a team member or two? And I’m thinking maybe like a carpenter or somebody who’s been doing it 30 years and they don’t have any interest in they don’t want to know. They just want to do their job and go home and not think about it, you know? Do you see that happening?

Steve: Oh yeah. Yeah for sure. In fact, it’s a great question because at at see today, by the way, Victoria, I don’t know if you knew this, but we’re about it, ten different companies, all of which, except for my little company, the Great Game of Business, which is a boutique consulting firm. Of course, we teach, everybody else make stuff.

Steve: Engines and engine components. Most of our 2000 jobs are blue collar. I mean, I don’t have a better word for it. The vehicle churn rate is. And dismantle engines and things like that. The thing is, we do need people that just want to punch the clock. There’s always going to be some. But I would say that most small to mid-sized businesses are dealing with the fact that somebody is doing the job 30 years.

Steve: They may have done all that time, and we didn’t really tap their full potential. We didn’t ask, what if? Jack tells a great story in his original book, Great Game of Business, about a guy who just came to work every day in Chicago and drilled a hole. And they, they they measured his holes that he drilled, you know, for International Harvester and, and they did statistical process analysis and all this sort of thing.

Steve: And and they never did ask him, but it turns out that he went home to Berwyn, Illinois, every night and managed a multi-million dollar apartment complex that he I think to ask is, don’t just give me the perfect. Oh, yeah, no. So what if you know that there’s two things so that you got people who you probably need that they’re going to do the work and that’s it.

Steve: But what we’re really looking for is who are our future leaders going to be? Because if we’re going to grow, we need people. And why not develop them from within? The fact is, you may also have someone that’s been there ten, 20, 30 years. I run into this a lot, and usually it’s just like one, 1 or 2 of these folks that are that are secretly holding you hostage and their and their whole power comes from, they know something nobody else does, or we think that they have some special sway over the group.

Steve: And in fact is when with transparency, a lot of that stuff gets aired, you know it. You know, I like to say when the lights get turned on, the roaches run and, you’ll, you’ll find some dead weight. And some people have been hiding in the shadows. Well, you know what? Let’s keep the people who want to stay and who are interested in at least not pulling the wagon the other direction and let the rest of them, because 60% of them are going to just.

Steve: They’re just looking for leadership. Yep. Right. You’re going, which way do I go? So that’s that’s my opinion is if we sometimes find someone who’s very much an influencer, but they’re negative and they’re trying to pull the wagon the other way for whatever reason, we literally will help them find a job at our competitors. We give them a soft landing elsewhere because I’d rather have them working over there.

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Victoria: Okay, I got a story for you. So you know we have hundreds of members of our Roundtable’s program. So our business, remodeling company owners, across the US and Canada that get together in groups to talk about issues and be one another’s board of advisors. So each one of these groups has their own private email system.

Victoria: So I get to see all these emails going back. So one of our members wrote to his group and said he had a problem. He had a new employee in sales who wrote, who came up to him and said that she thought the markup he was charging to reach the margin he needed was highway robbery, and she could not understand how he could possibly charge that much to the client.

Victoria: What would you have advised him to do at that point?

Steve: Well, first of all, it’s a great story. Yeah. And I love the fact that it I mean, this is in any industry, especially ones that I’ve been in, because when people have just a little bit of knowledge, that’s when the assumptions come in. And what we got to do is deal with the assumptions, rumor and gossip and transparency.

Steve: Does that because I guarantee the margin, quote unquote. There’s a tip right. There is, is only half the story. Right? That’s right. What happens below margin? And, and if I may answer your story with a story, I’ve been on a lot of different jobs through the years, worked with the biggest retailers in the world. And my favorite story, Victoria, is that, well, you know, more transparency.

Steve: You’re you’re discussing things today with the king of fragrant bath salts. I don’t know if he knew. Yes, yes I am.

Victoria: There’s another good soundbite. We had never had a king on here before. Not much left but salt years ago.

Steve: Many years ago, I’d say at this point, 20 years ago, maybe 23, I don’t know, working for a bath and body company. And it was my dream job because it was just fun. I traveled around all over North America working the biggest retailers in the world. And, basically we were small in Springfield, Missouri, and I would be able to go out to the marketplace, see what was hot with my art degree.

Steve: Then I would design new packages and new things, right? Bath salts and lotions and gels and candles. And we made the stuff right. And we doll them up. We take them to New York. Here we go, here you go. And, and finally, like, we’re having kids, Joanne and I are, you know, starting a family. We’re trying to buy a house, and I go to the boss and I say, how do I make more money?

Steve: And you know what the answer is? Sell more. And when you’re told to sell more in Springfield, Missouri, you get in your car and you go to church. You know, I was traveling all over the place, but two hours away is Bentonville, Arkansas, Walmart. And we’re the worst commercial partners you can imagine for a small business, right? It’s like, oh, well, what do I know?

Steve: I’m just selling smell good stuff. I go down there and one year, just to make the story short, I sold 50 truckloads of fragrance and salt Sam’s Club and I was on top of the world. I’m like, you know, just massaging myself with all the compliments and everything. Years later, I found out we didn’t make a dime on it and the whole thing came down to it was my assumptions were that we were making plenty of money on it.

Steve: I even did the cost calculations down to margin. Mind you, didn’t have any clue. And and it was just the fear. Not the fear, but it would have taken more courage for the owners to look at it and say, Steve, you got to understand, you know? But instead, I found out later the owner had taken a second on her house to pay for the materials for this job.

Steve: So that’s the risk that you take is, if you you asked how to. How would I answer that? The, the thing is, the person who wrote this is highway robbery just doesn’t see the whole picture. And the poor owner in that situation, all I’ve got to say, if you’re listening right now, you are not alone. A lot of people are thinking this, and some are even thinking it’s robbery.

Steve: They just don’t understand. And when we as leaders and owners of a business, hear that sort of thing, it’s our fault. It’s a lack of understanding. It is ignorance that is talking. It’s not something personal. They don’t hate you. You’re not an evil capitalist. And we need to teach people that profit ain’t bad. And making money is not evil.

Steve: It’s what makes everything else work. In fact, all the social programs that we talk about. Holy cow, where are they funded? Revenue and revenue meets tax. So we’ve got to create the revenue because we’re starting to outweigh our revenue generated. Our hours worked, if you will. Is is not outpacing our social overhead. And it’s scary.

Victoria: Now, what would you say to an owner who says, I don’t want my people to know how much money I make at the bottom line, and I want no net because they don’t do profit sharing. And then that just feels so awkward.

Steve: Well, we’ve seen a lot of people do different things. One could be unit economics. I’m just, you know, throwing that term out there. What if, you were to say, let’s just go by the job, let’s just say on this job, this is the PNL for this particular job. And, you know, as a part of the PNL there, you could have an owner’s return or a certain minimum performance or something.

Steve: But but don’t hide too many numbers. And I don’t even mean hide, but don’t consolidate so many numbers. They don’t understand where the money’s going, because they’ll figure it out. They’re not stupid. They may be ignorant at this point, but what we really want to do is say, look, it’s harder to make money in this business than you think it is.

Steve: Let me ask you a question, Victoria. In remodeling, can you tell me that system wide or industry wide, what’s the average net profitability of a remodeling company?

Victoria: Well, our members aim for 8 to 10% net. I think the probably industry wide. It’s down in the threes okay.

Steve: Yeah. So you outperform the industry by a factor of three or something like that. It’s incredible. Now what if you could outperform by a factor of 4 or 5. It’s possible. But here’s what you got to do. This is why kind of turning people on to the numbers makes a difference. The people making $0.03 on the dollar, what they’ve never done, let’s say it’s $0.05 just for round numbers, never asked their people.

Steve: They didn’t say what they do is they go, oh, I can’t believe you threw that conduit away, or I can’t believe this happened or you didn’t have that. And then they go home and kick the dog or whatever, even if it’s like, here’s the thing, at 5% profitability, what we haven’t taught our people is that, you make a difference.

Steve: If we can save, a dollar in cost or a dollar in expenses, that dollar is worth 20 in sales. I mean, it’s a huge deal. It’s a huge deal. And we do that exercise a lot when I do, large conferences and that sort of thing. The fun part is to do that on a big scale and have people yell out their numbers.

Steve: So for your members, let’s say a ten cent profitability, it still means every dollar not spent in expenses or Cogs is going to be worth ten in sales. So people absolutely have what I would call when they have line item ownership or line of sight to that critical number of of what if things cost. It’s not about lean and it’s not about just cost cutting.

Steve: It’s awareness and it’s understanding that I make a difference because that’s when you’ll get the highest level of thinking. When you say, guys, you make a bigger difference than you think, and each one of you owns a line on the income statement. Yeah. If we’re just to be very basic, let’s look at what that is. And so even the person cleaning can have an impact.

Steve: Right. You another story about that issue outside of your industry because I think it could be apropos. I work with the H-e-b in Texas, the big grocery store chain. Right. They got 110,000 people. And we’ve been going from town to town, you know, doing big, big events, right? Because 110,000 people, it’s a lot. Get three, five, six, 800 people in a room.

Steve: And we do this exercise just like we described. And in their world, $0.02 on the dollar is a big deal. So every dollar saved is worth 50 and save. Right. And one of the stories that came out of it is a guy, a young guy in the produce department. While in a meeting with his, store manager and regional manager stops him, interruption reaches down, picks a grape up off the floor, and they go, oh, good job.

Steve: Hospitality, cleanliness. Wait, go. Those values. He said, no, no, no, it’s much more important than that. What do you mean? He goes, well, I happen to know through the training we’ve been doing with great game of business that the average slip and fall at H-e-b cost $5,000. So this grape is really worth $250,000 worth of groceries. Wow. Yeah.

Steve: That’s great. So you tell me the cleaner doesn’t have it a role in this whole thing. So, you know, it’s it’s exciting to me because when I came on 15 years ago, I was a smart guy, but I was ignorant. I mean, I, I thought I knew all this stuff, but I really didn’t know anything about the financials.

Steve: I knew that, that it was hard to make money for me. It was hard to keep money in the family budget. Imagine being a business. People don’t even know what it cost to employ.

Victoria: Them, right? Right.

Steve: So. So why hide it any more? Let’s be proud that we are creating jobs. Let’s ask how we can do more. How can we make more money? Especially now. I mean, I would think that there’s some opportunities here. And if your people outperform, if your members outperform the industry already, what if they could do even better? Right. And yeah, it sounds like cost cutting.

Steve: What I’m saying is let’s teach teaching business, because what’s going to happen is they’re going to start figuring out those ways that, you know, they’re the front line. They’re the ones that create the yeah, what if we asked, how could we do this differently?

Victoria: So is that what you would recommend that they that these business owners listening to this do tomorrow to get started at this or are there other is there another tactic that would be even stronger than just asking what can we do differently?

Steve: Well, the toughest part for folks is going to be listening. That’s the toughest skill. That’s the number one leadership skill. I would I would suggest they begin to exercise, and it’s going to be really hard because I bet you there’s a lot of self-made people out there listening right now are going, the hell, I am going to share this.

Steve: I don’t want you to tell them how much you make. What I’d like you to do is show them how hard it is to make money, appeal to their higher level of thinking, and say, what could we do differently? And if so, you know, the one thing that that we do is, and you can look this up on our site, and I’m happy to share the audio book of our new book, The Great Game of Business, if you like, with all the members.

Steve: Is do a mini game. Don’t even roll out all the numbers for the company. Just something small. Like in the next 90 days. What can we do differently? And maybe it’s as simple as waste or scrap or something like that. And I’m not a remodeler. I don’t know. In fact, if I gave you a thing to work on, that would be completely against our methodology where we should go ask people, look, this great is worth this much, right?

Steve: If that’s the grocery store story, what’s the story on the job site? And so, you know, there’s lots of great stories out there and, even, you know, one of the most popular ones, I remember that that, Liz Wilder told me from,

Victoria: From Anthony.

Steve: Wilder in DC, was the, the idea of runs runs to Home Depot when the people who were driving the trucks and doing the jobs actually calculated what that was worth. They their own sense of pride came up. It was like, we’re better than this. And I think you guys shared information with them about what’s the average run count during a month?

Steve: Well, it could be anything. It could be, again, waste scrap rework is a huge one, you know, but the idea is just just teach them about that part at first. But if you’re bold enough, if you’re courageous enough to show them how hard it is to make money, and you show them that $0.08 on the bottom line, first of all, they might not believe you at first, right?

Steve: No one’s ever treat them like an adult. They’ve always been attracted from the numbers. Holy cow. When I first learned about the numbers, I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe that in remanufacturing like we do, a nickel on the dollar is a pretty good day. I’m like, why Jack stack, would you ever even be in this business?

Steve: Why do you get up for the. And he’s like, dude, you don’t know. You know, he didn’t say that. But his eyes said everything. That’s great.

Victoria: That’s great.

Mark: Steve, this has been such a great, enlightening episode. I’m so happy that you’re on here with us. And I’ve learned so much about you now. It’s almost anticlimactic that we’re going to dig in deeper with the Lightning Round, but are you ready for it?

Steve: I’m ready. Oh, and now here’s the reminders. Advantage lightning round. It’s a drop.

Mark: Okay, we’re put in 60s on the clock. Here we go. What’s your favorite business book and why?

Steve: I’m going to say the great game of business, but, I must say, Good to Great was one of my favorites of all time, Jim Collins.

Mark: And if you weren’t vice president of the great game of business, what do you think you’d be doing?

Steve: I’d be teaching art students about money.

Mark: What are you not very good at?

Steve: Parenting. I don’t know. But you might have to cut that one. No, I know my kids are great, but I think I will.

Mark: Oh, parenting.

Steve: I, you know, I should have prepared for these. More than worried about the five words. The, I’m so sorry, Mark. What am I not very good at? I’m not very good at listening.

Mark: Your room, your desk or your car. Which would you clean first room. What’s your favorite game show?

Steve: Whose line is it, anyway?

Mark: Have you been told you look like someone famous?

Steve: Neil McDonough.

Mark: Who’s Neil McDonough?

Steve: I don’t know, I don’t believe it.

Victoria: Who is he?

Steve: Is he he’s a he’s a guy that you go, oh, it’s that guy. Because you’re you’re doing he’s like, oh, he’s the bad guy. So you don’t have big series of that sort of thing. But I said, you don’t want to hear it now, I’m sure. But it’s kind of funny. In Canada I was doing a deal and a guy comes up and he goes, hey, I want you to see something.

Steve: And he was Neil Mcdonough’s, neighbor. And he had just texted Neil McDonough a picture of me. But when you do, let me go now, I didn’t look like.

Mark: Oh, we’re gonna have to do a Google. Maybe we’ll put a side by side comparison in the show. Now.

Steve: I’m so sorry. I’m messing up the 60s.

Mark: No, no, no. We’re good. That was great.

Victoria: So I got two things before we let you go. First is if people want to get your book or learn more, where should they go? How do they get that audiobook you mentioned?

Steve: Yeah. To get the free audiobook download, go to great game.com/gig mp3, gig mp3.

Mark: And I’ll put a link in the show notes to fabulous.

Victoria: Thank you. Okay, now and lastly, this has been wonderful. But before you go, I want you to share your five words of wisdom and why they resonate with you.

Steve: All right. The five words are people support what they create. The whole essence of the great game of business is about asking people, giving them knowledge, giving them access to information, and then asking them to make a difference. So it’s really about, look, we know research shows people that set their own goals, tend to hit them right. And people are much more engaged when they’re involved or asked about a situation.

Steve: So people support what they help create. I mean, it’s, let’s involve them and they’ll actually do better and they’ll enjoy it at the same time. It’s it’s changed everything for me. Victoria.

Victoria: Well, Steve, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate your generosity. And I’m sure our listeners are going to get a great deal out of this. So thank you very much. It we’ll have you on again one day.

Steve: Thank you so much. Take care.

Victoria: Bye, Steve.

Mark: Thanks, Steve.

Victoria: Well, that was a good one.

Mark: That was a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, was good guy.

Victoria: Yeah. Besides him, you know, so easy to talk to, and and enjoyable. But the, the concept, I think right on especially I thought his five words of wisdom really wrap things up in a nice little package. Right?

Mark: Yeah. And he had all kinds of great sound bites in there. I love that, it almost sound like a Steve Wright thing. He said, you know, local. Well, locals. Really national. If it’s big enough.

Victoria: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: You know, he just kind of, I don’t know. It was funny. It was kind of Steve right in, you know, everywheres in walking distance if you have the time.

Victoria: Hey, you know something else you should put in the, you should put in the show notes. Is the, the lumber yard run calculator, okay. And let people see what they’re spending? And since I just was one of the examples he shared. Sure. That’d be a fun thing to add in there. But yeah, I think I believe an open book.

Victoria: Where? Open book here again, wrapping up all of our salaries in one big bundle. Nobody needs to know that level of detail. But we’re, you know, we let people know.

Mark: Yeah, well, you don’t want each person to know what each person makes.

Victoria: But other than that, it’s we’re pretty darn open. And I talk a lot about it in our roundtable meeting. So, you know, hopefully people got something out of this. I could see how helping their employees learn can make a huge difference.

Mark: I know I got a lot out of it. It was great. Yeah. Great stuff. We want to thank Steve Baker for taking the time to share these words of wisdom with us. And we want to thank you for listening week in and week out. I am Mark Harari.

Victoria: And I’m Victoria Downing. See you next week.