Mark: Today on PowerTips Unscripted. We talked to Steve Wheeler, our director of business development here at Remodelers Advantage. If everyone feels invested in your company so invested, it’s as if they actually own a piece of it. They will make better decisions, solve more problems, and you will experience greater productivity. But how do you do that? Well, Steve, a former remodeling business owner himself, is here to tell us how to get your employees to think and act like owners in just a minute.

Victoria: Hi, this is Victoria Downing, president of Remodelers Advantage. 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 Harari.

Mark: You sure are.

Victoria: How are you doing over there, Mark?

Mark: I’m doing very good. How are you today?

Victoria: Good. You know.

Mark: So good to have you back. You’ve been traveling so much. I had to go solo last time. And, you know, that’s always stressful because I got no one to look at.

Victoria: I know, really, it’s so much easier when we’re here having a conversation. Not to mention the guest that’s on our video camera right in front of us or our our monitor right in front of us.

Mark: Tuesday.

Victoria: And today I’m really excited because we get to talk about a topic that is dear to my heart. You know, I think that one of the biggest challenges that our roundtable members are consulting clients are all the remodeling company owners that we interact with, have is this idea of getting their employees to think and act like owners? It’s it’s hard on paper.

Mark: It sounds great. If everyone feels like they own a piece of the company, they absolutely. I mean, think about it. They’ll act like you do. Is the owner right? And they’re going it. But I mean, how to do it is absolutely going to be the biggest challenge anyone’s going to face.

Victoria: You know? So it’s a good topic for us to touch on today. And I think it’s, again, one of the biggest pieces of that human resource management that if we could all learn how to do it, man, we’d be in a much better place. So.

Mark: Well, I think Steve’s the right guy to talk about it.

Victoria: No kidding. So let’s get started today. I’m really excited to talk to Steve Wheeler, our director of business development here at Remodelers advantage.

Victoria: Yep, he sure is. And in addition, Steve’s been traveling around the country talking to Remodelers and all sorts of, Nari and Nahb chapter, meetings. Talked to him about this very topic. So, Steve, welcome to Power Tips Unscripted.

Steve: Thank you for having me, friends.

Victoria: You know, is it a little different being a guest on the podcast versus a host of The Tim Fowler Show?

Steve: It is different here.

Victoria: Do you feel more pressure being the guest or being the host?

Steve: the pressure’s here now.

Victoria: Luckily for you, we’re pretty low key, right?

Steve: Yeah.

Victoria: So we’re going to have this great conversation.

Mark: So you for the first question, what is the airspeed velocity you got challenging.

Victoria: All right. So you are a business owner. How you know is that where this passion came from for for learning about how to be a good manager, how to how to make this happen in your own company or where did that come from?

Steve: Well, I think as soon as I started, you know, when you started a company, there’s just this embedded passion that you have for doing the work that you do where, you know, for me, it started with, obviously working for a contractor, starting my company, thinking I could do it better. and so, you know, you start off, you have so much passion for your business, for the customers and what you feel you can, you know, give to the company.

Steve: So as you start to bring on employees, what I really just stumbled with most of the time, that I was an owner is having my employees care as much as I did. A lot of this came from mistakes.

Victoria: How do you mean, from?

Steve: Well, you know, when you would have what I would view as, And, I mean, we’re going to get into it, but I was a piece of the problem, but, if we.

Victoria: Always.

Steve: How you view, you know, you see these mistakes, they could look careless. They could just look like I wouldn’t do it that way. The superhero complex. And, you know, it was just, I felt that just the way that employees interacted with clients just interacted on the job, their just overall care of of what they were doing, you know, just wasn’t my my ultimate wish was that they cared about the company, the customer, the product as much as I did.

Victoria: So then you came here, right? I mean, because we’re all we’re all fighting for that, right? And. Yep, at some point, I want you to give me an example of like one of those what one of those issues happened to be in your company. But then when you came here to Remodelers advantage, that was several years ago. How many years ago is it been?

Steve: I think we’re three and a half now.

Victoria: So this gave you really an opportunity to dive into that in more detail, right? I mean, you had some practical feet on the streets experience when you were an owner, and now you’re getting to be you’re having the opportunity to study up on some theory, some some strategies for making it happen and that sort of thing, and learning more.

Victoria: I imagine as you’re doing all these speaking gigs across the country.

Steve: Yeah, yeah. And I think that while I was an owner, my mindset always was. Now, mind you, my first job out of college was me starting this, my company. So I didn’t really have too many examples of being a true employee. I, you know, I had jobs in college, but, you know, throughout my time as an owner, I thought, you know, if I was ever an employee, I would be the greatest employee ever.

Steve: Now, not tooting my own horn.

Victoria: But you’re you’re pretty good, Steve, I gotta.

Steve: Say. Is that it’s hard either way. It’s hard to be because there’s different things. So I think the important thing, you know, the title, this is how important employees can act like an owner, not care or like an owner.

Victoria: So do you think do you think those are separate?

Steve: I do, no one’s going to care about Remodelers is as much as you know. It’s just the liability. It’s, all everything involved. If there’s a zombie apocalypse, I’m in the woods with, stick sharpening it. You still have to put on round tables.

Victoria: I mean.

Steve: So it that you’re rich.

Victoria: Yeah. Okay.

Steve: I see you, you know, in terms of caring. So no matter what the care, it’s different from acting. It’s kind of the point. So you look at the two characteristics of employees and owners. Owners. It’s big picture. It’s you know, where you have big picture company culture. Employees are, project deadlines, keeping their client happy for the day, training the new employee.

Steve: It’s it’s really kind of focused on the day to day there in the world when it’s, you know, owners, it’s cash flow. You have skin in the game making big decisions. So the goal here is to start to meld these two characteristics.

Victoria: Now, you know, before we started, even before we started recording this session today, you talked a little bit about how accountability and delegation are really the crux of this. So how do you mean? And and what should we look at first.

Steve: Yeah. And we’ll get into, these two things. I mean, delegation is, creating this ownership in your company by, you know, being able to have the owner taking off hats, promoting themselves in a sense, but, creating the owners, by giving them more things to do, giving them the upward track, giving them that big picture mentality that an owner would have, and then the accountability.

Steve: I think the real thing is changing the definition of accountability, where, it’s a framework. It’s a system in your company. It’s to me, it has a, negative connotation when people are saying, well, they’re just not accountable, blah, blah, blah. to me it oftentime goes to finger pointing, blame, and just doesn’t truly get to what accountability is.

Steve: so for employees and owners.

Victoria: Let’s back up for just a second. Why? Yeah. Okay. You saw mistakes happening. You saw people not really doing things that you weren’t sure if they didn’t care or they just didn’t know how to be to do things the way you wanted it. So you start to focus on this whole concept. Why is it important? What are the benefits going to be to you, to the company, to the employees?

Victoria: What are why should we care?

Steve: Well, I think it comes down to, the ultimate success and performance of the company. You know, it’s it’s having the employees make decisions that you would ultimately, you have a vision for the business. It’s making less mistakes. It’s higher productivity and efficiency. It’s, employees being able to take initiative and, customer service. So higher quality product across the board.

Victoria: So specifically for an owner, how does that translate to to some specific benefits for, for owners. How does that change their lives for the better?

Steve: I think it’s, look, can deplete the stress a bit of having to feel as though everything is on your shoulders, back against the wall type of mentality. well, it offers growth in terms of the business, higher profits. and I think we can all say that, a company culture, happier employees, you know, everything flows up and down.

Steve: So you’ve got employees that are happy, self empowered, then they’re going to be working hard to fill out your vision. And I imagine should.

Victoria: Be and I imagine they’d stick around.

Steve: Longer and stick around retention. Exactly.

Victoria: And that would be huge in this particular marketplace. Right.

Steve: Yeah. And that’s one of the things that I talk about, in this talk is, the cost of hiring. And then what happens when you have the fire, you know, and so the disruption of firing the time involves, and then the cost of disengaged employees. There’s a I read that the cost of, American businesses face from disengaged employees is $550 billion.

Steve: I would assume that’s just, not being able to, complete a project time on Facebook or whatever, you know, simply not being engaged, but. Right. yeah. So I think you mentioned in the beginning what are some of the things that what were the real life examples? you know, it was mistakes that ultimately cost the company a lot of time and money based on the mistakes.

Victoria: Can you think of one specific thing that jumps out at. Yeah, that.

Steve: Well, I yes, I have one that haunts me daily. I had an employee turn a duplex into a single family home.

Victoria: Oh, how could that happen?

Steve: but I still am working on that, and, trying to figure that out. But it came down to the fact that, you know, when I delegated a certain task, you know, it was not set up properly. I did not, you know, set expectations, you know, what was supposed to happen on this project. And, basically, the employee followed an, a task that was given in a very narrow way.

Steve: So straight ahead.

Victoria: Give us the real story. What happened?

Steve: It was a, working in a townhouse here in Wilmington, Delaware, and I gave the, told the employee, one of our carpenters who was a helper at the time that, to chip off this tile in a, shower and the showers in the townhomes, in these old houses, these tile in the shower is hooked to the party wall.

Steve: The wall that separates the two units. And so, you know, I gave him the task of removing that tile. and, yes, it was removed, but he also removed the party wall that separated. And as I got home or when I got back to the job site, I, looked through the shower into a house where there was a, a woman who was crying and on the phone, which I don’t know if it was where I was, but the police in this one.

Steve: That set me on a path of how could this have happened? How could the, someone not kind of think outside the box or have the the thought to, you know, again, it comes back to if they, if they had as much at stake, if they cared as much as I did, it’s it really wasn’t the, the right way to look at it, you know.

Steve: So it was not set up for success.

Mark: So Steve, what are some actionable tips that owners should be doing to get their employees to think, like or act like an owner?

Steve: I think there are a few things. The, I think it comes down to transparency. transparency will start to, allow the employees to see what the big picture is of the company. Where are they going? So instead of just sticking to a, basically a task list, a to do list for the day, a job description, where are they going?

Steve: Where is the company going? So there’s a real buy in, and a direction of where they can go. so you’re transparent as an owner on decisions and actions that will, you know, I think we do it fantastically to toot for remodelers advantage of we all as a, you know, as a I’m the sales department and each department has a certain budget, has a certain transparency in the big picture of the company that they set, that I set.

Steve: And then I work to, achieve. another one is, really cultivating the ability for employees to make decisions and solve problems, instead of them having to, and this will get into the accountability. But, giving them the ability to make decisions to, not come to you all the time, asking which what’s the best direction?

Steve: and, and giving them the ability to not call all the time. I used to get the call on the cell phone all the time and say, Steve, we have a problem. Okay, well, to this day, it makes my stomach drop. it’s, you know, it’s before I, you know, we all want to hear solutions, but are the employees giving that direction, that authority, that ability to make those decisions?

Steve: Are they trained to do that?

Victoria: Well, so what if what if you have told them you’re the owner? You’ve said, I want you to make these decisions. You have the authority to make them. Is it blank? First of all, is it blank decisions? And secondly, what if they keep calling you? What do you say to them to make it stop?

Steve: So Victoria, I mean that’s a that’s a age old question. It’s a fantastic question. I think it’s important to look at employees. are they a renter or are they an owner? And when they look at their if you look at, a rental unit, if you’ve got some of your neighborhood, what is it look like? Hey, it’s the landscape I’ve kept.

Steve: Obviously not. They’re just not as invested. So these employees, you know, I think you look at what am I going to, How am I going to make this house look more beautiful? What’s the ownership? I have, in the house as an employee. So I think that allowing employees to fail for one. But and also adhering to an overall vision and mission of the company can bring you back to various decisions that that they will make.

Steve: They will have to make, very large scale decisions that involve, very large amounts of money or, you know, that involve other employees. I think that obviously there needs to be a hierarchy there. and that can be built. But, you know, day to day, we spilled paint on the floor. what should we do?

Steve: I mean, you know, or these are certain things that the employees just need to be able to be fully accountable for their decisions. And choices.

Mark: So, Steve, you just you said something in there about letting the employees fail, which I think is kind of a key to that, because if you take away that stress of making a bad decision, if they’re allowed to fail, then they’re more apt to make the decisions they need to make. Like an owner, what exactly? Let me ask you, when you’re one employee turned the duplex into a into a single family home, what what was the outcome?

Mark: What would you do? The guy, did you string them up or what happened?

Steve: well, he was given a, short absence. Right? Time to kind of step away and think about it. This is kind of what he wanted to do as a career. I mean, that was a big issue. But ultimately, where was the accountable he was? There was no the accountability was really on me. I did not said.

Steve: And that’s where we’ll we’ll get into this cycle of accountability that I talk about. But I didn’t set clear expectations.

Victoria: So Steve’s cycle of accountability, what is that.

Steve: So this really comes from the accountability, experienced by Linda Galindo. And it’s a matter of setting the clear agreements for a task, in your company, for the employee, for a project at hand. in the clear agreements there, a series of steps that you will discuss, that you will review with the employee as you start to delegate this, project.

Steve: I used the acronym todos, which is ABS task. What’s the task at hand? What will you be, doing? What do we have to get done in the project? what’s the outcome? What’s the deliverable? What? What’s it need to look like? What’s the level of detail? The format of the project? what are the actions that will need to be taken?

Steve: Are others need to be involved? Resources needed. and then by when the deliverable. By when does it need to be done? and then the stakes associated with completing the task, what are the consequences of not completing who will be impacted? So all of these really cover those points, setting the expectations with the employee, outlining what exactly needs to be done.

Steve: And by using this clear agreement form and everything revolves around these clear agreements, you’ve got responsibility, which is a before the fact mindset of ownership and commitment to the result. You’ve got self-empowerment and that’s taking personal action, and risk to ensure, an agreed on result. And then you have accountability, which is a personal willingness after the fact to answer the outcomes.

Steve: produced.

Mark: The todos thing was was a cool acronym you came up with. I actually came up with my own acronym. It’s er, Fleur, which, which stands for are you ready for the Lightning Round.

Victoria: Air for Steve? Sure.

Steve: Yes, A.s.a.p.. Let’s go. Okay. And now, here’s a reminder that lightning round. It’s a dry.

Mark: All right. Cool. Here we go with 60s on the clock.

Steve: Okay.

Mark: What’s your favorite business book and why?

Steve: I don’t know that it’s necessarily a business book, but The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is one that just always stuck with me.

Mark: If you weren’t director of business development here at Remodelers Advantage, what do you think you’d be doing?

Steve: I would be, a blacksmith.

Mark: What are you not very good at?

Steve: blacksmithing.

Mark: Your room, your desk or your car? Which do you clean first?

Steve: room. That’s where you wake up.

Mark: How many pancakes do you eat in a year?

Steve: Not enough. I have to really eat more. I will tell a story. My dad still holds the all time record at his high school for 17 pancakes in a sitting room. To shout out to dad.

Mark: What’s your biggest pet peeve?

Steve: gum chewing.

Mark: If you had a theme song, what would it be?

Steve: the Different Strokes theme song.

Victoria: All right. Hey, Steve, this is awesome. Thank you for sharing. You know, I know you’re learning a lot as you talk to these remodelers across the country about this topic. So anything we can do to help them sort of embrace this part of their role as business owners. Awesome. now, before we wrap up, though, I want you to share with our listening audience your five words of wisdom and why they resonate with you.

Steve: Kill the ego, free the soul.

Victoria: And why is that?

Steve: I think just, you know, the ego can just be a dangerous thing in terms of, a lot of self-doubt. Listen to your heart sometimes. Not your head.

Victoria: Okay. All right. Great. Thank you so much. And you know that accountability worksheet you talked about, the clear agreement worksheet? Do you think there’s something we could put in the show notes, Mark.

Mark: Absolutely sure we can do that. All right.

Victoria: Great. Cool. Thank you so much Steve. It’s been a pleasure.

Steve: Yeah. Thank you.

Victoria: All right. I’ll talk to you again by you know, one of the things that Steve talked about in getting your employees to think and act like owners, one of the first things he said was to have a culture of transparency and a sharing a vision for the company. So I can see that without that transparency of the company as a whole and where it’s heading and what the long term vision, how would an employee know where they stand in the company?

Victoria: How would they know what part they played in, and how their role fit into the overall success of the business?

Mark: And I think it goes a little bit to trust as well the transparency, giving trust in the employee that you want to share everything with them and kind of open your books and open, come in to the meetings and, and the trust will give them the confidence to know that they are considered an integral part of this team and maybe more.

Victoria: Oh, I would think so. You know what? Even when we bring on new employees, we hear from people, oh my God, you include everybody in the meetings. oh my God. We get to be part of the budgeting process because we’re so open about that stuff. Yeah, I would think that it would be. It would be a huge attribute for any company who was open like that in attracting and keeping employees.

Victoria: So we were also talking about getting those constant phone calls, right. The constant chaos that having employees that aren’t accepting responsibility causes because it can easily call on you. So you have to take the responsibility instead of them taking the responsibility. And, you know, it’s a little trick that I was told one time was dumb just to not answer.

Victoria: When they ask, you know.

Mark: Just ignore them.

Victoria: No, not ignore them. But say, what do you suggest? What do you recommend? If they do it, I don’t know. So will then go back and think about it. Get back to me in 20 minutes. Tell me what you think.

Mark: Yeah, I’ve done that. Well, what would you do in that situation? Right. And I had a toilet paper. Well, what do you think the next step would be?

Victoria: Put it on the list. Go to the store. You know, lots of things.

Mark: Figure it.

Victoria: Out. Yeah. Figure it out. Right.

Mark: The thing is, his session goes. It’s over an hour and even then, he doesn’t touch on everything. So you can only really in a in a 30 minute podcast, you can only graze all the things you need to get into.

Victoria: You know, I think the key to remember here is that everyone can learn to embed this sort of culture in their company. It’s a step by step process. It’s not something that you have to come up with on the fly. You follow certain steps. You use the accountability worksheet that we’re going to provide you. You think through, you take a little bit of prep time upfront and everybody can embed this in their company.

Victoria: It can and it can be done. And we see it all the time.

Mark: Looks good stuff. I’ll put that in the show notes. For those of you that don’t know, the show notes are in their entirety at the website Power Tips podcast.com. That’s where you’ll be able to find all the show notes and the downloads whenever we have them.

Victoria: So thank you so much for listening. We appreciate it greatly. And, hope that you continue to please give us a little shout out, if you can on, the platform of your choice.

Mark: Yes. Reviews, reviews. Please give us thumbs ups or likes or kisses or whatever the heck your your social media platform does. All right. Thanks for being here. I’m Mark Harari.

Victoria: And I’m Victoria Downing. Thank you. And see you next time.