Mark: Today on Power Tips Unscripted. We talk to Joe Curcillo, speaker, author, strategist of Pot Emporium. Adapted from his popular motivational book Getting to Us. Joe is here to guide you through the processes of mission analysis, productivity evaluation, and goal prioritization to determine your company’s ultimate path to success. And we’ll hear what he has to say in just a minute.

Victoria: Just. I am Victoria Downing and welcome to Power Tips Unscripted, where we talk about tactics and techniques to help you build a strong, profitable remodeling company. And I’m here with my co-host, Marc Ferrari. Hey, Nick. How are you doing, Mark?

Mark: I’m excited.

Victoria: I wonder what episode this is. We got to be getting up there a ways.

Mark: thank you. Put me on the spot when? So I’m not going to guess. I don’t know. They’re just flying by.

Victoria: I know, really, it’s hard to believe we’ve been doing this for a couple of years already. Three is so much fun because we get to talk to cool people. Like today.

Mark: Yeah, it’s going to be great.

Victoria: Yeah. So let me jump in. All right. Jump. Okay. For more than 40 years, Joe Curcillo has had the pleasure of presenting information from the courtroom to the boardroom. His experience is that his experiences as a prosecutor, mentalist and bestselling author have made him a uniquely position speaker for organizations working to unify their personnel to achieve greatness. And Joe is not only going to share it with some of us today.

Victoria: He is also a keynote speaker at the 2022 Remodeler summit. So welcome, Joe.

Joe: Thank you. Glad to be here today.

Victoria: Yeah. Delighted to have you. You’re not too far away from us. Physically, I don’t think. Are you?

Joe: No, not at all. I am in Hershey, Pennsylvania, so.

Victoria: Oh, pretty darn close. What is that? Is there smell of chocolate just wafting through the air? Everywhere up there?

Joe: You know, there was. Until they came in and the government changed all the restrictions. And now we don’t have all that beautiful aroma anymore.

Victoria: that’s probably good, because I would be finding myself searching for chocolate to eat constantly. I’m sure. Yes. So, Joe, what is a unifying vision and why do companies need one?

Joe: Sure. A unifying vision is one that excites your employees and excites your team, and makes them want to be part of it. I use a number of examples when I speak, but one of my favorites, is the Martin Guitar Company. The Martin Guitar Company. You go to the factory and you get a tour. Your tour guides are actually the people that work for the company on the line making guitars, and they randomly sign up so they can give tours because they believe in what they do.

Joe: They believe in the company, and they feel a sense of purpose and belonging. And that is the unifying vision.

Victoria: Okay, great. So what are some of the elements that go into making this work in the company? I mean, and how did people start developing it?

Joe: Sure. You know, we take a look at our company mission statement, our corporate mission. We take a look at what it is that we want to project to the outside world. The first thing we have to do is sit back and look at what do we want to project internally? What do we want our people to see us as?

Joe: Forget about the rest of the world for a minute. What do our employees, what do we want their employees to see? What do we want our teams to see? Once we start to focus on that, we then have to look at what is going to give them meaning or purpose. If you look at on, for instance, I always tell people to look at Facebook and you see everybody on their birthday is doing fundraisers for different charities and things like that.

Joe: Everybody wants to feel like they have a purpose, they have meaning and they belong. And if you can start to find the common thread of purpose among your employees, then you have the beginning of a unifying vision. I want to share with you and I can tell you that one of the ways I learned this, and I look at it from the construction industry, my father was a lifetime carpenter and my father was a construction a foreman, a carpentry foreman on 48,000 homes in Northeast Philadelphia.

Victoria: Wow.

Joe: And, it’s funny because if you asked him, his answer was, what did you do in the 60s? I built Northeast Philadelphia. Okay, great. And that was his vision for his team. We are building Northeast Philadelphia. We are giving people somewhere to go. We’re creating homes. And that’s what drove him every day. Was that vision and his carpenters bought into it and loved it.

Joe: And they were part of it.

Victoria: Yeah. That’s awesome. So so how do you find that unifying or, you know, not the unifying vision, but the core purpose or the common purpose among a whole bunch of different employees?

Joe: Sure. You know, there are it’s not just going to be one single thing. I have one company that actually empowered a group of their employees to create the I don’t know what they called it internally. I don’t think they had a name, but it was a charitable unit. The group of employees spoke on behalf of everybody, and a certain percentage of the profits were going to charity, and the employees got to direct which way the charity, which charities were funded, where they go.

Joe: if you look at some of the bigger companies and how well, you know, Apple or, Amazon, the employees, for instance, when they get hired, Apple is hiring innovative people. They know that that’s what they’re going in for. using that model, I worked with one of my prescription benefit manager companies, and they created a basically a no hold bar.

Joe: You can’t make a mistake here environment where they went to their teams and said, hey, be innovative. Tell us what the solutions are. We’re not going to hold you responsible. You know, if you make a mistake now, if you make a really big one, we all know that’s going to happen. But you know, this was one where they gave them a chance to start to dictate what the employees thought should be happening, because these were people who were in the industry.

Joe: They knew it. And the CEO admitted that he was running frazzled and wasn’t really as involved as his team. So he let them start to dictate what the goals were and everybody jumped on board.

Victoria: Okay, so that’s kind of fun and it’s a really good example. But you know, so those that are philanthropic will definitely get on board and feel that vision and all that. What if people aren’t particularly philanthropic?

Joe: Well, in the company that did the philanthropic effort, the charitable group, it wasn’t about the philanthropy that they philanthropy, I want to say, is what they used to spearhead. And people jumped on board even though they weren’t philanthropic. Yeah. And the reason was they were having a say in what happened to the company’s profits.

Victoria: Right.

Joe: And they felt they were involved in that respect. Now, not all companies are going to have philanthropy as the goal. For instance, you know, I joke about it, but when I had my law firm, it was funny. I kept offering to try to do investments in different charities, and everybody in my firm wanted to go in a different direction.

Joe: And, I tell the story because it was interesting. There was every time I started to talk about where we were going to go or what we were going to do, everybody had something different until one luncheon where all of a sudden we realized every single one of us had rescue pets. and it was hysterical because unless I had actually engaged with my team, I wouldn’t even have known that.

Joe: You know? So me trying to get them to understand what we were doing, it was interesting. Now all of a sudden, that open dialog gave a solution.

Victoria:

Joe: So that’s the charitable side. But by the way, I want to tell you, there’s also companies I’ve worked with where the vision is just absolute customer driven focus, and they give the employees the authority and ability to embrace that. And they don’t question them. They don’t challenge them, and they let them do it any time, like they love what they’re doing.

Joe: I have a credit union that I work with, and I have to tell you, I laugh, but I switched my money to them, not just because they were a client, but because when I met with the money manager, I never met anybody so excited to work for a company in my life. And I drank the Kool-Aid.

Victoria: You know, I it’s awesome. And they said they got a customer out of it, right?

Joe: Yeah, they did, but I mean, it was just it’s they love what they do. And that’s what you want.

Victoria: Now you were you were a lawyer. You were a prosecutor, right?

Joe: Yes. And prosecution and defense.

Victoria: Okay. So why did you switch into doing what you’re doing now with, you know, with your your company now got businesses of all types, right.

Joe: Yes. That is an interesting question and thank you for asking. I, I spent my years as a prosecutor. Then I became a defense lawyer. And what happened throughout the process is when you’re a defense lawyer, you sometimes wake up in the morning and say, wow, I really have to deal with evil people today. Oh, and and it starts to get to you.

Joe: So as I, I tell the story that the day I was sitting in the kitchen and wrote the last tuition check for my youngest daughter’s college tuition, my wife just looked across the table and said, you’re closing the firm, aren’t you? Yeah, well, and you know, so I knew that was coming. But I tell everybody the unifying vision that I speak of and how to talk to people, to communicate it.

Joe: I learned that in a courtroom.

Victoria: How do you mean?

Joe: Okay, as a trial lawyer. Now, remember, somehow I’m going to, you know, I was a prosecutor. It was different. But as a defense lawyer, it’s different. But let’s take defense. Lawyer. You walk into a courtroom, you have somebody that could be a threat to society, and you’re asking 12 people to find the person not guilty and set them free.

Joe: Well, how do you do that? And the answer was for me, I created a vision that those people could jump on. It was draped in the Constitution, the presumption of innocence. And then I created a factual basis for them to find a reasonable doubt that the person wasn’t guilty, and I had to find something they could all swallow.

Joe: And trust me, those 12 people didn’t want to be in that courtroom, and I would find ways to engage them, to keep them in the courtroom, to make them want to be part of what I was doing. And as I tell everybody, and when I speak to companies directly, I tell the board, your people aren’t here under force or penalty of law, so you’ve got an advantage.

Victoria: Patrick. True. Very interesting. So, you know, again, I would think that, you know, as you’re telling a story, you had to learn to be a master storyteller in the courtroom.

Joe: Yeah.

Victoria: And then you’ve been able to translate that to what you do now?

Joe: Absolutely. I mean, I have taught and I will tell you, I mean, in the courtroom, learning how to tell a story is a life or death situation. If you tell a bad story, something bad is happening to someone.

Victoria: Wow. Dang, man. The pressure of that.

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, I look at it from the standpoint of, you know, you walk on stage and as a speaker, we I walk on stage and an hour later, I’m hoping the people like me. But as a defense lawyer, I walked on stage and I was hoping they would do the right thing at the end of it.

Joe: Yeah, and that is a completely different feeling, because you really do leave your entrails and your heart and soul laying on the floor of the courtroom. Yeah. And you need them to believe in you, Joe.

Mark: Is it the, is it the through through the being an attorney and and through that experience that you became a master showman? Does that where you, like, are the desert showmanship come after?

Joe: Well, you know, it was a blend. it’s both both are correct. I was as a, college student, law student. And in my early years, I was a magician. and I. Okay, I admit, and I can come clean. I was also a circus clown. you know, I feel so refreshed when I confessed to that.

Joe: but, no, I was actually, a clown. I was working in Hershey Park in their private picnic areas, while I was a deputy attorney general. And, by the way, I made more money as a clown than I did as a deputy attorney general I year. But the point is, I was entertaining. I burned out, in the early 90s, and then someone walked up to me and said, Joe, you know, if you go on stage and do what you do as jury selection and do it as a mentalist, you’re going to have a lot more fun.

Joe: And I met with, someone in New York who was a Broadway show mentalist, and all of a sudden I started thinking, oh, my God, this is fun. Well, so next thing I know, in the mid to late 90s, it became a full focus for direction, and I did that at the same time I was trying cases.

Victoria: Wow. That’s really interesting.

Mark: Yeah, it’s it’s I can’t wait for summit to to actually see your, your whole, your whole thing because it sounds like fascinating to, to incorporate like The Mentalist as fact.

Joe: We’re going to have some fun.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Actually on that, I should probably mention to tell our listeners that the Remodeler summit has been announced, it’s going to be at, Gaylord Natural National Harbor in Washington, DC. Joe is one of our keynote speakers. It’s going to be awesome. And the tickets aren’t sale yet. They’re going to go on sale soon. But, for our listeners and anyone kind of that can hear my voice, if you go to the Remodeler summit.com now, you can get, priority access pass so that on that first day of sale, the pre-sale, you can get the tickets for 50% off.

Mark: But it’s only that day. So if you want to get that, you should go to Remodeler summit.com, and you’ll get to see Joe and all the other 27 speakers. And it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Victoria: Yeah, it’s going to be great. Yeah. Okay. So back to back to some of the business at hand. What in your opinion what is the secret ingredient of team building.

Joe: The number one agreement. the number one ingredient. Respect.

Victoria: Oh, how do you mean?

Joe: Yeah. If you do not respect your team, you will not have a team. And I will tell you, It’s funny. the. I’m sitting in my basement, which was remodeled before the pandemic or within. Well, actually, the final coat of paint was put on that first day of the shutdown illegally. but the point is, the contractor that came in to do my basement with me, it was funny because he is yelling and screaming at his guys, and two of them were his sons.

Joe: And one of his sons asked a question. I gave him an answer. And this son right away started doing what I told him to do. And the contractor looked at me and said, my son respects you more than he respects me. and he goes, I don’t understand that. To which I jokingly said, talk to your son about that.

Joe: And I walked out of the basement and left him alone. And about ten minutes later he texts me, come out to the driveway. I walked out to the driveway. He looked at me and said, I did not know that you’re the one that got my son out of trouble when he got arrested. and I said to him, yes, I did, and what that created was a built in respect.

Joe: And I looked at him and I said, unfortunately, you can’t beat respect. That overpowers everything. and what happened is after that, getting into some discussions, my old career as a contractor and a civil engineer came out when we were talking about stuff, and next thing you know, his whole crew started to listen to me, and he looked at me and said, I wish I could do that.

Joe: And I said, you can. And as time went on, it’s funny because he had just left a major family business and now he’s on his own, and he was not a client, a friend, but a friend sitting in a cigar shop. And he started to realize that talking to his people respectfully makes a major difference. Respecting their time, being on time.

Joe: When you tell them to be somewhere, respecting their knowledge, listening to it not always Pooh poohing it, because sometimes you might think you have the right answer, but someone on your team has a better answer, you know? So it’s in a number of ways. Treat them with respect and hear them out.

Mark: Joe, you you also wrote, a book called Don’t Be a Hamster, correct?

Joe: Yes, yes.

Mark: Okay. Just to diverge slightly on that one, what? could you could you share a few secrets on on how we can get off the hamster wheel?

Joe: Sure, absolutely. you know, there’s a number of them, and I don’t know if I, I don’t know if I love any one more than the others, but no matter how stressful things are, the number one thing I tell people is find a hobby, find something to excite you and give you a chance to step away from the daily grind.

Joe: Okay, it might be something that is, you know, playing an instrument. I. I jokingly tell people I am the world’s worst guitarist and I’m proud of it. but I love sitting with it. Another one is to get physical exercise. No matter how busy you are, start moving. It’ll make you feel better. It’ll invigorate you. Dreaming big is a major one.

Joe: Don’t limit yourself to the day. Dream big. Know where you’re going? No. What you want to achieve. What I can tell you is, Don’t be a hamster. These tips that I’m sharing, I just want people to know they’re not random BBS. These were a list of rules that I used in a courtroom when I was defending horrible, heinous people and still keeping my life on track and not falling into a.

Victoria: Right.

Joe: A hole. And my publisher looked at me one day and said, you should publish those rules. So that’s where Don’t Be a hamster came from, where they were tried and true. Over 20 some years of my practice.

Mark: Now, surely at some point in your in your, legal career, you, you defended innocent people, right?

Joe: oh yeah. Absolutely.

Mark: Absolutely. So they were they weren’t all heinous.

Joe: No, no. And let me say something. The innocent ones are random and few and far between. Yeah, but they’re the ones that make everything worthwhile.

Victoria: Right?

Joe: Yep yep yep.

Mark: Well. I’m sorry.

Joe: No, no, I was going to say, but I’m very honest. And most of my clients knew they were guilty. So.

Mark: Well, on that, I wanted to, invite you into our, our little courtroom. we call it the Lightning Round. Are you ready for that?

Joe: Oh, absolutely. Oh, and now here’s a remodelers advantage. Lightning round.

Victoria: It’s a trap.

Mark: Okay, let’s put 60s on the clock. Joe, what’s your favorite business book and why?

Joe: you know, it’s not a business book, but, my my favorite is my Voice Will Go With you, which is a book up from Milton Erickson about how to speak to people and get them to remember everything you say. he was actually a, forefather hypnosis and the forefather of.

Mark: I know if you weren’t a speaker, author and strategist, what do you think you’d be doing?

Joe: probably an artist painting.

Mark: What do you not very good at?

Joe: I am not good at guitar. I suck at it.

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

Joe: My car.

Mark: Name a movie you see more than ten times.

Joe: Casablanca. Love that movie.

Mark: Me 2 in 1 word. Describe your high school self, nerd. If you can have a theme song, what would it be?

Joe: Oh, yeah, I back in black.

Victoria: That’s good, that’s good. Joe, this has been awesome. We’re really excited to have you come and join us at the summit and share your very unique skills and and unique back around. So it’ll be a lot of fun. Now, before I let you go, however, I’d like you to share with our listening audience your five words of wisdom and why they resonate with you.

Joe: And I sort of already threw it out there, but I’ll say it again. Say it now. It’s five words, but treat your team with respect.

Mark:

Joe: And that resonates with me because the one thing I always knew when I ran, I ran a restaurant. I ran my law firm. I’ve been on boards. The minute you disrespect somebody, you lose everything because no one is going to follow someone who disrespects them, right? Right. That is a key ingredient in accomplishing everything you do from.

Victoria: Well, thank you so much for sharing that and for being here with us. It’s been a lot of fun. And again, we’ll see you in a couple of months at the summit.

Joe: I am looking forward to it. Thank you both very much.

Mark: Thanks, Jeff.

Joe: Thank you.

Victoria: What an interesting background that guy has.

Mark: I mean, I’ve heard of like looking across at an attorney and thinking, what a clown.

Victoria: But but in this case, literally.

Mark: He was a clown while he was doing it. Right. So, that was hilarious to me.

Victoria: You know, I’m really excited about his presentation at the summit because he’ll be building a lot around the business lessons that he’s learned through all these various experiences. But he’s also going to be, you know, adding in some some of his mentalist skills. Yeah.

Mark: The mind shark, right? Yeah. It’s that’s going to be cool. I think that stuff is fun. Yeah.

Victoria: Me too.

Mark: And it’s always, you know, I, I personally retain more, information when I’m being entertained. No kidding. As opposed to somebody droning on.

Victoria: I totally agree with you. I wish I was funnier, you know,

Mark: You can be funny.

Victoria: Yeah, sometimes.

Mark: It’s not intentional, but it’s pretty funny.

Victoria: And sometimes it is intentional.

Mark: Is it? Yes. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. That was fun. So, Yeah. Wow. A clown, a mentalist, an attorney.

Victoria: A restaurant.

Mark: Owner, restaurant, and, strategist. Yeah. an author. you know, I was actually scared to ask him what he would be doing if he wasn’t. I know, because I, you know, there’s not much left, right? but, anyway, we want to thank, Joe for sharing, a just a taste of of what we can expect at the Remodeler summit.

Mark: And, of course, we want you to check out Remodeler summit.com, get your your free pass in the email so that you can you can don’t pay more than you need to get 50% off that ticket. Yeah. And, so we want to thank Joe. And of course we want to thank you for being here and tuning in week in and week out.

Mark: I’m Mark Harare and.

Victoria: I’m Victoria Downing. See you next time. This has been another episode of Power Tips Unscripted. The Remodelers Guide to Business. Visit w w w dot Remodelers advantage.com to learn more about roundtables our World-Class Peer Advisory Program. There you can also find information about our business consulting services, upcoming life events, and much more. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show and comment on iTunes.

Victoria: Thanks for listening to Beautiful Day.