Your People Aren’t The Problem, Your Systems Might Be.

Kyle: If you're at the RISE conference this year, you may have caught Logan Shinholser's breakout session. He runs contractor growth network, and his whole talk came down to one premise. Your next project is probably within a mile of the project you're finishing right now. That's what CGN builds for modelers, a system where your finished work does the selling so that the job you're wrapping up brings you the next one. Instead of worrying about a list of tactics to market your company, you need a system of marketing your individual projects to the neighborhoods that you want to be in. To learn more about this strategy, or if you want to watch Logan's talk, you can find both on contractorgrowth network.com in the resources section. That's contractorgrowthnetwork.com. Welcome to the Remodelers on the Rise show. It is I don't know when you're listening to this or when it's gonna be published, but it's September first. Ryan, do you get excited at the like the start of a new month? Does it feel fresh or is it just another day?

Ryan Englin: It it's just another day, but September is when we start cooling off. Then I get excited about fall. Big fan of fall.

Kyle: and you're cool and you're cooling off from where?

Ryan Englin: I'm out in Nashville, Tennessee. And we are not cooling off today. It's coming. It's coming.

Kyle: Yes. Now you used to properly No. I it's and and I'm up here in Michigan and it's a solid ninety degree day, but we see some highs in the seventies coming up. I will share I will share this with the audience before we get into not one, not two, but three topics that we're gonna spend ten, twelve minutes on each. Ryan and I have known each other for a decent number of years, but we haven't talked in how long?

Ryan Englin: Been a year. Yeah.

Kyle: It's been about a year. It's been about a year. Ryan came up and spoke at one of my VIP club deals in person back in the day. And we've done some podcasts and we've done some just even just get on the phone and mastermind it together, like, hey, what are you working on? but it's been a little bit, so this is a good reminder for me, and it's a good reminder for the people listening. There are people in your sphere in your network that are life-giving when you spend time with them. Ryan's one of those over the years for me. At the same time, we're all busy business owners. I don't I don't need to feel guilty for not reaching out to Ryan over the last year. Frankly, he's got my number too. Ha. but

Ryan Englin: Do. But but but I'm pretty sure I reached out about this. So yeah.

Kyle: You did reach out. Well, your people reached out about this. And I jumped all over. Of course I'll have Ryan back on the podcast.

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: It's a way for us to catch up, plus that. But it's a good reminder for all of us. Yes, there's only so much time, but a little bit of per of purposefulness of going, you know what? I've got a handful of folks who I've gotten to know over time that if I just if we touch base two times a year, maybe even three times a year, it'll

Ryan Englin: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: probably help sharpen my thought process. I enjoy spending time with them. I can speak into and give them help on on my end. So as you're listening to this business owners, Think about some people that might be that for you, that it's been a little too long since you've connected, like Ryan and I. and maybe as a result of even this opening parlay, you push the pause button and you go reach out to them and invite them out to a little Zoom, invite them out for a little breakfast, or a BLB, breakfast, lunch, or beer, your choice,

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: if you're local to them. So I'll say that. and how did we originally connect? Do you remember that? Well, you're almost 50, so you can't remember these things anymore. Okay. I don't remember.

Ryan Englin: No, I don't remember. I can't remember these things anymore. I I have I have an agent somewhere that'll remember it for me. I could look it up. Mm-hmm.

Kyle: an AI agent. Here's my hot take. In the in the in the in the world of AI, maybe we ought to be a little more analog. Maybe we ought to be a little bit less AI. What's your thoughts on that, Mister?

Ryan Englin: I think AI is great for doing. I think it's horrible for thinking. And I think a lot of people are using AI to replace the thinking and the creativity and they need to stop it. But I agree. I think that I just

Kyle: I like that.

Ryan Englin: got I just emailed someone and their AI bot responded to me, said, We're not interested. And I was like, I just talked to you last week. So yeah, we got it doing a little too much right now.

Kyle: Yeah. there's a skit that yeah, fair enough. so he he runs a business called Core Matters. Your little tagline says eliminate chaos, build better teams, grow profits. if you were to just give a little summary of who you are and what you do, Ryan, if you could do that, and then we'll

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: go into our three topics.

Ryan Englin: Yeah, absolutely. Ryan England, CEO and founder of Core Matters, bestselling author of Hi Bet Hire Better People Faster, podcast host of Titans of the Trades, soon to be Systems, Not Seminars. We're gonna rebrand it and do something

Kyle: Ooh.

Ryan Englin: a little different. Excited about it. and also the creator of fieldcon.io, which we're gonna get to talk about, a software platform to help you with performance evals. I've been doing this for about 15 years and I love the trades. Like I I grew up in a blue-collar family. I just, every time that someone has said, get away from blue collar, go the white collar out, talk to, I get pulled back in because I'm like, that's not fun over there. I like this. And so been doing it for a long time. And, you know, we work with the owners, typically smaller organizations. We work with owners, owner operators who are just sick and tired of the business not running the way they want it to run. And

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: typically we fix that by building great teams of people that they can trust that'll run it just like they want to. Usually how we solve that problem.

Kyle: You made it sound very straightforward. but it's infinitely difficult, isn't it? It's tricky. It's tricky.

Ryan Englin: It is. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle: but that but that is that is the bottom line that so many of us are chasing, and so many of the people listening are chasing, is going, it cannot continue to be so owner-centric, so owner dependent. And the answer to that is having great people around you. The answer to that is having great systems around you. and let's leave let's let that lead into our first topic. I'm not even gonna unveil the three topics, but I will unveil the first one. Turnover

Ryan Englin: Boom. Okay.

Kyle: is a system problem, not a people problem. turnover.

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: This this we we spent so much time recruiting this person and onboarding this person and pouring into this person and working really hard. And here you are saying turnover is a system problem. Not a people problem. I'd like you to kind of share your wisdom related to that topic.

Ryan Englin: It's interesting how you put that. We invest all this time, we invest

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: all this energy. And what I found is that the energy we're investing is the wrong energy. The time we're investing is the wrong time. And when we build a system that onboards people at their pace, it onboards them in a way that they best onboard. Not everybody onboards the same way. I am not a checklist guy. You hand me a checklist, you know, like here, fill out all these documents. Guess what? That checklist ain't getting done. I get excited about connecting and meeting people and feel like I belong. And we can create systems that allow us to do that. You know, somebody will say, I'm sure there's someone listening going, no, no. You have not met Tommy. Tommy is my project manager. He's the reason we have turnover. Nobody likes him. Well,

Kyle: Hm.

Ryan Englin: the reason that Tommy still works for you is you tolerate this stuff. Because you don't have a system in place to help you manage Tommy.

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: And it's the lack of system. See, here's the thing about the trades. This is what I've learned. Most of us grew up with tools in our hands. And then we made this leap and said, we're gonna go start our own business. You know, I've been moonlighting for a while, I'm gonna go do this, and then I'm gonna hire my friends and my family, and we're gonna have this tight little little group. And it's great. But then eventually you get to a point where you gotta hire someone you don't know. And you hire this person you don't know, and you expect them. To operate the same way your friends and family do.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: And then they come in and they make a mess of everything, or they don't do things the way you want. And it's not because you're not communicating it, it's because you don't have it documented. You don't have a set of processes for them to follow. I like to say this. So I like to say, so what would Kyle do? Let's talk about that. What would Kyle do? And let's write that down. And so many owners have it in their head. Like this is one of the things. You probably heard this. No news is good news. You've heard that, right?

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: So if you're in the trades and I haven't yelled at you today, you're doing a good job. That's the wrong way to onboard people. That's the wrong way to keep people. But that's kind of the mentality we have because no one's ever taught people how to do this, how to build a system that follows it through. So whether that's onboarding, employee retention, engagement, engagement's huge. We don't talk about engagement enough. It's kind of this foo-foo thing. How do we get people to engage? There are systems you can put in place that'll help your people stay engaged. Engagement, yeah.

Kyle: Hm. Let's hit on let's hit on Grabfist.

Ryan Englin: I was just gonna say engagement leads to pr productivity and productivity leads to profitability.

Kyle: So unveil it a little bit because everybody listening is like, here we go talking about systems again, process again. give give us a couple of your favorite ones that you like to implement, like to teach people how to document. what are

Ryan Englin: Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle: a few of those that you've seen move the needle the most?

Ryan Englin: So I'm a huge fan of pulse surveys. So a pulse survey, it's like going to the doctor, they take your pulse, right? See how your heart's doing?

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: Well, we've all got pulse in our business. Some of it's a monthly pulse, right? Like we invoice monthly, we bill monthly, like we have this monthly cycle in the business. Your employees have a pulse too, at how they engage. And what a lot of studies have shown is about every 90 days, they we need to take a pulse. We need to understand where your people are at, how they feel. So we like the pulse survey. It's eight questions. Scale of one to five, super simple. And it's not, it's not like there's a good score and a bad score. What we're looking for is progress. Are we getting better quarter over quarter? And we've had some companies that come in and they score fives across the board. And it's like they're perfect. And they're the most messed up because everybody's afraid to be honest.

Kyle: Hmm.

Ryan Englin: Right. And then we have other ones that come in and they score in the ones and twos and they're like, my people hate me. I'm like, no, this is great. They trust you enough to tell you what's really going on. Like it's so counterintuitive when we get these things back. We're looking for progress. And if

Kyle: Hm.

Ryan Englin: you put a system in place that every quarter that just goes out like clockwork, you will know in a couple of months time, couple of years time, how your people feel, what's working,

Kyle: What

Ryan Englin: what's not.

Kyle: what are a couple of the questions?

Ryan Englin: you know, do one one of might be, do I have the tools necessary to do my work? Tools don't always mean the things that you hold in your hands. Sometimes it could mean I have the tools, the the software, I might have other things. another one is I feel like my boss or another leader cares about my career. See, we don't talk about the emotional side of business enough in the trades for a whole bunch of reasons, but we're all emotional human beings. And people want to know that they're cared for. People want to know that we're interested in the things that they do outside of work. We want to create this sense of belonging. And we have to do that by talking to people. We have to do that by

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: asking them questions. And we're not good at that. So let's put a system in place to ask the questions for you. Like one of the engagement questions that I love is: I have a best friend at work. Yes or no. Your people are six times more likely to be engaged if they have a best friend at work. Six times. So let's put a mentoring program or a buddy program in place, built in the friend, they're six times more likely to be engaged. And engaged employees are productive and productive leads to profitability.

Kyle: So I even talking to my son last night, and he's thinking about coming back for year three of student painters. And his top reason is well, you know, so-and-so and so-and-so are gonna come back. So like that instantly makes it more appealing and enjoyable versus

Ryan Englin: Sure.

Kyle: when you're feeling a little bit on on your own. So cis systems, systems, turnover is a system problem, not a people problem. One of the things you mentioned is is pulse surveys. Make sure. That's a great amount of time isn't going by without really checking in on various aspects of of their role. You mentioned the engagement side, making sure that we are taking time for some of that softer stuff of culture building and relationship building and for them to be seen and valued and all of that side of things. What would be one other system example that you that you go to?

Ryan Englin: Yeah, I mean so to me, processes are the individual things that they do, systems or collections of processes. Another thing that I think most, especially on the smaller side, we miss, is a really well-defined job description and something that they understand. Right? Not this thing that ChatGPT made for you that you ripped off of Google or indeed that has nothing to do with your business. Like really sit down and what is it that a carpenter does? What is it that a laborer does? What is it that your PM does? And really sit down and spell it out for them in English, not lawyer terms, not HR terms.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: And then don't just give it to them and say, here's your job. Say let's go through this together. What makes sense? What doesn't make sense? What works? What doesn't work? When people have clarity around what your expectations are, it's much easier to meet or exceed your expectations.

Kyle: Hmm. I like that. And yeah, how did how do they actually keep score in their role? How whether it's KPIs and these are

Ryan Englin: Mm. Yeah.

Kyle: the things that we're measuring. I think it's a super interesting example exercise to basically dust off whatever job description you have and give it a little update because inevitably it shifts over time. And I see this a lot with project managers or with lead carpenters and that side of things

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: of going, let's go through together. The various aspects of your job description, like there's gonna be probably four core things or maybe six or seven core items on here. And let's just rank ourselves and rate ourselves. Maybe it's a little one to five. How are you feeling on your ability to really deliver an organized, continually updated schedule? I give

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: myself a three on that. How do you feel like you're doing with conflict resolution? How do you feel like you're doing with understanding the job costing on the project that you're managing and delivering it on budget? And all of a sudden now we have a little bit of a pulse. This is another, I'm gonna hack that pulse survey, another hack of of the pulse survey of going,

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: you know what, on her on their core roles, we now can prioritize strengths and weaknesses. And now it becomes so much easier to say, hey, it's a fresh month. In the month of September, let's do some focused work and training and and focus on this part of your role.

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: That to me sounds like leadership. That to me sounds like somebody that's being seen and being encouraged and a

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: system that can help them continue to be improving.

Ryan Englin: Yeah. Absolutely. And you're even

Kyle: And it's when we're not doing any of this that turnover happens. Some would say it's a system problem more so than a people problem.

Ryan Englin: Hm. Yeah. You know, and and here's the other thing. If you've got turnover problems, the one thing that most people f forget to look at is your hiring system. Cause if you're bringing in the wrong people and they're either causing your people to leave or they're not staying long and they're leaving, or you're asking them to leave because you hired the wrong person, could be a hiring problem too. But that's for another topic. But lots of systems

Kyle: Yes. Yes. I think

Ryan Englin: that impact this.

Kyle: I think we have similar cadence. I bet you people are like, these guys get excited out of the blue all of a sudden. We're both doing it. Where we're like, da da da da da da da da da da. But I think they like I think they like that. I think we're getting

Ryan Englin: Okay.

Kyle: their attention. and let's keep going. I think that first one was great. We just gave some people some even this even this broad thing of systems, we gave some people some tangible things. Moving on to the second of third topic. Accountability. Without micromanaging.

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: Tell us about that.

Ryan Englin: Well, let's do this first. Let's define accountability. Let's define micromanagement. Cause I think people get them blended. Do you have a definition for those? Why how do you define each each one?

Kyle: I this is my first of all, this is my podcast. I ask the questions. I don't get put on the spot like this because now

Ryan Englin: Okay.

Kyle: I'm feeling an immense amount of pressure. What if I define

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: it wrong? Is this how people feel when I ask them questions? hang on, I'll I said that, but I'm yes.

Ryan Englin: I get it. And that's why I asked you because you know, these people listening are they're feeling pressure. I don't know the difference.

Kyle: Okay, but I can be brave and I can try this. You're gonna

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: ask me to define accountability and to define micromanaging.

Ryan Englin: What's the difference between accountability and micromanagement? Let's just do that. What's the difference?

Kyle: Hmm, the difference between those two, the micromanaging, I mean, both can have some negative connotation to it. I find I found

Ryan Englin: Mm. Okay.

Kyle: even the word accountability can slide into a little bit of pushing pushing the thumb down. Give it yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Englin: Gives me stress. Like I don't wanna do talk about that. Yeah.

Kyle: so I think the word is interesting. At the same time, I think a lot of us are wise enough to recognize that if I am not giving my team members some things to be accountable. about if I'm not taking on some accountability and again the key roles and responsibility that I have in my role that progress doesn't happen. Frankly, if I am a kick butt, take names, I want to grow this company, I want to grow it along with you as a team member and whatnot, I should be welcoming some accountability.

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: So we have to be careful with kind of the negative connotation on that. I've never

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: heard anybody in a friendly way talk about micromanaging. And so to me, accountability It's it's a good thing. Micromanaging, leave me alone. I don't wanna be micromanaged. There's my tone of answer.

Ryan Englin: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what? And and the reason I put you on the spot was because

Kyle: You can do that.

Ryan Englin: I wanted everybody to hear that your definition is different than my definition.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: And if we kept talking, we'd probably define it three more different ways. And there's only two of us, right? So the problem with accountability is when I say it, you hear something different than what I intended. Because to you, there's a negative to it. There's that finger

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: pointing. And micromanagement is bad all the time. And so we have to be really careful when we throw these words around because everybody has probably a negative experience with one or both of those words. And that was where I was going with this. So here's the difference: micromanagement is about control. I micromanage you, Kyle, because I want you to do it exactly my way. I don't want you to make any mistakes. I want you to just be a robot that I can push buttons and you do exactly what I tell you. It's control. We see that a lot in the trades. My baby, my business, you're gonna do it my way. And if you don't want to do it my way, you can go. That's micromanagement. Accountability is about outcomes. More specifically, agreed upon outcomes. I cannot hold you accountable to something that you did not agree to. I can't. It's about agreed upon outcomes, which are never a problem because we agreed on them. See, the re when accountability becomes a problem is when I say, all right, Kyle, go do this. And you go, Yes, boss. And then

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: you don't do it. And then I'm like, you're the problem. And that's micromanagement. That's about control. So accountability is never a problem when it's about agreed upon outcomes.

Kyle: Good.

Ryan Englin: And the reality is. I've, you know what, I don't think I've ever met an employee that's like, nope, nope. I just never want to do a good job. In fact, I want to wake up, I want to drive to the job site, and I just want to feel like a failure all day because I do nothing right. I've never met a human being saying that before. But there are times where I don't want to do it right for you. I don't

Kyle: Hm.

Ryan Englin: care about the outcomes you care about because we didn't agree on that. And that's the big difference between accountability and micromanagement. And we blur the lines a lot. And everybody blurs the lines because somebody was in a position where they were being micromanaged, but the word accountability was being used.

Kyle: Hm. And now it's all twisted up.

Ryan Englin: And now it's all a mess. And like I said, we have two different definitions. We could probably come up with five or six more. And so everybody has their experience when it comes to one or both of those words. And I want to be clear, I think that micromanagement. Is always negative. But I also believe that there are some people that sometimes they just wake up and they're just like, I want you to just micromanage me today. Just tell me what to do and I will go do it. But that's not healthy long term. So there's a place for it, but

Kyle: Hmm.

Ryan Englin: accountability is the agreed upon outcomes. And that's the part we miss. What we do, what we do is we forget to get the commitment and the buy-in. And then we don't have the commitment and buy-in, usually because we weren't clear on what we were committed to. And usually we weren't clear 'cause we didn't think through, build a system, put a process in place so that it's clear with everybody.

Kyle: Do you do you take KPIs, key performance indicators? You do these things that's going to result in the outcomes that we're looking for. do you kind of the agreed upon outcomes and KPIs, are they nicely gelled together or do you have different vernacular for that?

Ryan Englin: Yeah, I there's a dozen different ways to call KPIs, but yes. I I like to say your people need to know how they put points up on the scoreboard. Whatever that scoreboard is, wherever it is, whatever you want to call it. There's a scoreboard. Nobody wants to play a game they can't win. I don't think. Maybe there are people that want to play a game they can't win.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: But usually, I mean I talk about this with sports teams. When you see them warming up or scrimmaging, they never play as hard as when they're actually keeping score.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: It's the same thing with your people. You want your people to step up and you want them to play hard and work hard, get it done. Tell them how you're keeping score. Don't keep it a secret. This is the worst thing we do. well, we figure out your KPIs at the end of every quarter, or we do it right before your review, and then you'll know. And I have heard people tell me, yeah, I just got out of my review. Turns out for the last 11 months, I've been messing up this one thing. That's information that would have been great 11 months ago.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: But we didn't have a system in place to track. To monitor, to real time assess the KPI or metric or whatever you call it. We didn't have something in place, a system in place that could do it. I believe that if you're gonna hold somebody accountable to a KPI, they have to be able to self-service that KPI. There should be a

Kyle: Good.

Ryan Englin: place where they can go, hey, I wonder how I'm doing today and pull it up on their phone. They're like, real time. If you can't do that, it's not a good KPI. Or it's

Kyle: Good.

Ryan Englin: not a good system. You gotta fix that.

Kyle: I like that. We just we just did our rise our rise conference and we did

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: we structured it around kind of our core values, our results, I improve, s serve, e engage. Pretty clever, huh? Pretty clever.

Ryan Englin: Like it.

Kyle: and I did a little 30-minute spiel on the results side. And as I was thinking, okay, what you know, what can what can I tell these folks that are in attendance related to results, the KPIs and key performance indicators, metrics, whatever we want to call them, just really solidified of like I think a lot of us aren't taking our KPIs serious. And I

Ryan Englin: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: also noticed that the remodeling companies that really have their stuff together, I almost said poop in a group. You get it? You get it?

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: the yeah, I should I need to be more do you think I need to be a more mature pot? Should I not say stuff like that, Ryan? You probably don't say that on yours though.

Ryan Englin: No, it's okay. My I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to solo episodes for a while, so we're gonna find out how crass I can be. But my my

Kyle: Okay, yeah, your real your real personality will come up.

Ryan Englin: daughter knows that if she wants to get a giggle out of me, all she's gotta do is find a way to work doo doo into a sentence and I lose it. So

Kyle: Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's good. That's good. I think the people liked it, but the the remodelers

Ryan Englin: Ha ha ha.

Kyle: got their crap together. They wow, they take KPI seriously. The

Ryan Englin: They do.

Kyle: remodelers who are really leading their team well, they take having clear, agreed upon outcomes. Sa very similar thing here. KPIs really seriously. They've got you mentioned Tommy earlier, they got Tommy as their project manager, and I could walk up to Tommy and say, Tommy, What are what is what are your KPIs, your agreed upon outcomes? Like how do you put points on the board? And Tommy

Ryan Englin: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: would go, Two years ago, I had no idea. But over the last year, we've really been working on that. And here's the three that really I'm measured on really consistently. It's not doesn't mean that's the only three things that I'm doing, but

Ryan Englin: Yeah, yeah.

Kyle: it's the 20% of things that result in the 80% of the results. So for those listening to this, I like how you've already given us a little softer definition of accountability. Simply agreed upon outcomes. That is a great little litmus test to go up to one of your team members and you can implement this and go. One of the things I just heard on the podcast is needing agreed upon outcomes. Can we brainstorm that together? We d you remember

Ryan Englin: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: those KPIs that we got all fired up about for a couple months that we got away from it? We're dusting that off. We're gonna take that seriously.

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: Not because we're gonna hold you accountable, not because we're gonna micromanage, but because I want you to know how to really succeed and put points on the board. in your role. Well, that means I'm getting

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: a bonus. Chances are maybe a little bit better because these things will lead to better outcomes for us overall. But we want

Ryan Englin: Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle: to s this is an example of how we can step up our game. Just just in overall. Good. That's good.

Ryan Englin: Yeah. Well, and and something that's really important too. When you have those agreed upon outcomes, you have the KPIs. I can walk up to Tommy and go, Tommy, how you doing this week? And

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: he's like, I don't know, let me look. Oof, this project's behind. I gonna fix it. You know what? I don't gotta say anything anymore.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: He knows what he's gotta fix. I don't have to dread that, here's the tough conversation. I've been letting Tommy slack for the last six weeks and we gotta get that Smith project back on track. No, he would know and then don't have to say anything,

Kyle: If you're at the RISE conference this year, you may have caught Logan Shinholser's breakout session. He runs contractor growth network, and his whole talk came down to one premise. Your next project is probably within a mile of the project you're finishing right now. That's what CGN builds for modelers, a system where your finished work does the selling so that the job you're wrapping up brings you the next one. Instead of worrying about a list of tactics to market your company, you need a system of marketing your individual projects to the neighborhoods that you want to be in. To learn more about this strategy, or if you want to watch Logan's talk, you can find both on contractorgrowth network.com in the resources section. That's contractorgrowthnetwork.com. Leadership is sometimes confusing to us. It's complicated. It's we're managing people. Everybody's different. The way I lead Tommy

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: is different than Sam Samantha. The way I lead John. yes, it is complicated, but everything we've talked about so far is very practical. it's it's yes, it's in f leadership is infinitely complicated. And I think that's because we're not taking some of these systems and some of these approaches seriously. And Implementing them consistently. You will have improved results if you get clear on agreed upon outcomes and you measure that consistently. That's just a fact. Or you will have an employee who doesn't like that and proves themselves to be, you're not part of this team anymore. If you can't, if you can't rally around this and see why we're doing it, to to improve and to raise the whole ship up here. so yes, it's it's overwhelming, but Be careful not to have this thought or even say it out loud. Well, I'm not, I'm not a really good, I'm not a good leader. Hey, if you've got employees, you need

Ryan Englin: Mm, yeah.

Kyle: to set that off to the side. You can still say, I used to not be a good leader, I'm working on being a better leader. But these are the types of things, these are tricky. A lot of people listening to this, you're avoiding these. You're avoiding KPIs, you're avoiding accountability, you're avoiding agreed upon outcomes, you're avoiding really leaning into just one a month even. A nice system

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: that you can put in place. You don't you kinda like that idea of pulse surveys, but then the idea of actually kind of hearing exactly what the people think's kind of scary. But on the

Ryan Englin: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: other side of all of this is you feeling like you're leading the company from a much more strong, solid position. Anything you care to add

Ryan Englin: Absolutely.

Kyle: to that until we and or we're gonna go on to number three.

Ryan Englin: No, I I couldn't have said that last part better.

Kyle: Well good. number three. it's because I got my poop in a group. I was, I was, I got my crap together on that on that approach.

Ryan Englin: Nice.

Kyle: you know, that was too much. See, the first time I said it, it was it wasn't too much. The people liked it. The fact that I went back to the same well a third time,

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: I need to adjust that. Cassie, why don't you edit that out? Don't edit it out. Just let it roll. number three, why perform That's right. You know, I I just I think

Ryan Englin: Humanizes you. Yeah. You're not infallible.

Kyle: I think the most sounds like something an older guy would say the

Ryan Englin: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: most the most appr appreciated virtue that i and not it's not a vice it's a virtue that i love in people is authenticity

Ryan Englin: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: can we just be more ourselves can we just actually say what you want to say in that kind of guard yeah i g I get it but like authentic people are so enjoyable to be around. Authentic long live

Ryan Englin: Great.

Kyle: authenticity. Be more authentic, everybody. Just be you. And maybe smooth out the rough edges. Number three, why performance reviews fail in the trades and what replaces them? You mentioned earlier you've been hard at work at a little software thing called fieldcon.io. Fieldcon

Ryan Englin: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: C-O-N dot io. You might mention this as you're going through it, but Tell us this why performance reviews fail in the trades and what replaces. Nelly.

Ryan Englin: My might might have a little trial offer for your listeners too, but we'll get to that. We'll get to that. So here's the problem that I see. And this happens in the trades. You know, this happens in a lot of businesses, but it really happens in the trades because nobody ever taught people how to have these conversations. One of my most popular things I'm doing right now with the companies we work with is our tough talk workshops. Because everybody's got a tough talk they gotta have. They've got that guy that consistently shows up late, but he's a great employee. When he's here, I just can't get

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: him to show up more. It's like, how do you bridge that conversation and have that conversation? We don't know how to do that stuff. That's like a lost art. Or maybe

Kyle: Hm.

Ryan Englin: it was something that we never really did well in the trades, anyways. We struggle with that. We struggle to find the words, we struggle to lead the conversation, we struggle to walk them through it. Sometimes you got to coach people through it because they're not used to it either. We struggle with all this stuff. And What we've done, so what we've done is we said, well, there's this thing called performance reviews that we have to do at least once a year. And you know what? I give raises once a year. So let's tie the performance review to the raise conversation because I gotta have that conversation, anyways. This is what we've done. And like Pavlov's dog ringing a bell, we created this environment where, it's performance, I mean pay time, pay raise time. Like,

Kyle: Yeah.

Ryan Englin: No, it's performance. No, it's pay raise. Like people are so focused on their pay raise, they ain't paying attention to you during the review. They're just like,

Kyle: Hm.

Ryan Englin: how much am I getting, boss? I just talked to somebody, they don't do pay raises, they do bonuses twice a year. And then they just normalize pay throughout, but they do bonuses twice a year based on how the projects are doing. So twice a year, people are like, okay, what's my bonus? What's my bonus? And we're like, no, no, no, we need to talk about your performance. No, no, no. I just want to talk about my and We've created this problem with performance reviews where leaders don't want to do them because you don't want to tell somebody they're doing great the whole time. We got to give them some constructive feedback. But I didn't track anything. I didn't have any KPIs in place. So I'm kind of going off my gut now. So it's kind of a my opinion, your opinion. And if I'm the owner, guess what? Nobody's ever good enough to take care of my baby. So

Kyle: Hm.

Ryan Englin: you didn't do a good enough job. And so we just we struggle with this whole thing, and this is why they don't work. No one has created a system for them, no one has done training on them. And we just check the box. We pencil whip them at every year. We had one company, they have 200 people in their company, and they couldn't get any of their foreman or superintendents to do the reviews. So it fell to the C suite. Three people had to do 200

Kyle: Hm.

Ryan Englin: reviews every year. Guess what? They didn't get done. And usually what happened is they were supposed to do them in January. We get to March and we're like, we're done with Q1. Just give everybody their raises. We'll do better next year.

Kyle: Yeah. Let's just get this over with.

Ryan Englin: And so, so this last year, they said, Nope, superintendents, you're gonna learn how to do it. So they had like another seven or eight people to help them. And guess what? They got to March and they still didn't do them because nobody knew how to train the people to do them. And you think that, it's just a conversation about someone's performance. This should be easy. When you don't have systems, when you don't have KPIs, when you're not used to this. Like,

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: yeah, I I give this example. So when you're when you're house training a new puppy, do you let them chew on the couch and then six months later tell them that was a problem?

Kyle: No.

Ryan Englin: You don't do that. You tell them in the moment. So why aren't we giving people their performance feedback in the moment? We struggle with that because we're too busy. We get too many things going on, not quite sure what to say. What? Or avoiding conflict. Or you

Kyle: We're avoiding conflict. We're avoiding conflict. No.

Ryan Englin: know what? It's just this one time. They'll they're they're usually better. It's usually

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: where the the tardiness and the attendance issues start. Like, he's been for two years, he's been here on time. He's just late this time. I'm not gonna say anything. I'll let it go. Six weeks later, he's late every day and calls in every Monday and Friday. And you're like, what happened? We didn't say anything. We are. We're very conflict avoidant, which is funny because we also have really strong tempers in this industry. We have no problem yelling at people. So I'm conflict avoidant when it's a conversation, but when I'm just yelling at somebody, I'm good. I'm good. But that's why they don't work. Because we've created this environment where we tie them to raises, we don't train our people how to do them. We have too few people that are willing to do them versus all the people. Like if you're 10 employees. You're you're the owner, you're probably doing all of them,

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: which makes no sense. Because what happens when you want to take a vacation around review season?

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: You can't. So, and that's all the stuff, the reasons they don't work. And I built a process to help people do this. And it's a five-page document. There's a five-page document. What questions do you want to go over? What do you need to do to prep the employee? What do you need to do to prepare? Five, guess how often that gets done?

Kyle: Prepping them? the five page. Mm r rarely. Every time? Yeah.

Ryan Englin: No, no, the five-page document to prepare for a review. I don't I would say never. I don't think it's ever gotten done. So I had a client that was looking for performance eval, KPI tracking software early on this year, and she couldn't find anything built for the field. She'd do these implementations and she'd get all ready and she's like, Great, where's the mobile app? We don't have a mobile app. Well, well, how does it work on a phone? Well, it doesn't work on a phone. You don't do performance reviews from a phone, you do it from a desktop. Which means in a 200 employee company, you've got three or four people that can do the performance reviews. This ain't gonna work. So I was like, you know what? I've had this idea for this software for a long time. It's mapped out, started building it. Let's let's take a look at it. And showed it to her a few weeks later and she goes, whoa, this is amazing. So FieldCon was born. And we took that five-page document and turned it into a 15-question survey and let the system build all the other stuff. and actually just give the words to the manager. They just go in and they just read it. They don't have to think, they don't have to put anything together.

Kyle: And the and the more and the more reps they do, the more comfortable they are, right? The intimidation factor is over as well, let alone making it

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: easy for them.

Ryan Englin: Yeah. Well, and then everybody wants to document the review, right? Like we gotta document it. We gotta give it to HR or compliance or whatever. You never see a guy pick up a phone and type out a whole performance. It doesn't happen. So

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: we added audio capability to it. You just hit record, you set your phone down, you have a conversation, transcribes the whole conversation, summarizes it, pulls out the important pieces, builds your whole review, puts together growth goals, tracks your KPIs. Like instead of a five-page document per employee. It's all done for you. And the acceptance rate of people saying, Yeah, I'll do a review is through the roof. Like we can't even measure it because it was zero before.

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: And the average review is 17 minutes of time. So now

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: you're not taking your lead out of the field to do reviews for a whole month. You're saying, hey, take a 15 minute break and go do a review in the cab of the truck, you know.

Kyle: Pull pull this up, put their name in it, hit the play button, let's go through them one by one. Have a conversation on it.

Ryan Englin: Done. Yeah.

Kyle: Hmm. What are a couple of your favorite questions on it?

Ryan Englin: Well, here's the cool thing. The questions are actually built based on your company's core values and the role that you're assessing.

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: So the system actually looks, you put your core values in first, because I believe that you need to assess people on their core value fit. Like if they don't align to your core values, you got a whole different issue. You can't train that. And so you put your core values in the system and then it says, okay, I've got a carpenter. How do they show up with these core values? And it creates the questions for them. Or Hey, I got a carpenter. Here are the things they're supposed to do and the things we can measure. Let's have that conversation. And then here's what it does: is instead of just talking about everything, it says, where are we not aligned? Let's have that conversation. Because that's an easy one, right? Like you think you're a rock star at this one thing you're supposed to do, and I think you suck at it. But because I don't like conflict, you don't know I think you suck.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: So I tell the computer that you suck. You tell the computer you're doing great. The computer comes back and says, You should talk about this one. And

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Englin: it gives you the exact words to say. So it helps

Kyle: Good.

Ryan Englin: you make a lot of the decisions through this. And and then it's really easy. I've heard people do this. They'll go, Well, I'm not the one saying this. The computer said it. So let's just talk about

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: it. It's not me now. It's just the computer. So it's been really helpful. Yeah.

Kyle: Take some pressure out of it. Excellent. Excellent. Would you say there's an offer? You say there's an offer for the people?

Ryan Englin: There is, there is. So if you go to fieldcon.io slash field test, you can evaluate the software. Real real time, like real stuff. You go, you sign up, you get one manager, you get one role, and up to five team members, and you can take them all through a review cycle and you can see how the system works. You can see how it records. You can see how it identifies growth opportunities. You do all of that. Yeah.

Kyle: Very cool. Field fieldcon.io just pulled it up. Fieldcon.io slash field test. Free. No credit card. One manager, one crew, one full review cycle. Start your field test. Bada bing, bada boom. Very cool. you've been bus you've been busy building this out. That's why, that's why we haven't connected much in the last year. You've been working your butt you've been working

Ryan Englin: That's why we have it. You know,

Kyle: your butt off.

Ryan Englin: when you were talking about it, you were out here in my neck of the woods and we were supposed connect and that didn't even happen. That was beginning of the year though. A long time ago.

Kyle: That was back that was back in f that was back in February for the remodel your marriage life and business conference. it went great. It went outstanding. It it is one

Ryan Englin: Yeah. How'd that go? Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle: of those things that like there's some projects where you're like, okay, I'm we're gonna do it this venue. we did it at the the factory and whatnot, and you know, you you you plan it out and this and that. And thought, okay, we're gonna have X number of couples there. We didn't end up with X number of couples, we ended up with less than X number of couples. so it's not necessarily remodelers on the rise most profitable line item. And you

Ryan Englin: Mm.

Kyle: know what? Once you get past that, and I'm like, you know what, we are here to serve these people. Look, you're stinking core values, Kyle, serve and engage. What better way than to have a dozen couples that are in

Ryan Englin: You You are changing lives. Yeah.

Kyle: the remodeling world come and want to talk about marriage and life and work life balance? it's it's it's awesome. We and my wife and I super enjoy it. Of course, we went into it not at our high water mark. Right. It's like, let's have the audacity to put on this marriage retreat again while we are bickering about this, that, and the other. but

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: luckily we do we do a money back guarantee. If you get a divorce within the first three months after remodel marriage life and business, we give all of their their money back. It's a pretty good guarantee.

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: We haven't we haven't had any divorces as a result of our two marriage retreats.

Ryan Englin: That's that's great. I would imagine that any that you know, divorces aren't decided in a weekend session. So anybody that's close probably isn't going. But hey.

Kyle: But hey, you never know. You never know. No, it was it was great. Sorry we weren't able to connect. We were keeping ourselves busy. but yeah, at Franklin, Tennessee, it doesn't get any better in Franklin, Tennessee.

Ryan Englin: Great guarantee. That's okay. That's all right. You you you're changing lives, changing family trees, I like to say.

Kyle: And you are changing the ability for people to do performance reviews. and also sharing just some really good good stuff. I have a feeling that there's some takeaways that everybody had from this. again, look in the show notes or go to fieldcon.io slash field test and give that a run. and then based on these three topics or anything else coming to your mind, how would you like to end this podcast by emphasizing something or sharing another nugget of knowledge that our remodelers might enjoy?

Ryan Englin: I spend a lot of time. So I'm sure there's somebody out here going, Hey, well, what about hiring? How do I find that great new carpenter, that great new tech, or whatever? PM. Don't look for PMs. There are no PMs out there. Just go grow your own PM. Find a go-getter who's really detail-oriented and likes to talk to people and teach them how to be a PM. That's that's my PSA on PMs. but you know, the thing I think a lot of companies come to me and they say, How do I attract the best people? How do I get the best people? How do I keep the best people? You know, I just had this. This great lead, and he just left me after four years. Go make more money somewhere else. Nobody leaves for money. Ever. Just accept that as truth. The they leave for other reasons. And one of the biggest reasons we find that people leave is because they don't feel cared for. I don't

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: know, this is all soft, fuzzy, touchy words, but I'm telling you right now, they don't feel cared for. Every single person that's on your team right now is going through something. Whether it's something at work, whether it's something internal, whether it's something in a relationship, they're going, everybody's going through something. And if someone tells you they ain't going through something, guess what? They're lying to you. Okay. Don't always have to be a big something. Everybody's going through something. The reason they don't tell you is because they don't trust you. And the reason they don't trust you is because they don't feel cared for. You want your people to step up, you want your people to take on. The business, the way you would do it. You want them to follow your process and your systems. Because you know what? We talked about putting systems in place, but now what? Guess what? People got to follow those things.

Kyle: Yes.

Ryan Englin: And you're going to struggle with that too. It's because they don't trust and they don't trust because they don't feel cared for. You want to be what I like to call the employer of choice, that company that people choose to work for, they choose to stay. You want to be that? Start caring for your people. And make sure they know you're caring for your people. We just had a poll survey come back and the owner's like, yeah, we care deeply for them. And they know it. The poll survey came back. I was like 1.2. I'm like, they do

Kyle: Mm.

Ryan Englin: not feel cared for. But he's he's like, but I'm doing everything I know how to do. Like in my world, of course they feel that way. They should feel that way, but they don't. But you know what? It was kinda cool. I'm like, but they trust you enough to tell you they don't feel cared for. Like

Kyle: Yes. Yes. And there's nothing better than getting that on the table and say, Okay, tough for me to hear as a leader, but

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Kyle: there's the there are the facts. Now let's start really thinking through this on how we can improve that. It's good.

Ryan Englin: Yeah, you can fix it when someone tells you there's a problem.

Kyle: Yes.

Ryan Englin: When someone tells you everything's going well or they don't want to tell you there's a problem, you can't do anything about it.

Kyle: Yes, good. that was great little nugget to leave him with. Ryan, it was good reconnecting. we're

Ryan Englin: Thank you.

Kyle: going to we're going to end this podcast and then you and I are going to book a little time before the end of the year to talk off off air, as the podcasters might say.

Ryan Englin: Do it.

Kyle: but thank you for sharing your wisdom and everybody go implement something you heard. Talk to later.

Kyle Hunt: Thanks for tuning into the Remodelers on the Rise show. Whether you're listening or watching, I appreciate you being here. If this was helpful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next one. We're putting out new episodes every single week focused on helping you build a better remodeling business with real stories, practical ideas, and things you can actually take and use. If you're on YouTube, hit that like button and turn on notifications so you know when new episodes drop. If you're listening on a podcast app, a five-star review goes a long way and helps more remodelers find the show. We've got great links below or in the show notes where you can connect with us, check out our remodelers community and learn more about our coaching and resources. Appreciate you very much. See you on the next episode.