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John Kissell runs a multi-state fleet maintenance operation serving some of America's biggest companies. Over the past 20 years, he's hired and trained over 3,000 technicians - and he's cracked the code on getting people productive fast.
In this conversation, we dig into how voice tools, augmented reality, and on-site coaching can collapse months of training into days. This isn't theory - it's working right now for Fortune 50 clients who can't afford downtime.
We also talk about what happens when robots start handling more mechanical work (spoiler: the opportunity gets bigger, not smaller), and how to build a company culture where technicians actually become millionaires through equity and ownership.
If you manage fleets, run a shop, or lead maintenance operations, this is worth your time.
In this episode, John Kissell discussed:
In this conversation, we dig into how voice tools, augmented reality, and on-site coaching can collapse months of training into days. This isn't theory - it's working right now for Fortune 50 clients who can't afford downtime.
We also talk about what happens when robots start handling more mechanical work (spoiler: the opportunity gets bigger, not smaller), and how to build a company culture where technicians actually become millionaires through equity and ownership.
If you manage fleets, run a shop, or lead maintenance operations, this is worth your time.
In this episode, John Kissell discussed:
- Day-one productivity through pre-training to client systems and culture - no 60-90 day ramp
- Voice-first documentation reclaims 1-2 hours per tech daily - eliminates glove-off/tablet/type cycle
- Bridge to robotics strategy - position yourself to service and maintain automation when it arrives
- Three deployment models create flexibility - on-site embedded techs, mobile service trucks, or shop-based operations
- Fortune 50 training standards - techs arrive understanding your documentation, systems, and expectations
- Ownership culture through equity and ESOP-Roth - how to keep A-players for 10+ years instead of losing them to $2/hour more
Timestamps
00:00 Why old systems are costing companies money
01:21 Meet John Kissel and his business journey
03:09 The technician shortage crisis
04:16 Fast-track training model explained
05:08 Robotics and the future of skilled trades
13:05 Voice tools reclaim hours of productivity
14:31 Preparing workers for Fortune 50 standards
16:13 Three deployment models that scale
17:05 Building millionaire technicians through ownership
22:30 Mentorship + Ai = accelerated young talent
27:21 The future of flexible work and skills-on-demand
32:08 Hiring 3,000+ technicians: what works
39:13 Why masterminds changed his trajectory
47:55 Advice for scaling without burnout
Learn more about John Kissell and his innovative work at https://johnkissell.com/.
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Learn more about John Kissell and his innovative work at https://johnkissell.com/.
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Creators and Guests
Host
Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach
Dan Sullivan is founder and president of The Strategic Coach Inc. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker, Dan has over 40 years’ experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups.
What is Capability Amplifier?
Join the eternally curious, interested, and interesting hosts, Mike Koenigs of the SuperPower Accelerator and Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach®, to amplify your capabilities, value, status, and authority on the Capability Amplifier podcast. Ever episode focuses on a new mindset, shortcut or deep thinking exercise that will improve your performance and lifespan. Learn more at: https://www.CapabilityAmplifier.com
John Kissel [00:00:00]:
I believe that robots are going to take over a lot of the mechanical things that we're doing. But nobody today could believe that tomorrow there's going to be a robot working on your car or fixing your dishwasher or your dryer at home. But it's coming and we want to bridge that gap between now and then. We want the ability to provide a labor source that is fast and efficient, scalable, that we can put in anywhere when a customer says they need it. We're able to bring them in with a base level knowledge and augment that with voice recognition and heads up glasses and best in class trainers right there on the spot. They learn, they train, they bill immediately. From day one. I want a job where I can do 10 different things this week and I'm not locked into it and tied up to the same stuff.
John Kissel [00:00:42]:
I would love that. And if I want to work a hundred hours and want to go to Jamaica for a month, I'm going to do that. If I want to work for 40 hours and have time with my family, I can do that. And imagine if I got paid right away for it and they could quality control it. And imagine if I put this on blockchain so I never had to have a resume again. But when somebody wanted my talent, it was a perfect match for what their needs were. That's really what I envisioned. This is a way for us to segue from an industry that potentially is going away in five and ten years to the next industry that's going to replace it.
Mike Koenigs [00:01:21]:
Welcome to Capability Amplifier. I'm Mike Koenigs. I'm here today with my friend John Kissel. Say hi, John.
John Kissel [00:01:27]:
Hey, Mike. Nice to be here.
Mike Koenigs [00:01:28]:
All right, so the most expensive phrase in your business is we've always done it this way. So imagine a future where finding, hiring, training new employees could be shortcutted from the typical one to three months to a few days. And imagine getting ready to be productive talent for your organization. The who's who can do the hows on time, accurately, safely and profitably, knowing and using your systems from day one. Now, how's that possible? Well, John from Workforce Services is a visionary futurist and thought leader who's bridging the trades, AI, augmented reality training, mentorship and apprenticeship in fleet management for some of America's largest and most respected brands, including FedEx, UPS, Avis, Budget and the U.S. department of Agriculture. And since 2005, his companies have figured out how to build more productive teams faster than the organizations he works with. Now he built his multi state Powerhouse from scratch with $5,000, a credit card, grit, innovation and an unwavering commitment to operational excellence.
Mike Koenigs [00:02:35]:
So John, thank you for being here again. We've just had the best three days in a row. Two days so far is all it's been. How are you doing?
John Kissel [00:02:43]:
I feel great. Thanks for having me.
Mike Koenigs [00:02:45]:
Oh, yeah. So I think the, what captured my attention about you is we've had a lot of deep conversations and you go deep fast, but, but you shared your vision of robotics, AI, the trades. We'll talk more about that in a moment. And augmented reality to create just in time workforces. So why don't you first of all just explain what's your big picture vision and what you're up to.
John Kissel [00:03:09]:
Big picture is I think in the trades, if you don't augment the missing technicians that are there right now, you're going to be out of business. So there aren't enough of us. We need to be able to find a way for them to be put on the table for everybody. And I want to use AI to do it and I want to use robotics, robotics to do that. Short term. We're going to train the people, we're going to hyper train the people. We're going to use them with AI to put them in place quickly and effectively trained from day one.
Mike Koenigs [00:03:40]:
Okay, so for someone who doesn't know exactly what the trades are, explain that and also explain the context that you work in.
John Kissel [00:03:47]:
So I'm in auto, but this physically works for any of the trades. H vac, plumbing, electrical, construction, janitorial, building maintenance, medical. Anybody that that is somebody who's performing a service and has to write something down or fill something out about what they're doing, including a doctor. This would pertain to them.
Mike Koenigs [00:04:07]:
Okay, now you've talked before about the new Amazon prime, so you've used that metaphor. So explain what you mean by that because I think it's a hell of a hook.
John Kissel [00:04:16]:
So what we want to try to do in all this is we want the ability to provide a labor source that is fast and efficient, scalable, that we can put in anywhere when a customer says they need it. Having to wait for three months or six months to train somebody to bring them in. We're able to bring them in with a base level knowledge and augment that with voice recognition and heads up glasses and best in class trainers right there on the spot, they learn, they train, they bill immediately from day one.
Mike Koenigs [00:04:49]:
Yeah, it's the big picture. What really hooked me is this notion of someone who is learning basically on the job augmented and talk about why that's important from a robotics point of view, where's the bridge and where do robotics enter the picture here?
John Kissel [00:05:08]:
So I believe, and I think probably you believe, that robots are going to take over a lot of the mechanical things that we're doing. But nobody today could believe that tomorrow there's going to be a robot working on your car or fixing your dishwasher or your dryer at home. But it's coming and we want to bridge that gap between now and then. And while we're bridging that gap, we want to be able to be first in line to get those robots. We want to learn how to fix them, update them, enhance them, be a repair service for them. They're going to replace vehicles not in transportation, but in quantity and quality. So this is a way for us to segue from an industry that potentially is going away in five and ten years to the next industry that's going to replace it. Same tech, but a different industry.
Mike Koenigs [00:05:54]:
Right on. So let's get to your origin story a little bit because I know you, you know, you came to San Diego driving this big Bronco that you've built up yourself. You've got a background in tinkering mechanics. Like you are a guy who's been getting his hands dirty for a long time. But if you go from that to building this business, going from a, basically a failed business relationship, five grand, a credit card take us here and, you know, get us to the year one. The hardest part of getting this new
John Kissel [00:06:30]:
business rolling, the tinkering played a part. So I've always been a tinkerer, came from a trades background. It's important to me. And you always had your hands in getting your hands dirty with things. So you had to learn and make mistakes and then learn to make mistakes. That's played out really well in my business because in starting a business and at the time that I started, there were rule books, there weren't entrepreneurial groups that I knew that I could join. So you had to figure it out. You couldn't jump on the Internet, you had to make phone calls actually to figure out how do I start a business? What's an llc? You know, why do I want an llc? You just had to figure it out.
John Kissel [00:07:03]:
So the tinkering played a huge part in overcoming the biggest challenges, which would have probably stopped me if I didn't have that skill set. So that's the overcome.
Mike Koenigs [00:07:11]:
Okay, so let's get to your mtp. Massively transformative purpose. That's something that Peter D. Manned is the abundance 360 community is all about. Yours is to empower and inspire individuals to move from fear and uncertainty to health, love and abundance. So how does that show up in terms of your non negotiable values inside your organization?
John Kissel [00:07:36]:
So my non negotiables are you need to show up and do what you say you're going to do. You need to be honest, you need to have character, you need to carry your weight, plus some of the persons next to you. And I don't want that just for the employees. I don't want that for my partners, my teammates, my family. I want that for everybody. And I think if we're all doing that, it's just a better place to live in. And I think I've found some of that community in a 360 and genius and coach.
Mike Koenigs [00:08:01]:
Yeah, no, that's ultimately how we met. We got to spend time together. That brought us to here. So consistency is your core value. So I think that also leads into care and custody. You talk about that and the first time you explained it to me, I didn't really understand what you meant. So can you explain what that is? Why it's important in terms of protecting yourself, your team, your clients and your family?
John Kissel [00:08:33]:
It's ingrained. So it's not just myself, my family, my clients and employees. It's really, I feel that about everything around me. So I want my family to be safe. I want them to be financially safe, physically safe, roof over their heads, the ability to have freedoms. I want my employees to have those same things. I want them to have growth. I would probably liken it to being a parent where you want the very best for your kids and you also need to let your kids sometimes make mistakes and be able to learn so that they can handle things as they come along and don't get overwhelmed.
John Kissel [00:09:08]:
But it spreads out to my customers, it spreads out to the industries and that's something we'll touch on hopefully later in the podcast, is that I feel that need for care and custody for the trades industries. I don't want it to go away. It's been a part of who my family has been. It's been historically, it's been a part of what's brought me up. It's what got me through college, it's what got me through my business. It's what has paid for everything I've had and it's allowed me to build the things that allow the people that work with me to support their families. I think it's A non negotiable for me to be fighting as hard as I can for that. Yeah, I want it to succeed.
Mike Koenigs [00:09:40]:
Yeah, I've seen that time and time again with you for sure. So then let's talk a little bit about this concept of Stagecoach. What is that? You talk about bite sized chunks and it really came from when we did your Colby score. And for someone, if you don't know what Colby is, Kathy Colby's test, you're an 8453. So why don't you explain how your personality profile extends into how you attack problems. Because I think understanding your first principles are super important here.
John Kissel [00:10:17]:
So I get enough information to get push ahead and then I push ahead. So initially I need to get some information, figure out where I am in IT and then feet on the ground, you go ahead. Fast starter, typically terrible finisher and a good person. If you want to collaborate, I'm going to meet you right in the middle for collaboration.
Mike Koenigs [00:10:40]:
Totally.
John Kissel [00:10:41]:
And again, always bring a little more than everybody else to the table. That's a key component for me. How it's played out in the business. Is that what you had asked me? Yeah. So how it's played out in the business is I'm really good first idea in pushing it forward and I've had to learn to surround my people myself with people that can come up behind me with the support systems, process places and get those, and get those rolling behind me so that we don't not finish well. We finish strong.
Mike Koenigs [00:11:08]:
Yeah, no, I've, I've absolutely seen that in all, all the interactions I've had with you. So let's go back to the trades. You know, the trades aren't known for being Silicon Valley. And what convinced you that AI and augmented reality robotics could 10x productivity? Like what was the, say, the seed of that thought and why did you see it so clearly and invest forward? Because you've made a lot of investments, you've committed a lot of time, energy and money to this so far.
John Kissel [00:11:41]:
Failed workflow. So not only in our own systems, but looking at our customers, failed workflow. So you work for a customer that has a technician that they're paying to work and repair things, but four or three of the hours of their day are spent doing administrative tasks and compliance issues instead of actually repairing things. And you're paying a high rate for that. And there's also a deficit in the industry of those particular skill sets. So why not have an administrative person handle all the administrative piece of that and let the technician be the technician? That was one of the seeds. The second seed was looking within our own businesses, our own brick and mortar. Where were we hung up.
John Kissel [00:12:21]:
And I'm a tinkerer by nature, so how do I make it a little better, a little faster, a little more streamlined? And as I started looking at the flow of work, I just started coming up with all the ways that AI could tie in and just minimize something. Just automate anything that a person is doing that they're either writing down or they're speaking or they have to document. AI should be replacing that. And no one was doing that. So I wanted to be first to market to do that. That was the impetus to start.
Mike Koenigs [00:12:51]:
Okay, and talk a little bit about the. For you where you've had some breakthroughs already, especially with voice recognition. And that extended this even further.
John Kissel [00:13:05]:
So we decided the first mechanism would be voice because it's the easiest to conquer. So we went on and started coding out to build out the voice recognition. So just taking an initial pre inspection that anyone would do if they were to do some type of an auto repair, we can automate that so that a technician isn't having to glove and oven glove and type something into a tablet or a computer, or repeat that to a service writer. They can just speak to a device that will capture all that and then give that to the appropriate person, whether that's their service advisor, to give to somebody or a customer to get the commission to go ahead and do the work, or just simply an update of I need parts ordered, whatever it was, it keeps them in flow. Initially we're saying an hour a day per employee, but the reality is after we roll this out and we tune it a little bit, we're probably looking at two hours a day, all of it at margin, which is huge.
Mike Koenigs [00:13:57]:
Got it. And that, that leads me to. Why don't you provide a little framing for your current business? Because you work with some of the top Fortune 50s in the United States
John Kissel [00:14:11]:
and
Mike Koenigs [00:14:13]:
you are taking people from zero to usable in record time a lot faster than the organizations you're working with. And you save them a lot of time, a lot of money. But money isn't the primary reason you get hired. So talk a little bit about your business model.
John Kissel [00:14:31]:
So we, what we're doing is we're providing services in three ways. So we provide services that could potentially go on site and work side by side with a customer resource.
Mike Koenigs [00:14:40]:
Or give me some specific.
John Kissel [00:14:42]:
So let's take a company that's a national package delivery company, US Postal or something like that. Then this is not the company, but let's just say a couple of times,
Mike Koenigs [00:14:50]:
let's pretend one of the really, really
John Kissel [00:14:52]:
big ones, one of the large ones, one of the biggest. Right. So we've partnered with them and we have trained our employees so that when they go in on day one, they have knowledge of what they need to write down, how they fill out their paperwork, when they fill out their paperwork, what the culture is like when they arrive. So they're able to show up and be essentially trained on day one or day two versus coming in untrained and everybody having to learn what the particular processes are. So there's a real help with that. We have this augmented training going in. We know their systems and we're able to do that. We also provide that as a on site tech.
John Kissel [00:15:31]:
But we also can throw them in a service truck and maybe they go to three or four locations for that customer, or that customer might have a need for us to have a brick and mortar operation where they don't have capacity in their facilities to actually do something or repair something, or maybe they need a specialized type of a service like body work or something like that. And we can set that facility up very quickly for them and push that through. And we have a lot of experience doing those really high end, put a shop in or set up a series of service trucks. We're very efficient at that. Very good.
Mike Koenigs [00:15:59]:
Yep. And what would you say is your biggest differentiator? What do you do better than anyone else in the world or any other organization in the world where you're gonna give yourself the category of one label?
John Kissel [00:16:13]:
We find techs which are hard to find and we put them to work quickly, but we can provide the service they need in those three capacities. And it's unrivaled right now. I don't think we have competitors are doing all of those things, certainly not as efficiently and quickly as we are.
Mike Koenigs [00:16:26]:
Got it. All right, so let's get to culture because that is, you're a man of principle and values. I spent a lot of time with you at this point and we talked a lot. You know, we talked a lot before we started working together. And your goal is to build a half billion dollar company and mint millionaires. So how are you building equity programs? How do you see this happening where you're providing really inside the trades, for example, which normally you don't have a lot of hope there for becoming a millionaire, but also supplying and supporting that as well. How are you pulling that off?
John Kissel [00:17:05]:
I think in the trades, if you're coming up in the trades, it's work hard and be broken or work hard and somehow find a way to start your own business and then learn after you've spent all that time how to be a businessman. And very few people become successful. It's an uphill battle the whole way. So, first off, I want to build the millionaires because I want the people to have the same freedoms and space in their life to do the things they want that I've had. And I think it's invaluable. And I think if I can mint that, I think I'm going to have partners for life in my businesses. I think they're going to come back for more and more and more, and I really, really want that. I also surround myself with people that I want to build that with.
John Kissel [00:17:42]:
So I want to have these relationships long term. If you ask the guys that came with me here to this meeting, you know, what would they do for me? I think they do a lot and I would do a lot for them. We build those relationships because we want them long term. That's who I'm choosing to spend time with. So how do we create that? I think we give them a piece of the pie. I think we encourage them to help us design and phase those in and build those out, and then we try to keep bringing them back in for the next growth and the next growth and the next growth. Long term, I want an ESOP Roth, and I want the Roth because I want my employee employees to be protected and I want them to have ownership. I want them to have what I have and hopefully with a lot less effort than I had.
Mike Koenigs [00:18:23]:
Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, that's learn.
John Kissel [00:18:26]:
Learn from my mistakes.
Mike Koenigs [00:18:27]:
Right on. So I want to get back to fleet maintenance. And again, what I'm looking for are some of the mindsets, the first principles that have enabled you to see things that your clients haven't and find the operational efficiencies where you've been able to make a highly profitable business out of it. What is it that you see that others miss? And why don't they have this ability to see that for themselves?
John Kissel [00:18:57]:
Some of it's relationship building, I think the ability to be comfortable if you're sitting down with a group of technicians, but also be comfortable if you're sitting in a room full of managing directors and have equitable conversation at any level in between there and bring people in. One thing I think we've brought to the table with some of those larger companies is the ability in that relationship building to actually Talk to them about what's happening on the ground floor. So when you're in a managing director level meeting, they typically don't know what's going on the ground. They're working with a corporate culture that doesn't feel free to be able to express that. And I don't have those limitations. I'm not constrained by that. So if I see something that's not working, it's okay for me to actually speak up and be clear about what that is. And I think that's garnered some level of success.
John Kissel [00:19:47]:
People know that I'm not going to pull a punch and also be very fair about something.
Mike Koenigs [00:19:53]:
Well, again, I'll pull this in on a very personal level. So you met my nephew Owen at one of my events and you immediately was like, okay, there's something special here. So I've witnessed this personally. Why don't you talk a little bit about how you're mentoring young people, your vision of changing the mentorship apprentice model, and how you're adapting that moving forward too.
John Kissel [00:20:20]:
So I've had. I have two nephews, I have three nephews, but I have two specifically that I've had some conversations around where I've mentored them in some way. And I felt like the mix of their unbridled enthusiasm and non corporate attitude of wanting to say, you can't do this or you can't do that, it's just like, oh, well, I'll just do this or that. Mixed with all the mistakes I've made and the knowledge I've gained. I felt like I had an epiphany. This is a really good combination. You're able to take these linear things and really shorten them up. And when I've tried to do that internally with people I work with, you get all the impediments.
John Kissel [00:21:00]:
Oh, we can't do that because of this system, or this system doesn't work with this system or these people aren't the right people and it won't work. And I found it just didn't happen there. So when I met Owen, I applied the same interaction I had with my nephews. He's about the same age. And I immediately had just a light bulb go off. That there is a huge resource of somebody that can accomplish things without impediments that I could bring in and I would get all the benefit of that and then I could take all of the mistakes that I've learned from and the hard work that we've put in and the things we've learned as a company and the Relationships and short circuit that for him. What are you going to end up with? Well, you're going to end up with this fast, fast growth. And then I mentioned that in one of Dan's coach groups and I had one person call immediately.
John Kissel [00:21:46]:
I've had a second person actually call me last night about it. Just the same thing, out of the blue. Tell me a little bit about what you were talking about with the mentoring. And the idea is to go out and find these young, intelligent, talented kids that aren't surrounded with a resource like three roommates that they're going to build a business with, but are very talented and give them a home and make that home a home with a very successful businessman that also needs a talent home and combine those people. And we want to call it the Prospect Forge. And we are going to actually start building this out. We're going to use these kids to build this amongst themselves and we'll support them to do that and crowdsource it. Hopefully crowdsource the crap out of it.
John Kissel [00:22:30]:
It's a wonderful connection for everybody. Huge wins. We've had more wins with your nephew in the first four weeks than we had with entire work groups in a year. Flat out. It works brilliantly.
Mike Koenigs [00:22:44]:
While he's watching, listening, and his dad's here with us right now, my brother Joel. All right, had to have an emotional moment. So let's. I'm really curious about how you're integrating AI and robotics and fleet maintenance. Like, what's your. What's your vision there, boy? We had to take a moment, emotional moment for both of us. But, you know, here we are in this time when it is incredibly challenging in our world with young men and jobs and finding a place for them, and then with robots coming up next and AI, it's getting harder.
John Kissel [00:23:31]:
And don't limit it to men because some of my best recent hires have been women. And it's surprisingly, really gaining some momentum. You just need a young person that's interested in, as I'm doing, tinkering, you know, they have a base level, but they can problem solve a little bit. And they're tinkler. So don't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't limit it to men. I think there's a level of gamification that has to happen with it.
John Kissel [00:23:54]:
So I think that's necessary. I think I have a million and one ideas, and I'll try to keep these more short. But essentially, you want to make everybody in our business a master technician, and you want to do it by uploading an AI brain onto what they're doing. It's going to have all knowledge about repairs, it's going to be able to give you expert advice, it's going to stop you from making a mistake. It's going to quality control the work you're doing. It's going to see deeper than you can and catch things that you can't catch. It's going to keep your workflow going and that's just from a technician side. So think about this.
John Kissel [00:24:31]:
Would you want to go to a job where you're sitting in five meetings a day and you come out of the meetings and you have tasks to do but you don't really accomplish a lot, you're just getting ready for the next meeting, the next day? Or do you want to go to a job where you're literally learning something new every day? You have an expert helping you through it every step along the way. You're getting a win and a success. You're learning new technology. You could be potentially competing with other people in your peer group that you're working with. So there's some gamification there. We could build pay structure around it. That's immediate pay for immediately qualified work that's been completed. We let them crowdsource it all together.
John Kissel [00:25:07]:
There's just so many ways this works on so many levels for so many people. I have to just stop and not overwhelm you with it. It's just, it's a no brain, wonderful opportunity to just blow this out of the water. And it absolutely excites me to the core. I'm just, you've been around me enough to know it gets me going.
Mike Koenigs [00:25:25]:
Yeah. And I think that brings us back around to like, why are we doing this? Because I think what I saw right away in our early conversations, I'm going to just rephrase some of what you said. This system where the human is the mentor and the apprentice, you're populating creating a collaborative environment with the AI, but you're a mentor to these young people who are coming in, learning these amazingly valuable skills, combining that with immediate learning, immediate satisfaction, doing something valuable on the job and getting rewarded and paying for it. And if you add what you just said, which is the crowd sourced knowledge growth, that's that institutional knowledge that keeps on growing. The hockey stick value of that is profound. And that thinking, I think is the, the core of what I see for you, your ongoing ip, the data that you're creating, not to mention the valuable company, it's that concentric circle of a business is worth this Much the data is worth this much. But the IP multiplied is in order of magnitude.
John Kissel [00:26:39]:
We want the data. But imagine a world where you've got a talented generalist, a young person that's 25, maybe their parents were a doctor, maybe their parents were a plumber or electrician, maybe they were auto repair, maybe they were a teacher, whatever it was. But they have good knowledge and some good skills and they can actually do something from beginning to completion. They're good at that task in that environment that we want to create. They could be a vet tech for four hours a day and a project engineer for four hours a day. Or they could be a plumber for four hours a day and then go on and do an electrical task for four hours. In that environment, they're not locked into being a plumber or electrician or an H Vac or an auto technician. It's great if they specialize.
John Kissel [00:27:21]:
But AI levels the field, you could be a generalist and for two years you could do one thing and two years you could do another thing, or you could do a different thing every day. It all works in this environment. No one is talking about this. It is the most massive equalizer out there. And I want a job where I can do 10 different things this week and I'm not locked into it and tied up to the same stuff. I would love that. And if I want to work 100 hours and want to go to Jamaica for a month, I'm going to do that. If I want to work for 40 hours and have time with my family, I can do that.
John Kissel [00:27:53]:
And imagine if I got paid right away for it and they could quality control it. And imagine if I put this on blockchain so I never had to have a resume again. But when somebody wanted my talent, it was a perfect match for what their needs were. That's really what I envision with this.
Mike Koenigs [00:28:07]:
Yeah, it's. So let's talk about the math. The productivity in increases. So you gave one example of voice recognition. But if you start using, you know, one of the tools that you've been.
John Kissel [00:28:20]:
Heads up, glasses.
Mike Koenigs [00:28:21]:
Yes. So let's talk about, let's stack the time savings, the money, the value, the productivity in real world terms. Like imagine out loud what a tech can do with this technology stacked up.
John Kissel [00:28:35]:
So from a, not from a tech standpoint, but from a corporate standpoint, okay, if you're saving, let's just say you're saving an hour a day on voice recognition and an hour a day on some form of augmented reality, you know, you're Getting a technician that's walking you through a problem, you'd have to stop, not do the repair, get somebody to come in and do it. You have all the losses that go with that says, let's just say that you're saving two hours a day. You get the two hours back. It's not like you're just getting two hours. You're getting two full hours of full margin dollars. All your billing rate comes back with that. You're gaining that back. It's basically like getting a 2% back on your credit card or something like that.
John Kissel [00:29:11]:
It's just free money. So every business should want that. But beyond that, you have the ability to bring in these, let's call it glass technology or some form of an augmented reality technology. Now you're actually doing things you couldn't do before. So where you couldn't find a technician or a medical tech or whatever it was, you could have a person that came in with a very base level that could be walked through a task, it could be QC'd. So you know you're always going to meet that task requirement. And nearly anybody could do that. As long as they're mobile, they could do that task for you.
John Kissel [00:29:46]:
So this is that interim between us and robots, which I think is very important. Maybe that's 10 years, maybe that's five years, who knows how long? But that's really filling that interim. And I really envision that going from not just filling the interim, but then using that data and technology to really tell the robots what they need to do. Essentially, we're making the people the bridge over that.
Mike Koenigs [00:30:07]:
Yeah, yeah, well. And at the speed this is happening, so if we put this in contrast with what's been occurring with AI right now, even while we've been working together, we've had a bunch of little AI spun up in the background, doing a lot of thinking for us, or anytime we're working together, we can be talking, capturing the Voice, using the AIs to augment, I think, the mindsets behind this. This is the opportunity again for the pre hockey stick moment where again, we're accelerating. If you can take a young person and accelerate their learning, wisdom experience by really 20 years, that's what you can do with Owen. Okay. And then augmenting that with AI. And like you had said, you know, we had gotten more done in four weeks with Owen than you'd seen happen in a year. And he's prototyping stuff for you.
Mike Koenigs [00:31:05]:
He's solving things, right?
John Kissel [00:31:06]:
Absolutely.
Mike Koenigs [00:31:07]:
And, and you bring that into an organization where you don't just have three or four, but you have 50 generalists who now can do the work of what used to be a bunch of specialists and then pay them based upon the value they're creating again. This is a total institutional mindset, mindset shift. And whoever does this first is going to be the winner. And it is inevitable. I think you see that. So add to that. What else haven't I said that we agree on profoundly?
John Kissel [00:31:40]:
I think you need to be first to market, because I think you only need to get your foot in the door. And I think those 50 young people that you hire with, augmented, with the knowledge of the business owners behind them are going to blow it out of the water. I think they're going to beat any company corporation that's going to come around that's going to try to do it institutionalized. It won't work. They will MacGyver the crap out of it and they'll make it work. I just want to hang onto their tails while they're doing it and provide the Runway for them to get there. That's what my goal is in all of this.
Mike Koenigs [00:32:08]:
Yeah, I love the vision. So let's go back to the practical tactical, which is, over the course of all the years you've been in business, you've hired over 3,000 technicians. And I think it's important to use this term technician. Like every business needs an AI technician right now. Every business needs curious generalists who pick this stuff up. But you're consistently attracting, retaining, hiring, and then bringing people into a market that's dealing with massive shortages. Every business is having their talent poached from them all the time. So how are you doing that? How do you hire and scale better than anyone else? What's your secret sauce?
John Kissel [00:32:54]:
The secret sauce is really getting the word out to the most digital available positions we can actually find to be able to just get them to connect with us. And then the next secret sauce would be using our knowledge of those 3,000 hires to say, okay, what skillset do they have? Where's the puzzle piece fit with the particular customer base we have? How do we get them in quickly and how do we not lose them? If we get a person on a hook, we need to land that person immediately. We have.
Mike Koenigs [00:33:23]:
So how do you capture their attention?
John Kissel [00:33:26]:
I can't answer that, Mike. I think you capture attention with cost, with excitement, with motivation about what we're doing, with an opportunity to do something that maybe is a little different with giving them a job right away, with them seeing the value in what you've done so far as a business and understanding that it's not sort of fly by night, that there's some substance behind it, and that the customers we're working on are top Fortune 50 customers and they're a part of that bigger world.
Mike Koenigs [00:33:51]:
Okay, so how do you know who a right fit applicant is? What's your mechanism for knowing this is going to be a right fit? Maybe someone who's been passed over for a corporate job, for example. I don't know if that's accurate or
John Kissel [00:34:04]:
true, but there's a, you know, there's a base skill set. It's an intimate knowledge of what the actual need is at the customer level and understanding what the base level that would be acceptable to put into that and then where you need to augment that. So as we get into the AI enhancements we talked about, that becomes easier right now. Now, the secret sauce is a lot of knowledge and a lot of wins and a lot of losses and understanding where it's failed, how it can fail, and then more importantly, being able to take that and transfer it from my knowledge to my recruitment team and teach them along the way, give them that knowledge, but then let them make the mistakes, let them see where it fails, let them see where it works. And we're really augmenting it even now with AI. Like every AD that we run, interviews that we perform, approvals on, interviews, we record them and we're enhancing them based on what worked, what didn't. Where was the connectivity with the actual tech that we're interviewing? Where was the miss with the customer if that happened? So we can enhance it? So we're actually augmenting it with AI right now, and we have been for months.
Mike Koenigs [00:35:01]:
It's fantastic. So let's switch gears a little bit. One of the things that happened after we had some of our first deep conversations, you walked up to me and you're wearing a shirt right now, but you're built and you're into fitness. Your wife Francesca's survived two open heart surgeries. You've had some major health challenges of your own. And what are some of your health takeaways? What are your mindsets about your regimen, your approach to health, and also the fact that you're living knowing that there's. We, we have limited time.
John Kissel [00:35:39]:
So with the health scare that I had with my wife, I'm very, very aware that time is the most important commodity for me. It's for both of us, for all of us. And it's easy to forget that when you haven't had something close or somebody close to you be ill, but we have. And it was very poignant and very intensely deep for me. So I don't want to waste any time. And what I have been in my life is very consistently fit. I've done a regimented job since I was 13 of always being consistently fit and working out, running, weight training, whatever the case, just haven't missed. As I said, I don't think I missed a week in all of the years since I was 13 years old.
John Kissel [00:36:20]:
I've been that consistent. But that's played into and been foundational to a lot of the things that I do in my life. It's given me a strength and a foundation to get through a lot of things. I know it's always there. I know I can depend on it. It gives me a leg up and any level of things that I might touch. So I think it's been very good with that. The health part of it is you just have to put the time in.
John Kissel [00:36:41]:
You have to make sure. Do it smart, but put the time in and you have to make sure that it's giving you good quality of life and it's giving you some leg up in some way.
Mike Koenigs [00:36:51]:
Well, you got on me right away when we met and so call me anytime. I'll walk you through a workout. You wanted to get to San Diego early so we could work out with John Assaraf. And I'm going to go back to my nephew. I'm going to call Joel here. How much is Owen, how much weight is Owen lost since he started working with John? Well, I don't honestly know. I think it might be 20, 25.
John Kissel [00:37:15]:
I drug him in the gym the first day. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Koenigs [00:37:17]:
Okay.
John Kissel [00:37:18]:
So what so, so I want. So when I see.
Mike Koenigs [00:37:21]:
So what does he lost this to sell me. What that.
John Kissel [00:37:23]:
So, so why, why that's important. And we, we had a little bit, bit of a conversation earlier about this is is I do belong to groups of people that are very, very successful. They're changing the world, they really are. But I'm also watching them have very unhealthy habits. And I think how terrible would it be if this person wasn't around in five years or 10 years? Well, how much would we lose collectively with that? Or what if they were able to be here 50 years from now? Compound that. How much would be able to gain by all of that? So I'm pretty vocal about it. I speak out a lot about it. When I see somebody, I'm very willing to offer whatever it takes to do it.
John Kissel [00:38:02]:
But my goal is I want people to live longer, healthier, happier lives. I want them to be stress free. I want them to be filled with abundance and love. I really want that for people. I think at the place where you're able to be fit and happy and comfortable with where you are, I think it drives so many other things in your life. It aspects in a positive way that it actually changes the trajectory of where you're going. I've seen it in my life and I want it for those people that I see have so many good things, but they don't have that. I want to tell them how easy it is.
John Kissel [00:38:32]:
I want to show them how easy it is. And I would like to be the person that helps them if they want that. No, it's important.
Mike Koenigs [00:38:38]:
It's absolutely true. 100% congruent. And Joel just said off camera, about 15 pounds already. Very impressive in such a short period of time. And he's really committed to. So one of the things that we have in common, and it's how we met, is you invest heavily in masterminds. So, Peter Diamandis, Abundance360. You're part of Genius Network.
Mike Koenigs [00:39:02]:
Dan Sullivan, strategic coach. So what's the biggest lever you pulled from the rooms that have changed your trajectory personally and professionally?
John Kissel [00:39:13]:
First meeting with Pierre Diamantes, first introduction, left the room with me. We're the only ones there in the morning. And he said, if I give you anything, take this away, play full out. And I said my tendency would be to be a wallflower and kind of take it all in. He's like, don't waste your money with me. I want you to be here. I'd love for you to be here. It was a pleasure meeting you.
John Kissel [00:39:32]:
So, Peter, play full out. And so my hand is up first. I'm at the microphone. If I'm on a forum, you're not going to get me off the screen. I've learned to play full out and it's not me by nature. So it's a little uncomfortable, but it's hugely impactful and I won't ever go back to not doing that.
Mike Koenigs [00:39:52]:
Yeah, well, the other thing is I think you had an influence on him because you spent some time with him in a gym too. Yeah. What happened there?
John Kissel [00:40:01]:
Well, I don't know that it had any influence. I think he was pretty, pretty stoked on what he was doing on his own.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:05]:
He's gotten really ripped in the past few years. That guy is a rock when you hug him.
John Kissel [00:40:09]:
Yeah, yeah, he is. He's doing. He's doing really well. I think probably what I would say it was more of an affirmation that I'm on the right track and this is another person that's sort of on that path. And so it's nice when you meet somebody like that. Like, you're like that. John Asaroff is like that. It's.
John Kissel [00:40:23]:
It's a very nice thing to see because it gives you that continuity to keep pushing forward and bring more people into the fold.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:29]:
Got it. So let's. I'm curious for you. I can imagine a lot of founder entrepreneurs, especially around our age, who you have choice. Yeah, exactly. Around 40ish. And so I turned 59 this year, and I have friends who are talking about retiring. I know people who are retiring and are just weary and tired.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:56]:
You, on the other hand, have. You're thinking exponentially, truly exponentially, everything that you've talked about. And also you've figured out how to get yourself out of operations and spend time as a visionary and surround yourself with people who support you and feel like they're on a common growth path. So what triggered the shift and what do you think the seed is like? If you had to give a takeaway for someone on how to trigger that sense of thinking bigger and not slowing down, what is it?
John Kissel [00:41:26]:
So I wouldn't suggest this for everybody, but the trigger for we was when my wife had her second open heart surgery, and I realized I needed to accomplish some things to be able to make sure that we were surviving in 10 or. Or 15 or 20 years. So that was the impetus to do it. And I don't recommend that for anybody. But what I would say is that the mindset is that if you're going to retire, you're essentially going to die. I think even if you play golf every day or do whatever your brain needs to work, you need to get excited about stuff. We've had this conversation about how passion is such an important part of my life when I get going. And we'll go back to the Stagecoach comment, I have to have a trigger word that people use to shut me up because I get on a roll.
John Kissel [00:42:05]:
I'm passionate about it. So I'll remember to pause here in a minute. But I think you have to find a little bit of that passion in your life and you don't have to do the same thing. I don't want to run my business the way I'm running it now in five years, but I absolutely want to collaborate with people in these groups or my Employees to let them extend that business or some portion of that out. It gets me up every day. I have not woken up in the last 20 years on a single day and said I don't want to go to work today. It just doesn't, it's not part of how I feel. So find that passion some way.
John Kissel [00:42:42]:
Doesn't have to be in the job that you're in right now, but find that passion and go off on that tangent and don't have a plan B. You know, if you fail, you need to get up and keep going until you don't. No plan B. I like that a lot.
Mike Koenigs [00:42:57]:
So talk a little bit about your ideal client. So you've got a couple things going on right now, but who is your perfect decision maker that you work with? Who raises their hand? They're like I am a hell yeah to what you're doing. Let's start with the business side first.
John Kissel [00:43:17]:
Let's start with fleet side and work so for workforce. Who we'd want to be speaking to are national or international fleet carriers. They're in every state and they have multiple needs, not just for repairs but they have circumstances that are non standard. So they might have domicile locations that they can't get coverage in or they might have hub zones where they have just not enough resources to get the job done. Or maybe they've got a hub zone that's got four or five locations in one city or one county and they don't have a vendor that can hit all of those things. So we want to provide, that's my ideal customer. We want to provide to those customers because we're really, really good. We're very quick and sharp at providing all types of repair to each of those elements.
John Kissel [00:44:00]:
So whether that's put somebody on site or put somebody in service truck and run them to multiple locations or hey, we need you to build a shop or put a sh in by our shop so we can actually get this stuff done. We can execute that better than anybody. I believe that's my ideal customer. If you're a small regional and you just need techs, we're good at that too. But the ideal customer, that's the carrier that has 500 locations and they've got it covered for 400 but there's a hundred of them that are just causing them grief. We're a wonderful solution for them. We solve their problems.
Mike Koenigs [00:44:32]:
Okay, let's talk a little bit about capital. You're even co investing to build out some of these tools, resources, the vision and you are an excellent collaborator. You really know how to play ping pong really well and get along in a room and play. Yes. And, and how do you deal with capital and partnerships? How do you think about business deals?
John Kissel [00:45:04]:
I hadn't in the past. It's recent for me now it's about everybody putting in meeting with people that everybody's putting in something valuable that's unique to them. So the most recent collaborations that I have, where they're true collaborations, I'm bringing industry knowledge and cash to the table and I'm partnering with somebody who is a top marketer in world renowned marketer in the industry and they're bringing that capital to the table. And our third partner is somebody that is a software Engineer and has 20 years of software engineering with people from all over the world. So we're bringing best resources that are necessary to solve that problem that we're solving. And everybody carrying their weight, it keeps coming back to carrier weight, plus a little bit of everybody else's. And the teams we put together and the collaborations are all doing that. I won't partner with somebody that just wants something out of it or wants it as an investment that won't work for us.
John Kissel [00:45:56]:
Come to the table with dirty hands, ready to work.
Mike Koenigs [00:45:59]:
Great. I like that. Okay, I'm going to bounce back to one question I didn't ask you. So what do you think your most recent or your biggest punch in the mouth failure has been and what you did so it would never happen again.
John Kissel [00:46:19]:
The biggest punch it would be when I tried to diversify out of what our core business was, but not put enough time and attention to it because it was a great idea and had wonderful potential. But it was missing my time element that I couldn't commit to it. Those are the biggest failures that I've had and I've done it a couple of times and I hopefully learned my lesson at this point. If I can't go all in on it, I can't commit to it. Even though they're great ideas and I love great ideas, which is that's my ice cream. I got to have it right. So it's a great idea. I want to jump in on that.
John Kissel [00:46:51]:
Well, it is, but not if I can only give 2% of my time totally real.
Mike Koenigs [00:46:59]:
So if you look back over your entire career, but also looking forward at what you're building and this vision for really an augmented future, because so much what you're doing right now is all about augmenting humans and amplifying and magnifying their capabilities in near Real time so they can create value immediately and be put to work in an environment where they're creating even more value. Right. You don't get paid unless you're creating a lot of value and lots of levels and you've got a very specific time limit and resource limit. You got to figure out what the resources and capabilities are very, very rapidly or enhance them. So with that in mind, what's one core principle or piece of advice that you'd give to a business leader who wants to scale their workforce or their fleet operations without losing quality or burning out their teams?
John Kissel [00:47:55]:
They would need to first. They need to have good, strong general knowledge. So somebody, whether it's that CEO, owner, whoever that is, he needs to bring it or he needs to hire it, it don't try to nurture it inside your organism, the organism of your business. You need to get the best you can possibly afford. Don't skimp. And as a business owner that's starting out, that's a hard thing to hurdle, to get over because you have limited money yet. That's the thing you don't have yet. But invest in it, it'll pay you off at a 5x or a 10x.
John Kissel [00:48:28]:
Hire the best you can. It'll, it'll take you to the moon.
Mike Koenigs [00:48:32]:
I'd like you to make an ask for our viewers and listeners, which is you've got your core business, which is your fleet business. You've also got your mission of AI ready and what you're doing there or just joining forces with you. If someone's brain was tickled from a collaborative point of view, what's your ask and where should they go to connect with you?
John Kissel [00:48:59]:
Well, from a business standpoint with workforce, my ask is if you've got a national fleet and you have pressure points that you're not getting served in your markets, I think we're an answer for you flat out. I know we are very good at what we do and I don't know anybody that's competing with us at a level that we're competing. I think we're really that good. From a non workforce perspective. If you are a business owner and you've grown your business to 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, 100 million, 200 million, it doesn't matter the size. But you have not been able to find an integr specialist for you. Reach out to me, reach out to me@jdkissel.com I want to talk to you because we're putting together something really special with a mentoring program and we're calling it Prospect Forge. And I think it's going to be change.
John Kissel [00:49:44]:
I think it's really going to be changing top level businesses and bringing them into the game with AI. All these businesses that really don't know how to do it. This is how you do it. Well done.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:55]:
Okay. Is there something I should have asked you that I didn't or any parting words?
John Kissel [00:50:00]:
No, I don't think there's anything other than I've had a brilliant two days with you and I can't wait to come back again. It's been wonderful.
Mike Koenigs [00:50:05]:
Yeah, me too. And we got another one to go, so this is a good way to wrap this up. First of all, what you see is what you get. This guy is remarkable and I'm grateful to him also and emotional because he's made a big difference in my family's life and my life already. So I think where I like to leave it is head on over. If you're intrigued, learn more about john@jdk I-S-S e-l l.com and get to know him hopefully as well as I have. And I'm looking forward to many more. So thank you, John, for a remarkable couple of days.
John Kissel [00:50:40]:
Loved it. Can't wait for more.
Mike Koenigs [00:50:41]:
All right, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening Capability amplifier. This is your emotional Mike Koenigs, your host, with my friend John Kissel. See you in the next episode. Episode.