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Host Scott Lollar is a 35-year veteran of the painting industry and founder of Consulting4Contractors. The 'Success Beyond The Brush' Podcast serves as a touchpoint to painting contractors who have hustled, sacrificed, and worked hard to get their business to where it is today. Now, you need the guidance, expertise, experience, and team to make it into the multi-million-dollar company of your dreams. You'll hear stories and interviews from "Brothers of the Brush" and "Sisters of the Sprayer" who have been where you are and are charting a new course for their company's success. Listen in and go beyond $1,000,000!
SBTB Ep. 8 | Executing The Gameplan - Why Great Contractors Run Better Meetings (And Bad Ones Avoid Them)
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[00:00:00]
Introduction: The Importance of Vision in the Workforce
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Scott: We know that today's workforce is really looking for vision. So how do you cast vision? How do you communicate vision? And then how do you report to everybody anything in regards to that vision? How are we doing on our plan? You can't do that without standing up front and talking about it.
Why would I follow you into battle, Mark? Why should I work here? Why should I give extra? Or why should I not go with the guy across the street that offered me an extra buck? What is it about your company or about you that really motivates me and makes me feel secure that I have a place here, an opportunity here, that there's stability. You can't do that without communicating that. And we know, and we've seen this many times with painters we're talking about employee painters now not subs, but even subs can be this way as well, is when they don't see a clear schedule or how much work we have lined up, they get a little skittish.
They really [00:01:00] need to know that there's a plan and you guys are working hard on the plan, and we're selling and we're scheduling and you're going to be good and your family's going to be good, and your paycheck is secure because we're doing all this stuff. I just want to let you know it, and I don't think you can do that without connecting with them in a regular way.
Welcome to Success Beyond the Brush
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Welcome back to Success Beyond the Brush, the podcast where we help growth-minded contractors build successful teams, run cleaner operations, and scale a more profitable business without losing their culture.
The Great Debate: Company Meetings
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In today's episode, Mark Black and Scott Lollar dig into a topic that instantly divides most contractors: company meetings.
Some people hear the word meetings and think corporate fluff. While others know that consistent, well run meetings are one of the fastest ways to build stability, alignment, and trust inside your company. We're talking today about why owners resist meetings, what types of meetings matter most as you scale, and how the right meeting structure creates better communication, better [00:02:00] leadership, and a team that actually feels connected to your mission, not just their paycheck.
No matter which side of the coin you might fall on with meetings, let's take a listen to an episode that most of us will find extremely helpful.
Mark: All right,
Diving into Company Meetings
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Mark: welcome everybody to another great podcast. I'm your host, Mark Black, talking with Scott Lollar from Consulting4Contractors. Welcome, Scott.
Scott: Thanks, Mark. Good to be here for another good episode.
Mark: Thank you, and we do have a good episode. This is a very interesting topic to me. We're going to be talking about company meetings. All right. We've already split our audience right there.
50% of our audience just went, yeah, whatever. Skip.
Scott: No, seriously, don't hang up.
Mark: And 50% are like Yeah, company meetings! And I think this speaks to the fact that a lot of business owners first of all came up differently. A lot of us came up through the trade, we're blue collar people by nature. We became business owners and there's kind of a, forgive the saying, it's a [00:03:00] anti-corporate, I ain't no white collar guy.
I just talk to my guys and I get work done right. I actually tend to be that way, so that's why I'm a little defensive of that type of personality. I don't want to dress up in a suit and go to an office every day. And then there's other listeners who are either high performers or, they didn't grow up necessarily in the trades.
Maybe they did, but they love the idea of this office setting. I'm going to run my business like a legitimate company would, including company meetings and they get really excited. Some of that's personality and DISC profile as well.
The Value of Regular Communication
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Scott: Yeah, well, I think entrepreneurs start off by sort of being lone wolfs. They put it all on their shoulders, they get it all done, they grind, they're high achievers typically, or high performers, right.
The idea of slowing down to communicate with others and to bring other people into that circle as you grow can be a challenge.
And [00:04:00] so it makes sense that it's not easy to do and there's other reasons we'll get into why also people resist it, but I think as you grow, and typically when our clients are, scaling you have to do these types of things in order to bring continuity to your team in a holistic way, right?
So if you're just, if you're siloed or you're having side conversations, but never really communicating to the whole entire team or to divisions, then I think you're going to struggle to really achieve the kind of things that you could if you were to be better at communicating with all of these people.
And the best way to do it is through an organized structure like a meeting.
Mark: Right, and, we of course understand that there's probably contractors of every size and scope out there potentially listening. So we, recognize that not every meeting that we may discuss today would pertain to your company at certain sizes. Obviously, the more people, the more divisions that we have, the more meetings [00:05:00] that's going to require.
Types of Essential Meetings
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Mark: But in your mind, give us two or three examples of meetings that every painting company should be having, regardless of size.
Scott: Yeah,
The easiest one course, really is an all company meeting. I think you should be communicating with everybody together, I'm going to say once a month.
Especially operationally, your painting team. But once a month I think is a good rhythm. A quarterly meeting could be okay as well, depending on some of your other meeting structures. But we know that today's workforce is really looking for vision. So how do you cast vision? How do you communicate vision? And then how do you report to everybody anything in regards to that vision. Or how are we doing on our plan? You can't do that without standing up front and talking about it. Why would I follow [00:06:00] you into battle Mark? Why should I work here? Why should I give extra? Or, why should I not go with the guy across the street that offered me an extra buck? What is it about your company or about you that really motivates me and makes me feel secure that I have a place here, an opportunity here, that stability.
You can't do that without communicating that. And we know, and we've seen this many, times with painters, we're talking about employee painters now not subs, but even subs can be this way as well is when they don't see a clear schedule or how much work we have lined up, they get a little skittish.
They really need to know that there's a plan and you guys are working hard on the plan, and we're selling and we're scheduling and. You're going to be good and your family's going to be good, and your paycheck is secure because we're doing all this stuff. I just want to let you know it, and I don't think you can do that without connecting with them in a regular way.
Mark: I tend to agree with that.
Overcoming Resistance to Meetings
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Mark: In your mind, what are some [00:07:00] reasons that a person or a company might be resistant to that? What are some reasons that people would not want to have a meeting and say, I, wouldn't even know where to start.
Scott: Well, it costs money because they have to be paid to come to the meeting. That's the first one. It's inconvenient. I hear that a lot. Well, this, crew has to drive this far and these people don't start, til nine. And there's all these excuses, right? And, so those are really the reasons that we primarily hear.
And I think it's not uncommon for some entrepreneurs to really not be comfortable communicating.
And they don't know what to say. What am I supposed to say? How long should I say it?
What's wrong? What's the wrong thing to say? And they don't really know what to do. So what they tend to do is nothing.
And I think that's really the wrong thing to do.
Structuring Effective Meetings
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Mark: Let's take a great example, like you just talked about an all company meeting. This is a monthly meeting. I have my whole team. I've got 10 or 12 guys from the field. I've got some of my admin staff. Everybody's sitting in [00:08:00] the room. Could you give us an idea of just in general, what are the main topic points?
This isn't a podcast of "Here's how you have a meeting" necessarily, but just so we give our audience something to really consider of what that might look like, what do you think the main components of that meeting should be?
Scott: Well, there's lots of ideas. You can pick some of them, any of them, all of them. But I think there should be some report or update of how the company is doing on the actual to what the projection was. How are we doing on this journey? So, I would say in December, early January at the latest, I think the owner should cast a vision for where you're headed this year.
What are the initiatives? What is the revenue target? What's that going to require of us? Right? So you wouldn't possibly go into a competition without training. And so this idea of what's [00:09:00] it going to take from your team to achieve to get them to buy in? Rick Holtz has a great discussion about this in one of the previous podcasts that we can link.
But he involves his whole company in a planning of this in small groups and they come up with their own goals. And so it's not Rick standing up there and going, here's what I want. It's the company. And I'm talking about 70, 80 people in his organization that are discussing and talking about their company goals. What are they going to do? And they come to those numbers and, things that they want to accomplish together. So I think reporting how we're doing on the journey every month is really helpful.
I think of course, always acknowledging and introducing new team members is always great.
I think acknowledging or highlighting some extraordinary behaviors or efforts or, some kind of acknowledgement of [00:10:00] something, little recognition of something.
I don't want it to make this a competition. So, oh, I wonder when I'm going to get the employee of the month.
I'm not really saying that. I'm just saying little encouragements, law of appreciation type of thing.
The other thing that, this is obviously a natural place to do some of these things are a safety training. If any of you are familiar with an OSHA inspection or anything that's an OSHA related thing, one thing they're going to try to identify is, do you train your people or talk about safety here? Well, yeah, we sure do, actually.
We do it monthly and here's the log and here's the topic. And so I think it's a real miss if you don't do something at your meetings around safety.
I think there's also always some kind of administrative thing that, hey, we really need to make sure the POs are accurate. We're sort of having a little bit of a dip or your time sheets, or there can be administrative thing. We need to fill out these forms. There's a new 401k or these are administrative things that everyone needs to be [00:11:00] involved with. So this is a great place to do it. I also think it's a great place to do a technical training or highlight of some kind. It's very common that a vendor might come in and present a topic or something about a product. So those are all good uses of this time. I don't think you should use all of them, but I also think that is an opportunity to have other people stand up in front of the room. I think the last thing you want to do is be the person up there for 30, 45 minutes standing on a soapbox, preaching and talking to your people. Get other people involved and, give them a chance to get up there and have the safety talk or the tool talk or the product talk, administration, safety. These are all things that are easily delegated to others,
so that only thing you might do is talk a little bit about vision.
Transparency and Financial Discussions
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Scott: And the other thing that I'll say that's required here, and it's an excellent exercise, is to educate everybody [00:12:00] on the economics of a business and report to them. If you're going to be reporting money, which I think is a great thing to do. Revenue, expenses, these are things that even though they feel very personal, I think you need to be talking about them. Then you need to provide some economic education and tools so they understand what you're talking about.
Mark: And I've talked to owners all over the gamut of that particular subject. Some owners are super, like embarrassingly transparent. They'll talk with their employees about what they personally take home and like everything is out in the open. And then I talk to others who are super guarded and they.
Talking in vague terms or more about percentages than actual dollars. Do you have an opinion on that as to how transparent we should be being with our teams financially?
Scott: Yeah, I would be appropriate as far as the details, using bundles or rolling up categories, as we would say in QuickBooks Online. I would be somewhat vague, because they're going to [00:13:00] try to figure this stuff out. For those that say, well, if I show them too much, they're just going to know I'm getting rich.
I'm like, but they already see the numbers, or they do the math and they think that whatever's left over that they didn't get, you're getting. They don't know anything about the expenses. So I think some level of education and transparency there is really important within reason.
I think there's some stuff that's just better left confidential or at least somewhat bundled. We don't need to tell them what we make as the owner. We can bundle that in with all administrative costs or overhead salaries, right? So....
Mark: We talk in some, like you just said, we talk in some big categories. Here's our cost of goods sold and what that percentage is, which of course gives us our GP. But then our expenses, we're trying to keep our expenses around 30%. That's what our goal is as a company.
We're a 50, 30, 20 business model, 50% cost of goods, 30% expenses, and hopefully a 20% [00:14:00] net to help us continue to build and grow. And our team understands those big categories. But I don't need to break down the 30% of expenses and tell them exactly what I spent in marketing and whatnot.
Scott: No, and I don't, I think it'll overwhelm them. But any company that has any kind of incentive plan or bonus plan, the reporting of those numbers are critical because how would they know if they're on track to get something or not? It's really important to let them know how it's going, the race that you're running together. Otherwise, they're just going to lose hope or lose sight of the fact that it's important to keep going, even in spite of a off month or something.
Mark: Well, I've certainly noticed a correlation, and not only in my own company, but in other companies as well, that the companies that are having monthly meetings and are staying engaged and very informative, trying to keep the team informed of the overall health of the business, tend to have very high culture.
Scott: Yep.
Mark: And the opposite also applies. The opposite also applies those companies that see each other once a [00:15:00] year at a Christmas party and never have any interaction, usually a very low morale and culture.
Scott: I think a lot of people listening to this will resonate with this, but when you were smaller, if you can remember, when you were smaller, they saw a lot of you probably, right. And as you grew, layers of management and sales and all sorts of people came between you and them, and they don't see the owner anymore.
And it's not uncommon for us to hear, I wish I'd rather have it like it was before when we were all on the job site and we would have pizza and coffee or whatever, you know? This loss of connection that they have, or sometimes a lot of people don't even know the owner. I know in a company I previously worked with at PPD, I ran the complete organization and the owner didn't, Aaron, necessarily need to approve a hire or anything like that. So it wouldn't be uncommon for a new hire to not have ever met Aaron. And so [00:16:00] there's a moment where I want them to know, here's the owner, here's the guy.
But they weren't involved in the hiring process and they're not going to be involved with managing that employee. But they need to know the owner and they need to have a engagement and relationship just the same.
Mark: That's absolutely true.
Additional Key Meetings for Business Success
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Mark: So aside from this all company, maybe monthly, meeting that you would suggest, what are some other common meetings that you would see for businesses that you coach?
Scott: So the next meeting that I would have regularly, and I would have this biweekly or weekly would be with your crew leaders or foreman.
Those are the people that need lots of your mentorship. They need leadership. They need the soft skills. They need reinforcement because they're the ones that take care of your downline employees. So someone needs to take care of the leader, the leaders, and nurture them and train them and encourage them because what we are going to ask them to do is turn around and do the same to [00:17:00] the painter in the field. Because you're just not going to be able to do that day to day. So spending time with them is really important.
And doing more leadership training there and reporting numbers, handing out schedules and scopes of work is also I think where you can do that. Engaging them in sort of ongoing projects. Troubleshooting, it's a good place that your leadership team is. So if there's an issue in the field or an issue with a person, we could talk about it, come to some conclusions or arrangements and discuss it in the plan of action together. Because that is your nucleus in the field that really takes care of your day-to-day operation.
Well if you're listening to Success Beyond the Brush and thinking, man, this sounds familiar. We're dealing with these exact issues, you are not alone. Most contractors don't struggle because they lack skill. They struggle because their business outgrows their systems, and that's exactly why Scott and the team at Consulting4Contractors can help.
They build structure. [00:18:00] Leadership and operational clarity so your business can scale without constant chaos or burnout. If you want help tightening up your systems, improving communication, or building a company that doesn't depend on you for everything, check out Consulting4Contractors.com. That's Consulting4Contractors.com.
Let's get back to the conversation.
Mark: I've heard, again, lots of different people talk about this. Either it's a Monday morning meeting or a Friday meeting, they're kind of talking about the week or the week before. Tell us a little bit, more dive into a crew leader meeting. What are the main components of that you'd like to see covered?
Scott: Yeah, so we just, we'd hit briefly on work in progress, if there's any hotspots. This isn't like a thing we're going to go around the room and everyone's going to share something because we want to keep it brief and get them out into the field.
But if there's any hotspots or challenges that need a discussion, I think it's a great place to talk about that because your peers are around the [00:19:00] table, so to speak, and they can give some help, or if you have a culture of humility where you'd be open to coaching from those around you and then get some encouragement.
I think it's also, like I already said, a good chance to discuss work coming up, and then sometimes this is a place where if there's some challenges you might share a little bit more here than you might with the entire company. Challenges with workload, our backlog's getting thin. We need some overtime. We need no overtime. This is where you might share a little bit more of the details of the heart of some of the stuff that's happening, because these are your real impact players.
Mark: Yeah, I agree with that. And in our crew leader meetings, we end up, inevitably, we end up discussing team members individually. Who's performing well, who's maybe underperforming, who needs to be fired, who needs to be, when we need to hire, we, just end up talking about a lot of personnel issues [00:20:00] during those as well. So I'd add that into the meeting.
Scott: Yeah, for sure.
Mark: All right. In addition to crew leaders, what other meetings should we be thinking about in our businesses?
Scott: Yeah, depending on your size, there's two additional meetings that I think can be really critical. If you have a sales team, I think a sales meeting is really helpful.
It provides accountability, first of all, because I think that we need to make sure there's follow up and appropriate sales process being followed. And you can't assume that it is.
So, we would advocate for a CRM. We're using Monday.com, that would be able to sort of poke in there and see where they're at in different stages, and are they on target or have they done the tasks that have been assigned to them, and are they current on those tasks?
So just to follow up reporting numbers, we are, as you've heard in other podcasts here, big proponents of KPI.
So we have target bids and target bid dollars. Of course wins [00:21:00] targets as well. So we're reporting numbers and dollars, both bids and wins, and we're looking at that frequently. We actually have that data in week increments, if you're meeting weekly, or biweekly would be fine too, if that's works for you.
But I'm a big proponent of keeping these things top of mind because I think there's science that says keeping them on the forefront of everyone's mind helps you achieve things that if you don't think about them, you're just simply not going to achieve. So really understanding the goals and the follow through and discussing those things.
Now this is also a place where if you have some lead flow challenges, we can do something about it. So we might be communicating with our marketing team that says, Hey, our lead flow's down. You're not going to know that without looking at this data, talking to your team, talking about to them about quality of lead. So this is where that sales team can be together and we don't really need to include anyone else in that meeting. I would say probably no matter [00:22:00] what that's a meeting that can happen all by itself and should happen.
From there, I really like to see operations meeting. That would be with what I would call our management team, so any kind of OPS, project management, even office manager, you're going to include the sales team with that as well. This is where I want to talk about work in progress. See if there's any hotspots again. Look at future work coming up. If there's anything to discuss that hasn't been discussed already, but this is really where any job that was accepted since our last meeting, I want it to come out and be handed off to the OPS team from the sales team. I think we get bogged down with inefficiencies of going back, asking lots of questions to the sales team. And I want in this meeting that any awarded job since our last meeting gets handed off, including pictures, notes, clear scope of work. The OPS team can quickly look through the scope and the pictures and, sort [00:23:00] of, own, from there on, the project. And that the sales team can move on then to other things.
If they cannot understand the job through the scope of work, the contract, the pictures and the notes, if there are any, then we're going to encourage the sales team to do a better job of that because I want the production team to be able to perform that job using that information and that information only. I don't want them to go back and start asking questions, Hey, is this included? Is that included? Hey, what about the shutters? What, that happens constantly and
it's,
Mark: the time.
Scott: and what happens is it's a time waster for everybody. It diminishes the experience for the client because they're like, I don't know what's going on here, like, that's why I hired you people. And it really is just inefficient. So we really want that meeting to be like a handoff of all the pertinent information. Then I want the sales team to move forward.
I don't want the sales team to sit there and handhold production. I want to move [00:24:00] on. So that OPS meeting, with your management team, I think is the other meeting that I would like to see that one typically weekly as well. And we can also talk about a lot of things in that meeting. Manpower issues. Are we staffed appropriately? What's our backlog? Those are really important things to note because our sales team needs to know it, right? They need to know sort of where we're booking and, sort of have a feel for that as they're out there making promises. And then we can just triage anything as a team because everyone's there.
Mark: Right. We would even have input from finance would talk about profitability. as we job costed and found out which types of jobs were profitable, they'd be talking to marketing, and marketing would say, all right, we are going to design some campaigns around that particular thing that we make really good profit on. And that's communicated to the salespeople and that, it just, it all works hand in hand, but not without a central meeting like that OPS meeting.
Scott: Yeah.
The Role of Standup Meetings
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Scott: [00:25:00] From there, there are some things that we call standup meetings. They're impromptu, but they're regular.
Almost every production department is going to have a check in somewhere in the afternoon because we know what the plan was, but we don't know if the plan was executed. And tomorrow we have a new plan. So execute that plan? So that standup meeting, and it can be on the phone, it can be in person, whatever, but just that check-in and it's just maybe a five, 10 minute meeting between those stakeholders that do that scheduling to say, Hey, is tomorrow really going to come off like we plan?
Now, I'd like that meeting early enough in the afternoon, I think by two, so that it gives us some time in the day before people go home for the end of their shift to make some phone calls, either accelerate a schedule and bring it up or deliver maybe some bad news to someone that says, Hey, we need to push you off.
But the last thing we need is to burden somebody with a bunch of [00:26:00] phone calls at the last minute while they're trying to get out the door. And so what this does, it helps us bring all of our activity that we know happens at the end of the day, brings it forward a little bit. Because I want people to have life balance, work-life balance.
I want them to go home and not be getting texts all night long and then having to try to bother customers. I really want there to be a sense of calm and we're on top of our game. So it gives us a chance to really set our schedule well in advance of everyone going home for the day. And I think, your staff really likes that too.
Your painters like that. They don't like the chaos of texts all night long and early in the morning and changes and it's an inconvenience and it's a hassle. It really gives them a sense of instability. Just because they don't complain about it, doesn't mean they don't dislike it and they don't like it. So bring that meeting up into the day just so you can get tomorrow set and move on and finish your day without a lot of stress.
Consistency and Structure in Meetings
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Mark: And for [00:27:00] owners that struggle with attention or, I struggle with Attention Deficit Disorder. So my mind is wildly racing from thing to thing. Meetings provide structure. It makes me focus on a particular thing at a particular time, and it gives my company consistency that we desperately need.
My people are craving that consistency and I'll be the first to admit we have some boring meetings that are repetitive or there wasn't a lot to talk about this time. That's okay because next week, we could be really struggling with something or we had a big catch or, oh man, I'm sure glad we looked at that, or that would've been a disaster.
The consistency of the meeting, my team relies on it. I've come to rely on it, even though it's not my natural style.
Scott: Yeah, and I, do agree with that, that there's some components of some meetings that don't include everyone in the moment, right? So you might just need to wait five or 10 minutes before your time's come. But there's [00:28:00] a couple of things going back to why meetings don't happen. It's not uncommon for people to have a meeting on their schedule, but they don't hold them sacred.
These meetings have to be held sacred, and they cannot be missed. They cannot be done remotely because if you allow exceptions, then it will become the norm, not the exception. So showing up for your meeting, showing up on time. You're wasting everyone's time. If we, if we straggle into the meeting, this person's five minutes late, this person's on the phone. Just a minute, it's really important. You know what's really important? This meeting that four or five people have committed to coming to and that's the most important thing.
Start on time, make it concise, and get it over with. Get everything you need and then you can go on with your day. But it's non-negotiable. You cannot have an appointment.
You cannot promise a client you're going to come see them because I, can't, I would love to see you, but I have another commitment.
And that commitment's in a meeting, and it's important. And if it's not, then it won't happen. And we hear this often, that there's a meeting on the [00:29:00] calendar, but someone's not there. And very common, it's the owner that's not there.
Now, the other reason I find that people really struggle with the meeting, besides the reasons we talked about earlier, is they don't know what to include in the meeting. They don't know what to say. They feel like they have to manufacture content. And so there's a very easy solution to that.
It's just make an agenda. You don't have to have a 10 point agenda. It's not a city council meeting. Even a city council meeting probably has a simple agenda. It needs to be about four things, maybe, and you just put it you just create a template and it's the same four things every time. Now jobs will change or the safety talk will change, or whatever we're talking about will change. But the fact that we're going to have a safety talk is the same thing on every agenda of every company meeting.
And so create your agenda to hit the things that need to be hit so that you don't have to think about what are we going to talk about, and then assign it to somebody to fill out the [00:30:00] agenda 24, 48 hours advance or something so that you don't have to be stressed about it.
Because I think a lot of people are stressed about it and they're like, oh, I didn't plan for this meeting. I gotta have this meeting. So what do they do? They cancel the meeting. like,
yeah, we're not, Hey crew leaders, we're not going to meet tomorrow.
Just go to your...
So that's starting to send a message that these things aren't really important, that your word's not important. It's okay if I don't show up or cancel or change because the that's the way we roll around here. And I think that the discipline of doing it. If you think it's too frequent, then have it less frequently. Do it every other week. But don't not do it because you're uncomfortable with it. A lot of people are going to be uncomfortable with it. And then, like I already said, distribute the podium, so to speak, to other people so you're not in charge of the meeting because that will give you freedom.
And the other thing that I find is that there's a lot of data that needs to come into these meetings and people don't have that data readily available. So that would be another thing to really work on, is to say, where are we going to get these sales numbers? [00:31:00] Where do we get the win numbers? Where do we get the estimate numbers?
Where do we get the job costing numbers? Where do we get the revenue?
And, just, go out there and figure out where are these things so that you don't feel behind the eight ball when we have to come up with all this stuff. If you get into a rhythm and just keep an agenda that's tight it'll become more natural to you. And then the last thing I'll say on this is, as appropriate, we always want to have a place where we would have a catchall, like, okay, is there anything that, someone needs to bring up that didn't fit into one of our four categories.
So, giving people a chance, a voice to express things where it's appropriate. Sometimes we go through a meeting, we hit all our points, we got through it, but maybe we didn't value some people that needed to bring something up or had something to share. And so just give a little space for others to bring something up that [00:32:00] might not fit super, super well in the categories we have.
Now, if it's fully inappropriate and completely needs to be tabled, then sometimes you're going to have to lean into that and say, Hey, I would really like to talk about that. I think that's a private conversation. Let's take that offline. Let's schedule that. But give people a chance to, be heard and to be involved, and that will help them be more interested in the meeting as well.
Mark: I think that's one of the most valuable things we can do as owners is to invite others to participate, like you said, either in leading a section of the meeting, but certainly being able to speak their mind and having freedom and the they feel comfortable in sharing something that is either good or maybe negative that they think is hurting the company.
But to have a piece and to say, my opinion is valued on this team, I think that's incredibly important.
Scott: Yeah, it is. And all of this behavior I think [00:33:00] breeds community. It connects people. It feels collaborative. And that's what people want to be part of. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to know that there's a plan and we're going somewhere, and then we're going somewhere together.
And if you're not talking about it and not connecting, then I think a lot of times people can just think like, I don't know where this, I don't. I, we were supposed to have these meet, we were going to talk about this. He's, they, he stood up there on January 1st and promised this and that and the other, and I haven't heard from him in six months.
And I think that it really creates just a disjointed community of people that, when they're dysfunctional, I can't imagine why that doesn't make sense because they're dysfunctional. Like, let's create structure, community, collaboration, communication, and help people understand that this is a team that is pulling together towards a common goal.
Mark: And from what I have studied and experienced in my personal [00:34:00] experience, this generation of workers, the younger generation of workers, are looking for exactly that. That pull myself up by the bootstraps, generation X and, before we didn't need pats on the back. We just went to work and we did what we needed to do.
That generation it is almost gone. We're still in the workforce, but I'm just saying anybody from this newer generation is not going to be that type of person who can work for six months without talking to anybody. Just gimme my work order and I'll go to work and never need to see you. They want to feel part of a movement.
They want to know that what they're doing matters and they want their life to count. And that means a lot,
Scott: Yeah,
Mark: More than just a paycheck.
Scott: Could not have said a better myself. You are spot on, that is what they're looking for. And even though we're in the trades and we say, well, it doesn't apply to us, and we did a deep dive some years ago about what today's workforce looking for. And collaboration, vision and community [00:35:00] and to be part of something bigger than themselves were four of the things that they were looking for.
And
Mark: all four of those can be met with a well run meeting.
Scott: a hundred percent. Yep, I agree.
Mark: It's a super important topic and I appreciate your time today as we've kind of unpacked just some of these things. I know there are lots of conversations happening and probably various opinions even of the subject as we are speaking. But there are truths that everybody wants to feel a part of something and that a well run meeting, a well placed meeting, and a clear and concise message can certainly give our team the thing that they're looking for.
Scott: Yeah, I agree. Thanks, Mark.
Mark: Appreciate your time.
Conclusion: Building Strong Companies
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Well, that wraps up another episode of Success Beyond the Brush. If there is one takeaway from today, it is this: strong companies don't happen by accident. They're built through clear communication, consistent leadership, and the discipline to do the unglamorous things like run effective meetings. Really [00:36:00] well.
If this episode resonated with you, please share it with another contractor who's trying to build something better than just a job, a real business with a real team, and a real future. Don't forget to subscribe so that you can be ready to listen to new episodes as they release. Thanks so much for listening.
We'll see you next time on Success Beyond The Brush.