Ep. 56 - Creating a Thriving Workplace: Lessons in Company Culture with JS Bull

He's always traveling somewhere , doing something taking care of business .

So yeah , mark Zweig's not here today , which you know I always hate that , but I try to bring in really great guests when it is in his absence that I have some history with , and you couldn't find one . I couldn't find one . So here I am . I bring in JS Bull , who you've been on the show . It's been about a year who you've been on the show .

It's been about a year , over a year and just a little update for everybody listening . Js Bull and I were partners together at White Spider back in the day and great partnership Enjoyed it . We actually sat down for coffee a couple days ago and reminisced a little bit about how we did well and you did everything and I did nothing . That's what I've done .

And when we were , when I asked you to come on the day cause we were having coffee earlier this morning anyway , somebody we knew and and uh , just made a lot of convenience sense for you to come on over here and do a podcast with us real quick . So , uh , but you know it's like what could we talk about ?

I think would be really beneficial for other small business owners . And that came down to culture , which I feel that , man , I mean , like I'm very confident in the fact , especially after we exited out , you know , from White Spider , the culture that we had there was , I mean , it was honestly , it was tremendous , a really tremendous culture .

And I think that what small business owners need to understand and it took me a while to understand this is that cultures are not just passive , they're not unintentional , right , I mean , you have to have specific , you know , I guess , attention to that and desire to make that culture happen .

But it's such a broad word , right , like when I heard culture in the beginning , I didn attention to that and desire to make that culture happen and so . But it's such a broad word , right Like when I heard culture in the beginning I didn't even believe it .

I honestly called it a lot of bull crap when I was a young entrepreneur because I was just like what are you talking about ? You know , I mean like I don't even know how to put my arms around when you say we have a good culture , and it's really a mystery . I think it'd be great conversation to kind of demystify that for small business owners .

And what do we mean by the word culture ? And then , how do you create such a thing and why is it so important ? So I mean , I'd like to start out with like asking you like when , when we say the word culture , what does that mean to you personally ?

But I think , where , where I really like to start with it , is what's important in building a great business , and early on in my career I would say things like the idea or the competitive advantage , or the technology , or the IP , or you know these kinds of things .

It's the people , true , like , let's just cut to it Absolutely , people are the most important thing . They are your business , right , and this is why one of them , you know , my biggest strategies in building a great business is to hire . Well , true , saw you do that .

Yeah , and I mean that's one of the crazy things , right , and as we talk about culture , we'll probably jump around from kind of start to finish of it . But you know one of the things , um , from the moment I joined , actually , from the moment that you asked me to become ceo , yeah , right .

So , august of 19 , yeah , right , over a bologna sandwich , over a bologna sandwich , which , with my mouth full and choking on it right when you asked me , because I was not expecting that question to just come out , um , but uh , from that point until I basically stepped kind of out of the , when I , when I announced that I was departing , uh , flywheel in time ,

um , I interviewed every single hire . We did so , we did . We grew from 13 people , um , to almost 150 . Yep , and I interviewed every single person we hired . And it wasn't because I'm a control freak , even though sometimes I can't be . I mean you've been known . But yes , yeah , but it was because it was for the culture .

Yeah , because the people are the culture , and if you get the wrong , a couple bad apples do spoil the bunch , right , and if you get the wrong people in , then you end up destroying the culture .

Um and so , uh , anyway , that kind of this is one of like the probably more conclusive kind of yes to talk about , but I think it it helps establish that the people are the most important thing .

And you've got to be mindful throughout and when we were being acquired by essential which on flywheel , which we rolled into during the diligence process , I probably got to ask a half dozen to a dozen times . So everyone talks about how great your culture is . So , like , how did you build that culture ?

Yeah , and I mean , the first few times I got asked I was stumped Sure , I don't know . We just did , yeah , right , like it was one of those things where I didn't go oh , hey , eric , we're going to go , we're going to turn this company do an amazing company by building a great culture . Yep .

And then I had my perspective and way of doing that and we , literally as a partnership , you did your way , I did my way . We didn't interfere with each other , no , and they jived and they jived well together . They were different but they came together .

And I like , when you brought up that recruiting thing because I would have never thought about that ever , as a matter of fact , I did not think about that . I do now today , because I saw you doing it and I was like man that's , I remember , towards the end and you had kind of let me know . I've interviewed every one of these people .

And I went home and prayed about it and thought about it and talked to Amy about it and talk to you about it , and said , said and finally concluded there's no more important part of my job than to be sure we've got the right people here . Yeah , like yes , I'm being pulled 100 different directions , but this is the most critical thing .

At that moment and this was probably a year and a half before I left , right , and this was , it was getting crazy I just said no , we're not going to talk about it again . I am interviewing everybody . Because here's the thing I had several of these people which I laughed because it seemed like I don't know .

I didn't seem like a big deal to myself , but I had several of these people say I've never met a CEO before . I can't believe you're talking to me right now . Right , while they're in the interview process , and it was almost like they were starstruck . I promised the CEO a title you can start your own little business and call yourself a CEO .

At least enjoy it . It's not that fun , I promise . The title alone does not make me like worthy of your regard like this , but um , you know , like it , but it it did several things . It showed the respect that I have for the person joining the team . Yep , right that I am taking my time to meet you because you are important .

If you join this team , you're going to be very important to me , right ? Um , it protected our team because and I think probably two people ever made it to me that I said no to yeah , right and I just I got some red flags , and so one of the other things it did was the team was very careful who they put through

very true because they knew that I was gonna meet with them , right , and so , um , they did that . Um , but then also , when they joined the team , I already knew who they were . Yeah , and I mean I look back at other times in companies where I was in some form of leadership and there's a new face in the hall and I'm like who the heck's this ?

Yeah , right , and I'd introduce myself or be friendly , but still , like I knew when they show up and that Monday morning , meeting their first day , I can introduce them and tell people something about them . That's right .

Because if they don't come , I mean I tell you like another topic is having clear vision with every single body in the company , so freaking important , which we talked about strategic deployment last time .

But strategic deployment are numbers , but if you don't know the essence and that there's somebody that's watching that and it's so important and you hear from the CEO , these things are very important for this company and it just it lets them start out on the right track .

If they don't have that , then they come in and they could be thinking anything in the world and bringing things from previous experiences or have concepts or assumptions , but no , they got to meet the CEO for an hour and talk through , feel respected , feel valued , coming in , ask any questions .

You know , I love this podcast because I get to talk with guests like you and it reminds me like I again , even though I got to see how important you place that and how significant that was for our culture or business like it because it's not on the forefront of my mind like I can see that you know , like here at podcast videos .

I have probably interviewed most of it . It's not on the forefront of my mind . I can see that here at Podcast Videos . I have probably interviewed most of them . It's not that big right , but it puts it back in my mind how important it is for me to make sure that I do have those conversations with people .

It's when it gets to be that like 30 , 40 plus , yeah , and it starts especially if it starts to get really rapid , yeah , where it's hard to keep up with , where it's hard to keep up with , but hopefully you've done yourself a favor and you've got an HR person who's good and qualified to help filter that .

I mean we had the best HR person , kathleen Hoffman , ever , and she was an independent contractor for us before she came and joined us full time and she did a lot of that hard work even when she was an independent contractor for us before she came and joined us full time .

And she did a lot of that hard work even when she was an independent contractor for us and never charged us near enough money for it . I'm not paying her today , so she can't negotiate with me , but I mean it just . But hopefully folks are doing themselves a favor , understanding when they do need HR help .

Yeah Right , hopefully folks are doing themselves a favor . Understanding when they do need HR help . Yeah Right , Because it becomes an incredible burden to hire people much less the right people Totally .

Actually , if you can understand to have that as the forefront because of what you said in the beginning , business is people . It's who your people are . At the very beginning , you're taking care of your people . Hr that's their whole role . Human resources it helps them navigate . It helps them onboard's their whole role .

Human resources right , it helps them navigate , it helps them onboard . It helps you select all those things . So I think it's really important .

I want to bring up something to make sure people understand like when you were talking about this , during that time you're interviewing those people , we were experiencing rapid sales growth , going through acquisition and meeting objectives assigned to us for our acquisitional .

You know , trying to integrate , right , and then so much going on , so , and then you're integrating and and , but yet you still put the priority that time . That's a huge deal , like I .

I need the audience to understand that like , uh , like this isn't something that you just had time with , because , for this is something you made time for and it's because we put the priority on culture , absolutely right , the culture defines the company , it's what drives it .

And then , as I realized through this process , I'm going to keep getting this question . I better come up with a good response and where I kind of finally landed was that there is no formula to creating a good culture . It's different for every company .

Um , but there are critical things you can do , yeah , and there are points where it either drives its success or you can crush it , yeah , right . And so , like , some of the pillars are that the leaders drive the culture .

You know , and I was in a manufacturing company previously and we had like 12 divisions around the US and Mexico and what , as I traveled around in sales and worked because I represent customers that were in all of them , and then I actually led sales for several of them , and the things that I started to recognize were some of these uh facilities had great

cultures and some of them had horrible cultures , and so I started wondering why , like , what's driving this when they're within the same umbrella , they've got the same CEO at the top right and , by the way , that CEO was incredibly focused on culture , but it wasn't getting down .

And one of the things I learned is that , as an employee , your view of the culture of the company is really only as good as your boss .

When you've got a boss who has poor integrity , treats people poorly , your direct supervisor , your direct supervisor that is the culture you're living in , right , and so hiring again the right people , but the right leaders who will not only reflect but amplify the CEO's culture and morals and ethics and integrity and all these things .

That is how you cascade it throughout an organization , so the bigger the company , the harder it becomes . Yeah , good news is this is a podcast about small business , and so hopefully this isn't a 300 000 person organization , that's , you have to try to figure this out .

But , like , you have to have your folks reflecting the values that you're trying to instill , right , and so integrity is number one . You know , say what you're going to do and do what you say , right , um fairness .

You want , you want to rock a culture , be unfair with people , right I mean cut , cut their bonus when they've earned it because of a technicality . Um , I mean , there were multiple times , because we use strategic deployment , we had all of our personal bonuses tied to 90 objective objective metrics and 10% subjective metrics Right .

And there were many times you and I work in your organization with them , white spider where and we did it every six months , right . And so three months in , we tell someone hey , I know this is your metric , but I really need you to focus on this . Yeah , um , cause a lot of times we'd say , hey , I need you to do this .

They're like , hey , I'm supposed to be doing this , I don't know that I got time . It's like that one's not as big a priority , go do this instead . And if we got into the end of the bonus period and said , well , you didn't hit that target , we're not paying you , yeah , but we asked you go do this .

We know this screws up this metric , so we're just going to wipe it out now , yeah , and we're not going to give you a new one that you might not be able to hit . Sure , right , necessarily . Maybe it made sense to , but , and so just to be fair with people , right .

And you know the conversation we had earlier in coffee with is , with a leader over a three hundred thousand person organization , and he just said at this point like rules are rules , it's black and white . You can't get it . You can't get into every single issue and try to make a good judgment call Good news . In small business you can .

You can be flexible , but show grace , show some mercy , respect people . These are the fundamental pieces of a culture . Give a shout out to Alden Napier , right , who's our director of operations . I think he's the VP of ops right for us . But the guy is one of the greatest individuals on the planet .

Such a heart for people , such a servant leader , yeah , right . And if you look at a pillar of strength , of integrity and doing what you'll say and being fair , like Alden never gets it wrong , true , right , I mean , he's just a rock like that .

And he came in one day and he sat down and he said you know , I think , one of the unspoken values here and he was referring to the way that we created our culture and what our culture was he said I think it's hospitality and if I was taking a drink I would have spit out .

Yeah , it's welcoming guests and friends of guests and friends of your employees and opening your doors and going the extra mile to be sure that they're happy and comfortable and want to be there and are enjoying it right gathering people together , getting small talk , getting to know each other and serving break it yeah , like , yeah , serving , and and I , I went .

You know what , like it's probably one of the greatest compliments anyone ever gave me and it's definitely the best compliment anybody's ever given me that I laughed at at first right . But I mean over the next year or two that we ran it . That was top of mind

.

It's true , right , it's really true . But then another pillar would be just the leader , the main leader , the owner , the CEO , whatever has to portray the values of the culture .

Because if somebody says , hey , you need to write down your values , mission , vision and all this type of stuff , well , okay , cool , here's the formula for it , here's the best way to do it .

And in your mind , you're going in this logical , reasonable scenario and you're trying to create it to appease somebody else's desires for it , which might be an investor or whatever , or try to chart a course that may not be natural to follow . That's my thing , though , but I mean , do you believe in those things ? Right ?

And even though we didn't have the mission , vision and that stuff , I remember we did have some values that I think that you saw earlier on when you came aboard . You had done it before I joined . I had , and I believe in those because I went to the Soderquist Center with Chuck Hyde . They're incredible , chuck Hyde , andy Wilson was a part of that .

Obviously , don Soderquist , they're incredible . Yeah , Chuck Hyde , andy Wilson's been part of that , just , you know , obviously , don Sordaquist . But I mean , they taught me , taught . I went to a little two-day thing where they taught us how to write these values and it was all about introspection , you know .

And so when I wrote those fortunately I had gone through that , because when I wrote them , I wrote them about what do I , as you know , as a leader in this company , what do I believe in and that I want to make sure that I'm surrounded by ? But I remember when we went through those , you believe in the same values as well .

And I don't remember what the white spider values were that you had . I remember looking and thinking I absolutely agree with almost all of these .

Right , and I probably would have thrown a couple of different ones in personally , but they were great 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00,00 , 00,00 .

Another pillar that you brought up , though , um , is the uh , is the hospitality pillar too , right , and so let's go into that a little bit more , because I agree with all right Um , there we did not have hospitality at white spider , but in the magnitude , by any stretch , I mean like uh , uh , uh , uh , 10% . But when you came in , that was another

thing that . Yet you as a CEO of the company , in addition to interviewing everybody that walked in the door and taking your time there and putting that in priority with all the other crap you had to deal with . But then you always , you were always like I was telling you this the other day , we were having coffee , like you were the guy , like you would .

I would come up late at night for something and it'd be like 11 PM and I'd walk up and you had your light on your office . Of course , you know you could see from outside , I'd walk in . And I'd walk in . You're blaring music and you're doing something on your computer . I'm like , dude , what the hell are you doing here ?

And you're like , oh , we're getting . I'm smoking the pork butt for tomorrow's freaking lunch . And I'll be like I mean , do you have to be here ? Yeah , I gotta check . Got to check the temperature on it . But that was an example of the commitment you had .

Because you wanted A , you were putting that event on or working with the team on that , and then you were actually contributing directly to that hospitality event the next day . So I mean , what are some things that people can like ?

Yours was food , right , you kind of your love language is food and it's a really good love side too , and it's a really good love language by the way , like I were a whole . You embrace that , I embrace the , I embrace it absolutely this is a love language you receive .

But , um , you know , and we found our location , which was absolute godsend , yeah , situation , wonderful kitchen , great , yeah , open space and you know , but but I'll say js you chose that office specifically . That was a big part of it , partially because of the hospitality right , dude , it was Across the street from the amp .

Yes , so it was a built-in , like the big amp concerts we're going to throw a tailgate for . And remember , the hospitality is not just about the people in the organization , we're making it about the clients too , true , right , and families , and so it's bringing in others .

Yeah , and so it supports sales in addition to supporting the culture , for the employees , right , and for the team . Yeah , and so that was a big piece of it . And then we put a double XL big green egg , the biggest green egg that you can buy . I didn't even know they existed until we started looking at it Out on the patio .

When we got that office , we said what is going to make people happy in here From a hospitality standpoint ? Without that word in mind , we invested $11,000 , which we didn't have much money . We invested $11,000 in a we didn't have much money , no , but we invested $11,000 in a Slayer espresso machine . Sure did , and worked with Onyx to get it right .

Onyx Coffee best in the world and they came in . And I remember when they came in to train us on it , the trainer walked in , didn't know what we had and walked in and just saw a ghost or something . He's like our baristas would be jealous of this machine Like this is the machine , and so I was super confident , hey .

I did this thing as well , but you know , so we just went way above and then we brought them in to do , and so culture is . So the biggest thing I can say about culture is it's not a few big things , it's everything in between .

Like that's what I started answering to people when they asked me that question is what you know , how do you create a great culture ? Well , yes , you have these important , you know foundational thing , elements or pillars , but but it's it's really about everything in between . Yeah , it's consistency , and you've got to be consistent with those values .

You got to be consistent with the hospitality . Your team has to be consistent across it all , reflecting that right , um , and so you know , we'd have like the little barista training events , and so our team could and half our team would attend .

Yeah Right , but it was the half that thought coffee was really cool and they were into it and they would come in and they'd get to try to learn how to do latte art .

Try to support the community yep , right , um , I . I've home brewed for over 20 years , so I'd brew beer and put it on once in a while . Right , it was fun , um it . But you know , like , pulling in the community , I think , is another piece of it .

Yeah , and that's actually something that you did and you taught me really well , um , and so maybe you can talk a little bit about how we supported charities from well , before I joined . Yeah , because I think that had an incredible impact on our culture as well .

I guess one of my things that I would do is like I was always thinking like , how do we break the ice right ? How do we ? You know , just naturally , like I have an ability to to I don't have like a stranger kind of mentality , you know and for some reason I've been able to break ice with , with , even if I'm meeting one-on-one or with a group .

But then I would see , like , how do I break the ice of this company ? You know these people that are either you got developers over here , you got account executives here in sales . They're all doing different things . They do those different things because they're different personalities . It's like , okay , how do you ?

When you bring them together , you don't want an awkward scenario , and so I would end up intentionally making myself the awkward scenario to break the ice right .

And so , okay , it makes sense , because they need this need . But it's even deeper than that . It's like okay , I know who this person is . Oh , they have kids . Oh , they play soccer . Or oh , they've been through a divorce and so have I , or whatever it might be .

There's some sort of personal , human connection with people outside the organization , so that you can understand how important your work , that your work , is actually impacting other people . Now , I think the nonprofit thing was a really great way A because you would be associating with your market but at the same time , you're also doing good things .

You're learning more about the company or the community that's around you and seeing that you're actually the things you do and the work that you put out is is is beneficial more than just yourself , your family and even the company . It's benefiting . That was a big thing .

When I think about it , you know , because , just like you , I don't really think about these things , just kind of do it , it's just important to us , right , and it ends up being significant .

But you know , when somebody can actually feel , you know and sense like you know they're missing this connection to something greater than themselves , that I think that we were just driving naturally all the time .

As I look back , you did this . I didn't , but I figured it out from watching what happened , but I figured it out from watching what happened . The greatest marketing strategy , especially in the Northwest Arkansas market , is sponsoring charity events , and here's why I think Number one you're giving money to a charity . They're doing good with it .

And then , if you look at the suppliers in this market , so talk the Walmart side of things real quick . Right , the folks on the Walmart account are the decision makers , specifically on the Walmart account are the best , brightest , most tenured in the organizations . They have worked to get to the largest client for their company Yep , right . In the organizations .

Right , they have worked to get to the largest client for their company Yep , right , they have had every pitch thrown at them that you can imagine throughout their career . They're the most effective blockade builders to reaching them . So if you're trying to sell to them , they're not going to take your cold calls , right .

Yeah , you might be able to find a friend who can introduce you or get you into a discussion . But we're talking broad across the supplier base . Yeah , it's probably not effective . But guess what ? They're all sponsoring these charity events . That's right , all these suppliers are . And why are they sponsoring these charity events ?

Because they're passionate about these charities specifically or that charity specifically . So when you go alongside them and you sponsor and you end up in an event , go and have a nice conversation , yeah , they immediately think you all , they know you also care . That's right , because you're putting your dollars towards it , especially as a small business .

Yeah , it's your money , and so now you have that common ground . You're talking about dollars towards it , especially as a small business . It's your money and so now you have that common ground you're talking about that's right . And so at that point I never pitched anyone at a charity event .

But follow up a couple weeks later on the personal conversation you had and they're happy to have , and it's a very relaxed conversation . It's not I'm going in and throwing a 25-page deck at you , that's right . Right , you're talking about what your business is doing , what they need , and you're doing sales the right way . But I mean so the charity wins .

You get potential leads in with other clients , you're supporting other suppliers in the community . Your team is getting a benefit . I mean there is no loser in this and it's such a . You talk about guerrilla marketing , right , or grassroots marketing . I mean this is it .

It is and it's fun and you write it off on taxes I mean it's , it's , it's pretty , it's it's a heck of a strategy . It is , and I've been doing it with southern brothers construction . Now that I'm involved in that , it's like if we're gonna do good , like let's help it and southern brothers and and do that as well .

So , uh , yeah , I'm putting my money where my mouth is , being a great marketing strategy .

Uh , one is uh showing up , so you know as as the owners , as the business leaders , but especially as a business owner , right , like so let's go back to you when we talk about hospitality , like , by the way , and then we had these huge fridges there's a huge fridge in the kitchen too yeah , that you always had stocked with Cokes or Pepsis just to be balanced

here , but all kinds of drinks that actually were drinks that the people in the company really liked , and then you always had sandwich meat and stuff for them to eat lunch with . They had places to put their food Frozen breakfast items .

If I was rushing light up , woke up late , or I was up with the baby last night or there's something going on , I knew I could get to the office and I'd have something to eat like , dependent upon that . That's the consistency you were talking about .

But when we would have those like these , these , you know , a concert , get togethers , crawfish cook-offs or just a company event , most of the time me personally I wasn't involved with putting that on . I didn't even know what was going on . You were putting your time in there . However , there wasn't a single time that I ever did not show up for it .

Yeah , you know , because I knew intuitively it's important , it's important a me to be there , obviously , and so for the other leaders , but it was also really important for me to stay connected to the team and get to know people and have that conversation , because one thing about your team is they have to see vision consistently clear , and those are opportunities

for you as a business owner to articulate the vision . And I'm when I finally heard that quote that by the time you're tired of saying something , people are starting to listen . I heard that like two or three years ago and I was like oh my god , thank god I'm not the only one that you know .

That relieved all my frustration because I just thought that I was taking crazy pills . Nobody would listen to anything I was saying . But you have to express it . So it gives you that opportunity . You've got to show up . It's your responsibility as a business owner to do that , even if it's not your idea .

And that same thing goes with charities , right , yep , your chamber events . People will say you should sign up for the chamber as a small business owner and I've heard it 99 of the time . Small business , all that's not worth it . I've did that before .

No , what wasn't worth it was is you signed up for it , expecting somebody to give you something when it's actually you sign up for it and you show up and you have to work it , bro like that's the case with so much in life , right ? Everything , everything we're talking about , you've got to show up .

My third thing that I wanted to point out is what I have found as being the most , from my perspective , the most important thing on culture is it's so simple Humor . Yeah . Thing on culture is it's so simple humor . Yeah , I , intentionally , every day and every time I was around and I still do it today .

Uh , and from the beginning , is is I want to cut up a little bit with the team and and and I want to find people that I haven't caught up with and build this kind of you know and you make folks laugh and if you do that consistently , like , it's amazing like people how they feel about the company you know and it's so important to them .

Because the second that the humor leaves is when people are not really that happy and humor is like the best stress breaker in the world .

I think less than that , bro . Four and a half . We'll just round number it Five , all right , so 13 to 150 . How many people did we lose ? Zero , well , eight . This is so classic .

Right , because you just hired the wrong person with the job , right , um , and you don't hire people that don't fit the culture , right so , because they wouldn't make it . Um , but that's the only way you accomplish that type of retention .

Right , and as we did our voice surveys on our own for great places to work , or peak on with yep , you know , flywheel , uh , we always led the entire company , yeah , and or industry right in those surveys , and they were legit surveys and when people would say things to .

And then we would go back to the team and say , hey , we heard you , here's how we're solving it and that further builds the culture , because we've listened right .

Yeah , there's some people that have an advantage with God-given talent or personalities or whatever or characteristics , but you can get better at it . Traditionally , I am not an empathetic person empathetic person Like but over time , understand the importance of the people in our organization and trying to be more empathetic about situations .

Um , I , actually that area of our neuro color stuff , right , it jumped up , you know , for me at a whole level and so , um , yeah , it's like it's one of those deals where , if you realize there's an area , either find a partner or another leader in the organization who can really drive that area right and support them in it , right , um , or just work on

building it in yourself because you can , but it's you've got to be intentional about it and it takes some dedication .

So these things that you've talked about are what we would call the , or steven covey would call the quadrant two , right , the important but not urgent scenarios , even even though I mean you don't want to be quadrant one in this .

But that's always this hard quadrant , because you , how do you put important things in your list of priorities before they become urgent , right , which , by the time they're urgent , that's when you start seeing the companies actually going downhill . It's like holy shit , how do we fix this ? You , this , you know you .

But what you did really well , and you've always done really well , is you would take something like hospitality , interviewing these folks , right , working with your leadership to ensure that they're translated , they're alongside us on this , and you reminded them this wasn't like , hey , you had one meeting with the leader and then it's all good .

It's like I don't know . Yeah , there were hard discussions a lot . Yeah , man for sure , and in like that , another great example the leader does something that you know they might be talking to folks , you know , and then you hear something that doesn't align with our integrity or whatever . You know , and it's not the biggest deal in the world .

It's this little thing that they said that you can sense that it actually didn't offend anybody in that meeting . However , you know , if that keeps going , you know it gets really . Yeah , but you would take that little theme , you would call them in the office and you would discuss it with them . They actually have a good conversation .

A good conversation , yeah , but how do you take those things that we just talked about , the hospitality and et cetera , with all the other stuff you have going on as a small business owner , literally practically JS , I guess ? I'm asking you is like , are you on a daily basis writing stuff down and then you think and you plan for the next day ?

Or I mean , how do you get those small little things to get up to that priority to make sure you're not missing it ? Tough one , I mean for me .

And it's a collaborative process , but it's very transparent , and I remember when I joined , no one ever seen our financials right , and that's the way I think most small business owners are .

Oh , if they know we're making money , they want to get paid more , or I don't want to worry them that we're not making money , right , I mean , there's a lot of very practical reasons for it , but what we decided is hey , if these folks are going to go to war with us , they ought to know what they're getting into or how we're doing .

And , by the way , they can help us be better , absolutely , and they'll have some good ideas , and so I think that transparency is really important . But I think just being able to sense things right , like my daughter's five but I'm teaching her to read the room , okay , it's like don't walk in and everybody's mopey and start laughing and be crazy , right Like ?

Or if people are talking , don't just start talking . Yeah , I mean , that's five-year-old , kind of read the room is . Hey , they're in a conversation , don't interrupt .

. People are really stressed right now . Yeah , like and we deal with this a lot because that crazy growth that we're talking about , we could not hire fast enough , it's true , right , the right people fast enough .

And I kept telling them and it goes back to reiterate what I said earlier is I kept telling them hey , guys , we could hire enough people to get this workload off of you , but they're not the right people . Yeah , and it's just going to make your job worse later . It's going to hurt the culture here . This won't be a place you want to work .

So , like , just bear with me . We're going to find the right people . And we did over time , right , um , but during those times I went , I got to find a way to cut the tension . Yeah , right , so let's throw a party , let's do a retreat , let's set up a special event . You know let's . Yeah , it was like Dungeons and Dragons game .

Like the way I function is in lower stress times I'm good , just kind of freestyling it right , like we've got our routines of strategic deployment stuff and money meetings and these kind of things right that are natural .

When I get highly stressed I use Evernote and I just create a priorities list in Evernote and I go and just knock off and there's all these , all these , you know the quadrants and all these different things you can do to determine which thing needs addressed quickest , like highest priority , lowest effort , knock it out right , yeah , and get it off .

But , um , you know , and I and I would just be going down this list . But you know , one of the other things that I think helped kind of , especially during COVID but we carried it on after COVID for a while was we had 30-minute meetings with each of my leaders every day . Yeah , remember , yeah , I do remember , and it was over lunch .

It started at like 1130 and it went to like 130 . And that's how we kind of worked our way through all the problems and I can never note again .

I kept a list of all the stuff we talked about last yesterday and tried to address stuff in between , and then we talk about it the next day and anything new , and we work through it , and so cultural things came up a lot in that right , and so , listening to the leader saying , hey , I feel like this person is getting really stressed with this .

Let's figure out what we can do .

There's actually an answer to a .

Yeah , there you go , and I wanted everyone else to be there , and if I and other people were having fun , then we're doing the right thing . Right , and we keep doing it . I mean , I remember when you pitched to me Springdale Ninja Warrior , do you remember this ? Yes , yeah , you actually told me about that .

This came out of your brain to put on a charity event that was like American .

Lower effort , it's true , I like the way that I forgot the way I tell you yeah , you know this one .

Is that there was so much that I would do that you didn't know that you did that I certainly didn't do , uh , you know , and but respecting that and letting each other play , but then learning from each other , I mean because I can tell you that , like there's a lot of things that I watched , that I'm bringing in and I'm just , like you said , just get , just

get better , right as a leader .

Yeah , you weren't sure about yeah , but you trusted me on it , totally did um , and my ability to respect what you had built and who you were for , the organization and the cultural figure you were , and love the fact that you know you could do the things you could do and do them so well .

gotta be a good partner , but you gotta let others be good partners too , you know , and I mean , I mean , when you have somebody such high ethics and standards as you did right and you're right , and you did as well part of the , the beauty of it , for sure , but I mean like to be able to trust in that , like I mean other one .

But if you have a partner that you cannot trust into , oh yeah , and then that partner it does not have high ethics and standards and they have great integrity . I mean that's the one that I think gets people burned a lot .

But if it comes out , make sure you buy it . Yes , please .

We love love the questions from the audience , just like listening to your team . We love hearing from your listeners . You're facing a lot of challenges . Send us a note and we'll address it . And if you want to have JS back on , ask for more freaking JS Bull , and we'll get JS back on the show . But until then , js really appreciate you joining .

We'll do it more often and thank you . Thank you for sharing your secret sauces with us . Anything for you ? Speaking of secret sauce , you made your own barbecue sauces and they were fantastic too . Good barbecue sauce , really good barbecue sauce . I got a good barbecue sauce , sure do .

What was the name of the beer that you made that I love so much that I wanted a name , and then you stole it from me .

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