 Everybody Tom Stewart here our guest host today is Alonzo Adams and this is just going to blow my mind I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it through this hour here our our guest today is Kedma. Oh Kedma I am always great. Thank you for asking That is awesome Alonzo. What are you? What's going on in your world, man? Well, you know other than working with Kedma, you know, I would say You know busy busy coaching busy running multiple businesses, but having fun. That's what it's about still having fun This is uh, this is going to be a quick hour here. I uh, I'm going to try hard to keep up Kedma, you're this is your first time on smart business moves. I believe I believe so Not my first time in these interviews the first time here. Yes Oh, you've been doing interviews all over the place and you know some rarefied air. I mean Why don't you just introduce yourself a little bit tell our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do Oh, yeah, I would love to so Kedma means to move forward. Um, fifth generation entrepreneur I like to say I started negotiating at age five Um, and I've been building ever since Uh, I have been I actually came from the sba world So you should know sba because if you got a ppp loan or you got a eidl, you know sba really well And um did that for about 15 years. I've worked with over 10 000 companies Alonzo will tell you it's very rare for me to come up against the company I haven't had some kind of experience knowledge or impact Uh, and then I joined conquer. Um about two years ago as the vp of coaching and conquer Is a a business coaching program supporting home service industry Entrepreneurs I like to say we're the back end mba program So we don't we're not going to teach you how to clean windows But we are certainly going to help you with finance marketing Um and admin stuff. So it's an honor to be here. I'm always grateful for the people that serve So thank you for inviting me Awesome. So I'm going to go ahead and just share your your website here for car Yeah, um It's always a little slower on monday Yeah, everything's slow on mondays Yeah, what's going on here? Here we go, awesome. Yeah, there we go. Yeah If we want to know a little bit more about conquer, I guess drop the uh url and Yeah, the comments here. So people always ask why conquer or why do I need a coach? I will tell you that I've never met anyone Uh, who is successful whatever success means to you to me. It's seven figures or more in a company I've never met anyone who has not had a coach and scaled their company So, um, you know, we are um, Alonzo is one of our certified coaches um all of our coaches have built uh and scaled seven to nine figure companies And uh, it's a lot of fun. It's invitation only. We don't just let anyone in Um, it's a one-year program and we do a lot of wrap around support including vendors So it's a lot of fun Uh, and if you want to just peek in on the second website, I can just give you a quick You know two minute on that um and the differentiation and then we could start q&a and talk about leadership awesome So, uh, your your second website can It's just it's right. Yeah targetfunding.com. So I you know, I don't know about you and Alonzo, but The thought of reading financial reports is It makes me feel so excited. It's like eating tiramisu cake now people listening are thinking what the heck How could she see cabri or tiramisu like that? It's what I love But you know, I wasn't always bad that way back in 2001 I had to leave a very difficult relationship and I filed bankruptcy And I'll tell you some and Alonzo and I talked about this a lot Some of the best lessons you will learn in life Is when you're on the ground and people have kicked you over and over again And you got to get up you have no choice or you're going to die Well, that's how I felt when I had to file bankruptcy and by the way, I'm very financially Savvy, but when you're in a tough relationship and you have to walk away You got to do hard things Right. What was the best lesson top that I learned which is why I'm in the field of funding because Through that I reverse engineered how to find money How to make money and I've been on this path now since then since 2001 and so I run a finance company We help everyone in the home service from Sba lending to lines of credit to getting grants. I mean, it's a big passion of mine, which we can talk more later But that's where the the the merge happens Because when we coach inevitably we need cash Okay, you know most entrepreneurs, they don't know where to start or where to go Exactly They're just completely just you know lost about where do I get funding? Right, right. And you know, I know we're going to talk leadership, but Lanza because you know me born in the Bronx. I'm straight up Most lenders don't know where to take you I am working with a company right now Who called me and said well, I went to this lender and this lender said we can't do this that and the other and I said Uh, is it an sba lender? Yeah. Well, so what I don't care what they say I'm going to take it another lender is going to say something different. They said, how's that possible kedma? That's because every lender does it differently That's what we call underwriting And if you have, you know, some relationships, they're going to do things differently. So I think to your point Alonso I am so clear About educating in that finance world because I want everyone to win and if you don't have the money you don't have the access You'll get there So that's definitely something that we're going to want to talk about because I know there's a lot of people like In the house cleaning industry because we coach a number of them as well that are A little bit uptight about funding because that's kind of like borrowing money and that's like yeah And you know, they are like disciples of people like Dave Ramsey and it's like no We don't want that and you know, we try to coach people to understand that you know That's a tool and if you use it correctly, you'll be able to leverage that and build your business faster But if you don't know what you're doing with that you can get yourself in trouble too. So You know, that's I guess that's where the coaching and the funding go together I would say a couple of things Tom what we're really talking about is what we call financial literacy in the government world Financial literacy is educating ourselves and I play. I don't know if you play chess. I play chess and here's the deal There's nobody that can win a chess game until you know every single piece and how you play the game It's just not going to happen And what I like to do is take that area of funding and say we're going to play a game Because it is a game and I'm going to tell you all the pieces because everyone is a piece Here's what I mean Most lenders will talk to you about their lending products, right sba will talk about 504 They'll talk about a 7a. They'll talk about a line of credit Now, what if you went to that lender tom and said hey, I'm also looking at investors What do you think that lender is going to say? Hands up. I have no idea and I have nowhere to go So if you go to an investor, they may have a whole different thing. They may say listen, I don't care about your credit I don't care whether you have cash in the bank But I do care how many clients you have and what your recurring costs are And whether I can get skin in the game to scale it up, right because they have a different angle They're doing so what I first tell people is let's find out all the players on the game Before we start panicking and I want to do I do want to speak on the Dave Ramsey thing because Dave Ramsey Is someone that everyone admires but some of the tactics May not serve that company If Dave Ramsey's team says hey cut up all your credit cards shut them down Alonso does that he's going to be calling me up and saying One of the things that we try to help Business owners understand is Dave Ramsey at least from my perspective for the most part is talking to consumers and your Balance sheet is a completely different deal than your business balance sheet Absolutely However, if you screw up your your personal balance sheet, it may hurt Going after alone if the lender is looking at your score and saying whoa Wait, why'd your score go down to 650? Well, I cut up eight cards Right, so I think I would always suggest we look at both situations Because many times when you're going after loans, you have to do a personal guarantee anyway That's right. Mm-hmm. Sure But you know, we also take up to like publicly traded companies and you can look at all their balance sheets Some of the largest companies in the world None of them are reboot strapped. They all had funding coming from someplace or another Absolutely, absolutely Yeah, I could I could spend hours talking about funding. It's a it's a huge passion of mine Uh, and especially with the with the last year a lot of people are getting grants Right a lot of people are getting subsidies. Um, so for people who are who are worried or anxious or not sure What I would say let's invite education because then you can have more choices You can choose more you can leverage more Let's talk about that for a minute. I know that we want to talk about leadership and we'll get to that But we're doing something here. I think is really useful because it is There are a lot of companies out there that are setting on more cash and they've ever had in their life They couldn't imagine that they have this much money in the bank between PPP and idol loans and Now, you know, the ERTC tax credits are rolling in and yeah What you know, what advice would you have for for for these companies that are setting on a bunch of cash right now? Well, don't put it in your bank account That's the first thing unless you want to see what the interest is Um, you have to leverage that money so it makes 10 times what that money is now I want to put a copy out here. Let's just make an a lot. I'd love to hear your thing Let's just make sure we're not messing up with the sba And you know, I'm not taking it and putting it, uh, you know, hey, I'm gonna buy my my my Ferrari with it but What we want to make sure is um, if the money is appropriated correctly You need to be investing now. What are we investing in we could be investing in acquiring merger and acquisition new companies I'm working with that right now. Um, um, I had a cleaning company who looked at acquiring a company 1.2 million We're able to get that loan All documents done within 10 days and then it went into closing. Okay, so mergers and acquisitions There's companies out there that did not have a lot of high cash, tom That, you know, did not walk away with that and they are looking at Maybe someone acquiring them second Investing in new locations. Look at your situation. Where are you located? You know, are you in madison? Are you in la? Um, are you are you in alanta? Maybe you want to move into new location? Look at the zip codes build on that. Um Third is investing in real estate real estate real estate real estate Um, you got the lowest rates happening in sba right now You can't get lower than me because i'm the queen of funding because my real estate is locked in at point zero four percent So I uh, but that's because I know how to play the game and but next to what I have You know sba's doing, you know five will four loans real estate as low as under three percent locking in at 2.75 It's crazy. Talk about cheap money for the ideal and then the fourth thing you got to invest in Got to invest in your people Your people are your cash Your talk about leadership your people are your cash and if you're not investing in them, you might as well burn your cash So that's kind of the four areas. I'd focus on um alanta. Tom. I don't know what you think or you want to add on No, I love it. I just I looked at when I looked at um people that receive the money and the funds and They didn't immediately know what to do Again, you're in a pandemic. So you're like man, should I hold on to it because I don't know what could go wrong I don't know what things are going to change But that's when the biggest opportunities happen is that moment that you have to take some type of risk You've got to do something that does scare you And or just hoarding the money like tom is saying and not taking advantage of the real estate I did The market I did people were pulling money out of the market. I was like, no put the money in the Market nuts. No money in the market Right because right now at this time There will be this will be the biggest time in history where more millionaires were created in history than anytime ever Right watching work my work I know you're a thousand percent right and if you go back in previous recessions It's the same thing The one thing that all the millionaires and billionaires say is when things stop pour in pour into marketing Pour into customers pour into to to investments because that's where millionaires and billionaires are are I do want to just put a note here for the language because I English is my second language. So when I hear a word, I want to make sure the audience Can can step into that you said risk And here's what I want to do I because I like to simplify things because people make life complicated It's not that complicated guys. We can really all simplify it I like to say if I can teach it to a 10 year old I can teach it to anyone Risk is you know anytime we're taking a chance on something where we don't know what the outcome is But what I want you to do is I want you to realize that we're not talking about risk That has no Built in variables. We're talking about Risks that we know we're going to be successful. So I just came back. I was in utah I just came back from doing a zipline, you know, so I don't know if you guys tom or a lot of you guys ever done the zipline Right Not the big one. I did the mini one the mini one. Okay, so I like to do scary ones like, you know I did the the the fastest one. I was I was clocking at 60 miles an hour in utah It's the second fastest in the country Now check this out. I go on there. They they strap first thing I say to the to the person strapping me. I say Um, hey, um, just want to know if you like your job How have you been here? Any concerns Because the last thing I need this was I'm going to strap me and just say this my last day And I'm just gonna take someone out. I don't want her taking me out. Maybe someone else Sweet. Did you get last night? I mean, have you gotten any training? Is this your first time? Right? Because what am I doing? Alonso, I'm I'm handling that risk. Second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure the strap is there I'm going to look at what's going on. Okay. How does it work? How fast? Where are my brakes? Can I go forward? Can I stop? Where's the help if I get stuck? All I'm doing is taking that risk and I am validating That I have systems in place to ensure That I'm not going to die And it may sound so obvious, but we do the same Thing with finding people don't want to go bankrupt. They don't want to lose everything But instead what they do is they get to that step of the zipline Ask the questions They don't check in with the she was my team. I said, hey, you got me. I got you, right? I mean, I'm gonna be up in the air, but you still you're still gonna watch me, right? You don't have a lunch break happening at any end in the next 10 minutes, right? She said no, I don't have a lunch break. I'm just checking So I would say for anyone who is in fear think about it as if you were doing A zipline and ask those questions so we can remove the fear. We can't guarantee 100 it's going to be, you know risk-free, but we can game a fight where you have seven you're 80 percent There's never been anything game without taking some type of risk It's never been anything game You take a what a risk on relationships marriages is all you take a risk Right Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely I have a jar here with 100 marbles in it 90 of them are red and 10 of them are blue I'm gonna reach in and grab one. I'm gonna ask you to guess what color it is You're gonna say red Every once in a while, you're gonna be wrong But if you invest your money that way in the long run, you're gonna be you're gonna be wealthy Absolutely Absolutely the first thing is I thought when I when I was hearing this money being offered for ppp It's just my nature, but I'm like could I could I actually take that money and double it? And if they want it back I give it back, but I didn't cap the 100 return on it Right, right so Yeah, what we want to be sensitive to is the small business administration Set up that as disaster relief and if you qualified they have presumed that you had disaster relief And therefore However, you could spend it on that right a lot of that was payroll But to your point Alonzo if you spent it on that and you had cash reserved as a result somewhere else in another piggy bank You should be investing Our our advice is to be working closely with your cpa and every week that goes by a little bit more of that PPP money or if you're playing with idle or something else a little bit more of that is basically yours to do to invest Just kind of make sure that you don't get upside down on that I don't know what eventually the risks and the rules and so forth because a lot of that still being figured out. I think but a lot of it is um, I was working with a company that got An enormous amount over a million dollars in ppp and I was working with the direct ci sorry cfo Uh, and he was a little bit nervous because he wanted to make sure Oh my god, did I put the money right? Do you know there you know there's a sense and I said look one thing I love about the sba Is if you're honest up front that you screwed up They will work with you If you are not honest and you try to hide You might as well get your your handcuffs ready because you're going somewhere, right? They are they will crack down And in my role I work with a lot of the credit managers I'll tell you many of them right now are spending their time once because ppp is sort of Seasoned out and now they're going after fraudulent situations um, where yeah, they are they're all going to be people but tom for the most part We have honest people if they've made a mistake because they didn't understand the interpretation SBA is usually very forgiving unless you went out and bought the Ferrari Then probably And and that is a real story. I have had a case where that really happened So, um, you know, that's why I use it as a case case story. Um, but yeah, I think just continuing to uh, just Educate yourself of what's possible But I'm about invest invest invest. I mean, that's that's just where I am right now You mentioned investing your people. So, um You know real estate, you know tangible stuff that shows up on your balance sheet your your your personal wealth That's that's kind of easy to get your mind wrapped around Investing in your people is there's a little more abstract and there's right ways of doing that and there's wrong ways of doing that If you do it, right, you're actually building value. But if not, you're just burning money. Um, yeah Do you give some examples of what you mean by that? I do. Well, first of all, there is actually a cost. Um, associated with Uh, screwing it up and having people lead on average There was in a national report that was done two years ago. They did 250 000 Interviews and asked people why they left number one reason people were leaving Was because they didn't feel like they had the career opportunity to grow. They're coming in as a cleaner Um, they you know first stage they're just learning it But they don't see anywhere to grow and they want to grow. They're hungry. They want to make more money They want to have more opportunity. They want to have more value Actually cross the board number one reason The second reason that they were leaving was um, uh, it was actually not for pay It was a big portion of it was the management team. They didn't feel like when you when you asked them Why are you leaving? They didn't say i'm leaving for more money. Tom. They said i'm leaving because My manager doesn't respect me. Uh, I don't know my manager doesn't talk to me. I don't feel valued I don't feel appreciated. It wasn't like i'm going for an extra two dollars It's like Just left her job of 20 years for that very thing you're speaking about Right there management But they're asking on her way out the door. Why are you leaving? What could we have done? It's just it's mind boggling. You're asking them why they're leaving. It's like asking a relationship You've been in this marriage for three years and the person says i'm divorcing you. Why are you divorcing me? Well, if you have to ask that question You need to get a divorce. You see what I mean? You're asking that question You have not been taking care of your employees So the the point uh, tom is it's not actually abstract the the survey proved that on average On average it costs a company every time they have to terminate $15,000 per employee that's terminated Now, where do they get those numbers? They're getting it from the amount of time it takes to find right? You've got to put the ads out. You've got to do the interviews. You got to then um hire You got to then train. I mean think about all the people think about Alonzo's time, right? If he puts in three months into someone pours in and gets all the other resources the system the software and they quit It's not a hundred bucks So so that's right. If you if you really follow the numbers You know, you talk about turnover rates in the house cleaning industry of 200 air maybe more But if you break it down, you've got some people that have been with the company for a long time And you've got others. I mean you're hiring a ton of people just fill those last couple of positions Right, so, you know, and there's a thinking about well, gee and I can't afford to invest too much in training I can't afford to invest too much of my people because you know I've got all these people I need to hire and they're investing everything getting people on the top of the funnel rather than focusing on You know what happens once they get them in the funnel and and making it a successful, you know Venture for them. So how do I invest that money in my people though? What do I you know, just some some Examples of what you see from from from from your clients in terms of opportunities are being missed and If they've got some money, what are some smart things to do with it in terms of investing in your people? So I have so much I could share on this topic. So the first thing I'm going to share is We need to stop being mind leaders And we need to do something that we rarely see we need to ask people what they really want Now what we can provide because the game has changed This is now a market where employees get to choose where they want to work and I say look if you've got the The four higher sign Right what you need from me you're going to switch it up What I can do for you Alonzo, what can I do for you to persuade? You to join my team. So first you got to ask that question I have a power question. I ask on every single interview and when I tell you this power question The first thing you're going to think is Why do you ask that question? I mean, that's just not a question. I would ever think of asking But I'm going to tell you if you ask this one question First of all, it's going to make you a lot of money because you're going to know right up front Everything you need to know about that person before you hire them. Do you have any idea what that question is? What's the one question of all the possible questions we can ask in the interview? What's the one question I would ask Tom she know he's older than me I'll give you each one shot. Maybe you get it Alonzo one question You only get one question in the interview, but that one question is going to make the determination Of what's going to bring them on board? What would you say I would My question is always geared around What do they want, you know, what do they want, you know, you know or about, you know Um, what is their goal? You know because you know, I don't know. Maybe their goal is to go back to school Maybe their goal is to maybe start their own business. I don't know But I think if I understand exactly what they want or what they after then I position myself from a position of Being able to guide or fulfill Whatever they're looking for is seeing if I'm if it's possible on my cable walk. That's a great. That's a great question It's definitely my top list. It's not the top question, but it's great I would say yes to that 9.5 on that Tom what would be your question? Then I'll share any what would be the one question Something along the same lines. I'm always curious as to why are You even talking to me about being a member of my team? So if I give you a blank piece of paper and a pencil and say just write Perfect job for you. What would that look like? I love that. Perfect job. What's what's your awesome job? So here's my one question If I'm interviewing Alonzo, I'm going to say Alonzo. I have one key question If you get hired on with this company Tell me the reasons That you would quit or walk out of this company That's powerful. I like that. Yeah Whatever they say It is your job To make sure that never happens So if Alonzo says I would walk out of this company if I was disrespected in front of others Okay, write it down. I will walk out of this company if you don't give me the training I will walk out of this company Whatever that is. They are giving you the clues To never have them walk away That's your number one question And if you don't have the systems to actually figure out how to fix that You got to go back to the drawing board Maybe you shouldn't hire that person if you don't have the tools to fix it Maybe you shouldn't hire me or maybe what you say is Alonzo Man I'm going to commit you don't have that right now I'm going to commit to you if you stay on you work with me in the next six months I will guarantee you this will happen, but I'm going to need you on board to help People never walk away from situations where they feel that they are part of the problem of the solution The community they won't they won't so if you ask them right up front So if you ask me what would make me quit I wouldn't be even buying I would just say I would quit Alonzo If I came into work And nobody valued what I brought to the table. What does that tell you you better be valuing what I bring to the table Whether it's cleaning a hole Whether it's getting education because I've just told you the answer to what motivates me Yeah, okay, so now You talked about the second part Tom, which I'm going to talk about is what do you do when you have cash there? What should you spend it on first thing you want to do send out a survey? I don't care if you have five employees Or a hundred employees Send out a survey. Let's do a quick survey gula form find out what they want What you you know, this is the mind reader's time that drives me crazy because we think What we want is what they want right that's We talk about this in coaching Alonzo, right when a coach like man We will see that right. That's right. We went through it. I'm frustrated. Why are you frustrated? Man, I don't do this. I'm gonna do that and they're not doing that. Well, sounds like that's what you want What do they want? Well, I haven't asked what they want. Well, how about you ask them? You make it sound simple It's like we're going to send out an email to everybody say hey What do you want? But I'm sure it need to be a little more tactical than well Not really so it could be it could be a simple one But I'd like to do it as a survey so one of the questions could be You know, um, you know, we're thinking about adding benefits Um, and maybe it could be multiple choice. What would you love to have? So maybe maybe you don't have maybe you have health care. Maybe you don't have massages, you know I want some massages. My back's been killing me because I've been cleaning Um, you know, you're gonna think this is crazy. Maybe they've been wanting a pedicure. They're like, well, why would they want that? You don't have to worry about that. Maybe that's what they want. Maybe they want more time with their children Maybe they want to go back to school. Maybe they want a trip to to Puerto Rico The point is instead of us pretending. We know what they want We've got to ask the customer Because your most important customer top Is not the people you're serving At the homes your number one customer Is your employees and if you have to figure that out You're not making enough money Companies are not asking enough. I'm going to tell you right now because what I'm seeing Someone's reading a book. They went to a seminar They went to a convention and they're coming back with something that they heard what someone else was doing And it doesn't mean that works inside your company or with your culture Amen You know, you know, let's go ahead and let's rebuild the you know PTO policy or let's implement a 401k plan and all of that's kind of the borough plate textbook stuff But it's like I don't want a 401k, but I'd really like a manicure or something Exactly and you want to be listening. So one of our one of our clients in conquer He's doing about 2 million pest control company Because we serve as all home service. Here's what happened. He came to me. He's like, what should I do cadmah to help my My employees? I said tell me more instead of saying here's the answer Tell me more. We have a problem in our society. We're not actively listening. We're actively telling But we need to first listen. Tell me more He says well, I have um, I have about, you know, 50 percent of My technicians they work late at night. Tell me more. They work late at night. They get tired And you know, then then you know after they finish the shift, they're heading home I said, well, let's think about this If you're working late at night and then you got to get home. You're tired Do you think that you're picking up mcdonald's on the way or you think you're doing a healthy meal? He said, oh, we're picking up mcdonald's right because you're pretty exhausted You're not going to come in and look it sounds nice on tv tom But you're not going to be or lots of you're not going to be like, oh, yeah I'm going to ready ready for my five course organic meal, right? I said, but that's what they need, right? He said, yeah So why not partner With the company that will have homemade meals ready for them During their night shift that customized guess what he did I wrote it in entrepreneur this week because I write for entrepreneur. He did that Tom he partnered with a healthy organic company that made custom Meals for his technicians to take home I mean my heart is so big because he gave them what they needed And it didn't cost him a lot of money And it had nothing to do with, you know, oh raising the hour. It was like Yeah The long run or even probably the short run it's making him money because Small investment compared to having all those open positions Yeah, the gratefulness Alonzo where his team is like, man, thank you for a healthy meal Thank you for accommodating that I have a you know heart condition. Thank you for making a vegetarian thing He he made it personalized To their needs But we would have never got there if we didn't ask the question So when you ask Tom what can you do you can do as much as you want and be as creative as you want But first ask what do they want? What do they not want what they do they really want? What do they really want? so, um I've seen a lot of unique things. I've seen everything from Spending one day a month at their charity paid for by the company, you know I'm passionate for autism Alonzo knows this two on my three kids have autism Man, you give me a day where I can go to the autism society paid day From your company doesn't have to be everyone does it but maybe you treat, you know, you work the thing Okay, Alonzo goes uh month june Let's celebrate for that and Tom's gonna go november You give me a day to spend all day to give back to a cause. I believe in I'm not gonna leave you Not You know, I had another another another person where you know, he was dealing with um, uh debt from his college Things, you know and trying to get back wasn't a lot of debt left. I think it was three thousand dollars Company went and gifted it now. They could have gifted it They could have gifted it, you know every single month. I'm putting two dollars here an hour But to say we've chosen this person Right, we are writing off the three thousand dollars They may have got it in the pay over the year, but the impact of how they did it to celebrate You know, that's newsworthy So it's it's you know, again, I can I can speak ours on this but We are not doing a good job In finding out about the people that work for us. We really are not we're really not When you just look for the aspect, okay, when we have the pandemic come on, okay? So when this happened These companies that weren't listening the companies that didn't show that they cared were the companies that had the most difficult time convincing their people to come back Right, right. They were the ones that struggled because all they were they felt is that they were just a body A warm body in a seat Right companies that have showed that they really care were the companies that were able to convince their people And show them that um, they were trustworthy because that's a big thing about coming back was do I really trust this company? Exactly, right. And so these companies are still struggling And some some of them are moving it back because they really know Realistically those people are not going to just come back that easy. I'm amen You know and and let's think about it from the money thing because I said to you tom Look, you have a very important customer that if you don't take care of this customer You're going to lose $15,000 this month. It's going to walk out the door Because this customer is having problems. They're not happy with the house. Something went wrong You I guarantee you'd be out there Somebody important and you'd be out there and yet we don't realize That the very important customer Is right in our own backyard. It's the it's the employee You're not treating them like the vr. You're not thinking that way. And how far do I go when I'm working my employee? It's non-negotiable. They're my number one. Whether it's in conquer or outside of conquer. Here's an example Sam sprosin Sam sprosin was my ops manager Many years ago. Unfortunately. She was killed um In a bad situation. However prior to that she said to me kedma I she had been working for me for about four years and she said and i'm in oregon She said kedma. I want to move to to california. I said, why? Why you have me here? She said I need this one Who needs the sun? I need the sun. Okay. What else? I need the beach. I still we have a beach somewhere in oregon No, no the the beach here is in oregon. There's not only you know, it's cold All right, what else? Well, I you know, I it just I need to To kind of feel free, you know, and I need some sand I said, now, how do I compete with that ton of lawn? So, how do I compete with someone who wants to relocate that? I need them. I want them. I mean, I you know, I can't compete with that. I'm not god I'm you know a superhero, but I'm not god. Here's what I did I'm crazy She had an office the next day She walked into her office And I had created a sandbox with real sand that I put under her desk for her to feel in her feet And then I had like a UV light set up so she could feel the sun And then I had like pictures of like, you know, the you know some kind of like sunrise And I said sam I'm making california for you And it was six months before, you know, she passed away six months later But I I still remember that and it makes me cry Because that's how much I was willing To fight for her and I wanted the next powerful thing i'm going to ask people watching Is are you willing to fight? To keep people You willing to fight for them If you're willing to fight for them Then we're in a whole different leadership category. You wouldn't see what I mean And when people walk out the door nobody fights for them How do I know that? Because I do the exit interviews For conquer Nobody fights for I fight for them And that's why my my my closing ratio is very very high. They don't know this But when they show up to try to leave They're not leaving They're not leaving. I will do whatever it takes I have about 60 percent if not 70 closing ratio to bring them back into conquer That can never happen unless you're fighting for them. Whatever it takes That's where the problem is tom and elonso. I don't think we're as employees and employers I don't think we're fighting for them. I think we're letting them go and saying we need another body We need another body Right Do you think part of it is we just don't understand the economics of it? Like the lifetime value of a good employee and the amount of revenue And gross profit that they generate over the course of the year Compared to you know any customer that you would have in the home service industry That's I mean, it's no comparison. I don't think that we understand that I I don't think we understand it. However That to me is not a game changer. I think what we really don't understand Is how to deal with human capital? We know how to deal with equipment We know how to deal with our truck We have all the systems there There's a manual on the glove box that says change the oil every 5000 miles Right, we do training upon training, but let's be honest if we invested the same amount of time in human capital And understanding what makes human tick as we do with all of our cleaning supplies and an inventory and an equipment We'd be different people Do you find this becoming more important as You know inflationary pressures wage inflation everybody's having to pay more and who knows where that's going to be a year from now That it is the number one game changer study what's happening in the industry. I always study trends There's a reason why mental health Is at its highest need. There's a reason why companies are building transparency There's a reason why companies are talking about diversity and inclusion. This is not a coincidence There is if you study the millionaire You know the the fortune 100 companies. They're already doing this This is already doing this. This is not new. They're hiring people that are managing The relationships internally to build great people to build the warriors as Elena would say You're not building warriors If you're letting people go You do you ever do you see that series? It's on show times called billions And I haven't I've heard tell us more Yeah, one of the main characters is wind is wendy and wendy Wendy is in charge of making these guys warriors, but she understands they need to be coached They need to be counseled, you know, they have they have their different psychological issues But she's there to hear them You know and and she's there she takes it all in and she analyzes uses her analytics It says you got this you got this you got this one of my Very first just just to bring it home. Tom and Alonso Is is I will never forget this this is Etched in my brain and I talk about this when I'm sharing I was working for a day labor company So we did did everything a lot of times people would say, you know, I need a cleaning cleaning tech, you know I lost one, you know subbing out and we had promised To the community That we were doing drug testing for every person who comes in we drug test, right? Because that was our selling point. We made sure listen if you need a day labor Okay, what the issue is and you need someone to step in for your admin Or you need someone to do some labor stuff. We do drug testing except We didn't do it We didn't do the drug testing. So here I am Fresh out of college new to the game. I find this out This is goddamn. I can't even make this up and I go. Oh my god. I'm out selling Oh my god. I'm closing deals and we don't do this And I walk into my manager's office. Who was a female? Okay, this makes it worse. Who is a female? And I said to her I just found out that I'm out selling and closing deals to get jobs Saying we do drug testing and we don't do drug testing. We don't do drug testing And she looks at me. This is what she said tommy lulanto. I will never forget the words she said What do you think she said before I tell you what do you think she said when I said we don't do drug testing? That was my question. We don't do drug testing. It's not in the budget. It's not in the budget It's not in the budget. Okay, lulanto. Okay, tell them. What do you think she said? Don't worry about it. Just sell it. Don't worry about it. Very close. She said quietly Look at me straight in the eyes and she said kedma You don't get paid to think You get paid to do your job You don't get paid to think You get paid to do your job What do you think I did next? She started looking for another job I gave my resignation there and then because there is no price for my character for my ethics for my soul And the reality is Is that some of the people that have left your company If you're listening right up. I'm gonna give you the hard news left because of you You were the problem Not them It's about leadership It's about leadership So wow You just covered both ends of the spectrum though because you know on one end it's like Check your brain at the door and just do what we're telling you to do But with all these changes that you're seeing happening in the marketplace and in the workforce As leaders we need to be thinking about, you know, how do we unlock the true economic potential of our workforce? You use the term human capital That's something that that we use a lot because it's an investment just like, you know Your vehicles and all the other stuff. How do we unleash the true economic value of our people? And for most of us we're just scratching the surface and we're This is this whole thing's evolving too as as an industry We're just beginning to figure out how to do that and and tom you want to know where I would take someone first I would say straight up You cannot Teach leadership If you yourself are not a leader And just because you own the company does not mean you're a leader it doesn't So you need to be coached first Owners not the same thing as being a leader. Very good. No, that's I mean, that's perfect because she's right There's so many companies right now that are missing Leaders they're waiting for the leaders. They're waiting for them to show up They're waiting for them to show up And you can't teach what you don't know This is where you've got to do the hard stuff And open up who you are. How do I level it up? I was working with another Conqueror they're in the pressure washing industry. They do pressure washing and window cleaning Uh, they're they're they're doing about 1.5 million when we started working together over a year ago In the span of three months. He lost 22 people And his attitude for us was like man, they're just a body man. Nobody listens man. They're not going And I had to have given them the hard news Those 22 people are not the issue And he says, well, what's the issue? I said, well, it's only you and me in the room What do you think it is? He said, am I the issue? I said, well, you said it. So now let's talk about it That's a hard mindset for people to get though. I mean, that's hard. It is hard I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm going to tell you the results today He is loved and admired by his team because he changed So much so they actually celebrated and gave him a birthday present And all the years he's been in business. They wanted to just celebrate his and I want to say his funeral Let me just say he was pretty close to that. You know what I mean? We just talked about it. I said, man, you have changed So tom You can't expect other people in your network and community and your employees to change And you're not be the first to change You can't all onto you as a coach. How much you have to grow in order to coach others You gotta have a growth mindset to start with, you know, and whatever I go into and as a leader You know, like like Lincoln, you know the one thing about Lincoln He was always learning looking to improve looking to get better And even though he was a president, he was still looking for that And I I think sometimes people get comfortable And they think that you can give them a manual or you can send them to a program or seminar and that's good enough And they don't think they need to lead But the biggest thing what's happening is what where I'm going with this is the learning part the leader stops learning They're no longer learning. They're no longer being coached. They're no longer growing Right. They feel they don't need it anymore. They basically have reached the apex and they don't need those things anymore Absolutely Yep I I would say, you know, I first of all, I want to disclose I've I've lived in in two different countries. I've lived in the middle east I can't you know, I was born here for citizenship reasons, but I grew up in the middle east and let me tell you in the middle east You need to learn how to communicate or you're not going to make it Okay, and one of the things I think we have an issue with not everyone But a fair bit is people don't know how to communicate Straight up. They really don't They don't know how to negotiate and they certainly don't know how to do conflict management and I don't care how many books you read They're not living through it. And so what I tell people is We have a problem right now with these companies. It's not that we are I'm not knowing how to communicate. We're not over communicating when I'm listening to Alonzo I'm listening to Tom. I'm listening to every word. I'm listening to you. I'm looking at your non-verbals You may not know this, but I am paying attention Because I want to make sure I'm over communicating What has to be said So that we don't have any confusion On what needs to be done So, you know, Tom to your point, you know, do we look at the balance sheet? Do we go take a class? Do we look at the investment? I think the first thing we need to invest in Is ourselves Very good very good You know if we're the leader and By default, you know, we are the owner of the company more More more times than not for lack of a more qualified candidate. We are the leader We are the leader step up and learn How to be the best leader that we can be Amen Third most important question to ask Tom most important question asked third one Would you work for yourself if you were an employee? Would you work for yourself? And if you can't stay resound? Yes You need to go in for coaching So let's let's let's talk about that for a minute because we've got just a couple of minutes left before we make it to the top of the hour and you know for those for those of you who Spend time with us on smart business moves, you know that we try to bring value and it's not like trying to pitch anything really but in certainly there's Nothing in this for me other than just trying to be helpful. Yeah, I can tell you that, you know coaching A lot of times you look at that and say, well, gee, that you know Is some money that maybe I could spend for something else or maybe that's a lot of money But a you're sitting on a lot of money the odds are good to that and you know I promise you if you are participating in a in a quality coaching program You're going to get that money back 10 times over. I mean you mentioned 10, you know 10xing your investment But it's not hard to stretch your imagination when you actually look at the financial side of your business Just learning marginally how to be a better leader in the key areas I mean, that's the difference between getting out of bed every day and having a job that you hate and actually building a successful business That's you know, you have the opportunity to create awesome jobs You're able to provide awesome service and you're able to build something of real value for yourself And I mean if you're already there, god bless you, that's awesome But if you're struggling take a hard look at coaching and I've known Alonzo for ever Kedma, I've I've admired your work from a distance. This is the first time I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with you Oh, wow. Thank you. It's awesome Um, could you tell me just a little bit or our audience really? I mean, I'm kind of interested too I want more information. How does your coaching program work? And if I want more information about it What do I know? Well, first of all you can come to me. I'm happy to always talk about it second of all, I would say that What's the best way what's the best way what's the best way to get get in touch with you Kedma? Um, you cannot well first of all, I love linkedin. I have 38 000 connections. So make sure if we get on linkedin Uh, that you let me know you met me here. You connected to tom alonzo I want you to know second of all you could literally key in kedma on google And you will find me if you if you find another kedma run, there should be one of me Only in the world. I mean really it's just enough, but you can reach me out at kedma at targetfunding.com Uh, I'm not here to sell anything I want you to know though straight up tom that Any successful person in my circle Has or is ongoing receiving coaching and anybody who says I don't know the value You know what they're in they're in this phase that we call you don't know What you don't know you think you know Because you're working with your lens, but your lens is not my lens because I have keys To doors that you can't open You don't even know the doors exist You don't even know the doors exist. So how can you even open them? But I have them But I have them I know that because I've been doing this for so long So we have to get out of our head that we think we know everything we don't The smartest person in the room Should leave the room Because they shouldn't be in that room Right. So how do we work invitation only? Um, you can learn more, but um, if you you know, um, if you get onboarded You can either do solo so you would like work with a coach like either Alonzo myself We've got other we have 15 other coaches and it's just one on one, right? Or you can go into a group situation Four people in a group pretty intense. You can't hide there. There's only four every single week Uh, and it's for an entire year people go come a tire year a tire. How could you do that? I go look, you know what, tom? It's taken you More than a year to get to where you are and your habits your way of thinking you think i'm going to change that in four weeks Not going to happen. I need a year to get into your head to give you the systems, right? So, um, we do require a year because that's what it takes and the number you want to leave with is 77 percent 77 percent is the average income increase in revenue For conquerors who enter the program over the course of two years. They see a 77 percent increase in their business So so do the math on that that's kind of a no-brainer It's a no-brainer We are at the top of the hour Kadma, this is the first time you've been on smart business moves. Promise me. It's not going to be the last Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Thank you Alonzo As always as always my friend you're you're you're awesome. You guys are doing good work over there You're doing good work in the industry. You're Helping professional as the residential cleaning industry. It's something that um, I know you have a passion for Thanks for having me on And Liz's shoes are big shoes to feel so if this was awesome. Yeah, great. Great died Well, we will be back Wednesday Hopefully Liz will be on the ground by then. She's had a nightmare traveling for the last week or so and I Think she's on her way home So we'll see you Wednesday five o'clock eastern. Take care guys. Great. Thank you Bye