 Hey, good afternoon everybody. Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter and this is the pre-Christmas edition of smart business moes Hey, Tom. Hey everybody, Tom. I know you are Devastated I am I am Scrooge. Yeah, what happened Tom? I forgot my hat I was a cool one too. I was laying in bed this morning about three o'clock and I was like I gotta remember and I should have gotten up and like put it with my bag and put up three o'clock. So I I didn't You ever have a great idea at three o'clock in the morning and then And then gone Unfortunately, I actually feel a little guilty because I was thinking about your hat yesterday And I was wondering I wonder if you figure out a way to make Because for those of you that don't know didn't need to tie store sent him a hat She sends us both all All the hats that the neat has sent Yeah, and the one that he has that I really love is it is like an upside down I guess Santa in the chimney, but in the chimney and his legs are It's like sometimes fall over but Tom was gonna figure out a way to make them stand up So I was thinking about it I should have reminded you Tom or I should have at least asked you if you figure out how to make I have to own that I got to be responsible enough to bring my own Christmas hat to the yes Well, you know what you could still wear it on the 27th Cuz I'm gonna have my Christmas stuff on through the end of the year Okay, as is everybody else. So I have another hat that didn't give me that I'm gonna have on too on that day So All right, so What are we talking about today Tom? Well, actually It says the art and science of happiness, but we're gonna talk about a little bit more than that. I think yeah Well, it all leads to happiness, right? I mean Anything that can make our business better would contribute to being happy. I would presume Well, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit about that because That's actually one of the really interesting things about the science of happiness is That a lot of times what we think is going to make us happy doesn't and What we don't even Think of as possibly making us happy does So I you and I both know a lot of people Tom that have set like these goals like They want to reach a million dollars or whatever the goal is and then they get there and they're like uh Now what? Not happy. Uh, and And there's actually a really good reason for that that I think a lot of people don't know. Hey Don. Oh, do you love these earrings? Me too. I love these earrings Yeah, see it's it's Christmas Christmas all around. So Oh So anyway, we'll we'll talk about that in a little bit But I wanted to do kind of a quick recap Tom. Uh, Don was on this call today you had um Tell us about the call that you had today We had a call earlier today. We did a webinar using the zoom webinar feature something that I don't do often but I might be doing more going into next year. It's a little different Vibe than than the whole stream yard thing that we've been doing for a while Few years Yeah I stumbled across a video from march of 2020 earlier today. I'm going to drag dress for a moment and It was a different place. It was a different time and Yeah, we we haven't changed a bit Hey, didn't we we were just talking about you To need to need my deepest apologies Liz was supposed to remind me to bring my hat and she didn't and I I'm I'm sorry. She knows you better than that Tom. She knows Liz feels bad. Listen. Liz feels bad that she didn't remind me Okay, I have to do feel a little bit bad because I know Tom can't be trusted to remember the important things in life Sometimes. Yeah, it's it's okay Tom. Thank you Okay No, I was you earlier. I was sharing that I was laying in bed this morning at three o'clock and Just stop Tom. You have to stop talking about how you're always in bed people are going to get the wrong impression You just I was at the gym at 5 30 Come on. All right. I'm bringing it. I want to work out Yeah Okay, I might I might go back home and go back to but no Here he is again going back to going back to bed again. Yeah All right a different difficult to say on how I'm I hate that he's wearing it on wednesday though So for anybody that wants to see this Adorable hat with the and the feet you're gonna figure out how to make the feet Take like the Paper and stick up in there and anything would like that fill it out a little bit. Yeah All right back to us Okay, we had all kinds of stuff going on today. What did we do today? We're talking about march of 2020 tom Oh that yeah, I got distracted and it was a Actually I gotta I gotta pull this off This is this was worth it All right, so if y'all remember so for those of you that are like, why is he talking about march of 2020? Something was going on march of 2020 probably won't take you but half a second to remember It's when coveted really hit right that was that was when it all became like It began to feel real to most of us we started getting a little bit of the fear and a little bit of the This confusion was hitting us all and We didn't know what we were really going to do and that's what tom and I Decided we were going to start doing smart business moves on a gosh I feel weird saying this but i'm sure it's true daily basis for an hour a day starting back in march we we thought we were It sounds so funny now, but back then we just were thinking we needed to connect with everybody we we personally needed to connect with everyone and See where everybody was check in with everybody and we knew that everybody else needed The support needed to get together and needed to the community needed to Feel connection because things were scary at that time We had a lot of people Asking us people still ask us to this day Why why did y'all do that? Like what was your what was your what? What did you think you were going to get out of it? and Still don't get that what we got we got what we intended to get out of it didn't we tom we did um it basically We were all under stress and it was it was It felt like yeah, you know we were doing something and We really weren't but I guess we were but we really were just trying to stay busy and We And trying to feel better. We also were we were trying to make connection also You and I were trying to make connection We were trying to make connection with other people everybody was reaching out because it was scary Just scary times. Yeah, see don you remember us giving you hope back then. Thank you don At the time we didn't we didn't have clarity of vision, right? We didn't have this thought like okay. We're gonna bring everyone together and then it's all going to whatever We didn't have any of that. We're just like That's scary. Let's get on and let's talk to everybody every day and check in and give people some numbers tom was great about giving us Metrics on a regular basis, you know about coveted where we were what was what was happening Most of the people I know in our industry Had no idea about the ppp All of the different things that you or I guess we together, but you really brought to us. Oh, yo, yo Oh my gosh Tom. Oh my gosh. Look how different you look. I mean I always like different but you look so different this uh, I don't know it uh I'm sitting on the sofa. I wasn't even going into the office at that point, you know, we were no quarantine And quarantine was a really big deal for those of you that don't remember You know, there are some interesting later. I know we're going to be talking about You know the art and science of happiness, but one real quick thing is some interesting statistics if you go to The world happiness report. I think you can go to world happiness dot report There are some really interesting statistics on you're gonna have to dig for them So we won't be able to see them today. You help me dig but some stats on how Pandemic impacted overall Happiness with people and you would think Well, again, what we would think is different than than what actually happens But you would think that we were in a worse happiness kind of a place, but in some ways we're a happier people Because Yeah, because of the pandemic, which is really weird. Oh, and I I don't want to dig into all of that right now, but um, it kind of goes to the idea that What we think makes us happy and what we think is going to make us happy is different than what it actually is Go ahead. Tommy had a No, it's just I'm thinking about, you know, maybe we're grateful that the pandemic is over and I guess gratitude is a contributing factor to To happiness, but even while we were going through it many people were doing things and had this um feeling of of doing for others that is a big contributing factor with and happiness as well When you're doing for other people you have a tendency to feel better than when you're not and even this is so weird, too You have a tendency to feel a smidge happier when you're doing for others than when others are doing for you Which is totally counter-intuitive people are doing things for me. I should feel amazing But we have a tendency to feel even better when we're doing for others So, uh, really the the statistics around happiness are Really just so so interesting and intriguing um, but go go back we keep sliding back into here because this is our our topic today, but Go back to what we were talking about earlier Tom. What were you going to say about? Uh, 2020 were you just going to bring up that picture? Um, just there were some others that I I just stumbled across that are popping up now But they were in this kind of this whole time frame here and I I don't know this was in uh, Denate was sending his hats and It was uh Well, and I I can see by those shirts. Look at us Tom. We were in completely different spots You were still working at castle keepers As like the main thing that you what main place you thought you were working at I was still working at american made. That's my american made uniform. You're wearing your castle keeper uniform Neither one of us is working in those businesses at this point in time. I don't think are you working in castle keepers? No And I'm not working at american made That just such a quick Shift right here. We are not even three years later And we're both working at completely different companies I know we are still working at the companies that we're working at now, but those were our main places that we're working interesting I'm so glad you brought that here I am Gonna Screen if I Hey, I miss seeing you wendy You haven't you haven't been on any of in any of our meetings lately, and I miss you Hey wendy We're actually talking about you. I believe it was today And um a circle meeting See what you are you bringing out on made central academy tom? Yeah Um We're gonna be doing an event in phoenix. Yeah 11 9 through 11, which I guess is the uh week after Second week of of january and uh, it's a three-day event. It's made central academy live mca live and uh And it butts right up against the Happiness event on the 12th which would be Is that like a yoga thing going on there? Yeah, that is um, that image is just somebody who is Doing something that is really interesting to me. Um is It is is synergizing happiness, you know bringing happiness into her own life So I love this picture because I think that um a lot of We know better, but we still think that happiness is something that we have to find or that happens to us Where the reality is based on all the data and everything that we have Found is that we actually create our happiness. We actually create our own happiness which is Kind of mind-blowing But uh, would you say it's a choice? Um, I'm not going to say it's a choice and I'll tell you why I'm not going to say it's a choice So much of what we know about happiness we What we think will make us happy and we make that choice To do that thing. We're wrong We don't recognize it. So I'm not going to say it's a choice because we choose wrong So often But it is within our control and there are some things that when you learn The truth of what will make you happy that you can make some good choices Not that all of happiness is a choice absolutely not but you can make Some good choices that will Tend to lead you toward more happiness. There's just And there are some things that we kind of know intuitively But are still a little bit of a struggle what tom you look like almost frustrated. No, I'm not frustrated. I mean it's you if you invest in Doing the hard work you can work at being happier and part of it is learning how to be happier and then Making the right choices that will make you happier and We both we've both read the same book that I guess we'll be talking about here a little bit and um, I think you took it a step further. You actually took a class at harvard on happiness, right? Yeah, yeah Yeah, and I have done a lot of research about happiness before this uh, not research Uh, I've read a lot about happiness and I've thought a lot about it and I've talked a lot about it Um, I've I've spent a good chunk of my life sort of trying to figure out about happiness from my own perspective and I get I get questions a lot uh from people about How I can be happy in certain circumstances or with my background. How can I look? back on this background and I'll be happy about it and So I thought a lot about that. Is it just natural? Like are some people just born happier than other people? and A surprising piece of information there is yeah Guess what y'all some people are born happier. Isn't that interesting? I mean we think That oh no, it's it's all the choice, right? We we it's all our mindset. Well, not sure not sure at all some people are born with a More natural tendency to be happy and see happiness out there in the world Did you know that now? No Yeah Yeah, I think most people are surprised by that. I do have some stats about that that I'll share at the event that our science of happiness event in phoenix And and where this information comes from et cetera I don't want to get into all the details of that stuff today But yeah, everybody has the ability to Make themselves more happy because a lot of it is tools right things that you can actually do and not just You have to change the way you're thinking a lot of times people think I just have to change the way I'm thinking I have to change my mindset. Yeah, that's that's not all that's That's not exactly what it is It's a piece of it for sure, but you can influence some of these things. Uh, let me let me give you an example So there is a oh, let's see. What's the name of that thing is the name of that? there is a Some research that has done been done and if you look up free choice paradigm You'll see some of this some of this research and the free choice paradigm that's a bunch of different studies and and tests that people do and Different different scientists and researchers will do this stuff. Oh, let's see if it pops up for you and here here's kind of Here's an example of a study So they bring and this this study was done at Harvard. Of course, I you know, I took a Harvard course So so a lot of the stuff is coming out of Harvard So they bring a bunch of people into a room and They give them all like six pictures show them six pictures one two three four five six And they ask people hey pick pick which one you think is the best which one do you like the best? And you know they pick whichever one I kind of like two I kind of like four kind of like three whatever and They say oh, okay. Cool. Well, guess what? I just happen to have a copy of that one in the back room of whatever one for example three two Let's say example is three I say I just happen to have a picture of number three back in the back room. Would you like it? And the person's like, oh, of course. Yes. Yes. They take it and they Take it home with them They bring them back However long later all different all different studies, right? Whether it's uh three three days 30 days 90 days three months And they asked them, you know looking at these pictures, you know, can you rate them for us? And the one that they took home 100 percent of the time is the one that they like more They like the one that they came home with like even before when they might have Been given the one that they liked second best Right. So they're like, oh, I know you said that you liked number three second But I actually have a copy of that one in the back room. Would you like it? They give it to them the people that kept now It's only the people that kept their their pictures, right? They kept the picture and they bring them back And they put them all in order again. They asked them which one they like and invariably They like the one that they kept the most Even though initially They didn't they thought they were gonna like the other one better. They like it because they have it And so there's a there's a weird bias that what we have we we like and what we have can make us happy knowing that little thing is Looking for how you can use that little piece of information that when you have something you like it So how can you create a perception of having? around more things Because if you have them you can manufacture your own happiness. So they The word that's used a lot around happiness is synthesized, right? Sort of you're creating your this sort of fake happiness that becomes real Um, but I'm another word is manufacturer. You can sort of Create them this happiness for yourself. But isn't that interesting that was that one little tiny thing? Yeah, and You know, what are the takeaways that I got from the book and I guess the book we're talking about Arthur Brooks's book I'm looking at the wrong place I just I just was talking to um um wells wells g In Ohio about this book build the life you want in Ohio Oh I think I said Ohio. I was thinking Chicago. Yeah, okay. What did I say? Did I say? In Ohio, I'm sorry Chicago Okay, I haven't heard from wells in forever. Is he So out there doing it. Yeah, he's he's got a really cool new AI project that I don't I don't want to talk about because he hasn't announced it, but it's pretty cool. Everybody's gonna be really impressed. I think So, yeah Go ahead. Tell tell tell me what happened for you when you read this because this book You read this book and I believe that this is what made you reach out to me about That's right. Why don't you tell that tell this would be a heck of a workshop and You're trying to get me to do it and think no no no no no this is I can't even begin to touch this. This is your wheelhouse. You're there. You you you do happiness um, but it's really cool because uh, Arthur Brooks who's the primary author of this he's he's been a ceo of um American Enterprise Institute. It's kind of a right wing think tank and kind of the antithesis of what you would think about is happy and he worked his entire life and did a lot of important ceo stuff and I guess woke up one day and tried to figure out what where did his life go and his family and everything else and decided to start focusing more on the idea of happiness and he's kind of an analytical guy and started researching it and Started basically writing he writes for the Atlantic and he was writing articles for the Atlantic about happiness and that actually turned into a A gig where he's teaching a class at Harvard on happiness and You can say Harvard classes you can monitor them You don't get like college credit form But you can take any class that they teach at Harvard for for free if you just want to learn the information and I think it's like a 16 hour class and Um, if you pay they give you a fancy little certificate y'all Oh, yeah, but you This became listen we're taking this and she's turning this into a one-day workshop And it's going to be great and one of the cool things that that that I never really Understood it's like you're thinking wrong if the idea is you know, I want to be happy They really talk about there's You know, there are degrees of happiness It's more accurate to say I want to be more happy because we all are Have some degree of happiness and we also have some degree of unhappiness and Happiness and unhappiness are two different scales. It's not like a light switch where you're turning it on and off you can Be happy and unhappy at the same time And that's healthy The unhappy part of it if you're never if you don't have any unhappiness bad things happen to you It's the unhappy part that kind of keeps you safe and kind of motivates you to get out of bed in the morning and if you were just like Very happy and had no unhappiness whatsoever You're not going to survive very long. So they're both necessary and it's really learning learning How to manage yourself and behave in a way where you can get the outcomes you're looking for on those two scales So tom what why did you think it would make such a good workshop? because I think you and I have both done A lot of classroom work a lot of teaching fair amount of coaching over the last 10 plus years anyway, and we've had the opportunity and privilege to Get to know a ton of people who invest themselves into building house cleaning businesses and Once a year we find ourselves locked up in a week in a beachfront vacation we're not even saying the mansion down at the Palms and You know they're looking to improve their business But but the heart of it for a lot of people is they're looking for happiness, but Are articulating it that way and it's like This needs to be said for just taking a day and just thinking about this if you're Running a business if you're taking the risk of being an entrepreneur and everything that's about you're doing it for a reason And you know there might be a piece of that for a lot of people I think there's a piece of the puzzle that they're missing and Just to return off of investment in time and just taking a day to say i'm gonna I want to learn more about being happy and how to be more happy Um, I think that could could be a heck of an investment for a lot of people I do too. I I think that a lot of times People don't recognize what you said earlier That they're already happy you already have some levels of happiness going on right now that People have a tendency to not even look at not even recognize focus in on What they're not happy about what's not good. What's not going well or the problems are But there's already a level of happiness there. You already know how to do some of this You just don't know how to Again back to managing things right you don't know how to manage your own happiness and how to appreciate it and and well I like this build the life you want right live Live into What it is that you're trying to create that happiness word kind of gets a bad rap too. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, it's not If your objective is to be happy you're not going to be I mean It's not easy I guess it's it's it's work and It's a certain amount of you know commitment and sacrifice and serving others. There's a whole lot into the recipe and you know If you if if if you're trying to find happiness by setting on the sofa watching tv and eating potato chips, you're not going to find that Okay, but that's so weird. That's such a I love that example tom because so many of us are We're striving for happiness and part of what we think is going to make us happy is stuff like Spending a weekend on the couch eating potato chips and not doing anything Now while we might appreciate that we had the time to do that or we were able to do that in the moment when we look back We rarely look back and think Yeah, that that right there also made me happy that that's what That's what really felt good. Really. I just need more of that Instead what we do is yeah, I need more time like that and we we kind of Push ourselves down paths that won't won't actually make us happy part of this is Again back into the science of it. I want to dig deep into this but Part of it is just the way that our our brains are wired where our brains are wired to for ease trying to get to the right answer and make everything easy and But when when we get there and we're doing absolutely nothing Very few of us Are happy and we're not holding on to that happiness We can maybe feel it for a short period of time But we can't hold on to it when you measure When you measure people who are Actively working and you measure people who don't have jobs and are not working Guess who guess who's happier the working people are not working people the working just burning yourself out working on your business though isn't the the full answer either and that's absolutely That's why I'm really high on this workshop that that you're going to be doing in january because You know I know a ton of people that go to workshops I can't keep up with what I got going on here I know I've got a ton of people that go to workshops on how to generate more revenue or You know how to create a better culture in my business or You know how to how to learn, you know how to use core kpis in my business to predict You know get predictable revenue and to to forecast outcomes, which is all worthy things to do I'm not saying that's bad, but Well, we both teach both of those we both teach all of that too. Yeah, we do workshops on that You're doing the mca live. I do workshops on that my circles are built around The idea of core kpis and and getting outcomes that are predictable a lot The whole thing is we build our lives on that. I think but I think when I when I when I started looking at this a little bit and I read arthur brooks book and It was like that's the pinch of baking powder You know, we've got all of the big stuff and there's people who Well make a big investment a time in treasure to spend a week with us in the mansion And they're they get a lot out of it and they leave and they know a heck of a lot more about running their cleaning business than they did before and they'll go back and they'll you know, put up better numbers and and that's good but This is the pinch of baking powder that can like 10x that and also the this idea of having lasting happiness is such a Big piece that a lot of times we think of happy as Like we're doing the fun thing We're and this is a really great example. You come to an event You get all amped up and you get all happy and you get excited. You're doing the thing But then when you go home the happiness is gone. You kind of left it back there Right, you kind of can have this feeling of But now I'm not happy anymore and learning how to that the happy is not At the event not where you were having all the fun and you know talking to everybody and doing all the stuff Another one with all that we definitely want to I'm going to the to the convention. I'm definitely networking with everybody I'm appreciating it. I'm telling everybody how much fun that you're gonna have what a great time you're going to have but when you come back You have to you have to understand that that was a boost In how you were feeling that was not your actual happiness That's not what the happiness comes from We all know that a lot of like the endorphins and everything else are basically you role playing in your head kind of fantasizing in terms of you know, I just I took all my core kpis and I plugged them in the model and I'm able to forecast for the entire year and I see how Bigger my business is going to be at the end of the year and how much more profitable I'm going to be and all I need to do is You know increase leads by 20 and lower my payroll to revenue by 4 And include and prove by close rate and my high and I'm that's all I have to do and I you you're like gosh This is great. I've never felt so good But it's all just kind of air guitar, isn't that yeah air guitar. It's all floofy along with that idea There's another little tweak on that We we have a tendency to think That if we are in control of something if we have Control over something that will be happier Right. So like in that scenario, so okay now that I know what to do now that I know what numbers to look at Now that I know how to impact these numbers now that I Now I'm going to be happy Not true Also, not true having having control Many times can work against us I I got another quick example on this back to we were talking about remember the Pictures the people that were giving the pictures. Yeah All right, so back to back to the same idea We tell the same a different group of people now that oh, we can give you one of these pictures, but here's the deal You have to pick right now So there are two different scenarios here take whichever picture picture you want And if you don't like the picture Then you can you know, you can turn it back in turn it back in later Just trade it in I'll have all these other pictures I have them all here and you can trade in that picture anytime you want You'll have to do a little bit of work, but you can trade in it the other group of people we say pick your picture because I'm giving all the rest of the pictures away and you'll never have an option to get another picture If I asked you which one of those things those scenarios, do you think you would like more which one would make you happier? What do you think? You know, it's a trick or I wouldn't be bringing it off. I know it's counterintuitive isn't it? Why why is that? So the reason why so I'm going to answer for those of you that are like Oh, I don't get it obviously you're thinking the one with the choice would make you happier, right? But no, of course not. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about it The one where the option where you don't have a choice you made your choice And now you're stuck with it. We think that's going to make us less happy No, it makes us happier and the reason it makes us happier is that Manufactured happiness that I talked about before the synthesize the synthesization of happiness We Decide that because we have this thing. It's the better version When we don't have an option There is no other option. This quickly becomes the best option But when we have the option We beat ourselves up. We keep going. We're not happy because Wonder if I should pick the other one. I wonder if I should get in contact with them I wonder how long they're going to have hold on to those wonderful always be able to change I wonder if this is really the best option wonder if other people Thought this was the best option. Which one did other we just go round and round and we can't enjoy the thing that we have So it's another really good example about what we think makes us happy does not if so Part of part of these studies is before they ask before they have them choose they ask people Which one of these things do you think will make you happier? And on average it's somewhere around 66 of the people so like two-thirds of people think that they'll be happier if they get To choose and they can return at any time and there's 33 of people That say I I think I'll just be happier if I get the thing Well, those 33 of people they actually know a little bit more about what they're talking about But most of us fall into the Oh, hey Jonathan Uh, yeah, I know on january and phoenix. Uh, but those people know that Just I just want to have the thing once I have the thing I can let it go I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to think about it and I can enjoy what I have So that's that's another little twist on Yeah, how the science There's a reason why you don't nobody really talks about just the art of happiness or just the science of happiness They kind of play together because what you know what you think are are not Not in alignment and and the truth is not in alignment with those things So for the euphoria of Go back to the example of I've got all my core kpis I plug me in the model I can forecast where I'm going to be at the end of the year. This is awesome You start feeling great about what your future is going to look like and then you go home and really don't do anything you know In my mind that really ties back into what we're talking about here Striving to be more happy gives you the extra juice To implement and do the things you make better choices And you're more likely to get the outcomes that you want Just putting your head down and say I'm just going to work harder and screw happiness Kind of works against you and if you think that's going to Help you increase the chances that you're going to make those numbers at the end of the year I would argue that you're wrong taking Doing work in your numbers running your business being the leader that all your stakeholders need you to be Doing everything that we talk about in foundations And they've been building over the last you know dozens of years all of that's real But this is the quarter teaspoon of baking powder that is often overlooked and at least in everything that we've done today We've never touched upon it. Yeah, I think this In a meaningful way improves the the chance that you're not just dreaming about it and kind of getting that you know euphoria of Imagining but you're actually going to To leave and live it after you know the program. This is life changing stuff Yeah, I I'm hoping that We priced this thing really low compared to anything that I have ever done. I've never I've never done an event at this price point before and tom We went back and forth about this the reason why it's priced so low is we want everyone who goes through mca To sign up. You're already going to be there Put out the extra 295. We have to charge you something because we charge you anything. You won't be happy Believe it or not, you'll it will decrease your satisfaction with the course and We need you to come here after you go to the event so that you can get the full benefit of everything that You are going to learn and all of the tools and all of the excitement. You'll be able to actually Impact that to a much bigger degree by going to the art and science of happiness and figuring out how to How to make that stuff work to a much deeper degree So the mca live event you're going to learn What your core kpis are why they're important? You're going to be benchmark So you'll know where you are against, you know, other, you know companies within, you know The industry which quartiles you're in you're going to Have models that you can then use those it's going to give you all kinds of future outcomes in your business And you'll have tools where you can plug in improvements and kind of see before and after and Kind of craft what you want your business to look like in the future And then we'll give you the tools that you need within You know we show you how to do this and made central But even if you don't use made central people come to these events and they leave learning you know what the numbers are and Actually have a deeper understanding of how they can transform their business and change their business But you leave it an action plan That you know if you do these things and this is how you do these things These are the results you're going to get and this is what things are going to look like next quarter and the quarter after that Quarter after that just like publicly traded companies. This is professional management. We're talking about here And then it's a matter of Am I going to do it? Am I going to be the leader that my business needs me to be that my Cleaning professionals need me to be that my customers need me to be and This program here. I think is the Quarter teaspoon of baking powder yeah, that makes it all come together and Make makes it so that it's not just a flashing flash in the pan. It's not just another event that you went to So, uh, yeah, I'm really excited about I'm really looking forward to it I Wanted you were talking and I thought of something I wanted to mention And I lost it now. It's kind of you know, that is that just keeps worrying in your brain Can't can't get back One of the things that we're doing in the circles next year tom I don't know that you and I have talked a lot about this maybe just that Like touched on a hair that I think will be interesting to a lot of people We got some people from the circles in here live today is We are going to be working on a project directly related to each core kpi Based on the main central calendar Is that the calendar? Yeah, it is If you if you haven't received one of these calendars. I actually tom give you a little spiel here A little spiel There are 12 core kpi's Coincidentally, there's 12 months in a year. I was like, hey, this will make a cool calendar Each month is has its own core kpi and we built the calendar around it. This is it we explain What's you know, why we have 12 core kpi's why they're important and they're not just 12 random numbers they all work together that if you plug them into Forecasting models it can tell you how much revenue you can expect to have in the future How many employees you're going to need to have in the future what your gross profit what your net profit? It tells you if you've got too much demand Too many homes and I'm not people to clean them. It tells you if you've got Too many cleaning technicians or professionals and not enough homes to clean And it tells you what that looks like this month next month month after after 10 years if you want to if you use those 12 numbers and You can Figure out what future what rate increases can do for you what happens if you're able to you know decide to Lower your payroll to revenue number or increase the lifetime value of your customers Means of games you can play with these to to give you future outcomes. These are the And six of them are green numbers that you want to make bigger such as What do you build what's your what's your bill rate per job per cleaning? We all want to be able to charge more if we could right well, that's a green number Customer attrition rate, you know, we want to lose fewer customers per month. So that's a red number We would want to drive down for instance and the January Court kpi is revenue Is the bill rate per cleaning that's calculated by just taking the amount of revenue you generate and divided by the number of jobs that You perform to generate that revenue. This is what's going on in the month of January Every month we're doing a webinar on just that one court kpi the January webinars the first uh, wednesday of every month. It's the third of january And uh, you can get to that by madecentral.com forward slash events There's a whole Tool that you can download that it'll take all these events and put them in your your google calendar Or your outlook calendar for the entire year. It's pretty cool. Anyway, that is it All right, so if you don't have a calendar Reach out get a calendar, right? Where do they where do they go to get a calendar tom? we have We have them to give away and phoenix and january that's an easy way to do it. Um If you're made central partner You already have one they were not in the mail the other week. I know a number of them already have if you haven't they're they're on their way If you're not a made central partner, and if you don't have a calendar, but you'll want one We'd be glad to uh, send you one, but we'd like for you to take a look at made central So you would have some idea of why these numbers are important and how we use them in made central And you could go to made central comm and set up a demo There's part of the demo say hey, you know I'd like to have a calendar. We'd be glad to send you a calendar One more thing I really want to say about the core kpi said I don't think it said said enough so in our industry historically people were just like Cleaning some houses and just doing some things and making a little extra money But there is no reason why This can't be a real business But real businesses run by numbers You're not going to Hear of or see any other real business. That's just like, you know, well, I think we're going to do blah blah blah Because I just feel like it's a good idea That that's not how real businesses run You you have numbers you have some data and even if you're brand new you've never cleaned another home There's data in the industry, right? So Look at the numbers and figure out how you can use the data to move yourself forward you have A what a forecasting tool Tom? Yeah, we do we did a webinar earlier today and um If you go to core kpi. Made central comm basically core kpi. Made central comm I'll I should drop that in chat, right? That's kind of the normal really important mo And it's free you just basically Sign up for it and it's free and you have access to it forever and um There are a number of tools in there That aren't here Here we go You plug your core kpi's in here your green ones are over here like your bill rate per cleaning and so forth your Close rate per week all of these you plug your red ones over here the ones you want to drive down and then you can plug in percent increases on some of these and they call this like what if analysis? sensitivity analysis, but so you're playing what if games and you can see what your revenue would be With no changes you can see what it would be after those changes and see what happens to your revenue and your profit and um Go down and kind of see what that looks like by month And you can do it over 10 year period if you want to Here's another calculator that will allow you to take Some of those other core kpi's not everybody has access to all these numbers I know that you teach people how to do this in circles regardless of what software You're using but just off the top of your head if you haven't Done some of this training worked with us a little bit. By the way, we're going to be teaching This is kind of a personal goal of mine. I want more people to know how to do this and what these numbers are about Right here, and I'm going to be doing more training myself to help people with this. This is This is part of my happiness journey. Okay, because action project. This makes me happy and More people in this industry are going to understand these numbers and understand what to do with that's uh That's my goal and how to use them to get better outcomes so they can be happy but If you're not using made central and if you haven't Participated in some of the training that that that lis does or we've done in the past Here's a some simpler versions where you can take some numbers that you probably do have in your business And you can place some uh, what if analysis in terms of outcomes you could get if you do rate increases of various levels or Lower your cost of good. So basically just getting more revenue per labor hour in your business or reducing the Customer loss rate per month and it kind of shows you what the change in net profit can be in your business by doing those things And it's a effect in part affected by how you do how you pay your people Do you pay hourly allowed hours or job ticket hours sometimes refer to that or fee split and All of these are tools are out there. We've got more that we're building that we're going to be putting out there and Like I say, it's free and it's an opportunity to use these tools in your business and we're going to be doing training around these All next year and hopefully everybody heard that you don't have to be a made central partner to To use these tools you can use them no matter who you are and the idea is that All businesses would be using these types of tools all businesses would be Running their businesses by these numbers and not just on I like some some generic idea that you have about how Everybody does it. Well, everybody does it this way. That's not a good reason to do things y'all Really not because how everybody does things in a little tiny city Is not how everybody does things in a really big city And how everybody does things when their business is generating four hundred thousand dollars a year Is not how everybody does things when their business is generating five million dollars per year So what you again back to the idea of art and science of happiness what you think you know Is not is not true So the numbers You you've all heard it the numbers tell the story numbers don't lie What gets measured gets done? You know all of the stuff about the numbers and the importance of the numbers so Do the work a little tiny bit of work no matter who you are no matter how big your company is Use use the data find the data get the data use the data to to run your real business Not just clean some homes Well, the fact of the matter is We're all doing the work. We're all working hard. Are we working on the things that give us the biggest payback? and too often we're times where Burning calories trying to bail the boat out when we should be plugging the holes You know, we're we're we're working hard trying to make, you know, just trying to make payroll You know, if I could just get more homes, you know on on on the calendar this week I gotta I gotta clean more homes and if you just stop for a minute You might be able to see through Not might I I see that time and again You could be making more money and cleaning fewer homes if you just stop for a minute And use the numbers Yeah Do the right thing do the right thing at the right time based on your numbers. So Hey, Tom, could you do me a favor and share the core profit builders Happiness event link so that people could sign up y'all get in there and sign up Don't don't don't think that It's just gonna happen for you that if you hit this goal you do this thing that you're going to be happy It's just not the way happiness works. Unfortunately sign up We're gonna give you a tool kit. It's a funky little tool kit that you haven't really ever thought about before for Manufacturing your happiness along these lines, but oh shoot. I pulled myself off track and if You want to come out for the entire week? We encourage you to do that. Phoenix is beautiful in january You can go to made central dot academy and see more about the made central academy and the mca live event that we're doing that week prior to the happiness workshop and You won't be disappointed I I promise you you're gonna walk away if if you're if you're not using made central I'm gonna I'm gonna warn you ahead of time. You're you're you're gonna think twice about it. You're gonna be you know Can't guarantee you're gonna change but you're you're definitely going to be seriously tempted to and you're going to know more about How to use these core kpis, especially now that we've got these free calculators that you can use regardless I thought I would get back the point. I was trying to make before I asked you to Put that I did I help or hurt? Well, you didn't you No, no no impact. I just didn't I just didn't get it back Unfortunately, I'll have to go back and find out what I was going to say. Watch the recording I'll post it in the comments But we are at the top of the hour we are so Seriously, do yourself a favor if you think that that it's all about just the hustle and grinding and you know putting in the long hours and Just making the green numbers get big and the and the red numbers get small That's necessary but not sufficient. There's more to it than that. Take a take a day and invest in this. You'll be glad you did Are we done for today? We are tom, but uh, I just want to reminder you're going to remember something You're gonna go home and you're gonna get something you're gonna put it in your car so that you have it for next week What is that? Santa Claus pants. There you go. Santa Claus pants. I don't want to see those on your head next week, Tom Great to see everybody everybody have an amazing Christmas and enjoy Enjoy the the the day Watch for what's going great on on Christmas day. We'll see you next wednesday five o'clock eastern. Bye. Bye y'all