What Surviving 100 Years in Construction Actually Takes (ft. Christene Marie)

Most construction companies die with their founder.

Hers didn't.

Going on a hundred years and counting.

I've sat with over a hundred builders this year.

Most are running businesses that die the day they walk away.

Their names on every contract.

They don't have a brand.

They have a personality.

Today's guest figured out the opposite.

And here's the part that gets me.

She walked into her family's painting company in 2017.

90 years old, no website, limited brand, absolutely nothing online.

And the real reason most construction companies die with the founder.

It's not marketing, it's not advertising.

It's something almost no builder will admit.

And she names it at the 25 minute mark.

If you're new here, hit subscribe.

We break down the systems that keep construction companies alive every Tuesday and Thursday.

Welcome to beyond the Bid.

You're listening to Beyond the Bid, the show by GO First, where we share the systems, strategies and practical AI for builders.

Keep listening to learn how to win more of the right projects, boost profitability and scale.

Beyond the Bid.

96% of construction companies die before year three, let alone gen three.

My guest's family business just hit 100 years.

Today she's handing you the four systems that kept Hoffman painting alive and well.

Let's get into it with Christine Marie.

Christine, welcome to beyond the Bid.

So stoked that you're here.

So good to see you, Grant.

This has been a long awaited conversation and so I'm so honored to be here.

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

I know, this whole year, let alone the last, like probably three years of my life, move so quickly.

I have no idea, like if we talked three months ago or if it was a month ago.

It's crazy how time flies.

my gosh, it's so true.

I know when we got on kind of in the green room, I just was trying to remember.

I was like, I feel like it's been so long and I don't.

I think it's been less than 60 days.

But it is so true.

Especially with AI and the, the advancements there.

I'm not sure how much those of you listening are involved in kind of utilizing those, those technologies, but Nan, with how rapidly that is changing, it really feels like the new frontier in Wild Wild west in so many ways.

And I think that actually makes life feel faster.

I think so too.

It's crazy.

It's like.

Yeah, you know, it's.

I know there's like a whole trending thing with ADHD and entrepreneurs now, but it's like now everybody has it with like a shiny toy syndrome.

gotta find claw Now, Chad.

Now do this, do this.

my gosh.

I know.

And it's interesting.

You know, I'm actually at a point and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, Grant.

So if you don't mind, I'd love to hear your perspective.

Yeah, I've been, I've been dabbling with a few different tools and now I'm just like, let me just narrow down.

I had already built out ChatGPT so much and I had.

So I have so much context in there that even though I am looking to build out more and, and test out other tools, I'm like, let me just stay focused and honed in.

Especially as I'm in a season of building.

Rather than just continuing to go wide, let me just continue to go deep with intentional testing outside and other tools.

But what are your thoughts?

How are you advising your clients and what are you doing with your team in that regard?

I Think that is absolutely, consistency is key, I think, in all things.

And so, you know, without breaking your.

Your workflow, without breaking your process.

If you.

I think what you said with iteration.

Right.

With like, staying true to how you're currently executing, but then making small tweaks or small iterations to test outside, of that, I think that's the best thing you can do, especially how fast and how everything is just changing so quickly and all these new features and rollouts and everything, and you've got all these Gemini and Claude and Chat all fighting for your attention.

and so, yeah, yeah, the biggest thing I would say is like, you know, regardless what tool you're using, I'm a big proponent of like, owning your own data.

So creating a brain is what a lot of people call it.

Just all of that context that's inside a chat right now, making sure that that also lives somewhere else.

So if you do decide to migrate or to make it, know, a switch to something in the future, you at least kind of make it easier on yourself over time.

Right.

And.

Okay, so.

And.

And I'm just gonna play, devil's advocate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, maybe not.

Maybe that's not even the right.

Right word.

Maybe it's even just play like, the role of maybe a listener.

Because I.

I just got a tool, Obsidian, that's serving as the.

Basically, like a data repository, like that second brain.

It's like, hey, I need to own the library of content of all the context, so that wherever, whatever new tool I try, I can just like, plop it all in there.

So I got Obsidian.

What are your thoughts on that?

I'm a.

I've been using Obsidian for years.

I'm a big fanboy of it.

Good.

So, really.

Because honestly, for so many.

I don't know how, again, how far along people are in their journey of using AI, but that was something that I.

I've been teaching very, very minimally.

But very basic AI, usage for building your brand in the construction space.

Amazing.

Whether you're the owner, operator, or you're the part of the sales team or business development, people want to do business with people.

And so the more you're actually training, whether it is Claude or ChatGPT or Perplexity Gemini, whatever tool it is, as we're building out, like, we'll get on and actually share screens and have us do the prompt development together.

Yeah.

And after, you know, maybe 15 prompts, I'll ask the.

The people that I'm training, I'm like, okay, ask the tool to give back their understanding of you and then we'll take the, we'll copy all the things that that tool has said about the owner, sales salesman, bdm.

and we'll save that in the document so that it's not just living to your point in the, in, you know, housed in this third party tool.

But now I can own it and I can use that in another place that is.

I love that.

That's super smart.

I, I've even taken it well, not a step further.

I'm not gonna say that way, but just a step in the same direction.

Yeah.

And so I use Claude quite a bit.

But the reason why is because of just the sheer level of like connections and automations you can use.

Yes.

Chat, I know, has its own variant of that, but one really cool thing is skills in Claude.

And basically that's just like a preordained workflow that you take that prompt and can create a scheduled task off of.

so to give it more context, basically any change I create in Claude could be a new page, it could be a new offering, new style of messaging, whatever it is.

Every day at a certain time it takes all of those changes and pushes the updates to Obsidian.

I love that.

What a good idea.

Okay, so for somebody who hasn't done any and who has never touched AI, do you advise them to start with Claude first?

generally, let's see.

I actually have them start with Notebook lm.

Yeah, I'm a even bigger fanboy of that.

I love Notebook lm.

I, I had been using it, I think I told you this when we first met.

I had been using Notebook LM and then I, I kind of took a break from it and man, I love.

Can, can you dive into Notebook LM or do your listeners already know why it's so great and wonderful?

Most probably already know.

But just to recap it, it basically like unlike Chad or Claude, it will only give you answers based off of the context that you provide it.

So if you're doing research on something and you want to say, for example, your brand, craft and calling, if I want to, basically I could go and start adding in your website, your YouTube library, things like that to start to understand what it is that you're that you're about and what the podcast is about.

But then I can ask questions and get answers only from those sources.

So it's not hallucinating, it's not really creating a bunch of gobbledygook and then in turn, I can also start creating assets based off of that so I can create infographics, slide decks, other videos, quizzes, tons of different things.

So it's phenomenal for like onboarding too, if you store your whole training and SOPs and things like that in it.

yeah.

And it's just kind of fun to play around with too.

Yeah.

The very, one of the very first times I used it, it was like, do you want us to create a video for you off of this transcript?

And I was like, sure.

And it created an amazing animated video from a conversation I had onboarding one of my clients.

And I was able to use that for training for the rest of the team because it condensed like, like, honestly 12 hours worth of conversation because I did a, I did a whole intensive to onboard the client and it was able to distill all of that into an eight minute video of just the highlights.

And it was brilliant.

And I was like, thank God, it's incredible.

and so that's.

To get back to your question, like, that's actually why I recommend people start with that.

Because you probably already have so much ridiculous historical information about your company, your company, the problems you solve, your customers, your messaging, all of that.

You just need a place to keep it and to act on it.

that is actually interactive.

Then what you can do is when you start to bring in Chad or Claude or Gemini, you can have any of those LLMs actually interface with that notebook.

Hey, use all of my customer data and help me decide what my messaging should be in the future.

That's so good.

I love it.

Grant.

I really, you know, when we're Talking about this 100 year brand, you know, it's interesting because we'll interact with a lot of different businesses at different stages.

So right now I'm, I'm working with obviously our family painting business, but also with a roofing company where they went from 11 million to 30 million in one year alone last year.

So they're like, okay, we're ready to get to 60 million.

And so I've been talking with different department heads.

So when I first start with a business, I'll just go deep, deep into, let's do a diagnostic.

I call it like lifting the hood and just kind of assessing what is happening in the business, where's there the best opportunities?

Because it's so easy to miss what's right in front of us because we're just so close.

So I'll start off just by doing kind of a 30 day debrief with key employees and even just team heads, stakeholders.

and in that process, you know, it's really, really interesting how many are not using this roofing company, among many others, really don't have those systems in place that allow for connection points between departments.

And that's usually what I see is where I kind of liken the customer journey to like bucket.

So you've got the bucket that is the, the lead comes in, it's the call center that's responsible for that first bucket representing the lead journey.

And then the next bucket is sales, and then the next bucket is, okay, now we're ready to convert the customer.

But usually there might be some design necessary to actually move that forward into making the agreement.

And then next is production and fulfillment.

And then the last bucket is, okay, how do we turn this customer now back in to be a starter for the very first start of how do we actually turn them?

Into an evangelist to bring more leads in.

And then the way that I kind of think of it is okay, each bucket is pouring water into the next.

Where do we leak?

Where's their leakage between departments?

And that's usually like the most important thing that I look at is where does the customer drop or the lead drop off, where's their attrition, where are people canceling the appointment, canceling the job, just never returning our calls.

And so I'm curious.

Well, like your expertise in so many ways is systems.

And so with the systems that you put in place for those different pieces, like how much are you still relying on the old systems that you kind of historically have always used vs man?

AI is really coming in and just changing everything, replacing the systems in and of itself versus just being a support to existing systems.

That is a really, really good question.

And honestly it is one of the hardest to answer.

One, not because of the actual workflow or the work that's involved, but because of the human element.

Because unfortunately so many people have their egos tied into the workflow.

like Nate Jones is one of the, I would say like thought leaders when it comes to AI.

and I actually have it written on a whiteboard here.

He said that there's two ways to think about AI.

the wrong way is bolting AI onto your existing workflow and the right way is to rebuild your process, just using AI capabilities.

So essentially taking out all the admin work, all of that, and just saying, you know, starting with the goal we want to do, help us get there.

Starting with the goal in mind.

And that's something too.

We're doing AI prompting.

This is.

I learned this from someone probably last summer and it's completely changed the way that I engage with AI, which is I want to create this type of experience or this kind of outcome.

How do I do that?

Rather than you like basically giving it the process.

Because us assigning the process is assuming that we're smarter than AI, rather than saying that we want this outcome, this objective, this experience for the customer, for the team, etc, what's the best, like get me from literally A to Z rather than incorporate these.

We're giving it Roblox rather than allowing the smartest machine on the, on earth to do its job.

So I love that.

That's so, so, so good.

And you know, you can even I love like incorporating AI in strategy too, because it can help you figure out if Z is the right answer.

Right.

So, so true.

Is this even the right experience?

Yeah.

Tell me what you think then about this.

And you know, us working from the owner perspective.

You know, a lot of times when I'm working with these brands is I'll actually say first off, what is even your vision?

What do you even want?

Grant, I cannot tell you how many businesses that I'll work with are just doing day to day and rarely thinking about the next year, much less five to ten years from, from here on out, you know, and, and even when my brother and I came on as partners with my dad, that was a big question because my brother's like, hey, we could sell this thing.

And I'm like, hey, we've got 100 brand, we're definitely not going to sell this thing.

Had to get on the same page.

But a lot of people not only are not on the same page, but there isn't even a page to be on because they haven' thought ahead.

So how and where do you guide people in terms of like, okay, you have your own vision.

And also the strategy for achieving the vision can be done with AI, but how much do you actually encourage folks to really, actually vision with AI in terms of like, is my vision even big enough?

You know, Michelangelo, I love this quote.

He basically says it's, it's the worst thing that could possibly happen to someone is that they don't achieve their vision, but actually worse than that, that, that they never dreamed big enough and visioned big enough.

So I'm thinking about, you know, AI, not just how to get us to Z, is Z even the right destination in terms of the strategic level, but also are we even visioning big enough.

Does our vision encompass all that we even could achieve?

Absolutely.

And, I would say for 99% of people, it's not even close.

And they're.

They're.

They're, you know, thinking of how do I grow my.

You know, how do I get past my P and L, or how do I hire the next, you know, my next AE or whatever it is not, you know, how do I build.

How do I build a legacy that, like, my kids will actually be stoked about.

Yeah.

To want to join and they'll have to go through, like, you know, karate belts to be able to join.

I love that you actually have to be a quality human to take this over.

Isn't that.

Man, that is a whole.

I feel like you could do a whole episode just on that.

Are we even willing to create a, vision and a legacy big enough that.

That really challenges our kids to become the people that are able to step into that role?

I'm thinking of the movie the Ultimate Gift.

I'm not sure if you've seen that, but.

But this.

This grandfather leaves his fortune to his grandson, but the grandson has to effectively complete these different skills, character cultivation, to then be able to even be worthy of receiving the.

The legacy that was left and that.

I just love that what you just said is so wise.

Like, am I having a big enough dream that my children and grandchildren need to actually cultivate themselves to be able to even walk in it?

word.

So you're.

You're kind of like the living embodiment of that, though, right?

Like, Four generations.

It's.

It's this cascading waterfall effect of that vision of the mission.

Like, how did.

And like, obviously, before you came back, you were living, you know, leading, your own life.

You're building out your own skill sets and leaving the impact.

But what really drew you back to your family business?

Was there, like a.

Was there one aha moment or.

You know, it's interesting, as I think about, my parents just celebrated 40 years yesterday of being.

wow.

I know.

And so I have this.

I think, actually, here's what's so interesting.

Yes, we had the family business, but it wasn't being presented to us as kids.

Kids of, like, look at what you could step into at some point.

My dad was actually very reticent about projecting that on any of us, which I actually almost wish he had done more of that.

Like, I think my dad, given how wonderful he is, which is such a blessing, because I know that that's not the case.

With everyone's fathers.

But I wish he had actually said and spoken out more rather than just living by example, because he has so much in his heart and mind that he, you know, that I think all of us could benefit from.

So I think we received more of the legacy of character by way of my parents and more of a personal setting rather than by way of the professional.

So as you're saying, and as we were just talking about, like presenting the legacy kind of in real time in an ongoing basis of like, here's what we're doing on the field, here's what we're doing in the business and bringing the business to the dinner table and having those conversations.

I think that would have, that would have been an amazing addition.

But my dad did such a beautiful job to really get to know each one of us personally, where the conversations were much more oriented around how, I mean, he's got six kids, so if you give, you know, 10 minutes for each kid to give a family update at family dinner, that's an hour, you know.

yeah.

God bless him.

He didn't really take much time for himself to share.

But I think that it's like that broader mission, that broader perspective of, look at this legacy that was passed down from my grandfather to my dad to me, that one of you, many of you maybe even could step into this.

And so what was kind of my initial aha moment was actually before I even started my business in the first place.

It was in 2017.

And I was really having a fun time learning branding at that point.

Yeah.

And I saw, you know, well, we don't have any website online presence.

Like we were only.

Now granted, we've been existing for 90 plus years at this point with no online presence, nothing, continuing to grow, but never really passing the echelon, I guess, of probably what my dad had ever done in his peak, you know, like he didn't have these massive lofty entrepreneurial aspirations.

there's a big difference between the entrepreneur and an operator.

And I think a lot of times actually we see folks in the trades who have had the business passed on to them or they just kind of came to, came into it, who are really operationally minded, but, are not the entrepreneur to have the vision and kind of bring it to the fullness of what it could be.

So my dad's much more of an operator.

And so I realized that we weren't online and I brought that to my dad and I was like, hey, can we do this?

Like, kind of me as my own you know, consultant, I guess.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was.

It was amazing, Grant.

I started meeting with the team, and I kind of built my own branding process through this whole experience.

And so I met with top customers, sent customer surveys, different folks on the team, spoke with my dad.

We created company values.

We created a logo that was just so beautifully done.

It represents all six one of us kids by a shield that has, like, color streaks in it to represent painting.

But it was like, it was really beautiful how it represented the family and the legacy of what we're building.

And, my dad had just never thought legacy really before.

I.

I think he kind of thought that the business might die with him at that point, and I was okay with that.

Like, he's just not ego driven whatsoever.

And, and how was that.

How was that conversation actually approaching him and being like, I want to actually take this on.

I want to do kind of a redesign.

I want to really, like, execute on my branding skills here?

Did he.

Did he have buy in or was he kind of a little, did he push back at all?

He was bought in.

Grant.

I.

That is one thing my brother and I both, when we came on as partners in 2021, we both were really amazed at his humility.

You know, I think that, man, if.

If I may go a little bit on a tangent here, I think it.

It has very clear impact.

A lot of us will cultivate over.

Cultivate one area of our life without the cultivation of another.

and so for my dad, he was really honing in and really building out his character in.

In the area of, like, humility and not being egotistical and all these things.

And also that.

What about the cultivation of, almost like a healthy amount of pride over.

And I actually am really gifted in these ways.

And what would it look like for me to pass that down to my kids?

And so how do we allow for the balance of this one character quality, but what's the.

What's the other side of it, you know, and then allowing for them to effectively be our guardrails as we move forward.

So you've got pride and humility, and you've got vision and ability to be present in the moment, you know, so that you're seeing forward, but you're also grounded in the moment.

And, and you're able to have these kind of the destination.

The dexterity that comes when you understand the word.

And that means that you've got two opposing truths that can coexist now, because people will think, if I'm humble.

That means that I, I probably shouldn't have much pride over what I do or if I'm vision oriented, how do I stay here in the moment?

And so that's been a whole cool lesson, I suppose you could say over the last couple of years as I've been cultivating emotional intelligence to allow for emotional connection and resonance with our audience, doesn't mean we let go of the data.

Actually.

It's both working in concert together.

It's the activation of the left hemisphere of the brain with the right.

And so that's I guess the, the way to kind of represent what does it look like to be well rounded as you move forward in being a leader in the business is cultivating both aspects.

And so actually my dad has been very, very open to cultivating both over the last couple of years.

But he, he was so overly cultivated in one area that as my brother and I got involved, I'm so grateful for his example of humility to then be able to let us, let us weigh in, you know, and, and business and grow in other ways.

So he was, he was bought in.

I think he was excited.

And I think too that there was an aspect where I think that there was a relief to not have to do it alone anymore.

absolutely.

There's so much power, I mean also seeing your kids take an interest in it and then, you know, wanting to make it better.

This thing that you've spent so many years of your life working in.

Yeah, I'm sure there's such power in that.

I love what you said and I know these two words.

I know there's, it's kind of a trending concept too, but using yes and in, in your way of communicating and I struggle with that oftentimes.

Do you have any, you know, best practices or tips or anything like that of, you know, using both hemispheres when things get hard?

Man.

Well, I have a little three step process that was really helpful for me when I was learning first to cultivate emotional intelligence because I grew up again, overly cultivated in one area.

and that's kind of three steps.

One is to just take a pause right away when I start sensing that something might be off or that perhaps there's something I'm missing.

I just take a quick pause and I stop and then I lean into whatever that usually it's actually an emotion.

So I had been really disconnected from intuition for the majority of my life because I viewed emotions as weakness.

And there were just different experiences that had reinforced that.

And so it was like, actually, the logical side is the side that's honorable, that's worthy, that is to be respected, honored, and listened to.

And so over the last couple of years, as I've been honoring the intuition again, the right hemisphere of the brain that brings the equilibrium to even just the human experience.

Because in us, Grant, having the human experience that we bring into the business, our customers are having a human experience when they encounter us.

So it needs to be person to person, human to human.

But if we're shutting down part of our own human experience, we can never have the connection that allows for partnerships, tenured employees, customers who are loyal, that will tell other people about us, even vendor partnerships.

You know, it really prevents the potential of the business itself.

So stop.

Lean in to whatever it is that I'm sensing or experiencing and being really curious about it, and then asking why, you know, why is this coming up?

What could be wrong here?

What could even be the greatest potential here?

You know, I.

I spoke with the.

The president of Jiffy Lube, who grew it to what it is here in the States, and what he said was, I take eight hours every week or so to step outside of the business and just be curious and, and think about it and create.

You know, creation is.

Is comes from the right hemisphere of the brain.

And so that whole process of really slowing down, leaning in and asking why, that was just my.

My pause to not move quickly when I can sense that there might be something wrong.

and that really helped me to.

To be able to, in the moment, literally take a.

Take a step back and assess what's going on.

And then the other practice, which is more recurring is every morning, before I start my day, before I open my phone, before I check emails, before I engage with anyone, I will engage in what I call vertical alignment.

It's my practice.

The principle of it is orienting my decisions, my behaviors, my beliefs, even the way that I show up in the world is under the hierarchical structure of, well, who is my own potential?

Like, who can I be as a leader?

Who can I be as a, as a partner, as a parent?

Who can I be?

And then under the superordinate principle of, what are the moral guidelines orienting my life to which I will adhere.

And so that concept of vertical alignment came from.

I had been so oriented with, I guess you could say, kind of my compass broken, navigating east and west rather than north.

Yeah, Morning practice under that principle concept of just taking 10, 15 minutes even, preferably longer if your schedule allows.

But it's Just that time to reorient, remember?

So that I can walk in the fullness of like, okay, yeah.

This is who I am as a leader.

I've got my right hemisphere activated, my left hemisphere activated.

Let's go.

And I'm engaging with the world from more of a holistic place.

that is, That's so powerful.

Just, you know, starting with your.

Starting with an.

Some people call it North Star, some people call it like your key identity.

But just starting with that as the first stepping stone of the day, saying, yep, I know.

I know the direction.

I know who I want to be.

I know who I'm going to act as.

That there is so much power to that.

So good.

And I.

When I turned 30, I wrote my eulogy.

That was another practice that was really helpful.

I wrote my eulogy from obviously that third party perspective.

Christine was.

So it was obviously past tense.

Yeah.

Crazy.

Yeah.

Rewrote it from first prison.

Now Christine is.

I am.

And Grant, I read that every day for a year.

And before we joined, we were talking about how Jesse Itzler.

What is it called?

The.

What is it called?

Misogy or misogi or something.

I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it, but.

Yeah, he sets, an idea like a goal for that year until his next birthday.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

And, man, that orientation of reminding ourselves of, this is who I want to be and this is who I choose to be today allows for.

And reading it every day, man, that led for probably my 30th year, was my most powerful year.

So I'm like, okay, I need to get back into that practice.

Yeah.

Out of curiosity, so you.

You.

You wrote the eulogy, turned it into a first person, and then how did you, Because doing anything for, you know, 30 days, let alone a year, is very difficult.

How did you set that practice of doing it every day?

Already had that morning time dedicated to vertical alignment.

And then I just added that practice in, so it was kind of like, what's your.

Actually, a dear friend of ours, Casa Moslem, has the concept of containers of time.

So I had that container of time set aside every morning.

The very first thing I do when I wake up before, you know, picking up my phone or whatnot.

So I already had that time set aside.

And I.

Man, I think that if every single person listening was to make one change in their life, if you're not already doing this, if you were to give yourself to time, 30 minutes, an hour, as much time as you possibly can Afford before the world wakes up, before everyone else is drawing on your time.

I think we would all see radical shifts in our business, in our relationships, even for with our relationship with ourself, where we're no longer operating out of depletion, but we're operating out of this place of.

No, I actually have excess because I've.

I've fed me first and really nourished myself.

And that is not selfish.

That is actually the way that you can love and serve and lead better.

Absolutely.

It's like the, gas mask on an airplane.

Save yourself first.

Yes.

So true.

I love that, though.

That's.

You know, that's really remarkable that you were able to one, just set that goal and then actually, like, consistently execute on it to become who you were kind of always meant to be.

That's really remarkable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, man, that time, it's not just, okay, who do I want to be?

But actually taking time to.

Even.

So, the Latin root of intuition is intu area, which means to be taught from within.

There's.

And this might get a little bit, existential, so bear with me.

But I really actually do think, you know, where people are.

Like, I don't know how I know this, but I do.

Yeah.

Yep.

Kind of inner knowing where it's like, okay, man, if I was to actually take time to listen, you know, Michelangelo, another Michelangelo quote, he was asked, how did you create David?

And he said, I.

I took away who David was not and basically found David.

So in this morning time, it's not just, okay, who can I can be?

But what do I need to strip away?

What do I need to remove to then get more and more clear to, okay, this is.

This is who I am.

And from this place of having the origin now, I can add and create, you know, but it's with my intention not what was modeled for me or what I witnessed or what I experienced as a child.

Because so often that's actually the thing in the driver's seat.

And so this morning, practice is really taking that power back in so many ways.

Taking the wheel back, so to say.

Absolutely, yeah.

That makes perfect sense.

So this, With a lot of the.

The clients and previous people that you've, worked with, this.

This idea of, like, simplification of stripping is.

I think it's so powerful, but it's also so difficult.

Is there something that, like, you.

When you've run, like, a diagnostic or when you've run these interviews with different leaders in a.

In an organization, is there some type of trend or Something you look for that's like, yep, that's the lowest common denominator.

That's the thing that we should probably be trying to simplify.

One of the things.

There's a couple of things, if you don't mind.

I'll just share a few of what I've been seeing recently a lot of times.

Have you read Jim, Collins?

Good to great?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he talks about this.

He talks about when companies are trying to get from good to great, they'll stop doing the things that got them to good in the first place.

And I see that so much.

Another.

This was a $34 million company I was working with.

They had built their entire business on knocking on doors.

They knock on no doors now, and they only pay for all of their traffic.

And it's something as simple as that grant, where it's like, wait, why did we, why did we stop doing that?

Which worked and got us to this place, you know, to begin with.

And so that actually is really important that we ask those questions, because usually there's a company culture that's built around a mindset shift where those salesmen had gotten super lazy, and there is no way they were going to go knocking on doors because they were being handed leads.

And so right now I'm working with another company where they've done the same thing, and they're looking to go and spend all this money on digital ads.

And I knew that I was on the chopping block when I came in as the only vendor talk to four of us.

I was, you know, one of one of four.

I was the only one that said, I don't want to start spending money until we look under the hood.

But all these digital agencies came in and said, yeah, we'll go ahead and spend as much as you want.

We'll take your money, no problem.

But the thing I was concerned about is that they would do what the other company did, which is, let's give all these leads, pay all this money, and then stop building the very thing that got us to our millions and millions of dollars in the first place.

And so now we're looking at, okay, let's actually build out an entirely separate team.

Door knocking is so different than being handed a lead and going and delivering that appointment.

Completely different mindset.

So let's actually create a separate team that allows for both to be in, working, in concert.

So now the.

The door knockers, they're all 1099.

So we're actually going to come in and help them have unique Phone numbers, unique QR codes, so that when people see their truck driving by or they see their yard sign, they have direct attribution.

And we're really treating them truly like a business owner.

That's awesome.

But that again, is a very different.

They're all mini entrepreneurs versus W2s who want to be handed the lead.

They want the comfort and security of having a base salary, completely different type of, selling and completely different type of personality of an individual.

Another reason why it's important to understand the emotional side of the brain, because you're dealing with people whether you're, they're your employees or your customers.

So understanding how our employees want to work with us, what motivates them and drives them, we then can reward accordingly, hire accordingly, and assign them to the appropriate role accordingly.

So that's one of the most important things, is what got you to this point to begin with.

Don't stop doing that as you're looking to grow either.

Optimize that, make it better.

But don't forget your golden goose.

Yeah, a lot of people do in exchange for something that looks more sexy, like digital marketing.

So that's, that's one of the biggest things.

And I'll, I'll pause there before moving on, but that's to me one of the most important things that we as business owners, as we're looking to grow, we cannot neglect.

Amazing.

Yeah, just that, that way of thinking too, you know, it's, it's not even taking it to the 21st century.

It's, hey, let's change the, change the culture here a little bit so that everyone's, let's hire self starters, people who want to make it their own.

And we will help them make it their own by giving them unique identifiers.

So then it can all be tracked.

Making everybody happy.

Yes.

And then they have their own checklist effectively where they can self grade and be like, am I actually doing the job that I committed to?

Because a lot of times there's ambiguity where they don't even know their own KPIs over what indicates success for them.

They don't have those markers.

So the more we can help people self evaluate, I think the better.

Because now your manager and the team member are sitting together analyzing the job that's being done.

We're actually on the same team.

And now the employee can be the one being like, yeah, oops.

You know, rather than the manager scolding, yeah, not just all smoke and mirrors or whatever it is.

I know another big area that we'll See, gaps in is, you know, the disconnect between those buckets and the handoffs.

That's usually one of the biggest areas of weaknesses, you know, and we'll lose customers and we'll lose leads.

Like you see it when you actually narrow down on the percentages of, you know, lead to conversion to appointment, appointment to sale.

But then, Grant, this is one thing that most people don't pay attention to.

After you land the sale, how many are actually canceling after that?

I looked at, you know, the whole year and I said, okay, team, give me the, the cancellation rate.

11 of all projects were being canceled, which was just horrifying.

I'm like, you know, what if we were to actually spend more marketing dollars to keeping our, our customers our sole jobs rather than having to reimburse them for jobs that they cancel?

And one of the biggest things was just communication gaps, you know, communication in the handoffs.

But also after they sold the job, they weren't clear around, okay, who is actually really the point person.

And so we've been starting to implement customer concierge, where it's like keeping that person, especially with AI Grant, with what you're doing now, it's okay.

How can we alleviate these people from doing kind of those swivel chair tasks through AI now they're free to bring concierge experience.

And those are the very things that allow for the customers to feel again, they're emotionally bought into your business because they're getting the human to human connection.

Harvard found that 95% of purchase decisions take place in our subconscious, which is where our emotions live.

And that purchase takes, it's an ongoing purchase until the job is done.

I think that's one of the biggest things that people realize is that the, the customer journey is not done.

That check and that money in the bank is not actually yours until you're done at the job site.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's the reason why, like, work in progress.

Accounting is the like, biggest.

Usually it's the biggest headache for builders, modelers because they don't understand that.

They don't understand.

They think the job is actually done when they get the money.

In fact, it's just, it's just starting.

Isn't that, that's a total reframe again with like kind of the way you see your customer, the way you see your employee, the way you see the job, you know, having that, that reframe of like and that.

Actually I, I wonder too, as we're just kind of talking about this, could there be additional reward systems in place for your team.

A lot of people.

It's like that dopamine hit for your team of like, okay, at the end of the job, maybe you actually issue something to your team that is kind of the reward or the dopamine hit of, like, well done.

We just finished our 120th project for this quarter or whatever it is.

But having some way of having rewards, you know, people are really motivated by that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Putting milestones and almost like gamifying projects, you know, like the trades and construction.

It's like, that would be so refreshing not only to provide that, what you said earlier, kind of that white glove customer experience.

Yeah.

Most people, myself included, are used to, you know, kind of that rough and gruff, like, here's a word, doc, sign it and cut me off a check instead of, you know, would you prefer that over stripe or what's your.

Whatever it is.

but then, yeah, like the gamification of different milestones throughout the project and the execution of it.

guys, we.

We crushed that schedule.

We're past.

We're like, 5% ahead of schedule.

Let's.

Let's throw a party or whatever it is.

I love that.

my gosh.

And this is where AI makes vibe coding.

You know, you can create the custom app for that.

You know, I love that so much.

Grant, even, you know, I was talking to a team the other day, and they're like, yeah, we're all going paintballing with production.

I.

You know, it's the team bonding, but it's also the reward.

It can be.

It can serve so many different purposes.

I love that so much, of having, like, a pizza party.

Hey, we were 5% ahead of schedule, 10% ahead of schedule.

Maybe.

I don't know, maybe you get the paintballing.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, there's so many levels to it, too.

That just makes it, you know, again, just making it your own.

Like, you know, you don't have to do a pizza, party or get cupcakes or something at the end of every project, but adding that level of creativity into it, that's how.

I don't know every company I've worked for that does things like that.

I know I'm, you know, just, singing their tunes to anybody I meet versus, like, I work at this stellar, company.

Check out what we did.

You know, went to Switzerland, did this, whatever.

my gosh.

Yeah.

One company that I work with right now, their sales team is in Cancun right now.

Yeah, you know, like, that's That's.

That's it.

And Grant, really like people who are working with you.

This is the way that they can be thinking because they're more freed up by having their systems and operations dealt with.

I think it would be really interesting if we were to have the thought of, yes, okay, how can I save money with AI, but also how can I improve the customer human experience with AI and your customers are not your only audience.

Your employees are too.

You can only grow to the strength that you have, the ability for fulfillment.

I was talking with a company, and they want to, you know, get to.

They basically want to double this year.

And I'm like, well, do you even have the ability to fulfill that?

And they're like, well, no.

I'm like, okay, well, maybe we need to do a hiring campaign as the first campaign that we run.

Absolutely.

I think you said something really, really profound earlier, which was understanding, like, your team's motivation, not just from, like, a financial perspective, like, what salary do you want to make?

But, you know, what.

What goals do they have?

Do they want to own a second property?

Do they want to build a cabin?

And then helping them achieve that goal.

Right.

That's so good.

It's so interesting.

I.

One of the first things I ever did that kind of got me interested in this was called the Enneagram.

It was a personality test.

There's nine different numbers representing nine different personalities.

And you can effectively.

Each number will go down or up to the number above or below them.

and so really, when you kind of add all these in, there's 27.

When you add in all the different dimensions in the way that it works.

But it's interesting because it's different from other personality tests because it is based on the motivation of the individual.

And so the personality test actually really warrants more so your understanding of yourself.

To be able to say, what motivates me, Is it actually relationships?

Is it, you know, having kind of not the name and lights from an ego perspective, but, like, I want to see the brand win.

You know, I'm gonna do hard.

I'm gonna get kind of the external praise and accolades.

Maybe it's actually peace, you know, making sure that there's peace in the team.

Those people are motivated so differently than the aggressive types, you know, so differently and thus needed, to be not just treated in terms of communication, but rewarded accordingly based on that.

And like, the.

The family trip that they might be able to afford, or the.

The family home versus, hey, we're going to take you out with the entire company and, and you're going to be kind of given the praise and, and accolades that way.

Yeah.

just totally different motivations.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Making a home for your kids soccer game.

Yeah, I love that.

Yes.

Well, and that's actually going back to kind of full circle moment to the vision conversation.

People need to be really, really honest with themselves over what motivates them in terms of where they want to take their business.

You don't need to have a multi, multi, multi million dollar business that you're trying to have a quick acquired it.

Maybe it is a generational business and, and frankly, the way that you grow may, you know, you probably will want to do similar types of bookkeeping and similar types of systems in place, but your mo.

Your why really is so different.

And if your why is for private equity to come in and buy it, and that's actually not really truly the truth, but that's what you see all your competitors doing.

That's what John down the street, who has the, the pavement and concrete leveling business, that's what he's going after.

Whereas the foundation repair company over there is doing the same thing.

And you're like, well, I just don't really care about, you know, the, the sale.

I actually care more about succession and I have a plumbing business and how do I create this so that I can pass it down very different drivers.

And so if we are not doing that work again, to kind of go into, okay, what do I want?

Who was I created to be?

What's my mission?

You know, then, man, we're, we're living completely void of the very internal drivers that allow for us to get to that point of greatness.

100%.

Yeah.

I love that.

That could almost be a podcast in itself over the sale.

Yeah, that's good.

I like that.

so, Christine, we could talk.

I could probably not even a day.

I could probably talk like a week with all of this.

This is huge.

but, I know you have a, a handful of different brands, but maybe just as one final note, you could talk just briefly about like your podcast, the, The Craft and the Calling.

Yeah, yeah.

So the Craft and Calling actually was inspired by my dad because I saw him do it by himself for so many years.

And it's also kind of akin to what we were talking about earlier.

A lot of times we only talk about the business growth, not the personal growth that's necessary to be able to effectively bolster that vision and, and the business.

And thus we can be actually our own bottleneck we can be the very ones that prevent our own growth and ability to achieve a vision.

Because we haven't even outlined it in the first place.

We don't maybe even know what it is.

So the crafting calling is, yes, talking about the craft, but the calling.

Who are we?

What are we called to do?

And to that point, Grant, you know, so many folks will say, I'm doing the craft for my family, but my family is actually the ones getting the worst of me and what's left over of me.

And because I'm so in the craft every day that I come home and I'm depleted and I've got nothing left.

And so we talk about both because, you know, I just.

And I have so much respect for my dad.

I just love this man so much.

I was thinking yesterday, I'm like, man, he.

I told him, I was like, dad, you know, you have to live forever, right?

Like the same page.

We're on the same page.

You're more, So I really, really love him.

And he did it so beautifully, Grant.

You know, he would come.

Come home, and I just have this picture in my mind of my dad taking a nap, literally, in the living room.

So clearly he never got to deep sleep, but for 20, 30 minutes, and then he would wake up and just be completely switched and family oriented.

Wow.

And so, you know, I would ideally maybe bring a little bit more business to the dinner table like I was talking about.

But, man, he just did such a beautiful job of knowing what his calling was, that family would be the thing.

And he also led his team so well.

And, you know, it's cool seeing in kind of the latter half of his life as I'm getting much more involved, he's actually able to make.

I think his craft is actually taking more of the calling place right now because of the season you're in.

So sometimes they do blend and sometimes they don't.

And knowing, again, kind of being led to know, okay, this is.

This is the right season for the isolation and separation of the two versus the overlap.

You know, we were chatting, all six of us kids with my parents yesterday for their 40th anniversary.

We're all on a zoom call, and my mom was saying, you know, I'm really, really excited to make the business a big focus for us in the next couple of years of our business.

So, you know, she's bought in, whereas for all childhood, 30 years, you know, she was really focused on the kids.

And so now they're both really looking at the business in a joint perspective.

And so the vision I have for crafting calling right now, it's, it's very, early stages.

my vision is that we can have a place where even the partners, whether it's your business partner or even your spouse, can come in and we can have these conversations.

Because for so long as your, your partner in whatever regard is not on the same page, it's really hard to move forward.

absolutely.

Yeah.

Being married to an entrepreneur is.

That is a tough job in itself.

God bless everyone.

And so having kind of a place where we can have these conversations, even get to the point where I'd love to do in person events where we bring the kids and the kids are having the conversation of, what is the family business?

And is this something that you want to be a part of?

And if not, no problem.

But what are you learning in AI?

Because a lot of kids want to be YouTube famous.

So what are you learning on YouTube that could help the family business?

And maybe you actually become a consultant of it and just kind of thinking big picture.

But my hope is that these conversations will really help people to be more balanced in the way that they lead and the way that they show up and that there's not a disparity between the boardroom and the bedroom.

I love that.

Yeah, they're.

I hate to say it, but there needs to be more shows like that.

There needs to be so much there.

There needs to be so much more content and just so many more stories and discussions around this.

Because you're absolutely right.

It is, it not only is it so difficult, to be able to communicate, you know, about the business, to your kids and to, to those that matter most to you, but it also matters to yourself.

You need to be able to communicate and you need to be able to share that vision, share your story, share what matters.

So good, Grant.

I'm so glad you said that.

So much of why we do that on the craft and calling, it's.

It's for legacy.

The legacy of your life that you're leaving behind.

It's a eulogy, you know, who do you want to be at the end of your life?

Because every decision we make today is the amalgamation, of the legacy that we leave, you know, and it's so easy to think this is a future one day event, but man, it's every minor and major decision that we make here in this moment is, is what constitutes our legacy.

So it really is.

Am I right now here today, living a life that I'm proud of and It's a big switch.

That's why these mornings are really important, because kind of like, let's take an audit of yesterday.

You know, where am I going today?

Just to be intentional, because a lot of us are.

Our default is autopilot, you know, and just kind of thing on default.

So if you were to leave, like, one challenge for the audience, do you think that would be it?

That, you know, take 15, 30 minutes in the morning and.

And write out exactly what you said earlier.

You know, the vision, the identity, the.

That, it's not North Star.

How did you phrase it?

It's your.

Your vertical alignment.

Vertical alignment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, Grant, I've never.

I've never suggested this on a trades podcast, but if you.

If you want to, I've got vertical alignment.com, if you go to that.

I've got 21 days of alignments that I created last year.

I just did it for my birthday because I'll host, retreats where we dive deep.

And I call it kind of the boot camp of the soul.

But it's entrepreneurs who are looking to be more balanced in the way that they approach life and business.

And that was one of the things that they asked for, is can we have more of these vertical alignments beyond that?

So 21 days of just free vertical alignments.

There's really no catch or anything.

it's hard work.

I will say that.

Like, it should take you 20 minutes for 21 days, but in the 21 days, you start building out the habit of setting aside the time.

amazing.

Well, I definitely have my homework.

Yay.

Yeah, yeah, I'll definitely.

I'd love to, let you know how it goes, too.

That sounds really interesting.

Please do, y', all, if you want to tell me how it goes.

It.

It was definitely written more so in your personal time.

It doesn't have as much to do on the business front, but this really is the cultivation of you and me because.

And Grant, this is a whole separate conversation.

But talk about branding.

Our brand is predicated on who we are and the knowledge of who we are.

And if we don't have clarity into that, our brand is going to be diluted, watered down, and we're going to sound like everybody around us.

So this is actually homework to strengthen your brand 100%.

Yeah.

I would say.

You know, one other thing.

In the age of AI, your personal brand is probably the most important asset you can have.

Completely, completely, completely agree.

And these, These morning vertical alignments are actually building and investing in that greatest asset.

You're building equity.

I love that.

Well, thank you so much for just taking the time to chat, to tell your story, to tell the legacy.

I loved our conversation.

so many golden nuggets throughout it.

Thank you so much for.

I know that we talked about all these different ideas of what we could talk about, and I'm just.

I'm grateful for where we ended up.

Me too.

Yeah.

These are my favorite types of conversations.

Just, you know, fun, engaging, but also, like, incredibly meaningful.

Me too.

I'm so glad.

Thank you, Grant.

And thank you for creating this space.

Because to your point, there's not a lot of podcasts where both are talked about the tactical of what we should do for business growth, but also what do we need to do on an individual level to get to that point.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, you enjoy the rest of your day, and I'm sure we'll be chatting soon.

Thank you.

You too.

Bye.

Bye.

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