The Concierge Decision Coach | Jodi Hume

Do you struggle with decision-making challenges? Decision fatigue is a genuine issue. Enter Jodi Hume, a seasoned business coach since 2004. Her forte lies in aiding CEOs/COOs/CFOs with decision support. Contrary to popular belief, most people aren't indecisive; they're simply afraid it might be a bad idea or find the process daunting. Jodi thrives on assisting individuals in "letting people do what they do best" using an 'Improv' style that guides them through the process and directs focus toward outcomes. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!

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GOLD NUGGETS:

(00:00) - Small Business Safari Leadership Coaching

(03:52) - Decision and Leadership in Architecture

(11:22) - Transitioning From Architecture to Coaching

(23:27) - The Benefits of Taking Breaks

(31:28) - Testing and Parenting 

(35:23) - Business Success Through Networking and Referrals

(42:37) - The Challenges of Describing Hard-to-Explain Work

(54:44) - Staple Gun Mishaps and Business Lessons

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Jodi’s Links:

Website & Offer | https://atthecore.com/safari

Instagram | @jodihume

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Books Mentioned:

Winning with Accountability: The Secret Language of High-Performing Organizations | Henry J. Evans

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Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Beth Miller, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!

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If You Loved This Episode Try These!

• Fly Like an Eagle Into the Franchisee Business With Steve Miller

• “Strategery” of Building a Business, Through Brand, Consistency & Execution | Tom Reber

• What Will Homes Of The Future Be Like? - Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies | Carlos Martin

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Have any questions or comments? Connect with me here!

Transcript

Jodi Hume: 0:00

Honestly God, this is so I would tell people that I was on this side of the mirror and say I'm right there, I'll be recording, like while you go, if you need anything, just signal or whatever. They had to do this test for an hour and every five minutes I would have to write down like what they were doing. Honest to God, despite the fact that I had told them that they'd be sitting there, they like three, knuckles up, pick their nose. They would touch them. I mean like there and I would have to and I wasn't allowed to do it, so I would be like two three, seven.

Jodi Hume: 0:28

I'm like again.

Chris Lalomia: 0:29

I told you I was here.

Jodi Hume: 0:34

I was, so I want to be like dude.

Chris Lalomia: 0:37

I'm right here. Welcome to the small business safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Small business safari. We're back, we're rolling, we're going to go, go, go, go. But guess what I've been doing, alan? You've been going to school. I went to pod school to learn to be a better podcaster, so excuse me.

Alan Wyatt: 1:27

Did they tell you to not talk too much?

Chris Lalomia: 1:28

Huh, did they tell you to not talk too much? They told me not to make it so much about me, and I'm like screw that, that's the way we do this.

Alan Wyatt: 1:33

That's the whole thing.

Chris Lalomia: 1:36

So what's the point of it? Then? Let me get my pod voice ready to go. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the small business safari. Are you bored? Yet I am, let's go. Jody Hume is joining us today. She's one of the OG leadership coaches. How many coaches have come out of the woodworks in the last three years? Well, how about since COVID? Probably a hundred million, like cockroaches.

Alan Wyatt: 1:55

Do you remember back in our chamber days we go to networking and you meet somebody and they're a business coach, but then you find out like 30 days earlier they were delivering pizzas. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't think that's Jody. No, that's not Jody. You don't deliver pizzas, do you Jody?

Chris Lalomia: 2:09

Not currently no, okay good, there we go, and not 30 days ago, and not 30 days ago.

Jodi Hume: 2:13

I did spend a summer in college selling meat off the back of a truck, but that's a whole other story.

Chris Lalomia: 2:17

Oh, there we go, love it. We got Jody Hume, who is your business leadership coach. I'm not going to do all the credentials that you're supposed to do. Go check her out, man. We'll talk more about it. We'll get into this stuff and start kicking it around a little bit. Jody, welcome to the show.

Jodi Hume: 2:30

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. All right.

Chris Lalomia: 2:32

Let's just jump right into what leadership coaching is. So it's a combination of one-on-one coaching. Do you do masterminds? Tell us a little bit about how you handle people.

Jodi Hume: 2:41

I do a little bit of all that. I mean I work primarily with business owners, and so I do still refer to it as leadership coaching, just because then people have some idea of where to put it. But the work that I do now is a little bit some coaching, some consulting or advising and a lot of what sort of gets close to business therapy decision support, because entrepreneurs, they don't have problems every second Tuesday or every third Wednesday or something, and so I just over the many years of doing this, I found that what they needed was something more on call. Most of the time they know their business better than anyone and they just need to kind of clear out their brain and get some kind of clarity so they can keep moving forward.

Chris Lalomia: 3:21

That's so nice, the way you put that, that she says so nice and delicate Therapy that sometimes business owners need therapy yeah, sometimes. Well, so I'm not here. How about on the weekly, the daily, the hourly?

Jodi Hume: 3:34

Seriously no this is why I made it decision support, because the key. So I'm a third generation entrepreneur, so the decisions and the bad decisions and the good decisions and the course correcting like that is literally like the conversations around my table as a kid and so it's just been in my blood forever. And the thing is something I learned very early even just watching my mom and whatnot is sometimes people are indecisive because down deep they know it's a bad idea and that has like one kind of feel to it. Sometimes they're indecisive because down deep they know it's a really good idea but it's scary and they've just got some hesitations you have to sort of peel through. Sometimes it is just like confusion.

Jodi Hume: 4:11

That's actually a little bit more rare, but sometimes it's not indecisiveness at all, it's actually just that they're exhausted and they need to take a nap because they couldn't decide between a hamburger and a cheeseburger. And so listening for what's actually going on that's why I call the company at the core, like what is at the core of this, what's the real issue? And that's always the first step. So I want to you got to grab people when they're not sure what to do, to keep them on course for their own path.

Chris Lalomia: 4:37

Well, I can promise you, Jodi, you can't see me in person, but I've never had to make a decision on cheeseburger, hamburger or never fell asleep Just give up.

Jodi Hume: 4:44

Yes, I'll take notes, I just go. Yes, all the burgers please.

Chris Lalomia: 4:49

I love that though You're right Decision support because that's what we have to do every single day we wake up is thousands of times a day Like thousands of times. Waking up going all right, that's what I've done it. You know, when I'm in a good mood, it's all right, we're going to solve some problems and when I'm in a bad mood, it's all right, and there's no limit to how many decisions Like there's always more you could be doing, there's always more you could be considering.

Jodi Hume: 5:09

It is really, if you don't have some way to kind of rein it in, it is just a massive sock.

Chris Lalomia: 5:16

So you've been doing this since 04, right.

Jodi Hume: 5:18

Yes.

Alan Wyatt: 5:19

Correct, well, that's 20 years, 20 years.

Chris Lalomia: 5:22

Again, man Two zero when you look back on it. Like Alan said, I was still in corporate America when I met Alan. In eight we go to those chamber events and it seemed like well, the recession hit then and then everybody became a coach. And then COVID hit and everybody became a coach.

Jodi Hume: 5:38

And lots more people became a coach.

Chris Lalomia: 5:39

Right.

Jodi Hume: 5:39

Yeah, so I was still with the. There were eight. There's an eight year overlap in my two things. So I was with the architecture firm that I was with as we grew that company for 16 years and then I started this. I officially left and did only this since 2010. And so there's from 2003, 2004 into 2010,. I was doing both of them. So I was still COO of the architecture firm. So I was right there with you in 2008. Not the most fun time in the world.

Alan Wyatt: 6:06

What kind of architecture yeah?

Jodi Hume: 6:09

So yeah, we did cultural and educational. So a lot of schools, a lot not residential. So we did schools and colleges, theaters, visitor centers, that kind of stuff. I was not an architect, I did, I did everything else, I took care of everything else besides being an architect.

Chris Lalomia: 6:23

So I was a CEO. I had to get hooked into that gig Because that's I mean, you're the COO of an architecture firm Number one. Those guys are smart enough to figure out that they're probably really shitty business man and they don't know how to do it.

Jodi Hume: 6:35

They weren't shitty business men. So what's interesting is I was hired as the receptionist right out of college because the government I was working for a psychological research lab for the NIH right out of college and the government stopped, paused, and so I was when they shut down the government for the because they couldn't balance the budget.

Alan Wyatt: 6:54

So I got a job, government psychological research lab. I think I need to hear more about that that sounds scary, it doesn't.

Jodi Hume: 6:58

No, it was super boring, it was super, super, super boring man.

Alan Wyatt: 7:00

Did I have to say that that's the stock answer? That's what they say.

Chris Lalomia: 7:04

Man mental image is a mice torture.

Alan Wyatt: 7:06

Yeah, a menosteric goat. Oh, it's so much worse than that.

Chris Lalomia: 7:09

Then you go in the other room and go don't look at that guy. He's in the corner corner.

Jodi Hume: 7:13

No, this I this is literally the definition of boring, because it was my job to administer an attention test, like it was how someone could pay attention, and that is actually designed to be boring. That's how they could actually test attention the test is boring, and so I was administering a boring test to people all day long, and watching them behind the mirror was very, very, very boring.

Chris Lalomia: 7:35

Oh boy, so the reception of gigs All right. So how'd you find these guys? You had to stop, so you would have.

Jodi Hume: 7:40

I had to get a job in like three days. I thought they were a law firm. I just took the first decent paying job I could get. But this is the store. I think, like so many people, you don't plan out. Most people don't know what they want to do with their lives. They stumble like opportunity to opportunity. I got hired as a receptionist. I thought I was going to go back to grad school. They gave the marketing person quit and they gave me her job. I was the marketing director. I was 23 and I was the only person in the marketing department.

Jodi Hume: 8:05

So director of what I don't know, and I'm really good at making things better. I am not your girl to like sustain the thing and do the same, like take tab, be, stick and slide Once it's made better. And so I just had an act for that. So I took over marketing and then we hired somebody and took that over as we grew. And then I took over finance and then I took over office management and I was managing, I was facilitating the leadership team meetings every Monday and that is where I from my third month there. I was there as the marketing person. But, as a friend of mine says, like what you're here on the planet to do is what you can't not do, and I was facilitating that before I have a new. Facilitation was a thing because they were talking past each other, so and that was they just kept. They were thrilled to be architects and I was thrilled to like take on more new projects.

Chris Lalomia: 8:50

So, to your point, they they were actually were really smart, knowing that they had a weakness of that and they needed somebody to help them grow, to be in the business, helping them to grow it.

Jodi Hume: 9:00

My favorite, many of my favorite leadership wisdom nuggets come from working there. They were really good at letting people do what they do best and not trying to force. Not that you couldn't have weaknesses you need to improve upon, but they were very conscious of not trying to make someone into something that they're not. You know it's. It's like a car when it's out of alignment you can pull to the left, but the minute you let go of the steering wheel it's going to go right back to to where, however, it's pulling. And so they were really good about, you know, really leaning into people's strengths. It's actually a term from architecture highest and best use. You know that is one of the indicators you do for when you do national park service.

Alan Wyatt: 9:40

We use that in real estate too. What's that?

Jodi Hume: 9:42

Do you highest and best use?

Alan Wyatt: 9:44

Yeah, it's like you have the, the corner lot. What's the highest and best use. It's kind of our mantra. You can put a liquor store there or you could do something that actually improves the community.

Jodi Hume: 9:55

Yeah, it's, it's, it's identifying yeah.

Chris Lalomia: 9:56

Right wrong. Was that the wrong answer?

Jodi Hume: 9:59

Delivery. A delivery liquor store.

Alan Wyatt: 10:00

Yeah, with drones I like it With drones. So I got to ask this question. I am going to make an assumption here that architects are introverts right, most of them. I would think it's a different kind of leadership which might have paved the way for you to just you ended up being CEO of that company From COO, from receptionist to COO.

Jodi Hume: 10:27

Well, we were very small. There were like eight of us when we started. There were about close to 50 when I left, I you know I was there as we grew through all of that and it was. It was just a really exceptional company of knowing how to. They gave us leadership experiences even when we were young, like when I was made an associate, and they would bring us to the retreats that they did each year and they would ask us important questions. They would give us exercises, like if we hit a hard it's why we were really well-prepared when 2008 came Like we would do these exercises like if the economy tanked, who were the 10, however many people we had who were the top five you would fight to keep and who were the top, the bottom five that you would consider.

Jodi Hume: 11:14

And some years that was harder and easier than other years and it wasn't about who the people were. It was about teaching us to think likely. Like one year, they gave us the bonus pool dollars and said if you guys, the four of you were gonna distribute it, how would you distribute it? And it was an interesting test because they took them out of it, but they had us. We were included in it. So it was an interesting test to see how we would handle, like if we had the bonus pool. Would we give most of it to ourselves? Would we give a little bit to ourselves? And then also, who did we value? That was often, sometimes different people than they valued. Training, how to think.

Alan Wyatt: 11:51

Yeah, you sound funny, all of a sudden Did. I sound better back now.

Chris Lalomia: 11:55

I think so. Whoa, my God, I know I have a great point. All right, you didn't put me to that one's point. These guys had to be introverts because you must have been rolling over these people, man.

Alan Wyatt: 12:03

Well, they need they were. I mean, they need somebody like her to come in and lead them and connect about it and then let them either jump or a different personality in a room, right?

Jodi Hume: 12:13

They were split. They were, oh no, architects are often big personalities. Some of them are introverts and quite about I would say it's about a 50-50 split there's always. You wouldn't have a company if you didn't have at least one person who liked to be the person who went out and shook the hands. You know that has a little bit of that politician vibe. You have to have a personality, at least one, and you have to have somebody who is a confident, decisive decision maker. Without those two things you can have a company, but it's gonna grapple to grow.

Chris Lalomia: 12:47

Yeah, right, yeah, wow, that's fascinating. All right, so we're talking architecture, you're doing the COO thing, and then you start realizing, hey, maybe I'm doing this coaching thing, you did some of these so, as it grew, what was harder, going from eight to 20 or from 20 to 50?

Jodi Hume: 13:04

At the firm yeah, oh, eight. Well, so I would maybe split it slightly differently. We were stuck at 18 or ever. It was like 17 to 18, we just we floated there and just couldn't like make the hump over. And I honestly think, over the years of all the companies I have my fingers into, now there are these patches, and one of them is like 18 to 22 people. I call it that I think of as a business puberty.

Jodi Hume: 13:32

There are these places where, like you're awkward, you're like it's like your arms are too long, you're tripping over yourself, like it's just. There are these places where things have to change, like where you start to have to have you know procedures documented instead of everybody just knowing. There's always just like weird patches, and that was a tough one for us to get over. Once we got over that, we went from like 25 to 35, like faster than we could blink an eye. Like we had moved into a new office that we had made space for new people and we filled that up and I had to find us a secondary office close by and figure out a way to connect the networks and one like we outgrew our space in a heartbeat, and so that was really the tough space. We went from like 15 to 17, back and forth for ages.

Chris Lalomia: 14:17

Right. So that's why I asked the I would cause I felt the same thing as that when you're at that 18 to 20, you know, now I'm at 35 and we're at a good spot and really the only way I grow now is by other units. So that's why I just wondered people always ask me that that's not an official thing.

Alan Wyatt: 14:35

Don't you think of that number? I mean it just.

Jodi Hume: 14:37

At 35?.

Alan Wyatt: 14:38

No at your 18. Because whoever's the leader knows everything that's going on and everything funnels through that leader. But to take that next step you have to start trusting other people and putting and there's going to be things going on in your business that you're not even really aware of until you have a staff meeting and at that point you may need a HR person, and there's just that kind of stuff that requires the CEO to let go a little bit.

Jodi Hume: 15:02

Well, there are a number of those places and I think it happens. You know it's hardest to get your first one or two employee.

Chris Lalomia: 15:08

Thank you, we have a little ongoing competition and he made a good point and I agreed to oh, is that?

Jodi Hume: 15:14

do you touch your nose when someone wants a good point?

Chris Lalomia: 15:16

No, I had a fish for it. I mean, oh fine, fine, you got one, all right, fine, did she answer the question? Sure, all right, thank you, oh good.

Jodi Hume: 15:24

No, no, no. There are a number of those places where there are like more letting go or more shifting and without fail. Every time I've seen someone try and let go, there is this happens with everything, but very specifically this issue. You usually like overshoot and you're like, oops, now I've over let go and like things slip through the cracks, and then you have to come back again and then you're a little too in it again, and then it's this.

Chris Lalomia: 15:47

You can't see this on the podcast, but she's doing like from 10 to two, 10 to two. But when Chris lets go, he lets go to 10. And the minute he thinks something slipped through the cracks, he's all the way over hardcore six baby, like what the hell is going on? I can't believe I let you do this. And now what could happen If not one? No, correct Little bit, but yeah, I know what you're talking about. It's that pendulum, yeah.

Jodi Hume: 16:10

It is a pendulum and but I think everything in business is like that. It's business is improv. There's no script Like. It's a constant course correction. You can't possibly. Everyone was always wishing they knew what the right answer is, but that there's so few places where there even is a right answer. You just have to be reasonably certain it's not the wrong answer. That's the much bigger, bigger tool to use. As long as it is not a glaringly wrong answer, then move a chess piece and the whole game will change, and then you can make another adjustment shortly thereafter.

Chris Lalomia: 16:45

All right, let's let's pivot and talk about your business, Not necessarily what you do in your business, but as you were working with the firm and growing your coaching practice. When did you make the cut and why did you make the cut to go full on in your business?

Jodi Hume: 16:59

Yeah, so I made the cut, in part because I got a really large corporate contract, which was wonderful, because that's how I learned that I do not want to do really large corporate contracts. It was awful.

Alan Wyatt: 17:11

We always have to learn things the hard way, don't we?

Chris Lalomia: 17:13

It's never easy, no, and it usually costs us money, what means?

Jodi Hume: 17:16

So there's some neuroscience to that. Actually, your brain needs contrast to actually like. The bigger the contrast, the more it actually learns. So like subtle little shifts in stimuli, your brain doesn't kick in Like I need to learn a thing, so it's like why the world needs assholes.

Alan Wyatt: 17:31

So we appreciate the good people.

Chris Lalomia: 17:32

That's why I'm here, baby, I know.

Alan Wyatt: 17:34

That's why I need truth to that.

Jodi Hume: 17:35

I love that Definite truth to that. I'm not writing that down.

Chris Lalomia: 17:37

The more contrast, the better you learn.

Jodi Hume: 17:39

Yeah, I know, it's a sad fact.

Alan Wyatt: 17:43

Jarks, hell, Hell, hell, hell. I cannot. Everything has to be at an 11.

Jodi Hume: 17:49

It was really hard for me to leave, though, because I had such a not just an emotional connection. I helped grow that firm. I still say we when I talk about it.

Chris Lalomia: 18:00

It still feels like it's in my DNA.

Jodi Hume: 18:03

We built it with our bare hands kind of a thing, and so it was really hard to leave. But I knew the work wasn't for me anymore. I remember fantasizing that I could come sit in my desk and see all the same people every day, but do this business from that office. I knew the work was. The gum had lost its flavor and I needed to move on.

Chris Lalomia: 18:23

Nice, the gum has lost its flavor, all right. So you got this big corporate contract and you went OK, I can't do both. So you said I'm going to go in there and I'm going to leave. But you're like, but I got this big cherry sitting there, so it's not really scary, it's fine.

Jodi Hume: 18:35

Yeah, I can't. It was. Yeah, I mean it was scary to not be in that firm anymore, but doing this work was not scary. That contract was awful. I actually canceled it in the middle of it, for the company was being acquired by a larger company and they wanted me to go around and talk to all these leaders. And every place I went, every office, and they thought I was the person who was coming in to decide who stays and who goes. And no matter what, I was like. We can't do this right now. This is not going to work, this is not what you need. So we canceled that and it was, I'll tell you, for that first year or two being totally out. It was because it I'm not a big fan of like. If you build it, they will come like just quitting your job and starting anything. I think creating a ramp for yourself is is can be really useful. For some. It works. The leaping that works for some people, but for a lot of people it shuts them down because they're in a panic mode.

Chris Lalomia: 19:24

So I build it. What a refresh everybody's memory on what I did.

Jodi Hume: 19:28

Did you do you want to leap? Oh yeah, yeah, no, I.

Chris Lalomia: 19:33

Man on Monday.

Jodi Hume: 19:34

Yep, no, if this was a game show, I would have made that bet like I bet you just quit, and I did.

Chris Lalomia: 19:39

I said I went all the way in. Man that's but.

Jodi Hume: 19:41

But some people need that some people need the what's the Viking thing like? Burn the boats, like you have to. Like some people need the boats burned or else they would. They would trickle back. I knew I didn't, so I built it as much as I could. But it is almost impossible to Get a thing, especially if it's a service thing that requires your time like, as opposed to a business that doesn't. For me, I was nowhere near my salary and that I was making at the architecture firm that first couple years and that was a hard pill to swallow. Like I did not think I was as attached to my, wasn't about the dollars, but just like my contribution to the family or, you know, could I? I, since even high school I was, you know, making money that I could support all my own things, and it was. It was a little tricky that first couple years, but there were Jody likes a Vengements.

Chris Lalomia: 20:31

I know that's what I heard. Man Jody says pay me the cash, show me the All about the dollars.

Jodi Hume: 20:35

Everybody knows me all about dollars.

Chris Lalomia: 20:37

The cabbage, the cash, the roll.

Jodi Hume: 20:39

You know what I'm saying. No, no, no, we know it's funny about that is is one of my lessons I learned early on was that I have to. I have to put goals in terms of something besides revenue from for it to kick my engine into gear. So I have to think of it as like vacations might like the dollars, just raw dollars, just slip through the cracks in my brain, like casino chips, right, there's other things that that puncher guns.

Jodi Hume: 21:03

There's other things and so like it's like a vacation we can take or like we could do this, whatever it is. If I thought of it that way, I'd be like all over it, but there was something I was gonna figure with the other thing I was. I had another point, but I don't know. Do you have a net?

Chris Lalomia: 21:16

don't worry in the great ADHD and people, and that's one of the things we're really good at that. If you didn't have it before, by the time you're done with this podcast, you're gonna be sucking your thumb. You're gonna be sucking your thumb have it in spades Do you?

Alan Wyatt: 21:26

do you have a like a target market for your coaching? Is it? Yeah, what kind of industry?

Jodi Hume: 21:31

so a good portion of my clients are startup founders, so tech startups.

Jodi Hume: 21:34

The rest of them are business owners, usually service providers of some kind, either either professional services or like like home building services.

Jodi Hume: 21:43

I have a roof for client and HPC client and All of most of the people I work with that even the tech startups are doing something different with their company, so they're they're doing.

Jodi Hume: 21:56

You know, I have a client who part of it is a traditional like nanny placement firm, but she also has this backup child care side that she has created for people who like. So she has her own like Like posse of nannies that work for her and like, say you wake up and it's a snow day or your kid is like a little bit sick too sick to Go to school, but not really really sick and you you can't take them to childcare. If you're one of her clients, you can hop on and and get somebody like in an hour, as soon as they, just as far as their travel, so that you don't have to figure out who stays home from work or whatever, and so like that's this like I'm. I love working with people who are trying to figure out something that hasn't quite been done before. Like it's the heightened. It's the heightened uncertainty that makes them an even better.

Chris Lalomia: 22:39

That's cool for me. Yeah, all right. So is it mostly local clients, are you?

Jodi Hume: 22:44

No, there's a good question of my clients I've never met where are you?

Chris Lalomia: 22:47

I'm in Baltimore, yeah that's a very personal question. Where are you? I'm in my basement. I'm in my basement. Yeah, we're just two dudes in the basement Drinking.

Jodi Hume: 22:57

Me lost. That's what some of our commenters did you consider that as the original name of the podcast? Two dudes in a basement.

Alan Wyatt: 23:04

Two dudes in a basement.

Chris Lalomia: 23:06

We, actually we. Well, all right, so we, we, I, I begged Alan to do this Because we get together for beers like once a quarter and we are really smart, especially after like eight beers at the bar. So they're like oh, my god, this is all the world problem. Oh my god, everybody Chicks dig us. Guys want to be us. We were so cool so we tried to figure out a way to call it that. But I came up with a small business safari only because I wrote a book.

Alan Wyatt: 23:34

Oh, you haven't mentioned your book in a while.

Chris Lalomia: 23:37

Oh wow, did you.

Jodi Hume: 23:38

I heard someone wrote a book.

Chris Lalomia: 23:40

Oh, that's right, everybody, she's good at this. Huh, I'll let her be a little bit more yeah but wait who.

Jodi Hume: 23:46

Who podcast proposed to who?

Chris Lalomia: 23:48

I podcast proposed Alan, and he said what's in it for me? And I said well, I'll feed you beer and he went okay. And guess what he had to bring.

Alan Wyatt: 23:56

I had to bring that and be a I'm not a smart man.

Jodi Hume: 24:00

Wow, we've been doing it for two years now. Good for you.

Chris Lalomia: 24:04

I just had somebody. Well, actually, through this podcast class that I went to I reflected on. Then somebody just walked in my office and they said what did you want to get out of this podcast? I said I wanted fame and wealth and I got none of it. They go what did you learn anything? One of my employees asked me. I said you know, actually it's helped me run this business better. He effect. You should thank God. Right now I'm doing the podcast because it saved your ass at least twice. He started going. I believe it, yeah thank you podcast.

Jodi Hume: 24:31

Thank you podcast.

Alan Wyatt: 24:33

It would just be a good second book, all the gold nuggets that we've gotten from our guests. I mean it's just been a wealth of information. Yeah, I know, especially since people like you know the attention span of people.

Jodi Hume: 24:44

It's sort of like you know the tick tockness of like you've got 60 seconds. You got 30 seconds, so little nuggets are easier to read.

Chris Lalomia: 24:51

Is Jody still talking?

Alan Wyatt: 24:52

Not. Yet I have a question for you. When somebody hires you, is there a difference between what they think they need and what they really need?

Jodi Hume: 25:03

Oh, when they hire me, and almost every time they call. Okay no, no, no, no, I'm being a little bit silly about that, but no, that is. That is a big portion of why they call I don't have a question.

Alan Wyatt: 25:18

Anyway, go ahead. It's a big. They don't know what they need.

Jodi Hume: 25:22

So here's the thing I mean just think of any time where you are just like spinning your wheels or stuck in a thing. You've been having the same question and you're like or you just or? How many times in business do you just know something is off, but you can't tell what it is. You're like is it this? Is it that? Is it this? The decision fatigue is real.

Jodi Hume: 25:38

You can get like your brain gets tired, it runs in a very specific way and when it gets run down which is very easy to do it doesn't function as well and it's very hard as an.

Jodi Hume: 25:51

I mean this is true for anyone, but I feel like it's doubly true for business owners.

Jodi Hume: 25:55

You have so many not only so many things you have to hold in your brain, but so many different. It's not even a three dimensional thing, it's like a nine dimensional thing, because you have to think far out, to plan strategically, but you also look right in front of you. You have to think about the numbers and the like bottom line, but you also, whether you want to or not, have to think about the people. You know they're not, they're not machines that you have to think about how they're, how it's working for them and there's just all these things, that it's so many variables it can get really hard to see clearly and it's like I take a lot of pride in my, my, my parallel parking skills. But if you get in a vehicle that you've never been in before and you're not sure exactly how far you know how much did that been, how much cars left over there, it's just so different, like being inside of a thing versus watching someone else parallel park a car.

Chris Lalomia: 26:47

Right, that's a great point. The perspective you bring is you're watching them parallel park and they're not doing it. Or maybe they're doing well All you do that well, but when you're in the middle of it you're like I get to get this thing in, I don't want to hit it, but what they don't need? Oh my god, I'm just leave. I'm going to go find a place to park, but here's my beef with like it.

Jodi Hume: 27:07

Here's my beef with like consultants and a lot of coaches depending on their, their model and advisors is they will start telling you what to do, versus just give them a little bit of advice. So the first thing you have to do is you can just slide out the window and somebody will see you. And then the other thing is you can kind of start telling the person Okay, no, you can sort it out yourself. No, no, it's kind of almost like with parenting, or like nobody knows your kids as well as you do. You know them better than anybody.

Jodi Hume: 27:30

And the same is true with businesses. Like there are times people maybe need to be told something or taught something or improved in some way, but a great deal of the time they just need to like get the clarity inside, like they already know, clear out the clutter so that they can see it. And once you want to do that, then they know what they need to do and they can just keep going. And so it's just like being like oh, I think you've got, you can go. You have plenty of room back there, just go for it. And then they can parallel park on their own.

Alan Wyatt: 27:58

It really is therapy. Oh, it's like 100% it kind of is. How does that make you feel?

Chris Lalomia: 28:03

Yeah, she's doing it a whole time.

Jodi Hume: 28:04

I am, in fact I'm already doing that right now I'm way too snarky to be a therapist.

Chris Lalomia: 28:09

Oh well, yeah no, but seriously no, you're doing the right. Like I said, that's the right stuff because, you're right, there are nights when I come home and I love to cook and I was like yeah no, not doing it. I mean this next thing I know piece of bread, some cheese, some salami done. Yeah, and I'm just plopping on the couch, going I'm no watch TV mindlessly. I don't know what I'm doing anymore, I'm just tired.

Jodi Hume: 28:31

So I won't bore you with all the neuroscience on this, but like the prefrontal cortex of your brain, which is the part that's like nuance thinking, impulse control, decision making, strategizing all the executive function lives up here and it uses the most glucose or brain fuel. And what happens is and you know this in your world because in the morning you're like I'm going to eat all the right things today and drink water and I'm gonna like blubber, blah, blah, whatever.

Chris Lalomia: 28:55

And then it's like I'm not gonna have a bourbon tonight.

Jodi Hume: 28:57

Right, and then it's 7 pm.

Chris Lalomia: 28:58

There's glucose and bourbon.

Jodi Hume: 28:59

Sleeve of Girl Scout cookies. And that is because that front part of your brain that's exactly well, especially the coconut ones.

Chris Lalomia: 29:09

Oh right, don't get the buzz.

Jodi Hume: 29:10

That's one sitting.

Chris Lalomia: 29:13

I'm like, oh, I pop those suckers like thin mints, absolutely, oh, I pop those.

Jodi Hume: 29:17

That's why you can't re-clothe it.

Chris Lalomia: 29:19

Back kid going down to the seesaw.

Jodi Hume: 29:21

My theory is that one. That's why they just have the like one open thing that you can't like twist shut again because, like you're gonna take it out, you're gonna eat them all and then the box goes away.

Chris Lalomia: 29:28

All right, so back to it. Yeah, so the neuroscience we have the most emotional stability, is that what you're saying? The most controlled?

Jodi Hume: 29:34

It's not even emotional stability. I'm just talking like everything that your brain needs to be able to do, and impulse control is one of them. So decisions and impulse control the half life of the glucose, and here's the thing you can help about this. Your brain's not made to marathon throughout the day, it's made to sprint in like bursts. So, like the studies they've done, like maximum of 16 and 90 minutes, just take any kind of break. It doesn't have to be a nap, it does like you could just go walk around the room or the house or anything, just creating some. I think it was like punctuation, some kind of punctuation. This does not include picking up your phone and playing. You need the sensory disconnect for just like three minutes even.

Chris Lalomia: 30:15

That's a huge point. I've heard this before and I would say I practice this as well. It's no shit, even though I'm ADD. But I will tackle a subject and if I can't get through it, I'm like, all right, I'm done, I'm gonna go take a walk around the building and I do a little walkabout and maybe I'll call a guy or do whatever, and then I'll come back in the office and then I'm like, all right, reset, and then it works right. Yeah, no, it works. And it keeps you.

Jodi Hume: 30:36

I figured it out and it keeps you from running out of. Like the half-life of the glucose will go longer if you're not plowing. If you take those pauses, you will be able to sustain like higher level executive functioning and decisions and impulse control longer throughout the day. If you plow, it runs out much, much, much faster and so you can sustain it and then you have a better chance of not, you know, like eating all the Girl Scout cookies.

Chris Lalomia: 31:01

I'm gonna just gonna go back again, right, so remember that not boring job that she told us about in the beginning of the episode. Yeah, and we're here now I'm still saying, man, she was in rat's brains, because she is way too into neuroscience and I'm pretty sure that there's something out there right now is shaking.

Jodi Hume: 31:17

Nope, nope, I'm just a nerd, little pill, little LSD.

Alan Wyatt: 31:20

Let's just see how you feel. Let's see, how does that?

Chris Lalomia: 31:22

make you feel, yeah, all right, I wish. No, you know what I had to do.

Jodi Hume: 31:27

Honestly God, this is so. I would tell people that I was on this side of the mirror. I'd say I'm right there, I'll be recording like while you go, if you need anything, just signal or whatever. They had to do this test for an hour and every five minutes I would have to write down like what they were doing. Honest to God, despite the fact that I had told them that they'd be sitting there, they like three knuckles up, pick their nose. They would touch them. I mean like there and I would have to and I wasn't allowed to do it. So I would be like 237.

Alan Wyatt: 31:52

They were just touching themselves.

Jodi Hume: 31:54

Repositioning again.

Chris Lalomia: 31:56

I told you I was here and they're three knuckles deep, I know.

Jodi Hume: 32:01

I was, so I wanted to be like dude tap, tap, tap.

Chris Lalomia: 32:04

I'm right here, Still here, still here, like I told you, still here. I told Joseph did you think I wasn't? You forgot?

Jodi Hume: 32:13

No, but he was an attention. So very funny. My son, who everybody in my family has ADD and as well as dyslexia and a few other fun things, which is why I use metaphor so much, interestingly. But my son was getting his testing done for so he could get accommodations at school. And I picked him up and I was like, oh, what was the one they took you into the other room for? And he goes oh, they had like, it was just this like. And he goes to describe the test that I had done. It was like it's this square and then you have to press whether it's a smaller or larger square and it is the first one. It's so boring because it is meant to push your ability to pay attention and make it really hard. I said, oh, did you have to really struggle to do that one? He goes I don't know, they had these really cool paintings on the wall and I was like, oh, dude who?

Chris Lalomia: 32:58

gave him that test. The school.

Jodi Hume: 33:01

No, we had to have testing done to get into the school.

Alan Wyatt: 33:04

That he went to oh okay, all right, and they gave him the boredom test.

Jodi Hume: 33:08

Yeah, because, well, they're literally testing your ability to maintain attention on something that is not stupid.

Alan Wyatt: 33:15

You wouldn't have gotten into that school. I think I would notice that. Oh, no, no, no.

Jodi Hume: 33:19

No, you're missing the point of the school. This is a school for kids who are like, really smart but have language-based learning issues and ADD, so actually performing poorly on that test helps you get into that.

Chris Lalomia: 33:29

Oh nice, great school, great. So how many kids you got.

Jodi Hume: 33:32

Two.

Chris Lalomia: 33:33

Yeah, how old are they?

Jodi Hume: 33:34

My son's 21. He's a junior and my daughter's 17, senior in high school.

Chris Lalomia: 33:39

Oh boy, oh exciting times.

Jodi Hume: 33:41

Last year. Yeah, right, yeah, this is the. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great age.

Chris Lalomia: 33:46

Yep, that's a lot of excitement. I love that. Okay, so, 17, 21,. You started the business when they were young as well, so they only know you as mom, the entrepreneur, doing this whole thing.

Jodi Hume: 33:57

yeah, yes, yes, and they are not at all impressed by it. And their favorite phrase is not everything's a life lesson, mom, so Nice.

Chris Lalomia: 34:07

Well, my daughter, who is 25, is famous on our podcast and we have a new one and my new one. Let me look this up because we're gonna make teachers out of my daughter spice-less.

Alan Wyatt: 34:19

She. We need to have her as a guest, whether she's-.

Chris Lalomia: 34:22

She is on a roll, so she's in position assistant school. She's went back to school after working and living at home with us saving money. And that was the conversation. I'm like how much did you save? And she said here it is. It's your fault for not taking it out of my checking account.

Jodi Hume: 34:38

Wow, oh, interesting.

Chris Lalomia: 34:41

There she goes.

Jodi Hume: 34:43

That's her Interesting.

Chris Lalomia: 34:44

So this is the one that told me one night she goes yeah, what are we having for dinner? I said leftover. She goes do better, do better.

Jodi Hume: 34:50

Oh, it's like she and my daughter would get along pretty well yeah love kids.

Chris Lalomia: 34:54

You know that makes it all go around. One thing I'm gonna go back to this, because if you're listening to this and you're thinking, man, I'm gonna be a leadership coach, I'm gonna be just like Joe to use no G, but you know I'm gonna do it, I'm just gonna leap off. The one thing that I think is very interesting is that people don't get it in coaching. People just don't line up at your doorstep for a lot of coaches who have never done it. You gotta go out there and market yourself.

Chris Lalomia: 35:16

You gotta hit podcasts like these clowns you're talking to today. You gotta go out there and keep putting your shingle out there. How do you keep your coffers, Phil? How do you do it?

Jodi Hume: 35:26

Yeah, so I can tell you what worked for me. I've seen a lot of people in the past 10 years do extremely well with online marketing, online classes, online masterminds and whatnot. I built my practice the old-fashioned networking, referral, word of mouth way, and I have tried there were times where I invested in a person or a mastermind or whatever to make that leap. It is just not what works for me and I think the best business advice I ever got and I always just come back to this when I am most confused is do more of what works. Just do more of what works and stop trying to reinvent the wheel and figure out some faster, better way. Well, it can be faster or better, but not being seduced into thinking you need some newfangled way of doing something. Sometimes you do. It can be beneficial, but In your week?

Chris Lalomia: 36:19

how much are you spending finding new clients, talking to new clients or putting those out there, marketing advertising? How much are you coaching?

Jodi Hume: 36:27

So let me answer the first question first, because it's a little bit different with the way I run the practice now, it's hard for me to answer the second part, but I'll explain why in a second. So in the past few months I have been actually working with I have a marketing person who's helping me so that I can expand my reach beyond the local area, because I do want to work with more startup founders and there are only so many here in Baltimore. So that is the one and only in these 20 years, that is the only time I have done in the last four months any kind of deliberate marketing. I figured out very early on that the best thing I could do was put myself in places where people would have an opportunity, formally or informally, to hear the questions I ask, the way I think things through, the way my brain works, and if I did that I didn't have to explain what I did because they would just get it. And so one of the things I did was I joined a Vistage group because it was business owners and they were all service providers like me of different kinds, not the big CEO group, and I literally would have dudes in that group say I still don't get what you do, but I feel like you could be helpful with this for either them or a client of theirs, and 100% of the time, that is exactly what I.

Jodi Hume: 37:38

I don't know why you keep saying you don't understand what I do. They couldn't put words to it. I didn't have a handy tagline, I never have, and you can spend hours and months trying to get your website right or the perfect tagline or the perfect marketing copy, and at least if you're doing a business where you are the product, then just putting yourself out there and so people can experience it, and then you don't have to explain it to them, and that's the only thing I've ever done. I just spend more time with the people that really get me and who are also talkers. I mean, I think that's another key thing if you're trying to grow a business is there are.

Jodi Hume: 38:13

I think Seth Godin calls them sneezers like people who love to refer and spread your name around, and so I always had like one or two of those. At any given time I would have someone who just seemed to constantly-.

Chris Lalomia: 38:25

I think that's the golden nugget for any business you're in. People buy from people. They don't buy from businesses. Right, I go to Walmart only because it's the absolute lowest cost last alternative for me. I hate going in there because the relationship's not there.

Alan Wyatt: 38:39

But I will go to Not much for their sponsorship. Well, we got a bunch of options. Orchard thought that one.

Jodi Hume: 38:43

Chris, nice it's great, thanks a lot, but hey, you're absolutely right.

Chris Lalomia: 38:47

By the way, in Amazon I think you guys are so good, so don't forget to sponsor the small businesses all right. Jeff Bezos Come here buddy.

Jodi Hume: 38:54

But to your point, especially in home services like yes, I know it can be important to do Google search ads and whatnot. That is sometimes how people find things, but nine times out of 10 for most of us it's like have you had a roofer that you know? Because there's no way to test it out and these things really matter and it's a lot of money and you care about how it goes. So anything where you care how it goes and you have a pretty high stake in it, most people are gonna ask around who that's why next, well, that's one of the reasons I'm in commercial real estate and it's the exact same thing.

Alan Wyatt: 39:26

I mean we have a website just to validate. Once we meet somebody, they're like well. I'll check them out on their website, but we don't ever get. We don't really want business from our website.

Jodi Hume: 39:36

I have found that when people have found me through some completely random, random way, it's the likelihood that it's a good fit. Oh which, by the way, I just did a video about this because I heard this lady on the on being podcast talk about survival, the fittest. She said the actual, the word that Darwin was talking about. We think of survival as the fittest is like the strongest, the most dominant who would eat the others, kind of a thing. And while there is some aspect to that, that, it's true, it is survival of the fit, the best fit to the environment, the fittest, the one that can fit the best.

Jodi Hume: 40:14

And fit is so important in business. When they're not the right fit, it's not gonna work out. Even if you're being paid a bunch of money, it's either not gonna be worth it or it will cost you that much to service them because they are. It's not the right fit. Whereas when I get a referral, especially from one of my like super core, there's one woman who every time she mentions me to somebody I barely am able even to get through the sales call, they're like right, how much can we just? Can you just send me the thing?

Chris Lalomia: 40:42

Like they're sold Because you're referred with an endorsement and they're like done right, I love it. They've already decided she brings up the Darwin, darwin. So you know we all studied Darwin in school because we all had to right. But my favorite thing is social media has been out. Even before social media, they have the Darwin Awards.

Jodi Hume: 40:57

Come on, it's brilliant. No, so my family has a very dark sense of humor and we love those Darwin Awards.

Chris Lalomia: 41:04

The first one I ever heard was the lawyer every year told every one of his new first year lawyers the one else going in he would do this thing, saying this is what we're about in law school, and he would jump up and jump into a glass and a high rise building and show them that it was strong enough, right? Well, one year it just didn't go out the door.

Alan Wyatt: 41:22

He went this is back in 1998, 1999.

Chris Lalomia: 41:25

So the Darwin Awards again back. No internet at the time, right. But I had that one presented and you know I was like, oh that's BS, right. And so now they're all there. They've been doing it every year like tipping over the Coke machine boom drops the kid. So anyway, I don't want to, but I did.

Chris Lalomia: 41:39

I love it, I love it Dark sense of humor, but that's a great point. Survival of the fit. And we're coming to the end here. I know I don't want to. I'm going to keep going. So, Jodi, as you, if you worked with a lot of people, you get all those people in. Where do you feel like you've had the most success? Where do you go? Man, I feel really good about this guy. Give us a story, Don't just tell us about in general.

Jodi Hume: 42:01

Oh, I guess. Oh. So I have NDAs with a good number of my clients, so let me, I will tell you sort of a generalized story about this is a very specific person.

Chris Lalomia: 42:09

Let's call him Mouse. I was going to say Steve, oh, steve, yeah, all right, steve.

Jodi Hume: 42:14

That's really funny, because whenever I want to like reference, like my fake, my fake client, when I want to reference somebody, I'll be like so Steve said to me, and if it's like, if I want to reference a woman, I say Megan, I don't know why I picked.

Alan Wyatt: 42:24

Steve and Megan and I have.

Jodi Hume: 42:25

I have no Steve or Megan clients.

Chris Lalomia: 42:27

Very interesting. That works out really well. Yeah, I get some of that. Let's go ahead yeah.

Jodi Hume: 42:35

So I it's really interesting. Part of the reason that I also just stepped away from marketing this is related to your question is that it is really hard to describe the work, and so what's interesting is this kind of goes back to your last question the reason I can't answer what like how many hours a week I am coaching?

Jodi Hume: 43:01

is because what I have shifted is I do everything on call. Now they are paying me to be available, like sooner or later. I still have some scheduled clients, so I absolutely have things scheduled on my calendar. But I cannot and never wanted to and this leads to what's my like really favorite thing about business there is have like a packed nine to six, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, especially since by the end of the day, you'd not be getting the best of me, and so I'm not spending a lot of hours.

Jodi Hume: 43:28

I am, however, available to these people, and this is the thing that that's what shifted my business the most was even though that was like a weird need that no one had articulated before and there weren't 20 of them out there, so it made the marketing a little harder, but that is. I knew deeply that is what people needed. They needed somebody in the moment when they had a problem, not every third Tuesday or whatever. So, but back to the to the client success story. So these, these folks often don't have people to talk to, and when they don't have people to talk to, because there's a million reasons, they their stories that they can't tell, their confidential or all the reasons and leadership, and then they get stuck in their head. And so, very specifically, the first person that I worked with to work out this like on call thing, she decided to beta test it with me because part of what she wanted, so we'll call her Megan I decided to tell a different one.

Chris Lalomia: 44:22

It's Megan, Megan, Megan.

Jodi Hume: 44:24

Actually, let's call her Steve. That'll be that work.

Chris Lalomia: 44:25

OK, stevie.

Jodi Hume: 44:28

Stevie what's great about it. So she said I don't want to. This is an emotional roller coaster sometimes and I don't want it. I'm reckoning I can't take all that back to my team. I can't go in one day and be like, oh my God, the sky is falling, and then tomorrow be like everything's great. She's like I need to be able to be clear about expectations and there are times where she's like I just need to burn off some of the energy of a thing before I go and deal with with the team, and so that the reason that this goes back to the marketing thing I was saying a second ago that I got a little off track about it is really hard for me to cite outcomes or like results because, almost like counterterrorism, a lot of what the work I do with people keeps them from going off the rails or making bad decisions or or so it prevents burnout.

Jodi Hume: 45:20

It prevents, it prevents a lot of turnover because they are being they're giving like stress burns to everybody in in the office, like I am watching them for what it's like channeling hydro power to get a CEO or founder to be doing everything they can do and some of that's egging them on, but some of it's also slowing them down or making them rest or renew so that they can sustainably keep it up. So I keep a lot of things from happening, but it's very hard to talk about results in terms of like.

Chris Lalomia: 45:51

No, I love it actually. So today, everybody, you should thank yourself. You probably listen on this podcast in your car driving around hey, road rage just didn't happen, and somebody to pull a gun on you because Jody's out there helping people, right? So next time you want to flip the bird, somebody slow it down, bro back, because Jody might not be there helping that guy through the fact, but I think I know her, so her company is called at the core, but I really think she's a concierge decision coach.

Alan Wyatt: 46:20

I'm thinking a life coach slash business coach, because if she helps you be the best you, then you're going to be the best leader. I still like my concierge is this coach, I win Okay fine.

Chris Lalomia: 46:34

All right, guys, we're coming to the end of this thing. I know you guys know this, and thanks for hanging out with us. We're still doing it. All right, jody, how do people find you? Let's put it out there, and I've heard there might be a little benefit for hanging around and we're going to put this in our show notes. So, jody, hit us up.

Jodi Hume: 46:50

So you can read all about me at at the core dot com you can also find a bunch of like free content on all my social media kinds of things. You can look there. But if you go to at the core dot com, forward slash Safari, there will be a at least one of the sessions I offer maybe two of them, I'm trying to decide on that that will be at a pretty steeply discounted I'm talking like come on, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll do two of them.

Chris Lalomia: 47:17

Oh my God, alan just got her in. You need to go check this out, you, you're not, you're? I mean seriously, I'm listening to this thing. I'm thinking of myself. You're right, we all need decision coaches, we all need help with this stuff. But, jody, we can't not get out of here without asking our favorite for questions.

Jodi Hume: 47:32

What is the?

Chris Lalomia: 47:33

book you'd recommend everybody out there listening.

Jodi Hume: 47:36

One of my favorite books actually have it right here. It's called winning with accountability, the secret language of high performance organizations. And what is cool about this is three things actually. It's tiny. It's very big text so you could like literally read it like on this.

Alan Wyatt: 47:50

She's holding it up in the titles longer than the book.

Jodi Hume: 47:52

No, the title is very long, but it's a fast read, but here's why it's important. There's a million business books that are great. I could give you a list of 100 but what I love about this is it talks about if you get frustrated getting people to do what you want, which most of great number of my calls are about frustration with people stuff. This book doesn't talk about accountability from an after the fact punitive measure, which is typically how people talk about accountability, and that's actually not super effective.

Alan Wyatt: 48:17

So your chapter is the well placed F bomb. That's how you do it, right, right?

Chris Lalomia: 48:22

Well placed F bomb. What the F? Were you thinking? Accountability, yeah.

Jodi Hume: 48:26

You know what, for some people maybe that works, but a lot of them. So this talks about accountability in a very easy to digest way as like something you do in front, like how do we set ourselves up so that we don't go off the rails in the first place? And it's just got some really great things that you can easily implement. It's not a big, heady theoretical book, and I've seen it do some like really serious work in organizations to keep them from getting off track in the first place, which is easy read people easy read that's because that's if you listen to the podcast and we know who you are.

Chris Lalomia: 48:54

You guys all hit us up during the week. Well, hit me up and Ellen loves that that I get hit up at least once a week from one of our listeners about a question.

Alan Wyatt: 49:02

It is cool.

Chris Lalomia: 49:04

Yeah, I love it. I love that we're hitting people and making it happen, so check this one out. This seems like one that actually even I would read.

Alan Wyatt: 49:09

Whoa look out, there's no pictures.

Jodi Hume: 49:12

There's no pictures? Oh, thank God. Oh, then I totally could color I could color during your little bracelet.

Alan Wyatt: 49:19

I am a snowflake.

Chris Lalomia: 49:20

I need a color my coloring book. All right, let's go. Favorite feature of your home.

Jodi Hume: 49:25

Oh, so this was a complete gut Renault, like every everything. All the only things we left were the floors. Actually, on one floor of the floor, we had to take out the lower ones as well, and both floors of this house had a double sided fireplace and that and we opened up everything else. So there are these two double sided fireplaces and they're just like the best thing ever. We do also have the tallest Don Redwoods in Maryland and are right outside our window in our backyard. We have a very cool backyard, but that's not the house itself.

Alan Wyatt: 49:52

Oh, it was a house.

Jodi Hume: 49:54

It was like a 1954 house Nice.

Chris Lalomia: 49:58

So wood burning or gas, what'd you guys do?

Jodi Hume: 50:01

So they were wood burning. We actually put gas in the lower level where the kids like play, so that's like a you know a gas, when we didn't want them starting fires down there. Yeah right.

Chris Lalomia: 50:10

Another field. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, mostly me, no kidding, all right. So when you're out and you're the customer, we are really big into customer because we're a customer service. Yeah, absolutely, what is a customer service? Pet peeve of yours.

Jodi Hume: 50:28

My biggest customer service pet peeve is when because I just it's so inane is when places want to do surveys like the how was your experience, and they make the internal decision that, like anything besides a five is failing, like those kinds of setups, because then you're not actually wanting feedback from people, you're, it's like. Then it becomes this like psychological manipulation game. If anything besides five is failing, then don't have five, just have two, because the only thing you're going to find out is whether or not the person who took the survey home and fill it out is compliant or not with what you told them were the instructions. It's a test of compliance, it's not a feedback survey.

Chris Lalomia: 51:12

And it makes me I rate, oh, she's hit me at the core on this one. I would say, the best ones have to know that, though I think I well, that I think they tell you they tell you because really this is the whole thing I won't give us a five, let us know, kind of a thing.

Alan Wyatt: 51:26

Well, that's what we do in our business.

Chris Lalomia: 51:28

I mean because I'm all about the Google reviews, but you just want to know if I'm compliant? No, I really don't.

Jodi Hume: 51:35

No, but see that has a purpose, your purpose is awesome.

Chris Lalomia: 51:39

You did the best work ever, for I was like, right, I'm gonna call her. I'm like I'm pissed and they're like well, chris, we got a four. I'm like she gave me four, but she said how awesome we were.

Jodi Hume: 51:48

Right, but keep in mind. Keep in mind the Google reviews are not for you to get feedback. I mean, it's great that you get some. People do Google reviews for social proof, so that is the purpose. The purpose is social proof. Don't pretend it's really to be exclusively a review. So when they send you home with that thing this is why you have to be careful about any kind of incentive programs that you put, because people, human beings, are like lab rats. We push whatever lever we know to get the cheese. If you, it's so easy to incentivize the wrong behavior. And so when people know that if they don't get five it's failure, they will tell people like here's the thing, but just so you know, anything besides, five is a failure.

Chris Lalomia: 52:28

Well now, right now, in our world, is either five or one Right, there's no, there's no four.

Alan Wyatt: 52:33

But I think the most important question Then why do we even have four?

Chris Lalomia: 52:35

Your feedback is we have the last four. I got literally was in 2019. So, since COVID it's five or one, here's the best question you can ask anybody in any business. Would you refer me to your?

Alan Wyatt: 52:47

That's exactly what I was going to say before you roll over what are they called NS? That's okay, we're on the same page.

Jodi Hume: 52:51

Right.

Chris Lalomia: 52:52

Yeah, we've been together for two years.

Alan Wyatt: 52:54

I know, are we finishing each other's sentences now? Oh my.

Jodi Hume: 52:56

God, it's so cute.

Chris Lalomia: 52:58

I can't Look at you two Pinky squares. Okay, pinky squares, all right.

Alan Wyatt: 53:06

We still have question B what is?

Chris Lalomia: 53:09

Give us a DIY nightmare story, not a contractor one, because I have plenty of those.

Jodi Hume: 53:14

Yeah, you almost lost everything on this house. Yeah, so my Like, I grew up doing manual labor, power tools from a very early age, so I find this story so embarrassing. I went downstairs to get the staple gun and I don't know if you've seen these like new plastic, fancy black and orange ones like they sell. They're not metal like a standard staple gun, and I knew that we had two staple guns and that one of them wasn't working towards the end of the last time and one wasn't. So I took it the way you always handle it and I went like this to see if it would pop out of staple the way that it normally goes.

Alan Wyatt: 53:54

She's pointing it away from her.

Jodi Hume: 53:56

No, putting it away from her, but I but I preceded the other part against my hand. Anyway, these other kinds that they made for a while are angled the opposite way. You know, staple guns are like. They're like a, the short on one end and like tall on the other. These, for some reason, are the other way. So I staple gun right into the palm of my hand. Nice staple gun in the palm of your hand, straight into the palm of my hand.

Chris Lalomia: 54:18

I would love to tell you I've never done something like that. But we talk, we talk at the we. We say in our business it's the hand clamp right when you're doing and you're shooting a nail. Yep, yep, I can tell you, you can't see this and but there's been plenty of ones that have hit off the bone through the nail and I got my finger and my my hand is actually into the trim.

Alan Wyatt: 54:38

It's able to yourself to the house.

Jodi Hume: 54:40

Yeah you're like. Now I live here.

Chris Lalomia: 54:42

Yeah, oh, my God.

Jodi Hume: 54:44

My favorite thing about that staple gun story, though, is that it because I have a Facebook post about it that reminds me of it right now Is that morning something like reasonably grandiose had happened for me in my business, like I'd like an interview been published somewhere, like I don't know what it was, but I remember that I was like I was like strutting, I was like check me out, I'm like I'm like I've arrived and then, like three hours later, I staple gun to my own hand and I was like all right, the days have highs and lows.

Jodi Hume: 55:09

Big shot Like it's a big shot and I just staple gun my own hand.

Chris Lalomia: 55:13

Well, jody, this has been a blast. We love having you come on. No small business safari team has figured some stuff out, yeah.

Alan Wyatt: 55:20

I think that they're going to be less likely to make terrible decisions. I love it.

Chris Lalomia: 55:24

So if you didn't learn, something today that's on you, man. Hopefully you guys listened up. Hit me up on some emails, tell me a little bit more about what's going on, what's going on with your life. Love to talk to you. You know I will, because I've talked to a number of you guys. So go up and do it. Let's keep going up that mountaintop. Let's make it all happen. We're out of here. Cheers everybody. Thanks, jody.