The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Curiosity Makes You A Stronger Leader | Tyler Chisholm
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What if the biggest leadership mistake is talking too much instead of asking better questions?
Summary:
In this episode of The Small Business Safari, we sit down with Tyler Chisholm, marketing agency founder, podcaster, and author of Curious As Hell. Tyler shares how a simple habit—leading with curiosity—can transform leadership, sales conversations, and team performance.
We challenge the reflex many leaders have to pitch, fix, and dominate the room. Instead, Tyler explains how creating space, asking thoughtful questions, and truly listening allows the right answers to surface. The result? Better decisions, stronger teams, and more meaningful customer relationships.
Tyler also shares how podcasting sharpened his questioning skills and how those same skills translate directly into stronger sales calls, better coaching conversations, and healthier company cultures.
From toilet paper debates that reveal culture truths to a near-disaster DIY project that proves grit matters, this conversation is packed with practical leadership insights and a lot of laughs along the way.
🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBusinessSafari
💡 GOLD NUGGETS
• A hilarious toilet paper debate that reveals deeper lessons about culture and perspective
• Preparing for a sales call by treating the customer as the most important person in the room
• Tyler’s journey from agency owner to podcaster to author of Curious As Hell
• Why leaders lose effectiveness when they fill the room and jump to conclusions
• How to coach teams through questions without giving up leadership or vision
• “The meaning of your communication is the result that it gets” — a powerful leadership mirror
• Creating psychological safety so questions don’t feel like traps
• Practical phrasing and pauses that help curiosity become a repeatable habit
• Customer service pet peeves and the problem with lazy “exceed expectations” claims
• A DIY project gone wrong that proves persistence still matters in business
🔗 Guest Links
• Website: https://tylerchisholm.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerchisholm/
• Book: Curious As Hell
🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari
• Instagram | @smallbusinesssafaripodcast
• LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia/
• Website | https://chrislalomia.com
Thanks to our sponsor Smart Hire Solutions LLC!
Toilet Paper Debate And Office Banter
SPEAKER_04No, I'm actually going to call it uh company wide meeting tomorrow of everybody in the office. And uh I've got one. I want to know right now when you put the toilet paper back on the holder, does the paper come over or under?
SPEAKER_03See, Tommy, what you don't know is his last company meeting, he actually kicked a hole in the door.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03That was my sales meeting.
SPEAKER_02I want to be clear though.
SPEAKER_04The entire office uh heard me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What savages in your company put it around the back? Come on, give me a right. What kind of barbarians do you work with over there?
SPEAKER_04Thank you, Tyler. See, you've already known. So if you'd asked that question, Tyler, you already knew the answer. Why did you dare bigger? I had to jump in.
SPEAKER_01I love this question. I love it. I love it.
Sales Focus Before The Call
SPEAKER_04Welcome 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 duggets 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 to get you to the mountaintop. Hello, we got getting ready to rock and roll. I tell you what, guys, we all do it. We try to pack way too much time into way too little time. And I did it again today, and I tried to pack at least three days worth of shit into one day. And I had to do this one last sale before I could get on the here and talk with you guys in the podcast. But one of the things I want to share, and I just shared this with Alan, and I'll share with you today, Tyler, is that right before we go into a sales call here at the Trusted Toolbox, I train my new guys to say the most important person in the world is the person you're about to go talk to. Not your wife, not your kids, nobody. Definitely not your dog. They get to make them the most important person in the world. You gotta have total focus on them. So I am putting my total focus on what's your name again? Alan and Tyler.
SPEAKER_03So did you give the old lady your total focus? I did. I gave her all I gave her all four but like 30 seconds of it.
Tyler Chisholm On Curious Leadership
SPEAKER_04No, no, I gave her the Italian, the Italians you're gonna buy a what? Uh no, I so I said, so at the end with everything we do, it was uh a pretty small job in the grand scheme of things, but she also had uh what turned out to be termite damage, but we talked about other stuff in the home that we're doing. And I said, So did you have a hope number? Did you have an idea about how much this is gonna be? She goes, Well, since you're asking, I was hoping you'd kind of keep it around a thousand. I said, Well, we're gonna be close to that. I said, But I'm so glad you didn't say 200. Uh she goes, No, no, no. Your time is much more worth of that, worth much more than that. My family owned their own businesses and uh I can value that. So that was pretty cool. Sometimes old people rule. You know what? She didn't sometimes. She was awesome, man. She was kicking it. So let's keep kicking it. Let's keep kicking it down the road. Let's keep getting better. We're gonna get even better today. We got Tyler Chisholm on Tyler. Uh you mentioned you were from Calgary, but you know, as I was reading.
SPEAKER_03One of the great cities of North America, by the way.
SPEAKER_02Well said. It's uh it's right up there. It's right up there, gentlemen. I love that place.
SPEAKER_04So, Alan, uh I did not get to go to Calgary. I've not I've been to Edmonton.
SPEAKER_02Well, we're not well, don't compare. Just let that pass.
SPEAKER_04We're gonna let that go. We're gonna put that one into the night. We're gonna wrap that up. Put that little bit.
SPEAKER_03Say again. What would be the U.S.
SPEAKER_02equivalent of Well, Calgary's sister city is often Denver. Okay. So I don't know where like who would Denver look down on? Let's let's let's start there. Uh well, uh, they look down on a lot of people. Okay, well, maybe, yeah, maybe I don't know if I'd put us in that category, but who's your rival? Who's your, you know, that uh, you know, you've the the head-to-head in sports teams. The weather's better here, we have more head offices here. I don't know. I don't want to start making this a sales pitch and get all my Edmondson fans riled up.
SPEAKER_03I love that. He's more savvy than you because you've just routinely pissed off entire states and I'm I'm I'm banned actually in a number of states right now and definitely in a couple of cities.
SPEAKER_02Well, there's lots of ways to be memorable.
SPEAKER_04Uh I strive for that, Tyler. Just spell my name right. All right, before we get into Tyler's dossier, one of the things that he is that we aspire to be, Alan, is he is a big time podcaster who's been doing it longer than us. He's been doing it since 2019 and has a few more episodes than we do. So I don't have podcast envy, but a little bit.
SPEAKER_02This is one of those. Uh, how much do you bench press? I don't know. How much do you bench press? It's one of those dropping like audience and then episodes, and yeah, it's a it's a podcaster thing, eh, gents?
SPEAKER_04That's right. Exactly. Uh podcasters isms. Uh so how do you how does another podcaster put another one down? Yeah, well, how many listeners do you have? Yeah, well, how many times were you mentioned in this one?
SPEAKER_02So more importantly, what why do you do it? What did you learn? How much fun do you have? People love to say who's your favorite guest, and I always joke it's my next one, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, it's uh it's a privilege to do these things. So thanks for having me on. It's fun to be on the other side of the mic.
SPEAKER_04All right, let's get him on the other side of the mic and let's have some fun with them, right? Because we get two on one this time, Alan. That's the one thing we get when people come on ours. They're like, wow, that was a little bit more like a morning radio show. I'm like, yes, it is.
SPEAKER_02I was getting morning radio show vibes, guys, right out of the gate. For sure. 100% I was. I love it. I love it.
SPEAKER_03It's a it's a power play.
SPEAKER_04I know. Two on one.
SPEAKER_02On the drive with Chris and Allen. That's right. Coming to you live from Atlanta. All the way together. He'll sell you the whole seat, but you only need the edge.
SPEAKER_04Ooh, he's got a you know what? He might be a creative marketer. Oh, are we onto something? Let's talk about that. Nice segue. Thank you. All right, Tyler. So obviously you have your own business uh and it is focused around marketing and creative marketing. Uh, you've actually gotten some other things. So tell us a little bit about where do you spend most of your time and what are those things you do.
SPEAKER_02Oh, fabulous. What a broad question. Um, well, what pays for the party and what sits at the anchor of it all? I've had the privilege of owning and running and operating a marketing agency since 2010. Co-founder, my business partner and I, we started it, you know, two guys in a condo downtown, won a couple of big clients, grew, have just had so much fun having a ringside seat to business. Marketing was the filter I use, but to be a good marketer, you have to really be curious about what's going on with the client, who the customers are, what's actually a problem they're trying to solve. And that really was the backstop for me that allowed me to, well, allowed me, challenged me. Uh someone in my team said, Oh, you said you mentioned podcast. How about, you know, I dare you kind of thing. So back in 2018, 2019, I started doing a podcast, fell in love with that, had an opportunity and had a great team that gave me a little bit of bandwidth that I could go and become a podcaster. And from there, I really discovered the power of curiosity as a superpower, not only as a requirement for being a podcast host, but also for being a leader. And I started merging my lanes. And I said, you know, podcast Tyler doesn't over talk the guests. Podcast Tyler is way, way more curious. Podcast Tyler never shows up trying to be the expert. I wonder if leader Tyler could take some lessons. And he did. And uh the company got better. My leadership velocity improved. And uh to round that all off, about a year ago, I write a book. I wrote a book called Curious as Hell, Leading and Growing with Curiosity, which I would argue was the summary and culmination of the last 15 years of those combined experiences.
SPEAKER_04Not only is a longer term podcaster and a better podcaster than me, but he's a better leader because he is curious. Because my book's gonna be shut the hell up and do what I told you to do. Don't you want to know why? No, I don't get to work.
SPEAKER_02So podcasters Chris, I tried that approach, and in in my rare, in my, it didn't work for me the way I wanted. So I was forced to change it, but I've done my fair share of that version as well.
SPEAKER_03Different strokes for different folks. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And Chris, I'm gonna be honest with you, when you put out there in the world that be curious and do all those things, then you read your own newsletter and go, huh, I don't know if I was that guy today. So sometimes it can be a weird little uh, you know, crack the the towel cracks right back across your back.
SPEAKER_04It you know, funny you should say that. Uh I agree with you though. The podcast, when people ask me why do you do it, uh, are you making money? And you know, that that line when you talk to it, oh, everybody's got a podcast. Are you making any money? I'm like, you know, uh, I don't know if I'm monetizing it. I don't, you know, but I tell you what I've learned is that when I sit here with Alan for two hours, and because we usually do a couple back to back, or I get to talk with everybody, um, I walk out of there feeling smarter, feeling better about my business, and just getting to enjoy myself. So um you're right, because you've you've learned some things. You get like you said, you see that newsletter, you're like, was I that guy today? Uh but the podcast, you know, somebody says something like you just said, you know, be curious. Why wouldn't you challenge all of your team to be curious? Because if they are, that's scratching their itch. You know, that's allowing them to go out and do things that they didn't think they could do themselves. That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03It seems like though, you're right, you've painted yourself into a bit of a corner being the question guy, the curiosity guy. Because if I ask you something, you can't pontificate. You may have to do like the Socratic method and just answer the question with more questions. Ooh.
SPEAKER_02No, I have to do that. The Socratic method kind of rubs me sometimes because I'm like, just tell me what you think I should do. Like, it's okay, like I can handle it. Give me some advice. I I don't need to do a rubber, like you know, the Roba Dope around the question.
SPEAKER_03So, how does that make you feel?
SPEAKER_02Just shut up and tell me what to do. Tell me what you think. You've been here, you've been down the road, you've stepped on this landmine. God for sakes, tell me what I think what you think I should do.
SPEAKER_03Uh this, you know, of the guests that we've had on this is a book that I actually really want to read because this has been a hot button for me. I've taught a lot of sales training. And what I see is most salespeople just go from introduction to pitch. And you never know if you're throwing your pitch at the right target if you don't ask the questions. And you need to know where the target is, and you've got to ask those questions.
SPEAKER_02And I and there's only one way to get there, 100%, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And and and I would talk about that over and over, and we would role-play it, and then you go out into the field, and then they just immediately go into the pitch and they don't ask questions. And so to learn how you've uh also employed that as a leader, I think it'd be great to read about. And I think everybody could benefit. Watch this, Sydney.
SPEAKER_04We need two copies of Tyler Chisholm's book. Please get those. Did you ask your daughter to do that, or do you want Cindy to do it? Actually, I was sniffing at the same time. Or I asked Siri.
SPEAKER_02I didn't know if that was an AI prompt you had built into your background. Like I wasn't sure actually what happened there, Chris, for a second.
SPEAKER_04She actually listens to these, and so she's gonna go, Chris, I'm Cindy. Your daughter is Sydney. Yeah. And in Siri, when I say Cindy, she spells it with an S. And when I say Alan, it spells his with two L's. Uh and then pulls me off to no end. And I know it does. And then when I say, hey, uh, this is Chris from the Trusted Two Oc, it spells my name with a K. So screw Siri, let's get back to Tyler.
SPEAKER_02It's funny. My wife's a few books. My wife was frustrated that I misspelled her name in my phone. So that if when it pronounces it, it actually says Fiona versus Fiona. So she's like, Why do you have my name spelled with two E's in my phone? I'm like, so the audio actually gets it right. She still doesn't quite like something feels wrong about a typo with my voice.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome. That is so funny. So she gets all fired up because it's phonetic. Yeah, exactly. That does not work. Yeah, I know. How long have you been married?
SPEAKER_02Oh, be 23 years in uh in June.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. July, actually. July. Well, cheers to that. Congratulations. That's great. That's great.
SPEAKER_02Um, I I I lucked out. I want to be I want for the for the record. I lucked out. I lucked out. I'm just gonna put that out there.
SPEAKER_04Okay, good. All right.
SPEAKER_02Well, you guys and I smartened up before I blew it up. So there we go.
SPEAKER_04Oh, smart. Keep it up, man. Keep doing it. That is funny that you spell it like because our it doesn't even say our last name right either. So anyway, back to well, you know, Comcast Dave.
SPEAKER_03His last name is Cherokee, C-I-A R O C I. Oh, and I have to say call Dave Cherokee.
SPEAKER_00Otherwise, it won't do it.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, that's hilarious. Yes. So do the machines adapt to us, or do we adapt to the machines? Talk amongst yourselves. Bigger conversation for later.
SPEAKER_04Breakout, go to breakout rooms, everybody. We'll be right back when you come here. We'll be right back.
Authority Versus Questions In Leadership
SPEAKER_02There's crying as allowed, however you want to. Uh so Alan, I'm curious. Did you ever land? Sorry, I feel self-serving whenever I say that now. Did you land on, is it, you know, when it comes to self-curiosity, that need to show up as a salesperson and go, look, look how much value I have. Look, look, look how prescriptive I am. Is it like I had to really wrestle that dialogue of needing to prove value? Until I did that, I couldn't ask good questions. I kept stepping on my own, my own philosophy. So any like I'm curious what you ran into because sales training, you hopefully leave you better than you found them, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the so uh Chris has heard this story. It was uh, you know, I was with a major corporation. I'd finally gotten that big promotion to a district level, and uh I was driving down the road in my new company car, and I see, and insurance agents were a big part of our target market. And I'm like, I don't know that insurance agent. So I popped in and I'm like, hey, I'm Alan, and here's my company. And have you ever heard of us? And he's like, Yeah, I've heard of us. Do you use us? And he's like, No, and I'm like, well, let me tell you about my company. And I launched, and as I was going, I'm like, this is the best pitch I've ever laid out. I got my new.
SPEAKER_02You're just drinking your own Kool-Aid right there. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04And he looked around and he saw little Chris's behind him go, go, Alan, go. You're the best, Alan. Yes. Yeah, I know I am, I know I am.
SPEAKER_03And and you don't know me, but I'm normally pretty self-abusive. So to be on this crack high, it was just one of the greatest moments in my life. And he sat there patiently the whole time. And at the end, he said, Well, that's great, but you know, my insur my company does this, not that. And it had nothing, it had nothing to do with what we did. And so I wasted the best pitch of my life on on a just a target audience that was not even in the in the hemisphere. So that was one thing. But when the the leadership piece, I remember when I first became uh promoted to branch manager, and I wanted to be the guy with the answers, and and I obviously had a massive imposter syndrome. And so people who have that blurt out the answers before you're even done with the questions. And I remember putting a sticky note on my phone that said, What do you think? question mark. And it was like on a piece of pink paper to remind me when somebody came in with a problem, to just ask, Well, what do you think we should do? And and I had to force myself with this little visual aid to just not blurt out the answer. Robot Allen. Yeah. What do you think? You think think, do, go. But I mean, you know, then you would see that they're like, Well, I think we should do this. And it's like, okay, I can see why you would say that, but you know, did you consider this? And all of a sudden you get into a great conversation, but you can also see their confidence grow because their opinions are actually matter. And every once in a while they'd come up with a great answer I didn't even think of. And I'm like, do that. That's a great idea, you know. And I mean, how powerful is that to be part of the process instead of just doing what you're told, Chris?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I think that's the unlock right there. It's like getting okay with what shows up. That person falls in love with the experience. And then all of a sudden, the buy-in, the discretionary effort, the level of team commitment that happens. And heaven forbid, I might learn something I didn't know before, which I find the more space I create, the more often that happens.
SPEAKER_03So it's a self-awareness thing, I think. So it's hard to do it.
SPEAKER_04Working on it, gentlemen, working on it. Right every day. Uh, so in sales, it's easy to ask those open-ended questions for us because we do the same thing in home. You know, we're in home sales and we uh we do I train the guys always just keep asking. So what do you want to accomplish? You know, somebody's looking at a broken window. Well, it's pretty flipping obvious. We want to get the window fixed. Well, there's a lot of different levels of fix. So uh I've had to train my guys not to have mommy issues and go, Oh, yeah, we can take care of that. We'll fix that window for you. How? Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up. You know, is it just the glass? Is it the full window? Do you want to replace a couple more windows and what's going on? But in leadership, when you start asking those questions, aren't you afraid that you're losing the authority? You think that was part of the problem?
SPEAKER_02It was in the early days. And I think that, you know, I Alan, you mentioned imposter syndrome, you know, the joke 80% of people admit it, 20% of people lie about it. I think that's so prevalent. And I think we've been all sold a story. I certainly was in my youth that the leader needed to show up with the answers and the jokes and get the girl in the end and almost the action, the action hero version. Yeah. But yet I found I wasn't getting the results I hoped. So I had to get that hard look. And when I got okay with the fact that, hey, when I'm in an experience, even with a client, and they ask and they dig in and they engage with me, how much more engaged I feel where the outcome goes. I couldn't, there was a period of time, especially after doing podcasting and realizing how unbenficial that character trait is as a podcast host, that there was some crossover. And I just couldn't deny the truth anymore. Once I started to see it, it's kind of once you take the blue pill or the red pill or whatever the matrix pill is.
SPEAKER_04Right. So it uh it's funny because um I've been accused of, hey man, you you're really uh really asking me a lot of questions. And because I just got used to doing that from the podcast and the radio show. And I was like, well, yeah, but you know, that I'm now I'm I'm in that seat. And so I I've actually got myself to do that a little bit more. But as you did that, did you lose people in your office? Did you did you have everybody just completely go, oh my God, I like the new Tyler? Or did you have some guys go, I don't know if I like Tyler. I'm gone. I'm gonna I wanted to have the authority.
Curiosity With Direction And Decisions
SPEAKER_02No, I think it was the opposite. I think that I got feedback very quickly, especially from my leadership team, trusted members of the team that I'd worked with for a while, where we had pretty good rapport. And honestly, one of the real triggers for me back in 2019, we did it at 360 review. And I got some pretty direct feedback of you ask questions you already have the answers to, you fill up the room, you jump to the conclusions, you don't let us speak. We show up and listen. You ask for our opinion, but we know you've already got it figured out anyways. You're not creating space. So that was where it landed. And that was some tough that that that stung a little bit. And that's when I was also embracing the podcast. And I was like, wait a second, that guy doesn't that guy doesn't show up. Like, so I treated my podcast like the uh like my dojo, like my practice area. I created this little bubble and I got to practice because you can ask an obnoxious amount of questions and it never feels weird as a podcaster. Right. And I started to bring that in. I pretty quickly got some feedback, even from my business partner uh that I've been with for 15 years, of like, hey, uh, not sure what you're doing, but liking it and I'm hearing good things from the team. And so I got some was very fortunate to have a trust circle where the pod, where the the the feedback loop was pretty quick. And I started to get some validations on that behavior. And I couldn't argue the fact that it actually felt better and I was and I was seeing better outcomes. I was seeing better ROI. Things were moving forward, we were solving problems that we've been stuck on for a while. It actually drove results from a from a from a cash flow perspective.
SPEAKER_04That is solid. And I think the reason I asked that was because I think a lot of us are sitting there going, yeah, but if I start asking questions and uh the team doesn't think I know where we're going, they're gonna feel like they're not going towards the vision, that you don't have the vision. You're asking these guys these questions. And and then the truth is, no, the more they get involved with it, the more they know that you have the vision, or they at least fill in the blanks that we don't have. And so back to your imposter syndrome, I felt like sometimes when I asked questions, they felt like I already knew the answers when I really didn't.
SPEAKER_02That's yeah, that's right. Well, because we all kind of have bought into that leadership story too, right? Like, but I think having a vision and having a direction is one thing, including people on how to get there is another layer of that too. So I this is not, and I want to be always very cautious. This is not curiosity in life just for fun and kicks. We're going somewhere. This is curiosity with a performance tied to it. We've got to, I always joke, you know, if we're going to a movie, three of us are going to a movie at eight and we all want to go to a different movie. Sooner or later we got to land on what movie, or we all miss the movie. That's business. Like we can't just circle around this thing for hours and hours. Sooner or later we got to land the plane and we got to move forward. So isn't it isn't abdicating leadership and the need to make decisions, but how do you allow your team to feel like they're part of it and also with the hope that you'll get ideas and perspectives that you didn't have? So in no way are we excusing someone still has to make the call.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's a great point. I that one that's a gold nugget. If uh all three of us are gonna go to the movie at eight and we can't decide on a movie, we're all gonna miss the movie. Yes. So don't let's not miss the movie, Pins. All right, now Alan.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he's just making me think about uh one of the last great leaders I had, though. He he would get the vice presidents in a room, and and I think he was just bored and he made a lot of money. So it was sort of a emperor Caesar kind of a thing. And he liked it when we bantered things around and he would ask questions, but finally I would just sit there and go, You you already know what you want us to do. So are you just letting us gut each other for fun? You know, and he'd have a little silly grin in his face. Gladiators and blood sport, yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, and the fact is is I got a new idea for my team. No, no, because if you decide I took the wrong thing away, you're not doing because it can be patronizing if you do this incorrect incorrectly. Oh, 100%. And I think you know, the correct way of doing this is not only are you possibly, you know, you you want to have buy-in, that's a byproduct, and then you want these other ideas, which you know could be game changing, but what you're doing is you're developing future leaders. You're you're teaching them how to think like a leader because you're putting them in a situation with training wheels, right? I mean, that that to me is the this is the key takeaway of of doing this correctly.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think I I think is it sorry, uh is it Jeff Bezos that does the uh you know kind of category one or category two decisions, like the revolving door versus the door that the decision that sinks the company? We so often treat everything like a category two decision, like this isn't break or break, but I love what you said. Uh Alan about training wheels. This isn't a make or break decision. So let's play around with it a little bit. These are maker breaks. Okay, we're gonna take these like these are 10 out of 10 decisions, these are three out of 10s. Let's not treat them all like 10 out of 10s. And I find the it's like urgent versus important. It's easy to put everything on fire when it's actually it's not. It's just not true.
SPEAKER_04No, I'm actually gonna call a company-wide meeting tomorrow of everybody in the office. And uh, I've got one. I want to know right now when you put the toilet paper back on the holder, does the paper come over or under?
SPEAKER_03See, Tyler, what you don't know is his last company meeting, he actually kicked a hole in the door.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03That was my sales meeting.
SPEAKER_02I want to be clear.
SPEAKER_04Although the entire office uh heard me.
SPEAKER_02Uh what savages in your company put it around the back? Come on, give me a break. Right? What kind of barbarians do you work with over there?
SPEAKER_04Thank you, Tyler. See, you've already known. So if you'd asked that question, Tyler, you already knew the answer. Why did you tear basically? I had to jump in.
SPEAKER_01I I love this question. I love it. I love it.
SPEAKER_04You should do that. Emergency company meeting. Who in the hell thinks it's a good to put it under? Nobody ever go look at the patent for sure it was over.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So when you're teaching people how to do this, yeah, do they resist it or or do they go, wow, I I never thought of it?
Coaching Habits And Psychological Safety
SPEAKER_02Depends on the it depends on the context. Like often I do I don't think leading by example is the best way. I think it's the only way. So it's hard to ask for behavior you're not willing to model. So that's was my kind of fundamental. If I'm coaching someone, I'll use it with them, but then I'll also be like to run an experiment. Next time someone says they can't do something, just go, I'm curious, what would it be like if you could? And then sit back and don't talk. Try it. I love softeners. I love setting it up. Like, I wonder what it would be like if we thought about this completely differently. Or I'm curious, like you did this the opposite of how I would do it. Walk me through the thinking. Ooh, I just literally told you you did it wrong without saying you did it wrong, but I created an environment that allows your brain to go, oh, oh, okay. Well, if you're gonna ask me that way, I'm gonna just I and it's all subconscious how it happens. So I like to fake it before you make it, but oh, I'm not curious, I don't know the answer. I'm like, just try it out. And from a coaching perspective with some of my leaders, I'll be like, don't try it and just let me know. Because I've played around with it enough that almost it feels like a parlor trick. I'm curious, Chris. What would it be like if we did think about this differently? Or Alan? I just I wonder if you flip this, what do you think might happen? It's almost like your brain can't help but fill in the space. So I do believe in creating really deliberate practice moments, especially as a leader who's maybe not used to doing it this way, of just take a breath and let that space fill up, and that other person will fill it up. And it's amazing how quickly, like let's be honest, if it works, I'll do more of it. If I don't see results as a leader, I'll probably move on. But getting those early wins, I think through just creating a bit of space, asking some questions, and just holding yourself back even when you don't want to, it can be incredibly powerful because it works like a like a parlor trick sometimes.
SPEAKER_04I love that. Now let's talk about um how do you continually reinforce that habit? So you want people to be more curious. And sometimes as you have embraced it as a leader and you start asking those questions, but you're watching them not kind of just grabbing it and doing it. And then, and I'm having this right now with my general manager where he's like, but they're just not filling in the gaps, Chris. Uh, so what do I do? So I had my answer, but I'd be interested in as you're coaching somebody and you're trying to get them to have that curious leadership decision-making authority that you want to have at the end of the day, what what do you do to get them to actually buy in and start doing it?
SPEAKER_02For me, it always starts, and I think I could have written the whole book from this self-curiosity. Where are my triggers and where am I showing up? Like, you know, that I something I heard years ago that I love and I've been working for 20 years to implement it. The meaning of your communication is the result that it gets. So rather than they're not getting it or they're not acting, gold nugget, working with that individual to say, okay, what's what part of me is showing up? It's kind of that bit of the extreme ownership kind of side of it of like, okay, you change the leader and the team all of a sudden acts differently. So therefore, if that's me now, what's my responsibility in that? And I keep trying to bring it back. And where I've always worked on it for myself is I really try to land it, even though when I'm like, oh, it's them, how do I bring it back to the self-curiosity? And then the next phase for me is the latter, which is relational curiosity. What's my relationship and and what's my depth of understanding? And I don't mean like, oh, tell me how you feel about this, but what are their motivations? What are their hold bubs? You know, with that tactical empathy where I'm putting myself in their shoes to be able to deliberately help them move forward, not just to both get on the pity party at the same time. But I only find I'm effective to do that when I really have a good grasp of kind of what my triggers are. And sometimes I honestly start today with like, okay, I'm gonna be curious today, and this is what that means to me. I'm gonna take a little bit longer pauses, I'm gonna do those things. And modeling that and then also teaching that to my team is where I've seen it sometimes slowly but consistently improve.
SPEAKER_03Can you say that saying one more time?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the first time meaning of my communication is the result that it gets.
SPEAKER_03The meaning of my communication.
SPEAKER_02Oh, but that's not what I meant. It doesn't matter, it's what happened. So only you can change. No, Chris and Alan, I can't believe you misunderstood me. It's your fault. I very little I can do about that.
SPEAKER_04Oh, no?
SPEAKER_02Shit.
SPEAKER_04Very little. I'd like to do that. Did I misunderstand that one? No, I'm kidding. I uh that's a great one because you're right. It it sounded so good coming out of my uh my lips as I was running through the office, kicking the door and telling her where to get back to fucking work. And it seemed so it seemed so good that we're here to make fucking money as I ran out the door, and I don't know why they just didn't grasp it for the next two hours.
unknownI'm kidding.
SPEAKER_02What is it? First prize of Cadillacs, second prize of steak knives, third prize, third prize is your fire. So yeah, that's the I felt like that was just the Carrie Glenn Ross moment. Ah, that's and if you're listening and you don't know that reference, just Alec Baldwin's performance in that is is is five stars. Go watch it, go watch that clip on YouTube. It's a little bit more than a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Oh, 100 gold. So in this situation when you're coaching with people, one of the big challenges I gotta imagine is the employees are like, okay, this this is new. Uh am I gonna get in trouble? You know, so hey, walk me through why you thought this could mean, you know, based on their previous five years of working together, yeah. It could be another way of saying, help me understand how you could be this stupid. You know, I mean, so how how do you I'm going to use this against you in a future meeting? Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02I mean, so yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm taking receipts, my friends.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. No, I'm I'm I'm I'm a scorekeeper, so I have to be careful with that one. It'll sneak out if I'm not careful. Oh, I'm a score keeper. I'm like, oh, remember that one time 18 months ago you did that thing. I remember.
SPEAKER_04Oh, solid, Tyler.
Training Culture With Blackjack Discipline
SPEAKER_02And I don't want to say it because it's a bit buzzy, but let's be blunt. Like, there's psychological safety, super trendy word right now. But am I trust? Can I trust that I'm not gonna get my head taken off of this? Right. And if you have a culture where that has been the case, and I'm uh I run a marketing agency, we are in service of our clients, and lots of times their culture and ours don't align. And I know when I'm getting told something that I can see the ass covering baked into the ask. Like you're baking in the ass covering. So if this goes wrong, it wasn't me, it was so-and-so. Like those are really tough cultures to change. And sometimes I've worked with leaders from a coaching perspective and like, okay, forget the company. Let's try to create a little walled garden around your team. Like that high performance team, that creating trust, that's like proving to people over and over again sometimes that no, you're not gonna get your head taken off for speaking up. And I know you guys are all of a similar age. Remember when we were in school and that person used to come and sit in the back of the classroom to observe? And everyone was like, like, who what's going on? Who's that person? You can walk into any of any team and sit in that corner for an hour and you know exactly the degree of curiosity, psychological safety, emotional intelligence, trust that's in that room just by way of how the leader manages, how dissent comes up or doesn't. Do we all go forward? Does anyone speak up? It's so tangible. You don't need an assessment tool or a PhD to figure it out. But as a leader who's trying to change that, sometimes that can be a tough lift. You made the comment, like, oh, for the last five years, we've acted this way, and all of a sudden you read a book on curiosity and now everything's on the table. I don't believe you. Right, right. I'm gonna now I'm gonna quote Star Wars. It's a trap. Like, run, it's not good.
SPEAKER_04What are you up to?
SPEAKER_02Just because I put the pilot paper the wrong way, Tyler, don't go. What kind of mind tricks you got running on?
SPEAKER_03What is it you want me to say? Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_02So it can be a lift. There's no question. I it's an easy concept. What's what's the joke? You know, blackjack takes five minutes to learn and lifetime to master. Leadership and curiosity kind of go hand in hand depending on what kind of a culture you're hanging out in, right?
SPEAKER_04Good call. Yeah, actually, that's funny. We just trained our team on how to play blackjack. We use it as a training exercise.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's well, that's for for what?
SPEAKER_04Uh, so I'll make this quick because we're gonna start wrapping up here in a minute. But um, so we have a handyman and remodeling company here in Atlanta. Uh, my handyman and remodelers are not bookroom, uh they're not people who want to sit in a classroom, but we have them come in for training every other Wednesday. So we have to make it very interesting. And when we talk about having the discipline within our ourselves, what we have to do is we we use the model of story message hook, and our story was blackjack. Um, and then what we did was we had everybody sit around at different tables, and I came in in a tuxedo, all my other guys, uh managers came in in uh suits, and we dealt blackjack. And the first time around, you played your way. The second time around, you had to play by the book, and we gave everybody the cheat sheet book that says dealer card shows seven, you have three, you hit dealer card shows whatever. And what uh what was interesting is that while it wasn't uniform uh overwhelmingly, you win, uh, there were lessons that they learned. And the lesson was that having discipline uh in our process and what we do in customers' houses every day yields a better outcome than if we did not have that discipline.
SPEAKER_02That's gold, Chris. That's gold. Well done.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was fun. We had a lot of fun with it. But uh yeah, so uh I, you know, the thing I told you did one guy like split tens and just make a ton of money?
SPEAKER_03All right.
Where To Find Tyler And Book
SPEAKER_04So I'm not gonna lie, especially at my table, not only did I deal it wrong, but the first time around, two of the guys went all in and uh won. And so the second time, when they didn't win, they kind of gave me the what force, you know. But that's how I open uh communication with these guys, especially. They gotta know that I'm one of them. I can't be the leader. I don't know as much as they do when it comes to the house, yeah, when they're doing the work, but I do know a lot about where we want to go as a company and the vision, and I do know a lot about houses. But um, I always use this and I use sarcasm to diffuse the situation, so it's just my personal uh style is that hey guys, no dumb questions, go ahead. And somebody will say something, and I'll go over and I'll do that little poop emoji that we see on uh on your Siri, and then I'll put steaming things coming off it and give them eyes. I'm like, that wasn't a dumb question, that was just a big steaming pile of shit. I said, but other than that, we can continue on talking about it. But those guys, everybody laughs, and then they know that they can ask you.
SPEAKER_02You're speaking to your audience in a way that they connect to 100%.
SPEAKER_04So we leave it on the whiteboard too. Uh and so we just brought it the sales guy that I was training this week, and he uh he said something, and uh my sale one of my other sales guys said, You mean that? And it turned around. The guy goes, Oh, so this is what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_02I love that's become part of your corporate culture, actually. It's really happening there. Like that's not either, you know, we have we have uh we have rich we have rituals that happen around here, and the steaming uh emoji is one of them.
SPEAKER_04I love it. No, that's great because you know, again, we talk about this. You you build a culture and your culture of curiosity is great. I know we're coming to the end. So, Tyler, how can everybody find your book? Find you. Let's let's get everybody connected with you.
Rapid Fire Picks And Pet Peeves
SPEAKER_02Oh, thanks, guys. Yeah, Tylerchisholm.com, check it out. Um, my team and I, and I always uh give credit where credit is due, have put together a website that has got resources, it's got podcast episodes. You can find the book. We've got articles we've written from all different perspectives. It's a good website. This real thanks, guys. Thank you. You know, sometimes, sometimes as an agency owner, you're the one with holes in your shoes. But in this case, we do not have holes in our shoes. We took the time and we treated it. I'm gonna say this out loud for any business owners. We treated ourselves like an I they we treated me like an actual client. And I got the full experience and we did some lessons learned and we got an incredible outcome. So really proud of the website. And I think for people that are looking to learn, share, dig in, audio, visual, how you want to uh consume information, it's a pretty good uh it's it's a solid resource. So I would recommend go check that out.
SPEAKER_04You're driving around in your truck, you're trying to make it happen every day, man. That's what we do. If you're trying to fit figure out how to pick 15 pounds in a five-pound bag, if you know what I'm talking about, that's uh steaming pill of shit. Uh yes, that's what we do every single day. So you gotta figure it out. Tyler Chiselm is there. He's there, man. Truck, go check it out. We'll put that thing in the details you're driving around. You don't have to look at it. Just go find it in the uh in the show notes and you can go figure out where to go. But Tyler, before we go, we gotta ask our final four questions. We gotta put you on it. You ready? All right, what's a book you'd recommend our small business adventure team? That you didn't write. That's right.
SPEAKER_02I was like, do you want it? Do you want to throw the caveat on don't write it that you didn't write?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh the co the coaching habit by Michael Bengay Stater.
SPEAKER_03Whoa. New one for me. New one for me, too. What what yeah? Quick summary.
SPEAKER_02He's got a TED talk called Taming Your Advice Monster. Every manager, leader, or human being should listen to it. It's fabulous. 12 minutes, and you're and you'll be nodding because you'll think about everyone you know in your life who's like that, and then you'll go, Oh shit, I might have also been like that.
SPEAKER_04Oh, Tyler just hit it, man. 12 minutes on TED Talks, man. Love TED Talks. That's a great one.
SPEAKER_02Come on, taming your advice monster as a marketer, great. Like you got me, you had me at the headline.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's a great one. All right. What's the favorite feature of your own home?
SPEAKER_02Then my wife and my dog also live here.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's a positive answer. You know, she's not. Does she listen to her? She might listen to that. Does she? Because my wife has never listened to one, not even one minute.
SPEAKER_02I uh I'll I'll I'll I'll back it up. I have uh solar thermal heating uh with collectors on the roof, and then I have in-floor and I have concrete floors throughout the whole house, and I heat my house for half the price, and it's twice as warm as my last house that had forced air. So I fell in love with in-floor and I fell in love with thermal heating. So there you go.
SPEAKER_04I'm not saying one answer was better than the other one, but I definitely like the thermal.
SPEAKER_02I felt there was a space. I felt you guys wanted me to fill in. I'm like, I have a backup answer.
SPEAKER_04I love it. I love it. Heated floors are much better than my dog. I like the first one. Okay, that's fine. You guys, a bunch of softies. All right, let's keep going. We have not talked about customer service much, but we have talked about how he helps customers and he helps his business uh clients uh with the coaching. He talks about his agency. But one of the things that we're really interested in, because we're kind of customer service freaks, kind of crazy about it. What's a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out and you're the customer?
SPEAKER_02Um people mistake they don't ask questions. People mistake, you know, doing what's required as exceeding expectations. Oh right? Wow, that's uh did I exceed your expectations? No, you answered the phone and you did what you said you were gonna do. You did not exceed my expectations at all. You did the review.
SPEAKER_03Can you give me five stars for yeah? No, I cannot.
SPEAKER_04Or or uh so to pile on that one. Um, hey, uh, I'd like to get a refund on my travel ticket uh that I booked. Uh I just want to see if I can do that. Um, I'm sorry, sir. That's um that's non-refundable. I'm like, okay, is there anything else I can help you with? Um remember that first request that you said you couldn't help me with? Can you can can we double back and just try that one more time, see what you got? No, can't do that? Okay, thank you. But don't ask me again.
SPEAKER_02Can I can I add one more? The preloaded 20, 22, or 25% tip option when they hand you the dude, that's common though, right?
SPEAKER_04Oh my god. There is the nuts.
DIY Near Disaster In A Tank
SPEAKER_02That's common in like that's common in my where I am. I'm not sure if you guys are getting it.
SPEAKER_04It's very common for us too COVID.
SPEAKER_02It is like presumptuously annoying.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you know, well, toast, uh, one of the biggest apps and uh point of sale service for restaurants, uh, that built that's built in. And then the second most popular one, which I can't remember, same. They're just in they're embedded in there, and it starts at 20, 22, and 25. Yeah. I went to one place where I actually had a 30 on there. I'm like, I hear you. I hear you. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna give you the list of what's gonna be required to hit 30, but we can start and we can like let's start there and work our way buffer down from there.
SPEAKER_04Can you uh grab those white gloves? And um, this is gonna require a little bit more than you're thinking, my friend. Yeah, yeah. Why are your pants down and your buttons in the air? Don't worry about it. Just start smooching.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say Lou, but yeah, I wasn't gonna go there, but you guys went there. So here we go. I felt we were going to the same stall for that one.
SPEAKER_04Uh that's right, my friends. That's what we do. All right, last thing. I uh work on homes, love working on homes. That's why I got into this business 18 years ago because I have a passion for it. I want a DIY nightmare story. Fingers gone, maybe lost an eye. Actually, you have two eyes. Actually, we didn't even mention that in the beginning. Uh Tyler's got the hair club. He is very good. Everybody having better.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I got a beard he's got. I got a very specific, hyper-specific DIY story that actually did work out, but it was so close. So, because I have uh solar thermal, I have a large tank in the basement that collects the that the heat, the water's in that it runs the heat through through heat exchanger. So this was installed a bunch of years ago, and some and the builder put in a biodiesel tank that was refurbished, but the there was no liner. So my neighbor's like, hey, I have the same tank. You better want to clean it out. So I get in there, I drain this thing. It's five feet, five feet tall by 24 inches wide with a with an 18-inch manhole to get in. So I'm in there and I scrape a hole through the bottom of the tank and I'm like, oh shit. And they kind of built the house around the tank. All right. So I drain the water out. I'm in there. So I get a hold of a manufacturer in the US who builds liners for industrial tanks. So I get in there and I measure and I do all the things and they call me up and go, we can build a liner for you, no problem. Like guaranteed, it's for harsh chemicals. You're putting water in it, like you're you'll be good forever. So they send me this liner, but they call me and they said, Oh, those the thinner one isn't available. We'll give you the thicker one. I said, Oh, no problem. Sounds like more value for the money. But do you know what a thick rubber liner feels like when it shows up cold at your house? Like it's one solid piece. So I put this thing in my infrared sauna for three hours to heat it up. Then I had to stick it down the manhole. No one would do this job. So my wife and I are doing this on a Saturday. I get this thing in there, fold it up. It's now 200 degrees. So I'm in there with this big rubber liner. It's 200 degrees. I'm in a controlled space and I can't get it unfolded. And I must have spent an hour in there banging and shaking. And I have a picture of me. My face is, it looks like I just came out of the coal mine. And we finally got it in. So it was a it did work out, but there was a period of time where I'm in this tank in a confined space. In hindsight, I should have been wearing a mask, had a coffee. And I almost died in this tank, but I got it sorted and I got this liner in because I had to get myself inside the liner so then I could expand it into the tank.
Final Takeaway And Goodbye
SPEAKER_04Top three. In fact, we we're gonna put that up for the DIY Namur story. Uh golden glow. Nightmare story. Nightmare. It's it's it's definitely the top three. And I, you know what I'm pulling for you, Tyler. Gary might win. Thinking about that. I wouldn't have got a ball. He just said five foot high, which by the way, Alan uh, I'm six two, and Alan is six six. Uh, so neither of us are fitting in there anyway.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm I'm 5'11, so that was a day of cramped and and it was about six feet long. So it's like it was like a shoebox for someone smaller than me.
SPEAKER_03And so you're just like picking it with your feet and trying to push it out and all. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I got inside of it and I started jumping to try to move it because I had to get it to seat in the corners or it would never work, right?
SPEAKER_04Taler doesn't look to seem to be the guy who has that F-word in him, but I'm thinking the F-word was coming. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02Well, guys, the thing I didn't tell you that's my secret, my superpower is I grew up on a farm.
SPEAKER_04Oh, there we go. So he's farm strong.
SPEAKER_02No one was coming to your rescue.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Right, right. He's farm strong.
SPEAKER_02And you didn't want to call your dad and say you couldn't do the thing he so wanted you to do. You figured you friggin' well figured it out.
SPEAKER_04And we figured it out. Awesome. Tyler, thank you so much. This is great, man. Go check him out. Tyler Chisholm. Guys, keep going up that mountain. Go learn something. Let's go make it happen. We got to go. Cheers, everybody. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Safari. Remember, your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in a wild world of small business ownership. And until next time, make it a great day.
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