Navigating Success in Business: Core Values and Setting Standards with Tomas Keenan

Embark on a transformative journey with Tomas Keenan, a virtuoso of car audio who climbed the ranks to become a COO and now excels as a high-level business and success coach. In our latest episode, Tomas lays bare the blueprint to harnessing core values as the backbone of business success. He recounts his evolution from a hands-on technician fascinated by the intricacies of custom car audio to a strategic leader, navigating the nuances of GPS tracking and dash camera installations. This episode is more than just a conversation; it’s an intimate look into how Tomas's blue-collar ethics paved the road to his leadership philosophy, emphasizing the alignment of actions with words and the daily commitment to incremental progress.

Witness the resilience of the entrepreneurial spirit as Tomas shares the emotional toll of his first business's failure and the rebirth of his tenacity during the 2009 economic downturn. He offers an unvarnished account of the relentless pursuit for knowledge, the profound impact of pivotal life events, and the wisdom gleaned from seasoned business owners. Discover the secret sauce to navigating the corporate maze with stories that underscore the importance of core values in not just leading a team, but in every business decision, from client relations to hiring practices. This episode is a testament to the power of self-education, business coaching, and the relentless drive that pushes one beyond the boundaries of their expertise.

Conclude your day with potent insights on the philosophy of Kaizen—small, consistent, daily steps towards long-term success. Tomas provides an enlightening perspective on how this principle applies beyond the automotive industry's manufacturing processes, permeating personal development and management expectations. Learn how the consistent pursuit of improvement can lead to triumph, both in the workshop and in life's grander scheme. For those hungry for wisdom from a seasoned pro, Tomas also details how to connect with him and tap into his wealth of knowledge. Tune in for a riveting dialogue that promises to empower and inspire your own path to success.

NOTABLE QUOTES
"To me, music is an emotion and I can feel it inside." - Tomas
"So I went down that path hard, and my goal there was just to become the best that I possibly could." - Tomas
"That was painful as all hell. The first step of the process was I had to throw the towel in on a business that I started. You know, I was 25 or 26 years old, and I I had to go and say, hey, this thing, it's not working." - Tomas
"So the core values can't be a wish list, they have to be what you're living out currently right now." - Tomas
"As hard as that is to swallow, as hard as that is to go through, it was the best thing that could have happened to her company." - Tomas
"Most terrible leaders are not good models because they don't live out what they tell you to do. They tell you one thing and then do something completely different." - Philip 
"And like you said, like, if you're not at that point where you can invest, you can go get that through podcast, through books, like yours and everything." - Philip

RESOURCES
Tomas
Website: https://www.stepitupacademy.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theintegratorcoach/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tom.keenan.988

Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the speaking sessions podcast. I've got Thomas Keenan here and he is best known for his humble beginnings and lengthy career as a custom car audio installer. He is the epitome of a technician turned coo. After co-founding an industry leading GPS tracking and dashboard camera installation company and growing it to seven figures uh, our seven figure business Thomas moved into the coaching space as a high level business and success coach for other industry leaders and business owners and he works with entrepreneurs who refuse to be average and are crushing seven plus figures in business. His success as an elite business coach led to him to move his family from New York City down to Dallas, texas, to focus full-time on his newest company, step it Up Academy. His expertise and vast experience have repeatedly put him on the top industry magazines pages. He has been featured in Forbes, mobile electronics magazine, ce outlook, ceo blog, nation fit small, fit small business, the startup growth, the Goodman project and several blogs.

Speaker 1: 1:26

In addition to countless podcast, he's a sought after public speaker, two times best-selling author and Step it Up entrepreneur podcast host. He has interviewed industry leaders, influencers, high level business and success coaches, business owners and entrepreneurs who are impacting their communities and the world at large. He states the key to his success is making progress every day, regardless of how small it may be. Small steps forward daily is one of those quotes he's known by. And today we're going to dive into core values and almost forgot that word. But we're going to dive into core values and really talking about business communication. Now we can lean on core values to make the smart and tough decisions at time within our business. But before we get into that Thomas glad to have you on the show tell us a little bit more about yourself yeah, man, thanks.

Speaker 2: 2:21

I really appreciate the opportunity coming in here and, uh, she earned some insight and some knowledge and nuggets whatever you want to call it with you and your guests. Um, a little bit more about me, dude, just a 44 year old dude who wants to do better every single day, literally, and that's probably what drives me the most. Um, and I find that you know you probably get this too, because you're a public figure just as much as I am. With the amount of content you and your team put out, there comes a responsibility, and if you're going to go out there and you're going to tell people, hey, this is so, I think you should operate this, so you should do things you better be doing that shoot yourself right, and, um, that definitely adds a layer of complexity, a layer of pressure that we, we self insert on our own shoulders and, uh, I'm not mad that I've done that yeah, and I think that's something that a lot of we'll call them content creators, even entrepreneurs, as they start to build out a business.

Speaker 1: 3:11

They don't realize that added accountability and pressure that comes from that. And even really just leaders, even if it's in a corporate world, that added pressure that comes because now you are looked at as the figure to model after and, yeah, most terrible leaders are not good models because they don't live out what they tell you to do. They tell you one thing and then do something completely different. So the person foremost just do what you say you're going to do and your leaps and bounds ahead of everybody else. And so I wanted you mentioned something in in the bio it talked about yeah, you were basically the epitome of a technician turned coo.

Speaker 2: 3:52

So tell us a little bit about that yeah, 22 years as a custom car audio installer and mix in there. The last 11 years of it I was doing not just car audio but the gps tracking and dash camera installs and I just love working my hands. As a kid, you know, grew up I was 15, 16, 17 years old, surrounded by family members. I grew up, you know we'll call it blue collar middle class America and most of my family work with their hands to provide for their families and I was surrounded by people who were just very talented and good with their hands, if that makes sense. So you know who you surround yourself with typically rubs off on you and that's kind of the path and the career choices and desires you go after. And that's exactly what happened with me. So at the age of 17, went out, became a certified car audio installer, went, did a bunch of training and whatnot and started branching on the cars because I absolutely loved it and I found, okay, I've got this passion for cars and I've got this passion for music. Even though I can't play a damn note or read any music whatsoever, I just love listening to it. Right to me, music is an emotion and I can feel it inside. So I got music and I've got cars and oh wow, there's this cool thing out there. Other than auto mechanics or auto body or anything else in the automotive realm, there's this custom car stereo thing where I can mix two of my passions together and it allows me to go and use the skill sets and the trades that I've been grooming myself with a learning over the last couple years. So not only do I get to work on a car, not just in the sense of a mechanic, because you do some mechanical work as a car audio installer, but I also get to do the electrical. I also get to do the fabrication. I also get to do woodwork and metalwork. I also get to do electrical. I also get to work with composites such as fiberglass and auto body fillers to make some really cool interior panels.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Oh, and, by the way, I'm an interior expert too, because all of the stuff that I build in great has to get wrapped or finished in some kind of product, whether it's vinyl, leather, alcantara, suede or even just simple basic carpet, right? So how do we apply these materials and everything and how do we make it look good? How do we make it sound good? How does this become this professional thing and I just was enamored with it from a very young age. I couldn't get enough of it.

Speaker 2: 5:56

So I went down that path hard and my goal there was just to become the best that I possibly could and went to work for a couple people, learned a lot, and then it was like, okay, there's more to this, and I kind of hit a plateau and I know that I, if I keep hanging around here, it's not going to go any further, right? What I also didn't realize at the time was there was a massive core value misalignment between me and the guys I was working for at the time, so went off of my own, started the first business and it lasted for five years and I went out there. I was just hey, I'm a technician, I have a passion, I'm really f'ing good at what I do, right. And I just thought open the business, lease the location, get a couple cars in there, build a couple cool things, and magically all of the work is going to flow in and we're going to make all this money yeah, that's how it always works, oh yeah yeah, it's like feel the dreams.

Speaker 2: 6:47

You build it. They will come um and listen. There's some truth to that. But you know, no, I didn't know anything about marketing, didn't know anything about sales, didn't know anything about, you know, hiring, payroll taxes, sales taxes all of that was new to me. Inventory where do we go and buy this stuff from? What are terms? What are shipping terms? You know what's what's, what's cod versus? You know 30 day net and like.

Speaker 2: 7:11

I didn't know any of this, but I really knew the craft of working on the car. So I figured, oh, if I can handle that over there, everything else kind of just fall into place. And in reality I had. I had Pareto's principle, the 80-20 rule, backwards in that first business and even half into my second business, where it's like most of us who have a passion for something. So let's say you're a carpenter, you're a really good carpenter and you get tired of working for the man.

Speaker 2: 7:35

You say, obviously I'm going to go start my own business. I'm going to be a carpenter for myself. Maybe we'll get a couple guys that work for me. We'll build, we'll build decks or something cool. You think that 80 percent of the work is actually building the deck, because that's what you're comfortable and familiar with and that's where you focus your time and reality. If we look at Pareto's principle right, the 80-20 rule we the fulfillment side of things, the technical, the being, the technician. That's 20 percent of the overall picture. The other 80 percent is operating the business, it's leading, it's, it's managing, it's hiring, it's building systems and processes. And if we don't focus on that stuff, we're never going to get anything accomplished in the fulfillment side of the house either, because there won't be anything to fulfill.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Yeah, yeah and it's. It's funny how we do think that and, as a technician, oh yeah, we're gonna be great at this. Those guys in the office, they're doing nothing. The business owner he's out playing golf, he's in the Dominican, something like that, and yet, well, if they are doing that stuff is because they've put people in place in processes and all that good stuff in place, but more than likely, they're also on that phone when things go wrong. They're sitting here sending an email, even though they may be on the golf course. Oh, give me five minutes, I got to do this. They are constantly on the clock, they're always thinking about business, no matter how much they are physically in the office or not, and that's something we don't think about when we are just that technician, versus being that business owner and everything, and so Making that transition, what? What did that start to look like for you? Because clearly it didn't just happen like the fill of dreams where you built it.

Speaker 1: 9:08

It came and you just all said had all this, and I know you've had a lot of transitions. You went from technician to COO to CEO now and like you're going back and forth on all this, but what that transition initially look like for you, I was painful as all hell.

Speaker 2: 9:24

The first step of the process was I just throw the towel in on a business that I started. You know, I was 25 or 26 years old and I had to go and say, hey, this thing, it's not working. And it was the most difficult, painful phone call I've ever made to this day. I had to call the landlord and say, hey, I can't afford to pay you any longer. Oh and, by the way, I have a lease that signed with you that that goes on, I think, for another two or three years that says, whether I can or can't, I still owe you the money. Fortunately, he was a nice enough guy and also, you know, realize like, hey, this is a young kid who has absolutely nothing at this point in time, so let him go, let him walk, I'm not gonna go after him, legally there's nothing to get, and let me go lease it to someone else. That's what he did. And that is Scott, if you're still alive and listen to this. Thanks, man, you help the help the young kid out.

Speaker 2: 10:15

From that period I went and worked for someone for a couple years and I became a the 12 volt manager at an aftermarket automotive shop. So we did everything aftermarket automotive, so lift kits, wheels, tires, performance upgrades, like you think of it for a car or truck, like some cool shit you want to add, like we most likely did it there and I just handled the, the auto, the audio and the remote, starts, alarms Basically anything that had to do with electronics Was my department in that store and I kind of had free reign of running it how I wanted to run it, which is pretty cool and that allowed me to financially get back in my feet. After burning everything to the ground and about three years into it I was like I got the itch again. I'm tired of working for someone, man, and that was. I'm trying to give you a perspective here. It was 2009, right, not the greatest time in the economy to go start a new business, with all the crazy shit that was going on there with houses and whatnot. And you know my dopey ass went and said, oh, this is, this is perfect. We'll go start a business right now, and I did so.

Speaker 2: 11:15

I started another company and I had a business partner in this one. That was a big difference and Just as hard-headed and hard-working as I was, and we started this company called top class and we specialized in GPS installs and we got busy and we got busier, and got busier and we got to a point was like hey, we're really busy, we're both really good at what we do, because we were still focused on the technical stuff. We're just going into the field doing the work, installing the tracking devices and the cameras, make great money, but constantly on the road working right. It's funny, you know, before this went live, you and I were talking about weather, because it's it's pretty damn cold right now down here in the south, and I look at this and I kind of laugh at these people because this is the crap that I used to go outside and have to work in On a regular basis for weeks on end.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Yeah, and I, everybody was so dry.

Speaker 2: 12:02

And drives. Yeah, so I started that business. You know and it's funny, you mentioned some personal stuff to me here on the call before and it just triggered the start I'm a firm believer in life altering events. Right, get married, have a kid, you know, someone close to you passes away. Unfortunately, someone gets sick, like these are all things that are pivitable life altering events that cause or shift or change in our trajectory as a human. And I was 35 at the time.

Speaker 2: 12:30

So about five years into the second company, and my wife comes to me and says my wife at the time. She says hey, I'm pregnant. It's like, oh cool, like we were trying for it, we were practicing real hard, it was cool, right. And a couple of days went by and then it was like, oh shit, there it is. It's like, oh my God, I'm bringing a living, breathing human being into the world. So I better get my shit together, and fast. Because right now, like I literally work for myself and I own a job and I see that there's potential out there with this company that we have, because we're working with some big businesses that have more money to spend than they know to do with Like, what do we do to go capitalize on that.

Speaker 2: 13:11

So it was at that point I started researching, looking out for a business coach, reading a lot, asking questions to other successful business owners, and I had the perfect vehicle to do so and I'm not talking car, the business that I owned. We went to business owners' locations and did work for them. So whenever I went into a business and I got really good at picking up on if a business had their shit together or not, within about three to five seconds when I walked in the front door right and a lot of that ties into core values, by the way and the ones that I saw that had their stuff together from the initial interaction appearance, the way that their staff greeted you when you walked in that kind of stuff I would seek out and see if I could talk to the manager or the owner, if possible, and try and pull some insight from them while I was there. And it was like almost a free version of coaching, like I was actually getting paid to go there and do some work and I get some questions answered. And what it did was it just pointed me in the right direction in a couple of instances. Right, okay, go down this path and ask some more questions. Okay, then go down this path and ask some more questions.

Speaker 2: 14:13

And then I don't know about you, man, but every time that I've tried to teach myself something, I always hit a plateau.

Speaker 2: 14:18

But I've got myself to a point where I can't teach myself anymore because I just don't know what I don't know. And that's where the books came in and that's where listening to a podcast like this really started to come into play for me. That's where joining mastermind groups and hiring coaches started to really make a big difference in my overall journey and I started seeing some really good success with the things that we were learning, because it was like, hey, if I'm paying this dude over here two or three or $4,000 a month to coach me, I better do the damn work, otherwise this is just me burning money, and no one wants to just throw money out the window and it's wild man. You do the work and you get someone who's been in your shoes before to give you a little bit of guidance and you start avoiding some of the pitfalls and the trouble spots that they're aware of and you may not be, and you get some really fast acceleration and growth and it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Yeah, yeah, we could definitely go down that route about hiring coaches and everything that. There's definitely a huge benefit for that, and I'm sure you've seen this where when you first started I was like general business, general, this general that, and then now you just start seeking very specific things, like, hey, I need to solve this one problem and you'll pay somebody who's the expert.

Speaker 1: 15:30

Yeah, exactly, you might just do that real quick, Like, hey, let's just do a couple of calls, a pay for a couple of calls, we're done, Like I don't need this extended 12-month package or anything like that. And that's the cool thing that nowadays it is counterintuitive. It seems like coaches are dime a dozen but you also have a lot of coaches that are specializing in very specific things, so you can get that very specific knowledge very quickly and then move on. Like you say, if you're not at that point where you can invest, you can go get that through podcasts, through books like yours and everything. And this is why I wanted to have you on and get this background too, because I know you've built your business this way and you've helped build other businesses this way as well is through core values and in your book you talk about that a lot and I know you'll say that I've heard you on other podcasts and other people talk about you and about your book being like I know it wasn't, maybe it wasn't supposed to be the book of core values, but that's kind of what it's been, kind of sidelined, claimed as like the book on core values, Because you go into that so much, because it's so important when it comes to the business.

Speaker 1: 16:36

So let's now dive into those core values, because I think it's so important. So I want you to kind of open us up and then we'll dive in a little bit from there. But why core values? Why do you put such emphasis on that in your book, in your coaching and in your daily life?

Speaker 2: 16:53

They're the guiding principles to everything. It's as simple as that, right? It's like. I don't know the stats. You can look it up and I'm sure they're all fucking wrong on Google anyway, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:04

I'm good at the APT. It's not bad. Yeah, I definitely am.

Speaker 2: 17:07

You go look at the stats for how many decisions we're faced with as an individual or a business owner per day, and it's some dumb amount, right. And it could be simple stuff. It could be like do I wear a black t-shirt today or a white t-shirt? Do I brush my teeth now, or do I do it 10 minutes or now? Do I let the employee take a PTO even though they're not supposed to right now or they've taken their fair share? Do I loan that employee or front them an additional $1,000 this week because they're having some hard times at home, or do I say fuck you, you gotta come work for it, right? Do I accept the offer to go speak on your stage, or do I say sorry, it's not for me, right?

Speaker 2: 17:42

Not all business is good business, and that was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn, because I was taught and brought up and it was like this is a lot of the middle class mentality just being real with you here.

Speaker 2: 17:53

It's like you take everything that's put in front of you.

Speaker 2: 18:45

You take it while you can, because you don't know when you're gonna get slow again and we wind up taking on clients, right. We wind up taking on projects. We wind up working on cars or working on businesses or building decks or whatever the trade it is you do. We wind up getting involved in business bed with a client who is not a good fit and all they are is a big royal pain in the ass and they throw a fucking monkey wrench into everything that we try to do with them. Yeah, no one wants to do that Because it gets so bad at points and I know this because I've lived it where it's like, hey, I don't wanna go to work today and I own the damn business. But if you are saying that there is a problem and you need to look into what's going on and I guarantee it, if you do a core values exercise and get clarity on what your values are, you will realize or find out that there is a mismatch or a misalignment of core values between you and the other party.

Speaker 1: 19:38

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I know most of the conflict I've ever had with people's because our values didn't align, of course, person to person. You know I got core values between people, but at the end of the day, your values come from those core values. You decide these are what you're gonna do and and you can make them what you want them to be. At the end of the day, what is it that you decide in? And I've seen companies will have like 20 or 30 core values.

Speaker 1: 20:05

I think that's terrible. It really should be definitely under 10. I mean, I don't know if there's like a great, like this is the number, but it needs to be something that's manageable, that people can spit off fairly quickly and they can memorize very quickly, because If they can't memorize it, if they don't know what it is and oh, hold on, let me, let me go over here my handbook, employee handbook and look it up real quick, or any. Go on the website to look it up. Yeah, that means the core values aren't there. Like people should be able to recite these and and I've been in businesses where they they I Call it, they vomit the core values like every chance they get all you know. Oh, transparency. Oh, we got tons of trust, or you know, they'll throw out these core values as they're speaking, but that's like on the other side, they're, they're not living it out.

Speaker 1: 20:52

It's like that's great that you can verbally say it, but you need to live it out as well, which goes back when we talked about the beginning with being a content creator and a leader. Yeah, we have to live this out, not just say them because they sound good and they look good on a wall. We have to live it out.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Yeah, that was a hard lesson I learned from a coach back in the day, the guy who introduced me to core values and started working me through the initial Workups to get clarity on them. Because I came to him, my business partner and myself at the time came to him and One of the core values that we wanted to implement for our service-based business was like timeliness, so we're being on time, something around that. He looked at both of us and left out loud and he's like are you too serious? He goes you two idiots, show up to my office five to ten minutes late every week. We meet. He's like and you want to hold your team accountable to showing up on time? And I was like, okay, cool, this dude just called me out. All right, is what it is, but he was a hundred percent right.

Speaker 2: 21:45

So the core values can't be a wish list. They have to be what you're living out currently, right now. Can they evolve? And they should they evolve over time? Yeah, probably right, but you, you can't make a core value something that you wish to be or wish to act, or you like the way the guy over there Is doing. So I'm gonna copy him Right. Go figure it out for yourself. It's not that hard.

Speaker 1: 22:06

Yeah, was that Dean, by the way? Yes, it was. Yeah, yeah, dean, great guy. I got him scheduled for the podcast again for a second time, so now he lives near me as well.

Speaker 2: 22:15

Yeah, I know he just moved yeah. Yeah, he's awesome.

Speaker 1: 22:20

He is, he'll tell you how it is, which is which is awesome, and we need people like that for sure. But you mentioned about putting these core values are things that you, you live by already, or pretty much live by. Maybe You're not a hundred percent. I don't think we ever will be a hundred percent on every one of our core values, because we're human, we we have our own faults, we fall short all the time. But if we already have a business established, obviously if you don't have a business yet, this is a great thing to put in right away and you should start putting this in immediately, not wait till you have a couple employees. Do it now. But let's say you already have a few employees and now, soon, you're coming up with this, this Grandiose idea of core values.

Speaker 1: 23:00

It sounds like the flavor of the month. Oh, this will just come and go. Okay, we'll just listen to Thomas. He's gonna bring it in. He's gonna say a spill, a month from now, he's gonna forget about it. How do we, how do we just bring them in in the first place?

Speaker 2: 23:14

Oh, let's go. I'll tell you a story about this. Go into specialty coaches too. So I go and I speak at this event. August of 22, I go out to Utah, I speak at this event and there's a woman in the crowd who sees me and I don't feel what I talked about. I probably told a bunch of my story and some stuff on core values. Lady I sat next to was the only open seat in the place because I showed up late, because I usually do right, just being real, okay.

Speaker 1: 23:43

I don't wait. Still isn't the core value.

Speaker 2: 23:46

So there's one seat left open in this entire auditorium by three or two people. In there I sit. I sit next to her her name's Heather and we start, we have a conversation, we do some workshop stuff throughout the day. I go on stage, I speak and at the end of the day I hand her a copy of my book, a signed copy of my book. Right, fast forward a week or two. She's posting Instagram stories and Facebook stories. You know, read the book, awesome.

Speaker 2: 24:11

And then a week goes by. I get another message from her hey, I'd like to have a conversation with you About core values. Okay, cool, so I schedule a call, get on call with her. So, look, I want to hire you for one reason and one reason only. Okay, what you got. She goes. I need to get clear on my company core values and I want you to help us with that. She goes.

Speaker 2: 24:33

I've been through all the coaching programs. I've worked with this one. I've worked with this one. She rattled off all these big names. She's even worked with Marcus Lamonis. Okay, she's like I really don't need help in the other areas of business, but I need help right here. Are you willing to do that? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 24:50

So we put a package together, I help her get clear in the core values, and it's me and three or four women on her executive team every, pretty much every week, for a couple weeks and we go through this. They're, they're moving, like they're taking action quickly and making things happen. And then I know three, four, maybe five weeks into the program, she gets on a call with me solo and she's like hey, I'm getting ready to roll these out to the team and like I'm rolling about everyone, even the ones who are normally here. So what's the best way to do this? I was like, all right. Well, I was like we're gonna do it, you're gonna do it in a company-wide, you know meeting. But I gotta, I gotta for one year. Like you're going to have attrition Within your team when you roll this out and you start holding people accountable to the values.

Speaker 2: 25:39

And she's like yeah, okay, cool, no problem. I'm like no, heather, like it's, it's not gonna be as easy. I think it's gonna be like you're gonna, you're gonna probably drop someone or two or three people who you never thought in a million years that one believe in your company. And she's like okay. And she's like, okay, she goes. It is what it is like. She's like I signed up for it and we got this far. I'm not gonna stop now. I'm like you're my people, let's roll. So we put this whole plan together. She structures this big-ass meeting, brings a whole team and she's a physical like location with over 50 employees. So she does this, this company-wide meeting, rolls out the values and about a week, week and a half later, she reaches out to me, sends me a text and she's like hey, you were right. I'm like okay, what happened? She's like my COO, my second in command, is no longer here. Hmm, I was like oh, I didn't expect that one either.

Speaker 1: 26:35

I was expecting that management.

Speaker 2: 26:37

Yeah, she's like we. She had no problem holding other people accountable certain things, yet when we had to hold her accountable to it, she lost her shit and she actually stormed out of here and quit. Hmm, like, oh so, as hard as that is to swallow, as hard as that is to go through, it was the best thing that could happen to her company. Fast forward a couple weeks now that the rest of her team has to pick up the slack from from this, this position that left and this is something that I've always I shouldn't say always. I have experienced this more times than not.

Speaker 2: 27:09

When a high-level person leaves the company, we think, oh my god, if so-and-so left, like we would be fucked because they're doing this, they're doing that, they're responsible for all of these things. And when they actually do leave, we say, all right, you know, hey, philip, you're gonna take care of that. Tony over there, you're gonna handle this part of whatever she was doing. Julie, you're gonna handle, you know, these three tasks of what the person who left is doing. And we all come together, we put the plan together and then a week goes by, two weeks go by, we get together as a group game like, hey, has your workload really increased much and everyone, for the most part it's like a little bit, but not not a lot, and I was like, oh, that's because the person who left, or that we got rid of based upon these values, has been checked out for months and hasn't done a damn thing, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, so good riddance.

Speaker 1: 28:02

Yeah, yeah, and I want to bring up a point there that the COO because you mentioned at the beginning that you were bringing the whole the Executive team together, so they were on that team making these decisions at the same time and so Well it seems have gone well for the owner of the company in the direction she wanted it to go. It's still, you have people in the seats that sometimes will sit there and just wait and they'll help make decisions. Oh, look like they're on board and just like you're saying, hey, our workload didn't pick up, like what. So that they look like they're on board, they're doing all the right things, they're showing up for meetings, they're showing up to the office, yet they're still not doing any work and they're doing a real good job.

Speaker 2: 28:43

Look at this really bad about this.

Speaker 1: 28:45

Yeah, corporate world is very bad about this. Hey, my calendar slammed. I have no time in here. Meanwhile it's a coffee meeting with this person. It's I'm gonna go talk with this person that's my friend, like, but we're gonna just do it over teams or zoom or whatever.

Speaker 1: 28:59

And you look busy on the calendar but yeah, you're really not that busy and and yeah, so core values are so important and you mentioned with that like that she wasn't sending to the core values, we had to hold her accountable to that, which Just says so much about a leadership team. But when it comes to internal communications, I Truly believe that when we have core values, when we have a standard that we set to and you can speak to that, you as the no leadership title, you're just a Plain Jane person in the company. If you can speak to that core value and say, hey, this is not the way we should be doing it because of this core value that should have so much backing behind it, even though you may not have the title or anything, and I truly believe that's where core values can really come in and help out business with their communication. Is that? Is that what you think like? I would love to hear some more of your thoughts on it.

Speaker 2: 29:59

No, 100%. I agree with you. I think that the, the janitor, should be able to walk up to the CEO and call them out of the core values aren't be a lift. Yeah, there's, there's no org chart, there's no lines between them at all, like ten, this is how we do things here. So what's your problem? Like let's go.

Speaker 2: 30:15

I think that it's also a pivotal moment as well, and you know that the, the culture is really growing and gaining traction within your company. When you turn a corner or you walk into someone's office and you hear one employee or team member call out another team member Based on the core values yeah, all right, and there's. There's another area here that I think a lot of people, a lot of people, want to focus on oh, the core values are just internal for the internal team. Like uh-uh, no, core values should be used to assess who your vendors are, who you do a business with, who your clients are, what team members you're bringing on to the team. So inside of your hiring process, you should have something in there that is pulling out or extracting, or asking those potential candidates what their core values are. And one thing to remember when it comes to hiring is do not ask the direct question? Hey, phillip, are you resourceful, oh?

Speaker 2: 31:03

Oh, yeah, yeah of course there you can't ask that you have to ask situational based questions, that that basically draw out a longer Response and in that response you have to look for your answer.

Speaker 1: 31:16

Yeah, exactly yeah, examine them with the core values and everything and go in with what you were talking about. We will pick on you with the timeliness core value. If that's when you all score values and then you've got a vendor that they're never on time, you can never count on them to be there. When you say, hey, be here, or they have a schedule appointment, and it's like, oh sorry, at last minute they're constantly canceling or or whatever. That's not a good vendor to have around. So you're right, it's not just internal, it definitely internal first, and then we can start going external and focusing on that.

Speaker 1: 31:48

But if our at our core, if our core group, our team, is not cohesive, how are we going to be cohesive with the world out there and doing business with them and everything and those decisions that we can make so important?

Speaker 1: 32:01

And and I've heard you say this before and, and I agree, like you, hire and fire by those core values.

Speaker 1: 32:07

I mean, you were just kind of say it there too, but when you, especially when you, go to fire by core value, that's how you can have a tough conversation. Hey, this core value is what you've violated and that and that can go anywhere up or down the chain of command. You can say that, hey, based on this, this conversation that we had, you disrespected me, and one of our core values is respect. How do you think that that conversation should have went instead? And you can, you can lean on that, not as a crutch necessarily, but it's something that you can use to help back and support what may come off as your opinion and make it more like no, this is what the company Believes in and this is who we are as a company. And you did. You violated that company policy, not just me personally, because oftentimes we, we emotions get in there. We were human, so emotions get in there, so we can really communicate to that and so you experience with this.

Speaker 1: 33:00

Go ahead good.

Speaker 2: 33:01

Can I throw a disclaimer in there real quick yeah yeah sure before you fire someone based upon core values, check your state regulations, because some states you can't do that Right. Yeah, you have to have proper documentation in place and several steps. You know New York and California are notorious for having all that crazy crap in place. Also one of the reasons that I'm here in Texas because we don't yeah, yeah, very true as your company gets larger.

Speaker 1: 33:27

Yeah, yeah, that was definitely just a general statement.

Speaker 1: 33:30

It's nothing good to base some of your decisions there, but yeah, you definitely you need to do your due diligence, talk with your legal group, if you have one, and make sure that you do that properly. I know there's a lot of companies out there that it almost seems like you can't get fired unless if you have a safety violation, sexual harassment, violation, or they just have like literally Pages upon pages of violations that you've done a reminder over time say, well, hey, this, this, this, this, this, this in this Are the reason why we're firing you Is, unfortunately, everybody's too happy to so that side. So, yeah, good, good basis for sure. But yeah, definitely make sure you're doing it Based on your, your state regulation there and everything. But speaking of the outside perspective, you know that's it's good to have your vendors They'll see that and stuff. But when it not only comes to recruiting but having people be interested in working with your business or a business in some way shape or form, how do you think having core values versus not having core values as the company impacts that?

Speaker 2: 34:35

Well, again, without core values, you're probably living by the adage of hey, you know all businesses, good business, and when the opportunity comes, just close the deal as best you can. And like I'm guilty of it myself, I've done it more times than I'd like to admit and every time that I've done it and I know like, okay, I've circumvented the process, whether it's the hiring process or the sales process that we've built. When I Circumvent that process to expedite things, because we need somebody to fill that seat real fast, or, oh shit, we need some money in the bank, so let's close this deal. It's never worked out Well, not once in my entire career.

Speaker 1: 35:09

Yeah, yeah it's. It's sad how true that is. How many times we're like, oh, we're gonna skip it this time. That's always the time that it'll bite you, for sure Can.

Speaker 2: 35:19

I tell you a quick story on that. Yeah, so I was working for this bigger company a couple years ago one that you're familiar with and and we needed an extra video guy. So the guy who was running the video team at the time we said, hey, go find someone and when you find them, bring them to me so we can run through the process. He runs out, finds a guy and says, oh cool, you're hired, talk to Thomas, I'll get you, he'll get you set up, which was that was not the way I supposed to go. All right, okay, we're here now, so we get the guy on boarded. And I probably should have put my foot down and said no, no, no, but I didn't right, got the guy hired. He comes on the team and he was a slug from day one, like just wasn't, he was there for editing purposes and like Wasn't really keeping up with the rest of the team and and what he was producing was beyond subpar. So finally, the guy who was running the video team at the time said, yo, you got to go, and he decided to fire this guy without Contacting and having a conversation with me first, and he fired the guy over text message, oh gosh. So I'm like, oh fuck, here we go.

Speaker 2: 36:28

A couple hours later, one of the other guys in the video department says hey, we're missing a bunch of files and now our company shared Google Drive. We're missing all of the video footage from last year. And then we look in there and it's just going delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete it. So this dude went in there and started deleting everything that he had access to in Google Drive because the right processes and procedures weren't followed. So not only do you need a hiring and an onboarding process, but you need a process for firing and offboarding, because if I'm going to fire you while you're being fired and we're getting that conversation done and out of the way, there should be someone in IT or another department who's back there removing your access from everything you should have access to, either prior to the conversation or simultaneously or minutes after.

Speaker 2: 37:25

So it was impossible for me to even know, because I find out hours later that this dude fired this other guy via text. And now Homeboy went into the system and just started going delete, delete, delete, delete. Fortunately enough, inside of the Google Drive accounts that we have for businesses, you can go back in there and restore everything. But it was six hours of extra legwork for me and two other people to go back in there and find all that stuff and restore it. So if you added my hourly rate plus theirs, plus the other guy, plus what it costs to fire this guy because I hate to bring it to you when you do let someone go it does cost the company money, but you add all of those expenses together, we lost thousands upon thousands of dollars that day just because we didn't let someone go the proper way.

Speaker 1: 38:09

Yeah, and then the first place didn't hire in the proper way. Yeah, processes are such an important thing and I know we could dive into that, but we'll save that for another time for sure. But the other process, definitely something you have to stick by, and the core values for sure. And I want to ask a question meant to ask it earlier. You mentioned about 12-volt. Now, with 24-volt systems coming into cars, how do you feel about that? I know you're not in the world quite as much.

Speaker 2: 38:36

So the higher voltage stuff's been out for a long time, especially with electric vehicles and what we've found in the 12-volt community that there's still a 12-volt battery somewhere in the car. Yeah, nice, yeah. So you go into a Tesla and they've got this battery pack that sits under the body of the vehicle and I don't even know what voltage it runs at Something ridiculous. But there's still a smaller 12-volt battery, usually in the trunk or under the hood, and that 12-volt battery is still running all the main accessories and stuff on the interior of the vehicle. So that's what we're using for the audio stuff when we do that kind of work.

Speaker 1: 39:11

Nice, I was just curious. I know it seems like there's a big shift to go to 24 instead of 12-volt now and everything. But yeah, I was just curious there. So I know a couple of things about cars, and definitely not a car guy like you. So I was curious on that. But, thomas man, I appreciate the time here. I want to get to our last question here, and that is if you could only share one message for the rest of your life, what would that message be?

Speaker 2: 39:39

You mentioned it before. We'll go with that one and I'll explain why. Small steps forward daily Stay all the time. I actually got a shirt I was wearing it yesterday and it's got a step it up logo over here and on the back it says small steps forward daily. That came about just from different learnings and readings that I've done over the years. The Japanese are really big about it. If you ever read or study anything about their Kaizen theory, which is basically improving what they do every day, they use that heavily inside the factories of like Honda, Toyota, Nissan. If they're building a door panel, they look at how they're building the door panel and they try to improve something or an area of it, an area of the manufacturing of it, every day. It's one of the reasons that they've been building such high quality cars for so many years.

Speaker 2: 40:27

So the other piece here is most of us, like you, have an idea today and you're like I'm an awesome podcast. Awesome, In your head it's done already. Oh, that was easy and this is what most CEOs and visionaries fight on a daily basis. Like I have the idea, I think it's going to take this little bit about on work and then I hand it off to someone to go do it for me and it takes 10 times longer and I get all pissed off and like I'm crazy about it. Don't expect to hit a home run every time you go up a bed. Don't expect to hit the Grand Slam either. It's just not how life works. But it doesn't mean stop trying every time you go up too. Right, so we can show up every day, even in days that suck, even in days that are hard.

Speaker 2: 41:08

It takes the gym, for instance. Do you think I want to wake up and go to the damn gym every day? Absolutely not. And some days you wake up and you go and you kill it. You just go. Oh, my god, I was a beast today. We moved some weight and it was a really good workout. Other days you go in there and you're like man. I am not feeling this. Today I'm moving like a snail.

Speaker 2: 41:26

It's in those days that we moved like a snail and made that little micro step forward. Those are the days that really count, really matter. Those are the days that help the mindset. But at the end of the day, you still won because you still made forward progress. So literally small steps forward every day, no matter what. There's no days off when it comes to that whatsoever, Whether it's a make an agreement with yourself that I'm going to learn a little bit of something every day. Ok, cool, so spend a couple of minutes every day picking up a book or listen to a podcast or an audio book and learn something every day, and that right, there is a micro win.

Speaker 1: 42:01

I like that, and I couldn't help the thing with the baseball analogy. Like, hey, you get a hit, you can get on first base. You get hit by the ball, you get on first base. You get walked, you still get on first base. Either way, you're able to make it to first base, you're able to make it on base. No matter how that situation may look, the result will come. It just may look different for each individual person. So I like that. Yes, small steps every single day to get there. And so, thomas, if people want to reach out to you, get to know more about what you got going on because you definitely got a lot going on for sure, doing a lot of great things Where's the best place for them to find you at?

Speaker 2: 42:38

Yeah, sembo, head over to connectwiththomascom. Just know that Thomas has no H in it. It's actually Thomas. So connectwiththomascom T-O-M-L-T-O-M-A-S. It's a landing page that has links to every place that I live on the internet. All my social media is there. My websites, copy of my book is there? All that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 42:56

That's awesome. Well, once again, Thomas, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing this value.

Speaker 2: 43:02

Thanks, man.