Navigating the Tides of Change: Positive Leadership and Creating Success in the Trades Industry

Ever felt like you’re swimming against the current, trying to foster positivity in a work environment that seems stuck in a rut? Join me, Corey Berrier, as I delve into the heart of positive leadership and the transformative presence we can bring to our businesses. This episode of the Successful Life Podcast isn't just a collection of thoughts; it's a vault of actionable insights for anyone ready to break free from the chains of negativity that bind many work cultures. As we unpack the true potential of the trades industry, I confront the pervasive negativity that can poison a team from the inside out. But fear not, we're turning the tide by placing personal responsibility at the helm, steering towards a culture of growth, productivity, and empowerment.

Now, let's say you're ready to charter a course towards genuine connection with your customers—how do you navigate that? My solo flight today maps out the territory for building lasting rapport, from the power of active listening to the sincerity of your presence. We're not just talking shop here; I share some of my own stormy seas and how embracing the wisdom of "The Power of Now" helped me find my north star. And because running a tight ship means preparing for all weather, we'll also tackle the essentials of carving out your niche, the art of delegation, and setting your business compass for success. All hands on deck—this is one voyage in the Successful Life Podcast you won't want to miss.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:57

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, corey Barrier, and today, folks, it's just me. So I am particularly excited about today's conversation. We're going to hit on a few things. We're going to talk about a few sales things that are going to help you as the owner, help you as a technician in the field, help you as a comfort advisor.

Speaker 1: 1:19

I believe that we are in the greatest industry on the planet and it's important and you're important If you're in this industry. My God, this industry is so much more important than it ever has been in the past because there's so many people out there that don't want to do this kind of work. And guess what? That really is a benefit to a degree for the companies that are in business, because we are able to successfully navigate comfort in all of our customers' homes. We're able to navigate employees, we're able to provide opportunities for people just like you, and there's not a lot of people coming into the trades, unfortunately, but it is what it is. We are fighting tooth and nail, really, as an industry, to overcome the college. You got to go to college or you're not going to amount to anything, and my parents never said that specifically, but they absolutely intended on me going to college and it just wasn't for me, as it's not for a lot of people in the industry and you shouldn't feel bad about that. Like, guess what, there's people in this world that are made to cook French fries at McDonald's. Fortunately, I am not one of them, and likely you're not one of them if you're listening to this show, but it takes various people to make up the world and every job in the world. You know.

Speaker 1: 3:17

One of the things that I want to dive into is, as an organization, what happens when you have an employee or two that are not benefiting the organization. Maybe they're cancerous, maybe they're negative, maybe they just have a really bad attitude. Well, my experience shows that if you keep people with a bad attitude around, or you keep people that are negative around, they're eventually going to infect the rest of the team, and that's just been my experience. People look, I knew this old saying that people used to say is if you can't say anything, nice, come sit beside me. Well, I kind of thought that same way for a long time and then I realized that the truth of the matter is, if you are a crappy person, you're probably going to get crappy things in life. If you're a positive, uplifting person, you're probably going to get crappy things in life. If you're a positive, uplifting person, you're likely going to get positive and uplifting things.

Speaker 1: 4:27

And so if life is not going so great for you right now, or work is not going so great for you now, I would say maybe, just maybe, look in the mirror and ask yourself what can I do to change, what can I do to improve my life right now? Not necessarily my circumstances in life, but just life in general. And the only person that will be able to answer that for you is you, unfortunately. And so if this is you and it's probably not you, but if it is you or it's your organization I would just say you need to take a look and see where you're failing the organization or where you're failing yourself as a leader in your business, and look, it's not somebody else's fault, it's your fault, it's my fault. If I make a mistake, I have to own up to that mistake and I have to correct it. And hopefully it wasn't a mistake, hopefully it was just a learning lesson that I now can take and build upon. Now, if you don't learn anything from it, it's 100% a mistake, but I wouldn't imagine that would be you.

Speaker 1: 5:46

So when you think about negative thinking and the toxicity of negative thinking, it's like an infection that runs right through your body. That runs right through your body, it runs right through your organization and it will eventually supersede the positive people. It's like crabs in the bucket. We've all heard this saying there's a bunch of crabs in a bucket and one little crab gets to the top. What do the rest of them do? They pull him right back down. They pull him right back down to the bottom because they don't want to see him get out of the bucket. Just like your employees or your coworkers, they don't want to see you doing great, and I know that's a really dark way to look at it, but it's just the truth way to look at it, but it's just the truth. When people's lives are not going well, they choose to pull everybody else down with them. I don't know why that is and God knows. I hope that is not me, but I know that's been me in the past for sure.

Speaker 1: 6:58

It's real easy to talk junk about somebody when they're not there. It's really easy to pull somebody to the side and say you know and start some gossipy rumor. But I'll just tell you it's going to bite you. It is every single time. You may get away with it for a little bit, but eventually it's going to catch up with you. And who wants to live like that? I know for me. I don't want to live like that anymore. I don't want to worry about what I said yesterday to whomever, and it get back to the person I was talking to. I don't want to live looking over my shoulder. I did that for many, many years when I was drinking, many, many years when I was doing other things, and I just don't have any desire to be that guy anymore, and I don't think you do either. And so just really think about what you're saying and think about who you're saying it to, because this day and time people do say things, especially online, that are completely ridiculous. One they would never say to your face, and two, even people. You know it's just a different time. It is a it's a totally different time than what we've been used to.

Speaker 1: 8:19

You know social media and look, I'm on social media. But if you look at social media, you get the highlight reels, you get how everything's going great for that person, but you don't get the back. You know you don't get behind the scenes usually because people think if they share about what's going on in their life, that you're not going to like them. I've had that feeling. I'm sure you've had that feeling as well. And it's just like, if you know, if you are a comfort advisor, a field supervisor or sales, whatever you want to call it supervisor or sales, whatever you want to call it and you go into the conversation with the customer with the mindset they're not going to close, you're likely right If you go into it with the mindset of they're going to be a pain in the ass. You're probably right If you go into it with the mindset of I'm there to make sure that they're comfortable, they're safe, they're happy, that they love our company, they love me. That's probably what's going to happen. But you can determine that and it's really just a decision that you have to make. It's a decision to either wake up in a very in a positive mood or it's a decision to wake up in a negative mood, and whatever you decide, the people around you will. You know, they'll rally around you, unfortunately, whether it's, you know, to your benefit or not.

Speaker 1: 10:00

Quite frankly, most people are pretty selfish and I can speak for myself. I've been plenty selfish in my life and it didn't get me very far, and I would argue that it probably won't get you very far. Being grateful for where you are, being grateful for what you have, being grateful for the fact that you even have a job there's something to be said for that. I mean, maybe you've never gone through a tough time. I don't know. I know I have. I've been through a bunch of tough times and continue every single year to go through another level of tough. But on the other side of that, I can tell you it's success. Every single time I've gone through something hard in my life, I come out with a better result, as long as I see it all the way through and look, I'm not saying it's fun, but you know, if you're going through a tough time in life or at work, there's a reason for it and it's just there to make you better.

Speaker 1: 11:11

I like to call this resistance right. If you think about, if you just think about, you know, think back to a time where you completely screwed up a sale. They should have bought, they didn't buy. You said something wrong, you made a comment you shouldn't have made, you didn't say this. You know we always analyze the calls afterwards. Obviously it's just human nature, I think, if you want to be the best anyway. So if you think about one of those times, it kind of hits you in the chest right, you think about that one time that things went a little sideways. Or you think about that one time that you really definitely messed the sale up. Well, you could feel that right in your chest. That's resistance, and that resistance will come up regularly.

Speaker 1: 12:00

If you allow it and you don't have to allow it you can overcome that resistance by being present in your current circumstances Not your life circumstances, but your life. I know for me, a lot of times I'll be thinking about two hours ahead of time, or I might be thinking about two years prior to Either way. If I'm thinking either one of those, I'm not present with you right now and so really think about that. I've just been going through a book that's just incredible. It's called the Power of Now by by Eckhart Tolle, and this book talks about being present in your own life, not missing the gifts that God has provided for us that we miss every single day because we're not present. In the moment we're thinking about all the things that we have to do. You know we're thinking about oh, it's Friday, I can't wait for the weekend. Well, why don't you just focus on right now, focus on what you're doing right here, right now, and doing that for me has gotten me through some tough times.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Because if you think about unhappiness, well, if you had a choice to choose between unhappiness or happiness, well, what are you going to choose? Because guess what, like I mentioned earlier, that's a choice. You can be unhappy all the time or you can be happy all the time, and sometimes, you know, it feels pretty good to be unhappy. Sometimes it feels really good to be happy. It's just a choice. And you have to ask yourself how do I want to live today? Do I want to be grateful for what I've got? Do I want to be negative? Do I want to be pessimistic? Do I want to look for all the negatives in life, or do I want to be a light to shine for somebody else? And so this is just.

Speaker 1: 14:10

We're just removing ego out of the scenario, and ego is not a bad thing, depending on what the context is. If your ego gets you out of a, you know, helps you run from a lion, great. If your ego prevents you from seeing something that's right in front of your face, that you're doing wrong or that you're making a mistake on, or that you could be doing better, well, I can't promise you that's going to be a very positive situation. So I just think that you know today, I just want you to think about what it is you could do better. I'm not saying change everything, but sometimes you got to change a lot to get the result that you want, and sometimes that's painful. Growing is painful, but I tell you, on the other side of that growth, it's amazing. It's incredible. So, all right, so let's talk about. We're going to transition for a moment from the importance of being present, having a healthy culture and Understand. We're going to shift to understanding, better way, a better way to communicate.

Speaker 1: 15:37

You know, when you're going into a house and you're talking to a customer, be genuinely interested in what they're saying, even if they're talking about something that you don't know anything about. Maybe that's what they want to talk about, if that's what they're. If that's if they're talking, then that would be what they want to talk about. Obviously, it's important to be able to actively listen when people are talking and you can't be somewhere else mentally and actively listen. They cannot exist in the same realm. It's impossible. You can't be upset and grateful at the same time. It's impossible.

Speaker 1: 16:25

So when you're talking to a customer and you're in the house, you've done all of your, you've done all your checks, you've figured out what the problem is, you're coming into, you're coming in to talk with the customer, sit down, sit down beside of them as close as you can, so it's not not not to the point where it's uncomfortable, but touch their knee, knee to knee, right. That's how you build a solid connection with your new customer, your new friend, because, look, we're there to provide a product and a service for our customers. We're there to make sure they feel safe and that they're comfortable, and I already mentioned that once, but I thought I'd mention it again. So, when you're thinking about I had a conversation yesterday with a guy about a media filter, right, and the importance of it, and it's really simple. If you're trying to explain something like a media filter to a customer, it's kind of like a mask for your house, right. It filters out all the particles, all the crap going around in your house, and that's the easiest way to explain it. Look, don't.

Speaker 1: 17:40

One of the things that drives me the most crazy is when I get a lot of technical jargon, when I hear guys explaining things because they either just got out of school or they're just in the mindset of being a technician, especially, and they want to go into all these HVAC terms and people don't really care about that and they also don't really know what you're talking about. So a confused mind doesn't make decisions and you're there to get a decision right. You're there to get that customer to a point where they're not stressed out anymore. And I do need to hit on this point. Look, when people are calling into your business, most of the time people haven't called into an HVAC or a plumbing or an electrical business because those things don't always break. They break every 10 years or so, maybe every five years. There's usually a problem every five years, but every year there's somebody new that has to call you, that's unsure about what they're calling about. They're unsure if they want to talk to you. They're unsure if you're a good company. They're unsure if they even want you to come out because they just don't know. And some people will absolutely unequivocally, without a doubt, avoid that fixing something in their house because they don't want to deal with people. They don't want to deal with contractors. Look, this is not news. This is not anything that's new.

Speaker 1: 19:49

The industry gets a bad name and there are bad apples. Just like I was talking about earlier with the culture, there are bad apples in the industry and those bad apples that go out and rip people off or overprice or don't provide the value they don't do us a lot of favors. In fact it hurts our chances when we get to the house, right. So we got to overcome that. And knowing that, before you get there and setting your mind to where you are fully aware that this person Is nervous, they are feeling like a little sketchy, they're feeling like I don't know. This stranger in my house is asking me for $20,000. And that gets scary for people. They don't want to make a wrong decision and it's your job as the comfort advisor or the field supervisor. It's your job to make sure they feel comfortable with you and your company, more so you than the company.

Speaker 1: 21:02

You are the company when you're at that house and look, I know not everybody is super easy to deal with. I'm fully aware of that and people get upset, mistakes happen and we want to be able to overcome those mistakes. We want to be able to overcome those biases that people have about us and our industry, because the people that I know in the industry are great people. You know they're doing great things in the community. They're doing great things for their employees, but not everybody's that way and you can't assume that the customer knows all that stuff when you're at their house, because likely they don't and likely they don't know what you do in the community. Likely they don't know that you support the police department or you support the fire department or whatever it is. They just don't know. And so don't be afraid to have people you know to share stories like that yeah, we fed, you know, the whole police department. One day we cooked breakfast for them or whatever. Right, fill in the blank.

Speaker 1: 22:17

Now, if your company doesn't do that, then you may want to look at that, you may want to suggest that to your boss or your owner that, hey, how can we become a part of the community? Because community is important, just like the community inside of your organization is important. It's the heartbeat of the company, are your employees. And if you're the owner, your employees are your first customers, not your customers, but your employees. If you can't serve the employees at a level that they feel like they want to come to work every day, then you may not want to look at that they want to come to work every day then you may not want to look at that.

Speaker 1: 23:02

If you've got employees that ultimately you know are habitually late or they're habitually have a negative attitude, or they're constantly complaining or they're ungrateful for the opportunity you've given them, you need to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself do I want this individual on my team? Do I want this individual making the rest of the employees feel like this is not a good workplace? And the answer should be no. You do not want that, because if you have, like I said before, if you have a cancer inside the organization, it 100% is going to eventually bite you, and the quicker you get those people out and get new people in, the better off that you are. And that's just my personal experience.

Speaker 1: 23:57

I've been in the trades I don't know close to five years now, and I've seen it all. I've seen employees that got fired for doing something crazy get hired back. I've seen, you know, employers allow employees just to do whatever they want and anticipate they're going to get better and they don't. I've also seen employers that will fire you if you step out of line, and those are typically the best run organizations. And I know it feels like you're handcuffed sometimes by the employees because there is a shortage in the industry. But if you've got a good organization, people will refer you and your business to come and work here, right. So if you have happy employees, what are they going to do? They want to bring other happy, happy employees to the business. If you have a bunch of unhappy employees, they're probably not going to recommend people working for you and that's something that you'll have to decide. And you know, sometimes it's hard to look at these things. It's hard to think about. Maybe I've made a wrong move, or maybe I've hired the wrong guy, or maybe I, you know, maybe I should cut bait before they destroy anything else, should cut bait before they destroy anything else. And I know those are tough conversations, that are tough things to look at, but it's important and I should have said it's important for the growth of your business, for the success that you want to have in this industry. You got to be better than everybody else. You got to show up differently than everybody else, and the only way to do that is to be different.

Speaker 1: 25:45

There's a thousand different brownies out there that you can go to the store and buy or you can order online. What makes your brownie different? Why would I choose your brownie over the thousand other ones? What makes it special? Is it the packaging? Is it the taste? Is it the marketing? Is it what is it? It's probably all those things. But then there's a level of culture or there's a level of something behind that one brownie that makes it stick out Right. Call it the laws of the universe, call it whatever you want, but if you're doing it's just like in sales If you smell good, you look good, you sell good, right. If your brownie has a great story behind it, people buy stories, facts tell and stories sell, and that's just. It is what it is.

Speaker 1: 26:44

And so if you're having trouble right now I mean I know that we are on the back end of shoulder season Things here in North Carolina are picking up significantly. Things here in North Carolina are picking up significantly and I welcome the influx in calls that we're having. I'm welcoming the amount of business that we've been able to do over the last just two to three weeks compared to the two to three weeks before that. And this is not abnormal to have a slow season at this time. It's not abnormal to have shoulder season.

Speaker 1: 27:24

But what are you doing during shoulder season to make sure that you're set up for the summer? Are you training your guys? Are you training new technicians? Are you loading up the roster so when that heat wave hits, you're ready to rock and roll? Because if you're not, it is going to destroy you. And you might be thinking well, corey, I can't afford to hire anybody right now. It's been slow. You should have thought about that the season before. You've got to be prepared for the next season and the way you can do that.

Speaker 1: 28:01

Well, there's a bunch of different ways you can beef up your marketing. You can constantly be hiring, always looking for talent, maybe even outside of the organization, because I've seen the best people come into the organization that have no clue about the industry. I mean, some of the best sales guys I know didn't come from the industry, because they look at things differently and, look, I haven't been in this industry but five years, and so I don't know everything about it. But what I do know is how to connect with a customer, how to help them to feel like they are the only person in the world right that. Second, and that's what I have to do with the employees here I I have to, I don't have to. Uh, I want them to know that I've got their back, no matter what. Now, if you go do something boneheaded, I can't have your back with that. If you do something that's stupid, I can't you know, I can't support that, especially if you know it was stupid before you did it and it is what it is.

Speaker 1: 29:26

So, look, my goal with this show today is just to really open your eyes to the possibilities of what is out there. Open your eyes to the possibilities that you can be a more successful company. Open your eyes to success. Try not to think about things so narrow-mindedly, because I'm telling you, if you change your mindset, you'll change your life. I know a dude. I've been there. I've woken up every day in fear of what the whole day is going to be like. I've woken up in, you know, stressed out, because I don't know how things are going to go. But did that do me any good? Absolutely not. It does me no good to think about what happened two weeks ago or two weeks from now, it makes zero difference. But what I can do is try to provide you enough value in this show that you subscribe, that you like it, that you leave me a review and that you keep coming back every single Friday to listen to the people I get to interview, which is a massive blessing.

Speaker 1: 30:46

I get to talk to the leaders in the whole, every leader in the industry, anybody that is a top person. I've gotten an opportunity to spend an hour or two with them and, dude, there's nothing better than learning from people that have done, you know, $100 million, $200 million. It's fascinating to me to pick their brain. They're no different than you or me. They just made different choices. They made different decisions when it came to their business.

Speaker 1: 31:18

They put in the work and make sure they're going to be successful and look, lots of times you got to delegate. You got to put some of that responsibility on other people, because you can't do it all. If you try to do it all, you'll burn it down, just like I did with a business in 2018. Burn it right to the ground. Because I tried to do it all. You'll burn it down, just like I did with a business in 2018. Burn it right to the ground, because I tried to do it all for the sake of saving money and I'm telling you right now it's not a good plan. If you can hire somebody to help you get stuff off your plate, it's a for sure winning formula, I promise you. So, guys, thank you. Please leave a review. Please come back next week. If you are seeing this on social media, share it. If you got value out of this podcast today, I encourage you to share it and we'll see you, guys, on the other side.