Ep 007: Scaling with Trust and Leading the Right Way

In this follow-up conversation, Paul Fontanelli and Todd Jenkins reflect on how leadership changes as a business grows. Drawing from experiences in both a multi-generation legacy company and a young, fast-moving business, they explore the balance between caring deeply and letting go, using parenting as a lens for what it really means to lead.

The discussion moves into practical ground, covering how leaders can communicate more intentionally, adapt to different personalities, and think more clearly about brand marketing and measurement. Rather than chasing perfect data, they focus on building clarity, alignment, and capability across the team.

The episode also touches on how AI fits into modern leadership, not as a replacement for people, but as a tool that removes friction and creates leverage. Throughout the conversation, one idea stays constant: sustainable growth comes from trust, clear communication, and leaders who build people, not dependency.

Transcript

Chit Chat Setup And Theme

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Building Boulder. Back in action is Todd Jenkins from Jenkins Roofing, one of my best friends. We're gonna do a little bit different episode this time. Less of an interview, more of a chit chat. Yep. We're gonna call it shooting the chit chat. Okay. Shooting the chit chat. We're gonna call it. Chit chat. Two CEOs, totally different businesses. We've got legacy business over 60 years. You're doing an amazing job. I'm sure there's still challenges, but things are going well. And it's a more well-oiled machine because it's a 60-plus-year-old business, older two-year-old business, more in the toddler phase, a lot of challenges, stuff we're working through. So I thought it was just a top. The other day I was thinking and my son got a flat tire. You would think, like, oh, this sucks. I could go help him change his tire. It was actually like an awesome parenting moment because I got to show him how to change the tire and I got to help him and had a man-to-man conversation about when stuff goes wrong. And, you know, and he's he goes, he hits this rock, not a pebble. He drives over a rock, like this big. He's like, well, now I learned I can't drive over a rock. And I'm like, instead of getting on him, I'm like, well, good. It's a lesson learned, right? Like, no harm, no foul. Lesson learned. Good dad moment. So I teach and I leave that, you know, helping with the tire. That was a good moment of being a parent. Then there's other times when candidly it's like, this parenting thing sucks. It's hard, right? Yeah. It's hard to admit that, but it's like, oh, take me to practice, take me to get something. You're just like Uber dad, right? That's not as fun of a time. I think running a business is a lot like being a dad. Like there's times when it's like, this is rewarding. This is why we do it. And there's times we're like, oh my gosh, this is brutal. Like just give me a W2 and call it a day. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, it's very similar in a lot of ways, right? Yeah. Because you want to control people. You want to tell them what to do and they do it and you move on, right? Because a lot of times you think you know everything that everybody needs to do, and if they just do it, you're going to be successful. Right. What I think I've found with both parenting and with running a business is sometimes you got to let people blossom and fail and flourish, you know? Yeah. You just got to let them figure it out and then give them the tools and training and resources to make it happen. Like you're, I know you've done a ton with your kids on. Yeah. I noticed it with my sister. Like my sister is probably one of the best parents I've met, and her kids were always so well behaved. I mean, certainly they made mistakes and they did stuff that was dumb. But like for instance, my nephew would come over when he was 12 and I'd be like, Let's watch Rambo. You know, he'd be like, I can't watch Rambo, I'm not 13, you know. Ah, come on, it's Uncle Todd. You know, like, you know, Uncle Todd, I can't, you know. Yeah. So I'm just saying, like, you know, if you if you put the right stuff into people, yeah, kids, employees, whatever, and you give them the right vision, build the values, you know, they'll want to do the right thing. They're never gonna care as much as the owner cares. I think that's a thing that you probably see sometimes too. Of course, the owner of the company is always gonna have that different level of will and desire. But yeah, if you can at least get them to have a buy-in and understand their why, what they're trying to do, and what we're trying to do as a team, then I think it becomes easier for people to want to do the right thing. Yes. You know, and then compensation always helps too.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, well, of course. But I think you're spot on, both with parenting and with business, it's not just tell them what to do, whether it's the kids or the team members, and they'll do it. Of course, that's what we want to do, but it's not that simple. It is more about building the foundation, the motivation, get them to kind of want to do certain things, and they're more likely to follow through and do a better job with it.

Values, Autonomy, And Motivation

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Well, I think like a lot of the some of the consulting that I've been doing, it's interesting how so much of it applies to your home life, but you really don't think of it that way. Yeah. Like for instance, we're doing disc profiles across the entire team. Have you heard of that? Yeah. Um, so D-I-S-C, dominant, influencing, there's different personality types. There's basically four major personality types. And if you learn how to identify what type of a personality people are, it's easier to communicate with them. Because you know what triggers them, yeah, what chords you can play that make them, oh yeah, I really like that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've been doing a lot of work as a team. Our entire team has done these disc profiles first to figure out how to talk to each other internally. Yeah. Right? Because if you know, like when you come to my office, for instance, don't come in with a lot of fluff and things. Just hit me with what you need and get out. You know, it's not because I'm trying to be, I'm I'm kind, right? We want to be kind, of course. But there's certain ways that I like to communicate that that fit well with who I am as a person and how I like to communicate. If I start thinking about my family and how what disc profile each of them is, and they start understanding what my profile is, and we know how to communicate with each other, it makes life a lot easier. Yeah. You know, you can hit those hot buttons that you know make people happy when they're communicating.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

So I just found it very interesting that it applies in so many ways, and communication is so important with both business and in personal. I don't think we think of it as often as we should. Like, how should I be talking to this person? Right. Should I should I have a little something? Direct, yeah, more exactly. Like, how do they want to be talked to? That's brilliant. You know, so I think kids may want to uh that originally, but you could kind of there's some telltale signs that you could use to understand their personality type and then and then fit that in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

And I I didn't even mean to imply that it was just about the team members, the employees, as similar to raising kids, yeah. Like the business. No, yeah. Oh, sure. Being an entrepreneur is like being a parent, like, oh my gosh, there's so much stress and challenges, rewards, and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

So that's kind of what I meant. I didn't mean to imply. No, no, I get what you're saying. I didn't get that, but yeah, that makes sense too. Yeah, my business is a little more of an older person. Exactly. Yeah, you're parents in an adult. They're already retired almost. I just gotta keep them happy. Yeah, well, you're doing on the golf course.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

There you go. Yeah, I'm still in the top of their face. All right, I got a fun one for us. Do you do any billboards for marketing?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

We've done one in Grand Prairie, one of the virtual billboards over 20. Okay. You still run it? We haven't. Actually, I don't know if we ever stopped it, but I know it's not running anymore. I mean, I was paying like uh several hundred dollars a month. Yeah, yeah.

Personality Types And Communication

SPEAKER_01 5:51

The cool thing about digital billboards, so there's two types of billboards. There's static, which is the permanent billboard that always stays there, right? And it's cool designs. Then there's the digital. Fun thing about digital is you can run it on off very easy. You can just spend a couple hundred bucks, a couple thousand. You have a lot more flexibility control. You can kind of do so many impressions, pick it all out, right? So, my question for you we've been doing billboards at Boulder, and I'm still undecided on the ROI on it. And billboards are really hard to figure out the ROI on it. Billboard companies know that. I personally believe this is a very subjective opinion that the static billboards return better than the digital. And it's a personal opinion because when I drive by a digital, I'm a billboard looker. Like I'm a billboard looker. Some people say I don't ever look at billboards. I look at billboards, like no question about it. The digital ones because you look at billboards before Boulder. Always. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm annoyed by how many attorneys are on billboards. I kind of miss the fun ones, the bunch of lights and that stuff. Yeah. So many attorneys on billboards. That'll get me started on that. But I think the static billboards perform better because they're always there. You see the same one every day on your commute. The digitals piss me off because I'll be driving and I'm like, ooh, that looks interesting. And it'll turn to the next one. And I'm like, crap, it needs to turn back. And I'm driving by, and by the time I drive by, it hasn't turned back. And I'm like, oh, I missed it. So I've done both with Boulder and I'm undecided on the ROI because I haven't seen it yet. What do you think about if we both try a strategy with billboards and we measure whether it works or not? Let's take a thousand dollars, something small, not major, and we're gonna do. Have you ever seen the billboard that says, Does advertising work? Yes, it just did. Right? It's like, oh that didn't work. Crap. What if we did? We'll have to come up with a creative, but something like we need to see if this billboard pays for itself and just put like some kind of QR code, something. Yeah. Don't even tell them whether it's Jenkins Roofing or Boulder, and we just see how many people click it and then how many people leads we get and whatever.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Okay, so no QR code. You're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Oh, I pull out my phone as I'm driving. So how could we do this where we have to track whether it's a special code they give us? Yeah. Maybe I haven't thought this out before I brought it live on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

I don't know because I mean it'd be hard. I mean, I'm you're saying you want to have a competition. Not a competition, but a trackable measurement.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Uh-huh. But we have two different businesses. So we can say, well, you got these results, I got these results. Okay, maybe it's better for your business or my because our businesses are much different, right? Sure. But how would we get something where we knew that that lead where that ticket sale came straight from the billboard only? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, because I think it is it's gonna be impossible probably to know to know that 100% of the leads, right? Say 90%. Because you know, you're gonna have some brand development and people are gonna see the logo, see the thing, and then maybe they buy it later. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's I I just don't know how many people are taking a phone number down, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

From a from a I've heard phone numbers, websites, they're not good on billboards. Right. Yeah, that's what's hard to get the ROI. All right, so we're gonna table this idea. No, I'm down. I like the idea. I don't think we've got to figure out how to convert it so it's agree. You can't have a hundred percent confidence that that is gonna come from that billboard. But there's gotta be a way that's like, okay, we're pretty confident it came from that billboard.

Mature Firm vs Startup Struggles

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, special phone number, you know, could work. I mean, because we have special phone numbers that go to very specific things, but I just don't even know figured out you know how to make that work, but I'm down to try. Okay. All right, we're down to try. We're gonna have to. I like the idea. I've always thought, I mean, most of them can be like ten thousand dollars a month or more. Yeah, you know, it all depends on the location. But you want to be in a good location, right? Right. You know, so good billboard. It's tough. It's a tough thing. I've I haven't done a lot of it, but I've done the virtual. I want to be on the billboard in Dallas with the waterfall. It's like iconic thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

For sure. It's probably like a hundred thousand dollars. Oh, yeah. Ozarka has been up there in the beard. Yeah, they probably have rented that thing out for 10 years. Yeah, we won't be on that one. All right, next topic. You're gonna love this one. I don't even get into politics very often, but I'm about to make a political little it's kind of meant to just be a little humorous. Okay, but I think you're gonna enjoy it. Whether you love Trump or you hate Trump. I'm in the middle. There you go. So this is easy. This is kind of bipartisan conversation here. Yeah. So whether you love him or hate him, I think the reality is he loves being in front of the camera so much that I feel so much more informed of what's going on. Yeah. Good, bad, or indifferent, because I think I've seen more Trump clips, press conferences in the last couple months than I did in four years. Because I think Trump just loves being in front of the camera. So I think that's part of what just keeps us updated. I think Trump loves his haters as much as he loves his supporters. Oh, yeah. He just loves being out in the limelight. Yeah, he does. He loves the challenging, the conversation. I was just thinking about that last night because of course I'm watching TikTok. There's Trump, there's Trump.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

I didn't see Biden for like four years. Some guys are working at my house uh yesterday redoing my pool, and I was listening to this Spanish radio station while I was working. I mean, I don't know a ton of Spanish, but I was listening, and it was tons of Trump on the Spanish radio station. You know, playing clips and doing things. I mean, yeah, he's everywhere.

Do Billboards Really Work

SPEAKER_01 10:59

So love him or hate him, I think we're more informed of what's going on because he just likes to be in front of the camera. No question there, just a comment. It was more just a comment. I'm not very political, I don't want to stir those bees' nests that stretch, but I think people can relate to that. Yeah. All right. How are you currently using, and I know you are. How are you currently using AI in your business?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Oh, gosh, every day. All right, give me one really clear example. It just goes back to efficiencies, right? There's a lot of things that I just like to have down to where they sound good when I email something. Okay. You know, so I'll put a concept together and and of something I want to do, and then I just have it tell me on Chat GPT. I use the 4.0 version, you pay like 30 bucks a month for which is definitely worth it, but you told me about that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, I use it for a lot of emails. So, like, you know, when I want to structure something a certain way, I'll put it in there and it gives me great results. Yep. I'll take dirty data in a spreadsheet, okay, put it in chat GPT, and it cleans it up for me and I can use it. Yeah. I'll have it look at insurance paperwork for a customer and just say, here's a file, tell me, you know, certain things about it, and it'll just tell me everything I want to know. You know, like it summarizes very complex things into very simple ways to understand it. That's a great example.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

I want to piggyback on one, and you I want to hear more, of course, but to drill into one of the efficiencies. I think that 30 bucks a month, whatever that first level of Chat GBT is, is basically like another employee. Yeah. Because I've come to realize, like, all right, if I need a financial analysis done, typically in a in a corporate setting, I would go to the finance director. That finance director is going to take that task and assign it to one of their team members, right? Now with Chat GBT, you're right. Just take the spreadsheet, give it to ChatGBT and say, hey, I need you to analyze this and that and make a chart. And it can do in 20 minutes what would take me four to five hours. Yeah. The chart's gonna look better than what I do. Oh, yeah. I mean, I just use it as like an employee where it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yes. When we did our vision meeting for the end of the year, I used it a ton to make that presentation because I would give it tons of data and be like, you know, tell me these certain things and then make a chart out of it. Yeah. It would do it. And it just looked amazing, you know?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

And like even our consultant was like, How did you who did this for you? I was like, No, I did it. Like ChatGPT kind of did it. But like I think it's really something that I know people are scared of AI. Of course. You know, they're worried it's taking our jobs and all that sort of thing. I do see it as something that's helping us just be more efficient and be better at what we're doing. Yeah, I don't know what the future's gonna bring with it, but I'm I'm a fan.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, I'm a fan too. I think the negative side of AI is probably things that are outside of my or your control. Yeah, so it's like I I'm a big believer, focus on what you can control. Yeah, right. Don't stress over things that are 100% out of your control. That's always been my philosophy. And so AI for what I can control, you're absolutely right. Use it for good, use it for efficiencies. It's funny, my kids are more against AI than I am. Yeah, and I'm encouraging like this is gonna be a regular part of your.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Okay, so let me ask you this. Like, because you know, my kids are getting our 11 and 7, so they're starting to have projects and stuff. Oh yeah. Um, I'm wondering, like, are you promoting them to use no so that's or can they? I don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

No, so that's I I don't know enough about how to do it. Like their teachers are saying you cannot use Chat GPT for sure. But then he likes you can't use it to cheat on the exam, you can't use it to write your papers. And I think that's where it's making a little bit of a bad rap with my kids. Is it but you can use Google to go search something and find out something? I don't I don't know enough about we probably should go to Protham on this. Let's go to Prothemia, Protham, welcome to the show, my friend. Uh so I'm gonna give a quick little snippet of why my kids are anti-AI at the moment. Their teachers are very against it. Like, don't you dare use AI for this, don't you dare have it write your paper. Yeah, because you're not learning anything. It's setting this precedent of like, don't use it. Whereas I'm trying to teach my kids, of course, follow the rules your teacher said. I'm not saying go do something different, but you should learn to use this tool because it is going to be a bigger part of how we do business for anything. You're in college now. I know you use Chat GBT.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

But I know you know the rules of what you can and can't do for school. How are you finding good ways to use it without like breaking trust or violating what you're not supposed to do?

SPEAKER_02 15:06

I mean, honestly, most of my professors are actually promoting the use of AI to get simple tasks done. Or a lot of the times, like if it's like a computer class, you know, like wait, I need to Google how to find this and run this program for this certain task that I need to get done. Dude, don't waste your time Googling it. Put it in the chat GBT. You have three steps, go do them, you know, for more like literature classes and all of that. There are certain rules to the extent you can use it to, but it's highly promoted because it increases the efficiency of the work you can get done. Okay. And it cuts down the time a lot more. So it's worth it.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

That's good to hear. So professors are starting to encourage it. I think the middle school, high schools probably have to figure out how and when to use it, but I'm with you. AI is a huge efficiency saver. I use it as kind of like an extra little team member employee. I'm a big fan. I know you used it to create the first draft of the logo. We're doing a big event. You talk about this. We're doing a big event at Boulder, yeah, poker on the prairie. I'm not sure if this podcast will even launch before or after the event. So, but yeah, you used it for like even logos.

Politics As Media Presence

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah. Yeah, I've noticed it's if there's one thing it's really not great at yet, it's it's getting ideas for things. But it's like there's something about these logos that I'm having you build that are there's always something that's so hard. Like they can't spell a word right. But I mean, facts. I don't know what the deal is with that, but I I can't fix that. So I'll take ideas and then get it to somebody and say, like, these are the four ideas I like, right? Yep. But yeah, I I I'm sure there's even some some stuff out there that's not chat GPT that could do the images, right? Yep. Have you seen I can't remember even the name of it, but there's now that video AI where you can just tell it what video you want it to make and it just makes the video. It's wild.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

What's cool about AI too is you own the copyright of what it puts out. Yeah. So the people that are making those funny cat videos, which everything starts with cat videos, how YouTube got started. But anyway, so the AI cat videos that are super popular, once you make that, you own the rights to it. And so the people that are getting millions of views and obviously making all the money off the views, right, are just literally typing in and they're figuring out how to do it. It's interesting, and that's where I think people get nervous. Like, oh, is every video gonna be AI? I don't think it's gonna get that crazy, but yeah, I think if you're not learning AI, you're not putting yourself in a position to succeed in the future.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

And that's what it comes to. You know that too. I don't know if you saw the Super Bowl, did you see the commercial about AI from Coke? Did you see it? Oh, tell me. It was, I thought it kind of hit home for me. Like, like I said, I'm a little more optimistic about it than a lot of people. I I'm scared too. Whatever. We don't know what's gonna happen. But you know, it was basically a commercial about like way back when everyone said, Hey, the industrial industry, the industrial revolution, like this is gonna take all of our jobs, and then computers and uh all the way up until now. You know, the people have always been scared about the next phase of something big, but it's always made us better as a crazy, you know. So like basically at the end of it, like we're gonna be okay, you know. Glass half full, baby. Yeah, yeah. Glash half full. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Appreciate you back on the chit chat with Todd Paul. Yep, he's great, man. All right, all right, enjoyed it. We're out.