Latest / Glovisor Podcast / Your Revenue Is Growing, But Where Is the Profit Going? - Kimberly Cano [Ep. 97]

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Your Revenue Is Growing, But Where Is the Profit Going? - Kimberly Cano [Ep. 97] · Glovisor Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Businesses may be growing in revenue while operational problems quickly
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: drain profits. Welcome to the Glowvisor podcast, where we explore
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: business growth, communication, and personal development through real conversations with
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: people who make an impact. Our guest is a fractional
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: profitability officer who helps founder-led environmental construction companies scale by
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: fixing operational inefficiencies and building more profitable, resilient businesses. Glowvisor welcomes.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Kimberly Cano.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: All right, Kim. So we want to find out a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: little bit more about what you do and who do
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: you serve.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Essentially, the sweet spot would be the one to five
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: million per year contractors. And this isn't to pigeonhole them
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: into the problematic arena. But it is known and statistically
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: known that that is where the growth happens in a
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: business that can be a little painful, right?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: You have, I'll draw a picture.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: You have a founder who starts his company in a
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: garage and then he layers on a partner or maybe
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: he already had one. Then they lay on an ops manager,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: an operations manager. Then they lay on the labor because
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: now they can afford another guy. And he just keeps
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: layering it like the onion. And at the same time,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: is he following systems that he knows are going to
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: help him? For example, a procurement system where purchase orders
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: are connected with purchasing of tools, equipment, rental of equipment.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: so that everything is approved and you know that you
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: had a system followed by your staff. But what happens
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: is in that sweet spot, because I do serve up
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: to 50 million or 49 million, I like to say
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: the three to 49 million, but it is the lower
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: scale guys that are struggling and they want to scale
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: and 10X, but they have to fix their operational as
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: well as their back office and themselves first before, like
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: any other business, really, if you think about it.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: All of your processes really cross different industries, but specifically,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: you have a lot of history with the environmental business.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us how that happened?
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I was working at a private investigators for nearly six years,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: and that's a long staying power to have.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I was in my 30s.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: It was like my first real job post-rehab. I was
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: in rehab for three and a half years, a live-in
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: residential rehab, and I graduated from in 2000. And I
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: got this job at a PI firm and it was
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: an office setting where we dealt with a lot of
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: attorneys and people of that nature and office people.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Right. And so it was far from my home.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: And I decided to seek another position and looked in
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: the paper, online papers. We had it on Career Builder
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: and I found an office manager position that I thought, oh,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: this is could do this, right?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And it had like a, oh, you need to learn QuickBooks.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I took a QuickBooks class, big deal.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: And it was six and a half minutes by vehicle
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: away from our home that we purchased. And I thought, oh,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: this is like in Hawaii, we say duck soup. You know,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: at that time in my life, I'm thinking, okay, it's
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: a manageable position.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I want to have a baby. It's close to home.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: This is going to be my last baby.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: So it was strategic in that I thought I was
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: stepping into another administrative position. where I would be dealing
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: with the same type of tasks and activities that I
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: did in the private investigator's And boy, was I surprised.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: That is not what I walked into.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: I'm glad I did come in as that because I
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: was able to learn everything about the business. But it
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: was definitely a struggle and a challenge for me because
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what a manifest was. I didn't know
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: what a waste profile was. I didn't know what the GVW,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: the gross weight for the flatbeds and that you had
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: to have the CDL. And then it led into the
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Department of Transportation, the DOT registrations and the hazmat numbers
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: and wow. So talk about a rabbit hole that I
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: didn't know that I was getting into, but everything in
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: life has caveats, right? Is it six and a half
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: minutes away? Was I able to have the baby?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I did.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: However, although I made a lot of money and it's
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: still up here, it was one of the hardest jobs
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  Speaker 3: I've ever had in my life because it was a
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: lot to retain, know, and be responsible for unbeknownst to
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: me that I was to be responsible for it in
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: the end or towards the end as a general manager.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: So I wore every hat from the, it was 18 years.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: 10 consistently and consecutively at the same company.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I don't mean anything negative towards the company.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: I had to clarify that because there's a partner who
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: watches and doesn't like the fact that I'm sharing videos
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: about my time in the environmental industry because he thinks
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: that it's being pinpointed to him and it might be
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: making him look bad. But I'm generalizing everything. You've been
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: in the field. In the industry, you understand and know
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: what it takes.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. You and I have both been in the field,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: as you said. But environmental is such... a wide category.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And even people who have known me in the past, they're,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: they're thinking I'm out there trying to save the forest.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And that's not necessarily true. So can you tell us
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a little bit more, which specific part of environmental were
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: you working on?
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say we were glorified trash people
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: because trash people do not deal and pack and profile
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: hazardous waste. There is a scientific, uh, ability and, uh,
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: concentration and focus that has to go into all of
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: these activities. So we had clients that were in the
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: electrical provider arena. So Hawaiian Electric Company, I'll just say
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: it because everyone knows they're all related to Hawaiian Electric
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Light or HEI is the acronym. And anyhow, we would
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: do PCB testing. So they had their own labs. So
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: that would be an example of we would take their
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: reports and then determine how would we deal with that waste.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: But let's say it was an electrical contractor that we
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: had to go and test this out-of-service transformer. The reason
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: why you test the out-of-service transformer is because many of
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: them contained PCBs and you can't go with the plate
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: that's on the outside of the unit because the plate
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: could have been screwed on by someone who had dyslexia
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: for real. Like we've seen it happen. So every single
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: transformer or unit different kinds of waste. We did lab
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: packs where we had chemicals. Those are very difficult, by
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: the way. But we had the test to identify and
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: characterize the waste so that we could profile it accurately
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: so that it goes to the facility and treatment, it
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: gets treated.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Properly, right?
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Without getting into all the scientific ways like where they
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: use macroencapsulation, microencapsulation.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: But that's really what it was about.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: It was having different people in the organization that wore hats.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: And then there were some of us who had to
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: know all hats so we could guide the ship. And
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: it was a big responsibility because drums could blow up,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: people could die.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And all the things they teach you in the class
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: are not a joke. It's for real.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: It's absolutely for real. Terrorists could take over and do
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: things as well and attack, um, you know, facilities, right?
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: But you know this. And so I had to attend
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: so much training.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: I can't even begin to tell you from the 40-hour,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: the 24-hour HAZWOPER to PC Beach polychlorinated biphenyls training and
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: all the other RCRA.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: It was a lot.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: It gave you the opportunity to learn all these new
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: things that you weren't even aware of, maybe by some
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: of them. I remember myself trying to get into the industry.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I learned so many things that I never even thought about.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: So now you've gone through all of this. You learn
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: all of this. When was that defining moment that changed everything?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And now you can become one of those individuals that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: can help those industries improve their processes.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: So it took many years.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: OK, we didn't end up here overnight.
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  Speaker 2: Right. I'm 56, age 56.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: I went into the environmental industry at 35, and my
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: last experience with it was helping to do a final
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: task for one of my clients. That was in 2023, right?
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: But from 2005 until 2015, as I said, I had
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: those 10 years of consistency.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: And even in that.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Short time, it may seem short, once again, staying power
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: for an employee, it's very rare you hear people stay
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: at a company for that long.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: But there are a lot of good incentives.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: We did make very good money during the transformer and
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: copper boom, while others were suffering from the 2008.
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  Speaker 2: And it did affect that market as well, the metals market.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: But truly, it was me having to wear every hat.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: And at the time, I was a little bitter about
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: about it because I played the victim role at times
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: to myself, like, Hey, I came in as an office
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: manager and now look at all this stuff I'm doing.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And am I really being paid what I'm worth?
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: And you know, all the questions you ask yourself is
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: you become more skilled and more of an asset at
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: a company.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, you're putting out way more than others.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Not that it's a competition, but you know what you're doing.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: because you're not at home reading your son bedtime stories,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: the new baby I mentioned earlier that I had had
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: at that time. And so I had to wear every hat, Joe.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: I had to wear the office manager hat, the logistics
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: coordinator hat, the waste profile hat if somebody called in
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: sick and guide it through with the other person at
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: the waste facility, like a Veolia, like a Phillips Services, Stericycle.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: and guide myself through it because i knew i had
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: to get it done in order to get this way
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: so we could get it out of our facility and
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: make a container it's just so many things so i
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: was put in that position because um i was left
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: to my own devices to to fumble through at the
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: time i called it fumbleena but i was being strategic
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: about it right at no time was i ever costing
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: anyone's life or putting anyone's safety at stake.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: I always use the training that I learned.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: And I went to the people within the organization that
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: were there for a long time.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: And I learned a lot from.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: The operations manager who introduced me to truckers. And I
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: actually faced very challenging situations that could have taken down
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: buildings on a day they held the Honolulu Marathon. But
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: I learned that on the tires of a low boy,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: a truck, a trailer, that pulls containers and big transformers
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: that we would take out of these facilities, that if
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: you let the air out of the tires, you can
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: gain six inches. And I needed four inches of clearance,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: four inches and like a few centimeters in order not
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: to take out a bridge at a power plant that
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: was being decommissioned, a very big power plant.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And it would have been on the news and we
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: would have lost everything.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: And I felt like it was all on me because
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: it was, because the owner was out of town.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: And I did it. And I got that big.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Transformer that was massive out of a power plant. And
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: it was unbelievable, like beyond a high five. But inside
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh my goodness. Like, you know, can
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: you imagine dealing with inches and a bridge and a
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: power plant? And like things could have went horribly wrong.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: And that responsibility laid on me. And I learned quite
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: a bit. And who would have known that taking air
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: out of tires would have helped you with inches to
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: clear a bridge.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: That you had to do the job.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: That sounds like an out-of-box thinking. Can you share a
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: client success story more on the profitability side that depicts
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: really the work that you create on an ongoing basis?
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: For example, coming into a company, XYZ we'll call it,
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: and one of the first things I like to look
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: at is the collections report. What money is owed to
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: the company? Because that tells me a very big thing
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: right there. Why does it tell me something? Because if
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: I look and see many invoices past net 30, and
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: it's like in the 90, in the 61, past the
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: net 30, or maybe their terms are very loose and
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: they have 10 days to pay, 25 for this client,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: a lot of inconsistencies. It'll show right there. And then
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I look at the open invoices report. And you immediately reconcile.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: It doesn't take long to look at that. And if
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: things don't match up there, then you know something's cooking
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: in the accounting arena. And we better have a closer look.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: Why do we need to have a closer look? Because
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: invoices might have not gone out that could be in
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: the value of $ 28, 342. 28.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Just saying, right?
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: And so that is where you see the big window to,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: let's say, the soul of the company.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: That opens you up. Then what do you do?
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Then you ask for the expense report and you look
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: at it from an overview point, not looking at every
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: little line item. You look at the vendor name and
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: the amount that was spent in the last three years.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: And you're going to see, did we really need to
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: buy all these cubic yard boxes from these people? Why?
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Why do we buy all these pens and pencils and
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: When we're all mostly, where's all this stuff going? What
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: happened to the, need I go on? You will find
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: all of those things. It will lead to tools being stolen.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: I have uncovered, you would not believe what I have uncovered.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: And your next question might be, ooh, how does this
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: affect other people in the office and you coming in?
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: The poison gets naturally squeezed out. Bottom line, when you
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: have people that are not being team players regardless of
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: how long they've been. And that is why sometimes I
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: struggle getting the longer term part of the contract because
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: they don't want to offend their second in command, who's
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: sometimes the person who's not doing what maybe someone lower
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: on the totem pole would be doing as far as production.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: When you're working with these businesses, are you doing this
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: remotely or in person?
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: I like to go in person if I can. But
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: most of it nowadays, as you know, since COVID is remote.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: And that's another struggle that I find is you need
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: the pulse of the company. And so I would really
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: like it if a client could see past that and
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: know that by me coming in person, it's much more
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: impactful than just on camera. And that is something that
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: a lot of people don't understand because they're so used
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: to maybe doing things remotely, whereas you and I know
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: that didn't exist before.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: We had Skype.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: If one of our listeners starts to work with you today,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: what does that step-by-step process or framework look like?
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Essentially, I like to offer an assessment period where, I
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: hate to say proof in the pudding, but it would
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: be essentially a 30 to a 45 minute discovery call
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: that I don't charge for. And, you know, at my
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: hourly rate, I take that and I cut it down
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: so that they know the value of it and they
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: can keep it. It can write down as many notes.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: It can record me. And that would be essentially the
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: first step. Am I going to get everyone after that first?
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Probably mostly just because once again, remember now it's here.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: It's here and it's also right where it all backs
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: each other up.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: But there are.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Some owners, as I said, that look and they're like, oh,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: I'll lose half my staff. I can't do this because
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: then I'll be in a different pickle. And it's uncomfortable
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: for them. And it depends on their age group. Because
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: let's say they're on the heels of retiring. They're not
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: going to want to stir it up. before they leave
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: because that ruins their exit plan. So that may not
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: be an ideal client because they have habits and other
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: things that They just feel more comfortable and complacent with
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: and they want to retire like that, even if they
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: could 10x or whatever and clean it up before they're
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: going out the door. So really, it does depend on
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: what's going on with the owner, his personal life. Is
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: he married to the company? There's just so many variables.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: And we find that out in the beginning of the call.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: And it could lead to me coming in and doing
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: other things. I don't like to just use my cradle
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: to cash program because it isn't for everyone where I
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: come in as a fractional and I'm working with them
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: from one to six months to a year. Some people
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: might only need a little tune up. Some people might
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: need a longer term. Hey, I need you in here
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: and I do need you to fly here. And I
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: do need us to sit down and have dinner and
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: go over strategic plans. That's what I excel at, right?
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Where we were actually doing the work. But when you
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: ask about this virtual, it's been a little bit of
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: a challenge. I'll be honest, because I like to be
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: there to feel it, to look, to see people's expressions
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: in the office and to know like right off the bat,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: if I walk in, there's no food, no coffee maker,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: no ingredients to make coffee. There's your number, numeral problem
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: right there, bro or gal, whoever's running the company. All
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: your employees are at the Starbucks and buying lunch and
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: spending all your money on that time instead of keeping
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: them home in the office, here in the office, right?
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: And those things don't always happen when you do the virtual.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that you have a cradle to cash program
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: or system. Can you share a little bit more about that?
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Well, the name is a little bit of a bitten
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: off thing that I was using AI and coming up
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: with some type of trademark name that would be catchy.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: And in the environmental, I know you know this, but
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: your listeners might not, some of your listeners might not.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: But when you responsibly pack and dispose of hazardous waste,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: the term the EPA likes to use is cradle to grave.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Whether you think of it as baby cradle to grave
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  Speaker 3: to death, it's from start to finish, from soup to nuts.
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  Speaker 3: And so that's really what I'd say about cradle to
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: cash being like from a start to finish deal, but
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: not looking at it as a negative. So instead of
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: it being the death, the cradle to grave, it's cradle
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  Speaker 3: to cash, right? Cash, because you're taking it from birth
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: or reborn into this cash 10X arena that was really underneath.
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  Speaker 3: Most owners, once you uncover the sheets, I hate to
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: sound like that or use that term, but once you
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: uncover okay, or the curtain, you pull back the curtain,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: they already know even what's behind.
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  Speaker 2: And they almost need someone.
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  Speaker 3: To like be there as their cheerleader and hold their
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: hand and then they'll open the curtain.
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  Speaker 2: Does that make sense? Because they're kind of in denial. Sure.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: That seems to happen a lot.
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  Speaker 2: They know. They know Sally's on the TikTok in the
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: bathroom with her boyfriend or what. They know. They know.
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  Speaker 3: But they're like, well, I'm just going to turn my
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: head because we brought in 7.3 million last year.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: So I better just.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Shut up because, you know, she might, you know, get
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: upset and leave and take three weeks off of work.
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  Speaker 2: And then what I'm.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: All that runs through an owner's mind. I've I've seen
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: some graphic self inflicted pain from an owner who. just
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: like is so upset with himself that he can't, and
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: nervous tics. It's almost heart-wrenching because they don't want to
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: deal with the obvious.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: It really is.
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  Speaker 2: Some people won't hire.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: They won't because they don't want to know what's behind
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: the curtain, Joe.
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  Speaker 2: They don't.
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  Speaker 1: The cradle aspect of it, does that extend to, let's
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: just say, a new startup, someone who wants to get
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: into the business and can contact you for you to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: guide them in the right direction?
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Somebody just asked me that question not too long ago,
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  Speaker 3: and I'm glad that you did that because I would
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: love to work with people who are fresh, who don't
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: have the paradigms, the old habits, the I don't know
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: what's behind the curtain. I want to work with someone
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: who's hungry. Like, well, let's use an example, someone who
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: maybe inherited their father's hazardous waste disposal business. And like
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: maybe it was making a lot of money. And this
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: person comes in, he's like, no, I want to do
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: it all the right way or this way or whatever.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: That'd be great.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Or even someone like you said, a startup who hasn't
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: even begun to know what to do first, how to
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: apply for an EPA number, how to use the right
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: forms from JJ Keller, you know, how to communicate with
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: truckers and like make sure that, you know, you get
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: the best trucker. So you take the owner of the
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: trucking company out. There's just so much to do. But
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: once you get it all set up, it will work
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: in automation. I know most people don't think that, but
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I work with any contractor, not just environmental. I'll work
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: with electrical, plumbers. Everyone has similar issues that they're dealing with.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: But yes, I do have a little extra experience with
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the environmental. But they are the very ones who don't
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: want to change a lot.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a very small community, which is very interesting.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But because it is so heavily regulated, I think that's
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: where your skill really comes in because the other industries
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: are less regulated. So if you can go all the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: way to left field, where it's the most regulated and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: you can handle it there, you pretty much can just
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: make that jump much easier somewhere else. I think the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: other way around is a little bit harder. if you're
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: not accustomed to those process that you were trained in.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: I really love to teach and educate. And that's how,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: you know, I got to where I was, right? I
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: paid attention in all my classes. I actually utilized and,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: you know, I just, you have to have the practical application, right?
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: When you are trained, but it's good to train people
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: who want to know and want to scale their business
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: and get out of whatever rut it is that, and
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: it could be something simple like, I know it's not
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: about environmental, but you know, the benefits arena and all
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: that HR and payroll, it takes up too much time
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: of someone who could be utilized doing other things that
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: could support the waste profile person, for example. And then
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: you farm out all that stuff and then you get
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: a company who can give you benefits at a better rate.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: So you're offering that as like a new bonus to
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: your employees who are like, wow, we only pay this
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: now for the PPO program. There's just so many ways
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: to cut it up that we could go on forever.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Do you have any final thoughts that you want to
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: share with our listeners?
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Essentially, I would really love to come in and assist
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: small businesses and help to be the cheerleader, whether it's
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: virtually or in person, call it coaching, call it lunches
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: and learn, where the employees, not just the founder, where
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: I come in and I work with both sides, right?
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: So it's not to get rid of, like, as I
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: said earlier, just the poison. It's to make sure that
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: ensure that, let's say you have a guy named Tommy,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: and Tommy's better at driving the truck and loading waste,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: but Tommy doesn't like to be on the computer. Why
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: are you going to spend time and money to put
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: him in a position where, one, he's uncomfortable, one, he's
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: not excelling, and yes, he needs to do it, but
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: in that kind of a thing, in that kind of
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: an environmental company, it's better to put him where he's
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: more qualified so you don't put the square peg in
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: a wrong hole and have accidents occur because you flipped
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: and thought, let's put the office guy in the field
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: today because he seems smarter and he can talk to
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: this client, right?
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: So I come in as a coach. I come in
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: as an advisor.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: And if you need me to speak with employees in
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: a speaker fashion, then I have that as well. And
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: the main website would be klifedesign.com. And I have a
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: heavy presence online as Kim Kano, My author name or
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: the character, the Wise Marie series, that's another way to
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: find me.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: But I'm pretty easy to locate online.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Kim, thank you so much for sharing and for being
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: here today.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: You're welcome. Thanks, everyone, for listening. If this episode inspired you,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: make sure you share it with someone. And don't forget
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: to follow the Globalizer podcast for more conversations that make
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: an impact. Till the next time.