Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Building Trust in Business Partnerships | Travis Hall

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Building Trust in Business Partnerships | Travis Hall · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're a privately owned company.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people have a connection to that.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a been a movement for the try since COVID or coming out of COVID.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like you buy local, right?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that um like they they like the idea that gravitate to the the the the privately owned company.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, here's the owner.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I like knowing that they have access, the customer, as well as my team members, have access to me because I mean, you know, it's without without those guys calling me, I I don't have a job, right?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what you've just spoken to is exactly what we said before about working in your house is because it's privately owned and it it's your skin in the game, you care every bit as deeply as as each of these other people care to make sure it's right.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, it's it's very personal to you too.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: When talent is mission critical, call the All Red Group.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: With industry expertise, top talent, and exceptional customer service, you need the All-Red Group on your side.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Your priority is their priority.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Call now 404-890-0445.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, I interviewed Travis Hall, CEO of Alliance Elevator Solutions.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Travis discusses the concept of being first in class in business, emphasizing authenticity and aligning with the right partner.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: He shares insights on navigating industry challenges, the value of educating customers, and the significance of understanding customer needs for long-term relationships.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Travis encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to pursue their passions and highlights the supportive nature of the elevator industry.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Travis, welcome to the show.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you for having me, Matt.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm I'm excited.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about becoming first in class and the need to build on honesty and trust.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I want you to define that a little bit better for me and our listeners.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: What does first in class mean to you and how does that affect the way and you know shape your business, in other words?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think first in class for me, it's not just uh for me and the Alliance Elevator or for me personally.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it kind of goes hand in hand.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you're going to you know put a goal in front of you and you recognize what that goal is, and in the back of your mind, you kind of got you know the a process to reach that goal.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You look at that process and you're like, how can I do this?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not just to one up my competitors um or get the job done.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: You try to do it in a way that makes the most sense.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you do it from, you know, is it the most efficient way?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the most cost-effective way?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: It does it, you know, for example, like that uh customer appreciation party we had, do we have enough bang for buck?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think you just kind of look at those processes and you you line um your actions with what it takes, what it what it really means to do it the best you possibly can um based on the resources or the tools that you have available.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think you know, tying that trust and honesty into that because I, you know, we've talked earlier about how important that is.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in order to be first in class in anything that you do, you have to be trustworthy.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that in your business model, you have to make sure that you align yourself um with the right partners.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be a supplier, it can be a customer, it can be your leadership team or the team members that make up your company.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot that goes into trying to be first in class.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the first and foremost is being trustworthy and and and what you do and and how you do it and you're you're basically you back up what you say, you do what you say, you know, kind of thing.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just very basics.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, I love I like what you said.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you started off with saying not just focusing on what your customer is doing, which which kind of in my mind, I see the image of kind of not just following behind, but maybe there's I think what I'm hearing is is with that model, there's a level of of inauthenticity.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas being first in class kind of means being true to yourself and saying, hey, here's what I have to give.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do my very best at giving it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and it may or may not look like what my customer has because you know what?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: They have they may have different gifts, skills, resources, and I'm not gonna try to compare.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll give you an example of what happened recently.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fortunate enough to work with the folks from C Corps, had an opportunity to see their facility outside in the law in Italy, had an opportunity to meet their engineering team.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was blown away.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I asked them, you know, I first I came to their facility, talked to their folks about a machine.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking for a traction machine, and they took that concept, that idea, being first in class themselves, and just took it to another level.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we do this, we can use this machine, and then we use that machine, we can use this governor safety.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, from from starting in a machine, all of a sudden I had what we call an industry at group one arrangement.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was I was completely blown away.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then seeing their facility, not only are they saying these things, I'm seeing these things in my eyes.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing robots feeding machines, machines feeding robots, robots to other machines.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, oh my goodness.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that at the end of the day, going back to what I said just now, a few minutes ago, is that it's important to align yourself with the right people.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: If if you want to be first in class, you got to have in our industry, you know, on the manufacturing side, a supply chain that can be first in class.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and you brought that up a couple times, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: The the idea of aligning yourself with with the right kind of partners.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um, there were a lot of different ways that that we could build upon this because you you talked about the uh you know, you know, fake it till you make it is kind of a lie, right?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: You really need to find partners that you can work with.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Walk me through that a little bit.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and we've heard it so many times to the industry.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I died in this industry when I was 32 years old, right?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, and now I'm a lock at 47, and that I don't feel as old as I look sometimes, but or as old as I feel sometimes, kind of thing.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it's I've been doing it for a while now.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've realized is that if you're if you're new into this company and you're trying to impress and you're trying to really expand your boundaries and potentially go over that line and kind of go back to that fake to make it line, is that you're probably you're just setting yourself up to fail because this industry is so forgiving in a way.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is that that many of your customers, um, if you're a manufacturer going into this industry, um, have been where you've been.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of these, you know, you talk to this part of this enter uh this um this industry, it's a bunch of entrepreneurs.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: They've come from maybe a multinational, maybe they kind of in the industry because their father was, there was a mechanic, and now they want to do their own thing.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and they they've been the small guy.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: They've been the guy that where you are right now saying, hey, please buy this for me because I I don't know if I got enough money in my account to cover payroll.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I this industry, unlike any other industry, that idea to fake it to you make it, is just I don't recommend it at all.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you just allow yourself to open up a little bit and speak truthfully, you're gonna find out that this industry will welcome you.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if going back to what I said earlier, if you if you are trustworthy and that you are honest about your capabilities.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying to pigeonhole yourself, right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes we got to push ourselves and our customers will pull us there sometimes, and that's okay.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, is when you're working with a new prospect or a new customer, I think it's very important you're right up front on what you can and can't do, and then be honest with them, say, okay, this is what we've done in the past, but I really think my team can do this, which potentially is what this customer needs from you.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: But at that point, you're you're bringing the customer to your level and saying, hey, can we do this together?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can we partner in this?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's kind of a winded answer there, Matt, but I think it's very important to understand that this industry is very technical.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of entrepreneurs, and the last thing you want to do going into a room is say something that you shouldn't.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you talked about um, you know, with me and you know, other conversations about your own growth, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: That that when you first started, you know, you were doing the two, three, four-stop hydros, and then somebody says, Hey, I want to do, I want to do some traction stuff.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and so the idea being, well, let's partner because I don't know everything to do this, and you're you obviously don't know my end of it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: So can we do it together?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's the way you kind of portrayed that.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what you're talking about with partnering and finding the right partners and and having people you can really trust and walk together with them.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's very important.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think you hit the nail on the head there with regards to understanding uh your customer base, understanding your supply chain, and understanding that if you are trying something new, you're up front.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: But and it could be a new for for us.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I can I can only speak in my lane here from a manufacturer, either there's a new product line in the existing space, like maybe we have a redesign of a two, three-stop hydro, or we jump into, as you're saying, into a different market, which is traction, where you now you're not playing in two and three, four stops, you're playing five, six, seven, maybe up to 15 or 20.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So as long as you're up front with the customers, like, hey, there's a price point on this thing for a reason.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because quite honestly, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're okay with that, and I got enough cuffs, cough, save cost savings in my material for you to take that leap of faith in me, we'll do this thing together.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: This one might be a little ugly, but the next one and the one after that, and the one after that, I promise you will get better and better.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and it and it really helps both of you be better in the future because you've you've learned something, you've had somebody walk with you through through uncertainty, and it's not, okay.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Next time we we've got that, right?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've learned something very valuable.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think going back to, I mean, maybe I'll go back to three or four more times, depending on how this question the question and and Q ⁇ A goes, but going back to being trustworthy, you you cannot you cannot ask a customer or a supplier to take a leap of faith with you um and be a partner in quotations if they don't trust you, right?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it you know, tied to this question here, this growth of this company, which has been rat has been radical over the last five or six years.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do this?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think first and foremost to be trustworthy, and then you have these partnerships along the way to kind of keep helping you grow your company.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's great.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you talked about how you know you've seen projects fall apart.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, you know, somebody will underbid and then try to I think you use the word bully, right?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Bully somebody into kind of taking responsibility for it.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think this in part connects with what we're talking about about being able to trust people, but but tell me a little bit more about what you've seen and and maybe some of the some of the things that you can I don't know, advice for people who maybe maybe they've been sucked into that hole before, right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here the red flags.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of different things, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a in our side of the of the industry, that's a big deal.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like one, if if the bid's due tomorrow and the guy says I gotta have a number, walk away.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because um he's being pulled into a job last minute.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: That means you're pulled into the job, and and nobody wants that when they the division 14 or the specifications is 75 pages long, right?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody says, I need a number tomorrow for that kind of that kind of job, you just walk away.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: As much as it hurts, you gotta walk away.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's important to understand too with these jobs is that there's only certain people that can, and I'm talking complex jobs.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking the two-stop, three-stop hydro that somebody can get on my website and quote in in seconds.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about a job that there is truly a division 14 that you have to go through.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta have, you gotta have RFQ forms or engineering forms out to suppliers.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta look at the prints five different ways because the specs and the prints don't align.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta, you gotta, you know, you know, dive deep to get an accurate quote.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's very important to make sure you establish the rules up front with a customer.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I I I sell this to my, I tell this to my sales team all the time.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be a partner, you want to be an asset, you want to be somebody that educates.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be just a PO taker, don't be just their estimator.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like understand that this, you're in this thing together.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: They need you, you need them.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if if you I guess level up the playing field between your your customer and you as a RSM, my case is their sales guys, regional sales managers, um, they they look at you different, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh give you an example.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: We we had a job with Liberty Elevator years ago, right after Sandy, and we had to put elevators, four elevators in Ellis Island.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Very complex job, right?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the the folks at Liberty got us in very early.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were true professionals.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: They were, I mean, moral consultants to the National Park Service, more so than elevator contractors.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I I learned at that point is that it's not when you're on these complex jobs, it's not about the money.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the knowledge and the experience and the education you can share with your customer because that's worth something, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes back to what I said earlier about honesty and trust.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: They got to trust you that what you're saying, even though you're the person providing the elevator package, is the right answer.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're providing the right solution.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was blown away uh way back then, uh, and this is like I said, this is probably 2016-ish, something like that.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and relatively new to the industry, and the way uh Jaron and those guys approached that back then, um, true first in class.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you remember things like that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you remember first time being educated about how you should present yourself and present your company and present your solution.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you you mentioned that that a lot of times smaller contractors don't recognize the value they bring.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: They sometimes undervalue their knowledge.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what you're getting at is you're you have an opportunity to educate because not only is the customer kind of ignorant about what you do, a lot of times they're they're kind of scared, right?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're scared to do the wrong thing.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want to, they're they're spending a lot of money, yeah, a lot riding on it.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's got to be right.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me more about the the value that of educating customers and and especially these maybe smaller contractors.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can't stress it enough, and I'm gonna say one thing, and I'll step into that.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I can't stress it enough um for my customers to understand how valuable they are to their customer.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and really the mods um are very, very uh attractive because you get to talk typically one-on-one with a building owner or the consultant that's working directly for the building owner.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's a lot of value there, and we'll probably talk about that a little bit later on.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: But with new construction, there's a couple roadblocks, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: You got you typically got an architect, you got a GC, maybe a consultant, then the building owner.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the person, the decision maker is really, really far away.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the GC wants to make it about price, right?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guys, we're not in a commodity market.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: An elevator package is not a commodity.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: A commodity is tied to price.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're tied to a solution.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're tied to the value proposition, we're tied to true cost of ownership, right?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that an independent contractor, a contractor that owns his own business that can work a Saturday without necessarily billing the GC, or potentially they don't charge for mobilization when their competitor on bid day does, but that's in the fine print.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they don't talk about how proprietary the software packages potentially can be, and the after-market um components of that product from the multinationals can be.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not here to to to you know throw those guys on the bus.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: But well, all I'm saying is though there is a lot of value that you can bring to that general contractor.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and the seasoned contractors know this, right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they don't want to tell you that they know it because they look in that price because they get paid on buying back a job.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a big believer, folks that know me, if you want to understand how somebody thinks, understand how they're getting compensated.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So a GC, they they win the job, and how they get profit out of that job is they try to squeeze the subcontractors out of their profit so they in turn get profit, and therefore their bonus gets bigger on that particular job, right?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense, right?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: But understand that they're trying to put you in a commodity market when you're not a commodity.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you're adding all this value to your as a non-proprietary independent contractor to your proposal.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the guy you're up against, I'm gonna say maybe a multinational, right?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of our businesses and independence is that maybe it's not adding the same value, or maybe there's hidden costs that you need to potentially point out to your customer.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's truly apples to apples, right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that um educating is important.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, I tell my RSMs all the time, like you don't just meet somebody for 10 minutes and talk about the weather.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: You go in and you you sit them down, you get you buy them lunch, you buy them a dinner, maybe even a breakfast, but you get four or five people at a table and you educate them about what uh alliance elevator solutions are, and as well as what a non-proprietary uh uh material package is.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have an AIA um class that's credited class.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's how strongly I feel about like we have, we as a manufacturer on this side, as you as any bit of contractor, we have value that just needs to be presented to the uh the decision maker.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so talk to me just a little bit about that.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is something I've heard, you know, and obviously I'm not out there building elevators, but um just wanted to see if you could comment on this.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm told that that developers in particular are kind of always pushing for you know the lowest dollar, right?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because they don't they don't care so much what happens after they walk away.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas, you know, a university, a hospital, you know, government, what they're gonna live with it.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's a kind of a different of approach.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Huge.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: A different, completely different customer base.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh quite honest, we we don't even go after the developer, even though they have, you know, if you look at per capita, they probably uh have a need for more elevator packages than anybody because of the nature of their business, the building and selling, building and selling.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's not really you don't get the value of a non-proprietary elevator.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let give you an example.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: For example, you know, just kind of give you in a ballpark uh idea more so than an example, is that if you buy a brand new vehicle, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: How many times does that go back to the shop in the first year or two?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: It really doesn't.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And elevator packages are very similar.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get the quirks, if you will, figure it out, and when you get them on running, you run on full speed, after the first couple of weeks, I mean, the thing is gonna run smooth with very little maintenance, right?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Even we're all about maintenance this side of the industry.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say don't do maintenance, but you got to do maintenance, but you really don't do have to do a lot of maintenance, just like you don't have to do a lot of maintenance with a new car.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so at the end of the day, if you're if you're swapping your car out, say you're leasing, this may be a better example.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're leasing a car every two years.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you really care if you change the oil?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're gonna get rid of that car in two years.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So who cares who has to deal with the uh the problems that you're causing in 10, 20, 50,000 miles from now, right?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you don't care.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're buying that vehicle and the vehicle is, hey, I'm gonna have this vehicle for 10 years, you're gonna want to maintain that vehicle a little bit different than a person flipping a car every two years.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of difference in my mind between the developer and somebody that owns their their own building.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: The developer is flipping the properties.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, typically the developer is trying to sell as the building's coming out of the ground, as the pylons are being poured, he's trying really, really hard to sell that property off, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's his job.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's trying to get full capacity or uh occupancy, maybe it's 80%, 90%.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a big there, there's a number there that he has to hit before he gets out of that building.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Out of that really investment.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is, a building investment uh for him.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So he's trying to flip that investment.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So he's just looking for the elevator to go up and down and work for a year or two.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And after that, he may tell the person that's buying the property, I really care about my elevator.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: But on the other side of his mouth, he's like, I don't really care about that elevator, right?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm not speaking for all developers, I'm just saying from my experience.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, in a hospital or institute or even a person that owns their portfolio of properties, they want a pro uh an elevator that goes in at a competitive price, but is competitively uh priced when it comes more importantly on a service and maintenance.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: They want the parts to be lower, they want the service to be lower, they want the monthly fee for the maintenance to be lower.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where this independent contractor, non-proprietary um component comes into play.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they're very, very valuable there.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of the total cost of ownership is what I'm hearing, right?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: It might absolutely cost you a little bit more up front, but if it costs you a lot less over 20, 30 years, then then you're far ahead, unless you're you're the one kind of checking out after year two.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, so it's a short term versus long term.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: A good point, Matt.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it is this one thing I try to get my RSMs to to to talk to and to ask uh from their their customers is that um, yeah, because it that's a feedback sometimes, oh guys, you're just not competitive.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the multinationals, they they're going 30, 40 percent less.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can't touch it.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, who who is asking you for the Quote and what does that project look like?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: What's that building?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Who owns that building?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dig deep into why we are not competitive, right?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like, yeah, this this developer is new in town, he's just looking for the best.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, stop fishing there.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, cut bait and let's go to the next fishing hole because that is not where you're spending your time.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: You got to spend your time on that university, or you got, as I said before, that maybe that hospital or the and there's if you know your industry and your region well enough, you know that there's certain architects that do certain things, right?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some architects are really good at K through 12, some do office space, class A office space, some do, you know, the multi-built multi-purpose, um, multi-use buildings.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you you want to align yourself with people that have a need for your value proposition, not just a need for an elevator.
• 22:46
  unknown: Right.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's a good point.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you're speaking to long-term relationships along with you know the long-term investment, right?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Get to know your customer, get to know what it is they're doing, whether it's an architect or a hospital or a university or um all of that.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think this is this is tying into one of the next questions I had was just what what would you say is your process for helping contractors as as they're looking at maybe some of these complex jobs, uh, you know, maybe it's VA, maybe it's a hospital, university, whatever, um, in in evaluating risk versus reward and and making the right call.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know we talked about that before, but just curious what your thoughts are.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's um that's a that's a big question, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a lot of different parts that are connected to servicing a that kind of customer.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gotta be all in, right?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So giving this uh like we play around with the VA, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the VA has a unique specification.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, everything about the VA is a little bit different than your traditional, say a VA hospital can really speak into just uh you know the the neighboring hospital, the commercial hospital.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, like you got to understand their specifications.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: You got to understand when the VA pays the contractor, you gotta understand what they're looking for through the walkthrough.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: You got to understand that they, you know, go back to that specifications, they want a 12, well, we'll sell 12 gauge, and I'm making this up, but a 12 gauge panel on their wall instead of a 14.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they want 12 on their ceiling instead of a 14.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you provide, if you don't if you don't go all in and understand that specification, you don't understand how they get paid, you understand what they want in the walkthrough and how they actually inspect the elevator, is that you're gonna invest a lot of time, a lot of money, pull your partner suppliers in, and it might be for a complete bust.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're doing a 14-car mod and you've never done a mod before with a VA, but you win the job and you provide 14 cars with the wrong gauge steel on the cab, that could be a big deal, right?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for me is that you have to really understand one, are do you deserve to be at the table?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you deserve to quote this thing?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's got to be a head, you gotta your head's gotta be right for it.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have the funding for it?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Can you because you do you have the tooling?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have the people that are you built for this?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then what is my goal?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is it just this 14-car mod?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it do I want that VA hospital and the outreach centers and everything that is connected to this particular owner?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want them over under service and maintenance?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I do that?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you're in with these types of accounts, a complex job or a complex account, you're in.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to what I said earlier before, you are the solution provider.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're the trust advisor on their team saying, Hey, uh, what do you think we should do here?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're in like that, like it's not a price game.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's can you provide the the solution they're looking for?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because they're gonna have challenges.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing easy about a complex job, and we're just we're kind of picking on the VA right now, but I don't care if it's NAFAC or it's a large university or it's you know XYZ.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't um you you gotta get in there, you gotta understand what you're doing, you gotta understand your you gotta be it's gotta be a strategic um initiative to go after that particular account.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I and I appreciate the way you just kind of talk through that, right?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding what you're after.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, yeah, there's here's the reward, but but here are the risks.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and like I say, complexity is is part of that.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And part of it is just looking at the future.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and do you have the the means to provide it, right?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you're after the service but you you don't have a big enough team, well, you you're gonna have to address that, for example.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can't I can't tell you how critical that first job is.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, no pressure, right?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: But how critical doing it right the first time is because you're under so many spotlights because you're the new guy, and it's like a make or break it time in your company.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, say you're trying to level up, you're maybe going from a four or five million dollar company, you're trying to get to the$10 million company, and you think this particular account's gonna change that for you or gonna get you to that level.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, all hands on deck, man.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's you even talk to your spouse, your loved one, your partner.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, listen, this is what I'm doing.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are you good with it?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm tied up for six months.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I promise you, after this, we're going to the Bahamas for vacation, right?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's gotta be that little that little cherry at the end of this thing for for most people.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: So and that brings up another uh interesting question, which is you know, you've talked about how uh you know, not not every customer of yours do you really invest in in building and developing that relationship.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some don't need it, maybe some do.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: But but talk to me a little bit about how, you know, like you say, a lot riding on it.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe I'm a smaller contractor and I call you up, hey, I really need to get this right.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: From your configurator to your engineering expertise, you know, you talked a little bit about helping customers avoid some of those pitfalls.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to me a little bit about what does that look like?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, great question.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think that um it always starts with the leadership team, right?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: When you talk about strategic accounts and strategic partnerships and having that trust, like there's there's folks, you know, we have hundreds of customers now, and and many of them just get on our configure, quote the project, two, three, four, stop hydro attraction, or even mod now.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know anything about them, right?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we provided a solution to a need at that at that very level, and it works for us and it works for them.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: But it uh and we love those guys, by the way.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: But then there is the other accounts, and I won't name them, but there's some accounts that really focus on on um modernization.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's accounts that focus on uh transit work, and there's accounts that focus on um you know large university projects.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got we got guys down at Texas Tech and we got guys in in um well, universities all over the country that focus on that university.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: So when a job comes up and they're the guy that's in on that university, it's uh going back to what I said earlier, it's a hands on deck for Alliance elevators.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, man, this is his baby, this is their account, and we got to take care of this with them.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, you get in early, you talk through the specifications, you know.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be me flying down and talking to the consultant or architect, and a lot of these figure accounts have on staff folks that are advising them.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they want uh I'll give you an example though.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have a lot of elevators down there, is uh Virginia Tech.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Virginia Tech, if you've ever been to their campus, they have if that the exterior, the campus is gorgeous, by the way.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: My son goes there.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was totally I was just blown away with their campus when I first time seen it.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Is that they have so that all the buildings kind of look the same, they feel the same.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't know if that building was built back in the 50s or 60s or if it was built yesterday because they keep the feel uh and the exterior of the buildings very, very similar.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: They have a specification for their buildings that the contractors have been uh being uh tied to for the last probably 50, 60 years.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same, you know.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: So these guys are entrenched into keeping their baby, their university.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you, you know, elevator use um is a big deal, right?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Every you know, and we we've been uh I've been speaking down there for years, and and what I noticed about these guys are just like we're very I'm very proud of my son going to Virginia Czech.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very proud of being you know, graduating from Penn State.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: These guys are very, very proud of the schools that they work for.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: They are they they come like it's almost like their uniform is a polo that has the Penn State line on it or the Alabama A.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like like these guys are really proud of that.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you go into that environment, you gotta understand that these guys are very they they're very proud of what they do and they cross every T dot every I because it feels like it's their house.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like you're coming in and doing some some work in their house, not where they work, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like most of us, right?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's right there they they feel this connection to it, and you got to respect that.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I'm what I'm saying is that with these these high-end accounts, these strategic accounts, and they're and it might be any given company might only have maybe it's 15%, maybe it's 10, maybe it's 20% of your clientele where you have this deep connection to, you have this trust with them that they understand their client, you understand their client, and you're truly there to create a solution for both of them.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, obviously you're, you know, like I say, it's a deeply personal connection.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's skin in the game.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's when you're in their house, it's kind of like, hey, you know, this is my chair or my carpet, or you know, you know, you don't want to mess that up.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it obviously you, you as a company, Alliance Elevator, are also taking taking the ownership that, hey, I recognize the the pressure you're under.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're here for you.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: We want to make sure we get this right, so you get this right, so they get this right.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's something to be said um because I think because the industry is moving the way it is, and I'll just kind of throw it in where I think where some of the success has been, is that we're a privately owned company.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have private equity, we're not we're not traded.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people have a connection to that.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think people there is, you know, there's a been a movement for the try since COVID or coming out of COVID, like you buy local, right?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that these large complex uh type projects or these universities, hospitals, they they they like the idea that gravitate to the the the um you know the the privately owned company and oh here's the owner, even if I have a solution now halftime I don't have a solution.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: But they like to see that um either the RSM, which is my can get can get me on their phone in a matter of seconds, or I'll fly down and take a look um at the situation they have.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and they like knowing that they have access, the customer as well as my team members have access to me because I mean, you know, that's without without those guys calling me, I I don't have a job, right?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what you've just spoken to is exactly what we said before about working in your house is because it's privately owned and it it's your skin in the game, you care every bit as deeply as as each of these other people care to to make sure it's right.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, it's it's very personal to you too.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you, I learned it from the best.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, um, you know, uh Pete Meeks is a partner of mine, and um that that guy takes everything he does to heart, like every connection, every relationship, every job, um, every team member.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how many hundreds that he has now, but I learned from him how to do that, how to make that connection and how how to value uh people on both sides, supplier and customer.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: So very fortunate to have a partner like Dan that taught me that taught me that years ago.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: We'll probably make this toward toward the end of the of the conversation, but let's talk a little bit about, you know, we mentioned the online configurator, which I think is awesome, but you've also told me you're doing like a I I forget exactly what you said, but some kind of AI rollout, right?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Your your AI implementation, integration, something.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me more about that.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I think over the last year, I think AI has developed and bloomed and blossomed to the everyday folk like myself, right?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the guys that watch tech and understand it's probably been like, hey Travis, it's been around for five years, man.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I did not know that until I got introduced to this thing called Chat GBT.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And once I did, it was like it was like a video game.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I just I got I went bonkers, right?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody I was talking to, I read as much as I could.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think I shared with you today, AI Driven Leader by Jeff Woods.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing book, right?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing, buy it, read it, buy it, do it twice, three times.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's how good that book is.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: What I realized is is that um, you know, AI has changed so just like the internet back in the 1990s, early 2000s, and I I guess I'm I'm gonna go on record saying that I think it's bigger than that.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think AI, in my generation, in my career, I think AI is the biggest thing that hit me and my people like me.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what I realized very early on with AI is like this thing is mind shifting in a way, and that I need to understand it to the depth that it is, right?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: As much as I can process in my little mind, I need to understand this.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that more I read, I realized that AI is not necessarily gonna replace people.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna replace people that don't understand AI, right?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know AI, it will replace you, I promise you.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, like that's I guess, I guess that's my little quote of today.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I think that um what we're doing in our company is you know, elevator industry, my configurators and all that seem like state of the art for our industry, but they've been around for a long time in other industries.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important as leaders, and I don't care if you're an independent contractor, a multinational, or or a manufacturer on our side, is that you gotta look outside of our industry from time to time and pull in um processes, pull in tech, pull in people that make sense for the other, right?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, so I think when it comes to AI is what we're doing is is yeah, we have AI script that checks our quotes now.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've we've had that um for for some time now.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then once we realized that how AI could work, it's like, why don't we just like let's just bring it through our company?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we um we vetted out uh an AI consultant, and um we're using it just bits and pieces throughout the organization, nothing crazy.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like we're going, uh AI is gonna answer every email out of Alliance Elevator.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the case.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe at some point, and that's not the case right now.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, it's making sure that my engineers understand what's required from them.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like kind of the matching game.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the specification, here's our print.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do they match?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we we have reviews, engineering reviews that take hours to make sure that's right now.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: What if AI could assist us there?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right, not do it for us, but assist us.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: What if AI could fill out an RFQ form for a supplier on one of those complex jobs, right?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you like AI is not a strategy, it's a tool.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have a strategy as a company, you build your strategy, you have off-site off-site session, you get your leadership all involved, you start marching, and then you pull in AI to help you on that march, right?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think some people kind of get that confused, they are they they want to go gung-ho all AI.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: AI should never be the strategy, it should be the tool, in my opinion.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know expert.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: How how would you say it's maybe changing the way that you're you're operating as a business?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I I wouldn't say it's there yet.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure we're on, you know, we've had a number of meetings.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have a leadership execution team.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: We call it Elevate AI as the team.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're trying to do is figure out where it makes sense now without just because you got to trust it, right?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And AI has to learn.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't just throw it into a big world problem without, you know, it's like you can't let it run without it crawling.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it can hallucinate, right?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you don't you don't want to hallucinating anything to be running your own business.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you can't.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and then you gotta understand too, like, let's go back and understand different subscriptions and different software and what does it mean?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are you just feeding the AI, the open AI?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're doing?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, you better not.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: You better have the teams membership or the enterprise membership.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you gotta be just don't start throwing stuff on chat GP, especially like the personal or free.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: All you're doing is feeding your competition, you're feeding your uh competitors potentially very valuable information indirectly.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it just becomes part of the algorithm and and guess it's out there for anybody to pick up.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's I we we have some things cooking, but I can't share that with you quite yet.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's all good.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's all good.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: So um you have uh, you know, in in regards to AI and technology, and you know, it's all I mean, just personal confession, right?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I want it all right now, right?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's so hard to wait, to develop, to grow, to learn.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And yet um you had said something I think it was interesting.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, focus on flying the airplane airplane first, communicate second.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: And in other words, run your business first, technology second is the way you are you kind of applied that.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you balance that in your own company?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think that it's important and where that came from, that comment is that you know, I was I was a private, I was an Air Force pilot, not in the Air Force, but they they taught me how to fly.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I got very as a young, I was you know, 19 years old flying an airplane, my and we were going into our first large airport, and um, and I'm getting all bothered.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting, I got everybody's trying to communicate to me.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't know what to say.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know where I'm at at this point, right?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if anybody's been a pilot in a small airplane and behind the airplane, uh that's what I was, I was behind the airplane, and like people, some people understand that, that's listening today.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and my and like I started like coming off my approach plan, I was flustered.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And my my instructor says something very common.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, Travis, fly the airplane, communicate second.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I that was when I was 19 years old, and I'm 47 now, and I use that to my team probably weekly.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, focus on our goals, all right, focus on what's important.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: We spend a lot of time and effort building a strategic plan every year, and we develop things like EOS to discipline ourselves on that strategic journey.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to make sure going to IBSA, like all this shiny stuff that comes into play, if it doesn't fit the plan, if it doesn't fit the discipline of the EOS, um, then it you just gotta let it kind of sit there.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if it keeps sitting there, you kind of like you gotta at some point like communicating with an airplane with eight, you know, ground or air track patrol, you gotta talk to it eventually, right?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when the time is right, you look at it and you're like, you know what?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's time, it's time to look at that, it's time to figure out does this make sense to incorporate in the plan this year, or should I table that for next year?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do we find can do we have the resource for it?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's just like anything, you know, like the smart goal.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: You got you guys, you know, it's you gotta measure it, you got all the, you know, yeah, you read the book.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, is that um I don't I that's what I guess to answer your question, that's what I do.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: I made sure that I was gonna ask you if you have a formal process to kind of re-revisit, re-look, because it it's it's so easy in in my world.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like I say, I want it all, and then sometimes I can't have it.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I'm just gonna forget about it because I don't maybe don't have the discipline to to nibble away at it.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and I did a lot wrong before I got it right.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you that, man.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: First year is uh my I Andrew Yagov is my uh operations manager, and he started as a draft draftsman and worked his way up, probably one of the smartest guys I know, the smartest guy I know in this industry.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Love the guy to death.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um he's like, Travis, we can't we can't keep doing this.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like my engineering team's flipping out here because this week you want this and next month you want that.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's just my personality.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a high-energy guy, and and um and then he's the guy that kind of sat me like, all right, let's do this step by step.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he's a no no-frills kind of guy.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: I you know, him and I are like oil and water, but we balance like a yin and yang.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to Well you yeah, it sounds like you're the visionary and he's the the integrator, you want it all right now, and he's like, Yeah, stop process.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we yeah, we we created this, we we were developing this EOS process.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: And for those that don't know what EOS is, read what the heck is EOS and then traction.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're two great books about EOS.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you you got a company more than five or eight employees, I highly encourage using different disciplines in EOS because it can really make you accountable and keep you on your vision but and on your goals.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that um that's what he does for me, right?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: He keeps me tied, keeps me just just like before we actually had the measurable of EOS and the discipline EOS, he was that guy that did that for me.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think it's important that everybody has that, right?
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you agree, if you are a visionary, everybody works in different ways.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have mechanics that are phenomenal mechanics and kind of poor businessmen.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a great mechanic and you don't like looking at a computer screen, find somebody that loves looking at a computer screen and hates being a mechanic because you need that balance in your business.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the sooner that you can get out of stuff that you don't like to do or potentially your weaknesses, the quicker you can excel at your strengths, right?
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the uh so the third book that that came to mind is Rocket Fuel, right?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the same, yeah, same authors, right?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like you need you need that combination and to kind of ignite each other's gifts.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if you you don't have it, you're you're off maybe in la la land dreaming too much versus the other person's that's a little too structured to to actually move move upwards.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's uh I think there's you know, the there's there's so many people out there, there's thousands of great ideas every day.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, as Americans, we're very uh creative folk.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have the ability to act upon an idea and start a business, right?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's more entrepreneurs in the United States than anywhere else.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, is that not every idea is a great idea today, right?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you really gotta understand and disagree.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: discipline yourself if you're somebody like uh you know visionary or big picture guy kind of like myself.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah that's beautiful.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um as we wrap up today um what else is near and dear to your heart that maybe you want to get out to the to our audience of of listeners?
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I would close by saying like being an entrepreneur, starting your own business, doing your own thing, there's nothing like it, right?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's absolutely nothing like it.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you'll I have this saying that my the family members uh know me, uh have heard it a few times, you only live once.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you if you got some passion inside you and try it.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you fail at least you did it right at least you can say I tried didn't work out now I'm back because the way the market is right now, even if you try for six months, a year, a year and a half, um, you're gonna get a job.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: It just if you have any kind of skill, the skill that you think you have to start your own business is still marketable six months, eight months, nine months, a year from now.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's definitely ways that you want to side hustle it first you but you you have to think through it and there's there's ways to do it.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm a big believer if you got a passion for something um and if you work hard you don't have to be the smartest guy in the room.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: I want to stress that and it's never going to be perfect.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know you're gonna you're gonna make mistakes along the way and you're gonna figure it out along the way.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that if you want it bad enough, I think it's possible.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and I guess with that being said is make sure if you're in a relationship make sure they know about it.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure they know how important it is because when you start your business man there's everybody yelling at you.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if it's a customer a an uh employee the bank whatever it is they're gonna be yelling at you all day right and when you come home you can't get more of that because you just there's only so much that can fill in the bottle right I think it's brilliant.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah so I I'm not sure if that's how you want it to close it but I I I love those that start their own business and and and fuel their their passion for something I support it 110% um and I feel that that on the flip side of that you got to have it's all in when you do when you start a business man it's your family's involved you're involved yeah like you just got to know that going into it but I can tell you in my personal opinion is 100% worth it.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely no I love that and and honestly that's one of the biggest things I love about these interviews about doing the podcast is is not only do I believe the elevator industry is is kind of the the perfect microcosm to go start your own business, right?
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I mean there's just so many different avenues of you know you think of a new idea and boom boom boom you know you've you've learned the basics but I also really feel like it's at the heart soul core of of the American dream right I I don't believe for a second that the pilgrim sailed over here to work at some big fat company and be or or be a bureaucrat.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was like no they wanted their own thing that it's not about owning a home it's about being your own boss that is the American dream in my opinion.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this industry welcomes it before the elevators like I was you know military then I was heavy equipment like hey starting your own business heavy equipment good luck you know but this this industry welcomes the NAC is a big like they promote it they welcome you that they bring you together that it's like I can't speak enough about the NAC and what they do for somebody just starting out and I'm gonna try and do a plug here I'm saying if you're young in in this industry when I say young mean just starting out and I don't care if you're 60 years old or 18, get into the NAC because they will help you get you in front of people that like guys like me, guys like Matt, guys that that have done it before that and all we want to do is help man we we just we do yeah that's that's perfect.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you Travis for being with me today it's been a lot of fun and I wish you the very best as you continue to to build the business.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: You too Matt I appreciate it thank you for having me thank you thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast sponsored by the Allred group a leader in elevator industry recruiting please visit our YouTube channel at elevator careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net please like and subscribe and until next time stay safe