Show Information
Episode Number: 81
Date: March 31, 2025
Duration: 35:50
Host Contact Information
Host: Justin Deese
Website: JustinDeese.com
Contact: Justin@JustinDeese.com
Guest Contact Information
Guest: Levi Torres
Contact: levi@high5plumbing.com
Website: High5Plumbing.com
Workshop Information
Website: PowerProfitWorkshop.com
Summary
In this insightful episode of the Freedom Blueprint Podcast, host Justin Deese converses with Levi Torres about cultivating a robust team geared towards sustainable business growth. They dive deep into the essence of having a compelling vision, a clear path to success, and the pivotal importance of continuous support for team members. Levi Torres shares his journey and experiences in the HVAC and electrical industries, demonstrating how tools like vision boards and regular check-ins can harmonize personal aspirations with business objectives. This episode is a must-listen for leaders aiming to empower their teams and foster a thriving company culture.
Key Takeaways
– Memberships play a crucial role in business growth.
– A clear vision is fundamental for achieving success.
– Implementation of ideas is key to real growth.
– Vision boards are instrumental in creating clarity and focus.
– A defined path is required to achieve business goals.
– Continuous support is essential for team development.
– Empowering employees can lead to unexpected growth.
– Leadership should be in sync with team members’ visions.
– Success should be assessed against personal milestones.
– A positive company culture serves as a growth catalyst.
Chapters
– 00:00 Introduction and Business Updates
– 03:00 Building a Team for Growth
– 05:59 The Importance of Vision
– 09:09 Creating a Path to Success
– 12:06 Supporting Team Members’ Goals
– 14:57 Empowering Employees for Future Success
– 18:50 Creating Clarity Through Vision Boards
– 22:33 The Power of Accountability in Leadership
– 27:07 Aligning Personal and Business Visions
– 30:25 Growth Through Vision and Opportunity
– 34:21 The Importance of Vision for Success
Keywords
#business growth #team building #vision board #leadership #employee empowerment #HVAC #electrical #sustainable growth #company culture #success measurement #Entrepreneurship #Partnerships #HomeServices #Purpose #Goals #challenges #JustinDeese #visionaryleadership #empowerment #FreedomBlueprintPODCAST #freedomblueprint
Thank you for tuning in to today’s insightful episode. Don’t forget to subscribe to get notified of future episodes. Share this with fellow leaders who can benefit from mastering the art of building a vision-driven team. Until next time, keep setting those visionary goals and watch your business and leadership transform. This is Justin Deese, signing off from the Freedom Blueprint Podcast. Stay motivated, keep focused on your vision, and as always, keep CRUSHING IT.
Transcript
Justin Deese (00:00) Welcome back to another episode of freedom blueprint podcast. And we have got Levi coming and hanging out with us today. Levi, what is up my man? Levi Torres (00:10) How's it going, Justin, man? Thanks for having me back on. Justin Deese (00:12) Shoot. Yeah. So, um, Levi was on episode 60, uh, which if you haven't checked that episode out, definitely go check it out. We talked about, all do we talk about, man? We talked about your journey. We talked about you launching electrical. And we talked about really how you were launching really HVAC and electrical. You kind of launched at the same time and about how you leveraged your club memberships to really make that happen. Before we dive into what we want to talk about today though, give us an update on that. Levi Torres (00:45) Yeah, so it was great. You know, we're coming up to the one year mark on our HVAC division. And we're going to do in our first year in HVAC, we're going to do just about 3.2 million. And so far, Electrical, we're on pace to do about 1.5 million our first year in Electrical. But Electrical is only seven months old. And they're both just humming. We're getting into busy season now for both of them. Justin Deese (00:56) Nice. Levi Torres (01:12) coming up out of the shoulder season for HVAC. And so we're in growth mode again where we're starting to interview a bunch of people. A lot of people coming in and out the door for interviews because we're hoping to add seven to eight technicians over the summer. Justin Deese (01:26) man, that's fantastic. That's, that's so great. And, and I think it's just a reminder of how important memberships are. They are so important and it is really, that's your raving fans. That's where they live. That's where they hang out and whatever you decide to do, if it's generators or I don't know, a ski resort lesson, whatever it is, those people are going to be excited to work with, with you guys. So, so yeah, Levi's from high five plumbing. Levi Torres (01:51) Yeah, memberships are huge. Like I said, you know, I feel Sorry, go ahead. Justin Deese (01:59) No, we got it's it's glitching a little bit. I'll go back and edit that out. Levi Torres (02:04) Cool. Yeah, I was just saying that memberships are massive, right? Because regardless if you only have one trade, regardless of what you offer in your business, it's very important to try to figure out how to offer a membership, right? And that's something you taught me when we first started working together back 2017 was it's vital. It's so vital for the value of your company to have a membership base. And so we really did put a lot of focus in it ever since then. Yeah, I remember talking to you back in the day and I was evaluating a company I was thinking about acquiring and they told you the first thing you told me to ask them was how many club members do they have? And I was like, I don't think they have a club membership. And you're like, well, that's they don't have any real loyal people then, right? They don't have anybody who you can go lean on. Justin Deese (02:50) Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the thing. A lot of times, even if you have a club, on how you do it, it's also a reoccurring revenue, but we could go down that rabbit hole, but we don't want to. I wanted you to come on here. mean, I do, you know, me, I can, we can just rattle it off for the whole day. but what I wanted the conversation I wanted you and I to have. Levi Torres (03:00) Right? Ha Justin Deese (03:11) Is, is around, you know, there's, there's a lot of shifts happening right now. And there's a lot of talks about the tariffs that are coming up and there's, know, coming out of shoulder season, like there's so many things, that are coming down the pipeline. But what I wanted to talk to Levi about was building your team for growth because there's so much that goes into that. And I think that it's a lot of little things that turn into big things. And I really just wanted to kind of dive into you with you a little bit because Really? You had a journey of absolute amazing, sustainable growth. Like there's a lot of people that, you know, they go, I did a trillion dollars in five minutes. Well, that's great. Is that sustainable? And I think, what you and Cassie have done is, been able to create something that is a, that well, it's scalable cause you've done it, and be a sustainable and it's continuing to flow. So let's dive into that a little bit. So let's talk a little bit about how do you prepare your team? for growth. Levi Torres (04:12) Yeah, mean, know, it's crazy. You know, I've been running Hi5 Plumbing since 2012. And you go to a lot of business conferences and a lot of things, And you meet some people and they're the same size every year, right? But yet the words they're saying is that they want to get bigger, right? The way they're talking is that they want to get bigger, but yet they don't get bigger. And so I was very interested in that, right? It was really interesting to me to wonder how... me and other people can be sitting in the same conferences getting the same information and yet one is growing and one's not, right? And so I really started to kind of look back and see like, and there is, there's just certain things that you have to set your team up for to be able to handle growth, right? To be able to understand that with growth is gonna be a ton of change, right? And that's where a lot of businesses I believe struggle is they don't... They hide change, they shy away from change, they don't talk about change. So then when you do start to change stuff, a lot of the time your team feels like it's because something is going wrong. And so, and that's not always the case, right? You're changing to get better, you're not changing because something's wrong, you're just changing to get better. And so I think that that's a huge part of it, right? Is you gotta be able to teach your team about change, but in order for your team to handle change, there's gotta be some certain foundation things. Justin Deese (05:07) Right. Levi Torres (05:36) that are put in place in order for them to understand that the change isn't because of bad things, it's because of good things. So yeah, that's really what we did. We had our kind of foundation things that we worked on. We kind of have three foundation things that we really believe you have to have in place to be able to continue with growth. And so yeah, the first of those three things is vision, right? Like as a company, you have to have a vision. And you have to be able to... Justin Deese (05:59) Mm-hmm. Levi Torres (06:05) create a vision for your team on how working for you and the changes you're implementing are only going to make their life better. So vision is huge. Hi-Fi Plumbing does vision boards every year with us and our team. Hi-Fi Plumbing as a company makes a vision board, and then everybody personally makes a vision board. And it's not a dream board. There's a difference. There's a difference between a dream board and a vision board. A dream board is just cool shit that I want someday. Justin Deese (06:26) Right. Levi Torres (06:33) But a vision board is things that you think you can hit in the next one to three years, and then you put steps with it, right? You put actual things that I can accomplish to get those visions to become a reality. And when you put that time and energy into your team, they know that these changes that I'm making is only to help the vision for the business and for you to become truth, right? So vision is the first one. I think it's one of the ones that I believe Justin Deese (06:50) They know that like these changes that I'm making is only to help the business and for you to become true. So vision is the first one. think it's one of the ones that I believe a lot of the founders and owners of businesses may have vision, but they struggle with getting their team to understand the daily add-in. Yeah. So, so as you're, as you're the story about the conferences, it made me, it made me remember as a kid. Levi Torres (07:03) A lot of the founders and owners of businesses may have vision, but they struggle with getting their team to understand that they need to have a vision as well. Justin Deese (07:20) I had a pretty amazing coach and my coach used to tell us he would say, you should wish in one hand and poop in the other. And let me know which one fills up fastest. and, and I think that's, I don't know why that just came back to me, but it did. And here we are talking about pooping hands, but I, but I think that, I think, okay. So you and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. Levi Torres (07:29) Yeah you You Justin Deese (07:49) And I, and I asked you this question and I want to ask it now, cause I think it's important and it ties back to what you just said is I said, Levi, with, with what all you've got going on and all the growth and knowing that you've gotten the same information that lot of other people have, what do you feel like is your superpower? Levi Torres (08:07) Yep. And the answer was implementation. Justin Deese (08:11) Implement or baby like you can take all the information out there. If you don't apply it, it's worthless. But, but I think that you're like just such a perfect example of somebody who takes the information and then applies it. And then from that there's been massive growth, from your business, which leads to massive growth and your personal life. Like there's so many, there's so many good things to it, but I, I, want, I just wanted to tell that story because I think that. That's the big, that is your big superpower is that you're not searching for a silver bullet. You're taking the information and you're implementing it. And I think that's a step that a lot of people miss. Now, one other thing I wanted to say as far as growth, and I want to dig into that a lot deeper when it comes to your team, but vision is like one of those things to me that is so near and dear to my heart. and I think it's, and part of it's because I've seen how it's affected my life. And if you're listening to this or watching this on YouTube, if you don't do a vision board, I'm telling you, you are leaving money. You're leaving happiness. You're leaving all these things on the table. Is silly as it sounds. Put it on a board and watch what happens. Levi Torres (09:28) Yeah, and it creates clarity. Like that's the, like, you know, there's been stuff I've put on my vision boards that I thought I wanted. And then halfway through the year, I realized like, well, maybe that isn't something because, because I'm not, it's not bringing me joy. It's not taking me in the path I want. And, and that's why I love vision because you can change your vision, right? It's not like you have to be upset with yourself because your vision changes. It's really just like a guidelines. It's, it's a path. Right? And that's the second thing that we focus on a lot is path, right? Like if you create a vision, you have to create the path, right? On how to make it become true because a lot of people can vision and dream of the things they want, right? But if there's not a set path that's going to show them success and show them that this is possible, then vision is worthless, right? Like you got to follow up vision with a path, a sustainable, obtainable Justin Deese (10:10) Yeah. Levi Torres (10:24) path to success, right? And that's the second part of the foundation that we believe is the path, right? You have to show them the path, right? You can't just tell them there is one. You have to be able to show them by you creating your vision board as the leader of the company and you checking your stuff off your vision board, right? That's showing them that, hey, no, no, no. See, like if you put this stuff down and you put the work in, it's possible. You can do it. And so you have to be able to show them the path. Justin Deese (10:51) Leading by example, I feel like is not a term used as much as it used to be, but I think that's a perfect example of it is lead by example. Don't ask your people to do stuff that you wouldn't do. I think that should be really leadership 101, which to be honest with you is why I never had a 24 seven. business because I'm not going to somebody's house at two o'clock and I'm just not doing it. So I would never ask my people to do it. Right. So I think it's a, it's a good example of leading by example. So if you want them to do something, you got to lead them and think about the power. For those of you listening, think about the power of what Levi just said. So you have a vision board and your T and this is not just, remember when I did my first vision board and it was all about like, Levi Torres (11:13) You Justin Deese (11:38) Lambos, like it was all this stuff, right? And then as you get older and you start having kids, like your, your life shifts. And so when, so for Christmas this year, we, did a vision board with, with the kids and, there was really no stuff. Like there was no stuff on it. It was all about feeling and experience and things we do together. And, and like you said earlier, you can take things off your, your board. I think what's important about that. Levi Torres (11:39) Yep. Justin Deese (12:06) is that if you're looking at the vision board and you're like, I'm going to take this off, there's just that slight intentionality of. I really don't want that, so now I have to take it off board is as minor as it is. You're like, well, I'm just going to take this off now. You're like, OK, yeah, I'm OK with not doing that or you know what? I really thought I wanted to do that thing and I did it. Hmm, when really my speed when really my speed at all. Levi Torres (12:29) Yep. Yeah, one of the things that's crazy, so for a lot of years on one of my vision boards was I wanted to coach youth sports. Right? I wanted to be a coach and coach youth sports. Well, I coached youth sports for a couple of years and that came off my vision board. decided that's that's going to go ahead and come off because that's a hard job, right? That's a hard thing to do. And so there's like I said, your vision board is to help you find what you want. Right? Like that's really it. And as long as you take the path, as long as you put the time and energy in. Justin Deese (12:42) You're like, you know what, that's gonna go ahead and come down. Levi Torres (12:58) to go down the path to hit that vision, it really just gives you clarity. It allows you to check, take the things off that you don't wanna do in life and keep the things on that you do like doing and enjoying. And we talk about that as high level leaders a lot of the times, but a lot of the times we don't portray that to our team, right? And one of the reasons I found this is if you go look at our vision boards of our team, there's probably 10 or 11 technicians that on their vision board have that they wanna start a plumbing business. or an electrical business or an HVAC business in the next five years. And that can scare a lot of people, right? They get scared that I'm gonna lose somebody where what we do is we just say, sweet, that's what you want, man, we'll help you get there. And then our goal is that hopefully within five years, by the time they're ready to start that business, that they decide that they don't wanna leave high five, because we've helped them get everything they've wanted, right? So it's just a different mindset you gotta have, right? You gotta confidently... Justin Deese (13:29) Great. Levi Torres (13:51) Show them the path and not be scared of the path that they have to go to accomplish what they want Right, and and I believe that's the thing like our team gets shocked because when we sit and talk about vision boards and I tell guys like hey, what's one of your visions and they're like I want to start a plumbing company in five years. I straight up say sweet man. We'll make sure you pay attention While you're working here to how we operate what we do So then that way when you do go to start, hopefully you have a leg up you're not starting from behind like a lot of companies are and so It does take a little different mindset shift from the leader of the company to confidently still support that person's path, even if the outcome may not be working for you in the future. Justin Deese (14:32) Yeah, think and you know, I've always embraced that with with, you know, Texan employees that want to open businesses and I and I always encourage owners don't you're doing it. So you can't you can't be upset with somebody else because they want to start a business. You know, my my rule has always been, you know, don't screw me on the deal and I'll help you any way I can and I I can tell you in the area that I live, there's probably, I'm going to, I'm going to say probably 10 companies that owners that have worked for me at some point. Uh, some of them are still friends. still communicate some of them not. And there's a lot of them that I help when I'm doing, you know, if they need something, they call me, I help them. I'm happy to do it. I think it's, I think it's great. I think it's. If you have better competitors, your market just gets better. Everything levels up versus, you know, people that are undercutting everything or. Levi Torres (15:27) Well, and then the truth of the matter is, if you show your team how to build a good vision and then you help them create the path to get to that vision, then a lot of the times that's one of those things that comes off their vision board in the next three, four years because now they're making great money. They're accomplishing all the things they want to accomplish and realize that maybe owning the business is not what I needed to do to accomplish these things. Justin Deese (15:41) Mm-hmm. Levi Torres (15:52) You'd be shocked how many times after two, three years of being at high five that that comes off the vision board because it was something that maybe they thought they wanted, but now they're getting all the things that they wanted in life without having to have that business. And so it's just about empowering people to go after what they want. Right. Like, don't don't try to restrict them. Don't be afraid to now, you know, train them because you're worried that they're going to go start another business. Like you just got to still pour into them. Justin Deese (16:06) empowering people to go after what they want. Don't try to restrict them. Don't be afraid to now train them because you're worried that Levi Torres (16:17) Right. And then that's that actually leads to the third thing that we have. So we have vision, right? We have path. And then the third thing is, is you have to support it, right? You have to support them. Like you can't just build a vision board and then tuck it in a, in a corner and then not talk about it the rest of the year until next year when you build another one, right? It has to be a constant continuous support, right? We pull our vision boards down every time we have, we have EDMs, right? Employee development meetings every two weeks. Every time we have those. Justin Deese (16:21) vision, right? got a path. And then the third thing is you have to support it. You have to support that. You can't just build a vision board and then tuck it in a corner and then not... Levi Torres (16:46) that vision board gets pulled off the wall and gets brought into the meeting with them. Because we want to see where are we at with this? Like where are we at with the things you want in life? Because you got to support them, right? So if you can help them create a vision, show them a path, and then show them that you're there to support, you can, you get a powerful, powerful team of people who are willing to go out and on the front lines and do the things that you have on your vision now to accomplish some of the things you want with your companies. Justin Deese (16:59) show them a path and then show them that you're there to support. get a powerful, powerful team. Yeah, I think all of those things are just now when you're helping and supporting them as you're wanting to make changes to the business for the better and the growth of course they're going to be behind it. Right? So they're going, okay, well. It's not that they want me to do this thing just because they're usually going to know the why. And not only are they going to know the why they're going to actually see the results of it. I think that, you know, if you're not here, here's the deal. They have wishes, hopes, dreams. have all those things. What you're doing is allowing them to let you be a part of that. If they want to have a plumbing company, they're going to be talking about it somewhere. And you would rather have the conversation with you versus it being just like side conversation back of the back of the lot conversations where it feels kind of achy. It's better just to like, let's have that conversation. mean, listen, I can remember telling owners, or I can remember telling employees that wanted to be owners. Listen, here are the things I feel like you need to work on to be more successful when you go out and do it on your own. Levi Torres (18:16) Right? Justin Deese (18:32) And sometimes they're like, well, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to go do it myself. And some of those guys are still running around town as chucking the trucks and no growth and all that kind of other good stuff. but it, but it's still that part of help them grow, let them. Levi Torres (18:50) Yeah, well, the thing is, like I said, know how I told you, vision boards create clarity, right? And if you can create clarity, then you can help create a path, right? So for example, we have a technician that on his vision board, he put that he wanted to be one of the top three technicians in the plumbing division. And then on the other side of his vision board, he put that he wanted to do $500,000 a year in sales. So now in his meetings, you can sit down and say, well, this isn't going to line up, right? Because to be top three, Justin Deese (18:51) Let them be their thing. Mm-hmm. Levi Torres (19:20) You're going to have to do more than 500,000. which it's not saying one's right or wrong. So which one is it? Do you want to hit 500,000? Because we can focus on that. Or do you want to be top three? Either one, right? But it just creates clarity. And then he actually sat down and said, oh, I didn't think about that. Right. And then it ended up we ended up settling on like 750,000 in sales, which would put him in the top 10. Right. But now it just created it created clarity for him. Right. It just he now realized, oh, dang, like even even as I was making this vision board. Justin Deese (19:45) Yeah. Right. Levi Torres (19:51) I wasn't thinking about the steps that it would take to hit some of these things. And that's what's so powerful about this is it's now a talking point because they've put everything that they want out on paper. And now that's where as a manager, as a leader, you can help them create the path to hit anything they have on that. And then it's just about supporting them, right? Every two weeks, pulling them in and talking to them and saying, like, where are we at with this? You wanted to hit 750,000? Well, where's your conversion rate and your average ticket? Because how are you going to hit it if you don't maintain these? And it just becomes a a statistic conversation instead of an emotional one. Right? Justin Deese (20:28) It's a mirror. You're literally holding a mirror up to what they said they want to do. Like it's a completely different level of leadership when you're up. Because here's the deal. The truth is people don't care what your goals are. Like is the owner. Like if you're like, I want to do whatever $50 million. They really and truly don't care. And it's not to say that people are selfish, although inherently that's kind of a thing, but, but it is kind of a what's in it for me situation. So how do you motivate and drive them? And now here's what I, here's what I will say. And you can, well, I think you're going to agree with me, but if you don't, that's okay too. You're having different conversations with employees when you're saying, Hey, you said you want to do this top three. You're not. What, what can I do to help you? What is it you need to do? Because it's easy to put a goal up and forget about the work that it takes to get there or the sacrifice or the, know, if the guy wants to be top three and a call comes in on a, I don't know, seven o'clock at night, you're probably not having that go. Well, you remember that? Or even if you do, you're like, you remember that call? Remember that time you said you want to be top three? This is one extra call. Levi Torres (21:28) Mm-hmm. Justin Deese (21:48) Like it's just different conversations you're having with employees versus you didn't do your paperwork right. You didn't show up on time. your uniforms not clean and neat. Like you're not like that's not even conversations that you're having with employees. Would you agree with that? Levi Torres (22:04) a hundred percent. it makes it very much like, it goes back to a lot, right? Like, back when I worked with you and Kristen very closely as coaches, like that's why I got so into systems, right? And having a system to follow, because if there's a system, it eliminates gray area, right? There's there's there's exactly. And it's not me getting on you. It's, it's just, this is how we do it. And, and if you agree with how we do this, then this is how we need to get it done. And so Justin Deese (22:22) That's right. It's not subjective anymore. Yeah. Levi Torres (22:33) Vision boards are the same way for personal, right? For personal belief now. So they put it on the vision board of things they want. And so now when we sit down in our meetings with them, it's literally just a, are we on track to hit these things? And if we're not, do we need to either adjust the vision or do we need to adjust habits? Like what is it that has to adjust? Because if the things on your vision board are still things that you're wanting, but yet your path and what you're doing is not putting you in the direction to get those. Justin Deese (22:51) Yep. Levi Torres (23:00) then it's either we got to either change the vision or change the habits, right? It's got to be one or the other because it's going to be real hard to accomplish any of those if you don't align those. So yeah, that's why I said, that's why I think with us, you have to be able to have some success stories, right? If it's only me checking off the stuff on my vision board, then it's going to just look like I'm having the success, right? So you have to be able to help your team hit their success, right? We had a technician that last year, Justin Deese (23:17) Yeah. Levi Torres (23:29) He put he wanted to buy a new Tesla on his vision board in January. And then in December, he sent me the receipt of his Carvana buying the exact Tesla he wanted. And so like, that's the stuff that's awesome because it's like, yeah, it's a material thing. He wanted a car, he put the time and energy, he put the thought, he built a plan on what he had to do in order to buy this car, and he got the car he wanted, right? Justin Deese (23:33) And then in December, he sent me the receipt of his Carvana buying the exact S-Line he wanted. That's so awesome. That's the stuff that's awesome because he's like, yeah, it's a material thing if you wanted a car, but it's key. Levi Torres (23:54) And so like I said, my vision board was the same thing. I remember my first vision board was in 2009 and it had watches and shoes and vehicles. But the truth be told, I ended up getting all of that stuff on that vision board, like everything that was on that first vision board. And I very quickly realized that putting this material stuff on your vision board is cool. It helps you check off that you did stuff, but it's not really growth, right? It's not really. And like you said, as I've gotten older, Justin Deese (24:03) Yep. Levi Torres (24:24) More faith right having more faith in my religion and what I'm doing. That's on my vision board reading more books Like that's on my vision board, right? Working out losing weight, right? You know volunteering more like that's what now what's on my vision board, right? It's not it's not all the cars and stuff like it used to be but you got to grow to that right? Like you can't you can't tell somebody. well you Justin Deese (24:25) Having more faith in my religion and what I'm doing, that's on my vision board. Reading more books, that's on my vision board. Levi Torres (24:49) can't put a bunch of material things on your vision board because that's Justin Deese (24:50) Right. Levi Torres (24:51) like, no, no, no. You just coach them through it, help them hit the things they want, and then they'll grow. They'll grow with the company, right? That's why you're building your team for growth, because you want them to see that by growing and by changing their lives is only going to improve their day to day if they do that. Justin Deese (25:08) Well, and I want to say this too, there's nothing wrong with material things. So if you're like, well, I'm to do a vision board now and you're being weird about cutting out a car you want, please don't do that. Do the exercise. Right. I just think that's Levi. We're getting old. We're getting old. We're getting. I don't know that I would say wise. Maybe it's wise. I don't know, but. but, but I don't want to discourage anybody from that because there's nothing wrong with it. If that's, if that's what you want, go get it, go after it. whatever you need to drive and motivate you to succeed and to grow. I mean, as long as it's, know, legal, ethical, you know, all those things. but no, I think that's great. And again, I want to, gosh, man, the conversations I tell people so often. Levi Torres (25:31) Bye. Right. Justin Deese (26:00) When you're doing really your EDMs, your one-to-ones on a regular basis, you're giving them goals, and you have systems, man, the conversation you're having with your team completely shifts. Like for me, you'd always think you go, man, I don't want to have to yell at this guy again. No, you're like, here's your numbers. How'd you do? Like, it's a scoreboard. No, no, no team gets done with the game and looks up at the scoreboard and it's not subjective. They're not like, well, I think I feel like we won. I don't care what you feel like you lost. It gets right there. It's not even a question. It's not a question. Levi Torres (26:38) Yeah, once again, and it does that, once again, it takes the gray area out, right? It takes that, it takes that, am I successful, am I not successful? Like that's one of the first questions we ask people when they're building their vision board, is like, what is success to you? Like because my definition of success is gonna be different than yours, and from his and hers, right? And so like, if you try to hold my standard for success, then you may be disappointed. Justin Deese (26:46) Mm-hmm. Right Levi Torres (27:07) That's why you have to create your own standard for success. What is success for you? And what do we need to do to make you successful in your life? Not what I want you to happen for you. What do you want in your life? And it takes a little bit of a different mindset. Like I said, you can't, you have to not be scared of that person walking out the door in two months because they wanna go start their own business because they think they're ready. Right? Like that can happen. We've had that happen where we get a guy who builds a vision board and he has a good solid six months of hitting his KPIs and doing the things he wants. And then he goes and starts a business. Right? And it happens. But the truth is, is that's why we've never had a Justin Deese (27:48) Yep. But it's going to happen like he's either going to leave and go to a competitor or he's going to be a like either way. If that if they're not fulfilled there, not that that's a bad thing, but with they're not fulfilled, they're going to go somewhere else. There's nothing wrong with that. Levi Torres (28:04) Right? And so it now also creates clarity right now at me as even a leader I'm aware now of what this person wants, right? So now I can be aware of okay This person wants to start a business So there is a possibility that this person leaves us in the next year to three years It could happen My goal is to just make sure that they can say that the three years two years the time that they spent with us It they chalk it up as a success right? Like that's the key and Justin Deese (28:29) Good for you. Levi Torres (28:31) And having that type of mentality has made it for us to be able to grow and add team members, right? We grew by 78 % last year by adding both of those two trades. We doubled the amount of people that we had employed from July to the end of the year. And that's hard to do if you don't have that change mindset that things are going to change, things are going to keep happening, right? We put on our vision board in January of last year that we wanted to add HVAC and electrical. So was well known to the entire team that like, Justin Deese (29:01) Right. Levi Torres (29:01) We're gonna be adding this, right? And that means we're gonna be bringing on more call center, more dispatch, more warehouse, more accounting. Like we're gonna be bringing on a lot of different people because in order to bring on these two divisions, it's gonna be needed. And so now when people see you coming through and interviewing seven, eight call takers and seven, eight warehouse people, they're not worried that they're gonna lose their job. They just know that this was part of the plan, right? Because... Justin Deese (29:17) Right. Levi Torres (29:28) That's what I see a lot of the times is people are scared to interview because they, well, I don't want that person to think that they're going to lose their job. And you just got to paint the picture that in order to do what we want to do as a business, this is what we have to do. And that's why having a business vision is just as important as helping your team set their vision. Because if you help the team set their vision, but there's no vision for where your business is going, you're contradicting yourself, right? Like you can't tell them to have a vision, but yet your company doesn't have a vision. Justin Deese (29:39) This is what we have to do. And that's why having a business vision is just as important as helping your team set their vision. Because if you help the team set their vision, but there's no vision for where your business is going, you're contradicting yourself, right? Right. You can't tell them to have a vision, but if you Well, and now in, in, what happens is now you have a culture where when they see these people coming in to interview, hopefully now that they're staying on the team, they see opportunity for themselves. That's not to say everybody wants to grow, but if somebody wants to grow and they're a technician and they want to be a service manager or whatever, as you grow, so do the opportunities in the company. mean, there's more opportunities in larger companies than in smaller companies. So I think all that's. Levi Torres (30:25) Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Like actually a cool story. One of our, we've had a technician that's been with us for a couple of years and he had on his vision board, he wanted to be a manager. Right. And, he, he just kept going and working and working and working. And then eventually we got to the size to where we needed a plumbing install manager. Right. We needed somebody who can manage our install team of our plumbers. Well, he was the perfect candidate. Right. He was the most efficient installer we ever had. Justin Deese (30:27) Such a great. Levi Torres (30:55) He was always hitting his billable hour efficiency. He was always hitting numbers, a low recall rate. And now because it was a vision he wanted, it made it to where he worked to get that position. And now he's our plumbing install manager, right? And so he is able to go check that off of his vision board that he wanted to be a manager in the trades. And so once again, it's just about that. It's about you're gonna find the people that do wanna grow. And then when you find out that, this guy wants to become a manager, You can start to see if he has the traits that you are going to require to be a manager because now you can start to hold them accountable in your bi-weekly meetings. Once again, I'm not saying you have to have individual meetings, right? That is quite a commitment. To do a meeting every two weeks with your employees, you have to be committed. And that's what we say with our, if you're not going to be committed to doing it every two weeks, then schedule it once a month to start. Like don't, cause if you over commit and then you keep rescheduling those meetings, Justin Deese (31:25) Yeah, but just do it. Yeah. Levi Torres (31:53) It completely just destroys the entire process of doing it. If you just keep rescheduling those employee meetings, right? And so we're very much adamant about like, don't put it on the schedule. If you're not going to be sitting down with that person and actually going through that meeting, because if you reschedule, if you move them, if it's not something that's like, can't be missed, it's set in the schedule, then it does the opposite. They start to think that maybe this vision thing and... Justin Deese (31:56) Yep. Levi Torres (32:22) and getting support and the path that they're creating is not truthful, right? Justin Deese (32:27) Man, that's good stuff. So for everybody listening, we're going to shift gears a little bit. Levi is going to be hanging out with us at the Power Profit Workshop powerprofitworkshop.com. And a lot of these are the conversations that we're going to be having during this workshop. And this is not going to be a, I don't know. How do you say that? A talking at you kind of event. This is going to be a less roll up our sleeves. Let's talk about how to create vision for your business. Let's talk about how to get your team members on board. I mean, again, there's a huge shift that happens in your team. When you go from. Hey, Billy, you're late once again. Hey, Billy, you're not uniform once again to the guy who's like, here's my vision. I want to be in a leadership role. And now he's in a leadership role. He's not leaving for a dollar. He's not, he's not not willing to do things like, and that's part of the problem too, as, as owners, lot of times, we allow people to do things that's crazy. Like I talked to owners a lot and they're like, yeah, I can't get my guys to clock in. Like stop paying them. Problem solved. cause guess what'll happen? They'll start clocking in. Right. So, it's just different conversations that you're having with your team. And a lot of this workshop is going to be around that. Levi Torres (33:21) That's the truth. Yep. Justin Deese (33:51) And again, I want to kind of recap because I think there was just such good stuff we talked about today, but from a from a building your team prepped for growth, right? The three things vision. Path. And support. So in the show notes will have some information about the event. We really hope to see you there. But as we wrap up any closing thoughts on what we've talked about so far today. Levi Torres (34:21) Yeah, no, you know, the biggest thing is, is, is don't feel like you're behind the eight ball or like you're not doing good things if you don't have a vision, right? Like it's just, just know that it's something you have to put thought into, right? Like, like if you can't put thought into how your business is going to look five, six, seven, eight years down the road, then it's going to be really hard to gauge your scoreboard. Like we talked about, right? That vision is your scoreboard. So if you don't put a vision up of where you want to be in a year from now, then when that year comes, how are you gonna gauge if you actually advanced or went backwards or if you're just staying stagnant, right? And it doesn't matter either way what you're doing, but you need to have that vision so you can gauge, right? And so if you're cool with just kind of where you're at, how your business is operating, what your business is doing, then just keep doing what you're doing. But if you wanna grow, you wanna get to where you're not the guy doing all the work, where you have systems and procedures in place. where you feel like you can go take a breath and not feel like the business is gonna crumble, then vision is the start of it, right? You gotta start with vision. So yeah, just don't feel overwhelmed or don't feel like you're not successful or you can't get there. It's just a matter of knowing that you gotta put the thought into what you want in your life, in your personal life, and in your professional life. Justin Deese (35:36) Well, as the saying goes, when's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago? When's the second best time today? So, I don't, to me, I don't think vision as a natural us as business owners is not natural. I know when I first started writing my first one, I was so wrapped in the day to day. I couldn't even tell you what I wanted tomorrow to look like. so it's, it is a trait. It is not something that most of us. Levi Torres (35:43) Right? Exactly. Justin Deese (36:05) inherently or just born and we're like, my gosh, let me tell you about my vision and my, let me paint you this picture. Like most of us don't have that ability. So, go easy on yourself. If you're having a hard time with that and just, just know that this workshop, that's what this is designed for is going to be to move the needle when it comes to that. And then once you've moved the needle, how do you get your team to be ready to, to get to the next level? So Levi amazing having you on yet again, we're to have you on a lot more, man. So I don't know if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see, but he's got a whole new cool studio and it's set up and it's pretty awesome. So he'll be, he'll be joining us a lot more here in the future. So again, thank you for coming, hanging out and for everybody listening on the podcast or watching on YouTube. Thanks for checking it out. Subscribe, the subscribe button and it will make sure to send you a notice anytime we got stuff coming up, but we hope to see you at the power profit workshop coming up in May. Thanks guys. Cool, mate.