All right. Good stuff. What's up everybody? We are happy November by the way. If anybody
has the Halloween candy hangover, you know, I got four kids and we have buckets of candy
and I walk around the house like this. It doesn't exist. It's not there. Getting old
man. Anyway, we're going to be talking to Dan Burgos today and we're going to be talking
about manufacturing businesses in particular. Now any business, by the way, that has any
type of operations going on, any type of delivery that's needed, it's going to be able to learn
from this as well as those who are looking for improving profit margins. The principles
we're going to discuss are pretty universal, but we're going to dive deep into manufacturing
as well to make sure that, you know, Dan can use this for the audience that he's attracting.
I saw that he's worked with SpaceX and Orkin and other cool companies. So we're going to
test his knowledge on that a little bit. But we were having some issues with StreamYard
today, not StreamYard's fault, just probably Microsoft Edge and Chrome and all those things,
you know, get a little discombobulated. So if you ever have any technical difficulties
with your podcasts or your own streaming, you know what we went through with that. So anyway,
let me dive in. We'll start the intro and we'll get rolling with Dan. All right. Welcome
in to Vision Pros Live. With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host. We will be doing interviews
for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
All right. Welcome to Vision Pros Live. I'm your host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO
of First Class Business. And I am excited to have Dan Burgos on the show. Before we
dove into Dan and his story manufacturing and what he's capable of doing, which by the
way, I'm not a manufacturer. So I want to be clear here is as I as I analyze what he's
doing, I might ask some fairly dumb questions for people who are in the manufacturing field.
But I did a little bit of research and we'll dive into a lot of character recognition as
well in the process. And we will try to dig into case studies and really some applicable
data for everybody. But before we do that, I also want to highlight the sponsors we have.
ColdClick. That is how we manage our LinkedIn automation. I work with Art Hoffman over at
ColdClick. Fantastic systems. Very grateful for what they do to help make sure that we're
constantly connecting to new people. The process of automation is not evil. You breathe automatically,
I hope. And we're lucky enough to do that. Your body does a lot of automated things.
Well, I use this system to make sure I get connected to great people, people who are
also aligned with wanting to align with me. And the more people I'm able to get in front
of, the more likely I'm able to find people who are ready here now to say, Hey, you know
what? We align. We should we should see if there's an opportunity to work together. So
I do highly recommend using automation tools, but I also highly recommend working with a
phenomenal team to craft your messaging first. There are too many people that are using systems
like that that are walking up to people and saying like, Hey, do you want my case studies?
I really want you to work with me or hey, it looks like we have mutual friends. Nobody
likes that. That's like going up to somebody saying, Hey, you're kind of cute. You want
to get married. Stop it. Business doesn't work that way. Neither do relationships that
are healthy. And and and you know, if you want to be great leaders, you're going to
have to tone it down a little bit and use those tools appropriately. Now, tap mental
as well. I really love what Dave Goodall has done with tapmental.io, how he's helped
people. I've been digging deep into his business with him on a weekly basis, looking at what
he's up to and his ability to help small businesses, especially in the general contracting and
the construction realm, unlock their mindsets so they can move forward their systems with
better precision and gain control of their lives while they run their multi-million dollar
operations. Dave's extremely benefit, extremely valuable in that regard. So I highly recommend
checking out tap mental. And last but not least, of course, is the water project. We
always want to be raising awareness for those who have greater needs than our own. And the
water project represents just that we're talking about people in parts of the world that do
not have access to something as simple as clean drinking water. You and I have access
to it at will pretty much. These kids are often traveling for their family a few miles
away from where they live to get non-clean drinking water for their school or their family
missing out on school and then coming back with that. And you just, I don't know, I don't
want to paint too emotional of a picture here. But what is very uplifting is knowing that
you're able to give to these communities and then you're able to see the community put
in the work to get their well built or their sand dam built. And then you can see the transformation.
But imagine over 10 years what that's going to do for that part of the world's ability
to educate their children better and to build holistic societies. It's amazing what types
of power $1 has. So if you have the ability to give back to something and you're not giving
to something else, please give it to the water project. If you know of another circumstance
of need that needs us to contribute to it, don't hesitate to drop that in the comments.
We're always happy to look at opportunities to give back. So without further ado, I'll
now bring Dan on. And we also got to find out if I'm butchering his last name and the
way people like to butcher mine. So Dan, thanks so much for being here today on the show.
Welcome to vision pros life. Very nice. Thanks for having me Jackson. I appreciate it. Absolutely.
How do you pronounce your last name, Dan? It depends if you want me to say it in English
or Spanish, the proper way. Perfect. There we go. So I am butchering it. That's fair.
And you do pronounce it, I'm assuming most of the time in English or do you do you help
people get the accent? No, no. I mean, as many as many new people assign me, it's probably
going to be very time consuming. So I just say Burgos, which is sounds similar to that
is so so American. That's us with Callum. We turn it to Callum and the Swiss pronunciation,
the Swiss French pronunciation is Callum. And so I do the same thing, my friend. Just
don't call me Kaleem. Everybody out there. I don't like the Kaleem. It's like Spanish
for lame pretty much. So anyway, let's keep going. Dan, manufacturing businesses and all
that all that said, I define someone who's who should be listening. But in your opinion,
who should be listening right now? And why should they listen to you? So I would say
who should listen? Anyone that's in a leadership position, an executive leadership position
on any manufacturing business and they're trying to drive profitable growth through
their execution and their people. And basically, that's the reason they they should listen
because nowadays in manufacture, labor is scarce and everybody is trying to grow their
business. But there's not going to be enough labor around. And so how do you make up for
that? By becoming more efficient, meaning you need less labor or also improving the
environment you provide for your people so they don't you don't prompt them to leave
and go to your competition, which are two powerful levers that, you know, companies
have their disposal. Absolutely. Both very, very good points. There's I got some rants
to talk about too in the fast food industry and these ding kiosks that they're anyway.
We'll talk about that later. But I do believe in operational efficiency for sure, as well
as the ability to automate what should be automated. So I did see in your lineup. I
mean, it really struck me SpaceX. Is that a client of yours? We did some work with them.
It was a very small engagement. So we did work with them in a facility they have here
in Texas. I was a very minute project until one. But yeah, nonetheless, we went there
and we. But you did. Yeah, it was me personally. And it was one thing to take away from that
if you don't mind me sharing. Not at all. So Elon Musk, I was just worried. It's like,
man, if we announce this and it's not true, Elon Musk is taking you to prison tomorrow.
So let's make sure that this is real. It actually happened. But yeah, go ahead, man. Share away.
Yeah, the the power of the culture. So they were testing rockets, takeoffs. And I mean,
I don't know if you've ever heard read the mission or the mission for the purpose for
for a SpaceX. And it's it goes something on the lines of to explore intergalactic travel
for human beings, something very profound and aspirational. And I could almost see it
in people's forehead. Like, yeah, we're trying to make this happen. And then we're all in
and for Elon and all that. I mean, that left an impression that was years ago. And that
left an impression that I still speak to when I'm talking to clients about using the power
of really, you know, building a cause, a purpose that people really identify with.
Dude, you have no idea how happy that makes me. Because when I talk about growth and growth
being based on not the product of the service, but on the vision, I use Elon Musk and Tesla
as the model for that all the time. To hear that that resonates so well at the culture
of the company, even at the manufacturing level, I shouldn't say even at the minute,
but it's like a level that people don't think about. You take for granted. You only think
about it when it goes wrong. When it goes right, you just like, okay, cool, my microwave
food is ready. So that's what I think most consumers think.
It was incredibly palpable that people were committed, invested, and wanting to really
add to that cause. Incredible, incredible. I've never seen that spark in people's towards
the cost of the company. It was very impressive to me.
That's awesome. Good stuff. Well, let's talk about the vision that you have. What's your
vision for those that you serve? Yeah. I feel that manufacturing should be an
integral part of a company's, not a company's, a country's economy. We lost that for a few
decades here where we were offshoring a lot of the manufacturing work. Our purpose is
to help us manufacturing thrive. And so my hope is to bring more of that back to the
US to help companies make it work here, here in the US.
Awesome. Well, I think that's valuable too. Have you ever read the book, What Went Wrong?
I have not. Most people have. So I was required college
reading for me, my three semesters that I went to college, maybe four. I don't know.
You probably shouldn't count one of those. But I did like my international politics class
and it's a fantastic book that showcases the transition of world powers from the East to
the West because of exactly what you're talking about. The offshoring of your manufacturing
and the lack of education then and know how that your country is experiencing when you
become lazy as a country. I'm not saying we're there yet. I'm not here to torch our country
or any country for that matter, but read the book. Good book. Worth knowing about. Feel
free to torch away too if that's part of your vision. But what about you, Dan, for you specifically,
for yourself, what's your vision over the next five to 20 years? What do you want to
accomplish? You know what, if we can help, I want to say 500 to 1000 manufacturers, read
the book. I want to help people. I want to help people to really build a solid execution.
And what I mean by that is not only being efficient, but also giving the people the
tools to really manage the operation and sustain high levels of performance. And in addition
to that, or finally also creating a culture where that effect that I just described for
SpaceX, it's actually palpable for them. I've seen it in pockets in different companies,
but once you have all of those things together, I mean, you can propel your business performance
to levels you probably can't think about. And if I may ask you this, who's the, give
me a name. I want you to think of a name. Who is the person that you've worked with
that you feel, man, their work ethic is amazing. They're very good at their job. They're responsible.
I can count on them. One name. Give me one name. Jake Larson, Video Power Marketing.
All right. Jake Larson. So what I want you to think about is if you build your company
to be hundreds of employees and you could clone into other people, that work ethic,
that attitude, that reliability that you have on him and all that, imagine what that could
do for your business, for its growth, for its performance and all that. That's what
we're looking to create when we look at culture. Can you envision that? Is that something
you can envision? Dude, yeah, we would have the most balanced work culture and almost
everybody would be wakeboarding every weekend too, or playing golf and stuff. So that's
pretty cool and, and still be really good people. And then what we do. Yeah, I know
it would be like a perfect way. We'd be in heaven. So the feeling that feeling, I don't
know if you have experienced it, but some of us have experienced them on a Sunday evening
and you're thinking about Monday morning, I got to go back to that place instead of
being kind of, you know, you'd be like, yeah, I'm going to go see my buds. We're going
to have some fun and get some work done. Imagine that. That's what I'm looking to create for
companies. See if I can. Dude, that's awesome. I mean, that was Jake. That was my boss. That's
what he was, you know? And so, yeah, it would be, it'd be amazing. It's, it's going to be
amazing. You know, as, as Tim Ferriss teaches the four hour work week, you know, and people
grasp that concept and Robert Kisaki opens the brains of rich dad, poor dad and work
culture start to pay attention to, you know, oh, cool. I should have a family and care
about them too. You know, while, while building my businesses, culture matters. And now, you
know, was, it was different before, I think, when you had coal miners working in the mine
all day and they didn't have earbuds to listen to podcasts. You know, there's just, they
knew what they knew. And on their stuck doing what they were stuck doing. Nowadays, the
world shifted a lot. And people's minds are open. They're, they realize, oh man, I can
move States and make four times as much money and pay half the taxes. It's, it makes it
very hard. If you're not willing to change and evolve, adapt to that reality. Sounds
like, sounds like you are. So what are, as you, as you get ready to drive businesses
towards, towards greater profit margins, what does that look like? What types of things
the manufacturing companies need to be paying attention to that they're overlooking?
Yeah. So one, the labor, I mean, labor shortages, it's, it's a widespread issue in all of manufacturing.
And when I talk to leaders, often I hear we need to increase our compensation thinking
that that's going to solve the problem or somehow keep people motivated or in your companies.
And what happens is that people have, once the basic monetary needs for, you know, basic
living expenses are covered, then the, the work starts, right? Like, how are you going
to continue to keep those people engaged, motivated, wanting to grow, keeping an environment
where they get along with their, with their coworkers, right? We spend what, a third of
our lives at our work and our environment. Imagine having, I'm going to say the opposite,
right? Of your, of your friend, people that you get, don't get along with. It's a tense
relationship. People, people leave because of that. Or if they have a boss that just
makes their life uncomfortable. And so, unfortunately, absolutely. Well, fortunately, that is very
inexpensive to accomplish, but unfortunately, the manufacturing sector hasn't caught up
entirely. I'm reading that more and more people are embracing that, but it's, it's, it's very
cost efficient because all you have to do is get a meeting and, and, and really hone
in your message and deploy it into your human systems. As opposed to raising salaries and
all that. That's all good and well, but it's not the only thing. And I think a lot of leaders
lose sight of that because they have more of a four term mentality as opposed to having
a longer term. You were actually flashing on the website. We have a criteria there that
says our ideal client. And what we're trying to convey there is we're looking for long
term leaders, people that know that they need to invest into their people. They know they
need to, the importance of culture and, and they're not looking just for changes on the
fridges, on the fridges, but actually making significant change to elevate their performance,
which is what's needed. Yep. Absolutely. You know, I'll share two young and dumb immature
stories of myself, you know, in the job market that prove your point that I think everybody
can relate to. One, I went to the UPS store to get a job. A gentleman owned it who was
fairly close to us. I hope this doesn't come back to him, but I was there for three days
and on my third day we had nothing to do. And I, you know, I'm excited to like learn
something new. And I was, I mean, I was as immature and like eager to not work as anybody
else I thought, but you know, I said, what do we do? I mean, when he says, come on YouTube
with me. I mean, we got, we got downtime, you know, and, and, uh, whatever he put on
was really crass and kind of like against my ethics too at the time. Um, but my main
thought that didn't bother me too much. What bothered me was I don't want to sit here all
day and watch YouTube. Like, is this really? So I asked him after he was done with the
YouTube's like, how funny, funny. Um, well, so what else do we learn? Like, is there anything
else? He's like, Nope, you've learned it all. I did not go back to work. That was it. That
was it. I was done. And so, you know, you gotta, you gotta be able to understand what
do your employees want? What do they need? What are they motivated by? Like you said,
that's not necessarily the money. And then I went to Sonic. Um, I am back to my work
to Sonic first. I don't remember which, but when I went to Sonic, the restaurant chain
that's shutting down everywhere now, um, I don't know what happened, but they're all
disappearing. Um, and I might, my main goal, I got my, I got my money and I got my raise
and all that, but I, I didn't realize it until I was at the end of the line. But the day
I quit was the day I had dated the last car hop. That was it. I was done. I was there.
I was there for social means. I wanted to, I wanted to date girls. I wanted to have some
fun, you know, and that was it. I was 16 years old. I mean, what do you expect from me? Um,
so knowing what the culture of the environment you're creating and what motivates people
to, to be around or hiring people that are there for the right reasons, maybe they should
have hired somebody different. If that wasn't what they were looking for. I was pretty good
employee. I brought six others to come work with us. Um, for, and they stayed and I didn't,
so I worked out well for them. But manufacturing plants, um, any, any type of company, you
had other companies that you mentioned you work with two construction companies, education,
uh, healthcare hospitals as well. Um, we've done very little work in healthcare. Um, but,
yeah, don't work, uh, in hospitals and, uh, clinics as well. That's not a big part of
our, of our, you know, our clean and tell, but mainly manufacturers, some distribution,
uh, definitely have done construction, higher education, oil and gas as well. Um, yeah,
that makes sense. And right, which is a service based business. Oil and gas is, uh, is changing
quite a lot right now, um, as well. And, and for, for good and for bad, um, I don't really
care about the good and bad labels. I just look at things as, as they are. Um, but the,
uh, my dad, um, is a, is a petroleum engineer and my brothers and I, uh, absolutely loved
the experience of, of working with him. Uh, but we absolutely hated it. I mean, he's the
most verbally abusive person I've ever met. Um, and so we had a very difficult time and
I met my brothers a few years later, um, got to see them again at a funeral. They live
in Montana, live in Texas. Um, and they were working in a new company and, and they said,
Hey, just so you know, everything dad didn't taught us is completely backwards from how
we actually do things in the field. Um, people treat you nicely, you get benefits. Um, you
know, there's, there's rules that should be followed and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. Like, I mean, they basically torched him. Um, and, uh, what they were pointing
out was again, the shift from a rough neck environment to more balance in terms of culture
and an appreciation for people being responsible and on time. Um, and again, just a general
shift and, uh, and that was, that conversation was like 10 years ago now. What, what other
changes are happening right now? Um, and how do oil and gas people and manufacturers, again,
I think they have pretty similar work environments. Uh, what, what do they need to be aware of
right now that they should be preparing for? Um, so yeah, definitely have, I see a lot
of parallels with what you describe. Um, and if you go to our website, we have an infographic
there that's called, uh, the cost of poor leadership. And it talks about the behaviors
like micromanaging and taking credit for other people and so on. And, uh, and then another
one that's called traditional leader versus lean leader. So traditionally, and there's
still quite a bit of that still out in the market. Uh, in, in fact, it's probably one
of the largest gaps that we see in manufacturing where we still have a lot of these leaders
from, uh, probably the generations, uh, before us, before you and I, I think you and I probably
have similar age groups. Um, and so these baby numbers that, that, uh, grew up in that
environment, right? Where it was, I'm the boss, I tell you what to do. Uh, I know better.
You need to just, you know, put your hands to work and let me think, uh, type of environment.
We still see that that's still, that's still out there. Um, and so that's the second part
of your question, which is what they should be aware. Manufacturers should be aware is
newer, uh, or younger generations. They didn't grow up around that. Some of them don't even
know about, uh, uh, dial up connections, a word without internet, um, or having information
at the tip of your fingers. Uh, and so they don't respond very well to that, uh, to, to
that type of leadership. And one of the things we do is when we go visit manufacturers, we
look at, okay, let's see what the generational makeup of this workforce is, right? Is it
tilted towards, uh, millennials, uh, or is it tilted towards, uh, baby boomers? And if
you can imagine an efficient that that looks very different, right? Depending on where
it's tilted, right? Yep. Uh, and you need to be aware of that. And in addition to that,
you need to be aware of if you have a lot of people in retirement age, because they
have a lot of knowledge, some tribal knowledge and some institutionalized knowledge that
you want to prevent from walking out when they retire. And so those are part of the
dynamics that, uh, as a business leader, these executives need to manage, uh, because these
generational differences can create conflict. Yeah, they really can. And there's an opportunity
there. I mean, even for somebody like my dad, um, you know, and I don't want anybody to,
so here's the neat thing. My dad was never that way to me, right? He was, he was to lots
of other people in my life. Um, but I think one of the challenges is a lot of, a lot of
my generation, um, and even generations younger grew up watching their parents treat other
people like crap while being treated super, super, super well themselves by that same
parent. Um, and it creates this isolation and we're feeling of like, Oh, so I'm supposed
to be treated great, but it doesn't matter how I treat other people. Um, you know, and,
and so, uh, when we can take a step back as, as leaders of our companies and say, well,
wait a second. Okay. How can I learn the language is necessary to bridge the gap between the
wisdom and knowledge that exists with the experience? That's maybe a little bit rougher
on the edges, um, and help these really soft, young kids appreciate it and want it. Um,
you know, so that there's a, there's a strong gap of success between the two. I think tribal
leadership is probably one of the best books I've read on that type of subject. Um, and,
but it's not enough. You still need experts like yourself to be able to come in and help
with that. So let's take a deep dive into a, or a little maybe not a deep dive, but I'll
let you decide how deep we go. What is your worst business experience ever? Dan. All right.
Yeah. I, okay. So yeah, I'll share this one. So I have actually a, a good story to tell
about this one. So, um, and I, I need to set up for a moment. So, uh, by training, I'm
an engineer, right? So I'm all about numbers and figures and factories and processes and
systems, right? Um, at one point I go to work for this huge oil and gas company. And when
I get there, you know, the, the culture was, uh, uh, a culture that was all about results
and, and, and the competitive and all this. And I pushed and pushed and pushed myself
and felt like the more I pushed, the more bureaucratic, the more red tape I came across.
And that created kind of a dynamic where I was stressing myself out and it was, it got
to the point where, uh, it's led up a heart condition that I had. I ended up in the ER
a handful of times. If any of your listeners want to read more about that, uh, you can
go to our about, about us page, scroll down the bottom and I speak all about it. And basically,
I mean, like I said, right, I ended up in the, in the ER a handful of times, very close
to being, uh, I had basically arrhythmia and I came close to being hit with a defibrillator,
uh, basically to bring me back to normal, uh, with a heartbeat rhythm. So I, you know,
that, that cut me through personally because I felt the pressures of being in an environment
where your successes are not, uh, recognized or celebrated, but your flaws or your shortcomings
are pointed out and also are being put in front of you when you're really trying to
drive change. Uh, and so that actually is my motivation and my passion for creating
a better work environment because I know what it feels to really feel that pressure from
a culture, from a poor culture fit. I mean, if, if other people can be happy and successful,
uh, emphasizing happy really in an environment that's so cut throat that you feel like you,
you need to walk with, with something holding your back, the stabbing, it's going to be
nonstop all day long. Uh, good for them. For me, I'd rather be an environment where I can
come in. I trust the people that I'm working with shoulder to shoulder. We're getting things
done and there's no, there's no, uh, uh, individual ambition. Like you get the recognition or
I get the recognition. Hey, we're all in here trying to do our best and we all have aspirations,
but it can come at the expense of putting someone else down. And that, I mean, that
was a life long lesson. And I'll tell you how I applied it. Uh, subsequently I was working
at another big company and the environment was very similar. There was probably worse
this, this one. It was so tense that I, uh, as a result of that experience, I learned
what alopecia was. I was getting a haircut and the person cutting my hair said, what's
this ball spot you had in your, having your, in the back of your head. And he showed me
the mirror. I had a perfectly drawn, uh, oval figure with no hair as if I never had hair
and it has, if it'd been drawn with a surgical, uh, device. And that's when I learned my wife
told me this is happening again. And I walked away from that. I said, I'm done. I can work
in this environment and you need to find someone else to help you. And I have absolutely no
regrets. I don't know if you've ever made a big, uh, I don't want to curse, but just
a high courage decision that you said, but then when you do it, you're like, yeah, this
was the right thing to do. I'm happy. And I stay at it years and years after that. I
made that decision. It was at the time it was a daunting decision, but it was the right
one for me.
A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Um, I had 67,000 reasons to sue a particular company.
Um, and, uh, do you know, as I, as I got ready to potentially do that two days later, um,
I found myself realizing just how happy I was to be out of that situation. Um, and removed
from a lot of, a lot of great learning experiences and the business and the opportunity, but,
um, it, it was, it was so clear and obvious, just move forward, Jackson, you know, learn
your lessons from what happened here. Um, protect your heart and the process of sacrificing
the finances, right? To say, you know what? I can, I can be the bigger person in this
situation, um, and, and move towards my victories. And I, I could have been happier two days
later. It was just like, yep, this is where I need to be going and what I need to be doing.
So yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people listening can, can very much relate to that. Um, and
you alluded to something important and that's that you, Dan, you have the ability, um, to
work as the executive that's leading the way. And in the case of the right opportunity where
there's a bigger army at hand, you know, or a bigger operation where they've already got
that leader, you do have the capacity to take on a role within it, but you have the healthy
recognition, you, you have those healthy boundaries of, I will do it if the right environment
exists. Um, otherwise I imagine just like, and it's like me, if I don't, if I don't have
that, then I gotta, I gotta create that at the brand that I'm, I'm willing to go to.
Um, so what's your best experience in business? What's that look like? Uh, let me touch on
something cause you spurred up. Um, and this is very powerful, right? A lot of times, you
know, you take over, uh, uh, a team or a business unit or what have you and leaders that are
well in tune with these concepts, right? They, they, they take responsibility very quickly,
but others unfortunately feel like, Oh, I inherited this team. This is a team I have.
It's like, I got to deal with what I have. And unfortunately, sometimes it takes people
like us to say, no, you are responsible for creating that. Remember that, uh, that long
time ago conversation about duplicating your best worker or best boss throughout. That's
what you're striving for. And that's what you should create. And it's your responsibility
as a leader to actually do that, um, to do that. So, uh, and I will say one more thing
before I jump into the question. One of our values was courage, courage, because, and
it comes from, you know, me being an immigrant, taking the chance, learning a second language,
leaving my past society behind and coming to a new country and all that. When you get
into an environment, we don't, a bad situation to us, it's not a messy situation. It's a
messy situation where we don't have a leader that takes responsibility and empowers us
to help them get past it. If you have the bad situation, okay, you take ownership of
it, but change it. Don't just choose to live with it. You have to take ownership of that.
And we take that very seriously. When we're getting ready to have a conversation with
a leader, we have no qualms whatsoever about saying we have a problem. There's some changes
we need to make if you really want to be successful because we can make all the changes you can
think of in the factory. But if we don't have the right people with the right mindsets and
the right behaviors that set the right examples for their followers, our chances of success
are not very good. And so I walk away from that.
It's huge. I'm glad you walked us back to that. I really am. Because it alludes, it
also keys in on one of your secret weapons. Since I haven't heard you define it as part
of your culture, I think it's like an underlying reality that comes to work in you. And that's
it. Diplomacy. You have good diplomatic skills. Something that I've been trying to develop.
I hope I'm getting a lot better at that. But when you're taking over, you're going to do
an operation where 100 or 1,000 people exist already. If you don't have the diplomatic
know-with-all and wherewithal to navigate that. And you can't just fire everybody at once.
You can't just clean house and then magically have another 1,000 people come in. You have
to be very patient with the process and be willing to know what concessions are appropriate
in those environments. And that's definitely not my skill set at that level with lots of
people. So I would consider adding that to your cultural values. Because just by knowing
the way you talk, seeing the way you represent yourself, I think you got some great skills
in diplomacy. Thank you. I appreciate that. And in terms of a good business situation,
it's been when you're allowed. Like I have a passion for this to drive change. When I
started working in industry, we would make change and it still happens, right? Like I
get this tingly feeling and I'm thinking like, oh, this is like my physical reaction to actually
being fulfilled at the work that I do. Like we're driving change. I'm collaborating with
people. We're solving problems and they're engaged. Like they're coming to me like, hey,
I made a drawing. Here's what I think we should do. And I say, hey, if you feel that's going
to work, let's go try it out. Let's go. And so when you have that, that's engagement,
that's real investment where people are thinking about Monday over the weekend. I know we got
to think about this and we have to do that in their own way. Right. Some people have
families and things that occupy themselves. But if they're really engaged in the back
of their mind, they're thinking, oh, I can't wait to Monday until I try this idea I had
over the weekend or whatever the case may be. And so those are the best experiences
and they are enabled when we have a leader that subscribes to the mindset that we just
described. They have to have the ownership. And honestly, the I don't know how to define
it if it's the psychological stamina to stand a transformation. Having tough conversations.
I mean, sometimes you walk in and it's not a bad apple. It's a bad tree, right? Full
of bad apple. And little by little you have to work those. You have to work those out
of the system. There's some that you may be able to convert or appeal to their better
sense to improve their character and adapt, as you mentioned earlier. But a lot of times
it takes that. Like it takes someone to have a firm backbone and say, I will not tolerate
this going forward. Henceforth and forthwith, this is not acceptable behavior. You're either
on board or off board. This is not the right position. This is not the right division or
the right company for you to be at. And we're happy to help you transition into a better
fitting situation for yourself. I love that. We're going to skip the powerful
lessons section because you just threw down a bunch of them. And I really like this. I
had never heard it put that way before, but psychological stamina to withstand transformation.
If anybody's ever experienced a transformation or tried to, or has sustained transformation
for a long period of time, you know exactly what you're talking about. That hits so hard.
And yeah, it's important to recognize who as a new team member has the ability to go
through that, especially if you're facing that or you know it's on the horizon. But
it's also something to probably continually train your employees and your team to be aware
of and be ready for with a world that's ever changing. So let's dive a little deeper into
the topic now that we've got some of the foundation laid. And so the topic at hand, growing manufacturing
business profit margins by 25%. I hope everybody listening realizes that you'll probably grow
up more than that if you focus on taking care of your people really well. All right. That's
the general synopsis of what we've just established. But what are some of the other technical components?
If there's a manufacturer listening in right now and they could take some practical notes
of, okay, these are three things I can do today, or I can go bother people in my organization
about today and say, hey, how are we doing on this? What are those questions that they
should be asking themselves? And what are the things they should be looking to accomplish?
So let me give you kind of an umbrella concept and I'll give you some specific pointers.
We look for specific activities that actually hold back manufacturers, operationally speaking.
We have an acronym that it means downtime, meaning time that the orders are now progressing
towards their final destination. And there's a, that's an acronym for defects, overproduction,
overproduction, transportation, neglecting talent, excess processing and emotion. And
so one of the first things to look for is not to get in your own way. Can you identify
the areas that are producing the most defects, bad parts, or parts that you have to rework
or repair or whatever the case may be? You have to dig into that and look and complete
some root cause analysis. Like what's the reason behind the reason, behind the reason,
behind the reason that this is happening? And what's the one thing that if we fix, this
whole thing goes away. Strive for that, right? And be diligent and systematic and consistent
about pursuing all of those. Stop getting on your own way, right? Another good one is
material flow. Like just because you have a plant that's in disarray or things are far
from each other, doesn't mean you're going to get more compensation from your, from your
buyer, right? They're going to pay what they're going to pay. If you do it efficiently, you're
going to make more money. If you do it less efficiently, then you're going to make less
money. So a material flow is a big one, right? Do your, does your product travel unnecessarily
throughout a factory? And can you reduce that by bringing things together or segmenting
production lines or where things are not so intertwined and complicated? And then I'll
give you one last one to keep it short. And that's motion. So look at your people. They're
either adding value or they're not. Adding value means that they're transforming information
product or material into a product that the customer wants to buy. If they're walking,
if they're searching, if they're sorting, if they're not doing anything that transforms
or moves the needle further into that material becoming the final good that you're going
to sell, you need to find ways to eliminate that. That would be a very powerful one.
Okay. I have a more industry specific question for you. It's suggested on Google as important.
One of the suggestions is to look into the ERP technology, the enterprise resource planning
technology. Is that also something, is that, is that technology something that should be
looked at expanded into invested in optimized or our manufacturers getting distracted from
the people opportunities by the constant pull to be looking at computers and technology?
What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. Some people get this right distracted by that.
I mean, it has its place. Like, um, just like if a doctor was doing some kind of tests or
diagnostic on you, they're going to look at numbers, your EKG, your heart rates and so
on and so forth. You have those things, the same for manufacturing and they fall into
four categories, safety, quality, delivery and cost. Right. And those have their place
and people should have that because the more complexity you have in your business, the
less reliable people and, uh, makeshift or manual methods, uh, are effective. And so
that those have their place and they help you with maintaining, uh, your working capital
under control, which in manufacturing is a big, uh, a big problem, right? If you have
too much inventory very quickly, that could suck a tremendous amount of, of cash out of
the business. So it has its place. Uh, however, we can't get enamored with tools, which is
a short-term mentality. We should be always having that long-term picture of what is it
we want to accomplish and what's the path of least resistance that I can take to get
me there. That's awesome. Um, it reminds me of my days in, in, uh, restaurant software
where we're providing reservation software, um, to restaurants so they could get their
reservations booked online. And those who had the software had a much easier time transitioning
to ours because ours was an upgrade and a better and save the money and blah, blah,
blah. But the ones that had the harder time transitioning were the pen and paper restaurants.
The ones that had been managing their, their restaurant with pen and paper. Granted, one
of the top 10 restaurants in the country was still managing their reservations, but pen
and paper and 20, what was that 2015 or so? Um, so all the technology existed, but they
had managed to build a great team and a great system while using pen and paper under most
circumstances. I say, that's kind of like giving somebody a toothbrush and a bucket
and saying, go, go mop the floors. Um, you know, you can't attract great team members
with bad systems. Um, and places, it's a little bit harder. I shouldn't say can't they prove
me wrong. They had that at the same time when they finally did make the transition to the
software, their business exploded even further because now they're putting great tools in
the hands of great people. And, uh, we often saw young restaurants come in, put the same
software into place and completely fall in their face because they didn't know how to
integrate the systems and the people. So Dan, I'm a, I'm a fan of what you do. Uh, I wish
you the best. I hope others that are listening in, get a lot of value out of what we talked
about today. I'm sure they will. Um, if you're listening and taking notes and applying this
to your own business, there's a lot we uncovered today. Is there anything else you'd like to
share before we wrap up? Um, yeah. So, uh, if, if, if, I believe your, uh, uh, audience
is not necessarily manufacturers. We do have, if, if you have some and they're attracted
to, to this episode, we have a tool, like a self assessment tool that you just go in
and answer 10 questions. It covers all the aspects of what we do and it gives you a score
and it tells you, Hey, you're doing really well. Here's some benchmarks that you should
strive for, or you're actually better than our, or, or meeting all of our benchmarks.
So maintain the course. Um, one thing I did want to say also is that we, if you look in
our about page, we have a formula that describes what you just said, right? You need ideal
processes, but you also need ideal behaviors so you can get ideal results. And that basically
covers, Oh yeah, there's, that's the tool. Uh, and we have one for manufacturers, one
for, uh, distribution centers, and we have one for construction, uh, companies as well.
Make sure you, you're a pop up blocker, uh, activated cause it should be a, no worries.
I didn't, I didn't click it. So you're good to go. Um, yeah, that's what you're looking
for if you're going to the website and, uh, everybody have a fantastic rest of your day.
If you want to connect with Dan on LinkedIn or elsewhere, feel free to do so. We'll always
have those in the show notes. Of course, if you want to be a guest on vision pros to share
your vision with us as well, uh, don't hesitate to, to apply. We'd love to have you Dan. Thanks
for being our guest today. Thanks so much Jackson. I appreciate you having me. Absolutely.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned into vision pros live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll
invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent day.