We lost a quarter million dollars.

I needed help running the company.

My dad had brought in a COO at the time.

I went to the COO and I said, hey, like, we need to stop doing this business.

He tried to convince me we'll never be able to get back in.

I had to make a decision to lay off 18 people because he had brought in a lot of people to scale that side of our business.

That was a huge turning point for me to just do what's necessary to be successful.

The biggest challenge I had in my career.

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Welcome back to lead the team with number one best selling author and in demand corporate trainer, Ben Fanning.

On this podcast, the world's most innovative senior leaders share their top success strategies to motivate your direct reports, cultivate your top leaders and accelerate your career.

Let's get started.

Here's Ben.

Get ready to hear from a true powerhouse in the world of logistics and leadership.

Someone who's not just built a thriving business, but who's also dedicated to lifting others up as well as she has climbed.

Welcome to Lead the team.

The podcast where we unpack the strategies and stories of exceptional leaders.

Today we have the distinct honor of speaking with Christie Knishel, President and CEO of Knishel Logistics.

Christie's journey is nothing short of inspiring and you're going to get it today.

Starting right out of high school, she immersed herself in the transportation industry, learning every facet of the business from the ground up.

22 years later, she's at the helm of a successful woman owned logistics company, proving that passion, hard work and commitment to your team can take you to the top.

Christy, welcome to Lead the Team.

Thank you for having me today.

I've been looking forward to this one.

So let's dig in.

When's the time you faced a major challenge in your career and how did you overcome it?

So I would say about 2013 was probably the biggest challenge I had in my career.

My father had appointed me President in 2007 so much earlier, but he really didn't Allow me to truly make the decisions that I should have been able to make.

I know it sounds odd, but that's just how, how that went.

But my dad had brought in a CEO at the time, back in like 2009 I believe it was, and I needed help running the company.

And this gentleman initially had a lot of experience, had owned his own brokerage at one point.

I didn't have mentors really in my life at that time.

My dad was a great salesperson, so this guy coming in had a whole lot of different experience, but couple years down the road we had gone into a situation with him where he was trying to revamp our truck brokerage side of the business and he was taking on freight from a large customer, Johnson and Johnson, to be quite honest.

With that being said, we were moving the freight and the market flipped, meaning now the price of the transportation went up and the prices you had in place did not work.

So to move that freight, we were losing a lot of money per shipment and some shipments were fifteen hundred dollar losses.

And yes, and at that time I didn't have the visibility I should have had from the controller at the time as well, which that's a, that's another story.

But at the end of the day I got to the point where my controller had mentioned, hey, we lost a quarter million dollars.

And I went to the COO and I said, hey, like we need to stop doing this business.

And he tried to convince me this is something that we should not do because we'll never be able to get back in.

And I said, I'm not going to be in business if we continue to move freight at a loss.

Like I get there's a part of business that we have to take care of a customer to an extent.

But this was an extraordinary situation that the whole industry was dealing with at that time.

So anyways, we did stop moving the freight, but a month later find out we were $500,000 in the hole.

And I mean in the hole as the whole company at this point, not just that business.

So with that being said, I had to make a decision to lay off 18 people because he had brought in a lot of people to scale that side of our business.

And again, that was not my expertise.

My expertise was more in the intermodal side of our shipping, not necessarily the truck brokerage side.

So I trusted this guy.

And with having to lay off 18 people, I've never had to do that before, it was very heartbreaking.

I have one person here today that was one of those people and I couldn't even talk, like literally was so distraught I couldn't even talk to her on the phone.

She was pregnant at the time.

And I told myself after this happened, like, I never want to go through this situation again.

Clearly I didn't know enough even about the financials that I should have known.

I didn't know enough about the operation.

I kind of just let him do his own thing and just had conversation, but just kind of let him do, do that without really directing him, I should say, which I should have been.

But my dad treated him as if he was the person running the company instead of me.

So with that being said, like after that I tried having conversations with my dad, my brother also as well, like, we need to get rid of this guy.

He's not the guy for the job.

He put our company in a position that we could have gone out of business.

And my dad fought us on it.

I mean, it was to the point where I said, we're not going to be here and exist anymore if we do not get rid of this guy.

And on top of that, I also found out some other things that this gentleman was doing too, that was not great as far as some technology that we were utilizing that his brother in law actually had made for us.

And I knew we were paying like $700 a month.

And at this point as well, I start asking for all the financials, I'm going to look through everything, right then I see we're paying this guy $3,000 a month.

Meanwhile, my sister ran that division, right?

And she's like, we're not even using it, it's not even working.

So two things there, and it was something that, I mean, interesting enough, my dad, it was just like it went over his head.

He did not want to hear it, didn't want to see it.

So at one point, my current COO that I have, I actually pulled him into his office with me because I knew he had to be fired.

My dad would not allow me to fire him.

He didn't want him fired.

But I went in there and I fired him without my dad's permission, so to speak.

Even though I felt like I didn't need it, but he made me feel as if I needed it because of the way he still treated me, even in that president role that I had.

So I think that was a huge turning point for me to just do what's necessary to survive in the company and then continue to move forward.

Because what my dad wanted me to do or not wanted me to do, I should Say, would have continued to put us in a really bad spot.

And I remember calling him after I did the firing, and he literally said to me, I can't believe you fired him.

I said, dad, I came in today, he had his office packed up, and I went to lunch, and I got a phone call saying that there was potentially alcohol on this guy's breath.

So I just knew then that I just had to come back, take care of it.

And the reason why he was packing his office up is I was questioning him about the financial stuff I was just telling you about.

So I think he knew I was digging in now and finding stuff out.

So then I also knew, too.

The other lesson learned is like, I need to know more about the financials.

I need to be looking at this stuff more than what I was, because I didn't know it as much.

I felt like, oh, he's got that.

I don't have to worry about it as much.

But now it's like, no, I need to know all of this stuff.

Yeah.

Wow, man.

Such an incredible story.

And y'all, I would say if you ever have not gotten your mba, if you go to MBA school, that story, that's NBA World.

Yeah.

And I.

That's the graduate level.

That's the executive level training that everybody gets at some point.

And I would mention I quit college.

I went to college and I quit and started working for my dad when I was 19.

So I didn't have any of that.

Yes.

I took some classes, but I had to figure it out.

Yeah.

So a couple of things come out.

Number one, where did this courage.

Where did you source your courage from or your inspiration to do that?

Because I can see they're coming in.

They're kind of grooming you to be a leader in the business.

But it also sounds like, like, hey, Christy, you're going to be head of this business, but also kind of stay in your lane.

You don't need to know all this other stuff.

And then at some point, you.

It sounds like you had a breakthrough moment.

You're like, no, no.

Well, a couple things.

First of all, my dad paid this guy more than me, and that shouldn't have happened, but because he had experience and because he had a college degree.

So where this comes from, this drive, this inspiration, the fact that my dad put me in a role to run the company, but yet didn't believe that I could do it.

And I wanted to prove to him that I could do it.

And that's how I spent my whole career, probably up until like, five Years ago, to be quite honest, still trying to prove that I could do the role that he put me in.

Trying to prove.

Trying to prove yourself.

Never really feeling like you had the full belief and so that that fueled you.

Yes.

Like, I've always had a strong work ethic.

I always worked two and three jobs to be, to be honest.

And even when I worked for my dad, I worked a second job too.

So that, that's just a given.

But I think to kind of push me forward was the fact of just trying to prove myself to him.

It's like I didn't have the college degree either, did he?

Right.

But it's like we need to hire people with college degrees.

And I'm just sitting over here like, okay, like that's.

I get that there's a place for people like that in the company.

I need smarter people around me, clearly.

But there's a lot of people that don't have the degrees too, that can do the job, that are hard workers, that are willing to go the mile to get the job done.

And that me.

Yeah.

So what is your take on a college degree versus versus the school of hard knocks?

Because this, and I'm thinking about, we, we hosted the Angie from Angie's List, who is big on the trades, for example.

And that's part of Angie's.

Angie's List business is hiring people in trade and feeling like, hey, college isn't always the right route for everybody.

And in fact, don't forget these other maybe non traditional ways to go about developing yourself.

Or maybe those are the actual traditional ways of developing yourself is through the trade side.

What's your take on it as a CEO, creating a business where like you say, maybe college degrees are in something needed in some areas versus not.

And how you, how you think about that?

Yeah.

So I do think a college degree can be important in several different areas.

And I'll sit there and say medical, right.

When you're going to be a doctor, a lawyer, like, there's certain areas that I feel you absolutely need it.

I do think that when it comes to business and such, I mean, I think that that can be important.

But if you have a good teacher, you can teach yourself and kind of learn through the hard way like I did.

It's interesting because I feel like some of the people that have worked for me through the years that don't have the degrees tend to have a really good work ethic for the most part.

Not all of them.

Okay.

Because they want an opportunity to be able to make decent money and you can do that in logistics without having the degree.

But then the guy that runs my company today, several people on my leadership team, do have degrees.

And one difference I can tell you specifically from me that separates us apart would be they speak better, they write better, they're able to, I think, communicate.

I think in ways that I can't.

And I don't know if I would have learned more of that in college.

I struggled in college, to be quite honest.

I got tutored even in English.

I had a hard time putting things together and whatnot.

Obviously I have tools now that I can utilize.

I always want to come out with this message and it doesn't come out, say, the most professional way.

So I'm working on that myself.

But I do think when it comes to college, like, I'm not pro go to college unless someone truly wants to, to learn more for themselves and how it can maybe help them in their career.

Because there are people here that have like an MBA and things of that nature.

And I think that that has helped them to an extent, but not for the amount of money they're paying either.

Well, I was going to ask, so reflecting over your career, where do you think not having a college degree, not having a college degree was an advantage?

Wasn't an advantage.

Was hell helpful or how did it.

Because I, I kept thinking about like Malcolm Gladwell and David versus Goliath.

And of course everybody's like, well, if you've got a Stanford or Harvard mba.

And by the way, we've had a lot of those CEOs of those like, clearly that's like they should be CEO.

However, I don't, I think of it there could be and are advantages to not.

And I'm curious, we're thinking about of your career, where do you think it maybe was helpful?

Yeah, I mean, I think it was helpful in the fact that again, I'm just trying to prove myself right, that I could do the job without it because my dad preached about it so much.

Meanwhile, my brother, he went to a trade school.

My sister quit college.

My dad, he'll say he graduated, but I don't think he did.

So I do think sometimes people do tend to feel like you have to work harder to prove that you don't need that college degree to be successful and work through stuff.

And a lot of entrepreneurs have that ability to do that without having that degree.

And again, I think it just makes you dig in, dig deeper, learn more.

Right.

Like initially, early on, I tried to learn some, but I also didn't have a Mentor to say, hey, maybe you should learn more about finance and that.

And I did take a quick class on that, but it definitely wasn't enough.

And then obviously down the road, I got some more training from our outside CFO and whatnot.

So I think where it's helped me probably the most is really just again, saying it again, just proving that I can do this without having that background.

Because so many businesses are about hiring college graduates.

And some of the ones that we've hired here, even locally, some of them work out really well.

And again, I just feel like you learn so much more being in the business and doing it day to day.

And a lot of what you learn in school anymore doesn't really apply in a lot of things, especially in logistics.

Yeah, I can see, number one, what you didn't say this word, but I hear grittiness.

You're like, I've got something to prove.

I've got an edge, and I'm gonna.

And also because you.

Those years that you would have spent in college and maybe even a graduate degree, you were working.

Right.

You were threatening the business and.

And have.

I've worked in the logistics world back in the day, and there's really not a textbook for that world.

It's very specific.

And you learn logistics really by doing it.

Yeah.

And.

And also perhaps.

And you didn't say this, but I think there may be a relatability because the field does have people that, that are more from the trade side driving the trucks in that world.

And if you put the time in early, you do learn from the ground up more.

And I like what you said.

Also, there may be a certain kind of resourcefulness.

You talked about getting help from external.

Yeah.

Business leaders, and you knew who to call on for help.

And I think that's a life skill that even if you're in college, it's important to foster that because you got to know what you don't know.

Yeah, well, that's exactly what my CFO said.

CFO said to me, you don't know what you don't know.

Because I felt like a CEO, I should know this, but I don't.

And I'm not strong at it.

And he just reminded me of that.

And one funny thing I'll share with you, like, because my dad, he was probably a better mentor, like in regards to sales and then what not to do.

I always say everything else I had to figure out on my own.

But going back to the whole college thing too, like when I was young, I did work release when I was 16 from high school and I went to a job and I worked two and three jobs the whole time because I wanted to get out and live on my own and do my own things with my own money.

So that was probably part of that drive too.

And part of my story before I worked for my dad is I wanted to buy a pizza shop when I was 19, and he talked me out of it to come work for him.

So.

And so looking back, you're like, should have done the pizza or no.

Now I'm thinking, okay, when I make my millions, I'll probably open a pizza shop for someone else to run.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

So it will be there.

It'll just be a little bit later in life before you do it.

Yep, yep.

Talking about pizza, what is the best pizza?

Oh, my gosh.

There's a lot of thought into this, so I'm excited.

No, there's two different kinds I like, and I'm very picky.

They have to cook it right.

They have to evenly put out the sauce and the cheese.

But I would say a truce in Italian pizza.

But we also have a pizza shop here that actually they cook the, the dough with the sauce and it's like smashed tomatoes sauce on there, like pieces of tomato, but they throw cold cheese on it when it comes out.

And I would have never thought that was good, but it is good.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we have something to look forward to then.

Yeah.

Crispy's Pizza.

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You know, I, I.

Have you ever had that, that Roman style pizza that it's like the, the crust is cooked at extremely high temperature and it breaks off almost like, like a graham cracker type?

Yeah, I think I have.

Yeah.

Hard to find that stuff because we don't have that.

Anyway, I'm on the search for that, so if anybody hears about that.

But yeah, you're.

You're pretty darn good too.

Now, before we get started, and people should know that you speak a lot from the stage.

That's a big thing.

You're feeling that, that you've got a message to share.

And that's one of the reasons we're hosting you here today on the show.

But you mentioned, Ben, people line up oftentimes afterwards and it sounds like you're communicating a message to them that they can really relate to and maybe they don't have a voice.

Yeah.

Or there, there's some fear.

What is the what.

What's the question?

Or what's the feedback you get after speaking?

And what's the.

How does it, how does it resonate with you as a speaker?

Yeah, I would say the message usually is, I'm going through the same thing or I have a similar story.

And a lot of times it had to do with the family business dynamic that I talk about working with my dad and my brother and my sister and then also being a woman in a male dominated industry.

I feel like most industries are male dominated, but our industry in particular, when I first came into it at such a young age, so.

And then feeling like I didn't have a voice.

Right now here I am on stage pushing myself to speak, knowing I'm sick to my stomach.

And I think it makes me feel so awesome.

Sometimes I don't even know what to say to.

Well, initially I didn't know what to say to people.

Right.

Like, oh, thank you so much.

You've really inspired me.

Which are some of the things that people say too.

And I'm just like, that's great.

Like, if I can make someone feel better about themselves or pushing themselves forward to speak or stand up for themselves.

Like, I just feel like I have accomplished so much.

I just want to always give back, help other people so they don't have to go through maybe some of the challenges I've had to go through, make it a better path for them because it was a hard path for me.

Yeah.

You have something, maybe a person of mine, you don't have to name names, but a person who heard your message or that you've been mentored from your experience and has.

Has been able to make a shift or a change like you do and be able to achieve big results.

Yeah, I'll actually name this person.

We're really good friends.

Nicole Glenn.

She owns Candor Expedite.

She had reached out to me probably about five years ago just from watching on LinkedIn and seeing me out there and asked me if I could help her understand how I grew my business because she wanted to grow her business and that was more about that, not necessarily the family side of things.

But I can tell you, after working with her and mentoring her for a couple years, she did exactly what I had told her.

To do.

And part of it was put yourself out there, you know, go to speaking events, go to conferences, all that stuff.

And then within like six months, she wanted to start a podcast where us women gave back to other women because she was so thankful that I gave back to her.

And next thing she's winning these big awards that I won.

I gave her a list of awards that I won.

All the people I mentor, I do.

I'm like, reach out, put yourself out there.

These are all things about building your brand.

So she's very thankful for that.

And now I get something out of it too.

I get to also learn from her things that she has implemented.

And we still work together on the podcast.

And her and another woman, we also opened up a non profit charity too, to help children that have been sex trafficked.

So it's just built this like huge community.

And now we're personal friends, we go on some trips together and things of that nature.

So I just think it's so important to do that, to build your network, not even just for you personally, but for you professionally.

That's incredible.

I love that story.

And congrats on her success as well as yours.

And what I hear in your voice and your story is you feel successful through the success that your mentees and your collaborators are having.

When do you think about, okay, we could be competing against each other one day in a bid, or we could be like, you're, do you ever feel like, oh, I don't know, how does this come up from a competition standpoint?

I don't know if you, you and she are competing in the same deal, but yeah, yeah.

How do you think about competition versus cooperation in your industry?

Right.

So when I first was working with my dad, it was kind of a thing in the industry where you didn't talk to your competitors at all.

And it got to the point where I had a hard time covering some freight out of a certain area and I started reaching out to our competitors.

Hey, I have a box in this area.

Can you give me a box in that area?

Because LA was like a market most people needed boxes in and we didn't.

So what can you give me in NorCal?

And I'll give you in LA?

And I started building those connections with competitors in ways we could help each other.

So I carried that on through to where I'm at today.

Now, this woman is not necessarily a competitor of mine.

She does expedite business.

I'm more in the intermodal world.

But with that being said, whether they're a Competitor or not, I will tell you, I work with all of them.

We have conversations.

How can we help each other?

What did you do with this customer or that customer?

Can we, like if I got in business, for example, with a certain customer, I'll see if I can talk to them to help you get in to that customer and do what you do for that customer.

Because I feel like if we all help each other more like that, we'll all be more successful.

Because that's what makes me happy.

And for me, I'm not necessarily looking for something out of it at the moment because a lot of people I help are not in my space and they're always saying, what can I do to help you?

And I'm always telling them, if you have an intermodal opportunity, then certainly send someone my way or let me know.

But at the end of the day, I'm about connecting people and how can we work together because some of these accounts are so big, there's enough room for all of us.

Man, that is a true mindset of abundance versus scarcity.

And the world ain't got a lot of that, especially in a fiercely competitive landscape like business.

I mean, competition is part of it, but it's interesting I think, for people listening today to think about that, right.

If you have, what would your world be like if you allowed yourself to really bring a mindset of abundance?

Like there's going to be enough business, we're going to grow together and ultimately we're going to have happier customers if we're able to connect them.

What's the feedback you get from a customer when you're like, we're not able to cover that, but I'm going to help you get connected with someone who can.

I think they absolutely love that.

I tell customers all the time, we're not going to say we can do it all.

We're going to pick areas that we know we can do well.

And if you're struggling in a specific area, even if it's in my space, for example, but it's Maybe it's moving 40 foot boxes and it's something we just know we're not good at, I'll refer them.

I actually did that a couple months ago.

Five different companies that I pick out that I know are great companies and send them direct because I'd rather them do that than try to do it through me.

And me fail because we don't know it that well.

Wow.

Well, that's.

That's got to be comforting.

Yeah.

Friend your customers that you got that you got their back.

And that you present, it sounds like through your own speaking and your podcast, you really present yourself as a very networked leader.

Yeah.

You're not just going it alone here.

Now, I'm curious with your team and as you lead them, bringing in new people, working with them, what, what do you do to foster this mindset within them, even.

Even though they might not show up with it per se?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's important that they know when we have our monthly company meetings, constantly going over our values and how we can better ourselves and set ourselves apart from our competition.

So a lot of times it is looking at it different than they've ever learned before if they came from a previous competitor or whatnot.

Because that can be completely different.

Right.

I have two new people that work for me now that came from really big brokerages.

And the way they did their brokerage is not what we do here.

And so it is having conversations.

I just announced to them last week I'm going to be having 15 minute phone call or not phone conversations, but in person conversations with everybody because I want them to know that I care about how they feel about things and I want them to know what to expect, just even for me.

Even the new people that start to work for me, I take them to a lunch and I go over what my expectations are, the background of the company, talk about how I've done every role in this company and how you have to earn your way.

I think you have to do that from the very beginning with people so they know what they're coming into and then continuing to follow up.

I might not have time to do the 15 minutes with every employee every quarter, but I'm going to certainly continue to reach out, especially if there's areas or ones I know that might be struggling.

But we have to get that message out there and how we communicate.

Because at the end of the day, all we have to sell is service.

And I mean, that's it.

And the way that we talk to our customers, we treat people not taking freight that we shouldn't be doing and have no business doing.

And because of my connections on the broker side, I do get a lot of weird requests like tankers and things that we don't do.

And that sounds great, but I'm like, I'll send you to someone else.

And I tell the same people on the floor, like, let's not try to do things that, that aren't us.

We have to stay in our, our area.

Yeah, there's always the siren how Much revenue would that generate?

Right.

Yeah, we can move that helicopter.

Right.

Thinking back to those 15 minute sessions or, or one of the lunches that you've had with one of your new employees, which one sticks out to you most in your mind that something interesting happened or surprising that happened?

I would say so.

There was two that I took out about probably three weeks a month ago.

And they, those are the two that came from bigger brokerages than what we are here today.

I think the fact that they were so open to talk to me and start telling me issues that they're already seeing and what they feel we could work on to better their process, which now I.

Or a week later, I took four other new people that were younger.

Couple of them graduated from college or whatnot.

Couldn't pull a whole lot out of that team.

One guy had just started like that week, but one of the college students, I would say two on that one mentioned, I just want to be able to learn more.

I want to be able to.

To do more and learn, especially when there's an issue.

And someone was training her, for example, and she's like, hey, give me a minute, I got to put out these fires.

And she literally said to me, and this is a college graduate, and said, that's a teaching moment.

And I said, well, she might not have realized it, so just say, hey, can I come sit with you and learn what this fire is that you're putting out?

And that stuff I appreciate because I do feel like when I call people in my office, sometimes they feel like they're getting fired.

And I have to remind everyone you're.

I don't fire people unless you work direct for me.

And there's only like four people that work direct under me.

So when you're coming to my office, I make it clear I want to talk to you because I want to hear what you have to say.

Because I do think that's important.

And in a group setting, I've learned most people don't have much to say.

But when you do get them one on one, I really want to know what we can do to make your job easier and what obstacles we have that we can overcome.

So I think it's not like a moment, but I just so appreciate the fact that people are willing to tell me what I need to hear to make the job better for them and for the company.

So.

Good.

So a couple of things I'm taking away from that.

Number one is just the value of getting people out and in conversation soon after they join.

One, he said Clarify the expectations, which is good for them to start and feel comfortable and kind of get them pointed in the right direction.

And then I love how you with the college students had that great example.

And I think learning from watching somebody is such a valuable thing.

And too often it's like a big deal.

It's like, okay, we got to set time together, we got to schedule it, and then the thing gets pushed off forever.

Well, maybe you just need to go into their office, look over their shoulder as you're doing something, or share your screen.

Like, hey, I'm going to do this report, or I'm going to do this.

Just watch the screen or someone record the screen.

Just.

It doesn't have to be overly dang complicated to do it.

And the second thing that I loved is when you talk about people that came from other brokers, other brokerages, and you, you recognize, I suspect that they have fresh eyes coming in.

And within probably a month or two, they're going to start adjusting to the way you guys do things, and they're going to stop seeing potentially all the things that need to be improved based on what they did.

And because you got them out early, they still had that freshness and you made them feel comfortable enough where they could actually share that.

And that is gold.

Yes.

And I think the other part of it is, I'm over here, like, what can you teach us too?

Even though we don't do it that way, but, like, they come with some knowledge, but I also don't want them to feel like, hey, we do it different, so don't get discouraged.

I mean, I think, if anything, I think they appreciate the way we do it because it's not.

You have to find the customer and book the freight.

We have a customer side and we have a carrier side.

We split it.

We think it's two different skill sets.

Not that it can't work the other way.

Clearly it has.

But we want to make sure the message to the customer is in a way that it's coming from the right person, the right mindset.

I've had people in the past that have worked for me that have been very gruff.

Right.

With the carriers and stuff.

And then you tend to be like that with the customer.

And that's something that I want to separate.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I get what you're saying.

Yeah.

Truck language and conversation is different than talking to certain procurement for logistics or in a chief supply chain officer.

But the other thing too is because we do so much intermodal and the truckload team wasn't as big and the way that we.

They get accustomed to the culture.

Right.

And it's a little bit more calm and.

And whatnot in here.

So then you bring in these other people from these big brokers and they're just like, it's so quiet.

Why is it so quiet now?

They're bringing a little bit of an energy that we need.

And I'm like so thankful for that because I.

I think that needs to happen more specifically in that department.

Maybe not necessarily on the intermodal side, but that side definitely needs to have that kind of energy brought to the table.

So.

Good.

Yeah.

It's a world of.

As a CEO, you're building your team, creating that balance of people from that went to college that didn't go from big brokers experience college and creating a really, really strong team with a very.

A lot of variety of perspectives, thinking about your team.

And this is kind of a big question, but what's been an idea or a strategy that you found to be really helpful to bring them together to get big results?

I would say more recently as we've been trying to scale the company, the last couple of years has been tough in this market.

So I think it was me and John, who's our coo, and it was really putting a leadership team together and it not just being on myself and John making decisions and hearing all the stuff that now I have two outside people that are on that team.

My director, sales, my new controller, my agent lady that.

That runs the agent program, and then my head of marketing process improvement.

So I have different pieces of the company all in one leadership team.

And I think that that has been a good strategy for us to move forward and make decisions and get different insight from people that we didn't get before.

And then also breaking it down into bringing in the next level into a meeting weekly to have those conversations and make sure they're on the same page with us.

And we've also just recently started the EOS process traction.

EOS being.

Yeah, yeah.

Entrepreneurial operating system.

I think that's also helped kind of keep us on track because we had started it earlier last year and then we just had all this stuff going on and it was.

We kind of got away from doing it because we were so busy, but then things did not get done the way they should have.

So I demanded that we get back to doing this properly and the way that we need to do it because I feel like we would have executed a lot more and maybe better by continuing that in the fashion we needed to wow.

Cool.

Well, congratulations on that.

Sometimes you got to get everybody in the.

In the right people in the right room to have the right conversation, and, yeah, things can happen.

Yeah.

Christy, this has been so much fun today.

What's your parting thought for our listeners?

Feel free to take it in any direction you like.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is always put yourself out there.

I believe in that so much.

Build your network, reach out to people, and find some mentors.

It doesn't necessarily have to be this professional setup, mentor type program.

I mean, those are out there.

But I have a lot of different people that I can reach out to that have really been so valuable to my success and just putting myself out there, meeting people that can help me or ones I can help them that eventually come back to you.

So I think those are the things that are so important to anybody.

No matter what you do in your career, you can always take away something valuable from having that network and not being afraid to speak up and reach out.

Well, you definitely walk the talk on that, and that's tremendous.

Well, put yourself out there, meet people, network, and Christie's story is a heck of an example of the power of doing that.

Thanks for coming on the show, Christy.

Thank you.

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