Justin Deese (00:00)

Welcome to another episode of Freedom Blueprint podcast. I am hanging out today with my amazing wife, Kristen. Welcome to the show. Thank you. So today we are just coming off of a two day workshop event that was really awesome. ⁓ Truthfully, I think it went better than you and I.

Anticipated I would agree with that. Yeah, it was it's cool anytime for anybody who's ever done a workshop or put on an event there's a lot of moving parts that are that are happening and To be a challenge. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of planning and preparation that goes into it as you're getting ready for it and then once the attendees start arriving and it's like

Like, here we go. We're off to the races. Here we go. Things are getting real now. Let's do this. So the event was obviously home service businesses from across the country who were there to learn about position specific KPIs and then some leadership systems to help them.

hold their team members accountable to the KPIs that they decided that they wanted to measure and the goals they set for themselves. So ⁓ it was a little bit of numbers, a little bit of leadership, a lot of really cool opportunities for some group work. There were businesses from all sizes there. So there was some guys who were still kind of on the small side and then there was guys who were really quite large and it was really neat to be able to

see some of the takeaways from a variety of sizes of companies. Well, and it's interesting. think sometimes people get hung up on, well, once you reach a certain size, a smaller business can't help you. And it's cool because a lot of times when you do the group exercises, you'll see, can watch and see how sometimes the small businesses are actually helping the bigger businesses because they're so in the day to day that sometimes those owners forget about, you know,

cool things they used to do when they were in the truck that really made a difference or an impact and they go, yeah, you know what? I need to make sure my guys are doing that or. Well, it kind of makes you almost go back to basics for a little bit. You know, there's, there's a lot of times that we, ⁓

When we get to a certain size, there's some little things that we that kind of drop off and, you know, having the opportunity to chit chat with the the ones that are a little bit smaller kind of remind you that, my gosh, we did used to do that. And it was really cool. I don't know why we stopped, but, you know, busy, focused on other things that tends to happen a lot. So there was also some really good vendors. Yeah, we had a couple. Yeah, we had four vendors. So let's give them all shout out.

All right. Amazing. Yes. So Glasshouse was our presenting sponsor, our entertainment sponsor as well. And Jimmy from Glasshouse spoke a little bit about the Disney Prince, the Disney Prince model. I love I love his talk on that. And if you go back, he's been on the podcast and he did a podcast where he did a little bit of talking about the Disney.

Prince model, but it's, cool because you know, that came up because he's got two younger kids and that just kind of framework happened. And that was really, really cool to see that. Well, and the cool thing about, ⁓ kind of what I took away from his, ⁓ section was, if you just do 10 % better in a couple of different things, it compounds so much more. And you can apply that not only to business, but like life, like my, my brain goes to, ⁓

fitness and nutrition. If I did 10 % better on my activity and 10 % better on my food and 10 % better on my sleep and 10 % better on whatever other fitness thing there is, that all compounds. I going to the gym might be one of them. That all compounds together. So it's not like you have to take one thing and go 100 % change if you just do a little bit of change in multiple things, it compounds. It's like that's a really cool concept. Yeah.

then we also had.

Power Selling Pros was there as a vendor. We had CES, which is, I think the easiest way to describe them would be like a comprehensive HR, payroll benefits solution for small businesses in the industry. And then we had True North, which is marketing. That's McKenna with the different marketing tactics and things that she does.

It was a really cool blend of sponsors. We know all of the sponsors in advance worked with most of them already. it was, we were proud to have them as sponsors. Like I was proud to have them talk to our attendees and it was really cool. We would be comfortable saying use this company. They're going to take care of you. I think that's the nice thing about being able to pick the vendors.

is we were able to kind of go through it and go, who do we who do we know? Who do we like? Who do we trust? And that's who we want to kind of hang out with. Yeah. And that worked out really well OK, so so we had amazing sponsors. Yeah, we had audio video there. So I'm really excited to be able to see ⁓ professional audio video. Yeah. Outcome from that. I'm like super excited to see that.

There is a handful of things that I wouldn't say last minute, but they were things that that we just wanted to make sure we did well or that we really didn't. We just wanted to make sure that we included. ⁓ We had awesome signage, I will say, like the overall look, ⁓ the look and the the vibe of it was really cool. The photo backdrop was fun. Yeah.

There's just some of that detail that was really fun to pull together. The food was good. Food was good. Yep. Food was good. Yeah. Went to the baseball game on Thursday night. We got to see the Pensacola Wahoos, which on Thursdays. They're the Pensacola mullets. OK, I don't get that. I don't get it. OK, so I don't I'm going to tell the story. I don't know if it's true or not. ⁓

So to make for a good story, I think that they do it and they tied it in to the, to the BOGO beer thing. So like Thursday night is thirsty Thursday. Right. So it's kind of like the mullet is, is a famous fish or popular fish here. And a hair cut. Uh-huh. Right. So it's like, I think so. I'm going to double check though, because I've got a team used to be called the mullets.

No, no, they were never called the mullets ever in the history of ever. No, I think they they they tried it as a one time thing. It was really popular. People liked it and they and they kept because even their jerseys are even different. Like there's this brown. It's a mullet thing. It's it's supposed to look like a mullet, but it's really weird because you have the player's head and hat and then you have their bare neck and then you have this brown swath of something on the back of their shirt. It'd be funnier if they took fake hair and hung it out the back of their their hats. I'm going to have to look it up now, but I'm positive that

Part of that story is true. I know that's kind of how it started. ⁓ Whether they call it Trashy Thursday or not. If they don't, they should. Well, OK. But so so we played the trash and we played the trash pan. Which out of Huntsville, which here's the deal. I did have somebody ask me the other night ⁓ what a trash panda is. So just for clarity, it's a raccoon. ⁓ wait, you didn't know what I did not. I was matter of fact, I was I was asking. ⁓

Keith that was there, he lives in Huntsville. And I was talking to him the week before and I said, Hey, just so you know, well, he lives in Decatur, which is right there by Huntsville. But I said, Hey, just so you know, we're playing the trash pan. And he's like, man, I'm going to wear my Jersey. I'm going to a hat. He was decked out. I was like, no, you won't. And he did. totally did. Yeah. He was the, he was the fan. was, he was, I think the only trash panda fan there. And also, um, they were winning for a minute. And then towards the end, um, the Wahoos started scoring a couple of runs and, and took the lead.

And then of course, Keith had to do his rally cap. So he turned it inside out and upside down and put it on his head and then ended up getting a picture with Kazoo, which is our mascot at the end of the night. And ⁓ Kazoo's big old blue hand was over top the trash. Yeah. Covering the logo. Yeah. It was, it was really fun. had a good time. That was fun. We, yeah, we had our, we had our own little section and so it was just our crazy group. They contained us to one area.

Yeah, and it was fun. again, we had really good food. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah. Good network. It was cool. It was there was so much networking. Yeah, there was so much networking over the whole couple of days. As a matter of fact, one of the guys who I was talking to before the event when he was trying to decide whether not he should come because, you know, they're like a pretty decent sized company and they've got a lot of stuff already kind of in place. And he was like, am I going to get anything out of this? And I was like.

I bet you will. I bet you will. And he's like, is there going to be companies I can network with that are bigger than me? And I said, yeah, there'll probably be some. So at the end of the first day he came up, he said, I just wanted to let you know that I've already got two shop tours scheduled and I have been able to connect with so many different companies and the networking has been amazing. Fantastic. So that was cool. So that wrapped day one.

Day one was heavy. Day one was a lot of lift. was, it wasn't numbers from like a financial standpoint, like financial statement standpoint, but it was definitely ⁓ probably the heavier lift of the two days because the whole concept of the two days was putting, we were working to put together a package. each session segment that we did,

It kind of built on the next one like the next one built on that and built on that built on that all the way through for the whole two days. And so I would say that it was probably a heavier lift and slightly more individual lift on day one. But then on day two, ⁓ it was less numbery and more like leadershipy type stuff. How do you take action? How do you hold people accountable? How do you? Right. We've got all this stuff now. What do you with it? think that's a lot of what gets missed a lot of times. And

the difference in conference for us, conferences and workshops is that we had time to go. Yeah, deeper on the topic. Well, and it's cool. Like I really wanted to be able to teach something and then and then have it provide enough value that the attendee felt like they were getting something out of the two days that were there, but not hit him with a fire hose so much that there couldn't even absorb, let alone try to implement all the things. So it was kind of a and even preparing the content. was like this fine balance of.

how do I know that I'm gonna be providing enough without providing too much and it become overwhelming. And so the second day, then they got to really work a lot in small groups and then use the strategic leverage of their group to be able to compound what they got to take home. So they all were individually working on a piece, but they were individually working on pieces of.

of their like in the group of their table and then at the end of the day they could pull it all together and now they had four complete sets instead of one complete set. So it was a good way to be able to utilize the power of the group. You know you can do one one person can do one thing but when you pull together a group of people. So I saw a lot of the ahas from different industries right so there was garage doors there was plumbing there was HVAC there was

landscaping, like there might've been one other general contracting general contractor there. Yep. And it was kind of one of those deals where

they had that misconception of, I'm not gonna learn anything from a garage door if I don't do garage doors or plumbing and then when they're starting to work in these small groups, they're going, ⁓ you know what, we do that or I forgot about it or my gosh, that's a really good idea. Why don't we do that in our industry? So it was really neat to see those light bulbs go off. and home services, the concept of home service is that the technician, regardless of what they do,

leaves your shop and goes to the customer's home to do something. As opposed to like an auto mechanic where the customer brings their thing to you to fix, you're going to them to fix, repair, install, whatever you're doing. At the end of the day, home services is the same, it's just a different widget. Right. Right, I mean obviously the skill, the skill and the technical, like that's different, but the business running of it, it is the same thing, regardless of what the widget is. over that.

Even no matter what software you're in or anything like that, it's still, it is the same. ⁓ I mean, I kind of started, I kicked off the two days of, you know, some do's and don'ts. And one of the don'ts was don't fool yourself into thinking your business is different because it's not. And I'm glad you set the stage for that too, because there was a couple of times where people would start and they would catch themselves.

I'm just kidding. My business is yeah, that's exactly right. That'll work in that'll work. Well, and you have the group too, who's like, Hey, you know, yeah, it's it's not. And here's why. And so that, that was, that was pretty awesome to see just light bulbs. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Let's see light bulb. then, and then as everything, well, okay. Let me tell you one of the, one of the comments that I received actually from a couple of people was about the flow.

and that that it wasn't 75, 1100 different topics that they were getting hit with. And at the end of the day, they're like, well, I don't even know what to do all day. Everything built on the next thing, everything built on the next thing. And I think everybody appreciated that because it's it's it's building and building and building. Well, and ⁓ I was I was shooting for the idea that let's take this one topic and go deep instead of do.

15 topics and stay surface level. So good, I'm glad it worked out. I also want to mention and appreciate Levi Torres from Hi-Fi Plumbing. He was there, he did a presentation. He did an amazing job on his presentation. We've known Levi and Cassie for almost 10 years. I coached with Levi probably about eight.

eight or nine years ago, he was ⁓ to this day probably still one of my favorite coaching clients because he always did what I told him to do. And then he would even come back to the call and say, okay, I did that and this, what's next? Give me the next thing, I wanna do the next thing. And when we were doing that, he was a plumbing company that was, I don't know, two or three or $4 million a year. And now he's like,

six times that in several different arms, home service arms. And it's just, it's really cool. for him to come to this and then that he was able to provide so much insight to the attendees and ⁓ he's just got a really, you know, special servants heart and ⁓ he was all in it. There was never a time where you would think that he

felt like he was too big for the room and it was really cool. more things on his, ⁓ to do list than I bet anybody else in the room. Yeah. And I, and I hope everybody saw that when we were, as we were kind of openly discussing that, but he had more things. at no point did, he go in a room and go, my, because he's probably was the biggest business in the room. Yeah, I think so. mean, if not, was, he was pretty close, but at no point was it.

It was, I'm here to work, man. Like, what do I learn? He was going to the smaller companies, not like, let me tell you, but like, tell me asking questions. And it was, ⁓ it was cool. Keith Jackson, same thing, man. Yeah. Keith Jackson's technically retired, but he had notes all over the place. And, ⁓ yeah, just an amazing, amazing group of people. And I mean, that's the first that.

It's really the first workshop in that kind of format with the virtual CFO that you've done. I mean, anybody who's ever done events can tell you the first is the absolute hardest for anything to fill the room, to get ⁓ sponsors to any of that stuff. And sponsorship was sold out. The room was sold out. the event venue was amazing. ⁓ there wasn't any glitch. mean, it was really such a smooth running.

event. was pretty awesome. Thanks. Yeah. I mean, there's I always am going to have polishes. Oh, 100 percent. I I'm polishes. But to know that the framework is set now and to do it again feels like a little bit less of a hurdle than honestly when we first started when I was like, oh, I wouldn't do a workshop or whatever. And at the beginning, I was like.

How hard could it be? And then about two weeks before the event, was like, oh, MG, what have I gotten myself into? Well, so here's another surprise or maybe not surprised, but certainly felt good is, closing everything out. Having so many people say when's the next one? Yes, that was awesome. Like, Hey, anybody any last questions wrapping up? And they're like, when's the next one? Yeah. When's the next one? Can we sign up now? Like, where's the next one? Yeah. Uh, that, that felt.

Yeah, that was good. That felt pretty good. Yeah. Let's see who. So also Josh and Tersh, Josh and Tersh were there. ⁓ They talked about AI, which is, know, those guys are AI ninjas. I always get good notes from them and any other stuff they talk about with AI. And, know, even me, I've got a really good list that I took away from from the conference of things I've got to, you know, kind of start doing. And so just for any listeners who don't know Josh and Tersh, ⁓ that would be Josh Crouch and

from service business mastery. they service business master. own eight businesses combined. OK, so I know two of I know the two of them that are not actual home services are the AI automation pros and the service business mastery podcast. ⁓ And then there's six others, some of which are also our home service businesses.

Some are Josh has got a really awesome digital marketing company. ⁓ and we'll, we'll put all their information in, in the show notes. Definitely check, check them out. They've got, they got a lot going on and, know, and a lot of what they talked about was that that's because of AI, like they're these minute tasks that tend to just wear out business owners. They, they specialize in just helping people get that stuff dialed in. there's not wearing them down.

Well, and it's even recognizing where AI could help. Like ⁓ they were talking about how if you do the same thing more than three times a week, then AI could be involved. Yeah. And there is a struggle with growing home service businesses, growing businesses in general probably, where we need to try to find the balance of our non-revenue generating team members and our revenue generating team members. And the more

We want our non-revenue generators involved in the customer service journey, the more tasks there are. ⁓ And so then you find yourself feeling like you need another person, I need another CSR, I need another CSR, I need another CSR to get all these things done, when really, probably what you just need is a little bit of automation and some efficiency in your business and then you could provide the additional level of service that you want, but utilize the technology that's out there. ⁓ So they definitely...

the it blows my mind, honest to goodness. Every time I talk to him about AI, just like my brain doesn't go there. Well, and it doubles in capacity every six months, too. So that's another challenge. we did. We did this one graphic in October and it's outdated three times since then. And it's me. So, you know, it's the the speed in which all of that stuff is is growing is a little bit mind boggling. But and then we had Jared Williams from the wealthy plumber. So

So that was really cool. And the couple of people who were attendees are also in his group, the wealthy plumber. So that was really neat for them to like be able to connect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ That was, that was neat. And we'll, link all of the sponsors and the speakers in this episode, I'll link all their information there. So if you don't know who they are, you can definitely find out more about them. The wealthy plumber group is a fantastic.

skool group that Jared has created. He's also got a really good podcast called the Jared Williams show that's ⁓ on all the places, the YouTube and all the places as well. I had a really good time with the attendees. Yeah, we had some we had some really entertaining ones. They were engaged. We had a good time. It was fun. Yeah, it was really fun. So do you have the day for the next one yet?

At the time of this recording, we've been out of the event less than 48 hours. So now I've already gotten several text messages. I was like, ⁓ she'll have it figured out by Monday. Yeah, maybe. I don't know what I'm going to do next time from the time time wise because ⁓ May I'm not I don't remember exactly why we picked me in the first place. But ⁓ May was a little bit tough for some of my HVAC companies because a tough time for it's they're starting to get ramped up and ⁓

I was super appreciative of the HVAC companies that were there because I knew in the back of their minds, they're like, man, it's the first hottest day of the year. And yeah, there was actually a couple of companies that were. Yeah. So time wise and, know, even ⁓ we're getting up to the end of school and it's it's a busy time of year. It's trick graduation. Yeah. And yeah, all the we're not not too far from a big graduation in the Deese's house. So I have a feeling it'll prop it'll be ⁓

Earlier in 2026 is when we'll do the next one earlier than May. And we'll do it a little earlier. It was a fantastic time to be in Pensacola. The weather right now is really pretty. The it was it was warm, but not hot in my opinion, although all of the northerners were like, oh my gosh, it's so hot and muggy here. I'm like, it's May. Wait till August. I mean, if you're from Minnesota. Yeah. And we we had several people from Minnesota that were at the event and like, yeah, you.

and some sunscreen. Right. Right. Be prepared. I think we did have two sunburns. We had two sunburns. We did. So they even had sunscreen up at the front too. Yep. But our... trying to prepare for them. Our UV index was 11. So that's like for anybody who follows UV index, that's extremely high. Yeah. So yeah. Plus coming, yeah, coming from somewhere where, and it not being that hot.

It's like when it's overcast, you go lay in the sun here, you will get fried. My worst sunburn ever, ever, ever got was on a cloudy day watching you play volleyball. Yeah. And I'm telling you what the top of your head got burned. It bliss. That was gross. that was, was, was a lot of years ago, a lot of years ago. A lot of years ago. ⁓ and we celebrated our 21st anniversary. We sure did. ⁓ on the first day of the event. So that was.

I was that's why you picked it. yeah, totally. So. So five years ago. We launched our book on our anniversary. Yeah. If you don't have a copy, you should. Yeah, I'll link that in the description as well. But yeah, so five years ago on our anniversary, we released that book. So our anniversary is really kind of becoming a fun time to either that or we're setting the bar really high and we're to have to keep doing cool stuff.

I mean, I thought we were gonna go to Mexico, no, no, no, not this time. Maybe next year. Maybe next year. We've already been once. And we had we had another couple that was there that had an anniversary the next day. Yes, we did. So it was actually I was talking to this with I think it was Keith talking about this with Keith. There was a lot of couples in the room who had had long marriages and long businesses.

Like there was a lot of couples in the room, because you that's very natural progression of home services is that the husband is working for somebody else and he gets the entrepreneur seizure and decides to go do it himself. And then shortly after that, the wife gets sucked in to do the books and the ⁓ phones and all the things. So it's common to see ⁓ couples, but we had a couple couples in ⁓ the room that had been, have been married and in business together for a long time. Yeah. was pretty neat.

Well, we will keep everybody posted on what the next one will look like. But it was a lot of fun. I only did one podcast from there. I said earlier there was no technical issues except the stuff that I was working on. I had technical issues, which it was actually a, I won't go on the story, but it wasn't a technical issue from a audio video standpoint. But was it the light? Was it the sun? Yeah, it was bad. mean, it was bad.

stinking sun. We ended up, I ended up doing one and I will, I will get it posted, probably next week, but, with a garage door company, Jolly Goat, Jeff's amazing. It was kind of cool. It was a really short story. ⁓ I'll have him back on to kind of tell the better longer version of the story too, but that, that was a lot of fun to be able to have him on the show. But yeah, all in all great vendors.

Great attendees, great weather. The hotel was perfect. Like the people were on it. It was great. ⁓ but yeah, all in all. then we went, so then the next night they have what they call gallery night here in Pensacola where they shut down, ⁓ basically Palafox and there's just vendors and all kinds of stuff going on and people wandering around. So for anybody, for all the people that had never been to Pensacola, this was a really cool time because then if they stayed,

the weekend to we had the gumbo festival and the beach was packed. We went out there Saturday for lunch and packed. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the next weekend is the official start of summer. But this weekend was probably like the kickoff party for sure. So yeah. Well, awesome. Well, everybody, we appreciate you tuning in, checking it out, whether you're watching this on YouTube or listening to us on one of the other platforms. We appreciate it. And as always,

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