Making Waves Mindset Show
Richard Di Biase and David Moskowitz have left the 9 to 5 rat race, the security of a paycheque and the infamous pension, for bigger goals and ambitions in life! The Making Waves Mindset mission, is to have leading edge conversations. They encourage you to change your Mindset, get you to Dream Bigger, have you start Making Waves in life and to Take Action today!
They discuss mindset, leadership, inspiration, discipline, health & wellness and share their personal stories about taking the road less traveled, including the ups and down of being a business owners and entrepreneurs.
Learn from industry leaders and special guests from around the world, as they join Richard & Dave and share their stories. Together they want to light your fire and motivate you, in creating the life you want to live. Connect With Us!
Making Waves Mindset Show
75. Strengthening Business Relationships for Success
Episode 75: Richard Di Biase and David Moskowitz talk about how senior entrepreneurs face numerous challenges on their journey, but few are as impactful as the balance between personal health and achieving business success. In this enlightening episode, we share our experiences that have shaped our understanding of what it truly takes to thrive as new business owners. Acknowledging the significance of taking breaks, we encourage listeners to view time away as a chance for productivity and reflection, rather than loss.
As the discussion unfolds, we emphasize the critical need for businesses to foster strong relationships with employees. We delve into effective communication and engagement strategies, positioning it not just as good business practice, but as a foundation for loyalty and retention.
Moreover, we tackle the often-overlooked aspect of nourishment and its substantial impact on one’s ability to function in high-stress environments. Our take on nutritional health showcases how essential minerals can contribute to a sharper mind and better resilience during turbulent times.
We also share real-life experiences related to the restoration industry and the devastating hurricanes that have affected our operations. The lessons learned from these challenges stress the importance of preparation, resilience, and the power of communal support within our industry.
Join us for an empowering conversation that hopes to inspire you to prioritize your health while building connections that last. Subscribe, share, and take action towards realizing your potential as both an entrepreneur and as a leader in your community!
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- Website: http://www.makingwavesmindset.com
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Connect with Richard Di Biase:
- LinkedIn: Richard Di Biase
- Instagram: @richarddibiase
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Connect with David Moskowitz:
- LinkedIn: David Moskowitz
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About The Making Waves Mindset Show
Richard Di Biase and David Moskowitz have left the 9 to 5 rat race, the security of a paycheque and the infamous pension, for bigger goals and ambitions in life! The Making Waves Mindset mission, is to have leading edge conversations. They encourage you to change your Mindset, get you to Dream Bigger, have you start Making Waves in life and to Take Action today!
They discuss mindset, leadership, inspiration, discipline, health & wellness and share their personal stories about taking the road less traveled, including the ups and down of being a business owners and entrepreneurs.
Learn from industry leaders and special guests from around the world, as they join Richard & Dave and share their stories.
There are competitors who are, of course, doing very unique and niche specialized restoration services on mass scale. Share the vision, show everyone what's going on, make them feel valued, appreciated, foster the relationships. These are the employees that stay.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, the recording light is on day there we go back back in action five months later we were never missing.
Speaker 1:Okay, we were never missing. We were always here.
Speaker 2:We were here. We were just on a hiatus, so what they call it hiatus no wait, listen, life gets in the way.
Speaker 1:Business is booming and growing for both of us. So you know hiatus is like. We purposely paused it we didn't we, we attempted to meet and it just didn't happen.
Speaker 2:That's true. That's true, yeah, I agree. I agree. We had life-changing events happen and business was moving on and this wasn't the priority at the time. We had coffee cups, breaking the crisis. I'm telling you, you got to send that back to your marketing company and be like, hey, if this is how you're treating me as a client, we need to change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent me as a client. We need to change. Yeah, 100, 100 now. It was very nice gesture of them no, it's nice.
Speaker 1:It's nice to get free guffs. Right, it is, it is well. Welcome everyone to another fine edition of the making waves mindset show.
Speaker 2:Yes it's been welcome yeah, welcome, welcome, welcome. Yes, it's been too long. I I you know, every time we we come back after being off for a bit, I forget what to say, I forget our timeline, I forget everything.
Speaker 1:This is where you come to change your mindset, you need to dream bigger, make waves and take action. And on the show, what we talk about are the entrepreneurial steps to leaving the nine to five. It's not an easy journey. That's why our motto is to dream bigger. You got to dream bigger. You need to splash in the pond, make waves and cause ripple effects, and then you need to take action. So we always bring guests who are ahead of us in the entrepreneurial journey, in the middle with us or at the beginning and are just thinking of leaving, because, even though they might not think they have value, they have tremendous value to share. So, and of course, we share our journey yes, we've been. I think that's like year five, year four. I don't even know what year we're on, but there's this is episode 74.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot to dive into if you go back.
Speaker 2:A lot, a lot. And, like I always say, share, share, subscribe, share. If you don't like the show, share it anyways. There's got to be people out there. There's daisy, there's duke. There's lots of people out there. We got the dogs in the house. There's lots of people to share this with, so share the show. Share the show 100.
Speaker 1:They're there for the sound effects. They were like cheering us on, you know they probably heard my dog barking in the background too.
Speaker 2:How are those fluff bunnies? They're, they're good, they're good. Oakley had a bit of a fault. Uh, yesterday he was. Uh, yeah, we were in the dog park and he was running around and his brother is. For those who know, I have two doodles and, uh, one of them is a larger doodle, about 110 pounds, and one of them is smaller, about 60 pounds, and the larger one collided with Oakley, the smaller one, and he twisted his foot. Oh, dang yeah, a big yelp came over limping to me and picked him up, took him to the vet. The vet did some x-rays and said it's just a muscle tear so should be up and running in the next couple days, just to take it easy for a couple days. You know what it's like after you tear a muscle I don't, but I'm hopefully not.
Speaker 1:I know what it's like to have a charlie horse because I've had a few of those a little while. Yeah, terrible, it always happens when I just wake up from a sleep, dave.
Speaker 2:It hits me in the calf.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's terrible.
Speaker 2:How's your?
Speaker 1:magnesium? That's a great question. I normally take it before bed, and the last two weeks I've almost sporadically forgotten to take it.
Speaker 2:Charlie horses, yeah, magnesium.
Speaker 1:Magnesium deficiency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for those who don't take magnesium, add it to your daily. Obviously, men and women need magnesium, and especially if you're working out, especially if you're there is, and we've got to have them on our show.
Speaker 1:Yes, tell us about it. We're hearing about it a little bit yeah.
Speaker 2:He owns a show Shout Out to Lift the City. We'll have to link them in this. But they are a supplement store in Toronto, downtown Toronto, and he is I think he's read a book or two because the guy is so, so smart with nutrition. He's been nutrition heavy for his whole life nutrition. He's been nutrition, uh, heavy for his whole life. Um, he's been studying nutrition, providing nutrition for people. He was a bodybuilder. He's. He's got a long, long, long list of things that he's got behind him and he runs a supplement store. So he's really educated on supplements. So he's my go-to guy. Everything that he's told me has worked. Any anything that he's sold me has worked. Uh, I go to him. Yeah, anything I need, anything he's suggested for me to take, I've taken and it's worked. So it's tried, true and tested with myself and he's got a you know slew of people in toronto that go to him as well.
Speaker 1:But he doesn't have any.
Speaker 2:He doesn't have a doctor yeah, he doesn't have a doctor behind his name, but he's definitely no supplements and no nutrition, um, so he's got me on this thing called project one. Uh, shout out to project one. They are, um, a supplement company. They do whey protein, protein powders, electrolytes, stuff like that. So there is a company out there you may have heard of Element.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So Element I started taking for a while and it was doing me well. But the one aspect of Element that he showed me which was sort of eye-opening was the levels of potassium, magnesium and sodium are not balanced in element correctly for somebody who should be taking you know, my size or your size.
Speaker 1:So what are you saying? If it's, you know, you and I are bigger guys you're saying it's under-volumed or too much, or it's sporadic and inconsistent.
Speaker 2:It's under-volume, so it's not balanced correctly enough, yeah, so, um, he's got me on this other powder called project one, and they only have two flavors lemon, lime and berry and I've been taking it now for six months no longer than that, probably. So I started march almost a year. It's a year, but I've been on this stuff.
Speaker 1:Seriously yeah. March, april, you got me onto Element and I bought some of this for our team and the guys and girls love it. It's just a matter of maybe we need to make a shift.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a little more cost-effective. It comes in tubs, it doesn't come in single servings and you parse them out. I take every morning in a liter of water. I put a scoop and it's been great. The potassium, magnesium and sodium levels are perfectly measured out and aligned and it's been great, yeah, so you have to send me some details.
Speaker 1:I'll send you.
Speaker 2:I'll send you a photo of it. It's really good stuff. You can only get in the states or through oh seriously, or through a dealer for me. Um, yeah, it's a win for you and not a win for me, but actually, mind you, I just go to lift the city okay, okay, yeah so he gets it through a distributor and uh yeah, if you you happen to watch this Project One, reach out to me. I want to work with you.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. It's in Toronto.
Speaker 2:Toronto. You know you're from Toronto when you don't pronounce the last T.
Speaker 1:Yeah, funny story. So one of my best technicians named Omar, originally from Venezuela. Okay, so they have a chocolate. It's a round chocolate ball and there's a hazelnut inside and in Venezuela it's called Toronto. It's a legit chocolate, I've had it, you've had it. Okay, so I get it. And then one day he's like why are you saying Toronto, it's Toronto. I said no, it's Toronto. But it's so funny. We still can't figure out why this chocolate in South America is called Toronto. It probably is maybe one of Nestle or something originated in Toronto. It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:It sounds like a Ferrero Rocher though.
Speaker 1:Right, it's similar to Ferrero Rocher, but it doesn't have that creaminess, it's just a beautiful chocolate ball. The crunch of the hazelnuts is delicious, but it's such a funny story Because I'm like, hey, I'm from Toronto, toronto.
Speaker 2:Anyways, so get your magnesium in.
Speaker 1:I need to get that in, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is funny Less Toronto, more magnesium.
Speaker 1:More magnesium. It could be because I love my coffee, you know. But no, you're right, I the last two weeks it hit me twice and I realized I forgot to take my bedside magnesium. So it's like, but I didn't know. I always thought it was potassium with the splash magnesium, but I didn't realize it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, definitely. Magnesium helps with the recovery of the muscles and stuff like that. So not that I'm an expert, but it's been helping me, so works for me. But I would suggest anyone who's listening to this, get your supplements. And the one thing that already is his name he keeps on reminding me is we're built up of minerals in our bodies, minerals in our bodies, and we expel those minerals throughout the day and our job is to get those minerals back into our system. Yes, so that we can heal, so that we can shed, so that we can fix our bodies. So replenishing those minerals throughout the day is very, very important. That's why taking stuff like celtic, celtic salt and magnesium, sodium, potassium, all that kind of stuff, are just the tip of the icebergs and trying to eat as clean as possible so you can get those minerals back in your body.
Speaker 1:When is the best time to take these things? First thing, when you wake up, or at the end of a hard day, or throughout the day, because that's always a challenge too Like don't you ever wake up? Haven't you seen the memes on social media where you like wake up like a shriveled raisin?
Speaker 2:you're like I need water.
Speaker 1:You know, you know. So when, when is? Did you get any guidance on that?
Speaker 2:so I haven't really asked him about it. But what I do personally from for my, my situation is I wake up in the morning. First thing I do is um after uh having the first thing I do. Let's not go into morning. First thing I do is after having not, first thing I do, let's not go into the first thing. First thing I do is use the bidet.
Speaker 1:No, Listen, there is an episode on the bidet, and if you have not used one, you are missing out Life changing.
Speaker 2:Where's this?
Speaker 1:one Travel for business, dave, and you end up at a hotel. Dude wipes, dude wipes.
Speaker 2:Dude wipes.
Speaker 1:I got, those too, I got those too, and I heard they were from the Gulf, so I had to have some of those with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, shout out to dude wipes because they've done it right and that's my travel to go. I digress.
Speaker 2:I digress In the mornings I do a liter of water with the electrolytes and a pinch of Celtic salt. I haven't had cola in decades but a pinch of Celtic salt. So I do that first thing in the morning and I just let it dissolve in my mouth. I don't put it in water, didn't put anything I, I just take a pinch, put it in my mouth and let it dissolve there. So those are the first two things I do before coffee, before anything else, I finish that water and then I get into my day. Um, and I've been doing that now since, uh, about march, april, when I, when I moved over to this project, one stuff but, um, the celtic salt, he already put me on as well and it's I don't know, it's probably placebo effect, but when I wake up in the morning and put a drop of pinch of salt in my mouth, it feels like your energy boost. If you're like a jolt of energy, it's great.
Speaker 1:Um so then I've read variations of that over the past year. That um the electrolyte, but the salt portion the first thing you should do.
Speaker 2:So it's very fascinating to see you're in alignment with that you know, yeah, well, you lose as you're, as you're sleeping, right, you lose salt, you lose sodium, you're sweating, all that kind of stuff that comes out of your body. But then throughout the day is what I don't do but I should is probably replenish the salt and sodium more throughout the day too. So, um, already what he does is, throughout the day, he'll take a pinch of salt every every now and then. You know they're large grains so you can take like four or five little grains and just pop them in your mouth. He'll do that throughout the day. He is switched on when it comes to nutrition with seeds and all that kind of stuff that he's got a concoction where it's good for him.
Speaker 2:He would be a great guest on the show. He would be, he would be. I'll line it up, I'll line it up. We'll have to put aside like four or five hours because he's got the gift of the gab. That's okay, that's okay. I, I don't. What I always say is I don't plan on going to his store unless I have at least an hour of time. He just has, like one of those guys that is so, so much knowledge in his head that he doesn't even have the time to get it all out yeah, no, I got you I got you and he's that's good.
Speaker 2:Wants to help everyone too, right, he's got such a good heart, that's a good relationship.
Speaker 1:And you know these are the reasons why Dave and I talk about these things is, as entrepreneurs, you need to ensure if you're not taking care of yourself, you're not going to be there to grow your business or to take care of your staff, your team, your people. Right, you have to come first. It's selfish and you need to be selfish. So these little things are what is needed in order for you to become a superstar. So if you need a little bit of salt, a little electrolytes, magnesium, exercise your mind and body, you're going to be ready to conquer, so you know.
Speaker 2:So how's the exercise? What have you been up to you? Still at the gym, crushing it at the gym crushing it, crunching it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, crunching it. So nice, oh gosh, I we were having some tech issues, so unfortunately, I'm now in an area that is not as private and recording studio as before, though. Um, all good. So duke is currently watching a neighbor have a party with their kids running around in the backyard. It's a birthday celebration for their like one-year-old, two-year-old daughter so he's uh yeah, he's looking through the palm trees, you know so.
Speaker 1:But the gym's, the gym's been good, uh, it's a regular, uh, six days a week. Monday's off. I don't like going mondays, it's the busiest day of the week, it's a nightmare. I go with one of my employees who's fantastic. He was a physiotherapist in a previous life, so tremendous knowledge on muscle mind connection, the, the anatomy, and so it's been a real blessing to go with him. So we encourage each other and it's been great support to go.
Speaker 1:But we hit up there first thing in the morning and we go straight from there into the job sites or our networking functions, whatever we got to do. So that's important because I'm telling you, when you miss a few days of the gym, I don't like that. I had to go to St Petersburg, florida, which is on the Gulf Coast, and unfortunately, you know it threw me out of everything. Right, I'm not at the gym. I'm sure there was a gym nearby, but the timing, just stuff doesn't work when you're away for a function and I just was like I'm not liking this. I'm still getting up at 4 am and I can't go to the gym and it's like OK, we got to get ready and head out to the function for business, so it throws you off your game. You feel different when you don't go.
Speaker 2:Definitely, definitely. Taking a couple of days off from the gym is hard to get back into it. It's hard to get your body to wake up or even just get over to the place. But pushing, pushing, pushing is what you have to do and get your body there. But you also got to listen to your body too, right? If you're not feeling well and you're not you're sick, you need to recover so that you can get to the gym and you can get to those healthy habits.
Speaker 1:You know one of the biggest things, and do you remember that guy sent you on social media bio lane? There's a gentleman who's very research initiative and this and a lot of this stuff and his big thing was your sleep is the priority. So you know he goes. If you're not getting that six to eight hour window or something happened, you got home late. You know that's where your sleep needs to triumph. The gym. You need to make time for your body to rest and there's been a few of those occasions where we've had some late night functions in the business and, honestly, just sleeping allowed me to be even more recharged for the next day. So it's seldom we miss a day, but it does happen and you just go back feeling stronger. It's the consistency that's the key. There's a lot of people who aren't consistent. You know.
Speaker 2:So it's the consistency.
Speaker 1:That's the key. There's a lot of people who aren't consistent. You know.
Speaker 2:So we're there every day almost. It's funny because, you know, way back when we started we did the 75 hard and pushed through all that. And the one thing that that's taught me, too is that's always plays in the back of my head is when I do get busy. Busy when I get right, that's the word. I can't stand with you, not busy, but when I do get, when my plate is full and I'm overwhelmed, or when I'm in a position where I'm like, okay, I can't go to the gym, I just don't have the time, or I need to wake up at 3 am to go to the gym and I'm like I need to sleep, I also need to do, or I'm not feeling well, I always go back to excuses yeah, and I. I kick myself too because I'm like. I'm like, no, just get your ass up and go. Get your ass up and go, just get that extra.
Speaker 1:You know, sleeping in you hear like I wake up groggy and I feel miserable. So at that moment when the alarm's going at 4am, I'm like I just know if I lay back down I'm going to be like I just wasted my morning. Get going, you know, but I've always been a morning person. So it's not a challenge for me to go to the gym. But to your point, early on, when we started the business, and for those entrepreneurs, you're going to feel overwhelmed. And so you know, a year and a few months ago there were times when I had a client's project, major home stuff for our business, and I was like I can't go to the gym, I need to go straight to this client's house from home.
Speaker 1:That was the biggest mistake I made. That was a that was a complete fail on my part. That's accountability. And not going to the gym because that client's home took three weeks I wasn't going to the gym and that three weeks led to like four and five months almost of just the summer. And then it was excused because then the jobs were in every morning. Go to the job, no, no, wake up early, prioritize your own personal health and safety and fitness. Go to the gym, then go to your client's house.
Speaker 2:You know that's what we did yeah, yeah, definitely resetting yourself, but I think it's a learning process, right? And you can't be perfect. If you were perfect, then you know there's. I would say there's nobody in this world that's perfect, there's nobody in this world that's going to be perfect, but it's a matter of just reminding yourself and getting back on track and kicking yourself in the butt and just being able to look at yourself in the mirror and say hey, jackass, get to the gym don't eat that ham.
Speaker 2:Don't eat that hamburger. Two hamburgers maybe, just have one. Don't eat the double order of fries, just have one.
Speaker 1:Right like I need protein, dave, yeah right.
Speaker 2:I think it's just a matter of reminding ourselves that we're humans, we make mistakes, we're not perfect, but let's move forward, and I think that's the added value here, you just did it, and that's why we love the mindset show is reminding yourself you need to be switched on right.
Speaker 1:That's where we try to show everyone like look, we're not perfect, but this is where we've made mistakes. How can you be cognizant not to do the same? And it's those little things right, so it's your mindset y'all.
Speaker 2:So how's business? What's? What's? What's been going on in the restoration world?
Speaker 1:Well, since our last episode there in the fall, we got slammed with hurricane work.
Speaker 1:And as you can imagine, being here in beautiful, beautiful, sunny Florida, orlando, florida, the tampa side, the st petersburg clearwater side, on the gulf coast, was just decimated, uh, things that haven't ever happened in history, and so that took our company out there, uh, to help people for well over a month and while we were there, the next hurricane you, you know. So Hurricane Helene comes in. You know, we had clients with 13, 14 feet of water just decimating neighborhoods and then, in the middle of massive emergency management, remediation, all the stuff that we do to help people Second, hurricane Milton comes flying. So we had to leave everything behind, get our equipment and just come flying back. So that was one hell of an experience, I'll tell you, yeah, I bet, I bet.
Speaker 2:So that, what do you think that kept us?
Speaker 1:busy until until November, even a little bit of the beginning of Christmas in December.
Speaker 2:So what do you think the biggest thing? Looking back on it, you could have prepared more for it.
Speaker 1:Well, in my world, you know, we are the 911 for properties, right, you know your commercial, your residential, your industrial spaces. And one of my big things in the business plan was never to chase what they call cat work category. You know, flood, disastrous type work. However, when you're a part of a franchise and you have owners who love and adore you, and vice versa, you want to be there to help and support them. So they were like Richard, if you can bring your team out, bring your team out. So I looked at it as a learning experience. I looked at it as knowing that not everything was going to be perfect, Not everything was going to go according to plan, but let's go with what we have. We knew our clients in Orlando were being managed and we'll head out there and support those people.
Speaker 1:And from that experience we learned a lot. Knowing that, hey, you know power goes out, we know that fuel runs out, there's no service station, Grocery stores go empty, Restaurants are gone, there's no food, it's like living in a whole different. You know, it's like being in a war zone, but from that policing background. It's the risk mitigation, it's the emergency management planning. These are things that I specialized in, and so for me it was like that excitement going OK, we can manage that. It was like that excitement going OK, we can manage that. But at the same time, man, we could have used like 100,000 more employees and more equipment, more vehicles and more sales teams and manage managerial staff to grow. But it was a good experience with what we had at our level in the business.
Speaker 2:It's good. It's good. Yeah, it's sort of a delicate process of how you would plan for hurricanes, but I guess one thing would be historically, florida does get hurricanes right.
Speaker 1:Yes, every year hurricane season sets in and generally it's around if somebody is going to correct me but it's somewhere around July to November-ish kind of in that window. It's really the fall or autumn. That's when you get all the crazy weather coming up the Carolinas and Texas and Florida or the Caribbean and Mexico. When these things happen it is annual. There are competitors who are, of course, doing very unique and niche specialized restoration services on mass scale.
Speaker 1:But, for somebody like me yes, it's annual. At my stage in the game, there are some things I knew in my mind. We're going to keep things simple. Let's keep it simple. Support the other owners. It's all we got to do. Go in, get your feet wet, support the other owners. Help families. Got to do right. Go and get your feet wet, support the other owners, help families, help people that are here.
Speaker 2:That's what's most important right, so moving forward into this year, uh, are you looking at potential growth opportunities during that time?
Speaker 1:that there can be. Yeah, there can be. Um, I think, as we get into the summer, we're going to have a detailed conversation with the owners on the golf and have a game plan, because initially, you know, hurricanes come and go, but the devastation that took place was, I think, very unique and in this situation, we're going to have that planning for the summer, planning for the summer. I met with some of the owners just actually a few days ago in St Petersburg and we were discussing that. It was a very unique experience for our businesses. Now, this individual has been doing it for 20 plus years, but the principle was that these two storms were just something so different. So we have our learning, we know what we got to do, our processes, you know how to handle call volumes and what we need to improve upon, and we'll collaborate on that this summer to prepare, that's awesome, yeah, awesome, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So what's the? What's the horizon look like for Restoration One?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, so much going on. Well, we are America's largest independent restoration company, you know so that is so, yeah, hashtag that is.
Speaker 1:I think one of the coolest things for the whole franchise is that we're not part of a massive conglomerate of groups of companies out there, and so what makes it unique is that on a national level, our owners are not just you know, hey, you've got money buying the franchise. No, we're selecting the best owners who want to represent and we're the brand. So, locally here in florida right now, we're bringing on a business development representative, project manager, hiring more restoration technicians. So the next business quarter q2, q3 are going to be explosive for us and we're going to see a rapid change by the time we get to summer. Um, amazing, you know it. You know it goes back. Actually, almost every episode we've done where we've talked to those long before us.
Speaker 1:It's always the first gear in a bit. It's chaos. If you can drag your feet, get up every day, boots on the ground and just put up with it, you know there's light at the end of the tunnel, ok, so you're going to quickly realize that there's there's, there's something happening on the horizon. So for us, knowing that, ok, the last year and a few months has been, it's been hard. You're, you're, you're door knocking per se. You're doing all these things. It's been hard. You're door knocking per se. You're doing all these things. We are now seeing the fruit of that labor come through and find amazing people that we want to have on our team, you know, and incredible future. So it's going to be a bright year of human resources, hiring systems and processes. That's key.
Speaker 2:That's key to any business we were talking about that just before and being strategic with our service offerings this year then you move forward and it either becomes something or you realize this is not the thing you want to be doing and you stop and you move to something else, right?
Speaker 1:You know, one of the biggest things for those out there that maybe aren't doing it. I've actually run across a lot of business owners who I would deem successful, but they don't have business plans and I feel that they could benefit from using your business plan. So we've had a business plan now for I don't know like three, four years at this point and in this situation, always reviewing the business plan. Having your employees a part of the business plan is also tremendously key. Let them know the strategic mission, vision and values, what your objectives are, each business quarter, so they feel a part of the team. That's incredibly important, and we've been able to see that through some of the mentorship programs I've been a part of, because when you're kept in the dark and we saw this in our different line of work and a different chapter everything is so clandestine and solo operated.
Speaker 1:You know, in my opinion, why policing such a collapse in Canada is people are not being trusted or allowing the opportunity to grow, and so when they can't see the future, then they're wondering why are we here? So if our team sees where we're trying to go, what we're trying to do, that's important. You have it in writing, you have a plan, you're doing your research and it's not just a once a year, we're doing it. Yes, you make a plan, you're doing your research and it's not just a once a year, we're doing it. Yes, you make a once a year, build out the plan, but you're actually going into it every day, every week, every month and setting aside time to go over what was accomplished in the previous business quarter and what's next on that business quarter yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:transparency in the business, right, and keeping everyone informed and the people who are working with you, and giving them that hope and outlook on what they can see next and have a future, and keeping them engaged like an associate group or mentorship group that's come from the outside, really like coaches and mentors.
Speaker 1:We talk about this all the time on the Making Waves Mindset Show. If you want to do something, you need to find a mentor. You need to find someone who is leaps and bounds ahead of you to help guide you on the right path. So, strategically, our brand Restoration One has done that and they have identified owners and I'm one of those owners that's been able to join this program and it's been very unique.
Speaker 1:Where again, bounce back to a different life and going wow, nothing was ever shared, everything was kept in the dark. You were alone. How do you feel that you can accomplish growth in your business, your daily tasks or whatever it is? But it's the opposite. Share the vision, show everyone what's going on, make them feel valued, appreciated, foster the relationships. These are the employees that stay. Now I wanna bounce back.
Speaker 1:And the business, or BDM they call it here. I don't know, dave, you guys call them BDMs in Canada, or business development manager or business development relations. Yeah, it's a business manager, ok, so you know. In talking to her, I asked well, what are the biggest struggles when you were working in the restoration industry the last 10 years and I asked the property or the project manager individual that we have coming on board, asked them the same thing what are the biggest struggles you saw in the past 10 years? You guys have both been in the industry well over 20 combined.
Speaker 1:So what's going on? It's being kept in the dark. It's not participating in training. I'm like, so you don't even have, like the industry, training. They're like no Other businesses and their owners don't want to share the knowledge. They don't want to share the knowledge. They don't want to share the certification and education and to me that was such a miss. How do you not want to ensure your team has the best training, the best knowledge base to help you grow your business, help them feel valued? Yeah, so you know, bringing them in with all of all these aspects. It was like a breath of fresh air to them. Like you're going to send me on training. I said, well, why not? Yeah, the thing we did with our clinicians was you're going to go take the water restoration classes, then there's applied structural drawing, then there's going to be microbial and fire and trauma. All these things are here. You're not going to be value to me if you're just not taking on the academics. You have the hands. We need the academics. Let's learn that.
Speaker 2:Train your team right.
Speaker 1:Train the team.
Speaker 2:The other thing, too is I've been a big proponent of is share the information with other owners too and learn off of those other owners things too. So I've had a lot of people reach out to me especially in the Canada market because we were first to market here reach out to me and ask me how do you do this, how do you do that, what are you doing this, what are you doing with that, what's your lessons learned here and I share and people are like oh, you'll share that with me. Of course I will, why wouldn't I?
Speaker 1:You're not my competitor for market. You don't have a competitor. You make a stronger brand when everyone's on the same united front and this is why we're part of that mentorship group is we're now talking to other owners right across the network about what works, what doesn't work, what strategies work in different markets that might not work here, and bouncing those ideas again, you start to keep everything in silos. That's when everything goes downhill. So ask questions, share your ideas, share your systems, share your knowledge, learn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I even look at. You know, within the industry too, you should be collaborating with people anyways to share information, because maybe that business has been open, maybe you have another restoration company in your area, but that restoration company is five years ahead of you. You have a lot to learn.
Speaker 1:God bless you, god bless America.
Speaker 2:Sorry, excuse me. See, you see the truth, but it's true. You have a lot of information to share. Yes, it might be your competitor business, but they could be five years ahead of you. You're not going to be competing with someone who's five years ahead of you. They're five years in the market and they can't handle all the business all the time. But a lot of people look at it okay, I can't talk to you because I'm competing with you. No, you're not competing with them. They have their market. They have their share. People will go to them, someone will go to you, someone will go to them. There's enough business out there for everyone.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. There's a lot of business out there and that's the. That's the thing to look at. It is that you know when you collaborate, you have a stronger, you know, like the industry. Let me take a step back. The industry in itself there's so many nuances and you know you're trying to find the best practices and, at the same time, you can be innovative in your own way. Is it incorporating something like ai? Nobody's using ai. I use ai heavily. I'm one of like we at our at our summit last year, we were talking about this and, uh, you know, I think in the room there was maybe like four of us to put up our hand. You know, saying we're actively using ai and integrating automation, all of these aspects. So many people don't want to do that. They're afraid, you know. So it's those resources, learning, sharing. You know it's. It's not the, the secret herbs and spices of the chicken franchise. It's an opportunity to grow together.
Speaker 2:Embrace AI, embrace technology, embrace new things. If you don't embrace new things, you'll be left behind. Yeah, I agree, it's not KFC secret sauce. No, it's out there for people to use, to help you out, and embracing and using it. There's certain aspects of AI that I don't embrace myself, but those are aspects of customer service.
Speaker 2:Yes, I still feel very passionate about human interaction. Yes, and I feel that human interaction is very important. So I don't want to outsource everything so that you do not have a human to speak to or you don't have a human to interact with. So there's things that I think in my mind that I'm not going to adopt yet. Correct Maybe in the future.
Speaker 2:But it's also in how you tell people too, yes. So one thing I'm learning about this whole ai stuff and and you know, making calls and talking to people over the phone if you know that you're speaking to someone on ai is a different conversation than if you don't know that it's someone. So I think, as technology comes forward and you're able to just deal with computers and you're going to be finding them more and more and more and more, as long as you know that that's what you're doing and that's who you're talking to, then it's okay, but you still need a human touch because ultimately there's nuances that computers, as fast as they they are, as intelligent as they are, aren't going to be able to communicate as a human will.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. It's funny, even Google reviews. I just discovered the other day that, you know, once a customer prepares a review, there are automations that respond back in AI and it was kind of like how do you take someone's personal touch to the services and their feedback on what you guys did? And then you have AI now and I just thought it was so weird. And your point, that's the human interaction that needs to be, you know, not interfered with. Or those service calls I don't want to talk to an AI. We've had those. It's miserable. You need the human connection. Use it for, maybe, booking your slots, use it for maybe, you know, moving forward on certain aspects, but not not human.
Speaker 2:You know, but it is a technology.
Speaker 2:So, I think. I think it just comes down to information. If you know ahead of time that you're speaking to an AI, then you have that decision. You know, you remember you'd phone places and you're like press one to speak this person, press one yes to that two to speak to that person. I think if you have that option, it's like press one to speak to an ai and get your booking, or press two to speak to a real person yeah, yeah, right, as long as that's there whereas I think technology is moving to the point, like I've noticed, even on the new iphone, the voice is, yes, more natural, yes, they're changing it so that you can't tell if it's a computer or not, who you're speaking to. 100, that's.
Speaker 2:Those are the things that bother me a little. Those are the aspects of ai that I don't really enjoy, but maybe it's just because I'm a bit old school. But I've adopted AI, chat, gpt, I've adopted other AI functions. I think. I think those are really good. I just don't want to fully see human touch gone and I don't want robots. I don't want robots to take over everything, and I think sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot, like I was in Walmart the other day.
Speaker 1:Oh, no Bagless Walmart in Canada. No, bags are forbidden.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the part that hit me the most is I saw a. You know those computerized or those machines that people used to push around to to clean the floors.
Speaker 1:They wash the floors oh, yeah, yeah, they wax and strip, or yeah, yeah yeah, but it was.
Speaker 2:It was a machine, it was just washing the floors. There was nobody pushing it by itself.
Speaker 1:Computerized robot you know what? I saw one at the airport not too long ago. Yeah, in st louis I saw one of those at the airport cleaning the floors all by themselves, a little flashing amber light and yeah, that's what it had a camera and people walked in front of it.
Speaker 2:It stopped. That made me a bit sad. It actually delivery.
Speaker 1:You see, san francisco, you got taxis driving around. Yeah, uh, you know, I was there a year and a bit ago and it was like Jaguar taxis with cameras on, nobody's driving it.
Speaker 2:You got those little robots moving food on the sidewalk, you know so those are the kind of those are the kind of things that make me a little sad, because that was a human's job, that was. That was somebody's position that they've now paid a computer, somebody's position that they've now paid a computer and the only person who has a job right now is the person who comes and fixes that computer, or the person who fixes that machine you know it's funny, so funny.
Speaker 1:You talk about walmart. Uh, I don't know. Eight years ago, um, walmart started transitioning over, like many real retailers, to the self-checkouts and so I remember talking. Actually I had one of their employees giving me some sassy attitude, telling me that I shouldn't be waiting in line to go talk to a person to cash me out, but I need to go to the self-checkout. And I refused and we had some type of a disagreement and she just wouldn't stop and I said you understand, you've just talked yourself out of a job.
Speaker 1:She's like no, it's just like fluffing me off. It's fine, it's faster. For starters, I'm paying for you to check my stuff and to pack my belongings. Right, I'm not going over there, you're not paying me to pack my stuff, but I'm also securing your job. She couldn't comprehend it and just the sass in her attitude. I'm like lady, you're disrespectful, sure enough, you go to Walmart today in Canada. Do you see anyone at the cashiers anymore? Nothing. And I said your job is going to be gone. It's gone, now it's all. And what kills me is all the self-checkouts. They're not as common in the US. You see them, but I think Canada is just a mess with this. These self-checkout machines are not even being used and they're still lineups. So I'm like, why even embrace the technology if you're just not going to open up all the lanes, not paying for anyone?
Speaker 2:you know it's the same as same as like at the borders too, they've they've gotten rid of the amount of guards that are borders. They have machines. Now it's it's it's an effort to get people in quicker. But it also makes me sad because you're killing our workforce. But we've done it to ourselves to. We've done it to ourselves we. We. We don't want to do the little, mean, meaningless jobs like pushing a machine around. So walmart said no, you guys don't want to do it. We're not going to pay you to do it. We can't find anyone who wants to do it, so we're going to.
Speaker 1:They don't complain, they don't need wages. It's like what was that amazon? A lot of strikes going on there in the in the northern states. New york city was trying to to bring in unions and amazon's like okay, we're just gonna replace you with a robot and that's what they've done, you know. So there's a fine balance of ai and technology in a business, but yeah, it makes me sad, but I understand it.
Speaker 2:I hope we don't fully go that way, because there's so many things like when I was in singapore there was. I took a video of it. I'll have to share it with you.
Speaker 1:It's a security robot new york city has those on the subway. It's a police robot this robot.
Speaker 2:I should share it with you. The robot patrols around. It's got cameras on it. I'm assuming there's a person behind the cameras. But this robot patrols around. It's got a smiley face and it's watching the area and you can talk to it and you can ask for directions and it's it's like a security guard patrolling. I hope we don't fully go that way. It'll be a sad day it's coming.
Speaker 1:So, dave, should we wrap this up or should we continue with your?
Speaker 2:update We'll go into episode. Another episode we'll talk about.
Speaker 1:Well, everyone, you know where to find us makingwavesmind mindset underscore show instagram. You can always find us linkedin david a moskowitz. For me, david a moskowitz yeah, I'm almost forgetting our ending line jesus, yeah, yeah, um subscribe, like, share, please share the show. And, as david always says, share, share, share. Yeah, share the show. So that's everything on episode 74. Remember to dream bigger, make waves and take action in life, and we will talk to you on our next episode.
