June 10, 2026 • 41 mins
What happens when a spontaneous decision, a bold idea, and a willingness to take risks turn into a 39-year business?
In this episode of CEOs You Should Know Dallas, iHeartMedia Dallas Market President Chris Long sits down with Michael Monette, Co-Founder of Total Office Solutions, to share the story behind building a company from scratch—starting just days after losing his job.
Michael reflects on his unconventional journey from Air Force veteran to entrepreneur, including the pivotal moment that led him and his wife Linda to start their business together. What began with a single project quickly grew into a company that now operates across multiple markets, serving clients nationwide.
The conversation explores the resilience required to navigate uncertainty, from early cash flow challenges to leading through COVID-19—where forward-thinking decisions helped transform and expand the business. Michael also shares insights on leadership, adaptability, and the importance of culture in sustaining long-term success.
From bold beginnings to national growth, this episode highlights the mindset and grit it takes to seize opportunity and build something lasting.
Guest: Michael Monette, Co-Founder,
Website:Total Office Solutions
CEOs You Should Know DFW features candid conversations with leaders shaping business in North Texas and beyond, hosted by Chris Long, Region President of iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth. Follow, Rate, and Subscribe on the podcast platform you are listening on!
In this episode of CEOs You Should Know Dallas, iHeartMedia Dallas Market President Chris Long sits down with Michael Monette, Co-Founder of Total Office Solutions, to share the story behind building a company from scratch—starting just days after losing his job.
Michael reflects on his unconventional journey from Air Force veteran to entrepreneur, including the pivotal moment that led him and his wife Linda to start their business together. What began with a single project quickly grew into a company that now operates across multiple markets, serving clients nationwide.
The conversation explores the resilience required to navigate uncertainty, from early cash flow challenges to leading through COVID-19—where forward-thinking decisions helped transform and expand the business. Michael also shares insights on leadership, adaptability, and the importance of culture in sustaining long-term success.
From bold beginnings to national growth, this episode highlights the mindset and grit it takes to seize opportunity and build something lasting.
Guest: Michael Monette, Co-Founder,
Website:Total Office Solutions
CEOs You Should Know DFW features candid conversations with leaders shaping business in North Texas and beyond, hosted by Chris Long, Region President of iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth. Follow, Rate, and Subscribe on the podcast platform you are listening on!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is CEOs you should know, with the Dallas market
president of iHeartMedia, Chris Long.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I want to welcome everybody to another episode of CEOs
you should know. I'm Chris Long, Dallas market president for iHeartMedia,
and I'm here with my new friend, Michael Manette, co
founder Total Office Solutions, Vietnam veteran US Air Force US
(00:29):
Air Force.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
The co founder is Linda Manette.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Now he said that, and he warned me when we
got started thirty nine years together as co founder, he
better make that mentioned.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
A lot of work was done together. So co founder Michael, welcome.
We're excited to have you.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
We're have some fun. But before we get started, you know,
we do something here. You know, iHeartMedia is the nation's
largest audio entertainment provider with eight hundred and six radio stations,
podcast streaming of every genre. We do a lot with audio,
so I think it's important that we find out a
(01:09):
few things about you. I gave you a little bit
of warning, but now we're going to do the rapid fire.
We want to get a little bit of understanding.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
About your musical taste and all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So I'm going to toss a couple of qustions your
way quickly, don't think about it. We got to get
the first thought that comes to mind. Who's your teenage
music crush?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Teenage music crush? I don't know there was musics in
South Dakota. Oh, come on, Willie Nelson. I'm a country
western guy.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Okay, all right, what's the first concert you went to?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Don't know its name. I'm fresh out of Vietnam. I'm
in England about two weeks. The guys say there's a
concert by London. I had duty. They left before me.
I picked up a backpack of Boontz Farm and Strawberry
Hill that's sixty nine cents with a twist cap and
I and I got up north of London and found
the place. One hundred and twenty two thousand people in
(02:03):
an outdoor amphitheater day long concert. I walked into this crowd,
not knowing where, and walked straight to them, sat down.
Maha Vishna Orchestra was playing. Van Morrison played after that.
They finished up the evening with Doobie Brothers and the
Almond Brothers finished the top of that. It was the
most amazing day of music I'd ever experienced, and was
(02:26):
my first concert.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I Amanda, do we I have nothing to say. That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I almost think that might have just kind of gone
into hall of fame.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's well, let me put a cherry on top of
a hall of fame. I sit down, and I'm at
that time in my life. I'm a nice looking young man.
I've got a backpook full life. I can see that
full of cheap wine with me, and well, yeah you
said boons farm right. My guys are all slapping at
me and all this stuff. And I looked to the
right and here's a pretty English girl, well on hair
(03:00):
below eyes. She goes, hello, my name is Mary, and
then hands me I think you call it and Mary Jane,
oh hello, okay, And I was completely caught. The only
drug that's ever touched my lips in my entire life
was that moment I took it, took a pull on it.
It had something in it. The only tree there was
(03:22):
about eighty yards away, and all of a sudden the
music fades and I'm listening to the leaves in this tree.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
The other thing I would point out, and I don't know,
I'm not going to be on delicate. You can screen
this out, but I can tell you that in England
and an outdoor amphitheater at eighty six degrees, every single
girl there took her top off. Now top that I.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Don't know, mana. Did we just stop the podcast now?
I don't know. Really, I've been strapping up and go home.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, because I'm not speechless very often, and that.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Really just it was an amazing moment.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, I would say, so all stuck on the Boons
farm and you met a girl named Mary before you
even dropped the rest of that story on me.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
All right, so you're a big Boons farm guy.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
No, I don't drink, okay, probably smart. The Boon's farm
probably drove you to not drink, which is great. Okay,
So somehow you survived this concert? I did you made
your way back to the States.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Coming out of the Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
War, we know, I was in England for a while
and then other places. I was in the Air Force
for six years, and in that time I was deployed
five times. Your son, being the military, would know how
unusual that was. The Air Force for me was my
gift of life, yep. And so I could do that
all afternoon.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I'll just stop there, okay, so you you served our
country very honorably, obviously did more than your share. With
five tours you finish that you come home. Was there
even a thought about I mean, you talked about your
roots and South Dakota like, was there ever a thought
about starting a business?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
No, No, you're just a kid. Like.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Okay, I've gone and I've been around the world. I've
done I've seen some things. I seen some horrible things.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, the day I went in the military was entirely impulsive.
I was driving down Main Street, pulled into an open
parking spot. Two weeks out of high school. I just
got a draft number where I wasn't going to be drafted,
and I looked up saw our recruiting center, and impulse
walked in and said, I want to be a marine. Yeah,
that ends up with me in the Air Force. And so,
(05:33):
if you consider for a moment, my entire life through
that time was unexposed to urban centers or big buildings.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Or subisticated people get a small.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
World, anything like that. I lived in a small, story
ridden world. And then I went off and in my
service I wasn't around any of those things either.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Typically in places that were defined by which side of
the gate were you at that moment? Sure? And so
in coming out coming out of England, I was chasing
a little girl named Charlene. Charlene lived in Dallas, Texas,
and so that dictated I went to Dallas, Texas. The
first time I went to a tall building was the
(06:16):
Plaza downtown. I didn't know there was alternating parking floors
and lost my car exactly where I left it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
But did you lose Charlene?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yes, unfortunately we were married for ten years, but that one, Okay,
that one went away.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Okay, So let's jump ahead to nineteen eighty seven. Computers
are starting to reshape business.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I remember I was.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I was in college, and that's when you and Linda
found co founded.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The business.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Correct. Linda was my brand new client. I'd been on
one date with her.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Well, so client, yeah, date then co founder?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And what window of time did all this happen?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Oh about two weeks?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Why play around, right?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, I'm direct.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Clearly, okay, So let's the date obviously worked out if
you're still together and the business worked out, because you're
still together and thriving and growing. So talk a little
bit about you've done all these things. Like you said,
small town upbringing out and see the world, see a
lot of things. Make your way to Dallas, and all
(07:33):
of a sudden you have this woman you're dating, and
now you're starting a business. How does that happen?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I think it's got to start with what a lot
of folks would views the unpleasant, you know, along that way.
The eleven or twelve years between getting out of the
Air Force and meeting Linda, I worked with a large
defense contractor here in Dallas, and I went to college
at night, and I got three degrees and became an
electrical engineer and became, at thirty years old, a director
(08:06):
level manager with this large am I supposed to name company.
Go ahead, Harris Corp. All right, and you've got HARRISL
three now just finished. If you read your papers this morning,
you may have noticed that they cleared the foreign national
gift to our president that has been being outfitted out
(08:28):
at L three Harris over in Greenville. It's now his
to fly.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Got it?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And so at that time we were developing a variety
of weapons system. But I came out of that. I
worked for Bell Atlantic for about ten months, got invited
to a sales convention in Phoenix got there fourteen hundred salespeople.
As I walked in, they asked me to sit in
the front, and they gave out a couple of awards,
(08:55):
and who could be more surprised than I? I got
the award for being the highest grossing salesperson in the country.
And then about five minutes later, the president of Bell
stood up fifteen feet from me and four feet above
me and looked around and said, and I quote, PCs
are a fad in mainframes for the future. I stood up,
(09:18):
in all of my youthful vigor and said, and I quote,
would you substantiate that while we're all here together. I
flew back to Dallas on the Red Eye the next morning, and.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
You can see where this is going, right, Yeah, I'm
a pretty good feeling. My boss walks out of the
front of the building and about halfway to my car,
he goes, Michael, my kn't you learn to be quiet?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And I had been released from employment.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Oh that's shocking, and yeah, see that coming at all?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yeah, And by then we were in his office and
I looked at him and right behind him was a
cellphane wrap box of data. The EASE, which is a
relational database software, one of the original ones. And I said, well, Roger,
if you're going to do that, then let me have
that I had purchased at the previous Friday with company money.
(10:11):
They had no idea what to do with it. I
take that tucked away as my little prize, and I
headed out, and the next day I shared with Linda
at lunch that I was no longer employed. She's a
single mom.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Now this sounds like it it was probably sounding really
attractive to general I.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Well, think of the engineer warrior, whatever you want to.
But I sat down and told her I'm no longer employed.
And I looked at her very seriously, and I said,
I think there's something here, and I'm inviting you to
explore that with me.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Amazing And she looked at.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Me and I said, and I'm not going to look
for a job. I have an idea. I want to
explore it. I'm going to share it with you. Her
answer was later that afternoon to call me on my
fifteen pound mode to rule a bag of course, and
and to tell me that she'd just spoken to the
president of her firm and that he'd like to visit
(11:08):
with the two of us. Amount a task that they
had that fit into my idea, and that became our
first piece of business.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So let me just to recap.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Seventy two hours prior, you're going to company meetings to win.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
The top of the the the top award.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Within seventy two hours, you've won the award, ran your
mouth a little bit, got fired, went to your new
love interest.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Said in Texas we call it a bull.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, say yeah, I don't have a job anymore. I
know the second date in your single mom and all,
let's start a business together.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Okay, all right, just so I'm.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Clear, and date me and date me. Leave that part out.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I think you weren't kidding when you said pre show
that you were direct. I think that's an amazing So
here we are. Now we have our first client, and
like this literally is all all kidding aside, this is
all within a.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Week been Uh let's see, you went to four days.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Okay, so you're in the first first meeting. What does
he say to you, guys.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
The first meeting with the client? Yeah, well it wasn't
quite that easy. Is that he made the offer of
what would you like to bid this? And by the way,
this guy stayed our friend until four years ago. Wow,
And unfortunately he passed away. Wonderful man, wonderful and Jerry
call and and and so I was pretty eager. So
(12:37):
when he got off the elevator the next morning at
six point thirty, I was sitting reading his Wall Street
Journal with two bags of McDonald's. And he loved that.
No boons, frie okay, making sure, And he spun up
the phone to their headquarters in Austin and said, I
want you to entertain this guy. And they said, we've
already hired somebody. And and so there's a whole story
(13:02):
that goes with that. But ultimately I won the job
and won the friendship, and and we did the job,
which was quite complex. It really was an engineer's job
with some technical hands needed. And Lynda and I worked
that thirty six straight hours over a weekend. And if
I was attracted tour before I'd found someone who would
(13:26):
work like I would. Yeah, And and our bond was struck.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Well, I would imagine it was going to go one
of two ways, right, I mean it was either going
to be over it always well, yes, there's no other way, Chris,
But but I mean you were going to find out
quick it's either we're all in for the long haul
or yeah, this is terrible.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Well, and don't forget there's a third human being, a
little seven year old named Amy. Okay, and and so
there's there in lies the enemy. Yep. When the boy
shows up and the girls used to be in with
Mama alone, they would drive into the parking lot and
see that I was there, and Amy would say, Mama,
he's here again. But that all worked out wonderfully. She's
(14:10):
a wonderful woman now forty five years old, has her
own family and is our general manager of the Dallas
Fort Worth region. She's very respected in the industry.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Man.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
So this is this grew into a family business.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Oh it did. We picked up a child along the way,
little girl named Megan, that is ours. And I walked
into Linda's office one day, busy because I'm intense, and
she goes, I'm late, okay, And I ignored that, and
I'm going out her office. She goes, I said I'm late,
And of course I'm the guy that turns around and says,
(14:45):
for what, go to wherever the hell it is you're
late for And she then she made another comment that
was much more direct yeah, and along came Meghan, And
now Meghan also works with the firm. She is the
vice president of national Accounts and she's widely respected throughout
the country as the single most most successful office moving
(15:09):
salesperson in the country.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
She's just a natural born So Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
What I find in all of these conversations that I have,
you know, founders, all your all of your the founders.
I mean everyone's story is unique, but founder stories are
especially unique. We you know, we had one Shannon McLendon
from Farmhouse Fresh. She was twenty four years old and
she made her own lotions and she sent some to
(15:40):
Oprah and they responded and all of a sudden it
blew up. That magic moment, that magic moment, I mean,
and you and Linda have a magic moment where we.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Have lots of magic.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, but there's that seismic Yes, everything came together in
that moment. You know, doctor Harrison meant dentistry.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I could go on with everybody, and it's just it's
really interesting when those moments happen, and not that you
don't on.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You know, climbing a corporate ladder.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
There are moments, But I find the founder's ones are extremely.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I think one of the definitions of entrepreneurs versus other people,
excellent people, is that entrepreneurs tend to seize that moment.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Correct, there's a just everything takes a level of fearlessness.
But I think that for a founder there's the fearlessness
but also an unfailing belief that it will happen. Where
I think on the other side of things, there's people
like myself who may be like, well, but this bad
thing could happen, you know, because I you know, in
(16:40):
all seriousness, hearing what you happen to you that one
week in nineteen eighty seven would have been enough for
someone to say, you know what, I'm gonna shut it
down for a week, or I'm gonna take a few days,
whatever it is, and you you actually accelerated into it.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
You know. It's interesting how, particularly in those early years.
If I don't know if there's anybody in this room
old enough to remember this, but during the nineteen eighties
the later eighties, there was the thing called the Investment
tax Credit crash, where the Congress had screwed up a
section of code or something, but every bank in America failed,
(17:17):
and here in Texas, we had Interfirst Bank and Republic Bank,
where Texas owned, and the two largest banks in the state,
and so they came up with the theory of two
week banks make a successful bank. I'm sitting barely started
our business and hearing about this and knowing somebody in
(17:37):
project management, I would take a folding chair into their
project management area down a Republic Bank ninth floor and
I would set it up inside the door in case
anybody going through the door might have something to do.
That was my first sales effort, and over the first
three months, this is so cogent to our business. Over
(17:59):
the first three months, this one gentleman named John gave
me one hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars of little
things to do. What he didn't do is give me
any payment.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, that's problem.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah. And so finally, you know, you're you're scared to
argue too much with anybody because you're just glad to
be there with your little folding chair. And I came
in to say, John, you need to take me somewhere
in this building that's got some money. Yep. And John
was out with bereavement leaf. I'm sitting in his cubicle despondent,
(18:34):
and I see a box sticking out that looks like
my revenue and my invoices. I pulled it out and
it had every single invoice I'd ever given him in
this box. I picked it up and went to the elevator,
pushed a button at random. It brings me out to
account magically. On the accounting floor, there's a lady with
long blonde here welcome by named Beth, who hates John.
(18:56):
The next morning, I have a ten o'clock meeting with
Orville Summy, the head of the UH merger effort. Merger
is probably the largest office move that's taken place in
the history of Texas. It built out ultimately at about
nine million dollars. Mister Summy is standing in his office.
I walk in. He looked at me, put his hand
(19:17):
out and he says, Michael, I'm Orvil Summy, and what's
taking place with you does not represent my character or
the character of this institution. He says, this is for you,
handed me an envelope with one hundred and twenty eight
thousand dollars check in it, asked me to sit down
at the table in his office and looked at me
and said I understand you own a moving company. I
(19:42):
had no employees and no equipment, no trucks, and barely
have an idea. And I said, yes, sir, I do.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Of course you did.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
And he says, I'm going to let you do the
merger until you fail me, or until you asked to stop.
And we went on to do all nine million dollars of.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
This gigantary time over.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
No, I'd say it was nine months, eight and nine
months out. So that was your first big I lived downtown.
I was friend of the police, they were friend of Michael.
I could call on a phone into the downtown McDonald's
in order three hundred cheeseburgers. Now you find another person
that can do that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I do not know anyone else that case.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
And there's lots of stories that come from when you
have no employees. You you I'm not even gonna say
where I got people. But we did it. We're all over.
Our next large project coming out of there was when
they moved out of nine different buildings, the eleventh District
Federal Reserve Bank and into the one off little Rogers.
(20:43):
We did all of that. Yeah, and and so we've
got these stories, these these these these waypoints your son
was taught navigation in the Marines. Yep, he knows a
waypoint is everything, and so these projects along the way
are the way points our career.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
So Dallas start obviously some big wins pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, at what point? And how big were you when
it was we're a national company?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Now, Oh my gosh, that's just in the last four
or five years. We've always done things here and there.
But to say you're a national company is such such
a definition compared to just being local. In September of nineteen,
(21:35):
I was watching television with my wife and so we're we're,
you know, as you would say, a bit of success.
So we do what all successful people do. We sit
three feet from each other and play works with friends
with each other. And I looked up and I'd been
noticing this thing, this red dot in China called wuhan,
(21:58):
and the red dots dancing around called exposures. Well, in
my beggared childhood, I had fallen into the refuge of
reading at about seven, and one of my first genre
was a dramatic amount of science fiction. I'm a science
fiction freak today and I'm watching this pandemic is an
(22:23):
important part of science fiction, and I just all of
a sudden looked at my wife and I said, you know,
that's a global pandemic. Millions of people are going to die.
It's going to be the greatest societal impact we're going
to see in our lifetime, and we need to prepare
for it. The next day, we ordered a million and
a half dollars of Microsoft surfaces, and we took a
(22:46):
company that we had recently decentralized, and we remoted the
decentralized company.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So before, how big of a company were you?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Big in terms of employees? One hundred and eighty two hundred.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Right in there, okay, so not insignificant number of people.
And this was in what fall of nineteen.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
This was in August September of nineteen that we started
preparing for COVID. So we wrote letters. We got stopped
thirty one times by the police, showed them in a
nonsense letter that meant nothing to nobody, but it took
care of that. We practiced distancing and loading crews and
all of that. In the parking lot, we did like
(23:31):
old World War two naval movies. We prepared the buildings
to be shut down, indoors taped, and we did those
drills to the tune of General Quarters in the Navy,
and we prepared for this thing that was going to
make an abstract event out of every single thing we
did in business. And so when we didn't know what
(23:54):
that would mean, and it certainly took on a life
far beyond what I anticipated. You know, who would ever
anticipate that the American work ethic would be sent home
and would like that?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Okay, there's a little bit dumbpack there.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
So so summerfall, Yeah, you see this plan for it.
You've got a family run company, significant size, two hundred people.
Some of the people had to look at you and go, okay, really,
this is what.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
We're going to do. Like, was there any pushback?
Speaker 3 (24:29):
How much pushback do you get as people are watching
their friends and family laid off everywhere and I'm promising
a check.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Well, I understand that, but I'm talking before twenty twenty
even hit.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
This is in the fall, no one was thinking the
way you were thinking.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I am fortunate to have a group of people around
me and behind me that support me.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Well for sure, I mean, they wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Be your son would know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, I mean I understand that, but even so you
were ahead, you were ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I was, and that's good on you.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
And nobody would listen to me outside of my.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Cot I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I mean, here, I am. I'm questioning you right now,
and I know it happened. But okay, so you get
into twenty twenty. Everything you said was going to happen
happens clearly transformative to your business.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And I will say stop for one second.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Some of our founders COVID was an area that an occurrence, sorry,
an occurrence that transformed their business.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
You know this transformed our business?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, Ben from Ben Spell from Good Ranchers.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
So talk about this.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
So you're we're a few months in. You know, we're
in too, April May twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Well, we've always been versatile in our approach. We're just
that kind of a group of people. But one of
the first things that happened in COVID is the real
estate community. The commercial real estate community realized the depth
of issue that they had with their buildings being empty,
and they started to think forward of how will this end. Unfortunately,
(26:09):
since twenty ten, twenty eleven, in the equity crisis, a
lot of those buildings had fallen into disrepair, and now
this was happening, and so they had a double problem,
not just for people being sent home from COVID, but
they were realizing that when it came time to come back,
they couldn't come back because the buildings wouldn't be up
(26:30):
to snuff. And so there's a lot of panic going
on there of clear the buildings. And so we got
very lucky. We're office moving took a step back. We
were right there with the same skills and resources as
owners and operators. Decided to clear the space with the
largest clean out effort in the history of the world,
(26:51):
removing pre owned office furniture. And what did that do?
That quad drupled our office furniture business. We're not just
in the office moving business. We also are on maybe
the largest office furniture dealership in the state of Texas,
where we have the largest showroom in the country over
(27:12):
at one eighty three and Carl come visit us. Absolutely
all right, it's gorgeous. I hesitate to say this to
people who suffered loss, but in some ways, COVID's the
best thing that ever happened to us.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Again, a few of the founders that I've spoken to.
It changed and it transformed their business, like you said,
because of what they saw what their product could mean
as the world changed.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
It transformed our people resource as well. If we were
lean and mean and flexible going in picture coming out,
oh for sure. And that's where we're at right now.
We're in that coming out period. Pandemics typically last six
to seven years, you know, about fourteen thirty one of
the Black Plague to find that all the way through.
We're in that fifth year right now, and we're going
(28:04):
through what I hope for the last major vestiges of
how COVID impacted us as a working community. I'm going
to throw this in as we grapple with the daunting
suspicions of AI, as we're coming out of COVID. I
(28:26):
just had lunch with my bank a moment ago, Texas
Capital Bank, with the head guy, and we were debating
the effects of AI and the economy. And I'm looking
at him and I'm saying, but don't you understand it
qualifies as a so what It's no different than the
pandemic or the equity crisis, or we're humans in the
(28:49):
greatest nation on Earth. I'm going to sound like a
soapbox for a moment, we adjust and we overcome, and
we win. Your son again, Captain and the Marines would
understand that he liked me.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, I like you. I mean, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
So coming out, I know you give historical reference five
to seven years and all of that.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
You transformed your business. More employees or did you see we.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Have about one hundred employees beyond what we had YEPS
and other cities. We have brick and mortar in three cities,
San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and we're kind of done with that.
And we do work throughout the country for national businesses
that want single contract particularly MAC programs, which is short
(29:40):
for moving, moves, ads and changes people to do the
everyday work. It's very hard to find those reliably across
the country because one of the things that both the
equity crisis of ten and COVID did is it caused
my entire industry to stop employing people. So it's become
(30:00):
a temp based organization. Yeah, well, we have a president
right now that's sending all the temps home. Yeah, and
all of a sudden, you need employees again. So we're
we're pretty fortunate that we have those employees.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
So I have to ask this question because I remember
in the company I worked for during the pandemic, national
company based out of New York, I was in charge
of Texas. At the time, COVID was viewed differently in.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
New York versus Texas.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I mean, oh, I imagine, yeah, Like the conversations were
very different. So like I would imagine you were working
around the country and having to adjust to what was
the regional feeling and approach to COVID. You know, we
were going I remember, you know, we would go to
we could go to restaurants here in Dallas or Austin
(30:53):
or wherever. And I remember being on a call with
some of my peers in New York and I was
reporting about a meeting.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
The like how was it.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I was like, well, the meeting was good, and They're like, no, no, no,
was it so awesome being out at a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I was like, yeah, but they.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Were in New York where they couldn't do that, right,
So how is that part of it with your business?
Speaker 3 (31:11):
I mean you had to be relative to the work world.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Well, one of the things that we did at the opening,
as work from home started to raise its ugly little head.
We all gathered together and I explained, as as the
sole owner of the firm, we were not going to
do work from home. Yep. And that wasn't even time
I wanted to waste in a conversation. And then I
went about in my professional community, and I'm famous for
(31:41):
being the guy that was standing in the middle of
the intersection saying work from home doesn't meet the human dynamic.
It's foolishness. You're going to find out that the more
things changed, the more they don't change. Yep. And certainly
I've done that, so long answer short, What we found
was that you can't force people to endanger their health.
(32:04):
Of course, not of course, but neither is it my
job to sit in a living room and choose between
concern and income. Yeah, provided an income, We provided a
place to earn that income. We invited people to come
and work, and in large part people came to work.
And you know, we we had one death from COVID
(32:27):
and who knows where that comes from, but it was
an older man with a week in physique, and you know,
these things that happened through that time.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, So I you know, obviously, companies for the last
you know, three years, really have grappled with this what
is what does work look like?
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Now?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
And I know myself personally leading a large sales organization.
I mean, I think all organizations have to look at
how their collaboration dynamic works. And I think in sales
it's extremely important to be in an environment where others
are doing and that collaboration matters, especially in a creative environment.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Of course, how do you see this moving forward?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Because I see, you know, more and more companies you know,
are are pushing back to that. And I feel like
I see in like the younger generation who you know,
the COVID, the kids of COVID that like went through
high school and college, they want that.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Well. I can only tell you that at thirty seven
years old, I had a moment in my life that
revealed to me that God made me to be a salesperson.
I hadn't sold a single thing before that in my life,
and on that day I had the emotional experience of
my life and I've never gone back. I'm a salesperson's owner,
(33:44):
I'm a salesperson's leader. Yeah, I put out a thing
to the entirety of our sales community. Three or four
days ago. It was a poem that I wrote. Okay,
but it's okay to touch each other.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I'm not going to calm out.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
That should make us as we've now been given permission
again to touch our prospects, touch our clients. And the
point of it was get your asses out of the office, okay.
I mean, look, days are gone, Michael.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
You didn't have to convince me you're a salesperson.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I mean the way you won Mary Jane with the
Boons Farm, I mean that was a strong move. I
would expect nothing less from you.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
So what's next for your company?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
What do you think transition? You know, we're very fortunate
to have two daughters who are widely regarded, widely respect
and it's very gratifying and I wish I'd had anything
to do with it, but I respect. You know, they've
just come back, or they're coming back tonight on an airplane.
(34:49):
From aside from this firm, myself and two three other
guys twenty two years ago started to think called OMA,
the Office Moving Alliance, which is now ninety two contracted
partners around the planet that have common practices, common tooling,
common culture in office moving and what do we know
(35:11):
about office moving. You know, I come in your elevator
and I walk along here. And if you turn your
lease and go somewhere else and become part of the
people that no longer buy new furniture every time they move.
We would come in here, play that, take all this down,
take it out, put it back up. You'd come to
work looking at this in a different place. That's office moving.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I would imagine when you walk into offices, you probably
look at them different there, very different than regular people do.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
It's all mechanics and geometry. So the point, though, is
in transition is what we do has changed relative to
the mix that we do it as post COVID environment
has matured. It's important to companies that they'll not be
(35:58):
trapped into the one thing that they do. And so
we've evolved over the years away from the term moved
solutions into as a marketing professional. You know how hard
it is to support a brand. We've supported and developed
a brand behind a brand called Total Office Solutions. And
so Total Office Solutions owns and directs a family of
(36:21):
what we call the anywhere companies because we can perform,
offer and commit our services anywhere very successfully. And so
the transition now is it's a little bit complex. At
the time that we went into COVID maintenance, I turned
(36:42):
the firms over to the teams to operate in that
time well, I stepped away to develop the total office
solutions of tomorrow, and we've completely retrofitted to that concept
in the four years that have gone by, replace the
cr M replaced, We've got a new fleet, all new architecture,
a lot of training where instead of weary from a fight,
(37:05):
we're positioned for the war. And the war is what
the hell is the global economy today? I mean, look
what's going on right now. Yeah, and this isn't going
to be a retrofect on the country, but we got
some things to figure out, yes, and so we want
to be in the middle of that, probably serving people,
getting our share having worked for it. And so what's
(37:29):
on tomorrow. I'm seventy three years old. I'm a pretty
active seventy three. I'm living my best life. Both my
daughters are ready for that to include other things. You know,
we're changing out some of our senior leaders who were
really good to get us here and are no longer
(37:51):
all the way the right people to keep us moving
forward to business. I mean, I just had lunch with
the bank. That's what he wanted to know was what
do we look at through the next two years? And
of course we answer that. So it's an exciting time
of we've gotten here. It's been thirty nine years. You know,
what are the simple things that people listen to when
(38:12):
you tell them that, are you and let us still married?
Is always one of the first two questions. And we're
happily married. And you know, we're entrepreneurial people. We've never
had a single vicious fight. Nobody believes that. That knows me.
But how do you argue with someone who never argues
with you?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yep?
Speaker 3 (38:33):
And she would tell you, how do you argue with
someone who never knows you're arguing? So we were born
for each other.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
The girls both have children. We're enjoying. As the girls
were gone last night, I have my youngest daughter's two
children under three that spent the night with us. And
life is good. Life is hard, I think good and
harder supposed to have. If you read Darwin Dawkins, life
is good and hard as the way it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Absolutely good.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Reward you heard keeps you tight.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
I don't know that I could say it any better
than that. I'm still gonna have one last question because
I have to.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
As we wrap up, I.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Talk on the podcast and I talk with our teams
a lot about moving forward. You know, there are seismic
moments we talked about some of yours. There's big changing moments,
but a lot of most of our time is the
small things. And I will tell our team and talk
with leaders such yourself. You win in the cracks and
(39:44):
the gray space with culture and things like that.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
What's something you think about when you think about.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Cracks and gray spaces for total office solutions.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
We've gone through a and I think, being honest for
the record, I have to who I was listening that
I just spilled half my.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Cos I was going to let it go out on
my shirt.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
But I think if there's a crack coming out of
COVID is as we've as I've done the transition effort,
which is a complete change in sales collateral, you just
have no idea that the magnitude work that went into
presenting the world coming out of COVID with a whole
(40:25):
new US correct. All right, So in the middle of that,
we spent time on the simplicity of what was our culture,
and so we have a new Credo page that is
our crack that we're finding people are connecting to very
very well is and it's it's basically focused on our
commitment to ourselves, to each other, our families are, our customers,
(40:50):
our contractors, to leaven every human we connect with as
the human part, and to work with and treat those
humans the way we want to be worked with and
treated ourselves. And at the end of that, it promises
no mysteries, no puzzles, no surprises.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Oh that's great. I love that. I think that's a
perfect place for us to wrap it up.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Michael Manette, co founder with Linda Total Office Solutions, It
was great having you here today.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
We appreciate your time and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Thank you.
This is CEOs you should know, with the Dallas market
president of iHeartMedia, Chris Long.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I want to welcome everybody to another episode of CEOs
you should know. I'm Chris Long, Dallas market president for iHeartMedia,
and I'm here with my new friend, Michael Manette, co
founder Total Office Solutions, Vietnam veteran US Air Force US
(00:29):
Air Force.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
The co founder is Linda Manette.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Now he said that, and he warned me when we
got started thirty nine years together as co founder, he
better make that mentioned.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
A lot of work was done together. So co founder Michael, welcome.
We're excited to have you.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
We're have some fun. But before we get started, you know,
we do something here. You know, iHeartMedia is the nation's
largest audio entertainment provider with eight hundred and six radio stations,
podcast streaming of every genre. We do a lot with audio,
so I think it's important that we find out a
(01:09):
few things about you. I gave you a little bit
of warning, but now we're going to do the rapid fire.
We want to get a little bit of understanding.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
About your musical taste and all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So I'm going to toss a couple of qustions your
way quickly, don't think about it. We got to get
the first thought that comes to mind. Who's your teenage
music crush?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Teenage music crush? I don't know there was musics in
South Dakota. Oh, come on, Willie Nelson. I'm a country
western guy.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Okay, all right, what's the first concert you went to?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Don't know its name. I'm fresh out of Vietnam. I'm
in England about two weeks. The guys say there's a
concert by London. I had duty. They left before me.
I picked up a backpack of Boontz Farm and Strawberry
Hill that's sixty nine cents with a twist cap and
I and I got up north of London and found
the place. One hundred and twenty two thousand people in
(02:03):
an outdoor amphitheater day long concert. I walked into this crowd,
not knowing where, and walked straight to them, sat down.
Maha Vishna Orchestra was playing. Van Morrison played after that.
They finished up the evening with Doobie Brothers and the
Almond Brothers finished the top of that. It was the
most amazing day of music I'd ever experienced, and was
(02:26):
my first concert.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I Amanda, do we I have nothing to say. That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I almost think that might have just kind of gone
into hall of fame.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's well, let me put a cherry on top of
a hall of fame. I sit down, and I'm at
that time in my life. I'm a nice looking young man.
I've got a backpook full life. I can see that
full of cheap wine with me, and well, yeah you
said boons farm right. My guys are all slapping at
me and all this stuff. And I looked to the
right and here's a pretty English girl, well on hair
(03:00):
below eyes. She goes, hello, my name is Mary, and
then hands me I think you call it and Mary Jane,
oh hello, okay, And I was completely caught. The only
drug that's ever touched my lips in my entire life
was that moment I took it, took a pull on it.
It had something in it. The only tree there was
(03:22):
about eighty yards away, and all of a sudden the
music fades and I'm listening to the leaves in this tree.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
The other thing I would point out, and I don't know,
I'm not going to be on delicate. You can screen
this out, but I can tell you that in England
and an outdoor amphitheater at eighty six degrees, every single
girl there took her top off. Now top that I.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Don't know, mana. Did we just stop the podcast now?
I don't know. Really, I've been strapping up and go home.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, because I'm not speechless very often, and that.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Really just it was an amazing moment.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, I would say, so all stuck on the Boons
farm and you met a girl named Mary before you
even dropped the rest of that story on me.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
All right, so you're a big Boons farm guy.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
No, I don't drink, okay, probably smart. The Boon's farm
probably drove you to not drink, which is great. Okay,
So somehow you survived this concert? I did you made
your way back to the States.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Coming out of the Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
War, we know, I was in England for a while
and then other places. I was in the Air Force
for six years, and in that time I was deployed
five times. Your son, being the military, would know how
unusual that was. The Air Force for me was my
gift of life, yep. And so I could do that
all afternoon.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I'll just stop there, okay, so you you served our
country very honorably, obviously did more than your share. With
five tours you finish that you come home. Was there
even a thought about I mean, you talked about your
roots and South Dakota like, was there ever a thought
about starting a business?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
No, No, you're just a kid. Like.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Okay, I've gone and I've been around the world. I've
done I've seen some things. I seen some horrible things.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, the day I went in the military was entirely impulsive.
I was driving down Main Street, pulled into an open
parking spot. Two weeks out of high school. I just
got a draft number where I wasn't going to be drafted,
and I looked up saw our recruiting center, and impulse
walked in and said, I want to be a marine. Yeah,
that ends up with me in the Air Force. And so,
(05:33):
if you consider for a moment, my entire life through
that time was unexposed to urban centers or big buildings.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Or subisticated people get a small.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
World, anything like that. I lived in a small, story
ridden world. And then I went off and in my
service I wasn't around any of those things either.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Typically in places that were defined by which side of
the gate were you at that moment? Sure? And so
in coming out coming out of England, I was chasing
a little girl named Charlene. Charlene lived in Dallas, Texas,
and so that dictated I went to Dallas, Texas. The
first time I went to a tall building was the
(06:16):
Plaza downtown. I didn't know there was alternating parking floors
and lost my car exactly where I left it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
But did you lose Charlene?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yes, unfortunately we were married for ten years, but that one, Okay,
that one went away.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Okay, So let's jump ahead to nineteen eighty seven. Computers
are starting to reshape business.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I remember I was.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I was in college, and that's when you and Linda
found co founded.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The business.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Correct. Linda was my brand new client. I'd been on
one date with her.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Well, so client, yeah, date then co founder?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And what window of time did all this happen?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Oh about two weeks?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Why play around, right?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, I'm direct.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Clearly, okay, So let's the date obviously worked out if
you're still together and the business worked out, because you're
still together and thriving and growing. So talk a little
bit about you've done all these things. Like you said,
small town upbringing out and see the world, see a
lot of things. Make your way to Dallas, and all
(07:33):
of a sudden you have this woman you're dating, and
now you're starting a business. How does that happen?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I think it's got to start with what a lot
of folks would views the unpleasant, you know, along that way.
The eleven or twelve years between getting out of the
Air Force and meeting Linda, I worked with a large
defense contractor here in Dallas, and I went to college
at night, and I got three degrees and became an
electrical engineer and became, at thirty years old, a director
(08:06):
level manager with this large am I supposed to name company.
Go ahead, Harris Corp. All right, and you've got HARRISL
three now just finished. If you read your papers this morning,
you may have noticed that they cleared the foreign national
gift to our president that has been being outfitted out
(08:28):
at L three Harris over in Greenville. It's now his
to fly.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Got it?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And so at that time we were developing a variety
of weapons system. But I came out of that. I
worked for Bell Atlantic for about ten months, got invited
to a sales convention in Phoenix got there fourteen hundred salespeople.
As I walked in, they asked me to sit in
the front, and they gave out a couple of awards,
(08:55):
and who could be more surprised than I? I got
the award for being the highest grossing salesperson in the country.
And then about five minutes later, the president of Bell
stood up fifteen feet from me and four feet above
me and looked around and said, and I quote, PCs
are a fad in mainframes for the future. I stood up,
(09:18):
in all of my youthful vigor and said, and I quote,
would you substantiate that while we're all here together. I
flew back to Dallas on the Red Eye the next morning, and.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
You can see where this is going, right, Yeah, I'm
a pretty good feeling. My boss walks out of the
front of the building and about halfway to my car,
he goes, Michael, my kn't you learn to be quiet?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And I had been released from employment.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Oh that's shocking, and yeah, see that coming at all?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yeah, And by then we were in his office and
I looked at him and right behind him was a
cellphane wrap box of data. The EASE, which is a
relational database software, one of the original ones. And I said, well, Roger,
if you're going to do that, then let me have
that I had purchased at the previous Friday with company money.
(10:11):
They had no idea what to do with it. I
take that tucked away as my little prize, and I
headed out, and the next day I shared with Linda
at lunch that I was no longer employed. She's a
single mom.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Now this sounds like it it was probably sounding really
attractive to general I.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Well, think of the engineer warrior, whatever you want to.
But I sat down and told her I'm no longer employed.
And I looked at her very seriously, and I said,
I think there's something here, and I'm inviting you to
explore that with me.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Amazing And she looked at.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Me and I said, and I'm not going to look
for a job. I have an idea. I want to
explore it. I'm going to share it with you. Her
answer was later that afternoon to call me on my
fifteen pound mode to rule a bag of course, and
and to tell me that she'd just spoken to the
president of her firm and that he'd like to visit
(11:08):
with the two of us. Amount a task that they
had that fit into my idea, and that became our
first piece of business.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So let me just to recap.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Seventy two hours prior, you're going to company meetings to win.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
The top of the the the top award.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Within seventy two hours, you've won the award, ran your
mouth a little bit, got fired, went to your new
love interest.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Said in Texas we call it a bull.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, say yeah, I don't have a job anymore. I
know the second date in your single mom and all,
let's start a business together.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Okay, all right, just so I'm.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Clear, and date me and date me. Leave that part out.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I think you weren't kidding when you said pre show
that you were direct. I think that's an amazing So
here we are. Now we have our first client, and
like this literally is all all kidding aside, this is
all within a.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Week been Uh let's see, you went to four days.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Okay, so you're in the first first meeting. What does
he say to you, guys.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
The first meeting with the client? Yeah, well it wasn't
quite that easy. Is that he made the offer of
what would you like to bid this? And by the way,
this guy stayed our friend until four years ago. Wow,
And unfortunately he passed away. Wonderful man, wonderful and Jerry
call and and and so I was pretty eager. So
(12:37):
when he got off the elevator the next morning at
six point thirty, I was sitting reading his Wall Street
Journal with two bags of McDonald's. And he loved that.
No boons, frie okay, making sure, And he spun up
the phone to their headquarters in Austin and said, I
want you to entertain this guy. And they said, we've
already hired somebody. And and so there's a whole story
(13:02):
that goes with that. But ultimately I won the job
and won the friendship, and and we did the job,
which was quite complex. It really was an engineer's job
with some technical hands needed. And Lynda and I worked
that thirty six straight hours over a weekend. And if
I was attracted tour before I'd found someone who would
(13:26):
work like I would. Yeah, And and our bond was struck.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Well, I would imagine it was going to go one
of two ways, right, I mean it was either going
to be over it always well, yes, there's no other way, Chris,
But but I mean you were going to find out
quick it's either we're all in for the long haul
or yeah, this is terrible.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Well, and don't forget there's a third human being, a
little seven year old named Amy. Okay, and and so
there's there in lies the enemy. Yep. When the boy
shows up and the girls used to be in with
Mama alone, they would drive into the parking lot and
see that I was there, and Amy would say, Mama,
he's here again. But that all worked out wonderfully. She's
(14:10):
a wonderful woman now forty five years old, has her
own family and is our general manager of the Dallas
Fort Worth region. She's very respected in the industry.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Man.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
So this is this grew into a family business.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Oh it did. We picked up a child along the way,
little girl named Megan, that is ours. And I walked
into Linda's office one day, busy because I'm intense, and
she goes, I'm late, okay, And I ignored that, and
I'm going out her office. She goes, I said I'm late,
And of course I'm the guy that turns around and says,
(14:45):
for what, go to wherever the hell it is you're
late for And she then she made another comment that
was much more direct yeah, and along came Meghan, And
now Meghan also works with the firm. She is the
vice president of national Accounts and she's widely respected throughout
the country as the single most most successful office moving
(15:09):
salesperson in the country.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
She's just a natural born So Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
What I find in all of these conversations that I have,
you know, founders, all your all of your the founders.
I mean everyone's story is unique, but founder stories are
especially unique. We you know, we had one Shannon McLendon
from Farmhouse Fresh. She was twenty four years old and
she made her own lotions and she sent some to
(15:40):
Oprah and they responded and all of a sudden it
blew up. That magic moment, that magic moment, I mean,
and you and Linda have a magic moment where we.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Have lots of magic.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, but there's that seismic Yes, everything came together in
that moment. You know, doctor Harrison meant dentistry.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I could go on with everybody, and it's just it's
really interesting when those moments happen, and not that you
don't on.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You know, climbing a corporate ladder.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
There are moments, But I find the founder's ones are extremely.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I think one of the definitions of entrepreneurs versus other people,
excellent people, is that entrepreneurs tend to seize that moment.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Correct, there's a just everything takes a level of fearlessness.
But I think that for a founder there's the fearlessness
but also an unfailing belief that it will happen. Where
I think on the other side of things, there's people
like myself who may be like, well, but this bad
thing could happen, you know, because I you know, in
(16:40):
all seriousness, hearing what you happen to you that one
week in nineteen eighty seven would have been enough for
someone to say, you know what, I'm gonna shut it
down for a week, or I'm gonna take a few days,
whatever it is, and you you actually accelerated into it.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
You know. It's interesting how, particularly in those early years.
If I don't know if there's anybody in this room
old enough to remember this, but during the nineteen eighties
the later eighties, there was the thing called the Investment
tax Credit crash, where the Congress had screwed up a
section of code or something, but every bank in America failed,
(17:17):
and here in Texas, we had Interfirst Bank and Republic Bank,
where Texas owned, and the two largest banks in the state,
and so they came up with the theory of two
week banks make a successful bank. I'm sitting barely started
our business and hearing about this and knowing somebody in
(17:37):
project management, I would take a folding chair into their
project management area down a Republic Bank ninth floor and
I would set it up inside the door in case
anybody going through the door might have something to do.
That was my first sales effort, and over the first
three months, this is so cogent to our business. Over
(17:59):
the first three months, this one gentleman named John gave
me one hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars of little
things to do. What he didn't do is give me
any payment.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, that's problem.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah. And so finally, you know, you're you're scared to
argue too much with anybody because you're just glad to
be there with your little folding chair. And I came
in to say, John, you need to take me somewhere
in this building that's got some money. Yep. And John
was out with bereavement leaf. I'm sitting in his cubicle despondent,
(18:34):
and I see a box sticking out that looks like
my revenue and my invoices. I pulled it out and
it had every single invoice I'd ever given him in
this box. I picked it up and went to the elevator,
pushed a button at random. It brings me out to
account magically. On the accounting floor, there's a lady with
long blonde here welcome by named Beth, who hates John.
(18:56):
The next morning, I have a ten o'clock meeting with
Orville Summy, the head of the UH merger effort. Merger
is probably the largest office move that's taken place in
the history of Texas. It built out ultimately at about
nine million dollars. Mister Summy is standing in his office.
I walk in. He looked at me, put his hand
(19:17):
out and he says, Michael, I'm Orvil Summy, and what's
taking place with you does not represent my character or
the character of this institution. He says, this is for you,
handed me an envelope with one hundred and twenty eight
thousand dollars check in it, asked me to sit down
at the table in his office and looked at me
and said I understand you own a moving company. I
(19:42):
had no employees and no equipment, no trucks, and barely
have an idea. And I said, yes, sir, I do.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Of course you did.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
And he says, I'm going to let you do the
merger until you fail me, or until you asked to stop.
And we went on to do all nine million dollars of.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
This gigantary time over.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
No, I'd say it was nine months, eight and nine
months out. So that was your first big I lived downtown.
I was friend of the police, they were friend of Michael.
I could call on a phone into the downtown McDonald's
in order three hundred cheeseburgers. Now you find another person
that can do that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I do not know anyone else that case.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
And there's lots of stories that come from when you
have no employees. You you I'm not even gonna say
where I got people. But we did it. We're all over.
Our next large project coming out of there was when
they moved out of nine different buildings, the eleventh District
Federal Reserve Bank and into the one off little Rogers.
(20:43):
We did all of that. Yeah, and and so we've
got these stories, these these these these waypoints your son
was taught navigation in the Marines. Yep, he knows a
waypoint is everything, and so these projects along the way
are the way points our career.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
So Dallas start obviously some big wins pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, at what point? And how big were you when
it was we're a national company?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Now, Oh my gosh, that's just in the last four
or five years. We've always done things here and there.
But to say you're a national company is such such
a definition compared to just being local. In September of nineteen,
(21:35):
I was watching television with my wife and so we're we're,
you know, as you would say, a bit of success.
So we do what all successful people do. We sit
three feet from each other and play works with friends
with each other. And I looked up and I'd been
noticing this thing, this red dot in China called wuhan,
(21:58):
and the red dots dancing around called exposures. Well, in
my beggared childhood, I had fallen into the refuge of
reading at about seven, and one of my first genre
was a dramatic amount of science fiction. I'm a science
fiction freak today and I'm watching this pandemic is an
(22:23):
important part of science fiction, and I just all of
a sudden looked at my wife and I said, you know,
that's a global pandemic. Millions of people are going to die.
It's going to be the greatest societal impact we're going
to see in our lifetime, and we need to prepare
for it. The next day, we ordered a million and
a half dollars of Microsoft surfaces, and we took a
(22:46):
company that we had recently decentralized, and we remoted the
decentralized company.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So before, how big of a company were you?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Big in terms of employees? One hundred and eighty two hundred.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Right in there, okay, so not insignificant number of people.
And this was in what fall of nineteen.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
This was in August September of nineteen that we started
preparing for COVID. So we wrote letters. We got stopped
thirty one times by the police, showed them in a
nonsense letter that meant nothing to nobody, but it took
care of that. We practiced distancing and loading crews and
all of that. In the parking lot, we did like
(23:31):
old World War two naval movies. We prepared the buildings
to be shut down, indoors taped, and we did those
drills to the tune of General Quarters in the Navy,
and we prepared for this thing that was going to
make an abstract event out of every single thing we
did in business. And so when we didn't know what
(23:54):
that would mean, and it certainly took on a life
far beyond what I anticipated. You know, who would ever
anticipate that the American work ethic would be sent home
and would like that?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Okay, there's a little bit dumbpack there.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
So so summerfall, Yeah, you see this plan for it.
You've got a family run company, significant size, two hundred people.
Some of the people had to look at you and go, okay, really,
this is what.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
We're going to do. Like, was there any pushback?
Speaker 3 (24:29):
How much pushback do you get as people are watching
their friends and family laid off everywhere and I'm promising
a check.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Well, I understand that, but I'm talking before twenty twenty
even hit.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
This is in the fall, no one was thinking the
way you were thinking.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I am fortunate to have a group of people around
me and behind me that support me.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Well for sure, I mean, they wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Be your son would know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, I mean I understand that, but even so you
were ahead, you were ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I was, and that's good on you.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
And nobody would listen to me outside of my.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Cot I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I mean, here, I am. I'm questioning you right now,
and I know it happened. But okay, so you get
into twenty twenty. Everything you said was going to happen
happens clearly transformative to your business.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And I will say stop for one second.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Some of our founders COVID was an area that an occurrence, sorry,
an occurrence that transformed their business.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
You know this transformed our business?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, Ben from Ben Spell from Good Ranchers.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
So talk about this.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
So you're we're a few months in. You know, we're
in too, April May twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Well, we've always been versatile in our approach. We're just
that kind of a group of people. But one of
the first things that happened in COVID is the real
estate community. The commercial real estate community realized the depth
of issue that they had with their buildings being empty,
and they started to think forward of how will this end. Unfortunately,
(26:09):
since twenty ten, twenty eleven, in the equity crisis, a
lot of those buildings had fallen into disrepair, and now
this was happening, and so they had a double problem,
not just for people being sent home from COVID, but
they were realizing that when it came time to come back,
they couldn't come back because the buildings wouldn't be up
(26:30):
to snuff. And so there's a lot of panic going
on there of clear the buildings. And so we got
very lucky. We're office moving took a step back. We
were right there with the same skills and resources as
owners and operators. Decided to clear the space with the
largest clean out effort in the history of the world,
(26:51):
removing pre owned office furniture. And what did that do?
That quad drupled our office furniture business. We're not just
in the office moving business. We also are on maybe
the largest office furniture dealership in the state of Texas,
where we have the largest showroom in the country over
(27:12):
at one eighty three and Carl come visit us. Absolutely
all right, it's gorgeous. I hesitate to say this to
people who suffered loss, but in some ways, COVID's the
best thing that ever happened to us.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Again, a few of the founders that I've spoken to.
It changed and it transformed their business, like you said,
because of what they saw what their product could mean
as the world changed.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
It transformed our people resource as well. If we were
lean and mean and flexible going in picture coming out,
oh for sure. And that's where we're at right now.
We're in that coming out period. Pandemics typically last six
to seven years, you know, about fourteen thirty one of
the Black Plague to find that all the way through.
We're in that fifth year right now, and we're going
(28:04):
through what I hope for the last major vestiges of
how COVID impacted us as a working community. I'm going
to throw this in as we grapple with the daunting
suspicions of AI, as we're coming out of COVID. I
(28:26):
just had lunch with my bank a moment ago, Texas
Capital Bank, with the head guy, and we were debating
the effects of AI and the economy. And I'm looking
at him and I'm saying, but don't you understand it
qualifies as a so what It's no different than the
pandemic or the equity crisis, or we're humans in the
(28:49):
greatest nation on Earth. I'm going to sound like a
soapbox for a moment, we adjust and we overcome, and
we win. Your son again, Captain and the Marines would
understand that he liked me.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, I like you. I mean, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
So coming out, I know you give historical reference five
to seven years and all of that.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
You transformed your business. More employees or did you see we.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Have about one hundred employees beyond what we had YEPS
and other cities. We have brick and mortar in three cities,
San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and we're kind of done with that.
And we do work throughout the country for national businesses
that want single contract particularly MAC programs, which is short
(29:40):
for moving, moves, ads and changes people to do the
everyday work. It's very hard to find those reliably across
the country because one of the things that both the
equity crisis of ten and COVID did is it caused
my entire industry to stop employing people. So it's become
(30:00):
a temp based organization. Yeah, well, we have a president
right now that's sending all the temps home. Yeah, and
all of a sudden, you need employees again. So we're
we're pretty fortunate that we have those employees.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
So I have to ask this question because I remember
in the company I worked for during the pandemic, national
company based out of New York, I was in charge
of Texas. At the time, COVID was viewed differently in.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
New York versus Texas.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I mean, oh, I imagine, yeah, Like the conversations were
very different. So like I would imagine you were working
around the country and having to adjust to what was
the regional feeling and approach to COVID. You know, we
were going I remember, you know, we would go to
we could go to restaurants here in Dallas or Austin
(30:53):
or wherever. And I remember being on a call with
some of my peers in New York and I was
reporting about a meeting.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
The like how was it.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I was like, well, the meeting was good, and They're like, no, no, no,
was it so awesome being out at a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I was like, yeah, but they.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Were in New York where they couldn't do that, right,
So how is that part of it with your business?
Speaker 3 (31:11):
I mean you had to be relative to the work world.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Well, one of the things that we did at the opening,
as work from home started to raise its ugly little head.
We all gathered together and I explained, as as the
sole owner of the firm, we were not going to
do work from home. Yep. And that wasn't even time
I wanted to waste in a conversation. And then I
went about in my professional community, and I'm famous for
(31:41):
being the guy that was standing in the middle of
the intersection saying work from home doesn't meet the human dynamic.
It's foolishness. You're going to find out that the more
things changed, the more they don't change. Yep. And certainly
I've done that, so long answer short, What we found
was that you can't force people to endanger their health.
(32:04):
Of course, not of course, but neither is it my
job to sit in a living room and choose between
concern and income. Yeah, provided an income, We provided a
place to earn that income. We invited people to come
and work, and in large part people came to work.
And you know, we we had one death from COVID
(32:27):
and who knows where that comes from, but it was
an older man with a week in physique, and you know,
these things that happened through that time.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, So I you know, obviously, companies for the last
you know, three years, really have grappled with this what
is what does work look like?
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Now?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
And I know myself personally leading a large sales organization.
I mean, I think all organizations have to look at
how their collaboration dynamic works. And I think in sales
it's extremely important to be in an environment where others
are doing and that collaboration matters, especially in a creative environment.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Of course, how do you see this moving forward?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Because I see, you know, more and more companies you know,
are are pushing back to that. And I feel like
I see in like the younger generation who you know,
the COVID, the kids of COVID that like went through
high school and college, they want that.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Well. I can only tell you that at thirty seven
years old, I had a moment in my life that
revealed to me that God made me to be a salesperson.
I hadn't sold a single thing before that in my life,
and on that day I had the emotional experience of
my life and I've never gone back. I'm a salesperson's owner,
(33:44):
I'm a salesperson's leader. Yeah, I put out a thing
to the entirety of our sales community. Three or four
days ago. It was a poem that I wrote. Okay,
but it's okay to touch each other.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I'm not going to calm out.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
That should make us as we've now been given permission
again to touch our prospects, touch our clients. And the
point of it was get your asses out of the office, okay.
I mean, look, days are gone, Michael.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
You didn't have to convince me you're a salesperson.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I mean the way you won Mary Jane with the
Boons Farm, I mean that was a strong move. I
would expect nothing less from you.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
So what's next for your company?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
What do you think transition? You know, we're very fortunate
to have two daughters who are widely regarded, widely respect
and it's very gratifying and I wish I'd had anything
to do with it, but I respect. You know, they've
just come back, or they're coming back tonight on an airplane.
(34:49):
From aside from this firm, myself and two three other
guys twenty two years ago started to think called OMA,
the Office Moving Alliance, which is now ninety two contracted
partners around the planet that have common practices, common tooling,
common culture in office moving and what do we know
(35:11):
about office moving. You know, I come in your elevator
and I walk along here. And if you turn your
lease and go somewhere else and become part of the
people that no longer buy new furniture every time they move.
We would come in here, play that, take all this down,
take it out, put it back up. You'd come to
work looking at this in a different place. That's office moving.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I would imagine when you walk into offices, you probably
look at them different there, very different than regular people do.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
It's all mechanics and geometry. So the point, though, is
in transition is what we do has changed relative to
the mix that we do it as post COVID environment
has matured. It's important to companies that they'll not be
(35:58):
trapped into the one thing that they do. And so
we've evolved over the years away from the term moved
solutions into as a marketing professional. You know how hard
it is to support a brand. We've supported and developed
a brand behind a brand called Total Office Solutions. And
so Total Office Solutions owns and directs a family of
(36:21):
what we call the anywhere companies because we can perform,
offer and commit our services anywhere very successfully. And so
the transition now is it's a little bit complex. At
the time that we went into COVID maintenance, I turned
(36:42):
the firms over to the teams to operate in that
time well, I stepped away to develop the total office
solutions of tomorrow, and we've completely retrofitted to that concept
in the four years that have gone by, replace the
cr M replaced, We've got a new fleet, all new architecture,
a lot of training where instead of weary from a fight,
(37:05):
we're positioned for the war. And the war is what
the hell is the global economy today? I mean, look
what's going on right now. Yeah, and this isn't going
to be a retrofect on the country, but we got
some things to figure out, yes, and so we want
to be in the middle of that, probably serving people,
getting our share having worked for it. And so what's
(37:29):
on tomorrow. I'm seventy three years old. I'm a pretty
active seventy three. I'm living my best life. Both my
daughters are ready for that to include other things. You know,
we're changing out some of our senior leaders who were
really good to get us here and are no longer
(37:51):
all the way the right people to keep us moving
forward to business. I mean, I just had lunch with
the bank. That's what he wanted to know was what
do we look at through the next two years? And
of course we answer that. So it's an exciting time
of we've gotten here. It's been thirty nine years. You know,
what are the simple things that people listen to when
(38:12):
you tell them that, are you and let us still married?
Is always one of the first two questions. And we're
happily married. And you know, we're entrepreneurial people. We've never
had a single vicious fight. Nobody believes that. That knows me.
But how do you argue with someone who never argues
with you?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yep?
Speaker 3 (38:33):
And she would tell you, how do you argue with
someone who never knows you're arguing? So we were born
for each other.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
The girls both have children. We're enjoying. As the girls
were gone last night, I have my youngest daughter's two
children under three that spent the night with us. And
life is good. Life is hard, I think good and
harder supposed to have. If you read Darwin Dawkins, life
is good and hard as the way it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Absolutely good.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Reward you heard keeps you tight.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
I don't know that I could say it any better
than that. I'm still gonna have one last question because
I have to.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
As we wrap up, I.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Talk on the podcast and I talk with our teams
a lot about moving forward. You know, there are seismic
moments we talked about some of yours. There's big changing moments,
but a lot of most of our time is the
small things. And I will tell our team and talk
with leaders such yourself. You win in the cracks and
(39:44):
the gray space with culture and things like that.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
What's something you think about when you think about.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Cracks and gray spaces for total office solutions.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
We've gone through a and I think, being honest for
the record, I have to who I was listening that
I just spilled half my.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Cos I was going to let it go out on
my shirt.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
But I think if there's a crack coming out of
COVID is as we've as I've done the transition effort,
which is a complete change in sales collateral, you just
have no idea that the magnitude work that went into
presenting the world coming out of COVID with a whole
(40:25):
new US correct. All right, So in the middle of that,
we spent time on the simplicity of what was our culture,
and so we have a new Credo page that is
our crack that we're finding people are connecting to very
very well is and it's it's basically focused on our
commitment to ourselves, to each other, our families are, our customers,
(40:50):
our contractors, to leaven every human we connect with as
the human part, and to work with and treat those
humans the way we want to be worked with and
treated ourselves. And at the end of that, it promises
no mysteries, no puzzles, no surprises.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Oh that's great. I love that. I think that's a
perfect place for us to wrap it up.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Michael Manette, co founder with Linda Total Office Solutions, It
was great having you here today.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
We appreciate your time and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Thank you.
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