Making Positivity Louder: The Path to Hometown Heroism

Episode Transcript
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Ty Cobb Backer (00:00):
maybe, oh, when we are live.
Welcome back everybody tobeyond the tool belt, episode
292.
I am your host, taika backer.
Thank you for joining us onthis wednesday edition, and we
will be right back after ourshort intro from our sponsor.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to Behind the Tool Belt, where the stories
are bold, the conversations arereal and the insights come to
you live, raw and uncut.
Every week, host Ty Cobb-Bersits down to bring you the
stories, the struggles, thelessons learned and the wins.
No filters, no scripts, justthe truth.

(00:53):
Please welcome your host ofbehind the tool belt, ty cobb
backer.

Hey, hey, and we are back.
Welcome back to behind the toolbelt where we talk with
builders, branders and bigthinkers shaping the trades and
beyond.
Today's guest is a powerhousein the world of marketing.
He's helped hundreds, if notthousands, of contractors grow
their businesses and also hasbuilt a dominant agency in the

(01:19):
roofing space, and now he'sdropping a blueprint for
becoming unforgettable in yourown backyard.
He is the founder of hookagency and the host of hook
better lead how to become, andnow has a brand new book on how
to become a hometown hero.
This one's about sorry, I feellike I got this freaking.

(01:42):
I'll tell you what it's about.
Sorry, I feel like I got thisfricking.
I'll tell you what it's aboutif you want, yeah.
It's about what the hell it'sabout.
I have no idea what it's about.
Real quick, it's just about.

Tim Brown (01:52):
It's about getting stickier in your local tightest
possible area.
So a lot of people try to goreally broad really quick and
this one is about getting reallytight on them the space that
you're trying to market to.
And then it's about emotionalthings that make you stickier,
and it's got 27 people in itthat know the topic from each

(02:15):
chapter really really well.
I found the best person at thatparticular topic and got them
to speak on it, so it's got alot of people's stories in it
and just a lot of cool people.
Roofing and other home services, so plumbing and HVAC.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Thankyou.

And it's like a real book.
It's a real book it feels likea real book.

Tim Brown (02:37):
Yeah, it's a real book.

Well, I was hesitant because, I thought no,
it's a book by Tim Brown,hesitant because I thought, no,
it's a book by tim brown.

Tim Brown (02:46):
I was like what kind of book?
No, I'm just kidding.
Yeah, you know what could thispossibly be?
And the funny thing is is likeit's good, it's better than I
deserve.
Because because of those 27people that are in it.
It's better than I deserve asfar as like how good the ideas
are in here and there's justliterally you'll just get,
you'll go through it and you'llboth have a little bit of a
change of the way you'rethinking about your marketing,

(03:06):
like a bigger change, andthere's a bunch of little
tactics to use right away.
So I hope people check out thebook.
But we can talk about whatevertoday.
We don't have this sit and talkabout that's good.

That's good.
No, I love it because it it'smore than just about marketing.
It's about impact, influenceand what it takes to earn
legendary status in yourcommunity.
Yeah, you know what I mean, soyou're a great example of this.

Tim Brown (03:28):
You're a really good example.
That's why you're in the book,that's why ty's in the book.
But there's a bunch of otherpeople that are kind of like ty
and that they're awesome andthey're really good at these
local marketing tactics and likeinvolving yourself, being
involved that's what that's.
A lot of.
It's around being involved andyou're such a great example of
being involved.
I got really challenged by aton of the people that shared in

(03:50):
the book, like I was like damn,we could be doing more.

Yeah, no for sure.
There's a lot of great peoplein the book.
You interviewed a ton of youknow people that have major
impact and influence.
Not just you know people thathave major impact and influence
not just you know, it's so muchthat they actually impact our
industry as a whole, not justtheir, their local communities,
cause you got man, I like, uh,like the the biggest, heaviest

(04:15):
hitters that that are possibly,you know, in our industry, and I
love that, love that about it.
So I do want to talk about yourbook, cause I have a bunch of
questions.
I'm sure some of our, ourviewers, have questions for you
too, and it's like, you know, um, like what?
I guess my biggest question ormy first question for you would
be like what, what inspired youto to write this book and why?

(04:37):
Now?

Tim Brown (04:40):
Yeah, I think you know it's funny, like as a CEO,
I'm a CEO, right, and it'sinteresting because, as I start
to become, I'm going to bestarting to move away actually
from our own marketing even andbeing as involved, because it's
just that's what happens, right,because you have to be a

(05:00):
stakeholder in your business,you have to actually be an
executive, like you have toexecute, you have to, like make
the decisions, and it's a lotand you have to be a leader,
like just be a great leader,right, that's what I'm moving
towards and I wanted to kind ofcapture some of this stuff
before I kind of push off fromjust pure marketing Cause.

(05:23):
Now we've got a marketingmanager and she's got a
videographer and I'm just tryingto like almost like capture
everything I can.
I'm gonna get better as acommunicator, I'm like I'm
probably gonna learn some thingsabout a marketer as a marketer,
but I think, like right now I'mstill just on the end of my,
like me, marketing this businessas the primary marketer.

(05:46):
So I wanted to like almostcapture everything and then also
just like make something thatinvolved a ton of our community,
which is like the roofing andhome services space, like.
So this is like a communityeffort book, which, uh, was fun.
It was a way to connect withpeople.
It's good for our marketing,obviously, but I think at the
end of the day, like it's also afun thing to try to.

(06:07):
It's fairly cheap for how much?
That's the crazy thing aboutbooks we forget Books.
Somebody's trying to distilleverything that's really good
that they know into 200 pages.
It's crazy what you candiscover reading.

(06:28):
Okay, I'm a big reader, so I'mnot writing a book out of a
place of like I haven't.
Literally half of our success isprobably partly from books.
The other half is from justdoing shit and working 70 hours
a week and all that right, yeah,but like reading a lot of books
and like absorbing informationhas been a big piece of that.
So it's kind of like a givingback thing too, because it's

(06:51):
fairly cheap.
Right, the paperback is likegoing to be 14 bucks on Amazon
or something, but it's actuallystuffed.
It's actually stuffed with thebest information and we're kind
of it's almost like borderlinegiving it away.
It's almost like borderlinegiving it away Because it's like
each book sold is like three,four bucks in my pocket or
something.
It's like I'm not worried aboutthose three or four bucks.
I want to get as many of theseout there as I possibly can,

(07:13):
because I do believe there issomething about if you're able
to give away value to a lot ofpeople.
So let's say we have 130clients or whatever, but if I'm
able to, like, impact a thousandpeople through this book, that
would be.
It'd be cooler to be able tohelp more people.

(07:34):
That would be really cool.

Yeah for sure.
No, and that's what's reallyall about.
I mean, you know, it soundslike you're, you're on this uh,
this leadership journey oftrying to sharpen and hone those
skills and stuff like that, andthat's that's what.
That's what it's about.
It's the impact.
That's that's where the, thewealth and the success really
live in that space, not thethree or $4 off each book, but

(07:57):
the, the individuals that youare impacting from your book,
with your book, is where thetrue wealth and success come
from.
And every thousand peoplethere's probably another third,
three, three more people thatyou're also impacting, that you
have no idea that you'reimpacting.
So if you have 130 clients thatall bought a book, that's at
least 200 or 390 people that you, that you've impacted,

(08:20):
essentially because whetherthey're regurgitating something
that they heard in the book andsharing it with somebody else,
or they shared your book withthem, like that ripple effect's
a lot bigger than I think we wediscovered, or that we know,
like our like, there's peoplethat are going to watch this
podcast today, that didn'tsubscribe to the youtube channel
, don't follow me on socialmedia, but have watched it, and

(08:43):
we have no idea how many peoplewere, even what country it's in
and same same with your book andyou're doing but, by the way,
you're doing an amazing jobpromoting the crap out of this
book.
You were so creative and sounique in in your ways of
promoting book and the fiveminute cold tub challenge, you
know.
And then 500 bucks towards yourlocal charitable place is it's

(09:05):
brilliant, you know.
And then 500 bucks towards yourlocal charitable place is it's
brilliant, you know cause.
Then you're on social media.
You're captivating audiences,you know.
You challenged me, I challengedtwo people.
They're both going to do it,and I don't even know how many
people you've challenged and howmany people, though those
people are challenging.
So, having said all that, thinkof that small little ripple
effect that you've created thatone day you decided to do a five

(09:26):
minute cold plunge, like that'sat least 30, 25, 20, 30 people
right there.

Tim Brown (09:31):
Yeah, and I think it's like a total like seven.
After today it'll be like 18000 given too.
So that's it's and it's localcharities.
It's been really fun too.
It's just, I think, for somereason, when you're in the cold
plunge, like I'm always like.
I remember doing a 15 minutecold plunge with david carroll

(09:52):
and I remember he was liketrying to get me to stay in
there.
It's like one of my first timesdoing it.
He, I stayed in there for 15minutes.
I remember like looking himdead in the eyes.
We're like facing each other intwo cold plunges and I was like
we gotta make positivity louder.
Man, you know, like we were,just like I was.
I had to like go into adifferent realm to stay in there

(10:15):
that long, and part of it waslike I, I getting clear, getting
hyper clear on what I'm tryingto do in the world, and I, I,
for some reason.
I think cold plunge kind ofunlocks that for me, and not
sometimes it's just stressful,but sometimes it unlocks like my
, my, like what do I want to do?

(10:35):
Man?
Cause I want to like, I want tomake, I want to make positivity
louder, so it's just so.
It's so obvious that likenegativity takes over the feeds
on social and stuff like that.
But it's our job, it's myresponsibility to unfollow,
unfriend I'm not saying in atoxic way, but I'm saying when
there's people doing negativestuff all the time and focus on

(10:59):
what do I want to bring to theworld, what's positive, how can
I elevate people, how can I maketheir lives a little better?
How can I make?
I think even the best way tothink about is like my community
, a direct community, and for me, part of that is roofing.
Like roofing is my direct,tiniest community, right like
it's huge, 110 000 companies inthe united states.

(11:19):
But, um, my direct, tightcommunity, and I think we can
all look at that now.
Minneapolis is my, also mydirect community.
Like can we focus on a tighterarea and see if we can make a
little bit of a real impact?
Because it is hard to make areal impact in the world and I

(11:40):
I'm I'm kind of direct, I'm likereally conscious of that, I'm
really conscious of how shortlife is and like how it's going
to be gone tomorrow and I wantto.
I would love it if I end thislife where people actually like
cared about me and and also thatI made somebody's life a little

(12:00):
tiny bit better.
That's like I just.
I'm just a little too consciousof how short this whole thing
is.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a natural thought
for anybody, he, you know, forall of us that are getting a
little bit older and that haveolder parents, and some of us
who have parents who have passedaway at some point in time.
You know cause I never used toworry about you know how short
life was.
I'm like you know, I got 90years left, and it's like the

(12:27):
older I get, it's like holy shit, I might only have like 30, 20,
30 years left, and so, andthat's the thing too, the older
I get too, it's like that's onething I will never get back.
It's like, okay, yeah, I canchase money, but how much longer
, you know, would I have on thisearth if I, if that was, my
main focus was just chasingmoney or spending time with my
family, right, and and reallyabsorbing that time, you know,

(12:50):
with and being surrounded bythose that I love.
I find that more valuable todaythan I have ever had, only
because I do know how precioustime is and that we're only here
for a short amount of time.
But while we're going to behere, we do want to have the
largest impact, the most impactthat we can possibly have on

(13:11):
every single person, becausethat is true legacy.
You know, it's not necessarilythe, the cars, the trucks, the
toys, the business that we mightleave behind.
That that is your, your legacy.
Your legacy is how you makepeople feel, how you've made
them felt, how you made themfeel and they're still talking
about like that Tim was just agreat human being and if it

(13:33):
wasn't for him or evil.

Tim Brown (13:37):
Every one of us is a villain in someone's story.
You know what I mean.
I think it's just beingconscious of that and, as
somebody who's had his ownlittle form of redemption, you
know what I mean.
Like, yeah, I don't think I, Ithink it's just being conscious
of that and as somebody who'shad his own little form of
redemption, you know what I mean.
I have to.
I have to say it hasn't alwaysbeen like that right, like I
I've.
I feel like I sometimes tiejust to go deep for a second.

(14:01):
It's like you know, you aresorry, I'm gonna speak as me
I've had times in my life whereI wasn't as I wasn't trying as
hard to do the right thing right, and so sometimes I feel like
I'm just, yeah, I've felt like Iwas just living down karma by
trying to do some good thingsfor the world, because I'm like

(14:22):
I gotta, I gotta undo some ofthis stuff.
Like that party, like I'm noteven saying partying is bad, but
you know, like some of thethings I did when I was partying
, like not being, not treatingpeople as good as I'd like to,
so some of it was like livingthat down.
I hope I'm past living thatdown now and now it's just an
abundance thing and life is goodand I do feel like there's so
many good things going on that Imust have done something right.

(14:46):
But for a while there it wasjust like lived in some of this
karma, bro, like I gotta, Igotta do some positive things to
offset some of the negativethings you know.
So that just being real aboutthat.

Yeah, no, I can relate to that too.
I think one, one of the thingswhy I got into, you know,
charitable events and I got intocharitable events and becoming
what I hope someday a hometownhero was because I felt like I
needed to make a lot of wrongsright and that I owed it to
society.
I owed it to my parents, andit's like I feel like at one
point in time I was going alittle overboard where it almost

(15:20):
became like a job, and then Ispread myself too thin and now
I'm kind of like in that placewhere it's kind of like okay,
now I can scale this back alittle bit.
I think, morally, I've done alot of these living amends that
I needed to make.
I still make mistakes, I stillowe people, you know, an apology
every now and then, but I catchit a lot quicker because this

(15:40):
thing too, I want to live a goodlife, I want to live a life of
peace and I don't want to, youknow, feel awkward around people
and I'm not saying that thereisn't people that don't snatch
my spirit, and I know me enoughtoday that sometimes I do need
to avoid people, places, thingsand situations because it will
snatch my spirit.
They're like an energy vampirethose places sometimes.

(16:01):
And it's like I do, because Ido want to live on like that.
That energy bus, right, and Iwant passengers on that bus with
me on this journey that we'reon and I want to radiate energy.
I actually switched my mysignature on my email to CEO and
not for chief executive officerbut for chief energy officer,
because that is my job today.

(16:23):
I am the guy that spreads theenergy, whether it's good or bad
, right, and I got to be realconscious of what, what form of
energy I'm radiating on aday-to-day basis, even with my
family, the closest people in mylife.
I know I can turn a room darkor I can lighten that thing up
like a Roman candle in a goodway.
So I know that about me.

(16:44):
I know I'm very impactful,whether it's negative or
positive, and I'm very aware ofthat today, but that's where I
get my fulfillment from right.
If somebody comes into myoffice and they have an issue
and they're having a bad day,like I want them leaving the
office in a better space thanthey were before they came into
my office, because I used to bethe guy that if they screwed

(17:05):
something up one they probably Iwas very unapproachable.
Um, I would have lost my shit.
Not that I still don't have amoment every now and then, but
I've learned to be able to pickand choose my battles better.
I think, um, and and you knowyou were you were talking about
the one thing leadership andyou're talking about you know,
your business is in a good placeand it's like I've been in

(17:27):
business and I'm going to I'mgoing to switch the subject here
a little bit, but it soundslike you are in a peacetime,
right, like peacetime.
So there's peacetime leadershipand there's wartime leadership.
Yeah, when you're in businesslong enough because businesses
go through ebbs and flows.

Tim Brown (17:43):
Yeah, it's great when you're kind of like on that
pink cloud in business whereeverything just oh, yeah, I mean
last year, because you, we, weand I talked about this last
year like, yeah, election year,bro, I have, I actually had it
in my calendar, or I put it inmy calendar now.

(18:03):
I have it in my calendar nowfor the beginning of an election
year.
I think you.
You said that to me on the onthe trip we did and I have that
now.
So, yeah, but it was likepreparing yourself preparing
yourself.

Yeah For, for, for wartime leadership, because
that's when you you have topivot and you have to be way
proactive.
You can't react to an electionyear.
If you're, I need to startdoubling down now, you know.
I mean, and not wait tilljanuary 1st and then the

(18:43):
inauguration is over, and thendecide I'm going to start
marketing like you got.
That's that.
That was my whole point.
Was is like once I haveidentified some ebbs and flows
over the years and anything.
I've learned this too anythingcan affect the economy.
Anything, something that isposted on social media,
something that's all over thenews, it doesn't necessarily
have to do with, um, politicsnecessarily.

(19:05):
Um, it can, it could do with.
I mean, all sorts of things canaffect the economy but, go
ahead everyone gets really, uhlike over analyzing.

Tim Brown (19:16):
I think too in those I mean just overthinking stuff.
Right, because they're like,because we're, it's pretty
negative to the news cycle.
It gets very negative duringelection year, so it's just like
so, anyways, I'm prepping forthat next time.
Okay, and the funny thing is islike we had like a 20 30 growth

(19:38):
.
So I don't know what I wascomplaining about, but it was
like when you prepare for a lotof growth, like when you, when
you hire ahead, and then you'relike like you hired too much,
and then you're like so thathappens.
I feel like that's.
I talked to a bunch ofentrepreneurs where they did the
same thing, where they're likethey're hiring for a bunch of
growth and then, if it doesn'thappen like that, they're just

(19:59):
kind of upset because we're notpromised anything.
Right Like, as an entrepreneur,there's there's no current like
, you can do all the thingsright, but there's things
outside of your control, whichis something I'm just learning
in business.
I mean, I've known in life fora while.
Right Like, but there's thingsoutside of my control.
It doesn't mean I have a badbusiness, but there's cycles and

(20:22):
larger patterns that affect mybusiness, whether or not I want
them to and I do like the phraseI I've talked to this big hx
sales guy.
He says I never participate ina bad economy I love that.
However, it's like not evenalways about economy, it's just
like apprehension for purchases.

(20:44):
It's just that that cycle, wedon't know, and like the bigger
your business is, I think, thebigger it's like you don't get
to just like slap a little motoron the back of this thing and
then like go fast, right, it'scrazy how big the motor has to
be on a big boat yeah, no, andyou're absolutely right.

It's harder to reel things in the the larger
that that it is and you knowyour team has a lot to to to do
with it too like if you got topivot, and pivot quick.
Um, your leadership plays a big, huge role in in that, and
Jocko Willing talks aboutdecentralized command.
If we have over a hundredcoworkers at any given time,

(21:27):
okay, if they all had to waitfor me to make decisions, you
know, like I don't know when isthis getting?
I don't know.
I'm waiting on Ty to get backfrom vacation before I can, or
whatever the case might be, thatbottlenecks the entire business
and fortunately I I had justgot to experience one of one of
our leaderships that was abottleneck at one of our

(21:50):
locations, so I actually got tosee myself in somebody else.
I I'm going, we're going throughsome some transitioning right
now, and I got to to reflect on,you know where, where some of
the ebbs were and where some ofthe flows were, like what was
good, what was bad, and andwhere what it came down to was
is, first and foremost, I didn'tset clear enough expectations,

(22:13):
a timeline, a budget.
So I looked at the to see whereI played a part in this, or not
necessarily part, but what couldI have done differently?
And then I also got to reflectupon what what the other party
may have been doing wrong, and alot of that had to do with
trust and and setting um and andand instilling and empowering

(22:35):
other people to make decisions,and all of the decisions rested
upon this person's shoulders.
Well, there was no growth,there was no expansion.
There was, there was like itjust completely got super stale
and everybody kept saying, well,so-and-so, so busy.
I'm waiting on an answer.
I haven't heard from him fortwo weeks.
We don't know where he's at, hehasn't gotten back to us yet

(22:58):
and it's like it all came.
It all stemmed from oneindividual that everybody was
waiting on to just make adecision and everyone's just
kind of like sitting aroundwaiting what, not trying to
figure out what to do, and I gotto um, actually sit back and
and see myself in another humanbeing.
It's like God and it was areminder because I haven't led

(23:20):
that way necessarily.
Now there are certain thingsthat don't.
You know, that, that I makedecisions on Um, but nobody's
necessarily, I don't think,waiting around.
you know where we're holding upa couple million dollars or you
know we're screwing over ahomeowner because you know
they're waiting on me to make adecision.
You know, and I think that'swhere a lot of businesses stunt
their growth is because it'skind of like they're running it

(23:44):
and they're trying to wear toomany hats and everyone's kind of
sitting around waiting for themto make a decision.

Tim Brown (23:50):
I think that this is a really interesting, fun topic
for me.
I hope it's interesting for afew people out there, but I
think about there's thisthreshold for a few people out
there.
But like, yeah, I think aboutlike this there's this threshold
for a marketing company itmight be five million.
Roofing company might be 10million.
Like there's.
Once you go past this certainthreshold, there has to be

(24:12):
executive decision making, therehas to be good decision
makingmaking, and yet thededicate time you know what I
mean Like you always have to,but like, at a certain point
it's a real job.
Right, like we played CEO plus10 other things for a long time.
Right, like we did that.
You have to do that too.
That's real.

Oh yeah.

Tim Brown (24:35):
You better.
You better not think I'm goingto only work on the business and
not in the business.
You got to work in the businessand on the business and around
the business and underneath thebusiness and above the business
when you're early.
But as time goes on, I'mrealizing like it's a real job,
like CEO is a real job and Ican't I I probably will pass it
off at some point but like Ineed to actually do the job to
see.
Yeah, so we had like an uh, youknow, a leadership planning

(24:58):
meeting yesterday and and you'vetalked about this to me before,
but it's pretty far in advancewe're making decisions for a
year from now about what'schanging and what we're doing,
and we made the decision.
It's not just talking about it,it's getting everybody on board
and the leadership and thenmaking a decision and making

(25:19):
sure everyone's excited about it.
Right, like so it's crazy.
I mean, you got to makedecisions right and there's,
like they, there's a ton of data.
Well, shit, I don't know theactual data, but I've seen that
there's a ton of data supposedlyabout people that make
decisions.
It definitely helps yoursuccess, like if you're capable
of just making decisions,because there's wrong decisions

(25:42):
and there's right decisions, butthere's nothing worse than no
decision.

Yeah.
Yeah, and not making a decisionis is making a decision, and
that's where that's where thingskind of just get stale.
You know, I had a.
I had a good example.
It's like it's not like, yes,we have to make decisions, but
we also have to allow otherpeople to make decisions, just
because we decided that we'regoing to go in another direction

(26:05):
.
Well, there's a lot of thingsthat have to happen in order for
us to go to a certain direction, and I have to empower people
to make sure that that happens,which means they're going to
have to make decisions and buildSOPs and track KPIs and all
those things.
Like just because I made thedecision doesn't mean I'm going
to recreate the fricking SOPbook, Doesn't mean that I'm

(26:26):
going to, you know, design awhole, you know new matrix for
the KPI dashboard.
I'm not going to.
I'm not going to do thosethings.
So I have to allow them to makethose decisions.
On what kpis like?
I might have a suggestion likemake sure you track these kpis
because these are things that Iwant to look at but I'm not in
their department.
So there may be other kpis thatthey need to look at and I'm

(26:48):
not going to dictate that,because they're the ones on the
front line that have to use itevery single day, and that's
what I mean by like empoweringsomeone to make a mistake and
this is what the cool part aboutit which could also be a
catch-22 is is that they'regoing to make mistakes.
Okay, and I actually saidthat's the cool part about it,
because the only way thatthey're going to learn the only
way that I've ever learned wasscrewing a lot of shit up, so

(27:10):
unfortunately, we have to leaveenough room.
Deal with it later.
Okay, you messed up, cool, noproblem.
What did we learn from it?
What are we gaining from thisright now?
Shit, we need to create anotherkpi dashboard.
Shit, we need to add anotherpage into the sop you know book
that we have.
And it's like all these things,and that's where sops get born,
that's where they get developed.

(27:30):
Like, okay, we got to documentthis, so I don't ever do it
again.
And by having it documented,it's so much easier to empower,
to trust, because now it's morethan hearsay.
Well, I thought I told you todo it this way.
Oh no, you didn't.
And then there's an argument.
It's like no, I documented it.
Not only did I tell you andshow you how to do it, but I
also left you with a hard copy.
Now go.

Tim Brown (27:50):
Yeah, and I'm a huge fan of loom for video tests, uh,
for video tutorials.
I just first, first day with anexecutive assistant.
Second try, second try, I thinkafter we hung out.
I tried to hire one last summerand she was you know anyways,
so it didn't work.
But then now I'm trying anotherone, so let's see how it goes.

(28:13):
I'm doing way more looms than Idid last time.

I'm doing a lot more like documentation and,
yeah, I think that there's umyou can't document enough
document yeah document document,document document everything,
as stupid as it sounds, becauseyou're going to probably forget
too and you're going to wishdamn, and I wish I wrote that
down because I can't remember Ihad it, but I can't remember
what the hell it was.

Tim Brown (28:38):
Oh, yeah, right, write everything back to your
your your thing about the liketo make good decisions.
This is definitely higher levelstuff, right.
This isn't like your first oneto three million stuff, right,
but yeah, there'll be peoplethat watch this.
So, and as time goes on, you'llneed this information.
It's good, uh, which is you doand that's time.

(29:00):
I think anyone could use this,but I think for us it's like if
you had to do it, you would notmake the right decisions a lot
of times, like if you had to bethe one to implement certain
things like that's why.
Who, not how, is so important,and I I thought when I first
heard that idea, it's DanSullivan and Benjamin Hardy.
The book is very good who, nothow but it's fairly simple

(29:24):
mental mindset.
I thought it was a little softwhen I first heard it, but as
time has gone on, it's likeactually fundamental right,
which is you have to have who'sto do the thing so that I find
that I make better decisionsbecause I'm not the one that's
going to have to do everything,right.
So it's actually like it's.

(29:44):
It's like an argument for goodleadership that isn't always
constantly doing the work, and Iused to think I would take
pride that I both led and did abunch more work than everybody
else, but I also was the crabbydude, yeah.
And this is like I wasn't a badguy, I was just a crabby guy and

(30:05):
I would hold people back,partly because I would be
running ahead and doing thething that I asked them to do
two days ago and I didn't givethem a week to finish it.
Right, like, so who, not how islike all right, I'm going to
make better decisions because Ihave who's that are capable.
I've made good decisions on who, and then they're owning

(30:26):
usually a number what's thenumber?
You know what I mean and thentasks too.
But, like, even then, ideally,as time goes on, they get to
have their own who's too, right?
So I just love this and likeand I'm telling my marketing
manager, by the way, I am soproud of my marketing manager
she got 20 leads in a day theother day, one day.

(30:49):
Holy shit, that's crazy, that'sum, and I was scared that.
I was scared I was gonna haveto, like, micromanage everything
and be behind the scenes and dothis stuff.
And she just got 20 leads in aday.
And it's not from any crazy big, innovative campaign.
It was from being consistentand sharing social proof and
case studies and real work andbeing consistent.

(31:11):
That's all.
Consistency has been huge andum.
But I also tell her she needswho's right.
I'm not just the one, only onethat gets who's.
I'm like I'm trying to teachher you know how to get people
to do things and trying to makesure she has a bigger vision for
her career and her role thanjust be the one to do every

(31:35):
little thing.
So and that's hard, like whenyou're really early, but as time
goes on you want to be able toallow your people to have who's
to.
It's just very high and mighty,you know, for a guy who's got a
little bit bigger business thanan early startup.
But at the beginning you justgot to think that way, like I, I
can set a big goal and I won'tbe the only one involved.

(31:56):
I'm going to get some otherreally great people involved.

Otherwise this big goal would be ridiculous.
Yeah for sure.
No, you're right, and I thinkthat's where a lot of us get
stuck.
I was stuck in that early stagebootstrap startup roofing
company where I felt like I hadmy my pulse on everything and
did everything, and if it tooktoo long, it was like, kind of
get out of the way, I can do itbetter, you know, and I think

(32:28):
it's because it's our baby, youknow, we, we, we think, you know
, nobody can do it any betterthan us.
And man, I haven't talked aboutthis for a while.
We're like I'm wearing 15 hatsand now I'm just mediocre at
everything.
I can't excel at anything,whether it's personally or
professionally, because I'm sostressed out I'm working a
hundred hours a week.
I'm, I'm selling the jobs, I'mbuilding the jobs, I'm ordering

(32:50):
the materials, I'm calling upthe subs, I'm calling up the
supply house, like all of thesethings, where it's like, you
know, and I think I was thinkingso small and I've been on this
kick and it's going to be a partof my keynote, but it's almost
like I had that mentality, likeI can outwork anybody, okay,
just to make ends meet.
Like I wasn't purpose-driven,right, my purpose was just to

(33:12):
make ends meet.
But my attitude was is I'lljust, I'll outwork everybody.
And I think if we think thatway, yes, you need that mindset
when you get into business foryourself.
It's like, yes, you need towork, outwork everybody, you
need to be the first one there,the last one to leave, and set
the example and set the standardearly.
I get that, but you need to bedriven by purpose, like what is

(33:33):
your purpose?
Is your purpose to eventuallycreate this framework and be
able to pass it off to somebodyelse?
So then they have something todo?
Okay, so now you're impactingsomebody else.
You wrote the framework andthen I've noticed over time,
like my old frameworks, thatI've passed the torch off to
other people.
They do it so much better thanI ever did it Because, one, I

(33:55):
was doing 15 jobs.
I was mediocre at everything.
I couldn't excel, I couldn'tthink high level, I was so far
in the weeds and working in thebusiness, okay.
Then, when I started todelegate things to people, okay,
I found out like one, first andforemost, we started to grow
almost exponentially.
Like immediately we started togrow the moment I started to

(34:18):
delegate tasks to other peopleand then I realized, like holy
shit, that one task that Iimmediately we started to grow
the moment I started to delegatetasks to other people and then
I realized, like holy shit, thatone task that I was doing
actually created a 40 hour aweek job.
Okay, the scheduler, the personthat schedules all the roofing,
the siding and the gutter jobs,like that, is like a one man
person Like that was me doingthat on top of selling the job,
on top of the service department.
I was still putting on my toolpouch at that time and wondering

(34:40):
why I'm screaming grow, grow,grow, go, go, go.
And it's like dude, like Ican't go anywhere, like I was
stuck.
Yeah, yeah, you know and that'sone thing that I

Tim Brown (34:52):
the whole like rah rah thing only gets you so far.
Right like and I I realizedthat you know too and I think
it's also telling my peopleabout this idea too.
Right like, because right nowmy wife is about to have a baby,
uh, son.
We're about to have a son.
I'm so excited.
Um, hopefully in a month, thankyou so much.

(35:14):
We're very excited.
And she's like oh, I'm justgonna step out, everything's
gonna be fine while I'm gone.
I'm like baby, you have no ideahow many things you do around
here.
You have no idea.
And like I know there's like animpulse in all of us to then,
okay, I'm gonna be gone for twomonths and everything's gonna be

(35:35):
fine because, and then they'regonna like miss me and then when
I come back, they're going tobe like oh, we realized how much
you do, but we have to almostbe doing our own little
succession planning all the time.
Ideally, in her case, I'm tryingto get her to replace some of

(35:58):
that.
Basically, she runs the officeoffice admin and then there's a
bunch of other things.
She's also like arap.
She's got so many you know howto be like so many jobs and I
think when you're a businessowner, you don't realize how
many jobs you've been doingright, and once you start
passing it off, you're usuallyexcuse me.

(36:20):
In my case I was like that'sall you can do, that's like
one-fifth of what I was doing,and that that means I was
productive, but it also means Iwas no wonder.
I was frazzled.
You know what I mean, because II literally had five jobs so.
But it's also like teachingother people like to kind of do
some little bit of selfsuccession.

(36:41):
And we did this recently verypositively when our video guy
who I love, jack um, moved on toand that was like obviously gut
punch because he's super cooland I miss him to this day.
Um, he moved on to barstoolsports, which is a dream, dream
job, but I do aspire to one dayhook agency being a dream job as

(37:05):
well.
I think for some people it is,but I think that he took two
weeks to make all the standardoperating procedures for his
role.
And so when the new video guy,axel, just started, now he
stands on the shoulders ofgiants.
He actually, he's capable ofgetting up to speed so much

(37:27):
quicker.
He's already putting out reallycool videos and I'm like super
proud of him, and part of thatis because he immediately got up
to speed with all these SOPsps.
So we all have to think aboutthat, whether we're a business
owner or somebody else, likesuccession planning for
ourselves, allowing somebodyelse to be able to take over if
we're gone, and that that makesour lives better as, yeah,

(37:51):
professionals, because then wecan take a break or like we can
go on vacation and noteveryone's like blowing us up
because we we made a few loomvideos or a few sops to allow
somebody else to take that partof our like critical part of our
job over for a little while.
So it's hard to teach peoplethat without saying higher,

(38:12):
higher, higher, because I'm notsaying that higher slowly, like
let's, let's, let's all keep thethe boat afloat with profit,
but also allowing somebody elseto do your job for a little bit.
Or when you do bring somebodyon, like giving them everything
they possibly can use to succeedanyways, the the whole sop

(38:35):
thing is like I could talk aboutthat forever because it's
obviously like super important.

Yeah, it really is Document, document everything
, and, like I like how youmentioned too, like what if
somebody wants to go on vacationand not be bothered?
It is so important thatsomebody else within your office
and we do a lot of crosstraining so that way if somebody
does leave, along with thedocumentation whether it's hard
copy or digital copy of the SOP.

(39:00):
But pretty much, especially onthe admin side of things,
there's not many people thatdon't know how to do everybody
else's job.
One, because if somebody getsbacked up, somebody can jump in
and kind of help out and pick upthe pieces, but, most
importantly, so they can getsome time off and spend some
time, whether it's a week, twoweeks or if they're pregnant and
they need to take a furloughfor two, three months at a time.

(39:23):
And we've done that alreadywhere the team is able and
capable of pulling together andpulling their weight.
Instead of hiring somebody elsetemporarily, the team has
actually stepped in and hasfilled that position while
they're out, so they can spendsome time with their know, with
their newborn, which is a prettycool place to be when you can

(39:43):
actually offer something likethat for somebody and it then
hopefully becomes, like you saida dream job for somebody.
And and I think that that goesinto trust to for both parties,
for the coworker and for theentrepreneurs like hopefully
they trust the company enoughthat, like you know, we're
having you create this SOP notto necessarily replace you, yeah

(40:07):
, but but so you can take sometime off, because I've gotten
pushback already about that,like everyone's.
Like no, I don't want anybodyto know how or what it is.
I do because now it's itbecomes job security and little
do they know.
When you're thinking like thatagain, getting back to small
thinking, yes, they're actuallybottlenecking that department,
they're bottlenecking, like,their role.

(40:29):
And it's like, if you canconvince them like, look, this
is that we want you to growwithin this company and at some
point in time, you should startlooking for your replacement so
you can actually move up in thecompany, and that's where our
jobs are so important to be.
The CEO is always trying tofigure out ways to create more
opportunities for people.

(40:49):
How can we bring smarter peopleinto our organization and raise
the IQ of our organization?
And we?
We may already have that IQhere, but we need to unlock it
with that individual and helpthem move into a higher position
and then filter somebody elsein to replace what it was they
were doing.
And when you were talking aboutyourself and your wife and

(41:10):
she's got to take time off.
I think the biggest thing thatI've tried to do over the years
is always found not always.
Up until a couple of years ago,I was always trying to find my
replacement right.
Especially, it's something thatI know I'm not very good at and
something that I dislike doing.
If I'm not enjoying doing it, Igot to get somebody else to do
it.
Unfortunately, I'm in aposition to be able to do that,

(41:31):
and even if you're in a smallercompany and you're just starting
out, if there's somethingyou're not very good at and you
know it's holding your companyback, you and your family and
everybody else around you, thenyou should probably find
somebody else that can do itbetter I want to also note
sometimes it's something you aregood at, and I I mean, for
instance, this marketing thing.

Tim Brown (41:51):
I love marketing, man , I really love it.
I will do it all the time,every day, in bed, for fun you
know what I mean before I go tosleep and when I wake up.
However, being a ceo is themost important thing I can do
with my time like leading people, making good decisions, and I

(42:11):
also enjoy that.
I love strategic planning.
I love making good decisions,especially when we're obviously
it's like the best Right, yeah,but I love marketing.
But I hide there, you know andI've had coaches tell me that,
I've had like peers like it'sjust because you love it and I

(42:35):
know this is tough, this is likeI'm saying kind of 201, not
one-on 101 leadership.
It's like just because you loveit doesn't mean that's all you
should be doing.
If the next best thing for thebusiness to move forward is for
you to do some harder stuffagain, I'm not trying to brag,

(42:56):
but I'm pretty good at marketing, like we've been marketing a
long time, right?
Whatever, just because I'm goodat it and I like it doesn't
mean it's the highest leverage,highest value thing I can do
with my time.
I'm still going to do some ofit because I need that to get
the itch scratched.
But there's also an element oflike you got to do CEO stuff.

(43:17):
If you want to be a CEO, yougot to be doing CEO stuff.
If you want to be a CEO, yougotta be doing CEO stuff, you
know.
So that's how I feel right nowis like making sure yeah.

And sometimes it actually gets harder, like we
think, okay, now we're in aposition where we may not have
to work so much, but not if youhave big, big dreams and goals
and aspirations and want to takeit to a whole nother level.
What that means is is there's awhole lot of more uncomfortable
shit that you're going to haveto learn, because we all know
what got us here won't keep ushere and won't get us where we

(43:47):
want to go.
So for me, my experience isthere's been a lot of training
and skills that I had to learnif I wanted to be an XYZ you
know type of of of CEO andmanage, you know a thousand
people.
Okay, which means I I'm I amgoing to have to let go of some
things that I think I'm good atand I think I enjoy.

(44:08):
Okay, because obviously I knowthat there's a lot more smarter
people out in the world that cando a lot of these things, and
sometimes I get so emotionallyattached to things that I allow
my emotions to interfere and itdoesn't get done as well.
Now, if I can delegate it tosomebody else that isn't
emotionally attached to it, theymay be able to deal with that

(44:29):
problem better than I could, andI've had to learn that the hard
way Go ahead.

Tim Brown (44:36):
I've chosen my successor as the CEO of Hook
Agency and I'm pre-planningbecause he's now the president.
He started as the presidentJuly 1, which is a big deal for
us.
I call that exact thing.
I call it the sacred cowparadox.
I'm emotionally attached tosome things I do and I think I'm

(44:56):
the best in the world that noone can ever do it.
But at the end of the day, it'dbe really good if I eventually
could pass it off.
And I call it a paradox because,yes, you're always doing that.
You should always be trying toget rid of stuff, because your
time almost like it'd be likethe ideal state, tie in a in a
meditation room, all black,everywhere.

(45:18):
He's just hovering a little bitand he's like somebody comes to
him, yes or no, yes, you know,like that would be the ideal
state, like almost for a ceo.
Like just pure, pure thinking,like just pure.
You know, everyone's like it'sdown the trenches just to
clarify his thinking.
But that's not how it ever isin practice, right?

(45:41):
We're always doing something,and so the paradox part of it is
that you have to zoom back inevery once in a while and just
do something, and usuallythere's something every day that
you just have to do.
So it's like, even thoughyou're fighting back and forth,
you're trying to pass everythingoff, not because you're it's
actually harder than just doingit way harder but then every

(46:02):
once in a while, you just haveto jump back in.
So that's why I call it aparadox, because it's never done
.

No, even though you're always doing it.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's never.
And the thing the hardest part,the hardest, one of the hardest
lessons that I've learned is isthat I can I can fill the
office up with a lot of smartpeople, but if they don't have
the right leadership anddirection, it's still it, it
doesn't matter.

(46:27):
Do you know what I mean?
Now I need to learn how to leadin a different way.
I need to learn how to leadleaders.
Now, you know, it's one thingto have just like four or five
roofers that I'm leading on aroof, right, but when you get in
the, you know the, the realm of, you know multi-aid figures and
you got a lot of smart peoplein the room like you got to
handle them differently and youhave to lead them differently.

(46:49):
You have to set differentexpectations, different goals,
because now, when we talk aboutlike yeah, my dreams are going
to be big enough for their dreamto fit in, like that's real
shit, because they have goals,dreams and aspirations and that,
that, that there was probablythe hardest, because I was in a
position where it was like I hadall these smart people, like
all these great people, highmotivated, intelligent people

(47:12):
from other industries that werecoming into our industry,
whether it was the car industry,the tech industry, roofing
industry but I had to learn howto lead them differently, right?
Which, then, getting back to myearlier point, was, is that
there was some things that I Ididn't know how to do.
I had to educate myself, okay,so now it was like like going

(47:34):
back to school again notnecessarily going back to school
, but I had to learn how toactually become a CEO of people
that make six figures.
So I don't know, it was just.
It was.
It was a hard learning curve forme, because I thought, if I
just got all the right people towork, you know, surround
yourself with smart people,cause we hear that, well, okay,

(47:55):
I did, but they're not doinganything, they're not
accomplishing anything, ourrevenue is the same, what the
hell is going on?
Well, that doesn't mean my jobis over just because I've hired
all these really smart people,right that that know how I
thought, knew how to do things.
I had to learn how to actuallylead them differently, not, not,
I'm not saying like differentlyin terms of like I have to

(48:16):
treat them differently, like Ido everybody else, but, but a
lot of times their goals anddreams and aspirations are a lot
different than somebody that Idon't know.
I don't want to even want touse an example here, cause I
don't know.
I don't even want to use anexample here because I don't
want to offend anybody but.
I just I learned that I had tolead differently.
I guess the point that I'mtrying to make is but also

(48:39):
giving enough.
I had to create enough room forthem to grow.

Tim Brown (48:44):
I really appreciate when you share this stuff, some
of your anecdotes, like you're alittle bit further along in
this entrepreneurial journeythan me and sometimes I don't
even understand exactly whatyou're saying when you say it,
and then later, like I alwaysbring back your references
because I'm like this guy,because then we grow and then I
have some of the problems youhad a while ago.

(49:04):
Like I love stuff like that.
What I will say there is acertain amount, like I just want
to do some encouragement forpeople out there.
Once you pass a certain amount.
This is what I believe.
Tell me if you think this iswrong, but I think, like, let's
say, you go to 7 million orsomething like that, I believe
the sky is the limit for you.

(49:25):
I believe and I know there's bigchallenges, but if you were
able to get someone through someof those challenges, I believe
you can go.
You just have to have a muchbigger vision and you have to
like almost require that ofyourself and you have to expect
to win.
So I think it's like I heardsomebody the other day say I
don't partner with anyone, thatI don't, that doesn't expect to

(49:45):
win in a huge way.
They're like a private equityguy, but I like him.
You know there's some good ones, some bad ones, and he was like
I don't partner with anybodythat isn't already expecting to
do like 20, 30 million, and I'mlike you know, that's a big
statement, that's kind of acrazy thing.
But what are do you expect towin and like and like if you've

(50:06):
already gone to a certain level?
You got this dude or ma'am.
You got this because there's somuch opportunity and, yes,
you've been through a bunch ofchallenges, but I believe in you
and I think it's going to bereally cool and we're going to
the moon, baby.
We're going to the moon, let'sgo I think some people don't

(50:29):
have that trust in themselves,but I see everyone that gets to
a certain level could go youknow, what.

I mean.

Tim Brown (50:35):
Like there's people, there's people at insane levels
that you wouldn't think right,yes, for sure you.
You see a leader every once ina while and you're like how did
he do that?
Like so remember, that could beyou.
Why not you?
Yeah, why not you?

for sure, for sure, no, and and I like that
analogy but also be ready, ifyou're at seven million dollars
and and you want to grow to, youknow eight figures.
Just know what got you thereisn't going to get you there,
okay.
And again, getting to, it's onething.
To you know cause, really, ifyou think about it, okay, so if
you're doing $7 million, thatmeans you probably have seven to

(51:15):
nine sales reps right, andyou've probably been managing
your sales reps yourself.
And then, along with anadministrative help, you
probably have someone that thatis doing your accounting and you
probably have somebody that isanswering the phones.
Okay, if you're kind of like apaper contractor that doesn't
actually have, like windowinstallers, gutter installers

(51:37):
Okay, so you probably have 12people that work for you.
If you're doing about $7million, I mean you can do that,
okay, it's very possible.
So now, if you want to reachand exceed 10, 15, you know,
whatever it is $20 million, yourmindset has to completely
change.

Tim Brown (51:57):
Yeah.

Completely change to go.
Yes, tell you more.

Tim Brown (52:04):
Yeah, now you talk to me about what mindset has to
flip Like.
What are the biggest levers topull here?

Well, now you really got to think about future
stuff, and we've talked aboutthis before.
You have to think aboutpreparing the company, because
it's not just showing up everyday and now I'm managing nine
sales reps.
Okay, now I need to find myselfa replacement.
I have to trust somebody elseto do a good enough job for,
like, in place of me, to managenine sales reps.

(52:33):
So I have to coach.
I have to coach my next salesmanager, and just because he was
my top sales rep doesn'tnecessarily mean he's going to
make the best sales manager, andthat's a decision.
Again, I got to make a decision.
I got to change my mindsetbecause most people are going to
think my top performer is goingto be my best sales manager,
and that's a decision.
Again, I got to make a decision.
I got to change my mindsetbecause most people are going to
think my top performer is goingto be my best sales manager.

Tim Brown (52:54):
No bueno, that necessarily might not be your
homie.

Yeah, might not be, Right.
So now you got to.
Now you got to remove emotionfrom your thinking, cause I love
this guy and he should be themanager.
He should, well, that doesn'tnecessarily mean he's going to
be the right fit.
He's not the one to keep theteam motivated.
He's not the guy that's goingto work seven days a week and
take you know, becausesalespeople are like herding
cats at times, right, and it'sjust like going from a sales

(53:21):
manager mentality to asalesperson.
To a sales manager, how he fedhis family was completely
different.
He was.
He was paid solely based uponthe jobs that he sold.
Okay, now you're moving himinto a position of a sales
manager.
Now he's getting paid basedupon his team's performance.
Can you see the mindset shift?

(53:42):
And it's no different.
For an entrepreneur, now, howI'm eating is something totally
different.
An entrepreneur, now, how I'meating is something totally
different.
Now I have to rely on ninesales reps in order for me to
eat.
And do I have to like GinaWickman?
Does he have the GWC?
Does he get it?
Does he want it?
Does he have the capabilitiesof doing that?
Now he's got to all nine salesreps in order for him to exceed

(54:04):
what he got paid last year.
That is two separate mindset,and it's no different for me If
I was the sales manager of thesenine people.
Now I need to rely on these ninepeople to feed the
administrative help, the ladythat's answering the phone, the,
the, you know, pay all my billsand all these things.
So now I need to think abouthigher level stuff.
Okay, what higher level stuff,when I'm so used to showing up

(54:29):
at the office and waiting forthe nine people to show up and I
could tell them what to doevery day, and I'm no longer
doing that.
So what am I going to do?
Just sit in my office all dayand twiddle my thumbs?
No, I need to start thinkingabout some more high level shit.
Now.
How can I turn this into $18million?
Now we're doing $9 million.
I got nine sales reps.

(54:50):
How am I going to do $18million?
Okay.
So now I need to start thinkingabout creating a recruiting
funnel.
Okay, don't know much aboutthat, but I don't have anybody
here that can do that for me.
So now I guess I got to educatemyself on how to recruit people
.
Right, some people wouldprobably just pick up a phone,

(55:10):
hire or just start running adson Indeed, no, that's okay.
But who's going to interviewthem?
Who's going to vet them?
Who's going to hire?
Slow and let go quickly, right?
So now my mindset shifted frommanaging nine people to actually
trying to recruit nine morepeople.
Does that make sense?

Tim Brown (55:30):
Yeah, are you willing to share how many people are in
your business?
I think, as of today, likeprobably 78 of us nice, very
cool, yeah, and that includes,like you have a lot of like
installers and stuff working foryou, et cetera.

Yeah, we have in-house gutter crews, window
crew, yeah, service a wholecomplete service department with
a fleet of people over there.
Administrative help, sales reps.

Tim Brown (55:59):
Yeah, we're like 36, I think, as of today, something
like that.
Like we've got a recruit, likewe've got a full-time like hr
recruiter person, we, we, weteamed, we kind of like combined
it to be like talentdevelopment and recruiting so
that when she's not as whenwe're not hiring as much she

(56:21):
still has a job.
You know, because they're downyears, right, there's down times
and it's like so now, such,then she can like work on the
curriculum for the team.
So we're trying to like get herto do that and now she's got
she's getting a little help aswell on that.
So it's a lot of work to findthe right people and it's like
that's another job we didoriginally thinking it's not a

(56:46):
full-time job.
I, every once in a while I justneed to hire somebody, but then
it eventually becomes thatthere's a lot of things
entrepreneurs do that we don'treally fully clock how many jobs
we're doing.

Absolutely Still today.
I do probably too many jobs,but that's okay.
I love where I'm at, I love theposition I'm in and I really
feel like my team still reallyneeds me.
so I still show up every day andthat's a cool place to be
because and I'm grateful that Idon't have to do this by myself
anymore- oh and I'm great, I'mgrateful that we've created an
atmosphere and an organizationthat people actually want to

(57:23):
aspire to be like and have acompany that people and culture
that people want to be a part of.
You know, and we've we I feellike we've kind of set the
standard, especially when itcomes to you know, um, how we
treat homeowners, how we marketour brand.
We don't shit talk othercompanies.
We, we um, um, just we were ateam, like we can talk shit on

(57:45):
each other, but don't talk shiton us, we'll kick your ass, kind
of mentality.
You know, it's almost like acult, like culture that we've
created around here, and a lotof that goes back to your book.
We've become what I think, nowthat you've labeled it a
hometown hero, and that's wherewe all kind of get the rally
together and see how many poundsof food that we can generate
and and you know how many, howmany turkeys we can deep fry and

(58:08):
all that stuff.
And it's like that's where thecamaraderie, the true
camaraderie and fellowship andthe culture come into play.
It's not even us being behindthe desk every day with our
earbuds in and not socializingwith each other, like that's not
necessarily where the culturegets built.
It actually gets built outsideof the office, out in the

(58:29):
streets, impacting our community, and then we bring that back
into the office.

Tim Brown (58:39):
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
I think there's so many peoplein this book and it wasn't the
plan when I started writing this.
I mean, I definitely hadcommunity involvement as part of
the plan, but so many peoplewere recommending or doing
charitable things that that'skind of it became a big theme of
this book, charitable stuff,and so, like my team has been,

(59:01):
you know, trying to do thisstuff a little bit more.
We're putting in a monthlyrecurring volunteering thing and
five people are doing thehometown hero challenge today.
If they finish the five minutes, we're giving the 500.
You know they gotta finish thefive minutes, though.
You gotta finish the fiveminute cold plunge.

(59:22):
You finish the five minute coldplunge, then we give the 500 to
the charity of their choice.
But anyways, it's uh.
I felt very challenged becauseI don't think we've been doing
as much of that as we.
We did a little bit more whenwe were earlier.
We like had less stuff to do,so I'd be like we were pretty
good at some of this.
But we've been giving, wehaven't been volunteering.

(59:45):
I think volunteering is kind ofthe hard part sometimes yeah,
no doubt it's easy to give yeahyou know, but what the hard part
is giving your time yeah

yeah, giving, giving monetarily is easy I
think not just anybody can dothat, but but the hard part is
giving somebody your actual time, an individual or a group of
people.
That's where, that's where thetrue meaning of sharing you know
and giving come from.
I think is is your time.
It comes from your time and thetime that you put into you know
helping somebody.
So, anyhow, before we get offhere, so, who is your hometown

(01:00:20):
hero?
Do you have a hometown hero inyour life?

Tim Brown (01:00:23):
Oh yeah, man, so I share that.
In this book it's actually mymom, uh, and my mom recently
passed away and hundreds andhundreds of people were at her
funeral and what I kind ofclocked is that and it's the
beginning chapter, and then theend chapter is about her.
I would go with her to these.
She cleaned houses when I wasgrowing up and she didn't think

(01:00:44):
of it as lowly the work.
She prayed over the house andshe would clean toilets and I
was in the living room watchingwoody woodpecker and looking
down at these beautiful lakes,because they're nice homes,
right, they were cleaning andkind of like why does mom care
so much?
why does mom stop everybody?

(01:01:05):
She meets in the grocery storeand like, try to pray over them.
What is mom?
You know she she had been umworking overnight at a perkins.
She had four sons, so this jobwas like a level up right, this
is the next level, uh.
And so she didn't think of hislowly work and she really cared
about every single person thatshe did.

(01:01:25):
She worked on their home.
You know, and I think at ourbest in our job, whatever our
job is that we don't think of itas lowly work.
We think of it as service topeople and we really care about
them and we we actually like tryto live our lives in such a way
that each person that we comeacross is important, and I think

(01:01:47):
my mom exemplifies that for me.
So my mom is my hometown hero.

Ty Cobb Backer (01:01:52):
Right on.
Good, good, good.
And my condolences.
I know that's not easy.
I still talk about it.

Tim Brown (01:01:58):
Thank you, brother.
No, I mean like yeah comes andgoes.
Yeah, I get it.

I get it.
I get it.
Usually depends upon the timeof year for me, but I got one
more question for you, because Iknow you got a hard stop here.
Um, what's one thing mostpeople don't know about you that
helped shape this book?

Tim Brown (01:02:19):
huge thing is the I mean, I didn't put the story in
here but, like the last year,trying to figure out how to like
take some time off of work, mythursdays off ended up allowing
me to be there with my mom whenshe passed, and I also, um, you
know the things you taught meabout spending an hour meditate

(01:02:41):
I meditate during my you readand journal and stuff like that.
I've included that as well.
Um, and some of these thingsthat like feel like soft, like I
take Thursdays off and all thatthat feels soft to probably
some entrepreneurs, but like alot of it has shaped my
intentionality around mybusiness to stop rushing from

(01:03:03):
thing to thing and to startbeing more, like, higher level
with the things I'm doing, mytime, including writing this
book, cause I think it allowedme to like some of this freedom.
A little bit more space in myhead allowed me to think more
strategically about this stuff.
I think taking time off isactually really important for

(01:03:24):
your business.
Is the insight.

Yeah, no, I love that I've.
Yes, that is definitelysomething hard for most of us
entrepreneurs to take a littlebit of time to step back and
reflect on some things and be abetter human being, so we can
come back and perform better forour team.
No, that's good.
That's, that's a good thing,man.
This has been such a powerfulconversation, man, and if if
anyone is out there trying tobuild a brand, grow the business

(01:03:48):
and actually want to make adifference in your community,
this episode should be on repeat.
Be sure to grab a copy of Tim'snew book, how to Become a
Hometown Hero.
It's not just a marketing guide, it's a blueprint for becoming
the kind of leader your townremembers and respects.
Big thanks to Tim for joiningus today and, as always, if you

(01:04:12):
got value from this episode,share it, tag it, leave us a
review.
That's how we keep bringingyour conversations that matter.
Until next time, this is behindthe tool belt, where we build
more than just businesses.
We build legacies.
Thank you for joining us.

Tim Brown (01:04:29):
August 1st, by the way, this is out August 1st
hometownherobookcom.
The print version and the audiobook is really good.
So, if you want to, the audiobook has the voices of the
people in at the end of eachchapter.
It's under 10 hours it's it islong but it's really good and
it's got the it's.
I tightened up all theseconversations to be like the 10

(01:04:50):
15 minutes, the best 10 15minutes with on that particular
topic, with conversations withpeople like john scenic, tommy
mellow, roger wakefield, martinpettigrew, ty cobb, backer on
the on the front of the book, bythe way.
I hope you saw that you are.
You are on the front of thebook oh nice and that's our hat,

(01:05:11):
that's our logo and it's best,that's awesome.
Best seller on amazon.
We thank you everyone for yourhelp.
If you, if you did that thatday when we got 430 sold and um,
yeah, thanks for everyone forthe support.
It's been a fun experience, man.
It's been crazy.
A lot of roofing people likesupported us and making this

(01:05:33):
thing pop and just appreciateeveryone's help.
I know I have been hammeringthe airwaves.
That's what you gotta do.
Gotta take more action than uh,so much action that failure
would be ridiculous no goodstuff.

good stuff, man.
I appreciate you.
Thank you for being my friend.
I love our conversations andkeep doing what you do, man.
You're making our industry abetter place, man, by you just
being here, so thank you forthat.

Tim Brown (01:05:59):
Thank you, brother, appreciate you, you got it All
right, everybody.

Have a great day .
We'll talk to you next week forepisode 293 of Beyond the

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